Multiverse War 08 Walking to Infinity by Chris Nuttall

Author:Chris Nuttall [Nuttall, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-07-17T09:02:13+00:00

Chapter Fifteen: In Which The Long-Feared War Becomes Surprisingly Tame

Mathew had been feeling something like a fifth wheel, ever since the rock – whatever it actually was – had been shut down. The chance to explore Area 51 had been fascinating, and once Grey had convinced General Wilson that they didn’t mean him any harm, he’d actually been allowed to have a look around the complex. It was disappointing, in a way; there were no alien spacecraft, just a handful of aircraft that reminded him of conceptual drawings from his own world. Area 51, his escort explained, hadn’t been intended to serve as a deployment base for an entire air force; it had been little more than a construction facility and a testing ground for new designs.

And, of course, there was the rock – or, as he thought of it, the Rock. He’d tried to study it using the senses that Grey had taught him to use, treating it as an object that had to be studied carefully, and he’d almost been blinded by the result. The rock wasn't a rock at all, but something else, something that took on the shape and form of a rock, but existed in more than three or four dimensions. It was something from another universe, maybe even the Hub itself, something that was just more…real than anything else. It’s mere presence, and that of the shift door, blazed in his mind; it outshone the remainder of the universe like a light in the darkness. Whatever Grey had done to dispose of the excess power, it had saved more than just the entire planet.

“The options are simple,” Grey explained, repeating himself. “I can arrange for your people to be transported to the Hub if you like, or maybe even provide some support if you want to rebuild here, but I don’t think that that is a wise choice. The people who destroyed your world will come and take it pretty soon.”

General Wilson didn’t like that at all. “They can’t be allowed to get away with it,” he insisted. “I have a duty to avenge the dead!”

Mathew half-closed his eyes. He wasn't sure if he liked the General; unlike Grey, he could be direct and to the point, but fighting an enemy who had already displayed vastly superior technology struck him as futile, although, he acknowledged, it hadn’t been that futile in Iraq. Could the remaining Americans and Russians inflict a defeat on the invaders when they arrived? More importantly, he wondered, would it be worth anything in the long run?

“You can’t,” Grey said flatly. “You might be able to knock out their first entry into your universe, but they’d just be able to force open a Portal in space and attack you directly, or maybe just abandon the world completely. You don’t have the ability to take the war to their home universe and you couldn’t defeat them there even if you did have that ability.”

General Wilson rounded on him. “How do you know that?”

Grey met his eyes with a flicker of exaggerated patience.

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