But did I want to go?
If I left my Earth again, I could never come back. Every time I opened a portal it was like sending up a signal flare to HEX and the Binary. I would be taking a chance of luring the bad guys here. Each Walker, I’d been told, had a unique psychic signature that could be traced. I guessed that the Binary had thousands of sequenced mainframes on the lookout for my configuration, just as HEX kept a phalanx of sorcerers on twenty-four-hour duty for the same reason. I couldn’t put my family and my friends in that kind of danger.
If I never Walked again, the chances were trillions to one against either side ever deciding to conquer this particular world. It was virtually certain that I could grow up, get married, have kids, get old and die without ever having to hear about the Altiverse again.
But to never Walk again …
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned yet that Walking is like any skill you’re good at, in that I enjoyed it. It felt good, it felt right, to use my mind to open the In-Between, to pass from world to world to world. Chess masters don’t play for money, or even for competition—they play for love of the game. Mathematical savants don’t get their kicks from gardening—they juggle set theories in their heads or daydream pi to umpty-ump places. Like a trained gymnast, now that I remembered my ability, I itched to use it.
I could not imagine living a lifetime without ever Walking again.
But neither could I imagine it without ever seeing Mom or Dad, or Jenny or the squid again. I had signed up once, but that had been done mostly out of guilt over Jay’s death—I hadn’t realized what I was getting myself into.
This time I knew all too well.
I’d been mustered out once—they wouldn’t let me off that easily a second time. If I showed up at Base Town again, they would most probably court-martial me. Oh, they might have a different name for it, but a firing squad by any other name is still a bunch of guys with rifles pointed at you. I didn’t know if I’d ask for a blindfold or not, and had no great desire to find out.
But if I stayed here, I’d have to live with the knowledge that I’d left people I cared for in trouble while I got away.
I wished those damned soap bubbles hadn’t sparked whatever circuit held these memories. Ignorance might not have been bliss, but at least it wasn’t the stew of regret I found myself in now.
The snowfall had turned to a cold rain. I could have told myself that it was the source of the water running down my cheeks, but it doesn’t rain warm salt water. And I’d lied to myself enough.
I watched one soap bubble that Kevin was chasing. It was floating higher than the others, about level with the garage roof. It drifted into the bare branches of the nearby oak, and I expected to see it vanish in a soundless pop.
It didn’t.
Instead, it hovered there for a moment, then drifted slowly toward me. The squid ran along underneath it, yelling in frustrated futility because he couldn’t reach it. The bubble moved along against the slight breeze that had come up, and stopped and hovered in front of me.
“Hi, Hue,” I said.
The mudluff rippled orange with pleasure, then shot up over my head, passing above the roof. I turned, craning my neck to follow him, but he was already gone.
“Bub-bell?” Kevin asked plaintively. “Bub-bell? Hyoo?”
I nodded. “That’s right, squid kid.” I looked down at him, watched him wipe his nose on his coat sleeve and said, “Time to go in.”
I stayed up most of the night, worrying at the problem from first one end and then the other. I couldn’t talk to Mom or Dad—they’re great parents, but both of them together couldn’t summon up enough imagination to deal with one extra Joey, never mind an infinity of them. Who else could I talk to? Certainly not my classmates. My guidance counselor had been found sobbing quietly in his office last semester, and hadn’t been replaced yet. Most of my teachers were one-trick ponies; after five months under the whip at Base Town I already knew more than any of them ever could know or handle knowing. Out of the entire teaching staff there was only one person who might possibly listen to me and not call for the men in white coats.
Mr. Dimas leaned back in his chair and stared at the acoustic tiles above him. He had a vaguely stunned expression, and I couldn’t really blame him—after all, the story I’d just told him probably wasn’t one he’d heard before.
After a minute he looked at me. “When we started talking,” he said mildly, “you asked me to consider what you were going to tell me as purely hypothetical. I assume that’s still the case?”
“Uh, yes, sir.” I had thought that maybe telling him the story with an unnamed imaginary friend at center stage instead of yours truly might make it a little easier to swallow. “This, uh, friend of mine—he’s really kind of between Scylla and Charybdis.” He shot me a penetrating look, and I realized I had used an expression that I’d learned at Base Town instead of here. “So, anyway,” I hastened on, “what do you think he should do?”
Dimas got his pipe going before speaking. When he did finally speak, it was to ask a question. “So, according to the instructors at Base Town, the universe only spins off doppelganger worlds when important decisions are made, is that right?”
“Uh, basically. Only it can be real hard to tell right away what’s important and what’s not. I mean, they say a butterfly flapping its wings in Bombay might start a tornado in Texas. If you were to step on that butterfly before it had a chance to fly—”
He nodded. Then he looked at me and said, “I know this will sound strange, but do me a favor, Joe.” Most people had taken to calling me Joe lately; I’m not sure why. It took some getting used to. “Sure, Mr. Dimas,” I said.
“Take off your shirt.”
I blinked, then shrugged. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but—and this was kind of sad in a way—I also knew that he was no match for me in any kind of fight, fair or unfair.
So I took off my jacket and the loose T-shirt I wore under it. Mr. Dimas looked at me without comment for a moment, then gestured that I should put them back on.
“You’ve gotten quite a bit leaner,” he observed. “More muscular, too—as much as someone your age can, which isn’t all that much—you’re still genetically programmed to grow taller rather than bigger.”
I decided the best thing to do was keep quiet and wait. I hoped he’d answer my question eventually.
He did. “As far as your hypothetical friend goes, I agree with you—it’s a tough decision all around. But if we get down to basics, it seems to me that the question your friend has to answer is: Does one person’s happiness— or even one person’s life—outweigh the fate of countless worlds?”
“But I—that is, he doesn’t know for sure that’ll happen!”
“He knows the possibility exists. Don’t get me wrong—I sympathize with the pain of his decision. And some men look nice with beards.” He read the question in my face and said, “So they don’t ever have to face themselves in the mirror when they shave.”
I nodded. I knew what he was saying, and I knew he was right. It made it clearer what had to be done. Not easier, no, not by any means. But clearer.
I stood up. “Mr. Dimas, you’re a hell of a teacher.” “Thank you. The school board doesn’t always agree, but they have used the words ‘Jack Dimas’ and ‘hell’ in the same sentence. Quite often.”
I