Free Planesrunner (Everness Book One) by Ian McDonald Page A

universes.”
    “Ten worlds,” Everett said. “That's not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of it all. Not even a hair's-breadth.”
    “The rest—all the other parallel universes—is the Panoply. The multiverse; the whole shebang. There's room out there. Other planes, other worlds. Other Plenitudes. Maybe bigger. Maybe less friendly. Maybe a lot less friendly. I've heard a rumour that there's a group inside the Plenitude that wants it to be a little less of a UN and a little more of a defence pact.”
    “We're E10; E2, E3 and E4 have had the Heisenberg Gate for a long time,” Everett said. “What about E1?”
    “That is the question. No one's saying—or maybe just not to me.”
    “Is my dad still on this world?” Everett asked. Colette was taken aback by his abruptness.
    “I don't know, Everett. I think he may not be.”
    Everett knew what question he had to ask next.
    “Did he go through the gate because he wanted to, or did someone take him?”
    Colette took a deep breath. She laid her hands flat on the table.
    “Okay. Before he disappeared, he said he'd found something.”
    “In the Infundibulum.”
    “The way it's worked so far is that all the Known Worlds in the Plenitude found each other because they developed Heisenberg Gates. It's like radio stations tuning into each other. There was a definite destination at the other end. But the thing about the gates is they can open a portal into any plane of the Panoply. Any one of billions of parallel universes. The problem is, you don't know where you're opening that gate. You could step out five miles underground, fifty thousand feet up in the air, or halfway through a wall; you could arrive right in front of a hungry saber-tooth or a pissed off T-Rex, or whatever they become with a few hundred million years of extra evolution, or a world that's been blasted to radioactive glass. You don't know. It's like GPS coordinates, when what you need is a map to see where you're going.”
    “He found the map.”
    “He found something. He told me.”
    “When?”
    “Three days before he disappeared.”
    Everett remembered that Friday. He'd called. They'd planned where to meet before the game, and what they might cook on their cuisine night. Oh, and there was a good lecture on Monday at the ICA. Nanotechnology and how it was going to change everything. And all that time, as they sat next to Vinny in their season ticket seats, as Everett made his special chilli with chocolate, Tejendra had opened gates to parallel universes, talked to scientists and prime ministers from other Earths, found the key to ten to the power of eighty worlds.
    “Did he tell anyone else?”
    “Yes.”
    “Paul McCabe,” Everett said.
    “Yes.”
    Everett shivered. The cold was settling into his bones again; a deep cold, seeping in from the spaces between the universes. A cold world where no one could be trusted. Those shoppers dashing through the cold, driving rain; those street entertainers bravely setting up their show on the Piazza; they could be spies, they could be enemies, they could be doubles slipped in from another world. In just three days Everett's world had been shaken to its core, expanded to a billion worlds, smashed to atoms of fear and mistrust. He feared he would never feel warm again.
    “They took him because they thought he had the Infundibulum.”
    “Who controls the Infundibulum controls the Plenitude and the Panoply. It could be not ten worlds, it could be ten thousand worlds. Ten million worlds. It could be an empire.”
    “But he doesn't have the Infundibulum.”
    “No.”
    “I do.”
    “Yes. And I wish your dad had never given it to you. Everett, you'll never be safe. You, your mum, your sister, your grandparents, your uncles and aunts and your cousins whether they're in Britain or India; your friends. Me. They will do anything to get it. They will never go away. You're in possession of the most important artefact in the multiverse.”
    The street