The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(5)
“But, my dear Charles, your hole would be too small,” Wells interrupted him at last. “I can’t see the whole of humanity passing through it one by one. Even the Creator would lose patience. Besides, I can’t speak for the audience, but personally I have no wish to be devoured, by a magic hole or anything else. You know as well as I do that the sheer force of gravity would make mincemeat of us. We would be sucked into its center and crushed to death.” He paused for dramatic effect before adding with a mocking air, “In fact, the only use for your hole would be to dispose of the evidence of a crime.”
Wells’s quip, which he had rehearsed a hundred times in front of a mirror, elicited the predictable laughter from the audience. Charles, however, was unfazed.
“Oh, have no fear, George. None of that would happen if the hole was spinning, because the centripetal force would cancel out the gravitational force. So that anyone going into it, far from being crushed to death, would be sucked into a neighboring universe. It would be a small matter of balancing the two forces to prevent the hole from fracturing. And once I achieved that, naturally there would be no need for the whole of humanity to pass through it. We would simply send ahead a few automatons, with the genetic information of every person on the planet codified in their memories. Once they reached the Other Side, they would construct a laboratory and implant the aforementioned data into living cells, thus replicating the whole of humanity.”
“By the Atlantic Codex!” Wells feigned astonishment, although he was well acquainted with Charles’s theory. “All I can say is I hope those puppets don’t make a mess of things and we all come out with frogs’ heads . . .”
A fresh round of laughter reached them from the audience, and Wells noticed Charles beginning to twitch nervously.
“Tha-Tha-That way the whole of humanity could pass through an opening the size of a ra-ra-rabbit hole,” he attempted to explain.
“Yes, yes, only first you must create it, my friend.” Wells assumed a weary air. “But tell me, isn’t this all rather complicated? Wouldn’t it be better if each of us were able to leap across to that universe for himself?”
“By all means, George, go ahead. Leap into another universe and bring me back a glass of water; mine’s empty,” Charles parried.
“I’d like nothing more than to quench your thirst, Charles. However, I fear that for the moment I am unable to oblige. In order to leap into another universe I need a grant from the Budgetary Commission.”
“So, what you are saying is that today you can’t take that leap, but tomorrow you can?” Charles inquired with a wry smile.
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” Wells replied cautiously.
“Then I fear you are bound to fail, my dear George, for there is no ‘tomorrow,’ only ‘today.’?”
The audience howled with laughter. Wells cursed himself for having walked straight into it but was undeterred.
“What I mean is I will succeed the day the Budgetary Commission awards me a grant.” He pronounced the words slowly, after making sure he wasn’t leaving himself open to any more of Charles’s retorts. “For as you know, I am busy developing a miracle serum, a virus I have called ‘cronotemia’ in tribute to past experiments, when men from our Age of Enlightenment believed we could travel in time. Once injected, the virus will mix with our blood and the hormones secreted by our brain, producing a genetic mutation that will enable us to reach the other universe without the need to be taken apart and reassembled on the Other Side. I am on the brink of perfecting the virus, of finding a stable solution that will reconfigure almost imperceptibly the molecular structure of our brains, allowing us to see what was hitherto invisible. As our learned audience doubtless already knows, all matter originates from the birth of our universe, and the atoms that make up our bodies are connected to other atoms on the far side of the cosmos. And if a particle floating around at the far side of the universe can communicate with us, then perhaps we can peer into that abyss, see what is behind it, and leap. Whether we like it or not, we are joined to those other worlds by an invisible umbilical cord. All we have to do is find the way to switch that connection from an atomic level to our macroscopic reality.”
The debate went on for the remainder of the allotted hour amid witty asides, abrupt or barbed comments designed to ridicule or bamboozle the opponent, and even a few outbursts from Dodgson, who became increasingly flustered as he realized his ex-pupil was starting to win over the audience. In contrast, the biologist kept his cool throughout, smiling to himself as his rival became more and more excitable and his stammer began to render his speech almost unintelligible. Finally, just before the debate concluded, Wells uttered his much-rehearsed closing statement.
“A pinprick, a mere pinprick, of my serum is enough to make us superhuman, supernatural beings capable of living in any dimension. Trust in my project, Your Majesties, allow me to transform you into gods, and let us leave my dear opponent playing with his rabbit holes.”
Charles was about to reply but was stopped short by the bell. The debate was over. The voice enhancers retracted into the lecterns, and Frey’s voice could be heard celebrating their thrilling contest and inviting the Church of Knowledge to deliver its verdict. The orchestra struck up another evocative tune and the clerics conferred in whispers among the audience, but Cardinal Tucker immediately rose to her feet with the aid of her staff, and silence descended once more upon the auditorium.