The Map of Chaos (61 page)

“The Other Side will also perish,” Jane concluded in a horrified whisper.

They both remained silent. For several moments the only sound in the tiny sitting room was the crackle of the fire and the elderly couple's labored breathing.

“Do you remember the day of the Great Debate, Jane?” Wells asked suddenly, his voice choked with anguish. “How everyone admired me! Shouting my name in adulation. If I close my eyes I can still hear them. They trusted in me; they put themselves in my hands. They thought I possessed the truth, and so did I, but . . . Oh, Jane!” Wells sighed, and gazed at his wife. “I lied to you! I was only motivated by vanity! And you knew that, didn't you? I wanted to go down in history as the Savior of Humanity. And yet . . . can you imagine what they must think of me now, back in our world? Can you imagine our colleagues' surprise when at last they reached the promised land only to discover it was doomed because of a stupid failed experiment in their Victorian era? All their hopes destroyed by a tiny virus synthesized by H. G. Wells, the biggest catastrophe in the history of the Church of Knowledge, the eternally cursed Destroyer of Universes . . .”

Jane stood up almost abruptly and leaned against the mantelpiece. Wells remained in his chair, lost without her, sobbing with his head sunk between his shoulders, overwhelmed by self-pity. Finally, his wife's silence forced him to look up timidly. She was watching him weep with that look of fierce determination he knew so well.

“Well, Bertie, if that is what they think of you . . .” She grinned. “Then we'll just have to make them change their minds.”

O
VER THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
, the Wellses set about elaborating a plan to save the two universes while at the same time changing the disastrous opinion the inhabitants of their world must have of H. G. Wells. Or vice versa. They began with a detailed study of all the information and images Wells had gleaned from the mind of the Executioner, or at any rate everything he could remember or express in words. Apparently, that sinister slaughter had been going on for some time (the equivalent of ten years in their adoptive universe, they calculated). That it had taken them so long to come across an Executioner only made obvious—whether they liked it or not—the infinite nature of the universe. How could scientists from the Other Side eradicate an epidemic that affected so many other worlds? They couldn't unless someone guided them to the original source of the infection so that they could eradicate it at the root.

While scanning the Executioner's mind, Wells had discovered that those killers were able to jump between worlds thanks to the canes they carried, whose handles bore the eight-pointed Star of Chaos. Apparently these devices helped them chase cronotemics from stage to stage, burrowing tunnels through hyperspace without leaving any scars in the fabric of the universe, guiding them by working out complex coordinates based on the molecular trails left by the cronotemics. In other words, the Executioners could travel anywhere in the universe providing their diseased quarry left a big enough trail of bread crumbs. And probably also if someone drew a map with mathematical coordinates their canes could interpret.

“Such a map could guide any Executioner, from whichever world he is in, to the exact place and time of the first infection!” Wells exclaimed excitedly. “Or more precisely, to one minute before, so that he could prevent it from happening.”

“And who, may I ask, could draw that map?” Jane asked innocently.

She knew perfectly well who, but she wanted her husband to have the pleasure of pronouncing it. Wells gave his first smile in a very long time. A dazzling smile, brimming with optimism—a touch ingenuous, perhaps, but what did that matter?

“Why, someone with sufficient mathematical knowledge,” he replied proudly.

And so, oozing enthusiasm, Wells dusted off the old maps he and Dodgson had dabbled with in Oxford and spread them out on the table. But one look at those pages filled with formulas, equations, and diagrams was enough to make his heart sink. Those pretentious scribblings were mere intellectual games, ornamentations as brilliant as they were empty, totally theoretical, and never meant to be taken seriously . . . Now, however, it was up to him to find out whether they contained a shred of truth by applying them to a real-life problem of unimaginable magnitude. He had to draw a map, the biggest map of all time and all worlds, a map that would shrink infinity to a calculation of coordinates, a map that would reduce the entire universe to a simple equation . . . He didn't know whether such an undertaking was possible. And if it was, whether he wanted to reveal life as a mirage woven from the ethereal threads of mathematics, one of his least favorite subjects. But he didn't appear to have many alternatives, and so he had to try.

He began working day and night on the map, which he decided to call the Great Mathematical Map of Inexorable Chaos. Jane thought the name sounded rather pompous, but Wells was adamant: if this was to be his magnum opus, one that would enable him to go down in history as the Savior of Humanity, the title should reflect that importance. He soon became absorbed in the Herculean task, and once more it was Jane's task to look after him, as she had during the dark days: making sure he ate, washed, and had enough sleep, besides bolstering his enthusiasm each time he started to flag. Such commitment forced them to sacrifice their beloved sessions in front of the fire as well, for by the time evening came Wells was so exhausted he scarcely had the strength to drag himself to bed.

And while he was shut away in his study, grappling with contradictory formulas, reaching conclusions that rendered all previous ones void, and lamenting bitterly that Dodgson wasn't there to help him, Jane would take refuge, in her quiet moments, in the cozy little study she had made for herself in one of the spare rooms. Sitting at her desk, where there was always a vase of freshly cut roses, she would spend a few hours every day trying to alleviate her loneliness. She and Wells had decided that she would help revise each chapter, which would require the fresh insight of a mind uncontaminated by the tortuous process of calculating and writing. Otherwise, she would devote herself to solving the no less important domestic aspects of life, so that Wells could work on his magnum opus without interruption. For the first time in many years, this division of labor forced them to remain sadly apart for several hours a day, although I would be lying, dear reader, if I didn't tell you that, during those hours of solitude, Jane also felt contentment. True, she missed her husband dreadfully, despite their being separated only by a partition wall, for the bond between them was so close they had ended up becoming a single entity. Jane experienced her husband's absence in every fiber of her being as an unpleasant sensation, like leaving her coat and hat at home on a particularly breezy day. And yet, that discomfort would occasionally turn into an exhilarating feeling of freedom, as if, once she had accepted the inevitable oversight, she had no choice but to brace herself against the wind as she felt it freeze her face and tousle her hair.

However, her husband did not appear to cope so well with those forced separations. Ever since his wife had told him she was planning to make a study for herself in one of their spare rooms, Wells had resolved to spend part of his very limited and valuable spare time trying to discover exactly what his wife was doing in there. Direct questioning had failed, because she merely replied with a shrug. Joshing hadn't worked either. “Are you drawing pictures of animals in there?” he had once asked, but Jane hadn't laughed the way she usually did when he said that. Her silence was tomb-like, and since torture was not an option, Wells had been forced to resort to surprise incursions. And so he had discovered that Jane went into her study to write. In fact, this wasn't much of a discovery, as he could almost have worked it out without having to go in there. She was hardly likely to use the room for breeding rabbits, practicing devil worship, or dancing naked. Besides, she had half jokingly threatened him with it. Now all he had to do was find out
what
she was writing.

“Oh, nothing of any interest,” Jane replied, quickly hiding the sheets of paper in her desk drawer, the lock of which Wells had unsuccessfully tried to force open. “I'll let you read it once it's finished.”

Once it was finished . . . That meant nothing. What if it was never finished? What if for some reason she decided not to finish it? What if the world came to an end first? If it did, he would never know what Jane had been doing during the three or four hours she spent in her study every day. Was she writing a diary? Or perhaps a recipe book? But why be so cagey about a recipe book?

“One of the things I most hate in life is couples who keep secrets from each other,” Wells said, being deliberately dramatic.

“I thought what you most hated was the fact that no one has invented an electric razor yet,” Jane chuckled. She went on talking to him as she took his arm and led him toward the door, trying not to give the impression she was getting rid of him. “But don't be such a grouch. What does it matter what I write? Your work is the important thing, Bertie, so stop wasting your time spying on me and get writing.”

After shrugging a few times, Wells went down to the ground floor, where he hid away in
his
study. There he contemplated the sheaf of blank pages before him, where he had proposed to record all his hard-earned wisdom, everything he had seen. He reached for his pen, ready to begin his “crowning work,” as Jane had called it, while the sounds from the street and the neighboring park seeped in through his window, noises from a world that went by immersed in the smug satisfaction of believing it was unique . . . and safe from harm.

•  •  •

I
T TOOK
W
ELLS ALMOST
a year to finish the book, which—after several prunings that extended even to the pretentious title—ended up being called simply
The Map of Chaos
. By the time Jane had revised the final pages and given her husband's mathematical extravaganza her approval, the year was 1897 in their adopted world. They had arrived there four decades ago, and a lot had changed since then. The two sprites now looked like an elderly couple approaching a hundred (although Wells had just turned seventy and Jane sixty-five), and indeed that is what they felt like: extremely old and tired. The past year had been very difficult for them both. Neither had connected with any of their twins during those many months, for nearly all their time and energy had been devoted to the colossal task of creating
The Map of Chaos.
Besides, neither Wells nor Jane wanted to see how the epidemic and the cruel extermination of those infected was running its course. It would only have made them more anxious. If the end of the world took place before they finished the map, they would soon know about it, for they doubted whether the cosmic explosions caused by infinite worlds colliding would go unnoticed. But finish it they had. And, for the time being at least, the universe was still in one piece.

Wells then decided that the completion of the work that contained the key to saving that and all other possible worlds called for a celebration, and that they both deserved a rest. And so they lit the fire, poured themselves a drink—only a drop, as alcohol no longer agreed with them very well—and slumped into their respective armchairs with a contented sigh and a creaking of elderly joints. It was time to enjoy one of their soothing, magical sessions by the fire that they had so missed. But before starting they agreed they would connect with only happy twins that evening, not with those poor wretches who had developed the disease, or those fleeing Martians, or the Invisible Man, or any other equally disturbing threat. No, they had had enough thrills and shocks. That evening they would savor the dull but peaceful existences of those twins who were simply minding their own business, because fortunately, in a universe made up of infinite parallel worlds, it was still possible to live a normal life.

But Wells cheated. He could not resist the temptation to take a peek at the first person infected. He wanted to know what had been going on in his life since he had stopped watching him, although what he might find was as daunting as Jane discovering his small deception. At first, he had difficulty locating his twin, because after not using his gift for a year he was somewhat out of practice. But at last he found him: that Wells was now an old man, and by leafing back through the pages of his memory he discovered everything that had happened to him since he last ventured into his mind. He was pleased to see that at the end of an eventful life his twin had attained a measure of peace. After an exciting adventure in the Antarctic, where he had lost a couple of fingers on his right hand, he had jumped into the universe in which he currently found himself, where his disease had entered a dormant phase, allowing him to rebuild his shattered life as best he could. Alas, just when he thought that his last days would be spent calmly preparing for death, an Executioner had picked up his trail, and for months he had been forced to live in hiding, escaping only narrowly and by sheer luck on a couple of occasions, like that time in front of the Royal Opera House. He had moved residences, changed his name to Baskerville, and adopted a different profession . . . Wells couldn't help smiling when he saw that he had ended up as coachman to Gilliam Murray, who in that universe called himself Montgomery Gilmore. Just as Wells infiltrated his mind, the twin with the scar was holding a conversation with the original Wells from that universe.

“So you have no scar on your left hand . . . ,” Baskerville was saying to him. “But you do have one on your chin, whereas I don't . . .”

“When I was fifteen I fell down some stairs,” replied the other Wells.

“I see. Whereas I didn't. I was always very careful with stairs.”