Phase Space
2025. Tied in to Baxter’s masterful Manifold trilogy, these thematically linked stories are drawn from the vast graph of possibilities across which the lives of hero Reid Malenfant have been scattered.Reid Malenfant is the commander of a NASA earth-orbiting science platform. The platform is intended to probe the planets of the nearest star system by bouncing laser pulses off them. But no echoes are returned … and Reid's reality begins to crumble around him. Huddling with his family, awaiting the end – or an unknown new beginning – Reid tells stories of other possibilities, other realities.The linked stories encompass the myriad possibilities that might govern our relationship with the universe: are we truly alone, or will we eventually meet other lifeforms? The final possibility – that the Universe as we know it is in fact an elaborate illusion designed to protect us from the fearful reality – is brilliantly explored in the tour de force novella that ends the volume.
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STEPHEN BAXTER
PHASE SPACE
STORIES FROM THE MANIFOLD
AND ELSEWHERE
Voyager an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2002
Copyright © Stephen Baxter 2002
Cover image of Calabi-yau manifold © Laguna Design/Getty Images
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Stephen Baxter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008134501
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007387335 Version: 2015-09-02
CONTENTS
Kate Manzoni, with Reid Malenfant and Cornelius Taine, stood on Mike’s porch. Inside the house, the baby was crying. Baby Michael – son of Mike – Malenfant’s grandson.
And in the murky Houston sky, new Moons and Earths burst like silent fireworks, glowing blue or red or yellow, each lit by the light of its own out-of-view sun.
It was just seven days since the failed echo from Alpha Centauri.
Malenfant said, ‘So what are we looking at?’
‘Phase space.’ Cornelius seemed coldly excited. ‘The phase space of a system is the set of all conceivable states of that system. We’re glimpsing the wider phase space of the universe, Malenfant.’
Kate wondered how that remark helped.
No traffic moved on the street. Everybody had gone home, or anyhow found a place to hunker down, until –
Well, until what, Kate? As she had followed this gruesome step-by-step process from the beginning, she had studiously avoided thinking about its eventual outcome: when the wave of unreality, or whatever it was, came washing at last over Earth, over her. It was unimaginable – even more so than her own death. At least after her death she wouldn’t know about it; would even that be true after this?
Now there were firebursts in the sky. Human fire.
‘Nukes,’ Malenfant said softly. ‘We’re fighting back, by God. Well, what else is there to do but try? God bless America.’
Saranne snapped, ‘Come back in and close the damn door.’
The three of them filed meekly inside. Saranne, clutching her baby, stalked around the house’s big living room, pulling curtains, as if that would shut it all out. But Kate didn’t blame her; it was an understandable human impulse.
Malenfant threw a light switch. It didn’t work.
Mike came in from the kitchen. ‘No water, no power.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess that’s it.’ He moved around the room, setting candles on tables and the fire hearth; their glow was oddly comforting. The living room was littered with pails of water, cans of food. It was as if they were laying up for a snowstorm, Kate thought.
Malenfant said, ‘What about the softscreens?’
Mike said, ‘Last time I looked, all there was to see was a loop of the President’s last message. The one about playing with your children, not letting them be afraid. Try again if you want.’
Nobody had the heart.
The light that flickered around the edges of the curtains seemed to be growing more gaudy.
‘Kind of quiet,’ Mike said. ‘Without the traffic noise –’
The ground shuddered, like a quake, like a carpet being yanked from under them.
Saranne clutched her baby, laden with its useless immortality, and turned on Cornelius. ‘All this from your damn fool stunt. Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? We were fine as we were, without all this. You had no right – no right …’
‘Hush.’ Malenfant moved quickly to her, and put an arm around her shuddering shoulders. ‘It’s okay, honey.’ He drew her to the centre of the room and sat with her and the infant on the carpet. He beckoned to the others. ‘We should hold onto each other.
