The Heisenberg Corollary Read online

  The aide looked like he had been hit upside the head.

  “That’s a lot of possible outcomes,” he said.

  Harbinger snatched up the percentile die and reunited it with its counterpart.

  “A lot, to the power of a slew,” Harbinger agreed, “times mc2.”

  “Would they all be like ours?”

  “Not necessarily,” Narissa answered. “Yes, many should be, if the quantum theory holds. But there will also certainly be others with radically different physical laws, where matter and energy behave in ways that we can’t even begin to predict.”

  “And how do we know this isn’t some hat trick?” the general asked.

  “The insertion module and more than half the Frogger’s innards were made right here at XARPA,” Zeke explained. “By your subcontractors, and under your careful scrutiny. If that’s not enough, I don’t know what will convince you short of a more—expansive field test.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “The next logical step is a larger delivery vehicle—with more robust data collection than we’ve been able to do here.” Zeke hesitated on the next idea. “Ideally, we would place a human in the loop.”

  “Meaning—”

  “Meaning,” Narissa chimed in, “that we clamp this bad boy to the hull of a ship and send it out with a crew.”

  “Even discussing that, however,” Augie added, “would be premature, at best. Foolhardy at worst.”

  “Why?” Bowers asked.

  “We’re only at the beginning of our work,” Zeke said. “Yes, this is a breakthrough, but without a workable, onboard, programmable actuator, any exploratory mission would get tossed around the multiverse like a pinball with no way of getting back.”

  “And most likely,” Narissa quipped, “wind up wherever Carter and Burroughs’ gyroscopes all went.”

  The general burst into a hearty laugh that rippled throughout the group.

  “And all my lost socks,” Harbinger added.

  The residual ionic aura behind the Frogger suddenly surged. The laughter stalled in Zeke’s throat when he saw it.

  “What the—” Augie said, startled. He was cut off by the sharp blare of an alarm.

  “Contamination!” Harbinger yelled.

  The aura’s surge expanded and formed a hard red circle over the insertion module. Everyone stood in mute surprise, staring. By the time it occurred to Zeke to evacuate the lab it was already too late.

  A monstrous shape emerged from the circle of light, launching into the air over the module and landing with a metallic clang on the proving room floor.

  It looked like a dinosaur—if dinosaurs were made of old, rusty radiator parts strapped together with bridge cable. The red, oxide-coated creature gnashed a set of teeth that looked like a case of tetanus waiting to happen and stared at Zeke with baleful red eyes. At least, he could only assume those were its eyes.

  It roared, and Zeke’s blood ran cold.

  The team scrambled back as the general’s attendants ran for the doors. But they had already been sealed against contamination. No one was getting out.

  The general pulled his sidearm and brought it to bear on the intruder, but the monster was too fast. It whipped out with a rusty, spring-loaded claw and seized Bowers by the neck. It squeezed, and Zeke heard the sound of the general’s cracking bones over the screaming alarms.

  It tossed the general’s body aside and swung its mighty head, scanning the room. But it made no move against any of the rest of them. With a creaking growl, it turned. It fixed its attention on the module’s open hatch—and on the Frogger.

  The creature raised one of its hideous claws. As it swept its fingers in front of it, the air was etched with vivid red and orange patterns. The Frogger’s indicator lights flashed as if in response.

  At just that moment, another shape came flying through the ionic aura. A distinctly human shape. It wore a short cloak and hood over what looked like ultra-light body armor, equipped with weapons and technological artifacts like Zeke had never seen before.

  The figure flipped through the air over the monster’s head and landed gracefully behind it. The monster turned and growled, and the armored figure drew a sword.

  A sword? Zeke suddenly felt like he was hallucinating.

  But then there was a sword in the monster’s hand. A huge, broad-bladed weapon that could cut down a sequoia with a single stroke. It swung at the newcomer. The figure swung to block, and Zeke expected the overwhelming might of the monster to send the other one sailing into the far wall. But somehow the armored figure held his own and attacked.

  The red lines the monster had drawn still hovered in the air over the Frogger, but now the monster gestured towards them and they reorganized into a series of energetic projectiles sailing at the figure. The figure turned and parried each projectile with his blade and went after the monster again. But the monster had turned again towards the Frogger and continued its gesticulations in the air over it.

  The figure sheathed their sword and drew a small dagger. Its blade burst into a bright yellow wedge of flame as the newcomer leapt onto the monster’s back and scrambled up a spine that looked like a pile of old exhaust manifolds. The monster spun and grasped at the figure, but the figure stopped at just the point where he was beyond the reach of the creature’s rusty claws.

  He raised the flaming yellow blade and brought it down against the beast’s backplates. It roared in protest and spun wildly around the lab, but it could not reach him. The monster changed tactics and leapt backward towards the wall, but the figure reached out with his other hand and released a column of energy that repelled both of them back to the center of the room.

  The figure kept working his blade into the metallic backplates, but the creature did not forget its apparent objective. It scrambled violently again for the Frogger.

  Finally, the figure pierced the creature’s thick metal hide, and he pulled back the oxide-coated plates to reveal innards that looked more mechanical than biological, but somehow both. The figure extinguished the yellow blade and suddenly he had another weapon in his hand. A small, hand-held blaster. He thrust the blaster into the opening and a burst of white light flashed. The creature howled and staggered as the figure let go and jumped free.

  Some kind of chain reaction ruptured the creature’s exoskeleton at each flex point, and it collapsed under its own weight as the hot plasma consumed its innards. Soon all that was left was a rusty, jagged pile of shrapnel dissolving into a red-hot puddle of molten metal coated with a bubbling, ashen crust of slag.

  Even with the contamination alarm still blaring, the room seemed silent. The figure stood and regarded his opponent’s remains briefly, then he holstered the blaster. He turned to Zeke and the others.

  Zeke couldn’t see his face. In the shadow of the hood, all he saw were the twin reflections from a set of circular goggles over the shadowy suggestion of a gaunt and rugged scowl. The lenses bore directly on Zeke.

  “You have five minutes, Traverser,” the figure said. “Get your team out now.” Then he turned, leapt back into the air as if gravity didn’t exist, and plunged back through the ionic aura and disappeared.

  “What the blazes was that?” Augie shouted, uncharacteristically shaken.

  Harbinger stumbled across to a wall console and shut off the alarm. The late general’s team was still scrambling by the door as Harbinger punched another switch to release the power lock. The doors slid open and they ran for the lift, leaving Zeke and his team standing in stunned silence. The aura over the insertion module was gone. The Frogger sat on its articulated platform, its indicator lights blinking quietly.

  “It followed the unit,” Narissa said, her voice shaking. “It pierced the membrane and followed the unit.”

  “Something we can’t do,” Harbinger added. “And it was after the Frogger.”

  “That other one,” Zeke said. “The guy who killed it. Did any of you get a clear look at him?”

  The other three
shook their heads in the negative.

  “What should we do?” Narissa asked.

  “Get XARPA Command on the comm,” Zeke said. “Report a mishap—and a fatality.”

  “Two,” Harbinger said, pointing at the smoking, slagged and rusty remains.

  “One thing at a time,” Zeke said. “Nobody get near that. Let ExoBio deal with it.”

  “The gent in the cloak,” Augie said. “He knew your name, Zeke.”

  “No,” Zeke responded. “He said ‘Traverser’—not Travers.”

  “I didn’t get the impression he misspoke,” Augie reiterated. “He was here with the express purpose of stopping this creature from acquiring our device. And he knew you.”

  The image of the reflections from the stranger’s goggles, like a pair of headlights in the dark, lingered in Zeke’s mind.

  Traverser?

  “That’s impossible,” Zeke said. “How could he possibly know me?”

  “Impossible?” Harbinger asked. “In this universe, maybe.” No one there needed the coder to finish the thought.

  “He said five minutes,” Narissa said. “Five minutes till what?”

  As if in response, a deep shudder ran through the proving chamber. Out on the station, a new alarm began to wail.

  “That, my friends,” Augie announced, shucking his lab coat and grabbing his trench coat, “is the general evacuation call. I suggest we abide it.”

  “Pack up the Frogger,” Zeke ordered. “Let’s get off this spin dryer and get back home. We’ll resume sorting this out once we’re downside.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Narissa said. She and Augie got to work disengaging the Frogger from its mounting. While Harbinger collected and packed the project data cubes, they secured the Frogger in a large equipment case. Zeke grabbed his valise, and Augie toggled the antigravity on the case.

  “Ready?” Zeke asked.

  “Ready, boss,” Harbinger confirmed, and they headed out in the direction of the main concourse.

  When they came out of the lift, the whole platform was in chaos as hundreds of scientists, researchers, and civilian and defense contractors scrambled to get themselves and whatever they could salvage of their work into the closest available transport. Zeke couldn’t imagine what could have been happening to cause such a panic. But when they turned the corner onto the main concourse it started to make sense—terrifying, panic-inducing sense.

  Outside the big observation windows of the concourse, the proving platforms forming the exterior of the XARPA cylinder were on fire. Burning wreckage and bodies were scattered from explosively decompressing research modules like confetti from a party favor.

  And beyond that, a huge slab of brown metal floated into view, occluding the stars.

  “What the hells?” Harbinger said.

  The metal surface drifted upward, exposing navigation lights, armaments, and cargo ports along its massive flank. It came into full view as it slowly swung around to bring the great broad snout of its bow to bear on the station.

  “That’s bigger than any—” Zeke started. “Who flies ships that big?”

  “Nobody,” Augie said. “I can’t see any markings.”

  “Look,” Narissa said pointing down to one open end of the cylinder where a battery of defensive guns took aim at the intruder. But it was too late. Two ravening beams of hungry red force lashed out from the incoming ship and struck the end of the central spine.

  The explosion rocked the entire structure, sending Zeke and the others sprawling as people screamed, alarms screeched and airlocks slammed shut. Through the viewports, Zeke watched another beam from the ship strike the NavCom module, instantly vaporizing it.

  The entire structure lurched as the explosions threw the cylinder’s spin out of equilibrium, and the artificial gravity wavered, sending people and equipment sailing in every direction. The AG kicked back on, and Zeke stumbled to the walkway, the contents of his valise scattering around him. He grabbed his old notebook and scrambled to his feet. Out on the orbiting cylinder panels, the interrupted centrifugal force wreaked structural havoc.

  Augie and Narissa hung on to each other, trying to hold their balance and maintain their hold on the antigrav case, and Harbinger clawed his way to a support strut but was thrown clear when another explosion rocked the platform. A dozen meters down the concourse, another pressure door slammed shut.

  Zeke pulled himself up and caught Augie by the sleeve of his trench coat, pulling him and Narissa along.

  “Come on!” he yelled over the chaos. “AG and pressure are gonna give! We gotta get out!”

  “The lifeboats!” Narissa shouted. “Where’s the closest?”

  “This way!” Harbinger shouted, stumbling back the way they had come. A flashing light signaled that one of the regularly placed lifeboats was only fifteen meters away. The hatch was open and people were struggling to get in. Zeke knew the lifeboats could hold fifty or more—if they could get to the hatch they would be safe.

  But another blast tore through the structure, and this time, the pressurized windows down the walkway began to blow out, sucking people and equipment into open space. The sudden depressurization sent all four of them skidding towards the breach. The decompression sucked the notebook from Zeke’s hand, and the antigrav case was pulled out of Augie’s desperate grasp. Zeke let go of the book and snagged the case by the handle as it flew past him, but his old notebook sailed towards the breach. Another set of pressure doors closed, and Zeke saw the book flapping like a bird into the vacuum and out of sight. They were alone in the segment of concourse between the pressure doors, and effectively trapped, the lifeboats on the other side.

  Next, the lights and the AG went out, plunging them into a swirling, nightmare darkness punctuated only by fire and the emergency lights. Zeke was thrown against the ceiling and lost grip on the case. Augie pushed off from a spot against the wall and caught it as it tumbled end over end toward the pressure door.

  Zeke looked out past the viewport again. The explosions on the cylinder platforms and the docking arms were getting closer. The attacking ship in the distance was swinging around for another strike.

  They would not survive another pass.

  Then he remembered. He kicked away from the wall to the viewport on the other side.

  At the end of the docking arm he and Augie had strolled by barely two hours before, the gray outline of a ship that he hoped was still there.

  The Friendly Card. The ship shuddered at the end of the arm. The docking couplers looked to have seized in the power failure.

  And the hatchway to its docking arm was in their section.

  “This way!” he yelled to the others as he tore open the panel to engage the hatch’s manual override. Augie struggled to wrangle the case, and Harbinger bounced off a wall and his percentile dice spilled from his pocket. He kicked off the wall to catch them and rebounded to catch up.

  Narissa pulled herself up to the sealed hatch and pounded on the dock’s comm switch. It lit up.

  “Four to board!” she shouted into the pickup.

  A voice came back, tinny and indistinct.

  “We can’t disengage!”

  Zeke leaned in towards the speaker. “We’ll get you loose! But we gotta get aboard. Now!”

  The speaker went silent for an agonizing few seconds.

  “I’ll open the inner hatch,” the voice said.

  The magnetic lock on the hatch released with a loud click, and Zeke spun the wheel lock and opened the hatchway.

  “Go!”

  Zeke waved the others into the darkened boarding tube and followed, not bothering to close the hatch behind them. As they made their way the ten meters to the other end of the docking arm, the inner hatch unsealed and pulled open. A silhouetted figure in a pressure suit held out a gloved hand.

  Augie held onto the case and pushed Narissa ahead of him with his free arm. The figure pulled her in and reached for Augie next. Harbinger followed, then Zeke pulled himself up to t
he hatch.

  The suited figure turned, and through the faceplate, Zeke recognized the wide blue eyes of Dr. Vibeke Helstrom.

  They locked gazes for a tense half second or so, Zeke wondering madly if she was going to slam the door on him. The sound of shattering borosilicate replayed in his head against the noise of the mayhem around them.

  She grabbed him by a gloved fistful of shirt and pulled him inside.

  Three

  “Where’s your coupling actuator?” Augie asked Vibeke once the hatch was sealed. The stars outside formed the semblance of a meteor shower moving counter to the ship’s uncontrolled spin.

  Vibeke released the latch on her helmet and yanked it free.

  “Ask my pilot!”

  “Where is your pilot?” Zeke asked.

  She pointed to the airlock. “The first hit shorted our primary and secondary redundants. He was blown out when both hatches released. I just finished re-pressurizing the cabin.”

  Augie secured the Frogger in a storage compartment and pushed himself sternward. “I’ll find it! Fire up the jets and be ready to punch it as soon as we’re clear of the dock!”

  “Me?” she said incredulously. “I’m just here to test the NeuralNav—I’m not a pilot!”

  “I’m rated to fly this class,” Zeke said, “or at least something like it.” He turned to Augie. “Get us loose!”

  “Chuck—with me,” Augie said and the two disappeared into the hold.

  Narissa yanked open a panel by the airlock.

  “I’ll lock this down,” she said, “so no one else has to make an unscheduled EVA.”

  Zeke turned to Vibeke. “Let’s go—I’ll need you in the co-pilot’s seat whether you’re rated for it or not.”

  The two turned and pushed themselves up to the flight deck.

  Zeke pulled himself into the pilot’s seat and strapped in, and Vibeke came in behind and slid in next to him as he took a quick stock of the controls and gauges. Beyond the main viewport, the attacking vessel fired another volley—this one frightening close to their docking arm.