“The poor thing looked frightened,” Angelina said. “But it didn’t appear to be hurt in any way.”
“Tests will have to be made,” Coypu said. “More mice, microscopic examinations of tissue, spectroscopic determination of factors…”
“Normally yes, Prof,” I said. “But this is war and we just don’t have the time. There is one real time saver that will enable us to find out right now—”
The only sensation I felt was sort of a mild tingle, though even this might have just been a product of my fevered imagination since I was expecting to feel something. I looked around and everything looked very much the same to me—though of course all of the parallelilizer equipment was missing.
“Jim diGriz, you come back at once or I’ll come after you,” Angeline said.
“In just a moment. This is a momentous instant in the history of science and I want to experience it fully.”
It was disconcerting to look back through the screen and find that the view of the other lab—as well as Angelina and the professor—vanished when I walked off to one side. From the front the field itself was invisible, though when I walked around behind it it was clearly visible as a black surface apparently floating in space. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move; the mouse scuttling behind a cabinet. I hoped that he liked it here. Before returning I felt I had to mark the important moment some way. So I took out my stylus and wrote SLIPPERY JIM WAS HERE on the wall. Let them make of that what they will. At that moment the door started to open and I instantly nipped back through the screen. I had no desire to meet whoever was coming in. It might even be a parallel-world duplicate of me, which would be disconcerting.
“Very interesting,” I said. Angelina hugged me and Coypu turned off his machine. “How big can you make the screen?” I asked.
“There is no physical or theoretical limit on its size since it doesn’t exist. Now I am using metal coils to contain the field, but they are dispensable in theory. Once I am able to project the field without material containment it will be big enough to send the entire alien fleet through.”
“My thought exactly, Professor. So, back to your drawing board and get cracking. Meanwhile I’ll break the news to our masters.”
Calling together all of the chiefs of staff was not easy since they were deeply involved in running the war, if not in winning it. In the end I had to work through Inskipp who used the powers of the Special Corps to call the meeting. Since they were using this base as headquarters for defense they found it hard to ignore the call of their landlord. I was waiting when they arrived, crisp and shining in a new uniform, a number of real medals, and a few fakes, pinned to my chest. They grumbled to each other, lit large cigars and scowled in my direction. As soon as they were all seated I rapped for attention.
“Gentlemen, at the present time we are losing the war.”
“We didn’t have to come here to have you tell us that,” Inskipp snarled. “What’s up, diGriz?”
“I brought you here to tell you that the end of the war is now in sight. We win.”
That caught their notice, all right. Every grizzled head was now leaning in my direction, every yellowed or drooping eye fixed upon me.
“This will be accomplished through the use of a new device called the parallelilizer. With its aid the enemy fleet will fly into a parallel universe and we will never see them again.”
“What is this madman talking about?” an admiral grumbled.
“I am talking about a concept so novel that even my imaginative mind has difficulty grasping it, and I expect that your fossilized ones can’t understand it at all. But try.” A deep growl ran through the room with that, but at least I had their attention now. “The theory goes like this. We can time travel to the past, but we cannot change the past. Since we obviously make changes by going into the past, those changes are already part of the past of the present we are living in.” A number of eyes turned glassy at this but I pressed on. “However if major changes are made in the past we end up with a different past for a different present. One we don’t know about since we are not living in it, but one that is real for the people who do exist there. These alternate time lines, or parallel universes, were inaccessible until the invention of the parallelilizer by our Corps genius, Professor Coypu. This device enables us to step into other parallel universes, or to fly in or get there in a number of interesting ways. The most interesting will be the generation of a screen big enough for the entire alien fleet to fly through so they will never bother us again. Any questions?”
There certainly were, and after a half an hour of detailed explanations I think I had convinced them all that something nasty was going to happen to the aliens and the war would be over, and they certainly approved of that. There were smiles and nods, and even a few muffled cheers. When Inskipp spoke it was obvious that he spoke for them all.
“We can do it! End this terrible war! Send the enemy fleet into another universe!”
“That is perfectly correct,” I said.
“IT IS FORBIDDEN,” a deep voice, a disembodied voice, said. Speaking apparently from the empty air over the table.
It was very impressive and at least one officer clutched at his chest, whether for his heart or some religious tract was not clear. But Inskipp, con man himself, was not conned.
“Who said that? Which one of you is the joker with the ventriloquial projector?”
There were loud cries of innocence and much looking under the furniture. All of which stopped when the voice spoke again.
“We are the Morality Corps.”
This time the voice came from the open doorway, not out of the air, and it took an instant to realize this. One by one the heads snapped around and every eye was fixed on the man when he came in. And very impressive he was too. Tall, with long white hair and beard, wearing a floor-length white robe. But it was hard to impress Inskipp.
“You are under arrest,” he said. “Call the guards to take him away. I’ve never even heard of the Morality Corps.”
“Of course not,” the man answered in deep tones. “We are too secret for that.”
“You, secret,” Inskipp sneered. “My Special Corps is so secret that most people think it is just a rumor.”
“I know. That’s not too secret. My Morality Corps is so secret there aren’t even any rumors of its existence.”
Inskipp was turning red and beginning to swell up. I stepped in quickly before he exploded. “That all sounds very interesting, but we will need a little proof, won’t we?”
“Of course,” he fixed me with a steely gaze. “What is your most secret code?”
“I should tell you?”
“Of course not. I’ll tell you. It is the Vasarnap Cipher, is it not?”
“It might be,” I equivocated.
“It is,” he answered sternly. “Go then to the Top Secret computer terminal there and give it this message in that cipher. The message is ‘Reveal all about the Morality corps’. ”
“I’ll do that,” Inskipp said. “The agent diGriz is not cleared for the Vasarnap Cipher.” That’s how much he knew. But all the eyes were upon him as he went to the computer terminal and rattled the keys. Then he took a cipher wheel from his pocket, plugged it into the terminal, and typed in the message. The speaker scratched and the monotone voice of the computer droned out.
“I, Inskipp, head of the Special Corps.”
