Tipler must have been experiencing at that moment. If the Gifts weren’t lying, this knowledge would revolutionize their fields.
Then another concern returned as he stood watching the universe turn around him.
“That door,” he said, glancing behind him. “It was the front door of my stepmother’s house. I lived there until she sold it in 2009. I went back there just before the mission, but it had been knocked down. How... ?”
He stopped. The question didn’t need asking, because the answer was obvious.
They knew everything about him. More, possibly, than he did. But not all of the doors had been familiar. Perhaps, he thought, the ones that were familiar were the ones the Gifts wanted him to explore first, knowing he would be automatically drawn toward them.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’d like to go back to the Hub and try one of the other doors.”
“All you need to do is go back the way you came.”
Alander took a step toward the door but not through. Now that he was paying attention, he could see that the other side was blurry, as though seen through a heat haze. “You ready for this, Caryl?”
“As ready as we can be.”
“Okay.” He went through the door, alert for any odd sensations but feeling none at all. Samson vanished again as he did so but reappeared a split second later on the other side, in the Hub.
“No obvious surges or emissions,” Hatzis said. “Beats me how they do it.”
“How do you do it?” he asked the Gifts. “Move me around like that?”
“We do not do anything, Peter. The Spinners have provided the technology. We are only permitted to guide you so far in its use.”
“What happens if we hurt ourselves in the process? Like a savage might, poking around in a television set?”
“But you are not savages, Peter,” said the Gifts. “That is why the Spinners gave you these gifts in the first place. You are aware of the need for caution in the face of new technology. If you follow our guidance, you will be safe.”
As the psychologist said to the laboratory rat, he thought.
“Ask them about the towers,” said Nalini Kovistra via conSense. “Ask them what they’re made of.”
Alander could sense a gathering throng from the Tipler as various experts lined up to ask their questions. The thought daunted him. He knew he would have to help find answers to these questions, no matter how long it might take or how unlikely it seemed. He felt like a minuscule David flinging challenges at a Goliath who didn’t even know he was there. Yet Goliath had noticed—the gifts were evidence of that—and he had chosen Alander to act as the middleman for humanity’s first contact with an alien race.
But why him? What did he have that the Spinners wanted? The uncertainty nagged at him as he tried to remember the question Kovistra wanted him to relay. Until he could answer that question, there was no way he could fully trust any of the answers he received.
A wave of dizziness rolled through him. He shook his head to clear it, but the feeling only ebbed. It didn’t go away.
“Try another door, Peter,” said Sivio. His voice was displaying some of the emotion Alander had felt when the Gifts had first spoken to him: amazement, surprise, the beginnings of excitement. Now all he felt was distant and exhausted.
“Sure,” he said and stepped forward. This time he made a point of choosing a door that wasn’t so familiar to him: circular except for a slightly truncated base and made of brushed aluminum. It was only when it had slid aside with a faint hiss and he was passing through it that he realized it was familiar after all. Fashioned on late 2020s metallic, it had been the door to his first home in Beijing. He had lived there for less than six weeks.
This time he was prepared for the brief confusion. By the time the Tipler caught up, he had walked ten meters into the chamber on the other side and was puzzling at some of the things he found there.
“ Look at this
Then another concern returned as he stood watching the universe turn around him.
“That door,” he said, glancing behind him. “It was the front door of my stepmother’s house. I lived there until she sold it in 2009. I went back there just before the mission, but it had been knocked down. How... ?”
He stopped. The question didn’t need asking, because the answer was obvious.
They knew everything about him. More, possibly, than he did. But not all of the doors had been familiar. Perhaps, he thought, the ones that were familiar were the ones the Gifts wanted him to explore first, knowing he would be automatically drawn toward them.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’d like to go back to the Hub and try one of the other doors.”
“All you need to do is go back the way you came.”
Alander took a step toward the door but not through. Now that he was paying attention, he could see that the other side was blurry, as though seen through a heat haze. “You ready for this, Caryl?”
“As ready as we can be.”
“Okay.” He went through the door, alert for any odd sensations but feeling none at all. Samson vanished again as he did so but reappeared a split second later on the other side, in the Hub.
“No obvious surges or emissions,” Hatzis said. “Beats me how they do it.”
“How do you do it?” he asked the Gifts. “Move me around like that?”
“We do not do anything, Peter. The Spinners have provided the technology. We are only permitted to guide you so far in its use.”
“What happens if we hurt ourselves in the process? Like a savage might, poking around in a television set?”
“But you are not savages, Peter,” said the Gifts. “That is why the Spinners gave you these gifts in the first place. You are aware of the need for caution in the face of new technology. If you follow our guidance, you will be safe.”
As the psychologist said to the laboratory rat, he thought.
“Ask them about the towers,” said Nalini Kovistra via conSense. “Ask them what they’re made of.”
Alander could sense a gathering throng from the Tipler as various experts lined up to ask their questions. The thought daunted him. He knew he would have to help find answers to these questions, no matter how long it might take or how unlikely it seemed. He felt like a minuscule David flinging challenges at a Goliath who didn’t even know he was there. Yet Goliath had noticed—the gifts were evidence of that—and he had chosen Alander to act as the middleman for humanity’s first contact with an alien race.
But why him? What did he have that the Spinners wanted? The uncertainty nagged at him as he tried to remember the question Kovistra wanted him to relay. Until he could answer that question, there was no way he could fully trust any of the answers he received.
A wave of dizziness rolled through him. He shook his head to clear it, but the feeling only ebbed. It didn’t go away.
“Try another door, Peter,” said Sivio. His voice was displaying some of the emotion Alander had felt when the Gifts had first spoken to him: amazement, surprise, the beginnings of excitement. Now all he felt was distant and exhausted.
“Sure,” he said and stepped forward. This time he made a point of choosing a door that wasn’t so familiar to him: circular except for a slightly truncated base and made of brushed aluminum. It was only when it had slid aside with a faint hiss and he was passing through it that he realized it was familiar after all. Fashioned on late 2020s metallic, it had been the door to his first home in Beijing. He had lived there for less than six weeks.
This time he was prepared for the brief confusion. By the time the Tipler caught up, he had walked ten meters into the chamber on the other side and was puzzling at some of the things he found there.
“ Look at this
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