The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

  Hilda said, “Somewhere between a shake and a blink. You all know I can’t do better than that.”

  Dr. Jake declined to express an opinion. “I did not watch. As usual I was backing up the spoken orders by setting the vernier controls. The penultimate order, being a scram, aborted the run and then we went home. I did not set the verniers, so nothing more appears on my tapes. Sorry.”

  Deety’s testimony was almost as skimpy. “The scram order preceded the explosion by an interval of the order of one millisecond.” On being pressed she refused to say that it was “of the close order.” Burroughs persisted about it and mentioned her “built-in clock.” Deety stuck out her tongue at him.

  The young man (an adolescent, really) called Pete said, “I vote ‘insufficient data.’ We need to place a rosette of sneakies around the site and find out what happened before we can decide how close to the tick we can set the rescue.”

  Jane Libby asked, “After the scram, was the nova bomb already visible from the new point of sight, or did it appear after Gay’s translation? Either way, how does that fit the timing at Checkpoint Beta? Query: Is it experimentally established that irrelevant transportation is instantaneous, totally nil in transit time…or is it an assumption based on incomplete evidence and empirical success?”

  Deety said, “Jay Ell, what are you getting at, dear?” I was bracketed by these two; they talked across me, obviously did not expect opinions from me—although I had been a witness.

  “We are trying to establish the optimum tick for evacuating THQ, are we not?”

  “Are we? Why not pre-enact evacuation, time it, then start the evacuation at minus H-hours plus thirty minutes? That gets everyone back here with gobs of time to spare.”

  “Deety, you thereby set up a paradox that leaves you with your head jammed up your arse,” Burroughs commented.

  “Pop! That’s rude, crude, and vulgar.”

  “But correct, my darling stupid daughter. Now think your way out of the trap.”

  “Easy. I was speaking just of the danger end, not the safe end. We finish the rescue with thirty minutes to spare, then move to any empty space in any convenient universe—say that orbit around Mars we have used so often—then turn around and reenter this universe at a here-now tick one minute after we leave for the rescue.”

  “Clumsy but effective.”

  “I like simple programming, I do.”

  “So do I. But doesn’t anyone see anything wrong with taking whatever length of time we need?”

  “Hell, yes!”

  “Well, Archie?”

  “Because it’s booby-trapped, probability point nine nine seven plus. How it is booby-trapped, depends. Who’s our antagonist? The Beast? The Galactic Overlord? Boskone? Or is it direct action by another history-changing group, treaty or no treaty? Or—don’t laugh—are we up against an Author this time? Our timing must depend on our tactics, and our tactics must fit our antagonist. So we must wait until those big brains next door tell us whom we are fighting.”

  “No,” said Libby Long.

  “What’s wrong. Mama?” the lad asked.

  “We will set up all the possible combinations, dear, and solve them simultaneously, then plug the appropriate numerical answer into the scenario the fabulists give us.”

  “No, Lib, you would still be betting a couple hundred lives that the big brains are right,” Lazarus objected. “They may not be. We’ll stay right here and find a safe answer if it takes ten years. Ladies and gentlemen, these are our colleagues we are talking about. They are not expendable. Damn it, find that right answer!”

  I sat there feeling silly, slowly getting it through my head that they were seriously discussing how to rescue all the people—and records and instruments—in a habitat I had seen vaporized an hour ago. And that they could just as easily rescue the habitat itself—move it out of that space before it was bombed. I heard them discuss how to do that, how to time it. But they rejected that solution. That habitat must have cost countless billions of crowns…yet they rejected saving it. No, no! The antagonist, be he the Beast of the Apocalypse, or Galactic Overlord (I choked!), or whatever—he must be allowed to think that he had succeeded; he must not suspect that the nest was empty, the bird flown.

  I felt a remembered sensation in my left leg: Lord Pixel was again challenging the vertical front face. Furthermore he was driving in a fresh set of pitons, so I reached down and set him on the table. “Pixel, how did you get here?”

  “Blert!”

  “You certainly did. Out into the garden, through the garden, through the west wing—or did you go around?—across the lawn, up into a sealed spaceship—or was the ramp down? As may be, how did you find me?”

  “Blert.”

  “He’s Schrödinger’s cat,” Jane Libby said.

  “Then Schrödinger had better come get him, before he gets himself lost. Or hurt.”

  “No, no. Pixel doesn’t belong to Schrödinger; Pixel hasn’t selected his human yet—unless he has picked you?”

  “No. I don’t think so. Well, maybe.”

  “I think he has. I saw him climb into your lap this noon. And now he has come a long way to find you. I think you’ve been tapped. Are you cat people?”

  “Oh, yes! If Hazel lets me keep him.”

  “She will; she’s cat people.”

  “I hope so.” Pixel was sitting up on my scratch pad, washing his face, and doing a commendable job in scrubbing back of his ears. “Pixel, am I your people?”

  He stopped washing long enough to say emphatically, “Blert!”

  “All right, it’s a deal. Recruit pay and allowances. Medical benefits. Every second Wednesday afternoon off, subject to good behavior. Jane Libby, what’s this about Schrödinger? How did he get in here? Tell him Pixel is bespoke.”

  “Schrödinger isn’t here; he’s been dead for a double dozen centuries. He was one of that group of ancient German natural philosophers who were so brilliantly wrong about everything they studied—Schrödinger and Einstein and Heisenberg and—Or were these philosophers in your universe? I know they were not in all parts of the omniverse, but parallel history is not my strong point.” She smiled apologetically. “I guess number theory is the only thing I’m really good at. But I’m a fair cook.”

  “How are your back rubs?”

  “I’m the best back rubber in Boondock!”

  “You’re wasting your time. Jay Ell,” Deety put in. “Hazel still walks him on a leash.”

  “But, Aunt Deety, I wasn’t trying to bed him.”

  “You weren’t? Then quit wasting his time. Back away and let me at him. Richard, are you susceptible to married women? We’re all married.”

  “Uh—Fifth Amendment!”

  “I understood you but they’ve never heard of it in Boondock. These German mathematicians—Not in your world?”

  “Let’s see if we’re speaking of the same ones. Erwin Schrödinger, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg—”

  “That’s the crowd. They were fond of what they called ‘thought experiments’—as if anything could be learned that way. Theologians! Jane Libby was about to tell you about ‘Schrödinger’s Cat,’ a thought experiment that was supposed to say something about reality. Jay Ell?”

  “It was a silly business, sir. Shut a cat in a box. Control whether or not he is killed by decay of an isotope with a half life of one hour. At the end of the hour, is the cat alive or dead? Schrödinger contended that, because of the statistical probabilities in what they thought of as science in those days, the cat was neither alive nor dead until somebody opened the box; it existed instead as a cloud of probabilities.” Jane Libby shrugged, producing amazing dynamic curves.

  “Blert?”

  “Did anyone think to ask the cat?”

  “Blasphemy,” said Deety. “Richard, this is ‘Science,’ German philosopher style. You are not supposed to resort to anything so crass. Anyhow Pixel got the tag ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ hung on him because he walks through walls.”
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  “How does he do that?”

  Jane Libby answered, “It’s impossible but he’s so young he doesn’t know it’s impossible, so he does it anyhow. So there is never any knowing where he will show up. I think he was hunting for you. Dora?”

  “Need something. Jay Ell?” the ship answered.

  “Did you happen to notice how this kitten came aboard?”

  “I notice everything. He didn’t bother with the gangway; he came right through my skin. It tickled. Is he hungry?”

  “Probably.”

  “I’ll fix him something. Is he old enough for solid food?”

  “Yes. But no lumps. Baby food.”

  “Chop chop.”

  “Ladies,” I said. “Jane Libby used the words ‘brilliantly wrong’ about these German physicists. Surely you don’t include Albert Einstein under that heading?”

  “I surely do!” Deety answered emphatically.

  “I’m amazed. In my world Einstein wears a halo.”

  “In my world they burn him in effigy. Albert Einstein was a pacifist but not an honest one. When his own ox was gored, he forgot all about his pacifist principles and used his political influence to start the project that produced the first city-killer bomb. His theoretical work was never much and most of it has turned out to be fallacious. But he will live in infamy as the pacifist politician turned killer. I despise him!”

  XXVI

  “Success lies in achieving the top of the food chain.”

  J. HARSHAW 1906-

  About then the baby food for Pixel appeared, in a saucer that rose up out of the table, I believe. But I can’t swear to it, as it simply appeared. Feeding the baby cat gave me a moment to think. The vehemence of Deety’s statement had surprised me. Those German physicists lived and worked in the first half of the twentieth century—not too long ago by my notions of history, but if what these Tertians wanted me to believe were true—unlikely!—a truly long time to them. “A double dozen centuries—” Jane Libby had said.

  How could this easygoing young lady. Dr. Deety, be so emotional about long-dead German pundits? I know of only one event two thousand years or more in the past that people get emotional about…and that one never happened.

  I had begun to make a list in my mind of things that did not add up—the claimed age of Lazarus—that long list of deadly diseases I was alleged to have suffered from—half a dozen weird events in Luna—Most especially Tertius itself. Was this indeed a strange planet far distant from Earth in both space and time? Or was it a Potemkin village on a South Pacific island? Or even Southern California? I had not seen the city called Boondock (one million people, more or less, so they said); I had seen maybe fifty people all told. Did the others exist only as memorized background for dialog extemporized to fit Potemkin roles?

  (Watch it, Richard! You’re getting paranoid again.)

  How much Lethe does it take to addle the brain?

  “Deety, you seem to feel strongly about Dr. Einstein.”

  “I have reason to!”

  “But he lived so long ago. ‘A double dozen centuries’ Jane Libby put it.”

  “That long ago to her. Not to me!”

  Dr. Burroughs spoke up. “Colonel Campbell, I think you may be assuming that we are native Tertians. We are not. We are refugees from the twentieth century, just as you are. By ‘we’ I mean myself and Hilda and Zebadiah and my daughter—my daughter Deety, not my daughter Jane Libby. Jay Ell was born here.”

  “You slid home. Pop,” Deety told him.

  “But just barely,” Jane Libby added.

  “But he did touch home plate. You can’t disown him for that, dear.”

  “I don’t want to. As pops go, he’s tolerable.”

  I did not try to sort this out; I was gathering a conviction that all Tertians were certifiably insane by Iowa standards. “Dr. Burroughs, I am not from the twentieth century. I was born in Iowa in 2133.”

  “Near enough, at this distance. Different time lines, I believe—divergent universes—but you and I speak much the same accent, dialect, and vocabulary; the cusp that placed you in one world and me in another must lie not far back in our pasts. Who reached the Moon first and what year?”

  “Neil Armstrong, 1969.”

  “Oh, that world. You’ve had your troubles. But so have we. For us the first Lunar landing was in 1952, HMAAFS Pink Koala, Ballox O’Malley commanding.” Dr. Burroughs looked up and around. “Yes, Lazarus? Something troubling you? Fleas? Hives?”

  “If you and your daughters do not want to work, I suggest that you go chat elsewhere. Next door, perhaps; the fabulists and the historians don’t mind chasing rabbits. Colonel Campbell, I think that you will find it convenient to feed your cat elsewhere, too. I suggest the ’fresher just clockwise of my lounge.”

  Deety said, “Oh, rats, Lazarus! You are a bad-tempered, grumpy old man. There is no way to disturb a mathematician who is working. Look at Lib there—You could set off a firecracker under her right now and she wouldn’t blink.” Deety stood up. “Woodie boy, you need a fresh rejuvenation; you’re getting old-age cranky. Come on. Jay Ell.”

  Dr. Burroughs stood up, bowed, and said, “If you will excuse me?” and left without looking at Lazarus. There was a feeling of edgy tempers, of a need to place distance between two old bulls before they tangled.

  Or three—I should be included. Chucking me out over the kitten was uncalled for; I found myself angry with Lazarus for a third time in one day. I had not brought the kitten in, and it was his own computer that had suggested feeding it there and had supplied the means.

  I stood up, gathered Pixel in one hand, picked up his dish with my other hand, then found I needed to hang my cane over one arm to move. Jane Libby saw my problem, took the kitten, and cuddled it to her. I followed her, leaning on my cane and carrying the dish of baby food. I avoided looking at Lazarus.

  In passing through the lounge we picked up Hazel and Hilda. Hazel waved to me, patted the seat by her; I shook my head and kept going, whereupon she got up and came with us. Hilda followed her. We did not disturb the session in the lounge. Dr. Harshaw was lecturing; we were barely noticed.

  One delightful, decadent. Sybaritic aspect of life in Tertius was the quality of their refreshers—if such a mundane term can apply. Without trying to describe any of the furnishings strange to me, let me define a rich Tertian’s luxury refresher (and Lazarus was, I feel certain, the richest man there)—define it in terms of function:

  Start with your favorite pub or saloon.

  Add a Finnish sauna.

  And how about bathing Japanese style?

  Do you enjoy a hot tub? With or without an agitator?

  Was the ice-cream soda fountain a part of your youth?

  Do you like company when you bathe?

  Let’s put a well-stocked snack bar (hot or cold) in easy reach.

  Do you enjoy music? Three-dee? Feelies? Books and magazines and tapes?

  Exercise? Massage? Sun lamps? Scented breezes?

  Soft, warm places to curl up and nap, alone or in company?

  Take all of the above, mix well, and install in a large, beautiful, well-lighted room. That list still does not describe the social refresher off Lazarus Long’s cabin, as it omits the most important feature:

  Dora.

  If there was any whim that ship’s computer could not satisfy, I was not there long enough to discover it.

  I did not sample at once any of these luxuries; I had a duty to a cat. I sat down at a medium-size round table, the sort four friends might use for a drink, placed the kitten’s saucer thereon, reached for the kitten. Instead Jane Ell sat down and placed Pixel at the food. Burroughs joined us.

  The kitten sniffed at the food he had been greedily eating minutes earlier, then gave an inspired bit of acting showing Jane Ell that he was horrified at her action in offering him something unfit for cats. Jane Ell said, “Dora, I think he’s thirsty.”

  “Name it. But bear in mind that the management does not permi
t me to serve alcoholic beverages to minors other than for purposes of seduction.”

  “Quit showing off, Dora; Colonel Campbell might believe you. Let’s offer the baby both water and whole milk, separately. And at blood temperature, which for kittens is—”

  “Thirty-eight point eight degrees. Coming up pronto.”

  Hilda called out from a plunge—no, a lounging tub, I guess—a few meters away, “Jay Ell! Come soak, dear. Deety has some swell gossip.”

  “Uh—” The girl seemed torn. “Colonel Campbell, will you take care of Pixel now? He likes to lick it off your finger. It’s the only way to get him to drink enough.”

  “I’ll do it your way.”

  The kitten did like to drink that way…although it seemed possible that I would die of old age before I got as much as ten milliliters down him. But the kitten was in no hurry. Hazel got out of the lounging tub and joined us, dripping. I kissed her cautiously and said, “You’re getting that chair soaking wet.”

  “Won’t hurt the chair. What’s this about Lazarus acting up again?”

  “That mother!”

  “In his case that’s merely descriptive. What happened?”

  “Uh—Maybe I reacted too strongly. Better ask Dr. Burroughs.”

  “Jacob?”

  “No, Richard did not overreact. Lazarus went out of his way to be offensively difficult with all four of us. In the first place, Lazarus has no business trying to supervise the mathematics section; he is not a mathematician in any professional sense and is not qualified to supervise. In the second place each of us in the section knows the quirks of the others; we never interfere with each other’s work. But Lazarus kicked me out, and Deety, and Jane Libby, for daring to talk a few moments about something not on his agenda…totally unaware, or at least uncaring, that I and both my daughters use a two-level mode of meditation. Hazel, I kept my temper. Truly I did, dear. You would have been proud of me.”

  “I’m always proud of you, Jacob. I would not have kept my temper. In dealing with Lazarus you should take a tip from Sir Winston Churchill and step on his toes until he apologizes. Lazarus doesn’t appreciate good manners. But what did he do to Richard?”