I nearly snatched it from his tired, trembling hands. The only known alien artifact on Earth. An odd conglomeration of wires and whatnots embedded in a green, translucent pyramid. ``It's old -- older than anything else here, in a sense -- or maybe not quite as old as me,'' he said, his bushy, white eyebrows jumping in that way I'd loved as far back as I could remember his face.
``But how is it possible?'' I demanded. ``You, the greatest physicist of all time...'' He cut me off with hysterical-sounding laughter which quickly degenerated into a coughing fit. ``This goes against everything I know, everything you taught me, or anyone else. How can it be...'' I eyed it as I would a fake jewel, ``truly solid matter?''
Perhaps he was delirious. But despite his imminent death, he was acting normally -- aside from this one absurd notion.
He coughed some more, but refused to take the offered water. His eyes were as bright as they've ever been, windows into another (``Alien?'' I now wondered) world. I wondered what he saw, staring into the distance behind me.
Eventually he spoke again. ``You'll understand after my will is read. Not before. And nobody else will understand. Nobody!
``I once claimed that God doesn't play dice with the universe. Of course he does! And what do you think is etched on every face of these dice? Two words. Free will. I finally forgave Him of that last year; soon enough I shall know whether He has forgiven me for my part in this... this travesty!''
He sank further back into his pillows. eyes gleaming, a wan smile on his lips. The nurse came in. Glancing at the clock, I bade him good night. He clasped my hands firmly and said goodbye. He died later that night.
I got three things in Uncle Al's will -- the payout form a life insurance policy (written like a physics research grant!) a six by two and a quarter inch, scratched up, foil-covered, cylinder that turned out to be an Edison dictation cylinder, and a spool of recorder wire. I listened carefully as the lawyer read the will, even got him to read it again. It didn't help. I didn't understand anything. The secret (if there was one, I wryly reminded myself) must lie in the old recordings.
I managed to borrow a Silvertone wire player from a friend who was converting his business to magnetic tape, but had the dickens of a time finding a working Edison dictation machine that I could afford. Finally a friend with the RCA Victor company scared one up from a retired VP's closet. I had to pay an exorbitant insurance premium just to move it and borrow it for a few days.
I set these up in my study. I also set up my Rangertone tape recorder with the last of my Irish brand recording tape, to capture whatever was on the cylinder and wire for listening to again later. Uncle Al had given me the Rangertone for my 14th birthday - had he known then how I would some day need it? I had to laugh. I didn't even know if these things would work at all!
The cylinder being the older of the two, I played it first, after setting up an Altec M11 "Coke bottle" mic in front of the speaker cone. I started the Rangertone, started the Edison, and sat back. Amidst a fair bit of noise, a younger but recognizable Uncle Al's voice filled the room. I sat back to listen.
That first recording was bad enough. It was simply remembrances of Uncle Al's childhood -- but in now way did they match with anything I knew of Uncle Al! I checked with Mom on a few of the stories I'd grown up hearing, and she assured me they were true. Was Uncle Al playing a game? Had he always been mad? Was Mom?
A couldn't have meant the recording as fiction. I listened to the tape to make sure it was OK, locked the cylinder and wire in my safe, and returned the Edison to my friend at RCA Victor. I spent a couple of days listening again to the tape and mulling it over. Finally I gave up and played the wire recording, again using the Rangertone to save it on a more modern media (wire recording was obviously on its way out). Uncle Al's voice sounded a bit tinny, but it was definitely him, and sounded like a fairly recent recording.
``All through my childhood, as you should know, I loved to play games -- "what if" games. What if... our planet were not the center of the universe? What if... matter was not solid, but composed of particles? These were two of my favorites...
``I never found anyone who could really understand my games except your mother, and I don't think she ever took me seriously. I just couldn't understand why everything had to be solid, had to be just there.
``We used to play "atoms" in the front yard (of course, that wasn't what we called it then!) I'd explain the things I'd made up, what we call the nucleus, electrons and so forth, and then we'd set it all in motion, with ourselves and our friends playing the parts. Your mother decided that the one immutable law of "physics" was that a body set in circular motion tends to a dizzy state and eventually collapses into a tired, giggling child.''
That sounded like Mom, anyway. But somehow it was hard to envisage Uncle Al as a child (I couldn't see him without those huge, bushy eyebrows) running in circles. Of course, he may well have just directed...
``...Finally I could stand it no longer. I hated the universe, the very fabric of existence. Everything was just what it seemed to be -- solid, liquid, gas, whatever. There was no mystery, nothing to explore, to learn.
``Things changed into other things far too easily. The fact that I could cause these changes far more easily than anyone I knew (or knew of) didn't help -- it only annoyed me further. I wanted to understand deep principles, but the only principle of the universe seemed to be "Here it is. You wanted this, so that became this." Exactly what so many politicians merely pretend to do, we did. We wished it was different, we said it was different, and it was.
``I decided to create -- truly create -- an alternate universe. Not just inside my head, or in my front yard! A universe which would offer challenges to my mind, a universe with complex rules behind it. So I thought of a machine to make such a universe. I built that machine, a sort of conceptual enhance, so that when I imagined something that was normally beyond my capability to create or morph, the machine would provide the extra power to make it happen. I turned it on and thought of a more interesting universe.
``As far as I've been able to determine, it worked all too well. Much better than I expected. It seems to have picked up thoughts from deep in my childhood memories, ideas I hadn't played with for some time -- strings, quacks, all sorts of dead-end fantasies.
``I quickly realized that this new universe was far too complicated, inconsistent, and in some ways completely untenable. The deeper I went into things, the more absurd it got. I'm amazed at some of the things I came up with as a child!''
He sighed, paused a moment. I imagined a despondent look in his tired eyes. He continued so quietly that I unconsciously leaned closer to hear better.
``The machine, of course, no longer worked. I don't know that it was transformed, itself, but certainly it bore no discernible relation to this universe -- a fact you should be able to ascertain for yourself.''
With this fact I could not argue; I had naturally performed some tests. The strongest microscope showed only what the eye saw and the hand felt, but on a different scale. An utterly smooth, apparently solid surface, filled with solid components deep in its greenish body. It showed absolutely no reaction to any reagent or energy. It seemed to be frictionless, yet needed no containment to avoid sliding. Perhaps the infinitely small corners dug in between molecules of the surrounding substance to keep it still. Perhaps some unknown quality of the space-time fabric held it. Perhaps some nebulous anchor to its original universe held it. I had no clue, and no idea who to ask.
``.... I alone seemed to remember any of that universe. The new one had its own history. Even your mother, my confidant from early days, seemed to be a completely different person, with no common memories between us. I soon gave up, and learned her version. Even so, I had a number of problems with my parents and school!
``What was, is gone. What is, is here. In one sense that maddening rule of existence fights me to this day. What might have been, I cannot bear to think about. I guess I played dice with God once too often, and crapped out.
``If I cannot undo what I have done (and I can see no possible way to do so)I can but try to comprehend it and explain it to those who must live in it - this universe of my creation. I have done all that I can. Do now what you can, as well.''
I sat staring into the dark for hours. Finally the noise of the wire end slapping the drive mechanism as the take up spool spun round caught my attention (the Rangerphone having switched itself off). I shut off the Silvertone and stared out the window into the suddenly cold, remorseless unfathomability of the night sky. It was going to be a long night.
For the rest of my life.
Copyright 1992, 1997 Miles O'Neal, Austin, TX. All rights reserved.