On The Surface Tension Read online

  “Well there you have it,” Tracey said to the twins. “You weren’t twins like you are here; you met each other as different versions of yourselves.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Strong. “Do twins have the same fingerprints? This is one way we might be able to prove they are the same person and not twins!”

  The LaGrue twins looked alarmed, then reached for their familiars to look it up.

  “No,” the one on the left answered. “Twins have different fingerprints. It never occurred to us to check this. But were we twins in the other universe?”

  “I…let me walk through this,” Ron said. You were one LaGrue in the original universe, then ran into the other you in the other universe. Then you both came back to our universe, then we had the change into the hybrid one. So I am thinking you could either be twins born here or two separate LaGrues who now have alternate memories.”

  “There appears to be a way to tell,” said the LaGrue on the right. They both took their glasses and made distinct fingerprint impressions with their right index fingers. They compared them.

  “Identical,” said the LaGrues in unison. “So we are two versions of one person, not twins.”

  “Exhibit Two, then,” said Ron.

  “Please continue,” said Tracey, momentarily taken aback.

  “So anyway,” Ron stumbled, trying to recapture his narrative, “you took back over from the Pirate Queen’s life and learned how to…I think, put your consciousness into other things, like either flying pickles or a giant octopus, I don’t remember which. I got away from the sponge’s undersea prison, then we met Strong here and blew up the devil with a nuclear bomb with the help of Cornish Bob, my ancestor. I guess he had a change of heart. Or sides at least. I dropped him back in time so he could get away from Eiffelia too, and then when we all came back to this universe—it turns out that there were no more of the carriers of the gene in that line, just me and Strong here, and we had just left it. So it collapsed into this universe, which is now some kind of unholy combination of the two where we have Sea Tribes, flying cars, and a history where I ended up a rich guy. So there you go. Our adventures in a nutshell.”

  Ron watched Tracey as she mulled this over.

  “It goes without saying how stupid that whole story sounds,” she said.

  “Which supports the truth of it,” said Strong. “I mean, if we were making it up, wouldn’t we make it sound less idiotic?”

  “Ok, then explain this. If you were living in another universe as a game programmer and then had all these wacky adventures, then popped into existence in this universe, what happened to my husband? You know, the ‘you’ who grew up here, married me, ran the company? Knew about this world? What happened to him?”

  Ron and Strong exchanged glances. “I don’t really know. Other than I am Ron Golden and always have been. That Ron either stopped or never was, and your history with him was entirely in this universe line that only came into being when Cornish Bob made it. Maybe my coming here started another new line when the other one collapsed. Maybe that Ron wasn’t a Pangborn carrier.”

  “Ah, if I may interject,” said the LaGrue on the right. “This is quite fascinating even if unsubstantiated, but it may be possible to verify even more beyond our fingerprints. May we ask some questions?”"

  “Shoot,” said Ron.

  “If our ad-hoc fingerprint experiment proves incorrect upon further actual investigation beyond looking at smudged prints on a water glass, it would be easy to chalk this whole story up to insanity or group hysteria between you and Strong, with one exception that defies explanation. The rift generator.”

  “Go on,” said Tracey.

  “Well, think about it,” said the left LaGrue. “We can confirm that there is no current technology or science that would explain the existence of this device. If it in fact does what you profess, it is indeed proof that it comes from another universe or at least a part of ours that is to date unknown.”

  “Have you seen it actually work?” asked Tracey. “He has been keeping pretty close to the vest with the thing, and I have yet to see him pop out of the world. As far as I know, that is all part of his delusion.”

  “As far as we know, that is correct,” said the LaGrue on the right. “But the possibility of the veracity of the claim had been enough to generate our willingness to construct the orbital pod.”

  “The what?” asked Tracey.

  “I would like to hear an update on its preparations before we arrive at the plant to inspect it,” said Ron, rubbing his hands together in his best evil mastermind imitation.

  “The orbital pod is nearly complete,” said the LaGrue twin on the left. “But we still need to use the rift generator to figure out how to attach it to the pod and power it.”

  “Orbital pod?” asked Strong, eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, it sounds geeky, I know,” said Ron, helping himself to a seared scallop stuffed with fig, walnut and Gorgonzola. “Tell him how it works, LaGrue.”

  “Well,” began the twin on the left, as both of them warmed up into their beloved lecture-mode, “from what you describe, the rift generator works either by hand-carrying it, where it pulls everything in a small radius along with it when it jumps, or by installing it in a craft, where the entire hull of the ship can be used, even if it is really big. But without an actual ship that uses a rift generator, we do not know how the effect can translate across the whole ship.”

  “Okay,” nodded Strong.

  “So we will have to make the pod fairly small to make sure the whole thing goes with you when you jump. And until we actually get to examine the artifact you describe as the rift generator, we have only been able to construct the thing based on your reports and a visual examination. Not that we blame you for your caution in letting it out of your control. Next we need to determine where to go. From what you report, the coordinates of Eiffelia’s home planet had been entered by Cornish Bob before he went back into the past and founded this empire. The choice, then, is whether to just jump to the planet surface without a ship or to use a ship and jump into orbit around it. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.”

  “And why are we going to the home planet of this… Coppafeelya?” asked Tracey.

  “Eiffelia. To rescue your kids,” Ron reminded her.

  “Oh, right. My kids. What were their names again?”

  “I would imagine,” said Strong, “that jumping directly to the planet surface would be better because Eiffelia would likely have all sorts of sensors in place to detect things entering orbit around her home planet. Due to that big war she’s in.”

  “True,” agreed the right LaGrue, “until you realize that she may have chosen a water planet to live on, and Ron may well materialize right in the middle of an ocean somewhere. And even with gillsuits it might be weeks before they found land anywhere. Even if there is land.”

  “That would be...well, wet anyway,” Strong grunted.

  “So hence the orbital pod. We had to make it big enough to live out of for long enough to do some scouting, airtight and pressurized. And of course shielded as best we can from detection. We have chosen to modify a standard car, like the one we are in now, as a starting platform. Once the decision is made to land and where the landing will be, the entry craft will be deployed. Once on the planet surface, the only way back is using the rift generator—either to go back to the orbital pod or to come directly back here. Making the craft capable of blasting back out of the gravity well into orbit would be too costly in size and weight. The entry craft is one-way only. From the surface you will have to just jump directly back here using the rift generator alone, just making sure Tracey’s kids are with you.”

  “And more difficult to determine,” said the left LaGrue, with a widening grin, “is how the generator knows where Cambria is now and not just when Cornish Bob entered the coordinates a year ago.”

  “Uh, yeah, how does it know?” asked Ron.

  The right LaGrue shook his head. “How indeed? We h
ave no idea. I mean, we are on the Earth, which is rotating at around 1,040 miles per hour. Then the Earth is revolving around the sun at almost 19 miles per second. The whole solar system is moving through the galaxy at 155 miles per second, and the Milky Way galaxy is moving relative to our local cluster at 185 miles per second. How the hell does that box calculate one point in spacetime to another over years, let alone five minutes? That is another reason why we need some time to poke around on the actual machine, not just the gold ball portion that powers it.”

  “You…need to hold it?” asked Ron.

  The LaGrues, as one, reached out their right hands. Ron hesitated, but pulled out the rift generator box.

  “Wait, what am I thinking? We have the blueprints for you to make one of your own!”

  The LaGrues were puzzled. “Where did you get such a thing?

  “From my Pop! Before he died he was working on notes, and it turned out that they were plans for a rift generator. There were angels helping him, ‘music of the spheres,’ he said. He told me about it when I was down in Eiffelia’s prison.”

  “Your father was in the prison at the bottom of the trench? How did he get there from our universe if he didn’t go with us? Did he perfect a rift generator before he died?”

  “Uh, no. He told me about it after he died.”

  The LaGrues squinted in puzzlement.

  “You know…as a ghost. But I was insane at the time. So I guess we don’t have any plans, unless he made them here.”

  “I strongly doubt that,” said Tracey. “Your father devoted himself entirely to the company and died when you were quite young.”

  The LaGrues extended their hands again.

  Ron slid placed the rift generator on the table. Before the LaGrues could reach out for it, the flying yacht suddenly lurched towards one of the sloping rock walls of the mountains that the ship was navigating through. The generator slipped off the table to Ron’s feet. They gasped and grasped the arms of the chairs they were sitting in, and heard a crash from the tray that the Steward had dropped. The ship righted itself immediately.

  “What the hell?” Tracey spat.

  Ron snatched the generator back up, concerned that it had been damaged. It looked intact. He placed it back on the table with exaggerated care.

  “I’ll need that back tomorrow,” he said, finger wagging. “I plan to go to another universe tomorrow to finally and definitively prove things to Tracey.”

  Both of the LaGrues reached for the rift generator, but the one on the left was quicker. He pocketed it with a knowing glance at the other, Ron noted with mild unease.

  “Really?” asked Strong. “Where you planning on going?”

  “Open up the main screen,” Ron motioned to the LaGrues. The LaGrue retreived the rift generator from his pocket and, after a moment of inspecting the buttons, activated it. The main screen, when not activated for navigation, showed the nearby universe lines like branches on a tree, the nearer ones large and thick, branching off until the fringe ones popped into and out of existence like tiny flashes.

  “You see that one?” Ron pointed, “That really fat one, almost as big as ours? The one that has a larger number of little tiny branches, popping in and out like crazy?”

  They all peered at the nearby branch, almost like a parallel trunk.

  “I scrolled down, which I guess corresponds to ‘back in time,’ and saw that this other one has run right alongside of ours for a long time. Thousands of years. And sometimes it wraps around our own line, and often even touches it. I’m curious. I want to go see what that one is all about.”

  “Maybe it is the other side of the mirror, exactly like ours but in reverse,” said Strong.

  “Maybe,” said Ron, with a shrug. “But I intend to find out tomorrow. It will be a good way to try out the orbital pod too.”

  “I shouldn’t be going alone,” Ron mused. You want to go?”

  “Me?” asked Strong.

  “Sure. Unless you’d rather not.”

  “Uh, sure, I’ll go,” said Strong, not overly enthusiastic. “But it is just a quick jump to see what it is like over there, then we come right back?”

  “Sure,” said Ron.

  “What if we both go and it turns out that there are no more Pangborn carriers in this universe either?”

  “Well that would be bad,” Ron said. “But how could that be, if it was in existence before we collapsed the other one?”

  “Well, maybe the reason it ended up as a weird mix is because there wasn’t another universe left, and we had to create a whole new one when we jumped out of the other one.”

  “Oh come on. There has to be at least one. Somewhere. You just haven’t found one yet.”

  “I know. And I’ve been looking all over.”

  “It’s a big universe,” Ron argued. “And besides, it didn’t disappear when I left it before, and you weren’t in it then either. So even if it does collapse, maybe it will go back to the one where I was a game programmer and she worked at the Aquarium.”

  “I don’t like this,” Tracey protested.

  “Really? A few minutes ago, you thought this whole thing was pure insanity. It is just a little jump. One hour. Five minutes. You all need proof that this thing works in order to prove my story. What better way?”

  Tracey scowled.

  A white-uniformed First Mate appeared at the head of the table from the control cabin. “We have arrived at the assembly facility,” he announced.

  “What was that lurch?” Tracey asked him.

  “I don’t know ma’am. Sudden wind gust perhaps.”

  “Ok LaGrues, show us how this thing works,” said Ron, watching out the picture window as the flying yacht floated down onto an expanse of concrete that bordered a compound of industrial buildings nestled in a forested valley in the North Cascades. The yacht landed with a barely perceptible jolt, and they filed down the ramp to meet Smithson who was dressed in a black wool pullover and watch cap against the chill air.

  “I trust your trip was productive, Mr. Golden,” he said with a short bow, falling in beside them as they walked towards the assembly building. It felt good to be out of the drizzle of the Sound area and up in the mountains.

  “Indeed it was, my loyal bodyguard,” said Ron with an exaggerated flourish. “For we have shown that the twins are not indeed twins but two identical persons, and thus from different universes. And we have also found another way to prove to Tracey and the LaGrues that we are from the alternate universe by way of demonstrating the rift generator.”

  “That is good, but I could have told you that a long time ago.”

  “Wait, Smithson,” said Tracey, “don’t tell me you buy into all this alternate universe stuff too!”

  “Ma’am, I do. But only because of my training with the Trident. And with the proper training that you will soon receive, you will be able to remember your partial training and the journeys between the world lines as well. You need to resume your training in dreaming in order to take up your role as a recessive gene holder bodyguard in order to replace me.”

  Tracey regarded him blankly. “Oooooohhh-kay.”

  “And to that end,” continued Smithson, “I have taken the liberty of setting up an appointment for you to meet with another of our order whom you met while visiting that other universe, a gentleman named Maurice Ring.”

  “Oh, I remember Maurice!” interrupted Ron. “He was with the Sea Tribes over there.” Ron did a classic double take. “Wait a minute, wasn’t he burned at the stake? Yes, he was, I watched it happen on TV! How can he be here?”

  “How indeed?” asked Smithson.

  “Or maybe he is just this universe’s version.”

  They entered the assembly building through a metal door, avoiding the larger roll-up door that was sized to allow large craft to enter and exit. They assembled in a reception area lined with painted portraits of the company’s presidents, from Cornish Bob down through Ron’s father, who looked little like the jazz bassist he kne
w and more like a haggard, hawk-eyed industrialist.

  “I’ll never get over that portrait. That ain’t Pop,” Ron muttered.

  “It was him here,” answered Smithson. “Things are not the same in this world that Cornish Bob built. Golden Industries rules the planet.”

  “Hardly,” countered a LaGrue. “There are other corporations giving us a run for our money.”

  “Please show us the pod,” said Ron, changing the subject.

  They left the reception area and entered the assembly floor. Groups of workers in yellow coveralls and hardhats stood idly by amid forklifts, scaffolding, robots and other machinery. At their approach, Ron heard a Foreman hiss at the workers, “Get busy, the owner is here!”

  The workers exploded into activity, except for an older man with a gray beard who appeared to have trouble standing. He sat back down with a huff.

  “All right, old-timer!” proclaimed the foreman, over-loudly for the apparent benefit of the entourage of management. “No slacking off here. Pack your things and get out of here—you’re fired.”

  “Come on, Foreman Powers,” pleaded a younger man with angular features. “He’s just winded.”

  Tracey and the LaGrues stopped dead in their tracks and turned their attention on the scene, while Ron almost plowed into their backs. The entire tableau was frozen in silence for long seconds.

  “You just got yourself fired too, Jones. For insubordination,” growled Foreman Powers.

  “Wait, you just fired the guy for sticking up for his coworker?” asked Ron. The foreman’s face reddened.

  “Good work, Foreman…Powers, is it? Carry on,” said Tracey sharply. “Ron, please come with me.”

  She walked crisply back to the reception area, with Ron in her wake.

  “What was that all about?” she said, eyes narrowed.

  “I was about to ask you the same question!” Ron retorted.

  “You can’t go around undermining the staffing decisions of your front-line managers. The Salarymen keep order over the Workers to keep the axles greased and the gears oiled. I don’t know how things work in whatever universe you are from, but here we need to stay competitive with other corporations. We pay the lowest wages we can at whatever level we can and get the most work that we can at every level in order to maximize profits. You start undermining the calls of your people, the workforce degrades, the best labor goes elsewhere, the Salarymen go elsewhere, and you are no longer the top company. You have to be ruthless. There are scores of good Workers in line who would kill at the chance to replace that old man and that mouthy little buddy of his.”