The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (96 page)

Two contemporary developments forced me down from my “ivory castle.” First: the fearful overcrowding of the planet and the prospect of worse to come. Cancer already was an
affliction of the past; head diseases were under control; I feared that in another ten years immortality might be a practical reality for many of us, with a consequent augmentation of population
pressure
.

Secondly, the theoretical work done upon “black holes” and “white holes” suggested that matter compacted in a “black hole” broke through a barrier to spew
forth from a “white hole” in another universe. I calculated pressures and considered the self-focusing magnetic sheaths, cones, and whorls with which I was experimenting. Through their
innate properties these entities constricted themselves to apexes of a cross section indistinguishable from a geometric point. What if two or more cones (I asked myself) could be arranged in contra
position to produce an equilibrium? In this condition charged particles must be accelerated to near light-speed and at the mutual focus constricted and impinged together. The pressures thus
created, though of small scale, would be far in excess of those characteristic of the “black holes”: to unknown effect
.

I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call a set of absurd contradictions is one of my
secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? This is my
other secret
.

Duray marched back to the Montclair West depot in a state of angry puzzlement. There were four passways to Home, of which two were closed. The third was located in his San
Francisco locker: the “front door,” so to speak. The last and the original orifice was cased, filed, and indexed in Alan Robertson’s vault.

Duray tried to deal with the problem in rational terms. The girls would never tamper with the passways. As for Elizabeth, no more than the girls would she consider such an act. At least Duray
could imagine no reason that would so urge or impel her. Elizabeth, like himself, a foster child, was a beautiful, passionate woman, tall, dark-haired, with lustrous dark eyes and a wide mouth that
tended to curve in an endearingly crooked grin. She was also responsible, loyal, careful, industrious; she loved her family and Riverview Manor. The theory of erotic intrigue seemed to Duray as
incredible as the fact of the closed passways. Though for a fact, Elizabeth was prone to wayward and incomprehensible moods. Suppose Elizabeth had received a visitor who for some sane or insane
purpose had forced her to close the passway? . . . Duray shook his head in frustration, like a harassed bull. The matter no doubt had some simple cause. Or on the other hand, Duray reflected, the
cause might be complex and intricate. The thought, by some obscure connection, brought before him the image of his nominal foster father, Alan Robertson’s nephew, Bob Robertson. Duray gave
his head a nod of gloomy asseveration, as if to confirm a fact he long ago should have suspected. He went to the phone booth and called Bob Robertson’s apartment in San Francisco. The screen
glowed white and an instant later displayed Bob Robertson’s alert, clean, and handsome face. “Good afternoon, Gil. Glad you called; I’ve been anxious to get in touch with
you.”

Duray became warier than ever. “How so?”

“Nothing serious, or so I hope. I dropped by your locker to leave off some books that I promised Elizabeth, and I noticed through the glass that your passway is closed. Collapsed.
Useless.”

“Strange,” said Duray. “Very strange indeed. I can’t understand it. Can you?”

“No . . . not really.”

Duray thought he detected a subtlety of intonation. His eyes narrowed in concentration. “The passway at my rig was closed. The passway at the girls’ school was closed. Now you tell
me that the downtown passway is closed.”

Bob Robertson grinned. “That’s a pretty broad hint, I would say. Did you and Elizabeth have a row?”

“No.”

Bob Robertson rubbed his long aristocratic chin. “A mystery. There’s probably some very ordinary explanation.”

“Or some very extraordinary explanation.”

“True. Nowadays a person can’t rule out anything. By the way, tomorrow night is the Rumfuddle, and I expect both you and Elizabeth to be on hand.”

“As I recall,” said Duray, “I’ve already declined the invitation.” The Rumfuddlers were a group of Bob’s cronies. Duray suspected that their activities were
not altogether wholesome. “Excuse me; I’ve got to find an open passway, or Elizabeth and the kids are marooned.”

“Try Alan,” said Bob. “He’ll have the original in his vault.”

Duray gave a curt nod. “I don’t like to bother him, but that’s my last hope.”

“Let me know what happens,” said Bob Robertson. “And if you’re at loose ends, don’t forget the Rumfuddle tomorrow night. I mentioned the matter to Elizabeth, and
she said she’d be sure to attend.”

“Indeed. And when did you consult Elizabeth?”

“A day or so ago. Don’t look so damnably gothic, my boy.”

“I’m wondering if there’s a connection between your invitation and the closed passways. I happen to know that Elizabeth doesn’t care for your parties.”

Bob Robertson laughed with easy good grace. “Reflect a moment. Two events occur. I invite you and wife Elizabeth to the Rumfuddle. This is event one. Your passways close up, which is event
two. By a feat of structured absurdity you equate the two and blame me. Now is that fair?”

“You call it ‘structured absurdity,’ ” said Duray. “I call it instinct.”

Bob Robertson laughed again. “You’ll have to do better than that. Consult Alan, and if for some reason he can’t help you, come to the Rumfuddle. We’ll rack our brains and
either solve your problem or come up with new and better ones.” He gave a cheery nod, and before Duray could roar an angry expostulation, the screen faded.

Duray stood glowering at the screen, convinced that Bob Robertson knew much more about the closed passways than he admitted. Duray went to sit on a bench . . . If Elizabeth had closed him away
from Home, her reasons must have been compelling indeed. But unless she intended to isolate herself permanently from Earth, she would leave at least one passway ajar, and this must be the master
orifice in Alan Robertson’s vault.

Duray rose to his feet, somewhat heavily, and stood a moment, head bent and shoulders hunched. He gave a surly grunt and returned to the phone booth, where he called a number known to not more
than a dozen persons.

The screen glowed white while the person at the other end of the line scrutinized his face . . . The screen cleared, revealing a round pale face from which pale blue eyes stared forth with a
passionless intensity. “Hello, Ernest,” said Duray. “Is Alan busy at the moment?”

“I don’t think he’s doing anything particular – except resting.”

Ernest gave the last two words a meaningful emphasis. “I’ve got some problems,” said Duray. “What’s the best way to get in touch with him?”

“You’d better come up here. The code is changed. It’s MHF now.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Back in the “California” hub on Utilis, Duray went into a side chamber lined with private lockers, numbered and variously marked with symbols, names, colored flags, or not marked at
all. Duray went to Locker 122, and, ignoring the keyhole, set the code lock to the letters MHF. The door opened; Duray stepped into the locker and through the passway to the High Sierra
headquarters of Alan Robertson.

From
Memoirs and Reflections:

If one basic axiom controls the cosmos, it must be this:

In a situation of infinity every possible condition occurs, not once, but an infinite number of times
.

There is no mathematical nor logical limit to the number of dimensions. Our perceptions assure us of three only, but many indications suggest otherwise: parapsychic occurrences of a hundred
varieties, the “white holes,” the seemingly finite state of our own universe, which, by corollary, asserts the existence of others
.

Hence, when I stepped behind the lead slab and first touched the button, I felt confident of success: failure would have surprised me!

But (and here lay my misgivings) what sort of success might I achieve?

Suppose I opened a hole into the interplanetary vacuum?

The chances of this were very good indeed: I surrounded the machine in a strong membrane to prevent the air of Earth from rushing off into the void
.

Suppose I discovered a condition totally beyond imagination?

My imagination yielded no safeguards
.

I proceeded to press the button
.

Duray stepped out into a grotto under damp granite walls. Sunlight poured into the opening from a dark-blue sky. This was Alan Robertson’s link to the outside world; like
many other persons, he disliked a passway opening directly into his home. A path led fifty yards across bare granite mountainside to the lodge. To the west spread a great vista of diminishing
ridges, valleys, and hazy blue air; to the east rose a pair of granite crags, with snow caught in the saddle between. Alan Robertson’s lodge was built just below the timberline, beside a
small lake fringed with tall dark firs. The lodge was built of rounded granite stones, with a wooden porch across the front; at each end rose a massive chimney.

Duray had visited the lodge on many occasions; as a boy he had scaled both of the crags behind the house, to look wonderingly off across the stillness, which on old Earth had a poignant
breathing quality different from the uninhabited solitudes of worlds such as Home.

Ernest came to the door: a middle-aged man with an ingenuous face, small white hands, and soft, damp, mouse-colored hair. Ernest disliked the lodge, the wilderness, and solitude in general; he
nevertheless would have suffered tortures before relinquishing his post as subaltern to Alan Robertson. Ernest and Duray were almost antipodal in outlook. Ernest thought Duray brusque, indelicate,
a trifle coarse, and probably not disinclined to violence as an argumentative adjunct. Duray considered Ernest, when he thought of him at all, as the kind of man who takes two bites out of a
cherry. Ernest had never married; he showed no interest in women, and Duray, as a boy, had often fretted at Ernest’s overcautious restrictions.

In particular Ernest resented Duray’s free and easy access to Alan Robertson. The power to restrict or admit those countless persons who demanded Alan Robertson’s attention was
Ernest’s most cherished perquisite, and Duray denied him the use of it by simply ignoring Ernest and all his regulations. Ernest had never complained to Alan Robertson for fear of discovering
that Duray’s influence exceeded his own. A wary truce existed between the two, each conceding the other his privileges.

Ernest performed a polite greeting and admitted Duray into the lodge. Duray looked around the interior, which had not changed during his lifetime: varnished plank floors with red, black, and
white Navaho rugs, massive pine furniture with leather cushions, a few shelves of books, a half-dozen pewter mugs on the mantle over the big fireplace – a room almost ostentatiously bare of
souvenirs and mementos. Duray turned back to Ernest: “Whereabouts is Alan?”

“On his boat.”

“With guests?”

“No,” said Ernest, with a faint sniff of disapproval. “He’s alone, quite alone.”

“How long has he been gone?”

“He just went through an hour ago. I doubt if he’s left the dock yet. What is your problem, if I may ask?”

“The passways to my world are closed. All three. There’s only one left, in the vault.”

Ernest arched his flexible eyebrows. “Who closed them?”

“I don’t know. Elizabeth and the girls are alone, so far as I know.”

“Extraordinary,” said Ernest in a flat metallic voice. “Well, then, come along.” He led the way down a hall to a back room. With his hand on the knob, Ernest paused and
looked back over his shoulder. “Did you mention the matter to anyone? Robert, for instance?”

“Yes,” said Duray curtly, “I did. Why do you ask?”

Ernest hesitated a fraction of a second. “No particular reason. Robert occasionally has a somewhat misplaced sense of humor, he and his Rumfuddlers.” He spoke the word with a hiss of
distaste.

Duray said nothing of his own suspicions. Ernest opened the door: they entered a large room illuminated by a skylight. The only furnishing was a rug on the varnished floor. Into each wall opened
four doors. Ernest went to one of these doors, pulled it open, and made a resigned gesture. “You’ll probably find Alan at the dock.”

Duray looked into the interior of a rude hut with palm-frond walls, resting on a platform of poles. Through the doorway he saw a path leading under sunlit green foliage toward a strip of white
beach. Surf sparkled below a layer of dark-blue ocean and a glimpse of the sky. Duray hesitated, rendered wary by the events of the morning. Anyone and everyone was suspect, even Ernest, who now
gave a quiet sniff of contemptuous amusement. Through the foliage Duray glimpsed a spread of sail; he stepped through the passway.

From
Memoirs and Reflections:

Man is a creature whose evolutionary environment has been the open air. His nerves, muscles, and senses have developed across three million years in intimate contiguity with
natural earth, crude stone, live wood, wind, and rain. Now this creature is suddenly – on the geologic scale, instantaneously – shifted to an unnatural environment of metal and glass,
plastic and plywood, to which his psychic substrata lack all compatibility. The wonder is not that we have so much mental instability but so little. Add to this the weird noises, electrical
pleasures, bizarre colors, synthetic foods, abstract entertainments! We should congratulate ourselves on our durability
.