This is a bit more like it. Hasn't changed much, has it?'
'Some things don't. Not very often, at any rate.' Jerry poured two glasses of Pernod. 'You're still fond of this, I hope.'
Captain Brunner extended an arm that glowed with energy. 'You can bet your life. Thanks.' He sipped the Pernod. 'I'm not particularly thirsty, of course, but it's nice just to taste.'
'I know what you mean.'
'Could I have a last look at Catherine, Jerry? Would you mind?'
Jerry felt a pang of jealousy. 'Of course not.'
They walked down the corridor together, entered the morgue, opened Catherine's drawer and looked down at her lovely face. 'As beautiful as ever,' murmured Captain Brunner. 'It's been a long time.'
Jerry patted his shoulder.
'I wish...' Captain Brunner turned away. 'Still, I shouldn't be here at all. Maybe it wasn't wise...' He walked swiftly from the morgue, leaving Jerry to put the drawer back and close the door.
When Jerry returned to the room, Captain Brunner had taken off all his clothes and was sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the console and tapping his knees.
'Can we get it over with now?' said Captain Brunner.
Jerry lifted the box and put it between them. He slid back the slot covering and with his red silk handkerchief he wiped it carefully. Then he stared straight into Captain Brunner's crimson eyes. 'Cheerio. Thanks for everything.'
'Cheerio, Jerry.'
Brunner put his hands together and shoved them quickly into the slot. His lips parted over clenched teeth, his body began to sag, his complexion to dull, his hair to lose its lustre. He breathed more and more slowly until he stopped, but his hands still remained in the slot until his flesh shrank and his skin turned yellow and there was little more than a skeleton lying beside the machine.
Jerry picked the corpse up and carried it in one hand to the morgue, filing it in the spare drawer farthest from Catherine's. Then he went back and inspected the machine.
Brunner had been carrying a huge supply of energy and the machine was charged to capacity, but the energy in itself wouldn't be enough to bring Catherine back for more than a few minutes. Much more energy had to be released and then channelled to give Catherine the few days of life Jerry wanted her to have.
It would require a massive build up and release of energy and this meant speeding up the time cycle (or what was left of it). Only those with their identities firmly established would survive the spin.
He felt lonely as he prepared the machine. But then he forgot his loneliness in his anticipation.
He brought Catherine in and laid her on the bed. He bolted the box to the bench he had assembled. He ran a thin pipe from the box to Catherine's throat and secured it with a piece of surgical tape.
He checked his instruments carefully.
Then he turned on.
Respiration Check
'Mind you, this is in Brisbane, well south in Queensland. Melbourne, 1200 miles further down, gets very variable weather and can get nippy days even in the middle of summer. Shocking place. Unreliable. But 1200 miles to the north, up past the Tropic of Capricorn, lies Cairns — beaches, palm trees. Great Barrier Reef, free coconuts, tropical paradise, the coming tourist Mecca of the Pacific. And still in Queensland, which is over 2l/2 times as big as Texas. How about that? And contains perhaps two million people — how about that? Away from the cities a man can often drive for miles and miles without sighting another human being. Smog? What smog? Color problem? What color problem? Population explosion? Jesus, you have to be kidding!'
I
The stranger on the whole road
Jerry increased the power and checked that all dimensions could be phased in at the right moment. He synched Jimi Hendrix in. He began to sing Third Stone from the Sun very loudly. It was all part of the ritual; all part of the spell.
And it was a tense moment.
He twisted his head to look at Catherine, and set the pointer to Automatic.
Things began to hum.
Swiftly Jerry increased the entropy rate to maximum, preparing himself for the ensuing dissipation.
He began to feel dizzy as he gave the universe a whirl. For all the shielding in his lab, he wondered if he were safe after all. He blinked and could see the leaping cord that led to Catherine's throat, saw Catherine's body tremble.
He adjusted the identity stabilizers and locked in the coordinates. There was now a golden mist swirling everywhere and the box had become very hot When everything was on Full he fell backwards and onto and then through the bed and continued to fall.
He pulled himself together as best he could. It didn't matter about the extent of the dispersal so long as he kept everything in the right order. He began to flood through the universe and then through the multiverse, to the sounds of the Beatles singing A Day in the Lite, throbbing in time to the cosmic pulse. Universe upon universe; dimension upon dimension; they spread out together and the extraneous energy released in the explosion poured into the box and into Catherine's body.
Faster and faster flew the particles and Jerry hung on. Framed against the spreading gases he saw other human shapes and he knew that some of the transmogs were managing to resist the conversion of the universe.
He looked about him and waited as Helter Skelter echoed through the infinite. It was quite a nice trip.
At last maximum diffusion was reached and everything became a little unreal. He felt a moment's concern before the switch clicked over, Jimi Hendrix started to play Are You Experienced?, and things began to come together again.
Soon he would know if the experiment had paid off.
2
A sweet little schooner
Jerry took a deep breath, opened his eyes and saw springs moving. He was under the bed. He rolled out and there was his machine steaming on the bench. Its circuits appeared to have fused. He activated the TV monitors and got the surface.
The towers of the Cathedral were white against the white sky. It was snowing. It was only to be expected. Otherwise Oxford looked pretty much as it had always looked.
With a sigh, he looked down at the bed. Catherine turned uncomfortably in her sleep, her long-fingered hands at her throat.
Jerry ripped off the surgical tape and threw the cord aside. 'Catherine?'
She sniffed and moistened her lips. Then she woke up. 'Jerry? Are you all right?'
'I think so. I had a bit of a turn a moment ago, but I'm fine now. How about you?'
'I thought I was dead.'
'Strictly speaking you are. I managed to work out a way of getting you a few extra days — maybe a week or more — before you finally popped off. I've been experimenting for months.'
'It was nice of you, Jerry.'
'Frank's dead, by the way. He won't be bothering us.'
'Oh good. I was wondering about that.' She got up. They were very much alike. 'You've turned quite pale, Jerry.'
'It's for the best, I suppose.'
Operation Successful
Infant Stars
Each year two or three new stars are born within the Milky Way. They appear to condense out of dark globules of dust. Knowledge of how this happens would reveal much about the way galaxies — and the universe itself — were formed.