Wormholes (34 page)

“Stand back!” Chang shouted. “All stand back!”

The Deus and Chinese engineers all leaped out of the path between the chamber and the building’s open doors.

“Christ!” said one. “This thing goes nuts, we’re all dead!”

A deep reverberating hum filled the building, rattling the old windows and sending tea cups skittering off the console. It vibrated the very skulls of the people, and several grabbed their heads.

A sudden, deep chill seemed to suck all the warmth from the room. The engineers backed away as far as they could, gasping, teeth chattering.

The hole appeared in a cloud of icy vapor, floating majestically out through the chamber doors. It stopped and bobbled slightly, then continued. They could see through it to the metal probes jutting from the inside of the shell. A blue arcing light played between the probes.

The shimmering hole gathered speed, sweeping toward the door. It sailed into the gray twilight, and forgetting all caution, the people all ran to follow it. They almost missed the sight of the white sphere vaulting into the sky, bringing frightened screams and shouts from people passing by the laboratory. It accelerated into the gray overhanging clouds and disappeared instantly.

T
he cold seemed a marauding predator invading their space suits and trying to take their consciousness away in its icy jaws. Dacey shivered uncontrollably and held onto the controls, and Mullins studied the video screens with determined intensity.

“Where are they, Andy?” She whispered it over and over, as if the mantra would draw Gerald and Gaston to them. “Where are they? Where are they?
Where are they
?”

“Computers say orbit is about here,” said Mullins through clenched teeth. “No damned beacon. It must have gotten fried by the pulse, like the radio.”

“I’ll sweep again.” She jammed the joystick over, instantly swerving the hole around and speeding northward across the vast mottled face of Earth below. If not for the emergency, she would have marveled at the stunning freedom of movement with the hole, with its total lack of inertia. Mullins checked the readouts to make sure that the magnetic fields were controlling the hole precisely enough to prevent it colliding with the enveloping fabric shell. One wayward movement would slice the sphere open, preventing them from returning to earth.

“All the damned orbits. We’ve tried all of them. Dacey, can we stand this much longer?”

“Yes! Yes, we
will
stand it!”

Mullins checked his wrist gauge. “Forty-three minutes of oxygen. It takes us thirty minutes to get down, get out of the chamber. Oh, God.” He stopped. He brought his faceplate closer to the glowing screen.

“You see something?”

“A dot. Just a dot.”

Dacey shifted over to look at the screen, waiting for the faint reflection of sunlight that would mark a small cylinder rotating in space. She saw the dot. She figured its direction.

“Got the vector. I’m there!” With a shove of both joysticks, she sent the hole whipping about, accelerating toward the dot. It grew into a blob, then into a cylinder.

“It’s them! By God, it’s them!” Dacey shivered, this time from exhilaration as well as cold. The cylinder grew, and they slowed the hole, easing it the last yards toward the cylinder until they were within capture range. Dacey turned the controls over to Mullins, who held station with deft flicks of his gloved, trembling fingers. Dacey, who was slimmer and more agile, would perform the capture.

She opened the hatch and was bathed in warming sunlight. She took a deep breath and propelled herself through the middle of the hole, trailing a line attached to the shell. She reached the cylinder and grabbed it, hoping against hope that she could feel some life stirring within it. But she could detect no movement. Her heart pounded in fear for the two men, but she continued. She attached the line and pulled herself back toward the shimmering sphere and the blackness of the hatchway in the white fabric shell.

With enormous care, she guided the weightless cylinder through, and as quickly as she could, she closed the hatchway and slapped Mullins on the shoulder. He shoved the joysticks forward and the hole plummeted earthward like a shimmering meteor. Heat radiated from the fabric shell and it swelled to tautness as the atmospheric pressure increased.

Dacey ignored the reentry, pounding on the cylinder’s hull, trying to detect movement inside. Her mind screamed at her to be realistic; to prepare for the sight of the lifeless bodies of her lover and her friend. But she rejected her mind; clung to irrational hope.

In stunningly rapid succession, the video camera showed the sprawling Nevada desert, then the Deus complex, then the chamber, then its door, then its interior. They were home!

“
NOW!
” Shouted Mullins.

“We’re here!” they heard in their helmet radios. “You’re captured and stable!” They shouted with relief. It was George! Dacey moved to open the hatch, as she felt the shell going limper from the growing vacuum on the other side.

As the hatch flapped open, they saw the familiar black ladder poking through from one side, a hoist cable hanging down from the other.

Dacey swung the weightless cylinder around and guided it through the hatchway. The hand of a space-suited engineer reached in to attach it to the cable linked to a small crane.

The cylinder slid away into their universe, suspended by the crane. Dacey and Mullins pushed themselves through, too, grabbing the ladder and scrambling down it. Three space-suited engineers strained to haul the cylinder into the airlock. They stood back, allowing Dacey and Mullins to crowd in with the cylinder. Dacey pounded on the cylinder and shouted, but still could hear no sign of life inside.

A violent hiss, heard even through their helmets, told them the airlock had filled with air.

Not even bothering to remove her helmet, Dacey knelt over the cylinder as hands jutted into the view through her faceplate, unlocking its hatch.

It swung open. Gerald lay wrapped in the webbing, his eyes closed, his face pale. Dacey sobbed. She glanced farther down into the cylinder. The other berth was empty!

Gerald took a breath and groaned, half-opened his eyes and formed silent words with his lips. Dacey tore off her helmet, ignoring the delicious relief of fresh air.

“You’re alive! What happened? Where’s Ralph?”

Gerald tried to remove the webbing, but failed from weakness and the clumsiness of the space suit. The hands unstrapped him and he managed to sit up.

“He stayed,” said Gerald, coughing hoarsely. “He guided the hole. He saved us. He saved me.”

Dacey embraced him and they crouched there for a long time, their faces together, overcome by the profound, warring emotions of happiness and sorrow.

T
he young shepherd herded his animals into a ravine that held a small stream and enough graze for the night. He tapped at them with his herding staff, loudly scolding the laggards, which sent them scrambling away on their stubby legs, bleating in complaint.

The sun had just set, and a full moon would soon rise above the low, grassy hills. It was a good night to be watching the sheep. The moon would shed a welcoming light that made it easier to keep a lookout for lions.

He really needed the light. He had heard the distant roars of hunting lions. And he’d seen vultures circling on the horizon, waiting for scraps of carcass from a kill. He stopped and listened intently. No sound of lions came with the soft, dry breeze.

He shuddered. He remembered once seeing a lion attack a full grown ram from his flock. He’d cowered behind a rock watching the beast’s silent stalk, its soaring leap and its clamping of a death grip on the ram’s throat with its powerful jaws. The ram had jerked and fought, but it had died. The pride had gathered quickly to rip open its belly and devour its body, chunk by chunk. No other animals dared come near during a lion feed, but the night had grown shining eyes all around revealing the presence of waiting scavengers.

That time he’d vomited in fear, trying to remain quiet behind the rock. And when the animals had dragged off the carcass, he’d fled home to tell his father of losing the ram. At first his father had been angry at his cowardice. He should have flung rocks! He should’ve shouted! But then his father forgave him, telling of the lion that had ripped the flesh from his back with its claw as he fled an attack as a young boy.

But tonight the sheep rested peacefully, with no sign of alarm, so the shepherd curled his blanket about him and squatted beneath a scraggly tree, opening his meal pouch. He unwrapped his dinner, a chunk of mutton that his mother had cooked when she made his breakfast. He chewed it with relish. His mother had bought salt, pepper and other seasonings from the market that week, and she was expert at cooking mutton to make it tasty.

After he was done, he bent and cupped up water from the stream with his hands. The stream was nearly dry. The drought had been severe and game had left the area, causing the poor hunting that made the lions bolder. He listened once more for the sounds of lions, although he knew that the stealthy hunters seldom gave themselves away. He had a good defensive position, so he settled back against the tree, scratching his back luxuriously to relieve an itch from a bug bite. That task done, he pulled out the half-finished wooden spoon he was making for his mother and his small wood-carving knife. His older brother had made her a beautiful, ornate spoon, and he was determined to surpass it.

As he carved, his thoughts turned to the pretty, young Leah, on whom he’d had a crush ever since he could remember. Her long brown hair, her big dark eyes, her lovely dimpled cheeks — all made him stammer bashfully each time they met. But she had smiled at him the day before! He pondered its meaning, wondering whether it was just a casual gesture or a sign of something more.

A sound! He brought himself back from his reverie and listened intently. Was that a rustle in the nearby bushes? He made a nervous whimper, held up the puny knife and his staff, and stood peering into the twilight. He held them both straight out toward a clump of bushes that he thought had rustled.

He cursed himself. He should have dragged in chunks of wood and made a fire. But he knew even that wouldn’t stop a hungry lion.

The brush shifted again! Close by! Silently it parted, and he could see the faint gleam of cat eyes. The lioness emerged, flicking its long tail in anticipation of an attack. It held its great head low, its predator gaze intent, its lips curling back to reveal its fangs. The moonlight revealed its smooth coat with rippling muscles beneath.

He knew he was trapped, the dead-end ravine at his back. He shouted at the beast and crouched, holding the puny staff forward, waving his small knife. He realized with desperate fear that he had made a fatal mistake not allowing for the shifting evening breeze that now made his camp upwind of a hunting lion. How easy it had been for the lioness to find him and his flock!

The beast slinked toward him, preparing for a deadly leap, unsheathing its claws as it came. He could see that it was gaunt, had not fed recently. It was ravenous, vicious. It would not merely circle him to get at the sheep, which were now bleating in fright, scrambling against the wall of the ravine. It would attack him!

The animal advanced with predatory confidence that it could evade his puny weapons and rip into his throat to feed on him. He sobbed and prepared for death.

A brilliant light as bright as the sun blinded him. With it came an intense resonant hum pulsating so powerfully that it made his skull vibrate. He screamed and threw himself to the ground, believing that this was somehow the sign of his death. But when he dared to look up, the lion was crouching in fear, too, snarling and slashing at the air with its claws. He managed to peer up through the branches of the tree to see a brilliant sphere floating toward them from the sky.

Roaring furiously, the lion paced back and forth, trying to understand what was happening. The sphere wafted closer to the ground.

“Oh, God! Dear God!” he cried. A white figure emerged from the sphere! A beautiful white figure with a shining face and wings on its back! He cried with joy, standing and forgetting the lion. The beast backed away, confused, tossing its massive head, baring its fangs in impotent defiance.

And then it was gone, loping away into the night.

He prostrated himself in worship, as the shining figure approached and gave him its benediction. He cried in thanks as it stood over him in blessed silence amidst the heavenly singing of the sphere. Oh, God! Two more figures appeared behind it!

After a moment, all three turned and moved back toward the radiant sphere, climbing up into its celestial luminance, disappearing. The sphere floated skyward, joining the full moon as a heavenly consort.

And then it was gone.

He stood and shouted with exultant joy, celebrating the golden light and his savior! An Angel! He had seen a holy Angel! He had seen three! They had come from God to save him!

Now his life would be blessed. He would spend the night saying fervent prayers of thanks for his deliverance. Then as the sun rose, he would herd the animals home and tell his village the wondrous news!

So much was happening! His grandfather had told him of the time long before he was born, when the new star had heralded the birth of the infant who had become their Messiah. And now the Angels!

• • •

Dacey emerged from the vacuum chamber, followed by the two armed security men, and removed her helmet. As she expected, George waited to examine them. She shrugged out of the suit, and sat in her shorts and T-shirt, putting on her sneakers.

“My dear Mrs. Livingstone-Meier, I thought you were only supposed to gather samples,” he scolded as he checked her vital signs.

Dacey shrugged. “That’s what we were doing, doctor. But we happened to intrude on an attack by a lion. Luckily, it didn’t prefer to stick around, and the potential dinner was rescued. Besides, he was such a young boy.”

“Okay, but remember the old Star Trek Prime Directive we decided to observe. We are not supposed to interfere.”

Dacey nodded in embarrassed agreement and asked, “Where’s my own little one?”

“Your son is with his dad and grandpa in the control room. Gerald’s teaching him astrophysics, Calvin, high finance.”

“Well, as long as he learns geology, too.”

She and George strode out across the floor to the open hangar door. They stopped to enjoy the panorama before them. Arrayed across the sprawling desert stood four other hangars, gleaming in the low morning sun. Each harbored a chamber, and each chamber held a hole. The steel skeletons of three more hangars under construction broke the smooth line of the distant horizon, rising against the clear desert sky.

George gestured back toward the vacuum chamber with a deeply puzzled expression. “Y’know, we thought this star system looked so much like ours. Same number of planets. Same positions. And now this planet. Dacey, that was another Earth!”

Dacey Livingstone-Meier looked back into the hangar, pondering the massive steel chamber, a quizzical smile rising on her face.

“Well, George, maybe that was the Earth. Maybe we’re on the other Earth.”

George chuckled. “And he thought you were an angel.”

“I guess I am. I guess we all are now.”