The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (97 page)

I bring this matter up because, with my little device – so simple, so easy so flexible – I have vastly augmented the load upon our poor primeval brain, and for a fact many persons
find the instant transition from one locale to another unsettling, and even actively unpleasant
.

Duray stood on the porch of the cabin, under a vivid green canopy of sunlit foliage. The air was soft and warm and smelled of moist vegetation. He stood listening. The mutter
of the surf came to his ears and from a far distance a single birdcall.

Duray stepped down to the ground and followed the path under tall palm trees to a riverbank. A few yards downstream, beside a rough pier of poles and planks, floated a white-and-blue ketch,
sails hoisted and distended to a gentle breeze. On the deck stood Alan Robertson, on the point of casting off the mooring lines. Duray hailed him; Alan Robertson turned in surprise and vexation,
which vanished when he recognized Duray. “Hello, Gil, glad you’re here! For a moment I thought it might be someone to bother me. Jump aboard; you’re just in time for a
sail.”

Duray somberly joined Alan Robertson on the boat. “I’m afraid I am here to bother you.”

“Oh?” Alan Robertson raised his eyebrows in instant solicitude. He was a man of no great height, thin, nervously active. Wisps of rumpled white hair fell over his forehead; mild blue
eyes inspected Duray with concern, all thoughts of sailing forgotten. “What in the world has happened?”

“I wish I knew. If it were something I could handle myself, I wouldn’t bother you.”

“Don’t worry about me; there’s all the time in the world for sailing. Now tell me what’s happened.”

“I can’t get through to Home. All the passways are closed off. Why and how I have no idea. Elizabeth and the girls are out there alone; at least I think they’re
out
there
.”

Alan Robertson rubbed his chin. “What an odd business! I can certainly understand your agitation . . . You think Elizabeth closed the passways?”

“It’s unreasonable – but there’s no one else.”

Alan Robertson turned Duray a shrewd, kindly glance. “No little family upsets? Nothing to cause her despair and anguish?”

“Absolutely nothing. I’ve tried to reason things out, but I draw a blank. I thought that maybe someone – a man had gone through to visit her and decided to take over, but if
this were the case, why did she come to the school for the girls? That possibility is out. A secret love affair? Possible but so damn unlikely. Since she wants to keep me off the planet, her only
motive could be to protect me or herself or the girls from danger of some sort. Again this means that another person is concerned in the matter. Who? How? Why? I spoke to Bob. He claims to know
nothing about the situation, but he wants me to come to his damned Rumfuddle, and he hints very strongly that Elizabeth will be on hand. I can’t prove a thing against Bob, but I suspect him.
He’s always had a taste for odd jokes.”

Alan Robertson gave a lugubrious nod. “I won’t deny that.” He sat down in the cockpit and stared off across the water. “Bob has a complicated sense of humor, but
he’d hardly close you away from your world . . . I hardly think that your family is in actual danger, but of course we can’t take chances. The possibility exists that Bob is not
responsible, that something uglier is afoot.” He jumped to his feet. “Our obvious first step is to use the master orifice in the vault.” He looked a shade regretfully toward the
ocean. “My little sail can wait . . . A lovely world this: not fully cognate with Earth – a cousin, so to speak. The fauna and flora are roughly contemporary except for man. The
hominids have never developed.”

The two men returned up the path, Alan Robertson chatting lightheartedly:

“Thousands and thousands of worlds I’ve visited, and looked into even more, but do you know I’ve never hit upon a good system of classification. There are exact cognates
– of course we’re never sure exactly
how
exact they are. These cases are relatively simple but then the problems begin . . . Bah! I don’t think about such things anymore. I
know that when I keep all the determinates at zero, the cognates appear. Over intellectualizing is the bane of this and every other era. Show me a man who deals only with abstraction, and
I’ll show you the dead futile end of evolution.” Alan Robertson chuckled. “If I could control the machine tightly enough to produce real cognates, our troubles would be over . . .
Much confusion, of course. I might step through into the cognate world immediately as a true cognate Alan Robertson steps through into our world, with net effect of zero. An amazing business,
really; I never tire of it . . .”

They returned to the transit room of the mountain lodge. Ernest appeared almost instantly. Duray suspected he had been watching through the passway.

Alan Robertson said briskly, “We’ll be busy for an hour or two, Ernest. Gilbert is having difficulties, and we’ve got to set things straight.”

Ernest nodded somewhat grudgingly, or so it seemed to Duray. “The progress report on the Ohio Plan has arrived. Nothing particularly urgent.”

“Thank you, Ernest, I’ll see to it later. Come along, Gilbert; let’s get to the bottom of this affair.” They went to door No. 1 and passed through to the Utilis hub. Alan
Robertson led the way to a small green door with a three-dial coded lock, which he opened with a flourish. “Very well, in we go.” He carefully locked the door behind them, and they
walked the length of a short hall. “A shame that I must be so cautious,” said Alan Robertson. “You’d be astonished at the outrageous requests otherwise sensible people make
of me. I sometimes become exasperated . . . Well, it’s understandable, I suppose.”

At the end of the hall Alan Robertson worked the locking dials of a red door. “This way, Gilbert; you’ve been through before.” They stepped through a passway into a hall that
opened into a circular concrete chamber fifty feet in diameter, located, so Duray knew, deep under the Mad Dog Mountains of the Mojave Desert. Eight halls extended away into the rock; each hall
communicated with twelve aisles. The center of the chamber was occupied by a circular desk twenty feet in diameter; here six clerks in white smocks worked at computers and collating machines. In
accordance with their instructions they gave Alan Robertson neither recognition nor greeting.

Alan Robertson went up to the desk, at which signal the chief clerk, a solemn young man bald as an egg, came forward. “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, Harry. Find me the index for ‘Gilbert Duray,’ on my personal list.”

The clerk bowed smartly. He went to an instrument and ran his fingers over a bank of keys; the instrument ejected a card that Harry handed to Alan Robertson. “There you are,
sir.”

Alan Robertson showed the card to Duray, who saw the code: “4:8:10/6:13:29.”

“That’s your world,” said Alan Robertson. “We’ll soon learn how the land lies. This way, to Radiant four.” He led the way down the hall, turned into the aisle
numbered “8,” and proceeded to Stack 10. “Shelf six,” said Alan Robertson. He checked the card. “Drawer thirteen . . . here we are.” He drew forth the drawer and
ran his fingers along the tabs. “Item twenty-nine. This should be Home.” He brought forth a metal frame four inches square and held it up to his eyes. He frowned in disbelief. “We
don’t have anything here either.” He turned to Duray a glance of dismay. “This is a serious situation!”

“It’s no more than I expected,” said Duray tonelessly.

“All this demands some careful thought.” Alan Robertson clicked his tongue in vexation. “Tst, tst, tst.” He examined the identification plaque at the top of the frame.
“Four: eight: ten/six: thirteen: twenty-nine,” he read. “There seems to be no question of error.” He squinted carefully at the numbers, hesitated, then slowly replaced the
frame. On second thought he took the frame forth once more. “Come along, Gilbert,” said Alan Robertson. “We’ll have a cup of coffee and think this matter out.”

The two returned to the central chamber, where Alan Robertson gave the empty frame into the custody of Harry the clerk. “Check the records, if you please,” said Alan Robertson.
“I want to know how many passways were pinched off the master.”

Harry manipulated the buttons of his computer. “Three only, Mr. Robertson.”

“Three passways and the master – four in all?”

“That’s right, sir.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

From
Memoirs and Reflections:

I recognized the possibility of many cruel abuses, but the good so outweighed the bad that I thrust aside all thought of secrecy and exclusivity. I consider myself not Alan
Robertson but, like Prometheus, an archetype of Man, and my discovery must serve all men
.

But caution, caution, caution!

I sorted out my ideas. I myself coveted the amplitude of a private, personal world; such a yearning was not ignoble, I decided. Why should not everyone have the same if he
so desired, since the supply was limitless? Think of it! The wealth and beauty of an entire world: mountains and plains, forests and flowers, ocean cliffs and crashing seas, winds and clouds
– all beyond value, yet worth no more than a few seconds of effort and a few watts of energy
.

I became troubled by a new idea. Would everyone desert old Earth and leave it a vile junk-heap? I found the concepts intolerable . . . I exchange access to a world for three to six years of
remedial toil, depending upon occupancy
.

A lounge overlooked the central chamber. Alan Robertson gestured Duray to a seat and drew two mugs of coffee from a dispenser. Settling in a chair, he turned his eyes up to the
ceiling. “We must collect our thoughts. The circumstances are somewhat unusual; still, I have lived with unusual circumstances for almost fifty years.

“So then: the situation. We have verified that there are only four passways to Home. These four passways are closed, though we must accept Bob’s word in regard to your downtown
locker. If this is truly the case, if Elizabeth and the girls are still on Home, you will never see them again.”

“Bob is mixed up in this business. I could swear to nothing, but – ”

Alan Robertson held up his hand. “I will talk to Bob; this is the obvious first step.” He rose to his feet and went to the telephone in the corner of the lounge. Duray joined him.
Alan spoke into the screen. “Get me Robert Robertson’s apartment in San Francisco.”

The screen glowed white. Bob’s voice came from the speaker. “Sorry, I’m not at home. I have gone out to my world Fancy, and I cannot be reached. Call back in a week, unless
your business is urgent, in which case call back in a month.”

“Mmph,” said Alan Robertson, returning to his seat. “Bob is sometimes a trifle too flippant. A man with an under-extended intellect . . .” He drummed his fingers on the
arm of his chair. “Tomorrow night is his party? What does he call it? A Rumfuddle?”

“Some such nonsense. Why does he want me? I’m a dead dog; I’d rather be home building a fence.”

“Perhaps you had better plan to attend the party.”

“That means, submit to his extortion.”

“Do you want to see your wife and family again?”

“Naturally. But whatever he has in mind won’t be for my benefit, or Elizabeth’s.”

“You’re probably right there. I’ve heard one or two unsavory tales regarding the Rumfuddlers . . . The fact remains that the passways are closed. All four of them.”

Duray’s voice became harsh. “Can’t you open a new orifice for us?”

Alan Robertson gave his head a sad shake. “I can tune the machine very finely. I can code accurately for the ‘Home’ class of worlds and as closely as necessary approximate a
particular world-state. But at each setting, no matter how fine the tuning, we encounter an infinite number of worlds. In practice, inaccuracies in the machine, backlash, the gross size of
electrons, the very difference between one electron and another, make it difficult to tune with absolute precision. So even if we tuned exactly to the ‘Home’ class, the probability of
opening into your particular Home is one of an infinite number: in short, negligible.”

Duray stared off across the chamber. “Is it possible that space once entered might tend to open more easily a second time?”

Alan Robertson smiled. “As to that, I can’t say. I suspect not, but I really know so little. I see no reason why it should be so.”

“If we can open into a world precisely cognate, I can at least learn why the passways are closed.”

Alan Robertson sat up in his chair. “Here is a valid point. Perhaps we can accomplish something in this regard.” He glanced humorously sidewise at Duray. “On the other hand
– consider this situation. We create access into a ‘Home’ almost exactly cognate to your own – so nearly identical that the difference is not readily apparent. You find
there an Elizabeth, a Dolly, a Joan, and an Ellen indistinguishable from your own, and a Gilbert marooned on Earth. You might even convince yourself that this is your very own Home.”

“I’d know the difference,” said Duray shortly, but Alan Robertson seemed not to hear.

“Think of it! An infinite number of Homes isolated from Earth, an infinite number of Elizabeths, Dollys, Joans, and Ellens marooned, an infinite number of Gilbert Durays trying to regain
access . . . The sum effect might be a wholesale reshuffling of families, with everyone more or less good-natured about the situation. I wonder if this could be Bob’s idea of a joke to share
with his Rumfuddlers.”

Duray looked sharply at Alan Robertson, wondering whether the man was serious. “It doesn’t sound funny and I wouldn’t be very good-natured.”

“Of course not,” said Alan Robertson hastily. “An afterthought – in rather poor taste, I’m afraid.”

“In any event, Bob hinted that Elizabeth would be at the damned Rumfuddle. If that’s the case, she must have closed the passways from this side.”

“A possibility,” Alan Robertson conceded, “but unreasonable. Why should she seal you away from Home?”

“I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.”