And then, after the usual promises to stay in touch more regularly that busy people are always making but seldom keep, they exchanged farewells for the time being. Moments later, Hunt was back in the recliner in the neurocoupler next to the Multiporter at the Quelsang Institute. "Thanks for the ride, VISAR," he said by way of signing off.
"We try to please."
Hunt stretched to take in a yawn, held the pose for a few seconds, and flexed his limbs a few times before getting up and ambling out into the lab area. "Who's still around?" he asked, reverted to avco mode now.
"Only Thurien techs," VISAR replied. "Eesyan left earlier. Josef Sonnebrandt and Madam Xyen Chien have gone on ahead and will see you at dinner with the rest of the Terran group."
"Ah, yes. How long do I have?"
"Little over an hour."
"Does that give me time to get back to the Waldorf to freshen up and change first?"
"No problem. There are some available flyers on the terrace outside the cafeteria area two levels below where you are. Take the door at the back and turn right, follow the wall with the windows in it to the concourse, and step onto the downgoing g-line."
CHAPTER TEN
The venue for dinner was a semi-garden setting of flowers and shrubs, glazed on two sides to look out among the city's heights, which incorporated high-level urban rivers and waterfalls shaped by invisible contours of force. Only the seven Terrans were present, the Thuriens having withdrawn for the evening to leave them some time to themselves. Since this was Thurien, the fare was vegetarian-but delicious. Meat-eating was unknown among Ganymeans, since land carnivores had never evolved on early Minerva. Apparently there were Jevlenese-run places in Thurios that catered to the tastes of visitors of their own kind, but the group from Earth hadn't considered it an especially important matter. The most talkative was Mildred, still enthralled by her recent experiences.
"Do you have any idea how many light-years Christian and Victor and I traveled today?" she said to the others at the table. "VISAR told me it took in a sizeable part of our region of the Galaxy. Yet I feel as fresh as a spring morning in the Alps. And nobody even had to pack a bag! it really is amazing. Can you imagine what it would be like if this kind of thing was extended one day to include the whole Multiverse-you know, all these other realities that I keep hearing about? We'd be able to travel around in history-even all the ones that never happened… Well, they do happen, if I understand it all correctly, but not where we are. Is that it?… Oh, you know what I mean."
"Connecting all the VISARs together," Duncan said in a slow voice. He stared at her, obviously fascinated by the thought. It evidently hadn't occurred to him before. As the junior element of the team, he and Sandy had been delegated the chore of organizing the work space that the Terran group would be using. Things there were going smoothly, which didn't leave much to report, and they were happy to leave the talking to others. Sonnebrandt and Chien were strangely quiet, and Hunt thought he detected some strain between them. Danchekker was absorbed in investigating the Thurien organic preparations. Hunt stared at Mildred, his mind boggling at what she had just said. It hadn't occurred to him either.
She went on, "But the part about it that I don't buy, I'm afraid, is this business about every one of these little jiggly… what do you call them? The changes that can go one way or another."
"Quantum events?" Hunt supplied.
"Yes. I just can't accept that they lead to every reality that could possibly exist. Every combination that all the atoms that make up the universe could conceivably create. That's how you're saying it is, isn't it?"
"It's what the mathematics says," Hunt replied, treating it cautiously. He didn't want to get in a situation of having to contradict.
"Well, I'm not a mathematician," Mildred declared. "So I don't have to believe it,"
Danchekker eyed her curiously for a moment, seemingly thought better of getting involved, and returned his attention to dissecting a bulbous curiosity garnished with a yellow sauce, vaguely suggestive of a purple artichoke. Hunt smiled. "Numbers that are totally beyond anything you can grasp are just something you learn to live with after a while in this business," he told Mildred.
She shook her head. "It's not the numbers. It's the believability. You're telling me that every universe that could possibly physically happen does happen somewhere. But I don't believe it. I don't believe that a universe exists in which, say, my books are printed with all the pages blank, and they're stocked on shelves, and customers buy them. You see what I mean?" She looked around the table, inviting anyone to comment. Nobody did. "Your mathematics might say there's nothing to stop quantum… jiggles from making atoms come together to make a universe like that, but I don't believe it will happen. It just doesn't make any sense. The people in it would never behave that way."
Hunt stared at her while he thought to compose a reply… but then found that he couldn't compose one. She'd obviously missed a point somewhere… but he was unable to pinpoint exactly what. He needed time to think about this, he realized.
"But I've listened to too much of all this today," Mildred went on. "It was fascinating to meet some of the Ganymeans from the Shapieron, but I didn't understand a lot of what you were saying with them either. The most interesting for me were that couple, right at the beginning, in that upside-down superbowl in Vranix. Philosophers and artists," she said, addressing the ones around her who hadn't been there. "They've retired to live on an incredible world of rain forests and mountains that we also saw. They want to discover their inner nature. It seems that Thuriens see that as the main purpose in life. I've always thought it."
Hunt smiled again, amused at Mildred's flights of imagination. "It wasn't a couple," he reminded her. "Just Wyarel. He was waiting for his wife to show up."
Mildred gave him a reproachful look. "What are you taking about, Victor? They were both there. Asayi was charming. Surely you couldn't forget that gold and lilac gown that she was wearing. It was gorgeous!"
Hunt hesitated, not sure how to handle this. The evening seemed determined to get him into an argument over something. "I'm sorry, but you must have made this up somehow. Wyarel was alone at Vranix… He was still waiting for Asayi when we left."
"Victor, I don't understand…"
"Cousin Mildred is correct, Vic," Danchekker said quietly. "We talked with both of them. You complimented Asayi on the gown yourself." He was giving Hunt a worried look, but at the same time shook his head almost imperceptibly, indicating that it was not something to make an issue of now. Hunt sat back in his chair and finished the rest of his meal in relative silence. He was as sure of himself as he had been that morning when Mildred and Danchekker called him at the Multiporter, insisting that he had agreed to accompany them.