More Wheely-Thing-With-Bells-on Theorum
(Adventures in Nerdvana)
Chapter Eleven© Chuck Lorré Productions, Sir Terry Pratchett, and original ideas by me. My ideas; their characters; their original settings; Pasadena belongs to everyone, and Caltech is its own domain.
Possible titles (feel free to devise your own: PM me with them? Namechecks will be given)
A long one, possibly a bit wordy, but the exposition calls for it. Think of it as like The Science of Discworld, Six.
Sunday:
Breakfast was eaten in apartment 4a. Sheldon Cooper was seemingly no worse for his ordeal during the night, and was frantically eager to tell everyone how something which had seemed really frightening at the time had been turned into a beautiful dream when his mee-maw had entered to kill the evil thing that had been menacing him, had sung him "Soft Kitty", and led him by the hand back to bed.
"I wondered why you didn't wake us all up screaming, Sheldon." Leonard said. "So it all turned out alright in the end, huh?"
"What was the big bad, Moonpie?" Penny asked. "I asked 'cos Leonard had a bad dream last night too..."
"Interesting." Sheldon said, in a disinterested flat voice, cutting her off. "Mee-Maw was just how I remembered her. She is lovely..."
"Leonard dreamt of some sorta vampire thing hovering over him as if it was wondering about eatin' his brains. And with Leonard's brains, that's a five-course dinner for eight people, right?" Penny went on. "But it went away for some reason. Leonard said he thought it was goin' off after Sheldon. Then he said he hoped it died of over-eating, and he went back to sleep again."
Johanna and Ponder exchanged looks.
"Bit off more than it could chew, huh?" Leonard remarked. "Did your vampire have wings like a Mandelbrot set, Sheldon?"
"I vaguely recall something like that." Sheldon said. "But HEX, or a cyborg robot containing HEX's intelligence, was in the dream. Looking like C3P0 from StarWars, I must add. And for some reason Professor Stibbons, although he was dressed like Harry Potter."
Penny looked over at Ponder. A Ponder dressed like Harry Potter would be kinda cute... yeah, she could see where Johanna was comin' from, now.
Ponder wriggled under her frankly interested appraisal. He blushed a little.
"Just a bad dream, then." Leonard said.
"It would appear so, yes." agreed Sheldon.
Ponder sighed. But perhaps better for their sanity if they did not know about the Shadowing Lemma. This creature would note all scientifically, preferably mathematically, trained intelligences in an area. It would start by reducing the best and brightest to a dead hulk bereft of intelligence, then vampirically move on to the second-most intelligent. Lucky for Leonard it had sensed Sheldon nearby. Ponder frowned. Why hadn't it tested him out? Logically, this made Ponder the second-most intelligent male in the vicinity, maybe third-brightest, after Sheldon and Leonard...
"Freaking odd dream, then, Sheldon." observed Penny, helping herself to the scrambled eggs.
"Indeed." Sheldon replied. "I do recall I came out of sleep with some truly exciting new ideas concerning the five-dimensional geometry of a tesseractine structure in n-space. That's a hypercube to you, Penny."
"A hyper-what?" Penny said, bemused but indistinctly.
"Er, think of it like a Tardis, honey." Leonard tried to explain. "A space far bigger on the inside than it apparently seems on the outside."
Penny appeared to grasp this.
"Hey, so you could go into a telephone kiosk and discover you're really in a freakin' great hyper-mall?" she exclaimed. "Some seriously big shopping in the space it takes to put up a phone box? Hey, that's cool! You guys could end up doin' useful things with all this science stuff, after all!"
"Well, I never quite worked out how a guy, size of Superman, could change into the tights and things in a space that small." Leonard mused. "Could be his phone boxes were tesseracts. He needed somewhere to store his Clark Kent clothes, and not have them stolen, while he was out doin' good."
"Hey..." Penny breathed. "Sheldon Cooper! If you've got insights into how to make one of these hypertess cube Tardis telephone kiosks, you get workin' on it, sweetie! Momma wants a really big walk-in wardrobe for her apartment! Loadsa room for shoes!"(1)
Sheldon smiled at her.
"Whilst I naturally deplore your superficiality and the base, shallow, motives for your asking, I am happily in a position to tell you I remembered a great deal of the mathematics that came to me in this dream. After I awoke and Doctor Smith-Rhodes was commendably fast in providing me with a legal pad and pens, I spent most of the rest of the night writing down and codifying all I recalled. Which owing to my eidetic memory, was a lot."
Sheldon frowned, did a double take, and looked at Johanna.
"Doctor Smith-Rhodes. I have to ask you. Why were in my room at two in the morning, dressed in very little in the way of actual clothing, but a pair of most incongruous fluffy pink slippers, together with the whole terrifying armoury of weaponry which I am told is your normal garb on your world?"
"Well, I hed no time to put my clothes on." she said. "End clothes ere not es good in a fight es a good mechete. Listen to me, Sheldon. Ponder end I were in the room next door. We could hear you were in distress in your sleep. Es it is not fair to expect Penny to rush to your rescue every time you ewake from a nightmare – end do not forget we know whet thet sounds like – we decided I should come to your aid, should aid be needed. Besides, Penny taught me the words to "Soft Kitty" egainst such an eventuality. The weapons were in case of an intruder. I believe such things ere not unknown in this Celifornia."
Sheldon smiled again.
"In the event there was no necessity, as my mee-maw appeared and made all the bad things go away. And she sang me "Soft Kitty." But I thank you."
"This is freaky." Leonard remarked. "Sheldon's bad dreams don't normally end as well as this. He usually wakes up in a night terror, screams the place down, everyone hears it, and Penny or one of the other girls ends up singing "Soft Kitty" to him to get him to go back to sleep."
Ponder watched Leonard's face as he went into a reflective state. He sighed. It was probably best for everybody's peace of mind if they dismissed events during the night as nothing more than an odd dream, a subjective experience taking place only in Sheldon Cooper's mind. But Leonard Hofstadter was a guy who'd be acclaimed a genius in his own right if Sheldon weren't around. Ponder idly wondered how Leonard put up with that. Being second-best-mind to Sheldon could be bad for a sense of self-esteem, in a world where minds were prized. And Leonard had already identified one common feature in two bad dreams. Would he work out the rest - that the Shadowing Lemma had visited Leonard in sleep and passed over him because it sensed an even better dinner in the restaurant over the hall? It must have sized me up too. No wonder I woke up suddenly in a sense of foreboding with all my wizard-senses twanging. Thank Io that Sheldon was only a few feet away.
"Hey, Sheldon!" Penny said. "Do you realise, Moonpie, you've worked out how to get yourself out of your own bad dreams without wakin' anyone else up? You just call your old mee-maw and she comes in and does all the comfortin'! Well done, sweetie!"
Sheldon smiled, remembering the good part.
"Yes. I concede that could well be advantageous in the future. Those rather trite dream-therapy books you pick up in the self-help section, alongside "How To Be A Great Actress In Twelve Easy Lessons" and the like, may have some small kernel of truth in them after all!"
Then Amy arrived, having picked up Raj and Lucy.
"Hi, guys. Eaten yet? Plenty of toast and eggs, help yourselves!" Penny called.
The three heard about Sheldon's bad dream as they ate.
"And then, Doctor Smith-Rhodes was in my bedroom, wearing practically nothing but her weapons and a pair of pink fluffy slippers!"
Johanna made an apologetic face to Amy. Amy made a "We've been here before, Bezzie. Nothing to apologise for." face back.
"Sheldon, if anyone else was saying this, Howard for instance, I'd suspect you hadn't woken up and that was still part of the dream..." Raj said. Lucy giggled. "But I had a bloody odd dream myself last night. This vampire-thing was in my room and its wings were Mandelbrot sets, you know, like the computer screensaver you used to get in Windows 2000. It looked at me like it was considering something, then it shook its head, at least I thought that was its head, and vanished. Scared the Hell out of me! And my poor little doggie, my little Cinnamon, she was whining and crying. Something had scared her too!"
"Vampire probably didn't want to eat Indian food." Leonard mused. Raj scowled at him.
"It went, and I prayed to Kali Ma in her aspect of Mother Goddess to call back her vetela, the dark servant who does the will of Kali as Dark Mother." Raj said. "Besides, I reminded her it was Howard who dissed her yesterday and the vetela should have been given better directions! Dude, I even gave my Goddess Howard's address, and asked her not to harm Bernadette, and perhaps Bernadette might come to me, by grace of the Goddess, after her period of widowhood is over..."
Raj babbled to a stop, aware everyone was watching him.
"Well, it was scary." he said, defensively.
Johanna, a woman from a world where the Gods tended to come round in a gang and kick your door in should you be caught in blasphemy, patted Raj kindly on the shoulders.
"It is over now, Rajesh, end it is daylight." she said.
"That's odd." Leonard mused. "Three of us, all saw the same thing in our dreams..."
"But only I got to do the math!" Sheldon said, exultantly. He danced around the apartment.
"How to realise a five-dimensional hypercube in three dimensional space... take that, Schläfli! You belong to the nineteenth century, Elte! Eric W. Weisstein, where are you now? The big name in town is Sheldon L. Cooper! Sheldon and his brain, yeah! Sheldon and his brain, yeah!"
Johanna and Ponder watched, astonished, as Sheldon did a touch-down victory shuffle around the apartment.
"It'll take ages to bring him down." sighed Leonard. "It generally stops once he realises there's a critical error in the math. The last time he confused units in two different measurement systems."
One of the laptops beeped. Penny opened it.
"Oh, hi, Mary! Yes, I'm fine! You're looking good... wanna talk to Sheldon? You can hear him? Yeah. Thinks he's made some great scientific breakthrough. Again. Sheldon? It's your mom!"
"Oh, and this usually shuts him up, too." Leonard observed.
Sheldon reluctantly and sheepishly sidled over to the laptop. He looked, Ponder thought, like an elongated and far more fastidious Nobby Nobbs caught out in some petty criminality by Sam Vimes.
"Hi, mommy." he said, reluctantly.
"Just had some big insight into your Godless science, huh?" the woman's voice said, with studied patience. Her voice had a different sort of American about it: a little like the way Penny's was subtly different to native Celefornians, Johanna thought, but from somewhere still further away in what she was realising was a vast continent. The communication method appeared to be some sort of advanced Clacks with pictures allowing for direct voice contact. And that little eye on the picture box, like a smaller version of the seeing-tube HEX used at the HEM. That was how the picture of Sheldon's mother was being communicated here from an unguessable distance away? And it explained how Mary Cooper must be seeing into her son's apartment?
The slightly sing-song drawl carried on.
"Just you hunker down and remember, Shelley, that Jesus made you bright as you are and the ideas you get come from Jesus for you to use to glorify Him, you hear?"
"Yes, mommy!" Sheldon said, with a sort of whiney patience.
The woman on the screen had a sort of elegant faded attractiveness, even though it was easy to place her in her early fifties. You couldn't hold off age forever, Johanna thought.
"And I'm calling to remind you it's Sunday morning where you are, Shelley. "
"Like you do every Sunday, momma." Sheldon said, rebelliously.
"You're two hours behind Texas where y'all are." she said, patiently. "I'm going to church in half an hour. You promise me you'll go to church this morning and glorify your God who made y'all? Even in Godless California there are churches."
"Which by definition means California isn't godless..."
"Shelley, babyboy, we've been here before. You can't deny your God forever. And y'all got friends round? Rajesh, sweetiepie. See there's a little lady with you there? You go thank God for your good fortune and his gift, hon. The real God, I mean, not the fake ones Satan planted in your country to keep you brown folk from learning about Jesus. And Leonard and Penny, you make a fine couple of God's children there!"
"I'm eternally thankful, Mrs Cooper." Leonard said, with complete and fervent honesty. Penny took his arm and beamed, feeling like something out of a classic American painting. All it needed was a headscarf and a pitchfork.
"And new playmates, Shelley? Do I get introduced?"
"Momma, this is Professor Ponder Stibbons from Norwich University in England.."
"A real pleasure to meet an English gentleman, Professor. Is the "Ponder-Stibbons" thing one of those English names where there's a hyphen? And y'all must go to church? I hear the English are a sorta Episcopalian?"
"I know the Church of England, mrs Cooper." Ponder said, with complete and scrupulous honesty. "A great influence on my life and work. I have the privilege of knowing a priest who is and remains a massive influence on my life. He indeed drew me closer to a personal God."
He crossed his fingers and hoped she wouldn't realise he was talking about Charles Darwin. (3) Or indeed the God of Evolution.
"Ain't that the best thing!" Mary Cooper said. "England being the place where Satan planted that heresy Sheldon and I don't talk about very much."
"Momma! Evolution is true!"
"Still only your opinion, sweetpie." Mary replied, smoothly. "And I still don't see no monkeys evolving to the point where they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour".
Johanna came into view.
"And your other new playmate is?"
"Ah. Doctor Johanna Smith-Rhodes. From Witwatersrand in South Africa."
"A pleasure to meet you, honey. South Africa, huh? We got a visiting preacher from your country. He said he left after it got too liberal for him. And some of the things he said about black folk and religion... I mean, I'm open minded and I accept completely that even our black and brown skinned brethren have got souls to be saved for the Lord. Pastor van Reitingshoos didn't seem to think so, though!"
Johanna thought quickly, and put "Kerrigian Reformed Temple of Io and Offler in Rimwards Howondaland" into Roundworld terms.
"I belong to the Dutch Reformed Church of Sed-Effrrrika, Mrs Cooper. I understand thet falls into the Protestant spectrum of Christian churches."
She crossed two fingers. "I ettend services every Oc..Sunday."(4) But Mary Cooper beamed at her.
"Ain't that nice, honey? she said. "Now listen to me, Sheldon. It seems the Lord in His infinite mercy has done put two new god-fearing folk your way, to get you to think seriously about Jesus and this atheism bull-crap you done spouting. You listen to these two new friends, y'all hear? And I gotta go to Church soon, Shelly, but 'fore I go, there's time for you and me to join in a prayer."
Sheldon found everyone else had hemmed him in near the laptop. He had no escape... Johanna and Ponder soon realised the game was to join in with frequent "Amen"'s and "halleluiah!"'s when the prompt called for one. Being used to Discworld religion, they joined in with seemingly fervent gusto. Even Raj joined in the game – to him, he had no objection to adding a version of Christ to the Hindu pantheon.(5) Finally, proclaiming herself satisfied for now, Mary Cooper blessed her son and cut the transmission.
"Parents, huh..." Leonard said, trying to mollify Sheldon, who had gone from elated to moody.
"Dude, tell me about them." Raj added. He had issues with his own. Who also frequently IM'd with video-link.
Lucy, who'd ducked out of sight after the scary Mary had clocked her, re-appeared. She smiled, sheepishly.
"Gets us all that way at first, sweetie." Penny reassured her. "Mary might have a few issues... you know, the religion, her complete hostility to science, the borderline racism, a sprinkling of anti-semitism... but she's OK. Gotta lotta love in her. You want a scary mother, wait till Leonard's visits."
Leonard shuddered. His mother was due another visit to LA, very soon.
"Can I be on your Discworld when that happens?" he asked.
"If it helps, my mother keeps demending to know why I em not yet merried with children." Johanna said. She dreaded letters from home and thanked Offler the clacks had not yet reached Howondaland.
"Sweetie, so does my father." Penny admitted. "Least, to a steady reliable guy in a well-paid good job who stands a good chance of not raisin' his grandchildren on a trailer park."
"He loves Leonard." Raj said, helpfully. He did not add that his parents would scare Lucy into running miles. They'd also counter with another arranged marriage, were they to discover he was dating a white Italian-American girl.
Howard and Bernadette arrived.
"Hi, guys." Leonard said. "You just missed Sheldon's mom."
Howard smiled with relief. Bernadette beamed.
"So I'm spared all the "You Jewish folk are almost there, but you only need to acknowledge Jesus as Messiah."
"I like the way Christianity gives you guys a free pass, but calls my religion a Satanic delusion." Raj said, tartly.
"I'm Roman Catholic, you guys." Bernadette said. "Wrong sort of Christian. That's worst of all, to Mary."
Bernadette sighed. "What's religion like on your Discworld?" she asked.
Ponder sighed. "You'd find it horribly familiar in many respects." he said. "With a few twists all of our very own." Ponder had been raised by aunts. He felt a sudden irrational stab of jealousy that these people actually had mothers to complain about. Johanna, who knew this, took his arm, recognising his change of mood.
"Perheps this is too big a subject for now." she said. "We hev a free day ahead of us all. I would like to know more ebout Roun... Earth. I find myself thinking, this place celled Texas. Is it, perheps, a little old-feshioned? Conservetive in its thought? Forgive me for suspecting it might not be es edvenced es Celifornia?"
This touched a rich vein. Sheldon provided a map of the lower forty-eight, which had Alaska and Hawaii as inset boxes. The native Americans then guided the Discworlders through an ad-hoc tour of the United States, discussing climates, landscapes, history, people, social attitudes, and, Johanna suspected, the occasional prejudices. Somethings called Google Earth and Wikipedia were frequently invoked to arbitrate differences of opinion, and Ponder and Johanna learnt a lot. Often by default. Sheldon and Amy appeared to think flags were very important.
"There is a slug? On Weshington State's netionel flag?" Johanna exclaimed, amused.
"And you all think vexillology is boring." Amy said, smugly.
"State flag, sweetie." Penny corrected her. "Outside of certain states on the Deep South who ain't got over losing the Civil War, America only has one national flag."
"Our Californian state flag has a bear on it." Amy said.
"Thet I would like to see." Johanna said.
There was a hiatus while Sheldon went to his room to get all fifty state flags. He prided himself on having the full set. With updates.
"See what you started?" Howard said, slightly accusingly. "If he asks you to co-host his podcast, just say 'no'".
"Johanna?" Sheldon said, returning. "If it interests you, Amy and I present a regular Internet podcast called "World of Flags". It is very exciting.."
"You could be... an alien from another planet, perhaps, learning about our world through its rich heritage of flags and banners." Amy added, hopefully. "It would be a good presentation device."
Johanna considered the humorous aspect of this. Nobody would believe she was... but no, HEX had advised them to keep a low profile lest people on Roundworld who had a better grasp of reality find out about the Discworld. HEX had hinted that knowledge might already have leaked out on this side and one day sane people, in positions of power, might try to discover more.
"Let us look at your state flegs together, Sheldon." she said. "Perheps each fleg will open a discussion ebout the state it represents, yesno?"
She watched and listened, assimilating new information all the time. She also heard Leonard asking Howard
"Slept well last night? Any bad dreams? Any dreams at all?"
"Nuh-huh." Howard replied. "Slept like a log. Eventually." He grinned at Bernadette. Her eyes narrowed.
"Any reason for asking?"
"Just a freaky idea I had." Leonard said. "Sheldon, Raj and I all dreamt. More like nightmares, really. And they say people who spend a lot of time working and socialising together get sorta linked. Just that something pretty similar appeared in all our dreams."
"What, Doctor Smith-Rhodes dressed in not much more than fluffy pink slippers?" Raj said, dismissively. Johanna coloured.
Howard's mouth opened. He had the sense to be quiet.
"That part was no dream." Sheldon said, impatiently. "I indeed did awake to witness Doctor Smith-Rhodes in my room in the aforementioned fluffy pink slippers, wearing minimal clothing and full weaponry. Now if we can return to flags, please?"
"You guys had a shared dream?" Howard said, incredulously. "And I missed it?"
"No, no!" Leonard said. "The other thing. The element we all saw. The kinda-vampire in black with Mandelbrot-set wings."
"Well, yeah. But Johanna with the minimal clothing..." Howard persisted.
Amy gasped.
"Now you come to mention it... I did indeed witness such an entity in my dream last night. But I was awoken by the lab monkeys screaming in fright."
"My Cinnamon was also extremely frightened." Raj said. "She took some calming."
"It turned and left, as I recall. I gathered I was of no immediate interest to it." Amy continued. "but my monkeys and your dog reacted with fear-responses. Were they merely reacting to increased distress in us, in our sleeping state? Some hormones may be communicated by smell. Dogs and simians both have acute olfactory systems."
"Freaky..." said Leonard.
"I never saw a thing." Bernadette said.
"Please. Can we return to flags, the topic currently in hand?" Sheldon asked, testily.
++That would be a good idea at this point++ HEX said. ++I find the whole area of flags and banners as markers of collective identity among tribes and groups is profitable, for what it can teach concerning the sociological and anthropological make-up of sentient species such as the human race++ Leonard, later on I could perhaps have a private conversation with you?++ For one thing, with limited carrying capacity on the travelling machine, it would be useful if we worked out a schedule for visits to the Discworld. ++I would also like to speak with you about other matters, as Sheldon has somewhat monopolised my run-time recently, and the rest of you are also of interest to me.++
Johanna breathed a sigh of relief. Leonard was by far the most sensible of the four Caltech guys. He'd see the point of not scaring Sheldon witless by his discovering how near he'd come to Death during the night.
"Sure thing, Hex!" Leonard said, flattered by the compliments. And so learning about the complexities of humanity via its flags and emblems continued till lunch. Penny and Bernadette, with a little assistance, turned out a very nice salad.
"Penny," Johanna said, "Is there enywhere near here where a girl might go for a run?" Johanna had appreciated her holiday in California, but nearly four days in, she was realising that if she carried on eating like a Californian and doing less physical work than she was accustomed to on the Discworld, there would be inevitable physical consequences. She already suspected she had put on a pound or two in weight. Barely noticeable, but it could not be allowed to continue. The Guild did not approve of students or staff getting fat. She wondered how Penny and Bernadette avoided obesity the way they did.
"Ah-huh." Penny said, indistinctly. "You bought all that sports gear the other day, hon. You figure it's time to give it a run out?"
"It may be best, ja." Johanna said. "The food here is so much richer than I am eccustomed to. I believe I should perform extra exercise to compensate."
"Shame I can't go with you." Penny said. "But Sunday afternoon at the Cheesecake Factory – good shift. Families usually, so no drunken assholes hassling me. Good tips. Need to be there at one. Hey, sweetie, you come and get changed. I'll show you how the gear goes on, guess you're unfamiliar with it? - and I'll drop you off on the way. Arroyo Seco should be OK for you. Public park, mebbe half an hour's jog away, five minutes in the car, and it's on my way. Easy to get back here from there, too!"
Naturally, Amy insisted on coming over to make light conversation while the girls changed. Johanna speculated the real reason was to be able to watch them change clothes, but she shrugged. Alice Band could be like that too, sometimes. It didn't bother her.
"Freaky dreams you all had last night, huh?" Penny remarked as she got out the garish yellow clothing she had to wear for work.
"Freaky indeed. Sheldon maintains that he knows it was all just a dream, because he interacted with something claiming to be the anthropomorphic personification of Death. Can you believe that?"
Johanna, who could believe that, held her peace.
"The antoppo-what of Death?" asked Penny, not quite getting it.
"Historically, human beings have sought to take some of the fear out of the dying experience by assigning the process of death a personality, a character, if you will." Amy said. "We know death is an impersonal process, an event. Early men sought to placate this inevitability by treating Death as if it were a God, with the human characteristics people project onto their Gods. A thing with a personality may be negotiated with. Interceded with. Placated. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, a leading authority on the human relationship with death and the end of life, notes this goes back to the Bible Witness the Rider on the White Horse who appears in the book of Revelations as one of the four riders of the Ap.."
"Four riders, ah-huh, got that. You OK with that sports bra, sweetie?"
"Ooh, let me help!" Amy squealed. "Anyway, Sheldon claims his Death was the mediaeval character made famous by Ingmar Bergman in the film The Seventh Seal. He was slightly disappointed this Death did not offer to play chess with him. Sheldon considers he is a Grand Master at three-dimensional Star Trek chess and would no doubt have won back his soul... Does that feel good, Johanna? A pleasure, bezzie! Therefore Sheldon pointed out that just as the Ingmar Bergman character with the monastic cowl and the scythe is a personification of the expectations of people in mediaeval Europe, the personification of the expectations of his sort of people in present-day California would have been a perky, pretty, dark-haired teenager Goth chick. Because the Death that appeared was not the afore-described Death who appears in Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic series, who Sheldon justly expects to manifest to him at the moment of cessation of life functions, he could therefore safely assume he was dreaming the experience."
Johanna frowned. The nearest the Discworld got to a perky, pretty, Gothic teenage Death was Susan Sto Helit when she filled in for her grandfather. Ponder had explained it to her. She'd met and liked Susan. She made a mental note to check out this world's fiction, and reasoned that somewhere among her new circle of friends would be the Sandman books. Perhaps a little of Susan Sto Helit had leaked through into the mind of an imaginative artist? Artists, as Mustrum Ridcully had said, were buggers for that sort of thing. And poets.
Johanna pulled on the strange trainers. A shoe designed just to run in. Soft, supportive, incredibly lightweight. She fumbled with the long laces. Amy obligingly knelt down to tie them for her. She sighed, happily. It was like having a personal maid. Johanna was not above exploiting this.
"All set, bezzie!" Amy proclaimed, cheerfully.
"Thenk you." Johanna said, politely. She pulled on the orange, white and blue jogging top she had bought in the mall, from a shop specialising in selling reproduction sportswear of all the Roundworld's nations. They were the national colours of her native Rimwards Howondaland. Here, large black letters on the back said SUID AFRIKA.
For some reason Amy frowned slightly, then shrugged.
"Time to go!" Penny said, having tied back her hair and applied very minimal makeup. Amy assessed her.
"Family service, bezzie?" she asked. "Just enough cleavage for the dads, but not enough to worry the moms. And the "let me be your big sister" look to appeal to the kids."
"Yup!" Penny said. "I got it all scientifically worked out, sweetie. How to optimise my potential revenue in tips!"
She also looked at Johanna's top and frowned, then shook her head.
She'll be OK. Not many people round here know those ain't the current South African national colours. Hell, Sheldon and flags. Some of it lodges.
Johanna took careful note of the twists, turns, and street names between North Los Robles and the public park at Arroyo Seco. There weren't many. American roads were laid out simply and logically. Five minutes later, she was wishing Penny a good day, and starting her fitness regime with a few simple stretches and warm-ups under the Californian sun.
And the scenery is magnificent. Almost like the Drakensberg Mountains at home.
She plugged in the HEX-Ipod and began jogging, a nice steady pace she could pick up when she needed to. Exercise was so good...
++Music, Johanna?++ HEX asked, through the earphones.
"Pley some more of the local music, please, HEX. It hes en egreeeble rhythm end sound to it."
She jogged on, to the tune of "California Girls" by the Beach Boys. It had exactly the right sort of upbeat sunny summertime feel to it. The park was full, although not burstingly so, with people; family groups, dog-walkers, young couples, joggers and exercisers like herself. She found herself exchanging nods and smiles with other runners.
She noticed a seriously intent jogger, a dark-skinned African-American woman possibly in her early forties. What caught her attention was that the woman wore a top that advertised "CALTECH" in large letters. Johanna wondered about striking up a conversation and learning something about the institution she was visiting the next day. Drawing level, she called a cheerful greeting. The woman looked at her and her eyes narrowed, It was not a friendly look.
Ah. Black-skinned American. Here, I am a white-skinned South African. I understand the white South Africans did things that did not make themselves popular with black-skinned people. And I am flaunting my nationality in front of her. Perhaps a diplomatic exit is called for...
Johanna smiled and waved. She received only the barest and most minimal nod that could be called consistent with social politeness. There was no answering smile. Trying not to take it personally, she shrugged and stepped up her pace, pulling away from and in front of the woman. Who could now read the prominent SUID AFRIKA identity on her back. Ah well...
Johanna felt a sudden guilt about the fact Rimwards Howondaland was still an apartheid state and most of its people believed, to a degree, in white racial superiority. The South Africans here, in this time and place, she understood to have moved on from there. She remembered the person she had been before moving to Ankh-Morpork and felt a sudden shame at all she'd had to painfully unlearn.
And this morning, I learnt about the reasons for the American Civil War. About the segregation that followed – from which my own people on this planet got the idea for apartheid - the Jim Crow Laws, the Civil Rights Movement. Black people in this country have reasons of their own to suspect white people are not their best friends.
She ran on, enjoying the afternoon sun and warmth. A male jogger hopefully fell in beside her. Ah. Penny had called this "being hit upon". She had nothing against the man, but did not want the company of anyone, except perhaps HEX. She increased and maintained her speed, knowing she could push it faster if she needed to. After she left him gasping,panting and breathless in her wake, she slackened her pace again.
"HEX?"
++Yes, Johanna?"
"I hed a conversation with Ponder lest night. Ebout how every time the University sends people into the Roundworld to steer it elong the peth dictated by the Prime Directive, things heppen. Auditors. Elves. Horsemen. All seeking to prevent the human race from leaving this plenet. Es they must, so es to escape a ceteclysmic destroying event. Key people on the Roundworld must be nurtured end kept free from herm es without them, the human race loses vital skills for projecting itself into the wider universe."
++A masterful summary, Johanna.++
"Please tell me, HEX. Whet is so special ebout Sheldon Cooper? End Leonard Hofstadter? End Howard Wolowitz? End Raj?"
HEX paused for a suspiciously long time.
++It is not just those four people, Johanna++ Indications from further along the timeline of this incarnation of Roundworld suggests that Penny, Bernadette, Amy and indeed Lucy are also critical components to enabling humans to leave this world in viable numbers and colonise the stars.++
"So you get in, end you menipulate, to ensure the desired future heppens."
++A low blow, Johanna.++ We do not manipulate.++
HEX paused, for a beat.
++Well, only when we need to.++ Wizards created the Roundworld universe.++ We are responsible for its wellbeing.++ We are its Guardians.++ It is vital, as well as ethical, that the human race be allowed exercise of free will.++But some weeks ago, as I monitored alternate Roundworlds, I saw that Malignity would occur on this one.++ Two mornings ago, you intervened when Bernadette was robbed at an ATM.++ Had you not been there, Penny would have sought to defend her friend.++
HEX paused for emphasis.
++Penny would have received fatal stab wounds.++Leonard Hofstadter would have been heartbroken with grief.++He would have left Caltech and retired to live as a single man, never to marry nor father children.++ This is important.++ He would also not have been there to translate Sheldon Cooper's insight into a form with potential practical uses.++ Sheldon is a genius.++ But a flawed genius, in that he would not deign to be anything other than an abstract, theoretical, physicist.++Also, he tends to alienate people.++
"Now there is a surprise." Johanna murmured, feeling the breeze in her hair as she ran.
++This point in time at this Caltech with these people is seminal.++ Six scientific intelligences, specialising in different fields, all of whom have small but highly significant input to make into the science that lifts humanity out of the gravity-well of this planet.++ They have met and become friends.++Two have married, more or less happily++Others will, in time, follow++Cross-fertilisation of ideas is happening.++
"I think I gresp thet, HEX. And whet heppens?"
"I needed to get into this Roundworld to make several small changes and restore the timeline.++Therefore I designed and commissioned the building of the travelling machine.++I chose my two agents with care.++ You ensured nobody was actually killed in the robbery at the ATM.++The Caltech group would have gone for a day out in the country without you or Ponder. ++They would have been robbed of their vehicles. ++ It is possible one or more would have been killed or injured.++Your presence prevented that.++Also, Bernadette, in fifteen years' time, will now not be assaulted and raped by an intruder in her own house.++ Her erstwhile attacker will reason that a petite attractive housewife standing in her own kitchen far from any weapons is no match for a man with a gun.++ Those will be his last thoughts shortly before he dies with a thrown knife through his left eye.++Police will rule she acted in self-defense."
"End I em responsible for teaching her thet skill..." Johanna smiled, pleased. "But. Sheldon. Lest night."
++The threat was very real++ HEX assured her. ++Ponder Stibbons and myself entered the alternative plane of existence where the Shadowing Lemma had laid a trap to catch an intellectual genius and feed on his mind.++Its energies also touched all the other likely candidates who had indirectly had contact with it through ourselves, as things of the Discworld.(6) ++I took a slight risk, yes.++
Johanna digested this.
"HEX... If I were prone to cynicism, I might suspect you knew ell elong thet if an innocent like Sheldon were staked out es bait for a Shedowing Lemma, it would give his mind the necessary incentive to come up with the right meths very quickly. To take thet one lest step into a new concept. I might even think the worst of you end suspect you brought one with you, just to make sure!"
++Johanna!" HEX said, even managing to simulate shock. ++I am hurt you should think such a thing!"
"You said thet a little too quickly, HEX. Do not forget I wes taught ebout politicel theory by Lady T'Malia. End from time to time, I do jobs et the request of Lord Vetinari."
There was silence.
++I did not bring the Lemma.++ Owing to the path we took from the Discworld to this Roundworld, I was aware there was a risk others could follow along the same shadowing curve.++ All I knew was that Sheldon was at risk from a night terror that might prove terminal.++ If left this uncountered, he would have been found the next morning as a dribbling moron with his ability to interact with the world, on any level, completely gone.++
"And that's different from normal, exactly?" Leonard Hofstadter asked HEX, with icy un-natural calm.
++Leonard, please understand me. ++You have a right to an explanation."
"It's all a bit hard to take in, HEX. You claim two hundred years from now, give or take a coupla decades, there will be a cataclysmic extinction event. Possibly a meteorite triggering massive seismic instability followed by an Ice Age. Your Prime Directive is to ensure all of humanity leaves the planet in colony ships so as to have a chance to survive on other worlds. And somehow we're key to this? I'm key to this?"
++The eight of you are a significant part of the key, yes.++ HEX said. ++Again, Leonard, I am offering you the opportunity to have your conscious memory of this conversation erased. The underlying imperative will still remain, concerning why your input is vital to the space colony program that will commence in earnest towards the middle of this century.++ A knowledge that what you do is utterly vital will remain and you will be more certain of this than anything else you have ever believed in. ++But you will not know why you know.++
Leonard slumped back. HEX was sustaining two conversations simultaneously, one with Johanna in the park and one here in Leonard's bedroom. To a mind like HEX, this was nothing; like a grandmaster playing two simultaneous chess games rather than thirty.
++You had a meteorite explode in the skies over a Russian city not long ago.++ HEX reminded him. ++That caused only minor damage and a pretty light show.++ What if a truly large one impacts on, for instance New York?++ Or indeed on the volcanic caldera at Yellowstone?++
"And you say if you had not been there. Penny would have been murdered?"
Like Arthur Dent, Leonard Hofstadter reduced the inconceivable down to a level that represented personal tragedy for him.
++Almost inevitably, Leonard.++
Silence. Then
++I'm sorry. But Penny is a vital part too."
"HEX? You know what? Erase my mind, when you're done. But tell me everything first. Why is Penny important?"
Leonard paused, reflecting that had sure come out wrong.
"Err... she's important to me, obviously. Lots of people love her. Even Sheldon. But if I read you correctly, the list of key indispensible people reads, Theoretical physicist. Experimental physicist. Space plumber."
++Howard might prefer the term "astro-engineer", Leonard++
"Yeah. Space plumber. Astrophysicist. Doctor specialising in neurology and brain physiology. Biochemist who can synthesise anything in the pharmocoepia. And then, number seven is - waitress at the Cheesecake Factory and occasional actress?"
++Leonard, you have asked for conscious memory to be erased.++ Which means I can be completely open and candid with you.++
"Please do, HEX."
++Very well++
HEX made a noise that might have been a mechanical clearing of the throat.
++Ready?++
"Ready, HEX!" Leonard said, with some heat. He didn't believe in fortune tellers. But he sensed he was about to hear some hot-damn accurate predictions.
++Really ready?++
"Really ready, HEX!"
++You will marry Penny.++Despite the usual sort of marital misunderstandings, it will be long and happy.++She receives a long-standing role in a TV show that will make her a household name throughout the USA.++You will receive academic tenure.++Not at Caltech, but at Berkeley++
"Berkeley..." Leonard breathed.
++This enables you both to set up a marital home in Los Angeles, near to your friends and contacts at Caltech.++Penny's father will be overjoyed to see three grandsons and a grand-daughter.++None of whom grow up in a house on wheels.++your career is rewarding and happy, but you do not win a Nobel prize.++
"I never really wanted one, HEX."
++Your children are favoured.++ Three of them inherit their father's intellect and their mother's health and good looks. The fourth you will call Sheldon Lee after his god-father.++Who will insist on reading his vows in Klingon,by the way.++Before you retire, you will see a far younger researcher pick up a long-forgotten joint paper you wrote with Sheldon Cooper about the implications of navigation in tesseract space++ Mr Howard Wolowitz will have taken great steps in the practical engineering of the concept and his work will make it almost a reality.++ His great contribution will be in the immense practical task of engineering the colony ships++Spacecraft capable of transporting millions will need a great over-arching vision.++
"Howard's? Come on, you're putting me on!" Leonard demanded.
++Think about it, Leonard.++ Millions of people.++ A journey where the people arriving may well be the descendants of those who set out.++ Somebody has to get the plumbing right.++ And think of what direction they travel in. ++You require a pilot to point them in the right direction.++ An astrophysicist. ++Raj Kooprathali.++ He is now incentivised to look for worlds elsewhere capable of bearing life.++His work too will be notable.++
"Ok. I can buy that. Why Amy?"
++You wish to send millions of people into space?++ Who by necessity will not be as carefully vetted as the original astronauts?++ There are unanswered questions concerning long periods spent in deep space, changes in human neuropathology, and the ability of the human brain and mind to handle this.++Amy will go on to answer many of these questions.++Besides, she and Sheldon will also have children.++
"That's it, HEX." Leonard said, with grim finality. "Bleach my brain. Please?"
"So, HEX." Johanna said. "Heving ensured they live to do so, Penny merries Leonard. Amy merries Sheldon. Bernadette end Howard will hev children. Ell very neat. Ell very romentic. The sort of ending thet readers of romentic novels weep over. While others go into a silent rage thet the wrong people hev merried each other , end it would be so much better, for instence, if Sheldon merried Penny. But whet hes this to do with events in two centuries time?"
++The human race is to go on a voyage of discovery. ++This is uncertain and will take hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. ++Even allowing for our having primed Raj to search for habitable planets around nearby stars., thus making the business less one of firing at random in great but blind hope.++Consider, Johanna. ++The people who board those colony ships will die on the voyage. ++So will their children. ++It may not be until the days of their great-great-great grandchildren that they arrive. ++Space is, if not endless, then vast.++I am working ahead to make the vastness of space less relentless to those who will inevitably feel lost and alone in it.++The peoples inhabiting those colony ships must be strong, healthy and hardy.++ They must also be intelligent. ++There can be no spare mouths. ++The problem is, people with great intelligence are not often physically healthy.++ Regard Sheldon, Howard, Raj and Leonard.++
"I think I perheps see where this is going." Johanna said.
++And people who are in the peak of physical health and fitness do not tend to be intellectual. ++It is advantageous to have both abilities at the optimum in one body. ++Therefore Leonard's genes for superior intellect should combine with Penny's superior genes for health and vitality. ++The smart and the strong. ++And there are perhaps eight generations before The Snowball.++
"Hmmm." said Johanna. She considered a child with Leonard's strength and resilience combined with Penny's ability to comprehend quantum physics. Now there would be a colony vessel.
++Now if you will excuse me, I need to close my conversation with Leonard.+++This will take some run-time.++
All Leonard was left with was a feeling the world was too small for the human race and they had to get off it. Maybe open up the space colonies in Legrange Space that people had talked about for so long. (7) I mean, hell, I'm talking to a computer from another world here. Other worlds exist. I'm going to one soon. I get to go into space without soiling my spacesuit and experiencing 10G or whatever the Hell it was. And he really, truly, wanted to hug Penny and Bernadette and tell them he loved them so much.
"So. HEX. You really think Penny and I should go first? To your world?"
++Penny has bonded with Johanna. ++They are "bezzies", I believe the term is. ++And you and Ponder are in so many ways alike.++
"Sheldon's gonna bitch. Big time. You know that?"
++Perhaps Sheldon might appreciate a day-trip. How did the song go...++
Hex played a reflective guitar-based ballad, drawn from some online archive or other.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
Timothy Leary's dead.
No, no, no, no, He's outside looking in.
He'll fly his astral plane,
Takes you trips around the bay,
Brings you back the same day,
Timothy Leary. Timothy Leary.
"Ask Bernadette". Leonard said, getting the reference and grinning. "That's her department."
++But in principle, we take Sheldon on a trip around the bay?++Of his own choosing?++
Johanna came to a more public part of the Arroyo Seco park. She noticed, without surprise, that many placards, trestle-tables, and soapboxes, had been set up here by the sort of people who desperately wanted to be heard. It was all very much like Speakers' Corner at Hide Park. She followed the thought through, and scanned the desultory crowd with apparent disinterest.
Fellow over there under the tree. Too cleanly shaven and closely cropped. Looks more used to wearing uniform. Undercover cop. Or perhaps what Los Angeles has got by analogy to Dark Clerks. Lord Vetinari likes people to be able to speak freely, too. So that he can listen freely.
She paused to a walk and drifted lazily around, listening to scraps of harangue, sometimes scanning the type of publications for sale. She was amused by one speaker – she was sure he'd been in Stuart's comic shop the other morning – insisting that the aliens were here now, walking unseen and undetected among us posing as humans.
"Yeah, sure." somebody said. She smiled and walked on past a religious group calling itself the Reformed Worldwide Church of God. She gathered Satan had cast them out of what was rightly theirs when their church had schismed, and the Ungodly had been awarded the cash and real estate by a Satan-guided court. Temporarily reduced to preaching to the people in the open air so that the Truth could get through, they invited dollar donations...
More Omnians, she thought. She shook her head. Other Christian preachers harangued and thumped Bibles and demanded to be heard.
Be fair, Johanna. It is their Octeday.
And then she heard people with familiar accents. People were even talking in Vondalaans. She followed the voices. Then she was seen.
"Groete! Hei! Sus! Jongfrau!"
They were not unfriendly voices. She barely heard HEX saying, with alarmed emphasis,
++Johanna!++Not.++ Wise.++Come.++Away!++
But handshakes, backslaps and hugs were happening. Johanna accepted a cold drink from a guy who complimented her in Vond...Afrikaans... on wearing the right national colours.
"New in town?"
"Ja. Arrived Thursday evening on SAA. And you?"
"Been here two years now. We gave it a fair go after Nelson bloody Mandela. Didn't work. We had to leave God's own country."
The word "Mandela" was spat out like a curse. Johanna was vaguely aware this was a native politician who had somehow changed South Africa beyond recognition.
"Ag, be fair, bro. To be as convincing as Mandela, he must be at least part white. No native could do what he did. The fellow must have had a grandmother who was housegirl to a Boer..."
As Johanna looked around, she saw something that was almost like the national flag of her own Rimwards Howondaland.
"...got a taste for bleck tail one day..."
But instead of the two hippopotami symbolising Ankh-Morpork, there was a curious assembly of crossed crosses in red and white on a blue ground. The Sto Kerrigian flag was right,though. Blue, white, red. And the Boor Republik flag in between the strange crosses and the Sto Kerrigian. These three flags in miniature on the central white stripe of three horizontal: orange above, blue below. Symbolising the coming together of emigrants from Ankh-Morpork and Sto Kerrig to make the new Howondalandian colony work. Orange, blue, white. Her national colours. And those of South Africa on this world. She felt a kinship to these people and shook hands, quick hug-kiss with some of the women, and oh to be speaking proper Vondalaans again.
And then the elegant coloured woman in the Caltech sport top was jogging past again. And she recognised Johanna as the person from earlier. And this time a look of real distaste crossed her face.
Recognise the flag, sus?" somebody said to her. She scrutinised it.
A three-legged black cross on a white circle on an orange-red ground.
"A fylfot." she said. "A trefoil, if you will. An old mother-continent idea of the sun-wheel, related to the swastika..."
"De Afrikaaner Broederbund" a voice said, in pride. "Wherever in the world we are exiled, we are brothers!"
"Police here think it's a bleddy hate symbol. Man, can you believe that?"
"This country is too liberal. I hear they had apartheid here, once. Segregation."
Johanna scanned the books for sale. Inwardly she groaned. Polemics in favour of apartheid. The Protocols Of the Elders of Zion, whatever they were. She recognised the Jewish six-pointed star on the cover. Ask Howard? Something called Mein Kampf. Überwaldean. "My struggle". But whose? The cover showed a constipated-looking little man with a weak chin and an absurd fussy moustache. He wore a four-armed version of the ABB fylfot. She moved on, getting a certain suspicion. The absurd little moustache again. He looked like a municipal park-keeper suddenly given absolute power. Magazines and books advocating White Power, Aryan Nation. More cryptic things: an Ulster Vanguard, whatever one of those was, advocating "No Surrender! And "Keep Ulster Protestant!" A reference to a National Front, who used that strange emblem with the crossed crosses over blue.
And then...
Automatically, she linked arms with the others as a piece of music, familiar to her since birth, rang out from hidden speakers.
Uit de blou van onse hemel, uit de diepte van uns see,
oor uns ewige gebergtes, woor de kranse antwoord gee!
"It's the national anthem," she thought. "You just cannot ignore it. It's unthinkable".
Deur ons vêr verlate vlakktes, met die kreun van ossewa,
Ruis die stem van ons geliefde, van ons Land, Suid-Afrika!
"And these people are serious." she thought to herself. "They know the second verse too. All the words."
And as the anthem faded and she was fighting a mighty battle to refuse an invitation to a braii that night ("I would love to, but my American hosts have invited me to dinner. It would be impolite to refuse them. Some other night, yesno?") she turned to say goodbye and saw the elegant black woman again, in a part of the crowd that did not seem sympathetically inclined. Again she glared at Johanna.
Johanna took a different route out. She focused on remembering the route back to 2311 North los Robles, electing to run the five or so miles.
Such a wide well-planned boulevard! Lined with great old trees for shade! These Americans know how to plan a city!
Coming up next... the Lucy resolution. Sheldon joyrides the Travelling Machine. This involves a bonus crossover to another popular American sitcom. And possibly Caltech meeting its new visiting research fellows. Johanna will have an uncomfortable interview...
1) It has been noted, in a TVTropes discussion on the internal layout of 2311 North Los Robles, Pasadena, CA, that several researchers have tried to make computer-simulated models of the internal layout of Floor Four. These simulations are based on the copious, consistent, and reproducible, visual evidence given in seven TV seasons of TBBT. So far, nobody has been able to fit everything in. It needs to accommodate the elevator and stairwell, the guys' apartment on one side, Penny's apartment on the other, plus the intervening hall space. It isn't even possible to do this on the normally accomodating Sim City. Current theory, supported by the fact the Heinlein novella And He Built A Crooked House (2)is set in Los Angeles, is suggesting this is a REALLY deeply embedded sci-fi in joke. The guys, and Penny, are living in Heinlein's tesseract apartment house. No wonder the rents are so affordable...
2) About an forward-looking architect who builds an apartment block in Los Angeles (or somewhere in its greater metropolitan area) – which after an earth tremor shifts in space and time and becomes not a cuboid block, but a four-dimensional tesseract. For Discworld fans, think of B.S. Johnson and his wonder of residential living, Empirical Crescent, which has exactly the sort of residental features described in Heinlein's story and which in fact may be linked via time and space... I feel a sequel coming on...
3) Refer to The Science of Discworld 3, in which the science parts discuss evolution and the Discworld parts deal with Unseen University's influence on Charles Darwin – who even visits the Discworld.
4) As a resident house teacher at the Assassins' Guild School, she had to take her girls to compulsory Chapel every Octeday. Resident teachers had no escape here.
5) Many Hindus have no problem with Jesus as one more God in a religion that cheerfully honours thousands. It's probably Brahma's way of evangelizing the ignorant West. When Christians say that one God is a sufficiency, Hindus like Raj tend to get offended.
6) As predicted by Bohr's Law and the associated Copenhagen Interpretation: any two particles that once come into contact will forever carry on influencing each other. Or: make contact with part of the Discworld and other, less welcome, parts will come knocking on your door or materialising in what you think are your dreams.
7) The Legrange Points are the two singularities in nearby three-dimensional time where the gravitational pulls of the Earth and the Moon cancel each other out. In theory we should be able to build entire space cities here and they'll just hang in space not needing more than the occasional nudge of a retro-rocket. Some commentators advocate that the first space colonies should be here, and that the Legrange points should be used for a free launch into space on deeper missions still.
8) Anyone expecting the Moody Blues' follow-up to Nights in White Satin to be equally romantic, dreamy and full of Mantovani strings was, well, wrong. You got Legend of a Mind, a paean to drug culture pioneer Doctor Timothy Leary, a man whose attitude to biochemistry was even more laid-back and cheerfully relaxed than Bernadette Rostenkowski-Wolowitz'. Leary would be a scientific icon known to all the gang – especially Bernadette.
9) Parellel evolution again. The Discworld equivalent was identical except for the two last words. Johanna had had to remind herself to sing "Suid Afrika" and not "Hovondolaand".
This episode's soundtrack:
The Beach Boys, California Girls
Hawkwind, Space is Dark
The Moody Blues, Legend of a Mind
Uit de Blou van onse Hemel - "From the blue of our skies" - the South African national anthem, prior to a change of outlook in 1994. The new anthem is called 'Nkosi Sikele'e I Africa'
Shame I can't compile a podcast to go with these stories...