The Map of Time Collection, page 131
According to the lots they had drawn, the chairman invited Dodgson to open the debate. Before speaking, he took a sip of water. His old professor had never been one of those ruddy types brimming with energy and enthusiasm, but Wells could see how old age had blurred his features, giving him an air of painful fragility. He looked incapable of frightening a mouse. Finally, Dodgson balanced his glass on the lectern, gave the usual formalities, and launched into his speech:
“Since receiving the dreadful news that everything we love is destined to die, a single question has been floating in the air: Is it possible for us to engage the powers of science and flee this lost world for another? I say yes, dear audience, it most emphatically is. And I am here this evening to tell you how.”
Dodgson was talking in a calm voice in order not to set off his stammer, doubtless on the advice of his speech therapist. That would render his discourse a little subdued, Wells reflected, whilst he himself could deliver his speech unhampered, thus endowing it with that theatrical vehemence that so easily roused the masses. Wells let the old man continue, waiting for the most opportune moment to interrupt him.
“As many of you know, on the evening when, in this very auditorium, following a memorable debate, it was established that the universe was dying, I was busy trying to find ways of injecting methane into Mars’s atmosphere. My intention was to produce an artificial greenhouse effect on the red planet, raising its temperature and melting its surface to create lakes and rivers in preparation for a first human colony, so that if a meteorite struck Earth or we experienced another ice age we would have somewhere safe to go. Needless to say, the news about the end of the world changed the course of my research, and even my life. I forgot all about Mars, which was doomed like the rest of the universe, and, along with every conscientious scientist, I devoted myself to investigating ways of emigrating to a younger universe whose fate was not hanging in the balance. Ever since the illustrious Newton enlightened our minds”—at this the audience thundered “Hurrah for Newton!”—“we have all known that ours isn’t the only universe, but, as countless studies and experiments have shown, it is simply another bubble in the ocean of infinity. Any law or equation that contradicts this truth is doomed to failure and humiliation. Equally, we know that in this eternal ocean, bubbles are continually created and destroyed. Whilst this may bode ill for those of us who find ourselves in a dying bubble, it also provides a glimmer of hope, for as I speak, myriad universes are being born. And somewhere waiting for us out there is a luminous new world, the ideal place for an exiled civilization to build a new home. But how will we get there? How will we achieve what would undoubtedly be the greatest escape of all time? It is very simple: through the traditional method of opening a tunnel, something with which even the most ignorant convict is familiar. As I have discussed in my numerous articles, the universe is riddled with magic holes that possess an infinite gravitational force that sucks in anything around them. Is it not possible that these holes exist for a reason? Perhaps they are simply the Creator’s subtle way of telling us how to free ourselves from his own snare. But what lies behind these holes? There are many theories, an infinite number, if you’ll pardon the pun. But I am convinced that at the center of each is a tunnel connecting to another identical hole in another universe. Unfortunately, we have no way of traveling to any of those holes, because they are too far away from our planet, and their environment is too unstable. But that needn’t be a problem, for what I propose to do is create a magic hole artificially in my laboratory. I am certain that in a controlled environment . . .”
“But, my dear Charles, your hole would be too small,” Wells interrupted him at last. “I can’t see the whole of humanity passing through it one by one. Even the Creator would lose patience. Besides, I can’t speak for the audience, but personally I have no wish to be devoured, by a magic hole or anything else. You know as well as I do that the sheer force of gravity would make mincemeat of us. We would be sucked into its center and crushed to death.” He paused for dramatic effect before adding with a mocking air, “In fact, the only use for your hole would be to dispose of the evidence of a crime.”
Wells’s quip, which he had rehearsed a hundred times in front of a mirror, elicited the predictable laughter from the audience. Charles, however, was unfazed.
“Oh, have no fear, George. None of that would happen if the hole was spinning, because the centripetal force would cancel out the gravitational force. So that anyone going into it, far from being crushed to death, would be sucked into a neighboring universe. It would be a small matter of balancing the two forces to prevent the hole from fracturing. And once I achieved that, naturally there would be no need for the whole of humanity to pass through it. We would simply send ahead a few automatons, with the genetic information of every person on the planet codified in their memories. Once they reached the Other Side, they would construct a laboratory and implant the aforementioned data into living cells, thus replicating the whole of humanity.”
“By the Atlantic Codex!” Wells feigned astonishment, although he was well acquainted with Charles’s theory. “All I can say is I hope those puppets don’t make a mess of things and we all come out with frogs’ heads . . .”
A fresh round of laughter reached them from the audience, and Wells noticed Charles beginning to twitch nervously.
“Tha-Tha-That way the whole of humanity could pass through an opening the size of a ra-ra-rabbit hole,” he attempted to explain.
“Yes, yes, only first you must create it, my friend.” Wells assumed a weary air. “But tell me, isn’t this all rather complicated? Wouldn’t it be better if each of us were able to leap across to that universe for himself?”
“By all means, George, go ahead. Leap into another universe and bring me back a glass of water; mine’s empty,” Charles parried.
“I’d like nothing more than to quench your thirst, Charles. However, I fear that for the moment I am unable to oblige. In order to leap into another universe I need a grant from the Budgetary Commission.”
“So, what you are saying is that today you can’t take that leap, but tomorrow you can?” Charles inquired with a wry smile.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Wells replied cautiously.
“Then I fear you are bound to fail, my dear George, for there is no ‘tomorrow,’ only ‘today.’ ”
The audience howled with laughter. Wells cursed himself for having walked straight into it but was undeterred.
“What I mean is I will succeed the day the Budgetary Commission awards me a grant.” He pronounced the words slowly, after making sure he wasn’t leaving himself open to any more of Charles’s retorts. “For as you know, I am busy developing a miracle serum, a virus I have called ‘cronotemia’ in tribute to past experiments, when men from our Age of Enlightenment believed we could travel in time. Once injected, the virus will mix with our blood and the hormones secreted by our brain, producing a genetic mutation that will enable us to reach the other universe without the need to be taken apart and reassembled on the Other Side. I am on the brink of perfecting the virus, of finding a stable solution that will reconfigure almost imperceptibly the molecular structure of our brains, allowing us to see what was hitherto invisible. As our learned audience doubtless already knows, all matter originates from the birth of our universe, and the atoms that make up our bodies are connected to other atoms on the far side of the cosmos. And if a particle floating around at the far side of the universe can communicate with us, then perhaps we can peer into that abyss, see what is behind it, and leap. Whether we like it or not, we are joined to those other worlds by an invisible umbilical cord. All we have to do is find the way to switch that connection from an atomic level to our macroscopic reality.”
The debate went on for the remainder of the allotted hour amid witty asides, abrupt or barbed comments designed to ridicule or bamboozle the opponent, and even a few outbursts from Dodgson, who became increasingly flustered as he realized his ex-pupil was starting to win over the audience. In contrast, the biologist kept his cool throughout, smiling to himself as his rival became more and more excitable and his stammer began to render his speech almost unintelligible. Finally, just before the debate concluded, Wells uttered his much-rehearsed closing statement.
“A pinprick, a mere pinprick, of my serum is enough to make us superhuman, supernatural beings capable of living in any dimension. Trust in my project, Your Majesties, allow me to transform you into gods, and let us leave my dear opponent playing with his rabbit holes.”
Charles was about to reply but was stopped short by the bell. The debate was over. The voice enhancers retracted into the lecterns, and Frey’s voice could be heard celebrating their thrilling contest and inviting the Church of Knowledge to deliver its verdict. The orchestra struck up another evocative tune and the clerics conferred in whispers among the audience, but Cardinal Tucker immediately rose to her feet with the aid of her staff, and silence descended once more upon the auditorium.
“Having heard the two applicants for the Save Mankind Project Grant,” she announced in her faltering voice, “we have come to the following decision: notwithstanding Professor Dodgson’s celebrated wisdom, we believe that the task of saving us all must rest in the hands of the promising biologist Herbert George Wells, to whom I hereby extend my congratulations. May Knowledge guide your path, Mr. Wells. Chaos is inevitable!”
Wells felt his head spin as the theater exploded into triumphant roars on hearing the verdict. Hundreds of pennants bearing the Star of Chaos danced about like waves in a stormy ocean. He raised his hands, into which the fate of humankind had now been entrusted, saluting the excited audience, which immediately began chanting his name to loud cheers. He saw Jane and his team applauding and embracing one another in the box of honor, while Charles’s wife remained in her chair, hands folded in her lap, oblivious to the surrounding uproar. Her eyes were fixed on her husband, who had lowered his head in defeat. Wells would have liked to comfort him, but the gesture would have been tasteless. Frey signaled to Wells, who walked over to him and allowed the chairman to raise his right arm as the audience cried out his name. Above the clamor, only Wells could hear Charles muttering angrily behind him:
“Eppur si muove.”
Wells chose to ignore the reference to Galileo and instead gave a beaming smile, basking in the adulation of his supporters, who had started to descend from the rows of seats. A group of young girls climbed onto the stage and asked him to autograph their science textbooks. He did so with pleasure as he located Jane amid the crowd gathering to congratulate him in front of the stage and gave her a conspiratorial smile. Wells did not see Charles turn from his lectern and walk toward the dressing room door, nor did he notice the huge man who intercepted him before he was able to slip away. He was too busy drinking in his success. Charles could say what he liked, but Wells was the one who whose task it was to save mankind. That was what had been decided.
It took Wells eight months to hit on the magic potion that would enable the human race to flee to a neighboring universe without the need to dig any tunnels. Eight months, during which he and Jane and the rest of the team worked day and night, practically camping out in the state-of-the-art laboratory they had set up with the Commission’s money. When at long last they thought they had synthesized the virus, Wells asked Jane to fetch Newton, the Border Collie they had acquired three months before. Wells had decided they should give a dog the honor of leading mankind’s intended exodus rather than a rat, a guinea pig, or a monkey, for whilst the intelligence of the latter was more celebrated, everyone knew that dogs had the most developed homing instinct of any species and could find their way back even over great distances. So, if the leap was successful, there was a slight possibility the dog might follow its own scent and leap in the other direction, and if that happened, they would be able to study any unforeseen side effects of the virus, as well as the physical toll it might take on the animal. Jane had regarded as less than scientific her husband’s belief in the popular idea of canine loyalty, but when she first saw the puppy cavorting in the shop window, with its eager little eyes and an adorable heart-shaped white patch on its forehead, any doubts she had melted away. And so, little Newton arrived at the Wells’s house, with the mission of vanishing into thin air a few months later, although before that happened nothing prevented him from being simply a pet.
When Jane appeared with the puppy, Wells placed him on the laboratory bench, and, without further ado, pinched his haunch and injected him with the virus. Then they shut him in a glass-walled room designed for that purpose, and everyone on the team observed him. If they weren’t mistaken, the virus would travel through the bloodstream to the puppy’s brain, where it would pierce the cells like a needle, introducing new elements that would heighten the brain’s sensitivity to the point where, to put it simply, the dog would be able to see the thread that joined it to that other part of itself drifting on the far side of the universe.
They took turns doing six-hour shifts outside the glass-walled room, although Jane preferred to keep watch inside, playing with the puppy and stroking it. Wells advised her not to become too attached to the animal, because sooner or later it would disappear and she would find herself caressing the carpet. However, the days went by and Wells’s ominous warning didn’t come true. When the time limit they had set for the leap to occur ran out, they entered the phase where the likelihood of error began to grow exponentially, until one fine day Wells realized that continuing to wait in front of the window for the puppy to disappear was a question of faith or stubbornness more than anything else, and he announced that the experiment had failed.
Over the following weeks, they retraced one by one each step they had taken in engineering the virus, while Newton, freed from captivity, frolicked at their feet, showing no sign of physical decline, nor any sign of performing the miracle that would send shock waves through society. It had all looked foolproof on paper. The damned virus had to work. So why didn’t it? They tried tinkering with the strain, but none of the modifications they made had the stability of the first. Everything pointed to that being the correct virus, the only viable one. Then where was the error? Wells searched in vain, becoming increasingly obsessed with finding what had gone wrong, while it began to dawn on the others, including Jane, that the theory on which everything was based had been incorrect. However, Wells refused to accept that conclusion and would fly into a rage if any member of the team hinted at it. He wasn’t prepared to concede defeat and determinedly kept up his research, growing increasingly irritable as the days went by, so that several members of his team were obliged to decamp. Jane watched him working feverishly in silence, ever more tormented and isolated, and wondered how long it would be before he conceded that he’d wasted the Church’s funds on a misguided theory.
One morning, they received an invitation from Charles Dodgson to take tea with him at his house in Oxford. During the past months the two men had corresponded occasionally. The professor had benignly inquired how his ex-pupil’s research was going, but Wells had been evasive. He had decided to tell Charles nothing until he had succeeded in synthesizing the virus and had shown that it worked by injecting Newton. Then he would write to him, or call him through the communication glove, and invite him to his house, bestowing on him the privilege of being the first scientist outside his team to discover that mankind had found a way of saving itself. But since Newton had not disappeared as he was supposed to, that call had never taken place. Two exasperating months later, Wells received the invitation from Dodgson. He considered refusing it but didn’t have the heart. The last thing he wanted was to have to admit to Charles that the virus did not work. Jane told him he might benefit from his old friend’s advice. Besides, Charles still lived at Knowledge Church College, Wells’s alma mater, and perhaps the memories associated with those noble edifices would inspire him with new ideas, not to mention allow him to take a walk in the beautiful surrounding countryside, for it never hurt to get some fresh air. Wells agreed, not so much because the idea appealed to him, but in order to avoid an argument with his wife. He didn’t even raise an objection when Jane suggested taking along Newton, who when left alone at home would amuse himself by chewing up cushions, books, or other objects accidentally left within reach of his jaws. And so, one cold January afternoon, an ornithopter left the couple and Newton in front of the college gates, where Charles was awaiting them, his carefully groomed hair mussed by the downdraft of the vehicle’s propellers.
When the ornithopter had taken off again, Wells and Charles regarded each other for a moment in silence, like two men who had agreed to take part in a duel at dawn. Then they burst out laughing and embraced affectionately, slapping each other vigorously on the back as if trying to warm each other up.
“I’m sorry you lost the debate, Charles,” Wells felt compelled to say.
“You mustn’t apologize,” Charles admonished. “Just as I wouldn’t if you had lost. We each believe the other is mistaken, but provided you think me brilliantly mistaken, I don’t mind.”
Then Charles gave Jane the warmest welcome and excused his wife, Pleasance, who was busy giving a lecture. If her students didn’t keep her too long, she might see them before they left.
“But what have we here?” Charles exclaimed, addressing the dog, who instantly began wagging his tail.
Before Wells could explain that it was a constant reminder of his failure, Jane said: “His name is Newton, and he’s been living with us for the last five months.”
Charles stooped to stroke the tuft of white hair between the dog’s eyes while uttering a few words to it, which only Newton appeared to understand. After this exchange of confidences, the professor, smoothing down his tousled hair, led his guests through a small garden to his chambers near the cathedral spire. In one of the larger rooms, where the wallpaper pattern was of sunflowers the size of plates, a domestic automaton was arranging a tea set on an exquisitely carved table, around which stood four Chippendale chairs. Hearing them come in, the automaton swung round, placed its metallic palms on the floor, and walked over to them on its hands before reverting to the normal hominid posture and greeting them with a theatrical bow, doffing an invisible hat.
