"No."
"Are they all simultaneous to ours?"
"Not all, no."
"Therefore some universes exist at an earlier time?"
"Yes. Actually, since they are infinite in number, the universes exist at all earlier times."
Stern thought for a moment. "And you are telling us that ITC has the technology to travel to these other universes."
"Yes," Gordon said. "That's what I'm telling you."
"How?"
"We make wormhole connections in quantum foam."
"You mean Wheeler foam? Subatomic fluctuations of space-time?"
"Yes."
"But that's impossible."
Gordon smiled. "You'll see for yourself, soon enough."
"We will? What do you mean?" Marek said.
"I thought you understood," Gordon said. "Professor Johnston is in the fourteenth century. We want you to go back there, to get him out."
No one spoke. The flight attendant pushed a button and all the windows in the cabin slid closed at the same time, blocking out the sunshine. She went around the cabin, putting sheets and blankets on the couches, making them up as beds. Beside each she placed large padded headphones.
"We're going back?" Chris Hughes said. "How?"
"It will be easier just to show you," Gordon said. He handed them each a small cellophane packet of pills. "Right now, I want you to take these."
"What are they?" Chris said.
"Three kinds of sedative," he said. "Then I want you all to lie down and listen on the headphones. Sleep if you like. The flight's only ten hours, so you won't absorb very much, anyway. But at least you'll get used to the language and pronunciation."
"What language?" Chris said, taking his pills.
"Old English, and Middle French."
Marek said, "I already know those languages."
"I doubt you know correct pronunciation. Wear the headphones."
"But nobody knows the correct pronunciation," Marek said. As soon as he said it, he caught himself.
"I think you will find," Gordon said, "that we know."
Chris lay down on one bed. He pulled up the blanket and slipped the headphones over his ears. At least they blotted out the sound of the jet.
These pills must be strong, he thought, because he suddenly felt very relaxed. He couldn't keep his eyes open. He listened as a tape began to play. A voice said, "Take a deep breath. Imagine you are in a beautiful warm garden. Everything is familiar and comforting to you. Directly ahead, you see a door going down to the basement. You open the door. You know the basement well, because it is your basement. You begin to walk down the stone steps, into the warm and comforting basement. With each step, you hear voices. You find them pleasant to listen to, easy to listen to."
Then male and female voices began to alternate.
"Give my hat. Yiff may mean haht."
"Here is your hat. Hair baye thynhatt."
"Thank you. Grah mersy."
"You are welcome. Ayepray thee."
The sentences became longer. Soon Chris found it difficult to follow them.
"I am cold. I would rather have a coat. Ayeam chillingcold, ee wolld leifer half a coot."
Chris was drifting gently, imperceptibly, to sleep, with the sensation that he was still walking down a flight of stairs, deeper and deeper into a cavernous, echoing, comforting place. He was peaceful, though the last two sentences he remembered gave a tinge of concern:
"Prepare to fight. Dicht theeselv to ficht."
"Where is my sword? Whar beest mee swearde?"
But then he exhaled, and slept.
BLACK ROCK
"Risk everything, or gain
nothing."
GEOFFREY DE CHARNY, 1358
The night was cold and the sky filled with stars as they stepped off the airplane onto the wet runway. To the east, Marek saw the dark outlines of mesas beneath low-hanging clouds. A Land Cruiser was waiting off to one side.
Soon they were driving down a highway, dense forest on both sides of the road. "Where exactly are we?" Marek said.
"About an hour north of Albuquerque," Gordon said. "The nearest town is Black Rock. That's where our research facility is."
"Looks like the middle of nowhere," Marek said.
"Only at night. Actually, there are fifteen high-tech research companies in Black Rock. And of course, Sandia is just down the road. Los Alamos is about an hour away. Farther away, White Sands, all that."
They continued down the road for several more miles. They came to a prominent green-and-white highway sign that read ITC BLACK ROCK LABORATORY. The Land Cruiser turned right, heading up a twisting road into the forested hills.
From the back seat, Stern said, "You told us before that you can connect to other universes."
"Yes."
"Through quantum foam."
"That's right."
"But that doesn't make any sense," Stern said.
"Why? What is quantum foam?" Kate said, stifling a yawn.
"It's a remnant of the birth of the universe," Stern said. He explained that the universe had begun as a single, very dense pinpoint of matter. Then, eighteen billion years ago, it exploded outward from that pinpoint - in what was known as the big bang.
"After the explosion, the universe expanded as a sphere. Except it wasn't an absolutely perfect sphere. Inside the sphere, the universe wasn't absolutely homogeneous - which is why we now have galaxies clumped and clustered irregularly in the universe, instead of being uniformly distributed. Anyway, the point is, the expanding sphere had tiny, tiny imperfections in it. And the imperfections never got ironed out. They're still a part of the universe."