Endworlds - Nicholas Read [68]
A thought struck him. “But if Earth flew into a sun or was hit by a planet-killer asteroid, you think this other dimension wouldn’t be affected? If what you say is correct, surely any dimension of the world is tied to what happens on the physical planet itself?”
The Belgian answered curtly: “Theoretical physics is just that, General: theoretical, until put to the test. That’s where you come in. We’re assembling a team to prove the science by co-opting Fermilab in Chicago. We want to do more than just look through windows. The goal of Project Sidestep is to evaluate our colonization options, General. Since we can’t travel away, we hope to travel through.
“Surrounding this venture we need global security in our world and whatever lay beyond. That will be your contribution. The operation will be funded as a write-down from the debts various governments owe us. In effect you’ll have a blank check to cash as you need to. Your time horizon will be five years so we can commence live transfers before the winter of 2012. During 2011 we will start winding down the commercial projects and academic grants to Fermilab, nudging it more under our full control, and allowing you to operate more overtly. At the same time we will bring pressure to bear on the CERN facility in Switzerland, and cause it to go into ‘maintenance mode’ so we can avoid stretching the dimensional membranes too thin19. We’ve already been testing our luck too far in that respect. During this assignment you will retain your status and all other privileges with the U.S. Army—with a few bonuses and, of course, passage through the portal with our colonists when the time is right—all the while the Pentagon will list you on ‘special assignment’ to the U.N.”
The General understood what they were asking of him. It was just that he didn’t believe it. These people sold a good story, but he wasn’t buying. He made up his mind.
“This sounds like a fancy clambake, no doubt. But the truth is I’m an old Army mule two years away from retirement, and I’m stars and stripes through and through. I thank you for the briefing, gentlepeople, but I do believe we are done here.”
As he stood to leave, the shutter on the window panels lifted on silent treads, revealing a view to the outside through three glass panes. The dark blue sky of evening had crept up since he’d arrived on the mountain, and to the south past some mottled trees could be seen silhouettes of the twin domed silos that housed the Institute’s telescopes, bathed in a dull yellow-brown glow of security lights.
Standing in the still air of a snow-covered foreground was the blonde woman who had first greeted the General, now wearing a heavy duffle coat and white scarf against the cold. Behind her a long groove of footsteps could be seen in the white slurry. There was an audible click from inside the dark room, a slight flicker in the middle window, and the woman, her footprints in the snow and the buildings vanished as trees erupted across the field of vision.
Kriegmacher stood very still, taking in what was seeing. Snowflakes blew on a winter’s breeze through the thick copse of fir trees that pressed tightly against the glass. The light in that sole windowpane appeared as at sunset, cast with red hues.
He took a few steps sideways to look through the right-hand window, and the former scene returned of a neat frosted courtyard, manicured gardens, distant white domes under a blue sky, and Blondie. Only the middle rectangle showed the rust-hued winter wilderness.
Oxford’s voice: “You’re looking into what few have ever seen. It is literally, our planet, without us in it. And it exists right alongside us, all the time. Were we to examine the other side of the window one micron deep we would find it wet with melted snowflakes from that place, as it is quite literally facing into the physical plane there and interacting therein. By studying such droplets we know the water and air is identical to ours, and so is the pressure. We have taken portable panes to a dozen sites, and never once encountered more than flora and