Chapter Fifteen
Intrepid - 3756 C.E.
It was now over a month since the Intrepid plunged into the Anomaly and Paul was no more relaxed about it than he was before despite Beatrice's constant reassurances. What troubled him most wasn't just what was going to happen to him now that he was inside the Anomaly but whether he'd ever return to the universe he came from.
"I look at the bulletin boards every day and read each and every the scientific report," Paul told Beatrice who was sitting beside him, "and I've still seen nothing to persuade me that it was ever such a good idea to have entered the Anomaly."
"I can't believe that," his wife said. "Look at all the enthusiasm and excitement! It's like a new dawn in scientific knowledge. We're learning
so
many new things about the universe, aren't we?"
"Are we?" said Paul, who now also wondered whether what he perceived as a lack of interesting new science mightn't just be his misunderstanding of the evidence. The tone of the bulletins and daily reports certainly gave the clear impression that every day was marked by the discovery of a new theory as important as that of General Relativity. On the other hand, Paul came from a culture where individual, even idiosyncratic, opinion was valued over conformity to a widely held view. He wasn't equipped to respond in kind to bubbly upbeat enthusiasm. The more the bulletins sustained a fever pitch of excitement despite the lack of any apparent material value the more Paul distrusted them. Just what it was that Captain Kerensky, Chief Science Officer Chang and Professor Penrose thought was worth enthusing about Paul wasn't sure but he was increasingly troubled by the very real likelihood that he would never again return to Godwin.
It wasn't that Paul had missed his home in the Kuiper Belt very much before. So many things had happened over the last few years, not the least of which being his marriage to the delectable and loving Beatrice, that Paul hardly ever thought about his home colony at all. But somewhere at the back of his mind he'd always assumed that he would one day return home; only this time accompanied by his delightful wife. She would surely be the envy of every man on Godwin. It might be several years until that day, but eventually Paul would return to a life of happy obscurity in a sane and rational society that placed no undue value on fame, fortune or reputation. This unspoken expectation now seemed nothing more than an unattainable dream.
But at least he still had Beatrice to keep him company.
Paul wasn't sufficiently enthused by the apparent fervour of his scientific peers to wander away from his home and investigate the Intrepid's other levels. There had seemed little reason to do so before the Intrepid crossed the Anomaly's threshold and there didn't appear to be any compelling reason now. Paul had long ago completed his sightseeing tour of the Intrepid and everything he ever needed was always close at hand. Paul never understood why his presence had ever been needed on the Intrepid in the first place and now that the space ship's mission had reached its climax his utter redundancy seemed even more starkly apparent.
Moreover, Paul didn't need to venture far at all if he wanted to see the weird Apparitions that were appearing all over the place inside and outside the Intrepid. The time and location of these manifestations were completely random so one place was no better than any other. Paul didn't know what to make of them. They were weirdly entertaining as well as being rather frightening and somewhat perplexing. They reminded him of the avatars he'd encountered in virtual reality and many of them, such as the dragons and semi-clad swordswomen, could easily have sprung from such a universe.
One critical difference was that these Apparitions were never persistent. They usually stayed in sight for less than a minute. And then they abruptly vanished.
"Where do they go?" Paul asked Beatrice.
"Back to where they came from," his wife suggested.
"And where's that?"
"Isn't that exactly what all the scientific research is explaining?"
Paul furrowed his brow. "Er... no, it isn't," he said. "We always thought these weird Apparitions came from inside the Anomaly and now we're here they seem to come from somewhere else again. Is there another
Anomaly
inside this one?"
"An interesting theory," said Beatrice with a light laugh.
Making love with Beatrice was the most reliable way for Paul to forget his anxieties. This was something so regular and agreeable that Paul could no longer imagine what life before marriage was like. She was so responsive, so passionate and so dependable. Beatrice never had headaches or days when she didn't feel like making love, unlike all Paul's previous girlfriends, (or at least the physically corporeal ones). She was there for him whenever he wanted her. She was there even when his mind was elsewhere and it took her little effort to persuade Paul that what he really wanted was to nestle his head on her shoulders, to thrust his erect penis into her willing orifices and for their bodies to pump together in total harmony. The power of love was not at all diminished on this side of the Anomaly's aperture.
Paul was slumped naked on the bed. His penis flopped to one side as he lay in a patch of their shared perspiration and his own semen. He could see the world beyond the villa through the open doors where other passengers might occasionally walk by on the way to and from their homes. A deer was grazing less than fifty metres from the door. In most ways, it was no different inside the Anomaly to what it was on the outside. The Intrepid's systems were the same as ever.
"Paul!" shouted Beatrice. "Paul! Come here!"
"What
is
it?" asked Paul who jumped off the bed and dashed over to Beatrice who was standing naked and in the hallway.
"What's this?" she asked.
She was pointing at a door in the hallway of a peculiarly rustic design with wooden panels and a brass door handle.
"It's a door," said Paul, stating the obvious. He speculated whether Beatrice was referring to some stain on the panel.
"I don't remember seeing this door here before."
Paul scratched his chin. "Well, it must have been," he said. There was so much he normally never noticed that it was quite natural for him to discover things that had always been there that he didn't remember ever seeing before.
"Seriously," said Beatrice. "I'm sure that it wasn't here before."
"It's probably some kind of service room," said Paul. "Perhaps this is where the household robots stay."
"There's another room for them," said Beatrice.
"Is there?" said Paul who'd never noticed that before.
"It's in the kitchen."
"Really?"
"Shall we open the door and see what's inside?"
"It's probably just a load of household equipment," said Paul whose enthusiasm was more for returning to bed.
"Let's see..." said Beatrice who pulled the door open to reveal a well-lit corridor on the other side. "This doesn't look like a service room."
Paul was more than a little startled. "This is another of the Anomaly's weird phenomena," he said. "If you look at the length and extent of this corridor it should be projecting right out of the villa into the lawn. In fact on the other side of the wall is one of the living rooms and there's no corridor going through that!"
