The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(145)

“The cronotemia epidemic . . . ,” Jane murmured.

Wells nodded gloomily.

“Yes, my dear. The cronotemia epidemic . . . Even so, they didn’t give in. They began studying the strange epidemic to try to understand how it had all started. But the worst part was when they discovered the effect it had. You were right, my dear. You always are. This disease is going to destroy the multiverse. The molecular footprint left by the cronotemics each time they jump causes scarring in hyperspace: they shrink it, making it increasingly brittle and bringing the parallel worlds that make up this multiverse gradually closer together. If that shrinkage continues, those worlds will end up colliding, setting off a series of apocalyptic explosions that will lead to mass extermination . . . The infinite stages will collapse into one another, bursting into a gigantic ball of cosmic fire, and this theater itself will disintegrate.”

“Good God!” exclaimed Jane. Then, after a few seconds’ silence, she added incredulously, “And is exterminating all the cronotemics the only solution they could come up with? I find that hard to believe. How could they be so cruel, Bertie?”

Wells shrugged wearily.

“They may simply be trying to gain time, dear. I expect they considered the death of a few innocents a small price to pay compared to saving two universes. For it isn’t only about this universe, Jane. Unless they cure the disease in time for the Great Exodus—”

“The Other Side will also perish,” Jane concluded in a horrified whisper.

They both remained silent. For several moments the only sound in the tiny sitting room was the crackle of the fire and the elderly couple’s labored breathing.

“Do you remember the day of the Great Debate, Jane?” Wells asked suddenly, his voice choked with anguish. “How everyone admired me! Shouting my name in adulation. If I close my eyes I can still hear them. They trusted in me; they put themselves in my hands. They thought I possessed the truth, and so did I, but . . . Oh, Jane!” Wells sighed, and gazed at his wife. “I lied to you! I was only motivated by vanity! And you knew that, didn’t you? I wanted to go down in history as the Savior of Humanity. And yet . . . can you imagine what they must think of me now, back in our world? Can you imagine our colleagues’ surprise when at last they reached the promised land only to discover it was doomed because of a stupid failed experiment in their Victorian era? All their hopes destroyed by a tiny virus synthesized by H. G. Wells, the biggest catastrophe in the history of the Church of Knowledge, the eternally cursed Destroyer of Universes . . .”

Jane stood up almost abruptly and leaned against the mantelpiece. Wells remained in his chair, lost without her, sobbing with his head sunk between his shoulders, overwhelmed by self-pity. Finally, his wife’s silence forced him to look up timidly. She was watching him weep with that look of fierce determination he knew so well.

“Well, Bertie, if that is what they think of you . . .” She grinned. “Then we’ll just have to make them change their minds.”





28


OVER THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, the Wellses set about elaborating a plan to save the two universes while at the same time changing the disastrous opinion the inhabitants of their world must have of H. G. Wells. Or vice versa. They began with a detailed study of all the information and images Wells had gleaned from the mind of the Executioner, or at any rate everything he could remember or express in words. Apparently, that sinister slaughter had been going on for some time (the equivalent of ten years in their adoptive universe, they calculated). That it had taken them so long to come across an Executioner only made obvious—whether they liked it or not—the infinite nature of the universe. How could scientists from the Other Side eradicate an epidemic that affected so many other worlds? They couldn’t unless someone guided them to the original source of the infection so that they could eradicate it at the root.

While scanning the Executioner’s mind, Wells had discovered that those killers were able to jump between worlds thanks to the canes they carried, whose handles bore the eight-pointed Star of Chaos. Apparently these devices helped them chase cronotemics from stage to stage, burrowing tunnels through hyperspace without leaving any scars in the fabric of the universe, guiding them by working out complex coordinates based on the molecular trails left by the cronotemics. In other words, the Executioners could travel anywhere in the universe providing their diseased quarry left a big enough trail of bread crumbs. And probably also if someone drew a map with mathematical coordinates their canes could interpret.

“Such a map could guide any Executioner, from whichever world he is in, to the exact place and time of the first infection!” Wells exclaimed excitedly. “Or more precisely, to one minute before, so that he could prevent it from happening.”

“And who, may I ask, could draw that map?” Jane asked innocently.

She knew perfectly well who, but she wanted her husband to have the pleasure of pronouncing it. Wells gave his first smile in a very long time. A dazzling smile, brimming with optimism—a touch ingenuous, perhaps, but what did that matter?

“Why, someone with sufficient mathematical knowledge,” he replied proudly.

And so, oozing enthusiasm, Wells dusted off the old maps he and Dodgson had dabbled with in Oxford and spread them out on the table. But one look at those pages filled with formulas, equations, and diagrams was enough to make his heart sink. Those pretentious scribblings were mere intellectual games, ornamentations as brilliant as they were empty, totally theoretical, and never meant to be taken seriously . . . Now, however, it was up to him to find out whether they contained a shred of truth by applying them to a real-life problem of unimaginable magnitude. He had to draw a map, the biggest map of all time and all worlds, a map that would shrink infinity to a calculation of coordinates, a map that would reduce the entire universe to a simple equation . . . He didn’t know whether such an undertaking was possible. And if it was, whether he wanted to reveal life as a mirage woven from the ethereal threads of mathematics, one of his least favorite subjects. But he didn’t appear to have many alternatives, and so he had to try.