The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(119)
“In fact I was just striking an attitude, Arthur,” Wells explained. “But it was on one of those afternoons that my twin approached me, and there, gazing into the murky depths, the strangest conversation I had ever had in my life took place. The reason why he jeopardized the universe by speaking to me was purely literary. He had already written The War of the Worlds in his world, but he wasn’t very happy with the ending, in which the Martians conquered the world. And so he made me a gift of the plot, on the condition that if one day I wrote it, I would give it an ending that held out more hope for the human race. And that is precisely what I did. I gave it an ending in which the human race triumphed. I suppose that my other self realized that one of the few advantages of his unfortunate situation was that he could improve his work.”
Doyle let out a guffaw that sounded more like a horse whinnying.
“You amaze me, George! Your whole life has been destroyed, and all you can think about is improving one of your novels! That alone would be enough for me to recognize you!”
Wells shrugged, annoyed because Doyle was reproaching him for something that the old man and not he had done, despite the fact that for a good few minutes now he had been trying to convince them that they were, in some sense, one and the same person.
“The fact is, when I first met your scruffy, eccentric old coachman, Gilliam, I never identified him as that stranger,” Wells went on, “although whenever I went near him I was beset by a curious unease, a sort of vague anguish that was completely incongruous . . . And today I realized why. Perhaps because of the peculiarity of coming face-to-face with myself, or because his presence reminded me of the constant anxiety I suffered as an adolescent . . . All I know is that this acute sadness only afflicts me when I go near him, and that is proof enough for me: the old coachman is my twin from another world . . .” Wells gave a tired sigh. He knew he was right, but no matter how convinced he was, part of his brain could not help finding it absurd. “I never met him again after that. He carried on watching over me from afar, making sure everything that happened to me was also engraved on his memory. But he soon realized that not all the details corresponded. And that brought him to an important discovery. It was several years before he understood the reason for those differences, before he worked out that his initial assumption was incorrect; he hadn’t traveled to—”
“His own past, but to another world!” Doyle interrupted.
“Why, those were his exact words. How the devil did you—”
“Elementary, my dear George! When your twin first arrived here, he assumed he had gone back in time. He had no way of knowing he was in another universe. How could he have? Before he started to notice the differences between your two lives, he must have believed he had only jumped through time, that is, he had traveled back into a past that preceded his birth . . . It was only later on that he realized he was in another world, a different world, where events didn’t occur in the exact same way.”
Once again, Doyle surprised Wells with his swift powers of deduction.
“The same mistake you made when you crossed the pink plain, Gilliam,” Doyle said, turning to Murray. “You thought you were traveling through the fourth dimension into the future, when in fact you were approaching a portal that led to another world . . .” Murray flashed a surly look at Doyle. “Oh, don’t be offended, Gilliam, apparently it is a common mistake nowadays to think one is time traveling when in fact one is jumping between worlds. So Baskerville’s world and our world move in tandem,” Doyle summed up, taking a couple of steps sideways, eyes shining as he cradled his injured hand. “Doubtless with an infinitesimal distance between them, as you described in The Wonderful Visit, George.”
Wells realized with a shudder that yet again this was something he had already written about. He thrust the thought aside with a shake of his head and returned to the conversation with Doyle.
“I’m afraid so. Although I believe there aren’t only two worlds. There are at least three: ours, the coachman’s, and the one we glimpsed in the mirror, because what we saw there was another world. A world almost identical to ours, apart from a few differences, such as, for example, that there Emma is still alive. However, the other Wells doesn’t come from that world. He told me so when I described it to him, and for some reason, he seemed genuinely convinced of that. So we are talking about three worlds,” he concluded with a shrug.
“Why three?” said Doyle. “Wouldn’t it make more sense if the number were . . . infinite? I am sure there are many more worlds, George, as many as there are portals on the pink plain, possibly even more . . .”
Then Murray, who up until then had been following the conversation without a word, asked, “What are the differences between the world in the mirror and the world your twin comes from, George?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your twin is adamant that he doesn’t come from the world in the mirror, so he must have noticed something that didn’t correspond to your description. What is it? Does it concern Emma?”
“Er . . . the truth is we didn’t talk about it much, Gilliam,” Wells faltered.
Murray looked at him askance.
“I know you well enough to be able to tell when you are fibbing, George! What is it you aren’t telling me? How does Baskerville know that the world in the mirror isn’t his? Why is Emma still alive? Is it possible that in his world there was no accident and she and I are still together?” Murray had seized Wells by the shoulders and was shaking him with each question, but after the final one his energy seemed to drain away. “No, that can’t be true, can it? Otherwise you would have told me the good news. So . . . ,” he surmised, stifling a sob, “there are infinite worlds, but Emma and I aren’t happy in any of them, damn it!”