Factoring Humanity

“Well,” said Kyle, “there’s no recorded case of anyone ever being killed by a meteor falling on them, but it could happen. So, is there a universe in which I was killed that way yesterday? Another one in which I was killed that way the day before? A third in which I was killed that way the day before that? A fourth, fifth, and sixth in which it was my brother, not me, who was killed? A seventh, eighth, and ninth in which both of us were killed on those days by meteor impacts?”

Cheetah did not hesitate. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because meteors have no volition — in every universe, precisely the same meteors hit the Earth.”

“All right,” said Kyle, “but say one crashes today in — I don’t know — say in Antarctica. Now, I’ve never been to Antarctica, and I never intend to go there, but is there some parallel universe in which I did go, and in which I happened to be killed by that meteor? And then aren’t there seven billion times as many universes, accounting for all the people alive who might instead have gone to Antarctica?”

“It does seem rather an awful lot of parallel universes, doesn’t it?” said Cheetah.

“Exactly. In which case there must be some sort of filtration process — something that distinguishes between conceivable universes and plausible ones, between those that we simply can imagine and those that have some reasonable chance of actually existing. That could explain why we only got one other factor back in the experiment.”

“I suppose you’re right and — oh.”

“What?” said Kyle.

“I see what you’re getting at.”

Kyle was surprised; he wasn’t sure he himself knew what he was getting at. “And that is?”

“The ethics of the many-worlds interpretation.”

Kyle considered. “You know, I guess you’re right. Say I find a wallet that contains an unlocked SmartCash card with a thousand dollars on it. Say the wallet also has a driver’s license in it; I’ve got the rightful owner’s name and address right there.”

Cheetah had a cross-shaped pattern of LEDs on his console. He could activate the vertical column of them or the horizontal row to simulate either nodding or shaking his head. He did his nod.

“Well,” said Kyle, “according to the many-worlds interpretation, anything that can possibly go two ways does go two ways. There’s a universe in which I return the money to the person who lost it, but there’s also a universe in which I keep it for myself. Now, if there are bound to be two universes, then why the heck shouldn’t I be the guy who keeps the money?”

“An intriguing question, and without impugning your character, such a dilemma does seem within the realm of possibility. But I suspect your moral concerns run deeper: I suspect you’re wondering about you and Rebecca. Even if in this universe you didn’t molest her, you’re wondering if there is some conceivable universe in which you did.”

Kyle slumped back in his chair. Cheetah was right. For once, the goddamned machine was right.

It was an insidious thing, the human mind. The mere accusation was enough to get it working, even against itself.

And was there such a universe? A universe where he really could creep into his own daughter’s room after midnight and do those horrible things to her?

Not here, of course. Not in this universe. But in another one — one, perhaps, where he hadn’t got tenure, where his control over life had slipped away, where he drank more than he should, where he and Heather were still fighting to keep the wolf from the door — or where they had divorced early on, or he was a widower, and his own sexuality was finding no normal outlet.

Could such a universe exist? Could Becky’s memories, although false in this universe, be a true reflection of another reality? Could she now have access, through some quantum aberration, to those memories from a parallel world, just as a quantum computer accesses information from other timelines?

Or was the very notion that he’d abuse his daughter utterly outlandish, impossible, unthinkable — a meteor conking him on the head in the Antarctic?

Kyle stood up and did something he’d never done before. He lied to Cheetah.

“No,” he said. “No, you’re completely wrong about that.”

He left the lab, the lights shutting off automatically as he did so.

Maybe, some thought, the Centaurs had simply skipped one day for a holiday on their homeworld, or to indicate some sort of punctuation in the overall message. If that were the case, the next message would come in at 6:36 P.M. the following day, Friday, July 28.

Heather had spent much of the thirty-one intervening hours dealing with reporters; overnight, the alien messages had gone from being of no general interest to front-page news worldwide. And now the CBC was doing a live remote feed from Heather’s office.

The news crew had provided a large digital clock, which was attached to the top of Heather’s monitor with masking tape. They’d brought three cameras: one was kept trained on Heather, another on the clock, and the third on her monitor screen.