LITMIR.BIZ

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for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. All through school I’d been the last one picked for teams; even bullies like Ted Russell picked on me only as a last resort, after they’d beaten up everyone else.

      I shrugged away the momentary paranoia. I trusted Jay. I wasn’t really sure why. There was just something about him.

      After a few more minutes he came back. “Okay, pull up a rock, ’cause this’ll take a while,” he said, following his own advice. “Let’s start big and work our way down.”

      “Why not start at the beginning?” I suggested.

      “Two reasons. Imprimus: There is no real beginning to this little tale and probably no end either. Secondus: It’s my story and I’ll start wherever I darn well please.”

      There didn’t seem to be much argument I could offer against that, so I leaned back against a rocky outcropping and waited. “Couldn’t you take that mask off?”

      “No. Not yet. Okay, the whole picture is what we call the Altiverse. Not to be confused with the Multiverse, which means the entire infinity of parallel universes and all the worlds therein. The Altiverse is that slice of the Multiverse that contains all the myriad Earths. And there are a lot of ’em.” He paused, and I got the feeling he was frowning at me. “You understand quantum differentiation? Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle? Multiple world lines?”

      “Uh . . .” We’d touched on some of it in Mr. Lerner’s science class, and I remembered reading an article on the Discover website. Plus I’d seen that episode of classic Trek where Spock had a beard and the Enterprise was full of space pirates. But all that put together made me about as much of an expert as the family cat.

      I said as much; Jay waved it off. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll pick up what you need to know—cultural osmosis. The thing to remember is that certain decisions—important ones, those that can create major ripples in the time stream—can cause alternate worlds to splinter off into divergent space-time continua. Remember this, or you’ll wind up paralyzed every time you have to make a choice: The Altiverse is not going to create a brave new world based on your decision to wear green socks today instead of red ones. Or if it does, that world will only last a few femtoseconds before being recycled into the reality it split off from. But if your president is trying to decide whether or not to carpet bomb some Middle East saber rattler, he gets it both ways—because two worlds are created where before there was one. Of course, the In-Between keeps them apart, so he’ll never know.”

      “Wait a minute—it sounds like you’re trying to say that the creation of new alternate worlds is a conscious decision.”

      “I’m not trying to say it—I just said it. Or weren’t you paying attention?”

      “But whose consciousness? God’s?”

      Jay shrugged, and the molten colors of the sky swam and ran on his gleaming shoulders. “It’s physics, not theology. Call it what you want—God, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Prime Mover Unmoved. The totality of everything. I don’t care. Consciousness is a factor in every aspect of the Multiverse. Quantum math needs a viewpoint, or it doesn’t work. Just try to remember not to confuse consciousness with ego. Two completely different things—and of the two, ego’s the disposable one.”

      I wanted to ask him more questions about that, but he was already moving on. “Think of that slice of the Multiverse as an arc—with several extra dimensions, of course.” He made gestures that looked like he was strangling a snake. “At each extreme of the arc are the homeworlds of two hegemonies—empires that each control a small percentage of the individual Earths in the arc. One of them we call the Binary. They use advanced technology—by ‘advanced’ I mean compared to what most of the other Earths have come up with—to radiate out along the arc, conquering as they go. You nearly met up with a couple of representatives back on that Earth you’d Walked to—the ‘opposition is nonproductive’ boys on those flying disks. They love saying things like that. The other empire calls itself HEX. Their artillery relies on magic—spells, talismans, sacrifices—”

      “Whoa.” I held up two flat palms in a T shape—the time-out gesture. “Hold up, hold up. Magic? You mean like ‘abracadabra’? ‘hocus-pocus’?”

      Jay’s body language indicated annoyance, but his tone was patient. “Well, I’ve never actually heard one of them say ‘hocus-pocus,’ but, yeah, that’s the general idea.”

      I felt like my brain was leaking out of my ears. “But that’s not—”

      “Possible? You sure looked like a believer to me when I pulled you off the Lacrimae Mundi.”

      I opened my mouth, then decided to shut it again when nothing came out. Jay leaned back with an attitude of relief. “Good. For a moment I thought you were going rational on me. Always remember: In an infinity of worlds, anything is not only possible, it’s mandatory.

      “To continue: The Binary and HEX are locked in struggle, both overt and covert, for the ultimate control of the Altiverse. They’ve been going at it for centuries, making real slow headway because of the sheer magnitude of the task. I think the last census we intercepted indicated somewhere in the neighborhood of several million billion trillions of Earths—with more of ’em popping out of the vacuum faster than bubbles in champagne.

      “There’s a Council of Thirteen that rules HEX, and the Binary is run by an artificial intelligence that calls itself 01101. Each of them wants only one thing—to run the whole shebang. What they refuse to accept is that the Altiverse functions best when the forces of magic and science are in balance. And that’s where InterWorld comes in.”

      “You mentioned it—or them—before.”

      “Right. That’s who I work for—that’s where you’re leading us.”

      He stopped for a breath. I had more questions than there were Earths, but before I could ask them and before he could resume speaking, we heard something roar.

      It was a distant sound, unlike anything I’d ever heard before—but it was definitely the sound of a hunting beast, and probably one big enough to look at both Jay and me as blue plate specials. Jay hopped to his feet. “Come on.” Even with the mask on he looked nervous. “This world is still on the cusp of the In-Between, and that’s way too close for me.”

      We started walking at a brisk pace across the baked and cracked valley floor. What baked it? I wondered. The temperature was comfortable, even a little bracing—I estimated in the mid-sixties or thereabouts. I glanced up at that crawling sky, and it didn’t look fascinating anymore. It looked like those colors could come pouring down on us at any moment, like boiling lead cascading from battlements. I shuddered and walked a little faster.

      One good thing about where we were—nothing could sneak up on us. But I still didn’t like it. We were as exposed as a couple of field mice in a hockey rink. We walked and walked, and those mountains didn’t look any closer.

      Then I noticed a flicker of color out of the corner of my eye.

      I looked over to one side and saw something that brought me to a stop. At first glance it looked like a huge soap bubble—I mean big, the size of a basketball—drifting out of a large ground fissure. But it only drifted so high, and then it stopped and bobbled around like a balloon trying to escape its tether.

      “What’s that?” I asked.

      Jay turned his silver-coated head toward the bubble. I was standing far enough away that I could see my whole body reflected along the curve of his cheek and jawline. “Beats me. Never saw anything like it. Got to be a mudluff of some kind, though—which means we assume it’s dangerous and walk away.” He started to walk again, and, after a last glance at the bubble—It almost looks alive, I thought—I turned to follow Jay.

      There was a rattling noise somewhere in the distance. It made me think of rattlesnakes or of someone dragging a huge length of chain over rocks.

      I turned around and looked, because that was

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