“You look tired,” Gogarty said. “Tonight, let’s just relax, enjoy the warmth, not stretch our minds beyond reading the letter a few more times.”
Paulsen-Fuchs nodded and laid his head back, closing his eyes. “Yes,” he murmured. “Much harder than I thought”
The snow had stopped by sunrise. Daylight returned the fields and banks to unassuming whiteness. The black snow clouds had dissipated into harmless-looking gray puffs gliding on the westward wind. Paulsen-Fuchs awoke to the smell of toast and fresh coffee. He lifted himself up on his elbows and rubbed his tousled hair. The couch had served well; he felt rested, if travel-grimed.
“How about hot water for a shower?” Gogarty asked.
“Wonderful.”
“Shower-room is a bit cold, but wear these slippers, stay on the wood slats, and it shouldn’t be too awful.”
Feeling much refreshed, and certainly more alert—the shower-room had been very cold—Paulsen-Fuchs sat down to breakfast. “Your hospitality is remarkable,” he said, chewing toast and cream cheese liberally slathered with marmalade. “I feel most guilty for the way you were treated in Germany.”
Gogarty pursed his lips and waved the admission away. “Think nothing of it Strain on everyone, I’m sure.”
“What does the letter say this morning?”
“Read for yourself.”
Paulsen-Fuchs opened the dazzling sheet of white and ran his fingers along the sharply defined letters.
Dear Paul and Sean, Sean has the answer. Stretching of the theory, observation too intense. Black hole of thought. Like he said. Theory fits, universe is shaped. Not other way. Too much theory, too little flexibility. More coming. Big changes.
“Remarkable,” Paulsen-Fuchs said. The same piece of whatever-it-is?”
“As far as I can tell, the very same.”
“What does he mean this time?”
“I think he’s confirming my work, though he isn’t being very clear. If, that is, the note reads the same way to you as it does to me. You’ll have to record what you’ve read for us to be sure.”
Paulsen-Fuchs wrote down the words on a sheet of paper and handed them to Gogarty.
The physicist nodded. “Much more explicit this time.” He put down the paper and poured Gogarty more coffee. “Very evocative. He seems to be confirming what I said last year that the universe really has no underpinnings, that when a good hypothesis comes along, one that explains the prior events, the underpinnings shape themselves to accommodate and a powerful theory is born.”
“Then there is no ultimate reality?”
“Apparently not Bad hypotheses, those that don’t fit what happens on our level, are rejected by the universe. Good ones, powerful ones, are incorporated.”
“That seems most confusing for the theoretician.”
Gogarty nodded. “But it lets me explain what’s happening to our planet”
“Oh?”
“The universe doesn’t stay the same forever. A theory that works can determine reality for only so long, and then the universe must ring a few changes.”
“Upset the apple cart, so we do not become complacent?”
“Yes indeed. But reality can’t be
“Let’s hear it.”
“Because they’re trying to save as many of us as they can, for something later.”
“The ‘Big Changes.’”
“Yes.”
Paulsen-Fuchs regarded Gogarty steadily, then shook his head. “I am too old,” he said. “You know, being hi England has reminded me of the war. This is what England must have been like during the…you called it the ‘Blitz.’ And what Germany became toward the end of the war.”
“Under siege,” Gogarty said.
“Yes. But we humans are very delicately balanced, chemically. You think the noocytes are trying to keep mortality rates down?”
Gogarty shrugged again and reached for the letter. “I’ve read this thing a thousand times, hoping there would be some clue to that question. Nothing. Not a hint.” He sighed. “I can’t even hazard a guess.”
Paulsen-Fuchs finished his toast “I had a dream last night, rather vivid,” he said. “In that dream, I was asked how many handshakes I was from someone who lived in North America. Is that meaningful, do you suppose?”
“Ignore nothing,” Gogarty said. “That’s my motto.”
“What does the letter say now? You read.”
Gogarty opened the paper and carefully recorded the message. “Pretty much the same,” he said. “Wait-one word added. ‘Big changes
They went for a walk in the intermittent sunshine, boots crunching and squeaking in the snow, compressing it to ice. The air was bitterly cold but the wind was slight. “Is there hope that it will all flex back, return to normal?” Paulsen-Fuchs asked.
Gogarty shrugged. “I’d say yes, if all we were dealing with were natural forces. But Bernard’s notes aren’t very encouraging, are they?
“I am ignorant,” Gogarty said suddenly, exhaling a cloud of vapor. “How refreshing to say that. Ignorant. I am as subject to unknown forces as that tree.” He pointed to a bent and gnarled old pine on a bluff above the beach. “It’s a waiting game from here.”
“Then you did not invite me here so that we could seek solutions.”
“No, of course not.” Gogarty experimentally tapped a frozen puddle with his foot. The ice broke, but there was no water beneath. “It just seemed Bernard wanted us here, or at least together.”
“I came here hoping for answers.”
“Sorry.”
“No, that is not strictly true. I came here because I have no place in Germany now. Or anywhere else. I am an executive without a company, without a job. I am free for the first time in years, free to take risks.”
“And your family?”
“Like Bernard, I have shed various families over the years. Do you have a family?”
“Yes,” Gogarty said. “They were in Vermont, last year, visiting my wife’s parents.”
“I am sorry,” Paulsen-Fuchs said.
When they returned to the cabin, consuming more cups of hot coffee and laying a fresh fire in the grate, Bernard’s note read:
Dear Gogarty and Paul
Last message. Patience. How many handshakes an you from someone now gone? One handshake. Nothing is lost. This is the last day.
They both read it Gogarty folded it and put it in a drawer for safe-keeping. An hour later, feeling a tingle of
