Wormholes (26 page)

“Jesus, it’s gonna hit!” exclaimed Dacey.

Mullins stabbed the key activating the computer control, and the three arms came smoothly to life, moving about the hole like cobras circling prey. They locked themselves into positions dictated by the computer and switched on their magnets.

For an excruciating moment, nothing seemed to happen. Then, almost imperceptibly, the moon began to shrink.

“Nah,” said Mullins, smacking his lips and adjusting his round frame happily in his chair. “Ain’t gonna hit. Got it licked!”

“Jimmy,” said Gerald quietly, a smile on his face. “We’re flyin’ the son-of-a-bitch!”

Cameron laughed, but Gerald grew immediately somber, aware that what he was about to say had been said before.

“Let’s go in.”

“H
ow fast are we going?” Dacey leaned over Mullins, who fiddled with the computer keys, stuck the tip of his tongue reflectively out the side of his mouth, and peered critically at the result on the computer screen.

“Real damn fast,” he concluded with authority.

“Okay, how fast is real damn fast?”

Mullins drummed a tattoo of strokes on the keyboard and rechecked his results.

“You ain’t gonna believe it.”

“Try us,” said Cameron.

“Oh, ’round seventy thousand miles an hour, it says here.”

“You’re right. Real damn fast,” said Dacey.

Beyond speed, Mullins had reported that the wormhole appeared stable. And, he confirmed, with no mass or inertia, the merest tickle of a magnetic field could accelerate it instantly away from any planets or moons into the distant reaches of space, where it would remain so.

But Gerald was distracted, feeling the confusing mix of fear and exhilaration that a man must feel on the eve of his first parachute jump. Or perhaps his first suicide attempt. Tomorrow he would take himself into a realm so totally alien that he could not fathom the experience, much less its meaning. Gaston asked if they could take a walk, offering some relief.

They left the blockhouse and hiked out across the broad, flat desert surrounded by the quiet darkness, and he scanned the vast, black bowl of the night sky with its great swaths of stars. How strange, he thought, that tonight the vast desert seemed almost too small to contain his agitation.

“I know you mean to go alone,” said Gaston, peering up at the sky. He smiled and looked over at Gerald, but it was a smile that seemed almost of sad resignation.

“Yes. I just can’t let anybody else risk their life.”

“You need somebody else, you know. It’s not wise to go alone.” Gaston took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Gerald realized how haggard his face looked without their distracting glimmer.

“Everybody’s already tried to talk me out of it.” Gerald took a deep breath, remembering the blunt argument by Dacey, the warnings by Mullins and all the others.

“I want to go with you.”

Gerald was gently exasperated. “Why are you asking now? We’ve been all over it. The plans are all made.”

“Gerald …” Gaston put his glasses back on, put his hands in his pockets and looked down, then somberly back up at Gerald. “I’ve got pancreatic cancer. Stage four. It’s spread.” Gerald opened his mouth to speak, but Gaston continued, knowing that Gerald would need time to really figure out how to respond. He’d seen people react before. “I’ve been
HIV
positive for many years, so I expected something like this. It’s a complication. I’ve known about the cancer for about a year. Nobody else knows except Jimmy and Wayne. I know what’s coming. I want to do something. I want to do this.”

“God, I am sorry, Ralph.” Gerald felt profoundly the inadequacy of anything he could say. “I know it must be terrible. I don’t know what to say. But, you know, I still can’t let you—”

“I know what’s coming,” Gaston said again, with more emphasis. “It’ll be soon. And I’ve decided that this will give my life meaning.”

“Your life already has meaning. Look, you’re an expert criminalist. You’ve solved terrible crimes. You’ve done so much good. You’ve helped this project enormously.”

“I know. I don’t minimize that. But it would mean so much if I could do this. And no matter what you say, you are going to need somebody out there with you. Let me help. Please.”

Gerald looked away out into the desert, to the distant shimmering lights on the hangar containing the vacuum chamber. He pondered how Gaston had kept this secret; how disciplined he must be; how much courage it must take. He finally knew he couldn’t refuse the request. The distant, waiting lights also helped him realize that, to some extent, Ralph had given him an excuse.

“Ralph, I do need help. I’m sorry this was what it took for me to admit it. But I do.”

“Fine, then. That’s fine.” Gaston extended his hand and Gerald shook it. He sensed a steadiness in Gaston from facing death, one that calmed him, made him almost serene. They walked back toward the blockhouse, whose slit-windows glowed brightly, looking like half-closed eyes in the impassive gray concrete face, splashing a pale light out along the desert floor. Maybe now he could hope for some sleep.

• • •

Gerald flipped on the light in his small room, thankful at the room’s simplicity. A bed, a dresser, a desk and a feeble attempt at decoration: a framed print of jets against a cloudy sky. He would have little to distract him from trying to sleep, or at least make it to dawn. He had just begun to take off his shirt when there was a knock at the door between his room and Dacey’s. He opened it and she stood there tentatively in her jeans, t-shirt and stocking feet.

“You’ve got to shave,” she said. “Remember what George said?”

“Oh, right.” He smiled slightly and rubbed his beard. George had insisted on a smooth face. If he had to put on a gas mask or use an oxygen mask, there could be no leakage. “I’ve had it for years. I’m not sure I’ll remember how. I don’t have a razor.”

She took his arm, guiding him with mock authority. “C’mon, sport. I’ve got one I use on my legs. And I would shave my dad when Mom was working.” She steered him into her bathroom and sat him on the closed toilet lid, tipping his head back. She filled the sink with hot water, the moisture curling into the dry air and fogging the mirror.

“Okay, let’s start by doing some pruning.” She fumbled in a black zipper bag on the sink and came up with a pair of small scissors, beginning to carefully snip away at his beard.

He became keenly aware of the closeness of her body, her touch on his face, the aroma of her skin.

“You okay?” she asked quietly as she trimmed. There was a timbre in her voice he hadn’t heard before.

“You mean right now?”

“Jeez, you
are
thick. I mean about tomorrow.”

“Scared silly.”

She didn’t answer, but stood back, judging the ragged stubble that was left “Okay, we’ve got wolf man here, let’s keep going.” She soaked a towel under the hot water and gingerly wrung it out, wrapping the steaming cloth gently around his face.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, patting the towel so the moist heat would soften his beard. “You hear? You’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” he said. His voice muffled.

“I heard you’re taking Ralph with you. I’d have been better.”

“I know you’d have been great. There were reasons.”

“In any case, I’m glad you’re taking somebody.”

He noticed that she hadn’t asked about his reasons. Maybe she knew about Ralph’s cancer. Maybe she wasn’t being her usual quick-witted analytical self at this particular moment.

She removed the towel and the cool on his face felt as good as the warmth had. She took up a bar of soap, dipped it in the hot water and vigorously worked up a lather between her hands. She applied it carefully to his face and began to scrape gently and meticulously at the beard. Periodically, she wet the razor, reapplied soap and continued. He lay back with his head against the wall and let her do her job, feeling her gentle way with the razor. He’d never felt so relaxed, especially with a woman, and never with a woman wielding sharp steel on his neck. After a while, he felt a hot wet towel rubbing over his face. She was done.

He opened his eyes. “So what do you think?” He watched her face for a clue. He saw tears in her eyes.

“Wow,” she said softly, a tear rolling down her face, her lower lip trembling. “We’ve got a little bit of Robert Downey, Junior. Maybe a touch of Joaquin Phoenix.” Then her facade crumbled completely. “Oh, hell!” She cried, pitching the razor into the sink and sinking to her knees, throwing her arms around him. She buried her face in his shoulder and he felt her body shudder in a sob. He stroked her hair and hugged her in return.

“What?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “What?”

“God, Gerald I am scared for you. I love you. I am so sorry I’ve not been able to …”

“I know. I know.”

“You were so patient. I was this damned coward and you were so patient.” She looked up at him, her face wet.

“I was scared, too. I didn’t know …” He shrugged and wiped away her tears and brought her face to his and they kissed. They embraced, and the kisses that followed made it obvious to both of them that they would fully commit to one another that night.

“I shouldn’t have waited. This could be …” She didn’t let herself finish.

Each began to unclothe the other, seeking the reassurance of skin on skin. They moved out of the bathroom and into the dark bedroom, where they made love in the most consuming way each had ever experienced. Afterward, they shared whispered confidences with a combination of urgency and intimacy, clinging to each other, each remorseful for the time they had allowed to be lost, each needing the other for support.

Finally, he drew away enough so he could see her face. “This wasn’t … ?”

She took a moment to bring herself to focus. She knew what he was going to ask. She impatiently pursed her lips, one eyebrow raised in mock scolding.

“A sympathy screw? I assure you, Gerald, I’m not just after your mind.” She stroked his newly shaved cheek. That night, she would further demonstrate that fact, as they created an intimacy that would be a defense against tomorrow.

• • •

The phone rang three times before Dacey emerged from sleep and from beneath the covers, fumbling the receiver to her ear. The touch of plastic coolness against her face helped her wake up. She mumbled a hoarse hello.

“Is he all right?” tersely asked a distant voice.

“What? Who?” She turned over. The bed next to her was empty. She remembered a hand gently stroking her hair as she floated in half-sleep, a kiss on her cheek, then a vague sense that he had gone. The aroma of the night lingered.

The voice on the phone brought her back. “Is Gerald all right? Is he competent? Is he ready to go in there?”

As her head cleared, Dacey realized it was the voice of Calvin Lambert.

“Why are you calling me? Why don’t you ask him?” But with the question, she began to realize the answer.

“Because I’m asking you.”

She rolled over on her back and smiled sleepily at the dark ceiling. “Calvin, you’re worried about your son, aren’t you?”

There was a single beat of pause. “I’m worried about my investment.”

“Bullshit.”

“Is he going to blow it?”

“’Course not. He even finally decided to take somebody with him. Ralph Gaston.”

“Is Gaston a good man?”

“Yeah, absolutely. He’s trained. I think I would have been better. But it’s his decision. In any case, it relieved the hell out of me.”

“Cohen tells me the plan’s solid. The hardware’s solid.”

The words brought Dacey’s mind to crystal clarity, even though the little glowing electric clock beside the bed said 4:21. “Calvin, you’re a damned faker. You never intended Cohen to take over this project. You intended for him to watch over Gerald.”

The answer was a click, as the line went dead. Dacey hmphed to herself at her new knowledge and threw back the covers to challenge the day.

G
erald snapped his helmet down onto the collar ring and gave it the locking twist. He’d done it so many times in practice, but now the click that signaled a firm seal had a sharp, definitive sense of commitment to it. Now all his abilities, determination and fears were hermetically sealed inside this suit. He didn’t know whether they would produce courage or cowardice, brilliance or stupidity.

Neither he nor Ralph were military pilots or astronauts. They were just two regular people who were about to enter another universe. And so they found themselves periodically fighting surges of anxiety.

He turned his suit to look over at Ralph donning his. Gaston seemed steady. Perhaps he’d already come to terms with the prospect of his own death. In any case, his calm inspired Gerald.

The portable air pump kept a flow of fresh air through the suit to save the tanks, but Gerald felt stifled nevertheless. He breathed in hard for reassurance. Soon, though, it would seem puny protection against the absolute vacuum he was to encounter. He tried to imagine the vastness on the other side. As the technicians examined his suit, he wondered whether it was possible to experience claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time. The sound of his breathing in the helmet became a steady, whispering reassurance that he was all right.

Dacey and George had been fussing over them all morning, directing two other doctors in monitoring their vital signs, giving each of them one last, long hug. Dacey’s touch had been subtle, a pat on the back, a squeeze of the arm, but it had communicated clearly the feeling that had grown between them.

George took a headset from one of the technicians and held the microphone to his mouth.

“You’re just fine,” he said with the usual sunny encouragement. Even through the helmet radio, the voice still had that resonance of experience that had carried them through so much. George brought his parchment-wrinkled face up near the faceplate and peered through his glasses at Gerald. His eyes seemed a bit more shiny than usual. “I’m going to the control room to start monitoring. Godspeed, son.”

Then Dacey brought her face up to Gerald’s faceplate and looked him in the eyes. She smiled and it brought a reassurance beyond words. She took up the microphone.

“I waited to tell you this. Calvin called last night. He was worried about you.”

The news had the desired effect. Gerald laughed wryly and forgot his nerves for a moment. He hefted himself to his feet, leaning forward to counterbalance the weight of the oxygen pack. He turned ponderously to Gaston, now also fully suited.

Without a word, they switched over to the tanks and stepped to the airlock, turning back to the small crowd of technicians. He looked at Dacey a last time. Her jaw was clenched, with just the slightest shine of moisture in her eyes. Cameron, holding the door, nodded and mouthed a single silent word. “Thanks.” He knew about Gaston. Gerald nodded back as best he could and they opened the airlock and stepped clumsily in, feeling elephantine inside the bulky, heavy suits. Gaston shut the door and turned the metal latch, and they peered through the window one last time, as the people outside hurried to their trucks and Humvees to head back to the blockhouse.

Now they were alone. Soon they would be in another universe.

The indicator on the airlock wall signaled a vacuum, and Gerald unlatched the inner door and swung it open.

Waiting for them was a pitch-black maw floating in the middle of the room, weaving slightly back and forth, the stars shining through with a majestic, perhaps malevolent, indifference. He’d never seen a hole exposed first-hand before, in all its stunning cosmic power. He was transfixed, staring first into the floating blackness beyond, and then at the faint colorful swirling evanescence around the edges. The deadly edges. One touch of the infinite razor sharpness would slice through the suit and his body.

But the lure of the star-filled center overcame any fear. Gerald felt with every fiber of his being that he had to see what was in there. He felt his suit heater come on, sending a wave of warmth into his hands and feet. The hole was a voracious devourer of heat, drawing it from the chamber into the two-hundred-degree-below-zero cold of space.

The three clunky mechanical serpents with their long jointed necks and cylindrical heads, were still poised almost comically around the hole, seeming to peer curiously into it at odd angles. The magnetic head aimed upward from below the hole came to life and withdrew itself obligingly out of the way, still looking into the hole from the side. They would climb up into the hole from the bottom.

They attached the cables that would serve both as tether and communication line and began a steady exchange with the control room over their radios, George’s and Mullins’ voices filling their helmets. They described the hole carefully, noting its behavior in the captive magnetic field. A glitch in that field and the hole would move. Even a shift of a few feet would cause the hole to slice through them. Satisfied that the hole was stable, they rolled a laddered cylindrical framework into place beneath it, and ensured that it was firmly set on the metal floor. Because of the rigid helmet, Gerald had to lean back to see up, and the surrounding blackness overhead made him almost forget to breathe.

They turned to one another and shook hands, holding the handshake for a long time. Gaston smiled, his face inside the darkened helmet seeming to glow with excitement. He turned and flipped a switch on the framework, it began to extend itself like a telescope up through the center of the hole. Gerald leaned backward, bracing himself against the framework and tried to see the result. The framework seemed to extend smoothly through — a good sign. He turned to the ladder, grasped the handrails, and with effort bent his knee and pulled himself up onto the first rung. Gaston gave a steady series of positioning instructions so he would avoid the deadly edge.

The effort was hard, given the weight and bulk of the suit. He made another rung, then another, then another. He looked beyond the ladder and realized that his eyes were at the edge of the hole. He almost didn’t go on, so incredible was the sight. A faint, swirling colored glow danced around his helmet. Below an infinitely thin line was the familiar, lighted chamber; above the line, the star-filled vastness of another universe.

“You okay?” It was George. “Your heart rate just shot up.”

“Yes. It’s …” He couldn’t describe it. Wouldn’t even try. His helmet camera would at least show some semblance of what it was like. He forced himself to continue on and felt a strange lightheadedness. His breathing grew more rapid, shallower. Then he realized and laughed at himself. Some astrophysicist! Of course he was feeling lightheaded! His head had entered gravity-free space! His breathing steadied.

The stars again! The incredible gleaming swath of diamonds, rubies and sapphires so clear he felt he could touch them. They were large and small, silver-white, pale red, and delicate blue. The black vault of the heavens all around him made him want to shout, scream, shriek, bellow, howl in a roiling mixture of wonder, fear, joy and panic. But all he heard in his helmet was a kind of awed inadequate whisper to himself. “Incredible … incredible.”

He panted with excitement and took another step. The effort was far easier. He felt dizzy. He stopped to give himself a chance to reorient, but realized it was impossible. Too much was happening. Again instructions from Gaston guided him to avoid the edge.

He stepped up again and his whole body was through, its weight vanished. He felt the shift of flesh on his body, the slight puffiness in his face and hands, the change in blood distribution that came with freedom from weight. Now he clung to the ladder for security not support. With a gentle tug, he pulled himself to the end and bent to look back. Confusion overcame him for a moment, before he managed to restore his retreating intellect. The ladder to which he held fast extended itself from a perfect glowing sphere floating in space, visible within, the ladder, Gaston, and the vacuum chamber. But he knew he had gone into a sphere on the other side. It was a real-life Escher painting, a real dimensional paradox. Of course, he had expected the alien geometry. After all, the hole had to be a sphere on this side as well as the other.

“I’m behind you,” he heard Gaston say in his helmet radio. He decided it was time. He pushed off from the ladder and floated free.

“Oh my God,” he heard himself say. “Oh my God!” He spread his arms to the new universe and lost himself in its magnificent immensity. He spun very slowly, watching with moist eyes as the stars passed before him in stately procession. His mind told him they were inanimate objects, immense globes of roiling thermonuclear fire, but his imagination heard them whisper of possibilities beyond his experience. They whispered to him of the amazing worlds that they harbored, and they promised him that now he and his kind would see them.

He caught his breath as a spiral galaxy slid into view, an opalescent whirlpool of a hundred billion stars. The spiral’s center glowed with the heat of a cosmic firestorm of colliding suns. Its wispy starry arms curved away far into space, shining crystalline necklaces on celestial display against black velvet.

There were stars in his helmet now, faintly shimmering points of light floating across his vision. He realized they were his tears, drifting away from his eyes to become tiny perfect droplets floating in weightless space.

He felt the tug of the tether and knew he had floated far from the hole. The tether’s pull rotated him around so he could look back toward his origin. He gathered his wits and gave Gaston the same guidance to avoid the edge.

Then, Gaston was through, too, holding onto the end of the ladder. A realization struck him like a physical blow. They were so alone! No comforting earth loomed nearby; no massive white spaceship hovered to take him onboard. Only a small hole in the indifferent vastness that could collapse away at any second.

“We’re going to be different now,” a voice said.

“What?” asked Gaston. The voice penetrated his vision, bringing back reality.

Gerald realized he had said the words. “I … guess I said we’re going to be different now.”

“Yes.” The single word told him Gaston had experienced something, too.

“Get back in! Now!” Mullins’s voice pierced the moment.

“What’s wrong?” As Gerald asked the question, he sensed some change in the hole, something besides the glow of the light from his universe. The ladder swayed back and forth, the framework almost touching the edge of the hole. Gaston held on, his grip revealing the precariousness of his situation.

“The vacuum chamber! We’ve got a leak!” said Mullins.

Gerald suddenly realized that floating free at the end of the tether, he had no way to get himself back quickly and accurately to the hole. The ladder lurched to one side, one rail grazing the edge of the hole. It sliced cleanly away, the ladder crumpling slightly. Gaston held on, leaning to one side to compensate. If the ladder went, if the frame broke, their reentry would be suicidal, given the lethal edges.

“We don’t know what happened,” said Mullins. “We’re sending a team to patch the chamber. You have to get back …
now
!”

Gerald felt a tug. Gaston was hauling him back by his tether, slowly, carefully, so that he wouldn’t veer into the edge.

“Just hold still,” Gaston said. “I think I can …” The ladder abruptly lurched again, slicing a shallow tear in the leg of Gaston’s suit. But the suit held, for now. Gaston stepped down two rungs, half his body now in the hole. If the framework gave any more, he would be sliced in half, but he remained in place, pulling Gerald in hand-over-hand.

Gerald touched the ladder, grabbed the top rung, and swung himself ponderously around in the weightlessness. He couldn’t see down now, because of the helmet. He didn’t know whether Gaston was alive, or whether he would have a way back.

“Ralph?” he asked.

There was no answer.

“Ralph!”

Then Gaston answered “I’m almost down. I’m going to hold …” The ladder tilted sideways and Gerald held on. “I’m going to hold onto the ladder. Step down.”

Gerald did so and felt the ladder swaying violently beneath him. Something flew upward past his face; something white. The vacuum chamber was leaking, spewing air into the hole, along with whatever debris was caught up in the maelstrom. His breathing grew ragged and he felt sweat trickle down his temple, joining the wetness already inside his helmet. A panic clutched his gut like a vice.

“Step again.” Gaston’s voice was calm, reassuring. Gerald did so. “And again. And again. Stop.” The ladder canted to one side, then righted itself.

Gaston continued to guide Gerald down. He felt the weight return to his legs, his waist, his chest. Finally, his helmet was at the edge. The ladder lurched again and his helmet listed over close to the edge and he jerked back to avoid having it cut through.

But finally, the welcome tug of gravity had returned to his entire body. He was through! He realized how hard Gaston had worked to steady the ladder beneath him, hauling back and forth to compensate for the swaying from his weight and the whirling gush of air out of the hole.