Eifelheim

“I call it the polyverse. Our universe is the subset that we can sense. A warp in the polyverse can intersect the universe in various ways, depending on its orientation. Like the blind men and the elephant, we think we’re seeing different forces, but they’re just different ‘cross sections’ of a single warp. ”

“Hmm. We can’t see these ‘hidden dimensions,’ can we?”

“No. The extra dimensions form the inside of a balloon. The original monoblock was slightly asymmetrical. When it expanded in the Big Bang, some of its dimensions were rolled up. They’re still there: inside the quarks; inside you, me, everything.”

“Maybe,” said Hernando, “but the simplest explanation for not seeing them is that they’re not there.”

Sharon tried to patch things up with Tom over di

She even let him chatter on about long dead people in ghost towns, the gist of which was that there had been a hospice called St. Laurence somewhere in the Black Forest in the late 14th century dedicated to plague victims and operated by a small order of friars named after “St. Johan of Oberhochwald.” What that had to do with anything, Sharon did not know. He started to show her the emblem of the Order, but her patent disinterest stopped him. Instead, he asked about her own work.

That was her cue. “What’s wrong with the sequence 19, 14, 2?”

“Umm… The gap between 14 and 2 is too great?”

“Right. In the Begi

For once in his life, Tom was able to leap ahead of her. “And you think your chronity ‘froze out’ somewhere in between.”

She gri

“Wait, I remember. That’s the breakthrough that gave us the anti-nuclear shield, right?”

“Eventually. The weak force governs atomic decay. Once we could hitch it to electromagnetism, the fission suppression field was only a matter of time. Holy shit!”

Tom blinked. Perhaps it was from the flash of insight. “What?”

“We know how to manipulate electromagnetism. If we can fuse chronity with the electroweak force… that should be able to manipulate the time force.”

“Time travel?”

“No, no. But Nagy-scale energy gets us inside the balloon, and we could… well, go anywhere. Lightspeed is still the upper limit; but if we go far enough in the right direction, the kilometers become very short and the seconds become very long, and we can pick any freaking lightspeed we want!” Well, taking a short-cut through the inside of the balloon would be a neat trick topologically, like a donut jumping through its own hole; but, who knew? With the proper energies, focused in the proper directions…

He blinked again. “Instantaneous interstellar travel?”

She shook her head. “As near as makes no difference. Tom, we wouldn’t need spaceships, at all. We could drive our cars to the stars. With protective suits, probably, we could walk! A single stride would cover interstellar distances.”

“Seven league boots! Sounds like you’ve discovered hyperspace.”

“No. Hypo-space. Topology is conserved. The eight hidden dimensions are inside the universe, remember? To travel to other worlds, we have to travel inside.” She laughed, but this time he was oddly quiet. “Tom?”

He shook himself. “Nothing. I just had the oddest feeling of déjà vu, is all. As if I’d heard all this before.”

XXIII. July, 1349

The Feast of St. Margaret of Antioch

Joachim was tolling the Angelus bell, when Dietrich left Nickel Langerma

“That is a hard path for a frail old man; are you well?”

And there stood Odo Schweinfurt, from Niederhochwald, blinking dully in the setting sun. The old man searched up and down the high street, saw the mill, and set off in that direction. “No, the miller’s cottage is over there!” someone called out, and Odo turned uncertainly.

The commotion drew Hilde from her cottage. “My father is here?” Hilde asked. Then with delight more feign than fair, she cried, “Daddy!” But he stank of the pigs he tended and she came no closer than her nose allowed. Klaus stood behind her, still in his white-powdered apron from the mill, and regarded the old gärtner narrowly. He had not his wife’s disdain for the man’s calling, but his nose was no less gentle for that. “What do you want, Odo?” he asked, for he misdoubted any came to his door without some want.

“Dead,” said the old man.

“Bread? Does Karl not feed you? Such an ungrateful son!” He laughed, for Hilde’s brother was well-known as a pinch-pfe

“No,” said Hilde, wiping her hands in her coverslut. “He said ‘dead.’ Who is dead, Daddy?”

“All. Karl. Alicia. Gretl. Everyone.” He stared around at the press of villagers, as if searching, searching.

Hilde’s hand flew to her mouth. “His whole family?”

Odo sank to his wasted haunches in the dirt of the high street. “I’ve not slept for three days, nor eaten since yestermorn.”

Dietrich stepped forward. “What happened?” he demanded. Dear God, he prayed, let it be the murrain.

“The blue sickness,” Odo said, and those who stood close by groaned. “Everyone in the Lower Wood is dead. Father Konrad. Emma Bauer. Young Bachma

Even Klaus stepped back. But Hilde Miller, with a countenance white as the clouds, took her villein father by the hand and led her toward her home. “He will be the death of us,” Klaus warned her.

“It is my penance,” she said, with a toss of her head.

“It’s a hard path up from the lower valley,” Herwyg One-eye told anyone who would listen. “Bad air ca