Murph didn't stop laughing as he scooped her up and carried her towards the Medbay. She barely got herself under control as he started checking her vitals. She was present again, but no more coherent as he started testing her for signs of a psychotic break. "Murph?"
"We were wrong." She told him intensely.
"Murph?"
She was babbling. "We were building from the wrong end, chasing the string in the wrong direction, turning the merry-go-round the wrong way!"
"MURPH!" Getty yelled in her face, and she finally looked at him. "You're scaring me!"
And then, just for a second, just for a moment, she looked at him like he was the centre of the whole universe. His heart gave a solid thump. He'd wanted her to look at him that way for longer than he could remember. Even when she'd told him she loved him, she didn't have that look of pure… omniscience.
"Getty…" She whispered, a voice full of wonder and awe. "I could see all of it, from every direction. I could see inside and through the world from every direction. It was wonderful!"
"Murph, come back to me for a sec. Okay? Speak in sentences."
Murphy was up off the cot, casting about, looking for something. She was searching all her pockets so frantically that she tore two of them off her labcoat. "I need a pen. I need a pen right now! Where's my pen!?"
Cooper flicked through his daughters journal, skipping the next ten pages entirely. The prose was borderline unhinged. But there were sketches in the margins. He recognized the shapes she had drawn. It was the Tesseract. The fractal infinity of his daughter's bedroom.
The words that accompanied them was impossible to figure out. They were all actual words, but they made no logical sense, strung together randomly.
But on the last page of incoherence, written over the scribble in a much newer hand, in a bright red marker strong enough to cut through all the crazy, was a small note; and it was addressed to him.
"Murph..." Cooper thought aloud. "How did you know I'd be reading this?"
Dear Dad,
You may be the only one who has a clue what it's like; other than me. I was seeing every instant in the past and future of everything. The reason you came through it was that I was able to anchor your view. You saw every moment in the history of only my bedroom. You're wondering how I know that, but I know, because as the last ten pages of near insanity will attest, I had no anchor. Which means...
"...I was seeing every moment in the history of the everything I knew." Murph explained to Getty. "It was overwhelming. I'm not entirely sure I'm really back, to be honest. I just can't stop seeing this insane kaleidoscope when I close my eyes..."
She had been drifting in and out of lucidity for a while, and she'd woken up feeling clear at last. Her last clear memory was asking for a Pen, and then everything went blurry.
Her head was still pounding, and she'd tried to sit up, only to realize that she was strapped into the bed. Getty had been asleep in the chair next to her bed, and she'd woken him gently. She'd tried to reach, and found her arm strapped down, with an IV feeding her fluids. Getty had woken up and checked his medical machines, while she tried to explain that she was okay again.
"Your dompanie levels are still off the charts, ditto for the EKG." Getty reported. "I have no idea what the wormhole itself does to human physiology, but this is something new."
"It is." Murph nodded, looking sane and clear again. "Getty, we were looking in the wrong direction!"
"You kept saying that, but I have no idea what it means." Getty told her. "You were babbling like a lunatic for almost a full three days. No sleep, no food or water..." He brought over three clipboards full of crazed scribbling. "You kept writing until the pen ran dry, and then you kept going so fast the tip tore up the page. I had to strap you down and put an IV in to keep you hydrated on day two."
"Three days? Is that all?" Murph was awed at the thought, which did nothing to improve Getty's nerves. "What did Ellie say?"
"I haven't told her yet. The worst thing we could tell Earth was that Murphy Cooper had lost her marbles." Getty told her. "You finally passed out almost twenty hours ago. Your brain scan said you were having some pretty wild dreams, but they finally settled after you got sixteen straight hours of sleep."
"I'm not surprised." Murph didn't seem concerned. "The human brain is designed for Euclidean Geometry and linear time. I have no idea how to lay a ruler along what I saw."
It took another six hours and a full slate of diagnostic tests for Getty to decide she was stable again, and he untied her. Bloodshot eyes aside, she looked less deranged after a shower and change of clothes.
But she was different now. Getty saw that instantly. There was a strange glow on her face, like she was lit from within somehow. Her eyes had changed, becoming older and sharper.
He tried to get the story out of her, but she was telling it in different pieces, so he needed to listen for a long while before he could thread together the 'beginning' 'middle' and 'end' of the story.
"The experiment worked, but… I did more than create a Singularity. I think I created something else."
"Like what?"
"A… doorway. A Bridge… I don't know how else to say it."
"To where?"
"The Bulk." She looked at him, that inner fire brighter again. "Getty, I think I'm the first human being to see higher dimensions."
He stared at her. "I have no idea how to respond to that. How do we even know that's what it is? I mean, we live in three dimensions. How do you even describe an extra one?"
"I still don't know that I can." Murph admitted. "If you want to look at a 2D image of a house, you look at a floorplan. You want to see it in 3D, you either build it, or model it, so that you can see from different angles… What do you do when you want to see it in eleven dimensions? Because it's still the same house…"
"What was in the 'wrong direction'?" Getty asked her. "As incoherent as you were, you were fixated on that thought. Can you explain that part to me?"
"The wormhole." Murph nodded. "We first discovered it decades ago, so we assume that was when it was constructed. But it wasn't. It was constructed in the future."
Getty stared at her. "Murph..."
She was getting that intense look again. "Everything humans build, they are constructed, they last on into the future until they are taken apart. The wormhole goes the other way! It was constructed in the future and continued back to when it was needed."
"Like it ages backwards?" Getty tried to get there.
Murphy giggled. "You think I've gone insane. You know more about my work than anyone alive, and you can't understand a word of it, but you know that it's theoretically possible to control gravity and use it to bend time far enough to tie it in a knot."
"I was there when it stopped being theoretical." Getty nodded. "You know, I never really believed, about the watch…"
"I know." She reached out with both hands, caught him by his lapels, and pulled him in close for a passionate kiss. She didn't let him go when they broke for air, resting her forehead against his. "I saw you and me, Gets. I saw our wedding, I saw our kids. Their first step, first tooth; first grandkid. I saw you joshing me when I found my first grey hair, I saw you catching our youngest getting drunk on moonshine and hiding him from me till he sobered up; I saw you getting freaked out by this monologue and interrupting by-"
Getty kissed her back swiftly, hard enough that their teeth mashed together. She was more than willing to go along with him. Poor thing must have been so scared. She thought, unable to settle.
"I know how to make the micro-singularity." Murph whispered to him in bed that night, head resting over his heart. "I can do it. It's easy. I know how to condense the Gravity Field until it breaks through to Bulk Space."
"Then what went wrong?"
"I went wrong. I went too far, and got pulled into the Bulk Space myself. I can fix that now, if I can keep the Singularity narrowed to the size of an atom." She let out a breath. "Unlimited energy, Gets. We could be home in three months. We could bring the whole Station back here if we wanted."
"Mission Accomplished, then." Getty said, fingers going still in her hair. "Right?"
She didn't answer.
The next morning, they received a message from Lazarus Station, telling them the situation was getting more desperate. Barton had overheard them reporting 'limited success' and was trying to rush their invasion plans, before Murph could achieve her goal, and get the Stations entirely out of range.
"I don't know what he's worried about." Murph said lightly. "If we transmit the formula to our people, he'd be able to hear it too."
"Our people are the only ones set up to build one of those Chambers. I'd be amazed if Earth has that kind of tech left." Getty commented. "But you get the message, I'm sure. They're telling us to work faster."
"And they don't even know what we're working on anymore." Murph nodded. "I'm afraid it's gone quite a bit beyond a power source."
Getty looked at her expectant, hopeful face, and sighed. "All right. Convince me."
"The problem with the Gravity Formula was that it was only half complete. The other half needed more data to reconcile Relativity. Time and Space. This new Formula? I know how to reconcile it, but I have to anchor it to a specific event. We have to go again." She told him.
"Murph, creating a Tesseract nearly killed you!"
"No, it did kill me, and then put me together again. I think." Murph said directly. "But I think I know how to beat that, now. See, a Tesseract is a cube in four dimensions. A square is two dimensional, a cube is the same shape in three dimensions, and a Tesseract is the same shape in four. With me so far?"
"Yes." Getty noded. "Ish."
"Good. The problem was not the shape of the box, it was what I put in it." Murph held up the new equations on her tablet, as though that explained everything. "You build a box around a single person, and the only thing in that box is one person, no matter how many dimensions you're in. I had no idea how to… direct the box I was building, and that was what nearly killed me. I can make a Tesseract, and give it a focal point. The outside edges of the box will reach into infinity. But if you can figure out where the exact centre of a place needs to be…" She saw she was losing him. "When you assemble a jigsaw puzzle, you always start with the borders. You know where the edges are, and the picture fills in from there. When you build a Tesseract, you need to know where the exact middle is, and the edges build around it."
"Okay." Gety nodded. "So, where do you plan to focus the Tesseract?"
"Well…" Murph bit her lip. "This has never been done before. So, like any good scientist, I need a control group. Something to compare my results to."
"Usually, you create a control group with an already successful instance, or a naturally occuring example." Getty reminded her. "Where do you plan to find one of those?"
"I'm afraid I can only think of one place and time when I know this sort of… Omni-Vision was used."
"The wristwatch in your room." Getty said, and she knew he'd thought of it too. "Now, maybe I'm missing the obvious, but… to do that, you'd need to have exact coordinates of the space and time in question."
"I have that." Murph nodded. "I can give you the location of my old bedroom in GPS, to the square inch. Spatial coordinates too."
"But if you're right, about your father using this kind of technology to send you a message, then you'd need to know his exact coordinates, too."
"That, actually, will not be hard." Murph said with a hard sigh. "I can enter the Tesseract here, because I'm creating a focal point. But last time, when it was done by accident? It's because I was trying to generate a Singularity." She smiled like a shark. "So, how did my dad get into a Tesseract?"
"Well, unless he also had a Singularity... to... enter…" Getty thought hard for several seconds, and then looked out the window to the Wormhole. "Gargantua?"
"The only place where a Singularity, and a Gravity-Construct co-existed in proximity, just like here. We both made the same journey, on opposite sides of the same Wormhole; with the Tesseract as a bridge between both." Murph nodded. "To create a Tesseract that I can manage, I need data. To do that, I need to look at a functional Tesseract. The only place and time where I know one existed? The one my father used." She looked at him intensely. "Gets, you're the only one I ever told about my Ghost. You're the only one that believes me about the Bootstrap Paradox. I can't ask anyone else to let me do this…"
"Please don't ask me to let you do this." Getty asked softly.
"I have to."
"Three days, Murph. After years of hoping, dreaming, and idly craving you, we finally got our chance… and then I spent three straight days by your bedside, listening to you babble like a lunatic. Do you have any idea what was going through my mind, listening to you rave for three straight days and nights?"
Murph caught herself short. "No, I don't. I don't have the clearest memory of it, to be honest."
"Lucky you." Getty said tightly. "I don't want a happy holiday with you, Murph. I need there to be a beginning, middle and end."
Murph cupped his face between her hands again. "I want that too." She said honestly. "Look… Gravity was always a long shot, back then. But we did it. Now, I'm telling you that we need this, just as much. You have nothing but your faith in me to help you decide if you believe that. I'm asking you to have faith again. For me. In me. With me; because I don't know for sure this will work. I just know that it has to."
Getty looked sick. "You know I can't ever say no to you, Murph. Walk softly, because if you asked me to walk through fire for you, I probably would."
She kissed him sweetly. "I know." She said quietly. "I don't take that lightly. I know what I'm asking you for."
"And if you… If I don't get you back, this time?"
"Then you take this ship back to Earth at top speed, and you tell the others how to create a Micro-Singularity at atom size. We'll have saved the Stations, and the human race, one last time." Murph said quietly. "The mission is a success, but there's another mission now. To make sure the circle is closed."
Long, fragile silence.
"Murph?" He said finally. "Did you mean it, when you said you saw our futures?"
She smiled. "Yes. And to answer your next question, yes; I will marry you when we get back."
Getty smiled, just a bit. "Then let's get this done and see if we can set a speed record back to Earth."
The formula was adjusted, using some mathematical voodoo that Getty couldn't even guess at; and Murph went back into the Chamber. Getty knew quickly that this time was going smoother, because she was on Comms the whole time.
"My God! It's full of Stars!" Murph exulted in awe.
Getty keyed the Comm. "I saw that movie too, babe."
"I know." She laughed joyously. "This is really amazing, Gets."
"Can you... Describe it?"
"I can see every second of my old life unfolding like a hall of mirrors. I know that doesn't make sense, but that's what it looks… Wait… something's wrong."
"I'm pulling you out."
"No! Not with the machine, not with me… Getty, there's no Tesseract here. I'm not just opening one, I'm… I'm creating it! How is that possible?! We know the time loop existed in my bedroom."
Getty's hands stilled over the Emergency Stop. "Maybe… we were looking in the wrong direction on that, too?"
Long silence.
"Gets, if you're right… then I just built the Time Loop that my father used."
"Are you still so sure it was your father?" Getty said finally. He'd been dancing around that question since she'd shown him the watch.
Long silence.
"Only one way to find out." Murph admitted.
Silence.
"Murph?" Getty called again. "Still with me?"
No answer.
"MURPH!"
Murph was actually enjoying herself. It was incredible! Her room, laid out in four dimensions, from the moment the house was built. The bookshelf was there before Murph was born, and she could see her mother and father, combining their bookshelves, carefully laying their library together.
She could see the moment her mother put a crib across from the bookshelves. She could feel tears gathering, as her father brought his newborn daughter into the room for the first time, laying her in the crib. Her father was smiling so much...
He loved me. Murph thought to herself. I spent twenty years wondering if… I spent all that time screaming about how he left me to die.
Floating through a place where there was no 'up' or 'down' or 'past' or 'future', Murph was surrounded by her own past, her own bedroom, her own…
Every time her dad helped with her homework. Every time her dad cheered her up after a bad day. Every time her dad told a story, or gave her a puzzle…
Looking at it from an adult's perspective, Murph could see how much effort he put into her, even when he was tired, even when he was dusty, or heartbroken…
She saw the moment he hugged her, the night mom died. He'd held her all night while she sobbed. Then Tom came in and dad pulled them both together tightly.
Why did I hate him so much? Murph felt the shame hit her like a freight train. How could I think that he'd abandoned us without trying?
She saw the moments after she left home. She saw the dust getting thicker on the windows. She saw Tom getting older, coming into the room and glowering at their father's remnants. Dad gave Tom the farm. He gave me the watch, and I didn't want it...
She saw Tom get older, angrier, more stooped by stress and growing doom. She saw Lois hiding in the doorway, getting less sure of herself around him, more scared.
She saw Tom yelling at Lois and felt her heart race. She saw Lois come running into her old room with Coop, barricading the door with Tom on the other side. I left her there.
She saw herself, a full grown woman, come into the bedroom with an oxygen mask in her hand. Tom wouldn't look at her, staring sullenly into space as she sat on the floor of her bedroom beside him. They were speaking, but she couldn't hear them. I don't remember that. Is that the future?
Murph saw herself stand up, and kiss Tom goodbye... And then look at the bookcase. For a split second, Murph was making eye contact with herself, across space and time.
Awed, Murph felt her way along the kaleidoscope, looking for more information... when her headset suddenly buzzed. "Cooper? Can you read me? I'm detecting an EM Transmitter. Is that you, Cooper?"
Murph felt her heart start to speed up. That voice wasn't coming from anywhere in her room. Not at any point in the timeline. "This is Cooper. Please identify?"
"This is TARS. Cooper? Your voice is different."
Murph had studied every facet of the Endurance and her Crew. "TARS? The android assigned to the Endurance? How… Why… How are you here?"
"I entered the black hole, attempting to gather Quantum data on the Effects of the Singularity. Pilot Joseph Cooper was to come behind me, but that was over 99999 hours ago."
Murph felt her heart start to race. "To be expected. If you entered Gargantua in front of him, the time dilation effect has separated you quite a bit further. He… may not make it to this side of the Event Horizon for quite some time… Even centuries."
"My understanding of Tesseract Mechanics is limited, but was included in my subroutines, so that I could help Doctor Romily with his observations and conclusions of Black Hole Physics." TARS reported. "As I understand it, Time is no longer a consideration. May I ask when you entered Gargantua? Are you part of the earlier Lazarus Missions?"
He isn't here. Murph thought weakly. He's still falling through space, towards a black hole, waiting to die. Once he gets here, time is meaningless, but it could take him a million years to fall all the way in; and I opened a doorway in twenty seconds. "TARS, do you understand where you are?"
"I have identified the primary subject visible through the Construct as Murph Cooper. She trespassed into NASA property some time ago." TARS said. "I have yet to determine why this space is fixated on her bookshelf."
"Did you see me too, Murph?" A woman's voice rolled to her softly, from some direction in the future that Murph only caught glimpses of.
"TARS, make your observations for as long as you can. Eventually, Cooper will join you, and he'll need that Data." She told him. "Will you give him a message for me, TARS? When he gets here?"
"I am unable to confirm that, until I know your clearance level. Please identify yourself."
"I'm the one that built this Construct." Murph was about to respond, when she felt the space around her start to warp again. "TARS, I'm being pulled out of the Tesseract, but there's more than one point where this space and the Physical universe overlap. When it closes down, you'll probably come out on the other side. I promise, the Tesseract will stay active until the mission is complete! Good luck, and tell my-"
The Tesseract was gone, and she was suddenly facedown on a solid floor again, gasping.
Getty was right there with her, shining his penlight in her eyes again. "Murph? Talk to me. How long this time?!"
"A few more seconds would have been fine." She told him, not really annoyed. "But I have no idea what I would have said, anyway."
Murph was silent as she oriented the ship for the ride home. Once they were moving, there was little to do but wait. Getty gave her space, as best he could, and she finally noticed him pushing a tray of food at her, yet again. "Sorry. I haven't been nearly as good company on the return flight as I was on the outgoing one, huh?"
"I'm not upset, believe me." He said easily. "I'm used to deep-thought-broody Murph Cooper. It's a far cry better than the last time I pulled you out of there."
"It worked, Gets." Murph said quietly. "I can anchor the Tesseract to a specific place or object, and as a result, I can see that object in four dimensions. I can even anchor the entry point to more than one singularity. One I made, or one naturally occurring. Gargantua, the Wormhole, my Singularity, currently powering the drive… All points where euclidean geometry ceases. I can turn any of them into a Doorway to a Higher-Dimensional Space." She wiped her eyes. "The experiment worked better than I ever dreamed it could. I know how to create the Wormhole, because I just created something very similar. A bridge between multiple places in space-time."
"So why do you look so miserable?"
"Because…" Murph sighed. "He wasn't there. He wasn't there, and I thought, of all the places he must be…"
Getty stilled. Other than himself, there was only one 'he' in Murph's world. "Tell me we didn't take that chance with your sanity again because you wanted to find your father."
Murph couldn't meet his gaze. "It's not so terrible a reason, is it?"
Getty looked sick. "Murph-"
"I know how my father gets the message to me, through the watch." Murph said quietly. "I just set it up to happen, but he's still stuck in slow motion, a galaxy away. It could take my father another thousand years to make it all the way into the Black Hole, and he doesn't even know how long it'll be." She shook her head. "Paradox. And I still didn't get to say goodbye."
He looked sideways at her. "Y'know, this is almost worse than you babbling incoherently, because I still can't be sure you haven't lost your mind. You're talking about your father and what he'll do in a thousand years, despite the fact that he was presumed dead over a decade ago."
"I know."
He was silent a long moment. "Murph, I don't want you to make a Tesseract again. We don't know exactly how it works, what it does, or what it's doing to you. Until we can figure out an answer to at least one of those questions; I don't want you to do it again. I know you outrank me, but speaking as your doctor; it just seems too… crazy. To say nothing of what someone like Barton might do with it; if they ever find out."
Murph smiled. "Okay. Then I won't use it again."
He froze. She had conceded way too fast. "Really?"
"Really." She promised. "And while we're wiping the details of how long we put off hypersleep from the Ship's Memory, we might want to wipe out details of the Tesseract too. Nobody but you and I will ever know."
"Is this that thing women do, where they keep agreeing with someone until they give in? Because we've only been an official item for a week, and I don't want us to play that game."
"A week?" She smiled. "That depends entirely on your perspective, believe me."
The Jesse turned, ready to 'fall' towards earth at terrific speed. And yet inside, there was no feeling of motion. The two of them looked up at the starfield. Without a word, Getty went and collected their blankets and pillows again, recreating the position they'd been in when they left earth; only this time, they were looking towards their destination.
"Which one is us?" Getty asked suddenly.
Murph smiled, and pointed 'up' at the speck of light in question. "That one."
Getty shook his head. "Yikes."
"I know." Murph agreed, feeling it too.
Silence.
"Voyager 1 passed this way in the late 1980's." Murph said quietly. "Our first up close picture of the planet Saturn was taken by that probe. And now we're here, seeing it in person. And we're not even the first ones to do it."
Getty nodded, his hand finding hers.
She pulled him closer, until his head was laying back against her stomach, and she curled around him, snuggling up like she'd been doing it for decades. Murph turned down the cabin lights and found herself talking again, soft and gentle. "Professor Brand was a big Carl Sagan fan. Sagan asked them to turn Voyager's cameras around when it passed Saturn, to get a shot of Earth. He didn't get permission until the probe passed Neptune, years later. But the picture it took… My God, Gets. We're actually looking at that view right now."
"Yes, we are."
"I've been looking at it for so long. The old man had it framed on his wall."
Getty started to forget the ship, like her voice and the stars were the whole extent of the universe. "Pale Blue Dot. I remember."
"I wonder, sometimes; if that was why he lied about Plan A. From here, it doesn't seem like that big a deal." Murph said softly. "Look at it. It's nothing. We're still in Earth's own neighborhood, and I honestly can't be sure I haven't gotten the whole Earth confused with a speck of dust on the window."
"It's a very humbling profession, space travel." Getty said softly. "Every Apollo Astronaut described it as a religious experience."
"Faith?" Murph murmured in his ear.
"Faith." Getty nodded.
"For a theoretical physicist, God is Physics." Murph murmured back. "What is it for you?"
"You know my views."
"Yeah, but… I figured having a Doomsday Clock strike midnight would shake that." She gestured at the tiny dot that was their homeworld. "The universe isn't cruel, it's indifferent."
Getty shook his head. For all the heavy topics, the mood was just so… mellow. "It's not about kind and cruel. Those are questions for religions. Creation is something else. Design is about seeing the universe and believing it's not an accident. Religion is about who's signature gets put on the job."
"Ah. And you have faith in Design?"
"Yeah." Getty nodded. "One of my teachers told me about the Periodic Table. He said that every element on the table has an atomic number; but when you line those numbers up with each other, a pattern emerges. One so precise that scientists were able to predict the undiscovered elements, even what they would look like, long before anyone found them and put them under a microscope. Even a single cell organism has hundreds of different sub-cellular components that have to work perfectly in sync. More complicated than Darwin ever dreamed." He reached back and started stroking her hair again, almost like an unconscious need. "Space is the same way. You said yourself if the universe was moving any slower, or any faster; the cosmos would have ceased by now. But the balance between Gravity and Motion was so perfect… I never knew what to make of Religion, but I loved the idea that the same god who could create the cosmos was also the one that made a cell divide."
"I like that idea too; but I don't know that I agree with it." Murph admitted. "People in my profession have spent centuries trying to figure out how the force that holds an atom together can be the same force that makes the earth go around the sun so flawlessly. There's still so much I don't understand."
"Murph, you want to see God's Signature on something, look through a microscope, look at your formula, look at a Periodic Table of Elements. Complexity isn't what gives me belief. It's that the complexity isn't random. The patterns are so perfect that you can tell me where Saturn will be in a billion years."
"Or see the ratio of a spiral galaxy in a seashell's curve." Murph was feeling the mellow, loving tone of it too. They weren't arguing Science Vs Religion, they were each giving someone they loved a personal view of life. "Voyager left the Solar System, Gets. Without the Wormhole, it'd be the only thing we ever built that did. If we hadn't cracked it… If we hadn't pulled it off; Voyager would have been the only proof that life ever existed on the third little rock, spinning it's way around this one particular point of light among trillions."
"Buzz Aldrin was religious. He quoted the Psalms when he was on Apollo 11. 'When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him?'" Getty almost hummed. "I always liked the idea that a shepherd boy could see our place in the universe the same way we do, thousands of years later, because his faith told the same story as our telescopes. The Story of an insignificant Pale Blue Dot, surrounded by infinite wonders."
"I have that Sagan speech committed to memory. He was about as anti-religion as you could get. When a bible verse and a notably brilliant confirmed atheist agree on something like our position in the grand scheme of things, it's no small thing." Murph murmured, reciting the speech in question. "'The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar', every 'supreme leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there. On a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot'."
The mellow warmth cooled a bit suddenly, brought back to reality. Murph sat up slowly, not wanting the moment to end. "We'll talk more, love. Right now, we have to get back to Earth, before Barton starts yet another war over our particular speck in a sunbeam."
"Yeah we do… Or worse, before he wins it." He agreed. "You have a plan?"
"I do, but it rather depends on getting there before anyone starts shooting."
Getty nodded, letting the moment go. They had agreed where their priorities would be. "So what are you waiting for? Step on it!"
Ellie looked at the radar scope, showing over a dozen military craft closing on Lazarus Station. After almost a year, they were still running on minimal power. Everything they turned on had to take energy from something else.
There were no weapons, no ships capable of ship-to-ship combat.
The approaching fleet was made up of fighter craft, and landing craft, full of troops. It wouldn't take many soldiers to overpower the control room.
Contact with the Jesse had been lost when they got up to speed. Ellie had no idea when to expect them.
As the enemy grew closer, everyone was looking to her. Murph, what do I do? She reached for the Comm. "This is Doctor Eleanor-"
"Assault Fleet to Lazarus Base. You will stand down all operations, and surrender control of the facility to our authority. Legal hurdles have been cleared, and we are taking back ownership of the Base."
In other words, having rewritten the laws you find inconvenient, you have given yourselves permission to do what you want. The matter-of-fact way they put it turned her stomach, but she had nothing to fight back with, nothing to negotiate with.
"Boss, I got a bogey coming in at 0.4 of Light Speed." Howard reported.
Ellie looked over sharply. "What the hell goes that fast?"
"No idea. It's moving so fast it barely reads on the radar!"
Ellie tensed. "Equipment failure?"
"If it is, it's heading for Barton's Assault Fleet." Howard reported. "And it's slowing down!"
The Comm crackled. "Sorry to sneak up on you like that, Ellie; but time was of the essence."
Ellie felt her heart stop. "Murph? What the hell did you do to that thing that it can go so fast?"
"Wild, huh?" Murph reported. "Sorry about the telemetry. It probably looked like we went dark the second we got her up to speed."
"Well, you got here just in time to negotiate our surrender." Ellie said grimly. "There's no way we can adapt your power source to the Station in time."
"No there isn't." Murph agreed. "But Getty was kind enough to sleep for two months so that I could take his food, and work on a few modifications to the Gravity Drive. Hang on, I'll see if I can get their attention."
Down on Earth, Secretary Barton was monitoring the operation.
"Base, we have a new craft coming into range. Don't recognize the configuration."
The militaries had disbanded after the Resource Wars, along with most governments, but to save their own lives, Barton was able to pull half a dozen Generals and Air Marshals out of retirement. Surrounded by them, Barton leaned forward and commed his pilots. "That's The Jesse, believed lost near Saturn over two months ago. It has no offensive capability. Continue the mission."
"Copy that." The Wing Commander reported. "Still no response to our warning."
"Then begin moving on the Airlock." Barton directed. "Remember, these people are smart, but unarmed. They may have improvised some defences, but there should be minimal resistance."
There was a shudder through the footage as the Assault Craft accelerated. He got a clear sight of the Jesse for a split second, before the camera went still, holding position.
Barton hit the comm again. "Ignore the bogey, continue on mission!"
"Sir!" The Commander grunted. "We're experiencing… I don't know what's happening here, but my readouts are currently at Three G's!"
"What does that mean?" Barton asked the room.
"It means they're fighting gravity, the way they do when they launch." One of the generals said.
"Up to Four G's now." The report came. "We currently have no forward motion… None of the Fleet does." He was grunting. "Engines are overheating. I've got to keep our engines at 70% just to hold position!"
Barton glowered at the screen, and the one craft that stood alone between an entire fleet and the Station. "The opposing gravity is being generated by that ship. Take it out, immediately."
"Roger that, locking on." The Commander said, and it was clear he was becoming pained, trying to tough out Four G's.
"This is Murphy Cooper, of Lazarus Base." A call came over the radio. "We have no desire to fight. Your assault fleet is making an illegal strike, in support of an illegal order. Return to Earth, and we are prepared to negotiate for open immigration status to the Station Freeholds. Any pilot who ejects will be given safe passage back to Earth. Turn your ships around if you don't want to risk that. But right now, you're coming with missiles and guns, against unarmed people. People who are under my authority. You will not pass my ship."
"She's on the Jesse herself?!" Barton breathed. "Destroy that ship right now, and odds are the Stations will surrender within the hour!"
"We have a lock. Fox Two."
The missile launched, the trails visible on the screen… before the missile suddenly fizzled out and fell back towards the fleet that launched it.
"Evade! Package is live! Evade now!" The pilots shouted, and the footage went wild as the assault craft spun and wheeled, trying to evade their own ordinance.
They dodged, without any casualties, but the evasive maneuvers cost them range. The image stabilized, and the Station became visible again, smaller now.
"What happened?" Barton called. "Guidance failure?"
"Negative sir; the thing used all its fuel trying to fight gravity and…" The pilot was in agony now. "Now reading Five G's…"
"Any more and our pilots start passing out." Someone warned Barton.
"Look, our intelligence says that the Gravity Drive takes a ridiculous amount of power to project. We can wait them out."
"Ayesir." The Pilot moaned. "Engines are overheating… Now at 115%!"
"Wait Them Out!" Barton roared.
"This is insane." Someone hissed behind him. "She isn't even moving. She's just sitting there, and our people are using everything they've got trying to get closer!"
"She can't keep this up. It's a bluff. This is her entire plan." Barton insisted. "Hold the line! That's an order!"
"Who breaks first, Mister Secretary? Our engines, their power source, or our pilots?" Someone barked.
"Red Five, back in formation!" The Commander yelled.
"I… I… oohhh."
"He's passed out. Someone override the guidance on that ship before he hits the atmosphere!"
"Red Three, back in formation!"
"I have total engine failure. They burned out! I have to glide her back before we burn up!"
Murph looked sadly out the window. "They're dropping back."
"Should we increase the power?" Getty asked. "Force them down?"
"We can't do that without killing the pilots." Murph shook her head. "This is as far as we take it. Trust me, Gets. We can hold out a lot longer than they can."
Another assault craft fell back, unable to keep fighting the tide.
Murph keyed her Comm again. "Secretary Barton."
"I'm here." He grated.
"Basic rule of warfare, sir." Murph reported. "Seize the high ground. In space, there is no 'up' and 'down'. The High Ground is wherever we put it now."
"Just remember one thing, Cooper. There are more of us than you, and we have all the guns."
"I can increase the pressure to Nine G's, Barton. Or ten. Or twenty. There's nothing but my goodwill keeping your people alive. If there's anyone else listening, believe me when I tell you that I can keep this up all day."
The line cut out. Murph waited, watching the fleet straining their engines to a vain effort to get to her against the gravity well she was generating.
The line came back five minutes later. "This is General Cutty, formerly of the Air Force." Another voice came back. "Secretary Barton has stood down the assault. Two of our pilots cannot make it back to Earth under their own power. You did promise safe passage?"
"I did." Murph agreed, and switched off the drive. "Have your people break off, and I'll bring the two pilots aboard the station safely. They'll be returned by this evening."
The battle was over without a single fatality.
"Barton couldn't even admit he'd lost; he had someone else make the call." Getty observed. "Think it was a coup?"
"I do not." Murph complained. "But it means the military options are exhausted. So ends the first attempt at open space warfare."
There was a standing ovation waiting when Murph and Getty stepped off the Jesse, back aboard the Station. Murph gave quick directions that the Singularity Generator be moved to the Station Drive Core.
She looked back at Getty, but the two of them had been swept apart in seconds, parted by the crowd of people who were full of questions, congratulations, gratitude…
Getty didn't look upset. He knew they'd find each other again eventually.
It took hours before Murph was done walking the rest of her science teams through the creation of a Micro-Singularity. The rest of the stations would have the same capability in weeks.
She wanted to go to Getty, promise him that they were still together, and always would be. But there was work to do, and it had to come first.
The second she was alone, she went down to the habitat ring.
"Simpson." Murph said crisply as he answered his door. "How are the kids?"
"Relieved, boss." Simpson said promptly. "You did it again."
"Not yet, I haven't. Which is what brings me to you, in fact. I was wondering if I could interest you in a mission. We have two pilots to escort back to Earth; and… something else to take care of afterwards."
Simpson grinned. "Ohh man, this is going to be big, isn't it?"
"We're going to end this." Murph said, pure steel. "Big enough for you?"
Secretary Barton was in his home. The Secret Service Protection was part of the uniform, and he slept better, knowing he was protected. He was one of the few people with guaranteed food and shelter, and that meant he had a target on him.
His phone rang as he prepared to settle in for sleep, and he answered it. "Barton."
"Evening, Mister Secretary." A vaguely familiar voice said. "Just had to make sure you were in your house, and not working late. Is your mistress with you?"
"Who is this?!" Barton barked.
"Okay, hold on."
Barton was about to say something obscene as the line disconnected, when suddenly his stomach turned over. He started to gag, when his feet left the floor. An instant later, there was a horrific tearing, crumpling sound that shook apart the world… and suddenly his house was shifting on the foundations. Plastered against the ceiling, Barton was trying not to scream, or lose his lunch, when the roof finally gave up, and snapped into pieces.
Barton went flying up into the sky, howling in shock. He had the briefest flash of people down below pointing up at him, as large sections of his house floated twenty feet into the air, and then back down to ground level.
Barton kept falling upwards… until a flash of metal crossed his vision, and he suddenly felt himself smack into something, face first. The wind stopped instantly. There was the sound of doors closing, and then 'down' was working again as Barton dropped, five feet to the closed bomb bay doors.
Gasping for air, Barton tried to get his bearings, when the hatch forward swung open, and in stepped two familiar faces. "Mister Secretary." Murph said easily. "Apologies for the late hour; but we were dropping two pilots back at their Base, and thought we'd stop by, since we were in the neighborhood. You remember Simpson, of course?"
"I remember he used to be my bodyguard." Braton glared at Simpson, suddenly realizing where he knew the voice on the phone. "Traitor."
Murph smirked. "Making your bedroom try to 'fall' into the sky was a relatively easy set of calculations. Little known fact, a roof is much stronger when it's on top of a room, rather than under the weight of one. Creating a gravity field that narrow from a hundred feet up took more power than travelling to Saturn. But for honored guests, nothing but the best."
"You realize you've just declared war on the US Government, I hope?"
"And your assault fleet yesterday? What was that?"
"A police action."
"Uh-huh. I'm sure you were just going to write us a ticket." Murph commented, unsurprised. "Pardon me a moment." She pulled out her tablet and tapped for a moment. Barton immediately 'fell' the five feet to the ceiling, and Murph had the bay doors open 'above' him. "With the flick of a switch, I can have you back to street level in puddle form."
"You won't do it!" Barton shouted over the sudden wind.
Murph had the doors close again, and let him drop. "You're right; I wouldn't. Threatening summary executions? All that talk is coming from your side of the table. But I wanted to make sure you understood: I have the high ground here. Morally, physically, technologically, even militarily, if I had any desire to become like you… and I have one big advantage over all the people of earth. I've got time. It's now Twenty Five Thousand a day that are dying by suffocation. But none of them are my people. My Stations are self-sufficient, and don't require anything from earth any longer. Not fuel, not food, not manufacturing or textiles.." She gave him a death stare. "Do not make the mistake of thinking this is a negotiation. There is nothing but my desire to save lives keeping me involved with Earth at all."
Barton had nothing to say to that.
"You want to make a deal?" Murph offered. "One that will get you off earth personally? You and your contributors, your kids, your wife; your girlfriend?"
Barton hesitated. "What do you want?"
"An end to this insanity." Murph told him firmly. "The Stations are all in 'international waters'. All your people have to do is immigrate. There are plenty of legal frameworks for migration. Half the planet is trying to get somewhere else as it is! Hell, climbing into a Ranger is still a safer, shorter flight than most airports can offer."
"It's not that simple. Your Science Council is multinational. How are we supposed to immigrate our people to-" He paused to phrase it right, but she beat him to it.
"To a place not ruled entirely by Americans?" Murph finished the sentence for him. "Barton, look out that window. You see any borders drawn across the continents? Any state lines? Because all I see is dust. Manifest Destiny doesn't apply to the cosmos."
"Cooper, if you want people to immigrate… My job is to serve US interests. Anyone who wanted permanent resident status in international waters would either have to renounce their citizenship, or apply as a refugee, as a matter of law. You really think people are going to go for that?"
"As it happens, the European Union, the South American Nations, the Australians and more than two thirds of all still functional governments have already decided to take that deal. Any citizen who wants to go to space can do so, if they renounce their citizenship rights." Murph shook her head. "You tell me. How many all-american ex-patriots do you want there to be in ten years?"
"More importantly, do you want to be one of them?" Simpson chimed in.
"We'll give you the night to think it over." Murph told him, and nodded to Simpson, who went back into the cockpit. "Try not to struggle. I can 'fall' you down to the ground, gentle as a feather, but it's tricky."
"Cooper, one question." Barton said suddenly. "Your stations aren't that big. What are you doing with all these refugees? There's no way you've got resources for them all."
"Not yet, but we have a solution to that." She promised.
"Eighty six thousand Cryo-Beds and counting." Ellie reported. "The printers are churning out components, and my crew is assembling them day and night. We're keeping ahead of the refugees, but just barely."
"The rate of refugees is going to increase dramatically, I'm afraid." Murph reported. "They took the deal. It's no longer a Refugee Crisis. It's now an Immigration Matter."
"Half of what politicians do is naming things." Getty observed dryly. "But it means we can finally go about the business of evacuating people."
"And put them where?" Ellie complained. "Murph, I'm not kidding. We don't have room for all these people, and if we overtax the life support systems…"
"That's why the Cryo-Beds are so important." Murph nodded. "We can take as many refugees as we can get up here, and we can have them assembling Cryo-beds on the surface. They don't need to fear suffocation if they sleep through it. Within two months, we'll have more people making the trip as Cargo than Passengers. We can get them up here when we have somewhere to put them."
"And… where will that be?" Ellie asked, intrigued.
"I've just turned over The Jesse to the Science Council." Murph explained. "They're taking a flight to the Asteroid Belt. They find a few asteroids that are rich in minerals, and they can use the Gravity Drive to fly it back to earth. They spend the trip hollowing out all the alloys, and we'll have an asteroid that we can seal up airtight, and rotate for gravity. A fair sized interior that we can turn into an O'Neill Cylinder. A hollow world with a circular horizon."
"That's where we put the refugees?"
"That's where we put the workforce. Lazarus Station is Logistics and Research, the other stations all have their own duties. We make something out of a large asteroid, we can house thousands of people, have them churn out more Cryo-Beds." Murph hesitated. "Sooner or later, there won't be such a demand for them, but that'll be in two or three years."
"And there's no reason we can't make more Stations." Getty put in. "If we can convert an asteroid into a habitat, we can do it again, and again, and again. Meanwhile, I've been researching ways to turn the Cryo-Chambers into large satellites. Solar power can keep the monitors online, and if we put them out in space we don't have to worry about them thawing out prematurely. They'll be safer outside than inside. We can house thousands that way; until we have a world for them to set foot on."
Long silence.
"We're really doing it, aren't we?" Ellie breathed. "We're actually going to pull this off!"
"With a little luck." Murph said, not smiling. "Marching orders: Ellie, liaison with immigration. Get people up here as fast as we can take them. Getty, Cryonic Satellites. The designs are all done, you monitor the transfer from Refugee to Human Popsicle. Both of you make sure there are enough Cryo-Bed manufacturing plants down on earth, and get them up here before the storms make it too dangerous. Float them up in a Gravity Tube if you have to."
"What will you do?" Getty asked.
Murph set her jaw. "I have one last person to talk to… and then I will cheerfully never set foot on a planet again."
You needed an oxygen mask to walk around Cooper Farm now. Murph noted that the whole house had been covered over in plastic, with an air tent set up at the door. She hit the buzzer to be let in.
Lois was waiting for her, already packed. Coop was there, mask over his face.
Murph took hers off, once inside. She didn't have to say it. Lois had a few bruises, but she still looked healthier than the last time Murph had seen her. "Tenting the house turned out to be a good move." Lois said quietly. "Made the place air-tight. Kept the dust out. Our lungs are actually healthier…" She trailed off. "How did you know? I've been trying to find a way to call the station for weeks, and I'm sure you must have a lot of important…" She trailed off again.
Murph pointed. "My ship is about thirty feet straight ahead of the door. Don't walk left or right; and you'll find it." She needed to give directions. The dust made it impossible to see that far.
Lois knew why Murph was there personally. "He's upstairs." She nodded, and reached a hand out, putting it over Murph's heart. "Thank you?" She wavered.
Murph nodded in return, not really focusing on her as she headed upstairs.
Tom wasn't in his room, he was in hers. Sitting cross legged on the floor, tracing lines in the dust. Murph came in and sat with him. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
"Some men came in and photographed everything." Tom rasped sullenly. "Everything you ever touched is a holy relic now. Saint Murphy."
"With dad's help."
"Dad's Ghost."
"I forgave him, Tom. He did his bit, and then some. It's still even money whether or not he died trying. That's the price you pay for…"
"Saving the world." Tom sighed. "But you're not saving the world, are you, sis? The one thing you don't want to take with you is Earth."
"Tom, you fought the good fight for a long time, and nobody can say you didn't do everything a person could do." Murph said quietly. "There's nothing left to fight for here."
Tom wouldn't look at her. "There's a network of weather stations moving into the old bomb shelters. Fallout shelters are still sealed up from the Resource Wars. Even the Cold War before that. We can still…"
"Oh my god." Murph sighed under her breath.
"We can!" Tom insisted. "We can restore the atmosphere. The blight will burn out after a few more months-"
"Few more decades."
"-and the earth will be able to recover." Tom snapped. "And when those goddamn machines of yours finally fail, which they always do, then the human race needs somewhere to go."
Murph wanted to scream at him, but she just didn't have it in her anymore. Tom just wasn't going to shift. Not for her, not for Lois, not for Coop. "Tom…" She said quietly. "This may be the last time we see each other. I don't want to spend it having the same argument."
Tom nodded. "Me neither."
"Please come with us? We can use all the experts on food production we can get. No blight up there, no rot. No parasites, or dust storms…"
"I thought you didn't want to have this fight again." Tom sneered.
"I don't." Murph conceded.
"If this is the last time we speak, I want you to know, I forgive you."
"Forgive me?"
"For giving up and running. For taking my family away."
They begged to go; and they begged me to talk you into coming along; even after you gave your wife bruises. She bit her tongue before she could say it. There was no point.
"Keep an eye on Coop for me, will you?" Tom grated. "I know you can't stand him-"
"That's not why I stayed away." Murph said quietly.
"-but he'll need at least one adult he can be proud of in his life, and-"
"I'm getting married." Murph said suddenly.
He actually looked at her. "Congratulations." He said flatly.
"Thank you." Murph said stiffly. "I'd like you to come to the wedding."
"And then I'm sure you'd let me come right back to Earth afterwards."
"I'd duct tape you to something to keep you alive." Murph didn't bother to deny it.
"Then I shall have to RSVP a 'no'." Tom said stiffly. "Lois will be there. Without me."
Murph sighed, and rose to her feet, resting a hand on his shoulder for a moment, before leaning down and kissing his cheek from behind. "Goodbye, Big Brother."
Murph glanced back at the bookshelf as she went to the door, making eye contact with a self she could see.
"What's that?" Lois asked, pointing at a structure out their window. At a distance, it looked like a huge array of solar panels, but as they glided by it, Lois realized it was a structure, laid out like a grid, made of thousands of little pieces, snapped together like lego.
Getty followed her gaze and smiled. "It's our latest invention. It's a Cryo-Satellite. Thousands and thousands of people, perfectly preserved, protected from meteors by a gravity field. We're building them as fast as we can. As far as those people are concerned, they take a hard nap, wake up somewhere with plenty of clean air and food to eat.
Lois shook her head sadly. She'd never lived in a place where that was ahead. "Are you going to put me in there too?"
"That's up to you." Murph said honestly. "A lot of people have asked to stay preserved until we're ready for Phase Three."
Lois was about to ask for details on what that meant, when she noticed her son, going to pieces beside her.
Coop was crying when they got closer to the Station. Murph's eyes kept flicking back to him. Finally, she couldn't stand it, and brought the Ranger to a halt. She spun her seat around and held out her hands to Coop, who took them automatically. "You've lived your whole life in that house." She said quietly. "The farm is the edge of your universe. Your mom tells me that you made peace with what your dad was doing long ago, but it's still scary, leaving the only place you know, and going some place you don't."
Coop nodded.
Murph pulled her nephew out of his chair, and over to the window. "Look at the earth, Coop. You've seen the pictures in my dad's books, right? Well she looks a lot different now, huh?"
Coop nodded again, wiping his eyes. "I still miss home."
"Of course you do. I did too, when I first left." Murph said forgivingly. "Your father? He was born in that house, and no threat of apocalypse could make him leave it. I don't think he went more than twenty miles away from his own bedroom in his life. Me? I've been to Saturn and Back."
Coop smiled, impressed even given the situation.
"When you were born, they gave you your older brother's crib. You may not remember Jesse; you were pretty young when he died." Murph said gently. "The cradle you slept in? He had it before you, and I had it before him, and Tom had it before me. You can tell the story of our family in the crib, going back five generations. You can tell the story of our species in the earth, going back all the generations." She turned Coop around to make him look at the dead, barren planet. "But you're growing up now. Whether it's a baby's first bed, a house you grew up in, or the planet your people started on; no cradle lasts forever. Even the stars can die."
"Stars can die?" Coop seemed horrified.
"Yes, in billions of years; even our sun will go cold and collapse in on itself. But that barely mattered, because we only just barely survived ourselves; long before the sun became an issue." She made him look back at her. "And if we had all stayed in our cradle for much longer; we would have lost more than the next harvest. Even more than your dad."
"We would?" Coop wavered. "Like what?"
Murph smiled. "Like McDonalds."
In the next seat over, Lois let out a bark of laughter, despite herself.
"A bit before you time, I'm sure." Murph said to the boy. "But we would have lost other things too. Like TV, and baseball. And Mozart, and Led Zeppelin. And ice cream. And corn on the cob. And Jack the Ripper, and Audrey Hepburn, and sleeping in on Saturdays, and popcorn with butter on it; and bedtime stories."
Coop wiped his eyes, listening intently, finding meaning.
"But we were able to save all that." Murph said softly. "Most of it anyway."
"And the things we couldn't save, we remember…" Getty added. "And rebuild, one day."
"Oh, I envy you, Coop." Murph said to her nephew, feeling tears in her eyes. "I would have given anything to be living in an Age of Exploration and Expansion when I was your age. My own dad would have given both his arms to do the kinds of things you're going to be doing with your life. You're just at the start of the adventure, and you're just old enough to get a front row seat."
"To what?" Coop whispered.
Murph turned Coop around, away from earth, towards the starfield. "You know what's out there?"
"What?"
Murph smiled, watching with him. "Everything."
Lois looked back to earth. Coop sat with his aunt and looked to the stars, just watching together for a long time.
AN: I have used the 'What we Would Lose' speech in other stories. It fits this one perfectly. Read and Review!
