Tales from the Multiverse Read online

  Tales From The Multiverse

  Pam Uphoff

  Six stories, one from before, and the rest after the foundation of Embassy

  And a Framing Story, just for the fun of it

  Copyright © 2019 Pamela Uphoff

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN

  978-1-939746-56-6

  This is a work of fiction.

  All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.

  Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA

  (apologies to the Tadpole Nebula for the image alterations)

  ID 46813812 © Ian Allenden | Dreamstime.com

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Portals!

  Sneak a Peek

  Interlude

  Planet Purple

  Interlude

  Recall

  Interlude

  Rain of Fire

  Interlude

  Super Star

  Interlude

  The God of Virtue

  Interlude

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from an upcoming release

  Other Titles by Pam Uphoff

  Introduction

  This is the 42nd title in the series that starts with Outcasts and Gods. If this sounds like an intimidating number of books to catch up on, Empire of the One is also a good point to start.

  Or just dive in here, with six stories imbedded in a seventh. Enjoy!

  Portals!

  “Two hundred and fifty-eight Portals mapped. So far. There’s no sign of an end to it all, although I have found a lot of dead end branches.” Peter Rhodan looked around and grinned. Portals! To new worlds!

  The microwave relays he was laying out worked well enough, but there was a slight delay with each additional portal.

  “There are still the two kinds of portals. One that goes between worlds and the other that goes from place to place on the same world. There doesn’t seem to be any symmetry to it. Always one place-to-place between world-crossers. But often multiple place-to-place branching off a world-crosser. Those multiples tend to go off to dead ends. But not always.”

  He waited, and got a reply back, after a few minutes.

  Must have had to check something. Or go take a piss.

  “Keep going. We’ve got a requisition in for more relays, but you know how long that takes, so keep pulling the dead end relays, and . . . well, it’s got to end somewhere, right?”

  His boss sounded pretty dubious, and Peter didn’t blame him.

  “Unless these are natural phenomena. Right, well, I’m down to nine relays, so reports may get a bit sporadic.”

  “Just don’t get lost, eh? I’ve got another group of VIPs to escort around tomorrow. Sooner or later the number of people who believe us instead of calling us con-men will reach a critical mass and then . . .”

  Ronald’s voice trailed off.

  Peter finished the thought for him. “Then our private project will find itself rolled into one of the big government departments and if we’re lucky we’ll be working for some bureaucrat, and not out in the cold.”

  Especially if they run a gene scan on me! Stupid prejudice. Not my fault I’ve got a Genie grandmother! And they’re bound to classify all this—once they actually believe it—and that means an in depth look at my background which will probably be enough to toss me out, even without a DNA scan. Dammit all!

  Peter looked around and suddenly grinned.

  When I run out of relays, maybe I’ll just keep going. What the hell. Enjoy it until my antecedents catch up with me again.

  “So tomorrow’s report may be the last for a while.”

  He waited for an acknowledgement, then turned to look over the three place-to-place portals. Foggy shapes, squarish. Pinned against cliffs, or in midair with the top corners stuck on trees. A few with stone arches.

  In keeping with his system, he started with the portal on the right. The giddy feeling, the twist in his sense of up and down was expected now. He stepped into a thick forest, dark under a solid canopy of leaves. But the glow from the right led him straight to the World Portal. Half a kilometer away, this time.

  A perfect circle—just standing there with no support. He’d dug around enough of them to know that the circle continued underground, just enough buried to allow something with a pretty average wheelbase to drive through. Not that he’d found any tire tracks.

  The hoofprints and narrow solid wheel tracks had been bemusing enough, at first.

  Several days in, he’d realized that the lack of gas stations in this maze of worlds was reason enough for horse powered transportation. But few of the portals had any prints at all, probably because the varied weather on the varied worlds had erased any that might have once been there.

  And I haven’t met actual people out here.

  He eyed the World Portal with trepidation. Sparkling white swirl, ready to suck him down and spit him out into unknown territory. He set out the microwave relay. Took a deep breath.

  Please, not elephants again!

  He gripped his rifle and stepped through. Desert. Hot, dry, reddish stone. Not so much as a bush or cactus in sight. Nothing trying to eat him. He set down the relay. Fiddled with its placement until the connect light turned green.

  Then he spiraled out from the portal and located a single place-to-place portal by the pale fog in the stone arch. He stepped through to another bit of desert, and started looking for the sparkling white of a world-portal.

  Four world-portals later he finally found people.

  A pair of fishermen.

  With fancy rods, and plastic tackle boxes.

  These are not primitives. These are men from an advanced society, the kind we decided I should stay away from.

  One of them reeled in and shook his head at an empty hook. Stood up and spotted Peter. Waved casually, and started digging in a small pail. Pulled out a worm.

  Peter braced himself. This could be my last opportunity for cross-dimensional access. I don’t give a fig what’s sensible. I’m going to try to talk to them.

  The stranger straightened with a long worm in his hand. “Don’t know why I bother.” He sounded quite cheerful. “Had a few bites, but I’m just wasting bait now.”

  “Too bad.” Peter walked up closer. One chubby, one thin, both looking like city men on vacation. “I could use a fish fry.”

  The chubby man looked at the rifle Peter was carrying. “You could try for venison. Plenty of deer around.”

  Peter glanced at the two rifles on the ground.

  “Eh, those are in case of bears or wolves. I’m not much of a hunter.” Chubby impaled his worm, and glared at the thin man who had snickered.

  Thin looked around to meet Peter’s gaze. Nodded politely. “What he means is he can’t shoot worth a damn and hopes the sound scares the bear off. I’m Napoleon Zambrano, Capital Times, Earth. That’s Don Bennett, Pioneer Gazette, Purple.”

  Times? Gazette? Newspapers? Are these guy reporters? What the . . .

  The chubby guy grinned. “From the blank expression, you must be new.”

  “Um, yeah. I was just exploring . . .”

  The thin Napoleon guy grinned. “And got lost?” He pointed. “The corridor’s up the trail. Go through the gate, take the corridor to the far left, then you’re at the gate to Embassy.”

  “Oh, umm, Thanks!” What the hell? An embassy?

  He headed in the direction Napoleon . . . Zam-something? Had pointed, and found another portal.

  He said corridor and gate . . . so this should be a place-to-place . . . and they call them corridors.

  He stepped through, and looked quickly
for anything dangerous. Then checked his phone, still with a signal from the last relay he’d placed. He walked across to the next portal and stepped through. Lost phone contact.

  He turned and stepped back through. They’ll see the relay . . . unless I bury it. He pulled the folding shovel out of his backpack and lifted off a square of turf . . .

  Yeah. Bury it right beside this thing, which is probably someone else’s relay . . .

  Holy cats! I’ve hit the jackpot. An advanced cross-dimensional civilization that speaks English. I wonder how many parallels there are, is there another Peter Rhodan over there?

  He patted the turf back into place and combed the grass a bit to conceal it.

  Because I might not want anyone to know someone from outside is here.

  He stepped through the gate and dug in the other side of the relay, carefully aligning the emitters and receivers.

  One more “corridor” and “gate.” I’ll take a look before I emplace a relay where someone might pick up the carrier signal.

  Let’s go find out what I’ve got here.

  What he had was a small city. Rolling hills, with mixed grasslands and trees.

  Two skyscrapers to the right, a taller one to the left. Some shorter buildings poking up over a couple groves of trees . . . and once he walked down to where the dirt road curved and turned into a paved street he could see straight down to a big fountain and buildings everywhere. The sounds of heavy equipment on one side, and high children’s voices on the other as he walked past the “Maze Street Elementary” on the right side, and the larger but less noisy Northeast Diagonal High School on the other side of the road.

  A two story building bearing the title “Magic School” on the left, and a bit closer to the city, a theater and nightclub on the right, both closed. Pastry shop on the left, emitting baking odors.

  And me with no local money.

  The two skyscrapers had a lower third building in their cluster, and a high concrete fence enclosing a large block around all three buildings. By the time he got to the corner, he had an ornate building in white granite to his right, and good view of an open plaza.

  There was traffic through a gate in the concrete wall, and armed, uniformed guards, so he turned the other way, trying to stroll casually. Should have dropped the backpack and sleeping bag and rifle off somewhere on the other side of that last gate. He slung the gun, and tried to look innocuous.

  Not that it works at a distance, but at least it ought to keep me from getting shot by the guards I’m walking up on.

  These guards were looking him over, but not looking alarmed. His polite nod was returned, and his glance through the gates showed a graceful building, and over the arched front entrance “Arrival.”

  He walked on, stopped to admire the fountain across the street, and looking back at the walled compound of the skyscrapers, he saw that the concrete fence was inset with bronze letters “Empire of the One.”

  Napoleon said Embassy. Did he mean embassies? Plural? Surely not!

  He smoothed down the hair on the back of his neck and started walking again. Next, an ornately carved building labeled “Comet Fall West.” And then there was a black cubic nightmare on the corner block, angled so it faced the plaza. “Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation.”

  He didn’t dawdle, and seeing the street ended in a block or so, with nothing but grass beyond, he turned and headed . . . he pulled his compass out of his pocket . . . west, in front of the tallest building, thirty floors, more or less. It had another building behind it, and construction going on back there. The four guards there eyed him suspiciously, under their “Embassy of Earth” sign.

  Earth! I’m from Earth!

  He walked on. At the next corner, there was a diagonal road . . . a three story building sprawling out in multiple wings. And a wooden fort, like some old historical site. He walked down to see what kind of label it had. “Purple World.”

  Huh. Maybe a colony where the vegetation is . . .

  Two men strolled out of the fort. One with pale blue hair, the other a deep eggplant purple.

  Right. Purple World. These really are embassies of cross-dimensional worlds. I need to report back to MY Earth and . . .

  His thoughts stalled out as he turned and the sprawling building fell under his gaze.

  “Public Library? Holy answer to my prayers . . .” He trotted across the street and through the doors. Stopped and stared. The central area was open all the way up, with stairs and balconies, and glimpses down the wings of floor to ceiling books.

  The door bumped his back and he staggered a bit, turned.

  “Don’t just stand there, in everybody’s way. Move your big feet.” A thin dark girl, young woman, stalked past him.

  “Sorry.” He shuffled away from the doors, looking around.

  “Oh . . . Crap! No, I’m sorry. That was very rude of me.” She still sounded abrupt and irritated. “You look lost.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Come with me. I need some stuff from the Earth wing. There’s books, and most of them are digitized and a lot easier to search. These are the computers. They’ve got all kinds of wired and wireless transfer modes, and you just . . . if you need to . . .” she gestured him up to a computer next to the one she’d claimed.

  She gave him a dubious look. “If you have a comp that can sync, you can download as much as you want. Everything here has been cleared for public use. Most of the computers here have been modified for several cable ends and will search for multiple wireless protocols.” She tapped away at her comp while Peter shrugged off his pack and rifle and pulled out his comp and booted it.

  The woman had a device half the size of his sitting on a bare spot on the computer . . . well, it wasn’t a keyboard, more of a one piece everything board. She poked at the screen. Peter set his comp on the bare spot and the monitor lit up with “searching for protocol connection.”

  The woman picked up her device, forced a smile onto her thin intense face, nodded and walked away.

  And I didn’t even ask her name!

  Peter sighed and got back to work.

  The computer flashed something about Earth OP 26.

  Then "Welcome to the Earth's Library" and gave him a list of options. (A) brief histories (B) Detailed Histories (C) Cultures (D) Government (E) All

  He touched (E) on the screen. It blinked.

  What the Hell does that mean?

  He chewed his lip and scanned the screen for hints while it kept blinking . . . The screen changed to “Done” and “Next”. He picked up his comp and walked back to the entry, checking for . . . Holy Cow! Thousands of files.

  He surveyed the names over each hallway. And headed for “Empire of the One.”

  This is a gold mine! Assuming there really is something in those files . . .

  Three hours later he walked out and headed for the portal, the gate.

  I’ll call Ronald, let him know about a whole friggin’ world full of embassies. Send him everything, then find a place to camp, and start reading.

  There was a small crowd on the Plaza, some guy up on a stand of some sort making a speech.

  Peter trotted across the street to listen. Half the people in the crowd were taking notes, including the two fishermen from this morning. Peter shrugged out of his backpack and found a pen and pad of paper.

  Ignore me, I’m just one more reporter, no big deal.

  “Self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner! That’s all any of those Disco people are!” The skinny old guy up on the box pointed at the black corner building. “Look at them! The very building threatens us! Xen Wolfson is a Dangerous Madman!”

  Peter grinned and made sure he was catching all the emphatic capitalizations. Glancing toward the threatening building he spotted the irritated girl from this morning and circled the thin crowd to approach her.

  She glowered at him.

  “So, tell me, Miss? Do you think Xen Woolsen,” He frowned at his notes. “Wolfson? Is a dang
erous madman?”

  She was staring at his notepad. “You’re writing in cursive!”

  “Err, yes?” He looked at his notes. “They’re kind of messy, my handwriting’s not very good . . .”

  “You are writing in cursive!”

  Peter hesitated. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “No! What world are you from?”

  “Earth. Well,” he glanced over his shoulder at the tall building, “Not that Earth, but . . .”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, they’re all Earth, even the ones that don’t call it that, or that have weird tectonic histories and so forth. But can you read cursive?”

  “Well, yeah . . .”

  “Hi. I’m Fire. Come with me.” She grabbed his arm and hauled him along with her, straight up the black steps and into the bowels of the threatening building.

  It was midnight before he got back through the portal and contacted Ronald. And started a long transmission.

  He stepped away and set up his tent, unrolled his sleeping bag. No need to cook, Fire—spelled Fyor—had bought him dinner. But he started a little campfire just for the cheery warmth.

  The computer dinged and he walked back.

  Transmission complete, and his boss yelling at him about contacting Aliens and going on and on . . . and apparently starting to scan what Peter had sent him. In disbelief.

  "You broke into their systems?"

  "No, I didn't crack their computers. Those are downloads from the public library. Anyhow, half of them don't use computers. A lot of their old reports are hand-written in cursive, that most of them don't use anymore. . . sort of like a professor I know. God knows I've been cursing, trying to read their handwriting and key it in."

  "Look, don't trespass or, or . . ."

  He could barely heard his boss's voice over the low power comm. "Oh, no, no problem with access. They've hired me to do it."

  ***