Phase Space. Stephen Baxter

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       PROLOGUE

       Kate Manzoni, with Reid Malenfant and Cornelius Taine, stood on Mike’s porch. Inside the house, the baby was crying. Baby Michael – son of Mike – Malenfant’s grandson.

       And in the murky Houston sky, new Moons and Earths burst like silent fireworks, glowing blue or red or yellow, each lit by the light of its own out-of-view sun.

       It was just seven days since the failed echo from Alpha Centauri.

      Malenfant said, ‘So what are we looking at?’

      ‘Phase space.’ Cornelius seemed coldly excited. ‘The phase space of a system is the set of all conceivable states of that system. We’re glimpsing the wider phase space of the universe, Malenfant.’

       Kate wondered how that remark helped.

       No traffic moved on the street. Everybody had gone home, or anyhow found a place to hunker down, until –

      Well, until what, Kate? As she had followed this gruesome step-by-step process from the beginning, she had studiously avoided thinking about its eventual outcome: when the wave of unreality, or whatever it was, came washing at last over Earth, over her. It was unimaginable – even more so than her own death. At least after her death she wouldn’t know about it; would even that be true after this?

       Now there were firebursts in the sky. Human fire.

      ‘Nukes,’ Malenfant said softly. ‘We’re fighting back, by God. Well, what else is there to do but try? God bless America.’

      Saranne snapped, ‘Come back in and close the damn door.’

       The three of them filed meekly inside. Saranne, clutching her baby, stalked around the house’s big living room, pulling curtains, as if that would shut it all out. But Kate didn’t blame her; it was an understandable human impulse.

       Malenfant threw a light switch. It didn’t work.

       Mike came in from the kitchen. ‘No water, no power.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess that’s it.’ He moved around the room, setting candles on tables and the fire hearth; their glow was oddly comforting. The living room was littered with pails of water, cans of food. It was as if they were laying up for a snowstorm, Kate thought.

      Malenfant said, ‘What about the softscreens?’

      Mike said, ‘Last time I looked, all there was to see was a loop of the President’s last message. The one about playing with your children, not letting them be afraid. Try again if you want.’

       Nobody had the heart.

       The light that flickered around the edges of the curtains seemed to be growing more gaudy.

      ‘Kind of quiet,’ Mike said. ‘Without the traffic noise –’

       The ground shuddered, like a quake, like a carpet being yanked from under them.

      Saranne clutched her baby, laden with its useless immortality, and turned on Cornelius. ‘All this from your damn fool stunt. Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? We were fine as we were, without all this. You had no right – no right …’

      ‘Hush.’ Malenfant moved quickly to her, and put an arm around her shuddering shoulders. ‘It’s okay, honey.’ He drew her to the centre of the room and sat with her and the infant on the carpet. He beckoned to the others. ‘We should hold onto each other.’

      Mike seized on this eagerly. ‘Yes. Maybe what you touch stays real – you think?’

       They sat in a loose ring. Kate found herself between Malenfant and Saranne. Saranne’s hand was moist, Malenfant’s as dry as a bone: that astronaut training, she supposed.

      ‘Seven days,’ Malenfant said. ‘Seven days to unmake the world. Kind of Biblical.’

      ‘A pleasing symmetry,’ Cornelius said. His voice cracked.

       The candles blew out, all at once. The light beyond the curtains was growing brighter, shifting quickly, slithering like oil.

       The baby stopped crying.

      ‘Hold my hand, Malenfant,’ Kate whispered.

      ‘It’s okay –’

      ‘Just hold my hand.’