~*~
They waited almost until dusk to raise the ship. The liftoff provided the last spectacle of the day for the revelers below. Brax circled the city and waggled the Brane Child's wings in farewell before soaring off.
"Sensor readings are a bit better than they were when we first got here, but they're still fuzzy, and the range isn't nearly as good as it should be," Sandra said from her station.
"Record as much as you can," Lisa told her. "It may help someone figure out what this place is if… when we get back."
The ship climbed to the upper atmosphere. The forward view screen showed blue skies all around them and wispy clouds below.
"Engaging scramjet," Brax announced.
Lisa felt herself pressed into her seatback from the acceleration as the ship gained speed. They needed to get to about fifteen times the speed of sound to achieve orbit.
The curvature of the planet was now distinct, and the sky above them was a dark purple fading up to black. It did look much like Earth—from a distance.
"We discovered it, so we get to name it, right?" Brax said.
Lisa eyed him skeptically. "What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe something short and simple." He grinned. "We could call it 'Brax'.
Sandra laughed. "Sorry, big guy. I don't think they're going to let us name a planet after you."
"Too bad. I thought it had a nice ring to it. Chang?"
"Yes?"
"No, I mean as a name for the planet. It's also nice and short."
"So am I," she said, "but no thanks. Let's leave it unnamed for now. Besides, I don't think we've discovered a planet so much as some kind of alternate universe."
Doc remained characteristically quiet, but his face suggested deep thought.
"What are you thinking about, Doc?" Lisa asked him.
"I think you may be right. As I was telling Commander Chang earlier," he said, addressing everyone present, "I'm not sure this place existed before we arrived. I'm not entirely sure it exists now, although I suppose that would depend on what we mean by 'exist' and 'now'.
"High orbit achieved," Brax said. "We're clear to navigate. Where do you want to go, Commander?"
"Let's try to get to the same relative location we were at when we emerged from the Brane Skip."
"No problem." He tapped the control panel. "We'll be there in a couple hours."
"Doc," Sandra said. "You lost me. How could this place not exist? Either it does or it doesn't, right? Since we're here, I'd say it has to."
"Maybe it's like levels of reality," Brax said. "You know that cliché about drunks seeing pink elephants? Well, the elephants aren’t real, but after you’ve had enough of them stomping on your head, they can make you stop drinking."
"Did it work that way for you?" Sandra said.
"He has a different addiction," Lisa said. "But Sandra is right. Either this place is real or it's not. I still don't see any other options."
"That may not be true here," Doc said. "Simple Boolean logic may not apply. A straightforward yes-or-no, true-or-false answer may not be possible. The underlying reality may be in some kind of superposition of existence and nonexistence, or something else entirely, like—"
"Cats that are both alive and dead?" Sandra said.
Doc laughed. "I don't think it's even that simple. There may be more to it, assuming for the moment that there is an 'it' here to talk about. This place may exist as potential, as a kind of homogenous fluid or a probability distribution without any peaks. Think of a perfectly still pool of water. It has the potential to have waves anywhere on the surface, but that probability changes if someone tosses in a rock. And the pattern of the resulting waves depends on where the rock lands, how big it is, and how hard it hits."
"We're the rock?" Lisa said.
"Maybe."
"This is getting way too metaphysical. Let's get back to reality…or whatever. So the way I understand it, you're saying that this place, this particular place with Milton and the orcs and everything, exists because we were talking about fantasy stories when we skipped?"
"Again, maybe. It might have existed in some fashion previously, but I think the skip brought us here, or perhaps I should say that here took the form it did, because of what we had in mind at the time."
"But ultimately it's fictional, right? I mean, it has dragons and orcs and magic. It's fantasy."
"I think its nature is observer-dependent."
"It's as real as I think it is?"
"No. Well, not entirely."
"So when we leave, does the place continue existing?"
"It depends on what we mean by 'existing'. But my guess is that it does in the sense that its potential is now constrained by the pattern we have unwittingly imposed upon it. Its past and present are now established. We may have shaped it, but now that it's formed, it may be able to continue from that foundation without further outside input."
"Are you saying we created an entire universe?" Brax said, clearly impressed. "Whoa! I feel so…godlike."
"Perhaps it would be better to think of it as a book. The letters in it all exist before you open it, but they can take the shape of anything, from an epic adventure to a thousand different recipes for tuna casserole. The possibilities are infinite, but they aren't one specific story or another until you open the book. But once you see a page, it's fixed, and the following pages are constrained by the page before, at least for you. I'm not sure another reader would see the same story. That's actually how it is in a way with books. The words may be the same, but each reader experiences a different story because they are part of an integrated system. A book is not complete without the reader."
Lisa squinted at him. This conversation was making her head hurt. "Are you sure you're not a theoretical physicist? You're making about as much sense as one."
"Sorry."
"So this is like a story?" Sandra said.
"In a manner of speaking."
"And it has orcs and magic and other things that don't make much sense because that's what we were thinking when we opened it, I mean, when we engaged the Brane Skip device?"
"I think so, although I cannot say how."
"And we became characters in that story?"
"So it would appear."
"Well, I can’t say I understand it," Brax said. "But it was kind of fun, don't you think?"
"A bit, maybe," Sandra mumbled. "But as far as the thinking part goes, I'm not sure I can handle any more of that for a while."
Lisa had a disturbing thought.
"Doc, does our Brane Skip device make sense to you?" she asked.
"I am not really qualified to assess it from a scientific standpoint."
"Me either. I’m an engineer, not a physicist. I'm not even a philosopher. It’s just that now I’m wondering if somehow we're—"
"We've arrived at the skip point, Commander," Brax said.
The view screen showed star-sprinkled space around them.
"Okay. Let's do it." She pulled up the BS interface and selected START. Now it was simply a matter of waiting.
They all watched in silent apprehension as the main screen displayed the BS countdown.
INITIALIZING
BRANE SCANNING
DETERMINING IMPLIED GRAVITY
DRAWING INFERENCES
ASSUMING BRANE EXISTENCE
PREPARING TO JUMP TO CONCLUSION POINT
PRESS ENTER TO SKIP
"That's it," Brax said. "Ready, Commander?"
"As ready as I'll ever be. Hit it."
"Okay! There’s no place like home!"
He brought his hand down to press the button.
Lisa's eyes widened in sudden panic as an image formed in her mind. From the expression on the faces of Doc and Sandra, she could tell that they were imagining the same thing she was. It was an expression full of ruby slippers, wicked witches, and flying monkeys.
Her lips began to form the word "No!" when the ship skipped.
~END~
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