Tess Learns （Some More of） the Truth
“How did you even find out about the Paradox Club, Aunt Vivian?” asked Tess.
“Your father was a member, just like his father and grandfather before him. And he recruited me and Marie when we were in college.”
“Marie was a member? She’s not even a scientist.”
“She was a valuable member,” said Richard. “Although she’s been inactive since Harry died.”
“How did he recruit you?” asked Tess.
Vivian laughed. “He tricked us into reading a manuscript he had written. Marie and I both thought it was science fiction, but it turned out to be true. He called it An Insider’s History of the Paradox Club.”
“It’s in the club archives now,” said Richard. “It was the only time your father ever used a club alias.”
“Prefect 16,” said Vivian with a smile. “Harry’s little joke, since there hadn’t yet been a club member named for Ford Prefect.”
“You’ve lost me again,” said Tess.
“Every member of the club has an alias,” said Vivian. “Inside the halls of the Paradox Club our true identities are hidden.”
“But your father thought that was all rubbish,” said Richard.
“Why did you say a portal to another universe could destroy humankind?” asked Tess. She, Vivian, and Richard sat in the camping chairs, covered in blankets, looking out across the water toward the boat landing.
“Do you remember Harry talking to you about astronauts going into quarantine after they got back from the moon?” said Vivian.
“I remember everything Harry told me on the dock.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, I remember that conversation.”
“And do you remember what you said to Harry?”
“Okay, maybe I don’t remember every detail.”
“I was there,” said Vivian, “as usual sitting in the shadows listening to you two. Sometimes I was jealous of you because of how much Harry doted on you, what joy he took in teaching you. And sometimes I was jealous of Harry because of how you adored him.”
“I adored you, too.”
“Not the way you loved Harry. Anyway, on those nights at the lake, when Harry taught you about science under the stars, I would occasionally sit with my feet dangling in the water and listen; so would Marie sometimes. Harry was smart, we all know that. But you were wise. And that night, you asked Harry what the point was of a three-week quarantine if a foreign virus could remain undetected within a person for months or years.”
“I do remember saying something like that,” said Tess.
“Good,” said Vivian. “I was afraid you wouldn’t.”
“I still wonder about that.”
“As you should. Now, I told you that Harry calculated the dates when the universe of the radio—the universe he believed was the source of all the UFOs—came into temporal alignment with our own.”
“Because Harry was brilliant at math.”
“Exactly. Harry believed—or he had convinced himself—that the universe of the radio was so similar to ours that it didn’t pose a threat.
And he pointed out that there had been no major pandemics near the times of any of his calculated alignment dates.
But, after Harry died, I did some research of my own on those dates with the help of a historical epidemiologist.”
“A what?” said Tess.
“Someone who studies the history of diseases. And we discovered that two of Harry’s dates lined up perfectly with the emergence of previously unknown viruses.”
“And you think those viruses came from the other universe?”
“It’s a possibility. Luckily, neither of those viruses has proven particularly dangerous to humans in this universe, but their existence suggests that organic UFOs could introduce new pathogens.
Maybe Harry was right—maybe the radio’s universe can’t harm ours.
But maybe he was wrong. Maybe the next organic UFO won’t be so benign. ”
“What do you mean by organic UFOs—like living things could cross over?”
“The most likely source of a new virus is a living host,” said Vivian. “The host, whether it’s a mouse or a rat or whatever, might die shortly after arriving in our universe and never be recognized as a UFO, but by then the virus could have jumped to another host.”
“So organic UFOs are dangerous,” said Tess.
“Extremely dangerous,” said Richard.
“An organic UFO might be a host to a pathogen that could wipe out humankind.”
“It could,” said Vivian.
“And that pathogen could lay dormant for months or years before it started to spread.”
“Again, correct,” said Vivian.
“Why are you telling me all this now?”
Vivian glanced at Richard, whose face betrayed no emotion, but after a long silence, he spoke softly.
“I didn’t want to tell her, but now I don’t think we have a choice.”
“Tell me what?” said Tess. “Why are you two acting so strange?”
Vivian turned away, but not before Tess saw a tear roll down her cheek.
Richard reached out and held Vivian’s hand, then let it drop as he stood and stepped toward Tess, taking her by the shoulders and looking her in the eye.
Tess couldn’t remember ever seeing such sadness and resignation in a man’s eyes before.
Richard gave her a gentle squeeze and then spoke softly.
“Tess. Our darling Tess. You are an untethered foreign object.”
“I’m a…What did you say?”
Vivian had turned her back to Tess, but Tess could tell by the way her shoulders shook that she was crying.
Tess had thought that here, on the island, protected by Vivian and Richard, she’d be safe.
Her depression and anxiety had faded away the second she stepped on shore.
But now—she couldn’t even process what Richard was saying. It made no sense.
“Show her,” said Richard.
Vivian took Tess by the hand. She felt warm and fleshy, and Tess thought that ought to have comforted her, but a knot had formed in the pit of her stomach and rooted her to the spot where she stood, overlooking what was left of the dock where she had shared so many nights with Harry.
Or had she? She almost wished the voices would return, that they would tell her what to do, but the only sound she heard was the lapping of the water against the shore.
Vivian pulled gently and Tess took a step and then another toward where the cabin had once stood.
Halfway up the hill, Vivian stepped off the path and stopped, staring down at what looked like nothing more interesting than a pile of leaves.
Richard had followed them, and, seeing where Vivian directed her gaze, knelt on the ground and pulled the tangled weeds apart, revealing a white stone about ten inches square. Chiseled into the stone were the letters T. M.
“Tess,” said Vivian, “in this universe, you died when you were eleven years old. You drowned the night you jumped into the lake.”
“I didn’t drown,” said Tess, shivering. “Harry saved me. He heard the door squeak, and he saved me.”
“The door didn’t squeak,” said Vivian.
“It did,” said Tess, yanking her hand away. “It did squeak. Harry was supposed to oil it, but Richard called, and Harry answered the phone and then he forgot.”
“I didn’t call,” said Richard. “I meant to call Harry that afternoon to update him on some club business, but a student came into my office, and I didn’t call until the next morning.”
“No,” said Tess, anger now building within her.
“Harry and I talked about it. I mean not about the door squeaking, but about causal regression. And after Harry saved me, I remember thinking—I lived because Harry saved me because the door squeaked because the phone rang because Richard called, and that was as far as I got because I didn’t know why you called. ”
“That all happened in a different universe, Tess,” said Vivian. “Here, Richard didn’t call, and Harry did oil the door and it didn’t squeak and he didn’t save you. I was here, Tess. I helped Harry pull your body out of the water. It was the most awful night of my life. Of all our lives. Until…”
“Until the night of the fire,” said Tess.
“Yes, until that night, the next summer.”
“So Harry…”
“Harry was so devastated by losing his Tess that he risked the fate of all humankind to bring another Tess, you, to this universe—and he died in the effort. He knew how to open a portal to the other universe, and he knew when and where he could do it.”
“His circle of trees,” said Tess.
“Right. It was what Harry called a thin place. A spot where universes could be connected when they came into alignment. But, as it turns out, he didn’t have everything he needed.
He succeeded in bringing you here, but he didn’t live to see you.
You materialized in the house, but Harry didn’t know that.
He was still inside the ring of trees waiting for you.
I escaped and I screamed for him to follow me, but he wouldn’t leave and the fire… ”
“I’m from another universe?” said Tess. Her mind seemed incapable of processing this information into an emotion. Was she angry, excited, devastated, elated? In her emotional confusion she suddenly felt a wave of comprehension.
“I’m from another universe,” she said. No longer a question but a bold claim. “That explains why Marie…”
“Why Marie refused to treat you as her daughter,” said Vivian, slipping an arm around Tess.
“Because I’m not her daughter,” said Tess. “I’m the daughter of another Marie in another universe.”