The Long Cosmos (40 page)

‘Think of the famous quantum cat in the box, threatened with poison by the disintegration, or not, of an unstable atomic nucleus. Is it alive or dead? Those are two possible quantum states, and quantum uncertainty ensures that we cannot know which is “real” until we open the box to see, and one of those potential states is actualized. Very well.

‘Now consider yourself, Jocasta. At any instant your location is described by many quantum states. One has you here, in this room, with me. Another has you on the moon. Another has you down the corridor, making me a better cup of tea than the last dose of tar you inflicted on me. Still another has you on Earth West 2, a step away from the here and now. And so on. Some of these places are far more probable locations for you to be in than others.

‘You are certain you are here, are you not? Ah, but just suppose – if only you had the wit – that you could imagine that you are
uncertain
where you are. For if you are uncertain, in a quantum-physical sense, your location becomes uncertain too –
you
are the prime quantum observer of yourself, after all. You become smeared, so to speak, across the adjacent possible, among the infinite number of possible locations where you may possibly be. Then if you subsequently become
certain
that you are actually in West 2, and not here with me in West 1, then
that's where you are
– do you see? You have collapsed the quantum functions once more; you have stepped.

‘Imagination, and a kind of wilful uncertainty. That's all there is to stepping, Jocasta. And the finer the mind, the greater the ability to step. We have seen this with natural talents who find “soft places”, apparent flaws in the connectivity of the Long Earth, which can carry them thousands of worlds away. Perhaps the even stranger flaw that was discovered at New Springfield was evidence of another kind of mind: a mind capable of stepping into another Long world entirely.

‘I say “finer minds”, by the way. I think we
Homo sapiens
should always remember that the minds that created the Long Earth were not our own. It was our cousins, the trolls and other humanoids, who went out a million years before us, and dreamed the Long Earth into existence as they went, step by step. Not us.

‘And as to
why
such Long worlds should exist at all – consider this. Starting with rocks flying around an infant solar system, it seems to be very hard to make one world capable of producing a mind – in the solar system it took billions of years to produce a fecund Earth. But having made one such world, if you could just run off copies, like pages off a printing press . . . But it is a cooperative process. Sapience conjured the Long Earth into existence. Maybe the Long Earth itself, having nurtured sapience, is now using that sapience to dream its way to infinity.

‘What kind of stepping would an arbitrarily powerful intellect be capable of? Even I can scarcely speculate. Certainly I won't live to see it. Perhaps you will, my dear. Perhaps you will. But now I'm tired. So very tired. Turn the lights out when you leave, would you, Jocasta? . . .'

57

O
N A BRIGHT
October day, more than three million Earths from the Datum, a pod sat at the heart of the Little Cincinnati compound, that island of human enterprise in the great technological ocean that was the Thinker. The squat craft had been set up on a broad concrete square intended for landing heavy cargo twains, but today the only twains visible hovered in the autumn sky above, watchful, camera pods gleaming.

Joshua Valienté hobbled across the asphalt, with Lobsang, Maggie Kauffman and Dev Bilaniuk. They all wore NASA-type blue jumpsuits, and carried breathing masks. They were late, and they were hurrying. A heavily armed and watchful escort of Navy personnel accompanied them, led by Jane Sheridan. There had been specific threats against the project from the more extreme contact-pessimist types, and nobody was taking any chances.

As they neared the pod, camera lights glared in their eyes, and they had to push through a small crowd of applauding workers and other well-wishers. Joshua, pivoting on his walking cane, felt self-conscious, even ridiculous. And yet there was something glorious about it all. As if the ship was to be powered, not by any kind of technology, but by a surge of shared enthusiasm. He wasn't about to express such thoughts out loud, however.

‘God damn it,' Maggie snapped. ‘I haven't got time for this
Right Stuff
crap. We're overdue as it is.'

Lobsang smiled easily. ‘Go with the flow, Maggie. The corporate people and the government have stumped up the funds for all this. We'd never have got our little craft built in three months otherwise. The contact-pessimist lobby in government has had to be bought off too. And the way they're clawing back the money, the way they're generating political credit, is by splashing us across the news as fast as the outernet will carry it. So smile for the cameras.'

‘I'm a Navy admiral, damn it. We're selling our souls to this circus.'

‘My own life story shows it's always possible to buy your soul back . . .'

At last they got through the crowd, passed inside a cordon of rope, and faced their ship. The craft, a squat cone standing on three stubby legs, was swathed in black and white insulation that was broken by stubby antennas and glistening lenses and attitude-thruster nozzles that gaped like the mouths of baby birds. Any clear area, it seemed to Joshua, was plastered with flags, predominantly the holographic Stars and Stripes of the US Aegis, the Long Unity Earth-in-cradled-hands sigil, and corporate logos: the marching lumberjacks of the LETC, the chesspiece knight of Lobsang's own transEarth Institute, the GapSpace roundel. A couple of trucks were nuzzled up against the ship, pumping fuel, water, air and other necessities into the craft, and white-coated engineers fussed over last-minute adjustments.

This was all very small scale compared to what Joshua remembered from the old Cape Canaveral days of the space shuttle. Even so the pod looked familiar. ‘It's like an Apollo command module on steroids,' he said.

Dev Bilaniuk was totally at home with this technology – which, of course, was the reason he was on the crew. ‘This is Gap chic, Joshua. Yes, it is kind of like Apollo. The design is based on our own stepper shuttle design, which carries crews across into the Gap itself. And that in turn is based, not on Apollo, but on SpaceX tech – kind of a son of Apollo from the 2010s. Bigger, roomier, modern materials . . .' Dev caressed the side of the ship with one hand. ‘We considered a lot of options for the pod. Maybe a literal bathyscaphe, from ocean explorations; those things are pretty rugged. The chassis of a marine corps armoured vehicle was suggested too. But we went for a minimal spacecraft design, in case we found ourselves falling into some kind of Gap; the ship is vacuum-proof, and we might need to regularize our momentum and position to be able to get back, and we'll need attitude thrusters for that.'

Joshua said, ‘I thought there was talk of adding a layer of computronium.' He grinned. ‘I kind of liked the idea of riding a spaceship made of diamond.'

‘And I vetoed it,' Maggie said sternly. ‘We don't want to be venturing into the unknown, inside a hull of unknown materials. Let's minimize the variables here.'

Lobsang said, ‘I'm reassured to find you riding along with us, Admiral Kauffman.'

‘Well, the Navy is sure as hell going to stay in command of this thing.'

‘But we don't need an admiral. I'm sure there are many less senior officers who could have fulfilled this mission.' Lobsang sounded as if he was teasing her, Joshua thought. ‘Someone younger, with better reflexes, vision, hearing, coordination—'

‘All right, Lobsang, thank you. It was my decision. There was room for only one Navy officer after you filled the thing with your damn circus of a crew. And I do have some experience leading expeditions into remote stepwise locations, as you may recall.' She grinned, wolfish. ‘And besides, how could I resist a jaunt like this? Also I am
still
one of the few commanders who'll accept a troll on her ship.'

‘Sancho's coming,' Joshua said firmly. ‘This is as much his mission as mine—'

‘Dad! Hey, Dad!'

Joshua spun around so fast he nearly lost his balance on his stick.

There was Rod, inside the roped-off area, but being held back by a white-coated technician. Behind him, beyond the rope, was a young woman, tanned, brunette, dressed in what Joshua thought of as Sally Linsay chic: practical traveller's gear of faded jeans, multi-pocketed jacket, sun-faded hat. And, Joshua could see immediately, she was heavily pregnant – close to term if Joshua was any judge, which he wasn't.

He ignored the techs, the wary soldiers, Maggie Kauffman's exasperated glare, and hobbled over. He and Rod just stood there for a moment, face to face, hands at their sides.

Then the young woman called, ‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Rod, we came all this way . . .'

Rod shrugged. Joshua shrugged back. Then they hugged.

‘Careful with the astronaut suit,' Joshua said, trying to cover for the choked-up feeling that was threatening to overwhelm him. ‘And don't give me a cold, damn it.' He glanced over Rod's shoulder. ‘Is that—?'

Rod beckoned. ‘Come on over here, Sofia. Oh, ignore those Navy goons. Dad – Joshua Valienté – meet Sofia Piper.'

Joshua shook her hand formally; she had a strong grip. ‘Rod mentioned you. And, umm . . .'

She blushed, grinning. ‘And the next generation. I know.' She patted her stomach.

Rod said, ‘Look, Dad, here you are going off on another jaunt. But I wanted to see you off this time. Even I think this is a pretty cool thing to be doing, as far as I understand it.'

‘Praise indeed.'

‘And I wanted . . . well . . . ah, shit.'

Sofia just snorted. ‘You're as emotionally constipated as each other. Look, Mr Valienté, Rod wanted to make sure this little one met you, so to speak, before you left. Whatever happens we can tell him or her that we were here today.'

‘You mean, in case I don't come back?' Joshua grinned. ‘You can bet your house I'm coming back.'

‘Dad, we don't have a house.'

Maggie Kauffman was at his shoulder. ‘You won't be leaving at all, Valienté, unless you get your butt over to that ship right now. There are volatiles boiling off as we speak, and
that's
just what's coming out of my ears.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' Hastily Joshua hugged Rod again, and gave Sofia a peck on the cheek – and that was that.

Then he hobbled after Maggie, back to the shuttle.

Dev was standing before the little ship with an expression of pride. ‘We need a name. All exploratory spacecraft have names.
Eagle
,
Intrepid
,
Aquarius . . .'

Joshua said, ‘How about
Uncle Arthur
?'

Lobsang smiled. ‘After Arthur C.?'

‘Of course.'

‘Seems most appropriate.'

Now Jane Sheridan ran forward with a kind of fat marker pen. ‘Allow me.' And in a surprisingly flowing hand, she wrote ‘Uncle Arthur' on a white patch of insulation near the ship's snub nose.

Maggie nodded approvingly. ‘Shall we board?'

A tech held open a hatch.

There was a low step, which Joshua had to negotiate awkwardly, using his cane. The tech, a bright young woman who looked about twelve years old to Joshua, offered him an arm, which he grumpily refused. Standing in the hatchway he glanced back one last time. From this slight elevation he spotted Rod and Sofia. And, over the heads of the pressing crowd, further away, beyond the engineering facilities and tents and dormitory blocks and chemical toilets of Little Cincinnati, he saw the eerie engineered landscape that enclosed all of this: the mind, artificial and alien, into whose dreams he was stepping today.

None of this seemed real. Or maybe that was just his age. He turned away.

It was a relief to escape from the October sun, the press of people, the glare of the camera lights, and enter the calm of the clean-smelling, brightly lit interior of the
Uncle Arthur.
Though he hadn't actually seen his ship from the outside before – it had been one hell of a rush to get it built – he'd spent a lot of time in a mocked-up simulator of the interior; suddenly this was just like another training run.

He found his seat, a hefty astronaut couch with heavy harness straps. On this middle deck Joshua was in a central seat, with Maggie settling in to his right and Lobsang to his left. Mercifully Joshua hadn't had to climb the ladder to the upper deck, a few feet above him and separated by a mesh floor partition. Up there sat their ‘pilots', if you could call them that: Dev Bilaniuk who ran the ship, Lee Malone, his backup, and Indra Newton, the very frail-looking Next girl whose stepping abilities, it was hoped, would carry them to – well, to whatever destination the Thinker and its makers had planned for them.

Below, visible through another mesh floor, was Sancho. The lower deck was a storage area, and the troll was surrounded by a clutter of stuff – air tanks and recycling units, batteries, medical kit, anonymous white boxes that Joshua assumed were something to do with the mission's science goals. The old troll was lying on his back in a heap of straw, with his big arms folded behind his head, draped in Joshua's old survival blanket.

Joshua rattled his cane on the floor. ‘Hey, old buddy. You hanging in down there?'

‘Hoo.' Sancho raised a thumb. He looked supremely comfortable. But then, Joshua reflected, he usually did.

There was a clang as the hatch was closed, and the last of the noise from outside was excluded. In the sudden hush, Joshua could hear the whir of fans and pumps. Through the small window before him, a disc of thick glass, he saw the technicians backing off, the well-wishers further out still waving. The armed Navy and marine grunts were still there, facing away from the ship and outwards at the crowds. Joshua knew there were more layers of security, the watchers in the towers and in the airborne twains, even small drone aircraft patrolling overhead.