The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes Read online

  “But suppose you are snowed in so long that your power packs play out?”

  “Franklin stoves in storage, stove pipe to match, stops in the walls removable from inside to receive thimbles for flue pipes.”

  “Pop,” I inquired, “is this covered by Rule One? Or was Rule One abolished last night in Elko?”

  “Eh? The chair must rule that it is suspended until Hilda ratifies or cancels it. Hilda my love, years back, Jane instituted Rule One—”

  “I ratify it!”

  “Thank you. But listen first. It applies to meals. No news broadcasts—”

  “Pop,” I again interrupted, “while Rule One is still in limbo—did Gay Deceiver have any news? I worry, I do!”

  “Null retrievals, dear. With the amusing conclusion that you and I are still presumed to have died twice, but the news services do not appear to have noticed the discrepancy. However, Miss Gay Deceiver will interrupt if a bulletin comes in; Rule One is never invoked during emergencies. Zeb, do you want this rig in your bedroom at night?”

  “I don’t want it but should have it. Prompt notice might save our skins.”

  “We’ll leave this here and parallel another into there, with gain stepped to wake you. Back to Rule One: no news broadcasts at meals, no newspapers. No shop talk, no business or financial matters, no discussion of ailments. No political discussion, no mention of taxes, or of foreign or domestic policy. Reading of fiction permitted en famille—not with guests present. Conversation limited to cheerful subjects—”

  “No scandal, no gossip?” demanded Aunt Hilda.

  “A matter of your judgment, dear. Cheerful gossip about friends and acquaintances, juicy scandal about people we do not like—fine! Now—do you wish to ratify, abolish, amend, or take under advisement?”

  “I ratify it unchanged. Who knows some juicy scandal about someone we don’t like?”

  “I know an item about ‘No Brain’—Doctor Neil Brain,” Zebadiah offered.

  “Give!”

  “I got this from a reliable source but can’t prove it.”

  “Irrelevant as long as it’s juicy. Go ahead, Zebbie.”

  “Well, a certain zaftig coed told this on herself. She tried to give her all to ‘Brainy’ in exchange for a passing grade in the general math course necessary to any degree on our campus. It is rigged to permit prominent but stupid athletes to graduate. Miss Zaftig was flunking it, which takes exceptional talent.

  “So she arranged an appointment with the department head—‘Brainy’—and made her quid-pro-quo clear. He could give her horizontal tutoring then and there or in her apartment or his apartment or in a motel and she would pay for it or whenever and wherever he chose. But she had to pass.”

  “Happens on every campus, son,” Pop told him.

  “I haven’t reached the point. She blabbed the story—not angry but puzzled. She says that she was unable to get her intention over to him (which seems impossible, I’ve seen this young woman). ‘Brainy’ didn’t accept, didn’t refuse, wasn’t offended, didn’t seem to understand. He told her that she had better talk to her instructor about getting tutoring and a re-exam. Now Miss Zaftig is circulating the story that Prof ‘No Brain’ must be a eunuch or a robot. Totally sexless.”

  “He’s undoubtedly stupid,” Aunt Hilda commented. “But I’ve never met a man I couldn’t get that point across to, if I tried. Even if he was uninterested in my fair carcass. I’ve never tried with Professor Brain because I’m not interested in his carcass.”

  “Then, Hilda my darling, why did you invite him to your party?”

  “What? Because of your note, Jacob. I don’t refuse you favors.”

  “But, Hilda, I don’t understand. When I talked to you by telephone, I asked you to invite Zeb—under the impression that he was his cousin Zebulon—and I did say that two or three others from the department of mathematics might make it less conspicuously an arranged meeting. But I didn’t mention Doctor Brain. And I did not write.”

  “Jacob—I have your note. In California. On your university stationery with your name printed on it.”

  Professor Burroughs shook his head, looked sad. Zebadiah Carter said, “Sharpie—handwritten or typed?”

  “Typed. But it was signed! Wait a moment, let me think. It has my name and address down in the lower left. Jacob’s name was typed, too, but it was signed ‘Jake.’ Uh … ‘My dear Hilda, A hasty PS to my phone call of yesterday— Would you be so kind as to include Doctor Neil O. Brain, chairman of mathematics? I don’t know what possessed me that I forgot to mention him. Probably the pleasure of hearing your dear voice.

  “ ‘Deety sends her love, as do I. Ever yours, Jacob J. Burroughs’ with ‘Jake’ signed above the typed name.”

  Zebadiah said to me, “ ‘Watson, you know my methods.’ ”

  “Certainly, my dear Holmes. A ‘Black Hat.’ In Logan.”

  “We knew that. What new data?”

  “Well … Pop made that call from the house; I remember it. So somebody has a tap on our phone. Had, I mean; the fire probably destroyed it.”

  “A recording tap. The purpose of that fire may have been to destroy it and other evidence. For now we know that the ‘Blokes in the Black Hats’ knew that your father—and you, but it’s Pop they are after—was in California last evening. After ‘killing’ him in California, they destroyed all they could in Utah. Professor, I predict that we will learn that your office was robbed last night—any papers on six-dimensional spaces.”

  Pop shrugged. “They wouldn’t find much. I had postponed my final paper after the humiliating reception my preliminary paper received. I worked on it only at home, or here, and moved notes made in Logan to our basement here each time we came down.”

  “Any missing here?”

  “I am certain this place has not been entered. Not that papers would matter; I have it in my head. The continua apparatus has not been touched.”

  “Zebadiah, is Doctor Brain a ‘Black Hat?’ ” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Deety. He may be a stooge in their hire. But he’s part of their plot, or they would not have risked forging a letter to put him into Hilda’s house. Jake, how difficult is it to steal your professional stationery?”

  “Not difficult. I don’t keep a secretary; I send for a stenographer when I need one. I seldom lock my office when I’m on campus.”

  “Deety, can you scrounge pen and paper? I want to see how Jake signs ‘Jake.’ ”

  “Sure.” I fetched them. “Pop’s signature is easy; I often sign it. I hold his power of attorney.”

  “It’s the simple signatures that are hardest to forge well enough to fool a handwriting expert. But their scheme did not require fooling an expert—phrasing the note was more difficult … since Hilda accepted it as ringing true.”

  “It does ring true, son; it is very like what I would have said had I written such a note to Hilda.”

  “The forger probably has read many of your letters and listened to many of your conversations. Jake, will you write ‘Jake’ four or five times, the way you sign a note to a friend?”

  Pop did so; my husband studied the specimens. “Normal variations.” Zebadiah then signed “Jake” about a dozen times, looked at his work, took a fresh sheet, signed “Jake” once, passed it to Aunt Hilda. “Well, Sharpie?”

  Aunt Hilda studied it. “It wouldn’t occur to me to question it—on Jacob’s stationery under a note that sounded like his phrasing. Where do we stand now?”

  “Stuck in the mud. But we have added data. At least three are involved, two ‘Black Hats’ and Doctor Brain, who may or may not be a ‘Black Hat.’ He is, at minimum, a hired hand, an unwitting stooge, or a puppet they can move around like a chessman.

  “While two plus ‘Brainy’ is minimum, it is not the most probable number. This scheme was not whipped up overnight. It involves arson, forgery, booby-trapping a car, wiretapping, theft, and secret communications between points widely separated, with coordinated criminal actions at each end
—and it may involve doing in my cousin Zebulon. We can assume that the ‘Black Hats’ know that I am not the Zeb Carter who is the n-dimensional geometer; I’m written off as a bystander who got himself killed.

  “Which doesn’t bother them. These playful darlings would swat a fly with a sledgehammer, or cure a cough with a guillotine. They are smart, organized, efficient, and vicious—and the only clue is an interest in six-dimensional non-Euclidean geometry.

  “We don’t have a glimmer as to ‘who’—other than Doctor Brain, whose role is unclear. But, Jake, I think I know ‘why’—and that will lead us to ‘who.’ ”

  “Why, Zebadiah?” I demanded.

  “Princess, your father could have worked on endless other branches of mathematics and they would not have bothered him. But he happened—I don’t mean chance; I don’t believe in ‘chance’ in this sense—he worked on the one variety of the endless possible number of geometries—the only one that correctly describes how space-time is put together. Having found it, because he is a genius in both theory and practice, he saw that it was a means by which to build a simple craft—amazingly simple, the greatest invention since the wheel—a space-time craft that offers access to all universes to the full Number of the Beast. Plus undenumerable variations of each of those many universes.

  “We have one advantage.”

  “I don’t see any advantage! They’re shooting at my Jacob!”

  “One strong advantage, Sharpie. The ‘Black Hats’ know that Jake has worked out this mathematics. They don’t know that he has built his space-time tail-twister; they think he has just put symbols on paper. They tried to discredit his work and were successful. They tried to kill him and barely missed. They probably think Jake is dead—and it seems likely that they have killed Ed. But they don’t know about Snug Harbor.”

  “Why do you say that, Zeb? Oh, I hope they do not!— But why do you feel sure?”

  “Because these blokes aren’t fooling. They blew up your car and burned your flat; what would they do here—if they knew? An A-bomb?”

  “Son, do you think that criminals can lay hands on atomic weapons?”

  “Jake, these aren’t criminals. A ‘criminal’ is a member of the subset of the larger set ‘human beings.’ These creatures are not human.”

  “Eh? Zeb, your reasoning escapes me.”

  “Deety. Run it through the computer. The one between your ears.”

  I did not answer; I just sat and thought. After several minutes of unpleasant thoughts I said, “Zebadiah, the ‘Black Hats’ don’t know about the apparatus in our basement.”

  “Conclusive assumption,” my husband agreed, “because we are still alive.”

  “They are determined to destroy a new work in mathematics … and to kill the brain that produced it.”

  “A probability approaching unity,” Zebadiah again agreed.

  “Because it can be used to travel among the universes.”

  “Conclusive corollary,” my husband noted.

  “For this purpose, human beings fall into three groups. Those not interested in mathematics more complex than that needed to handle money, those who know a bit about other mathematics, and a quite small third group who could understand the possibilities.”

  “Yes.”

  “But our race does not know anything of other universes so far as I know.”

  “They don’t. Necessary assumption.”

  “But that third group would not try to stop an attempt to travel among the universes. They would wait with intellectual interest to see how it turned out. They might believe or disbelieve or suspend judgment. But they would not oppose; they would be delighted if my father succeeded. The joy of intellectual discovery—the mark of a true scientist.”

  I sighed and added, “I see no other grouping. Save for a few sick people, psychotic, these three subsets complete the set. Our opponents are not psychotic; they are intelligent, crafty, and organized.”

  “As we all know too well,” Zebadiah echoed.

  “Therefore our opponents are not human beings. They are alien intelligences from elsewhere.”

  “Or elsewhen,” muttered Zebadiah.

  I sighed again and kept my mouth shut. Being an oracle is a no-good profession!

  “Sharpie, can you kill?”

  “Kill whom, Zebbie? Or what?”

  “Can you kill to protect Jake?”

  “You bet your frimpin’ life I’ll kill to protect Jacob!”

  “I won’t ask you, Princess; I know Dejah Thoris.” Zebadiah went on, “That’s the situation, ladies. We have the most valuable man on this planet to protect. We don’t know from what. Jake, your bodyguard musters two Amazons, one small, one medium-large, both probably knocked up, and one Cowardly Lion. I’d hire the Dorsai if I knew their PO Box. Or the Gray Lensman and all his pals. But we are all there are and we’ll try! Avete, alieni, nos morituri vos spernimus! Let’s break out that champagne.”

  “My captain, do you think we should?” I asked. “I’m frightened.”

  “We should. I’m no good for more work today, and neither is Jake. Tomorrow we’ll start installing the gadget in Gay Deceiver, do rewiring and reprogramming so that she will work for any of us. Meanwhile we need a couple of laughs and a night’s sleep. What better time to drink life to the dregs than when we know that any hour may be our last?”

  Aunt Hilda punched Zebadiah in the ribs. “Yer dern tootin’, buster! I’m going to get giggle happy and make a fool of myself and then take my man and put him to sleep with Old Mother Sharpie’s Time-Tested Nostrum. Deety, I prescribe the same for you.”

  I suddenly felt better. “Check, Aunt Hilda! Captain John Carter always wins. ‘Cowardly Lion’ my foot! Who is Pop? The Little Wizard?”

  “I think he is.”

  “Could be. Pop, will you open the bubbly? I always hurt my thumbs.”

  “Right away, Deety. I mean ‘Dejah Thoris, royal consort of the Warlord.’ ”

  “No need to be formal, Pop. This is going to be an informal party. Very! Pop! Do I have to keep my pants on?”

  “Ask your husband. You’re his problem now.”

  VIII

  Hilda

  In my old age, sucking my gums in front of the fire and living over my misdeeds, I’d remembered the next few days as the happiest in my life. I’d had three honeymoons before, one with each of my term-contract husbands: two had been good, one had been okay and (eventually) very lucrative. But my honeymoon with Jacob was heavenly.

  The whiff of danger sharpened the joy. Jacob seemed unworried, and Zebbie had hunches, like a horseplayer. Seeing that Zebbie was relaxed, Deety got over being jumpy—and I never was, as I hoped to end like a firecracker, not linger on, ugly, helpless, useless ….

  A spice of danger adds zest to life. Even during a honeymoon—especially during a honeymoon.

  An odd honeymoon. Not a group marriage but two twosomes that were one family, comfortable each with the others. I dropped most of my own sparky-bitch ways, and Zebbie sometimes called me “Hilda” rather than “Sharpie.”

  Jacob and I moved into marriage like ham and eggs. Jacob is not tall (one-seventy-eight centimeters) (but tall compared with my scant one-fifty-two) and his hairline recedes and he has a paunch from years at a desk—but he looks just right to me. If I wanted to look at male beauty, I could always look at Deety’s giant.

  I did not decide, when Zebbie came on campus, to make a pet of him for his looks but for his veering sense of humor. But if there was ever a man who could have played the role of John Carter, Warlord of Mars, it was Zebadiah Carter whose middle name just happens to be “John.” Indoors with clothes and wearing his fake horn-rims he looks awkward, too big, clumsy. I did not realize that he was beautiful and graceful until the first time he used my pool.

  Outdoors at Snug Harbor, wearing little or no clothes, Zebbie looked at home—a mountain lion in grace and muscle. An incident one later afternoon showed me how much he was like the Warlord of Mars. Those old stories w
ere familiar to me. My father had acquired the Ballantine Del Rey paperback reissues; they were around the house when I was a little girl. Once I learned to read, I read everything, and vastly preferred Barsoom stories to “girls’ ” books given to me for birthdays and Christmas. Thuvia was the heroine I identified with. I’d resolved to change my name to Thuvia when I was old enough. Then, when I was eighteen, I did not consider it. I had always been “Hilda”; a new name held no attraction.

  I was responsible in part for Deety’s name, one that embarrassed her until she discovered that her husband liked it. Jacob had wanted to name his daughter “Dejah Thoris” (Jacob looks like and is a professor, but he is incurably romantic). Jane had misgivings. I told her, “Don’t be a chump, Janie. If your man wants something, and you can accommodate him with no grief, give it to him! Do you want him to love this child or to resent her?” Jane looked thoughtful and “Doris Anne” became “Dejah Thoris” at christening, then “Deety” before she could talk—which satisfied everyone.

  We settled into a routine: up early every day; our men worked on instruments and wires and things and installing the time-space widget into Gay Deceiver’s gizzard, while Deety and I gave the housework a lick and a promise (our mountain home needed little attention—more of Jacob’s genius), then Deety and I got busy on a technical matter that Deety could do with some help from me.

  I’m not much use for technical work, biology being the only thing I studied in depth, and never finished my degree. This was amplified by almost six thousand hours as volunteer nurse’s aide in our campus medical center and I took courses that make me an uncertified nurse or medical tech or even jackleg paramedic—I don’t shriek at the sight of blood and can clean up vomit without a qualm and would not hesitate to fill in as scrub nurse. Being a campus widow with too much money is fun but not soul filling. I like to feel that I’ve paid rent on the piece of earth I’m using.