Slip: Part 3

*** Hello, hello! It's been a bit since I've posted here; sadly I had to endure a few weeks in the hospital; nothing serious, or anything to worry about; just a rather unexpected visit. I guess you could say I got blindsided. But I'm healthier, I'm stronger, I'm moving forward and for once in my life, my head is up, not down. I have some new pieces I wrote while in the hospital that need to be transferred to the computer, other than that, here's another segment of the story Slip, part 3 or 4, I believe; the conclusion will be coming up soon. Other than that, I have some other plans in the works that I will keep everyone posted on once further research has been completed. Again thank you very much for reading and enjoy part 3 of Slip!***

He waited. Nothing seemed to be happening. He did feel a bit light headed but nothing else. He opened his eyes and felt the strength in his legs escape; they tangled together forcing him to fall down on his backside.

            Spread out all around him was a bright aqua-marine sky, tall trees stretching up and fanning out with massive broad spanning leaves, waving in the air like racing ship sails. He looked across the ground expecting to see grass, but instead viewed tall mossy curls, bright green in colour studded with small blue buds. He dug his fingers into the soil and held up a palm inspecting the rich loamy dirt between his fingers.

            He stood shakily, the action almost propelled him into a jump; gravity here was only a few points below normal Earth gravity, but that was enough to produce a dizzying sensation in his perceptions. The air was thicker too, signifying a younger planet; he could feel it wrap around his body and blinked as his brain attempted computing the extra oxygen. He took smaller breaths trying to avoid getting an O2 high, but found concentrating on his breathing deliberating and forgot about it.

            He started walking around observing his surroundings soon happening across long straight tracks in the moss and giggled with glee. He followed the thin lanes around a tree and discovered the probe he had sent. He knelt next to it and inspected the components. The data capsule was gone. If it had been dislodged from the probe, it must have been sent back, but why hadn’t it appeared in his basement?

            Perry was forced to sit back for a moment; his head was spinning and he felt as though he were flying thought the air. The excess oxygen was skewing his senses. He moaned and leaned against a tree for a few minutes.

            He wasn’t sure how long he had rested there. Suspecting that he had fallen asleep, he tried to stand up and found the process horribly awkward. A sound roused his attention and his eyes focused on something moving behind some thick bushes with spiral tendril leaves. He watched as a large animal emerged with grey-brown fur and black spots. It slid out on six legs and observed him with three eyes on a spherical head. Perry noticed another head under the foremost one with a thin slit running horizontally along its width. He wondered what the extra head was for until the slit opened exposing long knife-like teeth which folded out of the orifice and hissed at him dripping wet hungry saliva all over the moss.

            Perry barely bumbled out of the way as the creature charged forward. He rounded the massive tree trunk behind and the animal collided head first into the wooden pillar. Fortunately, the beast seemed dazed by the blow, but Perry soon saw one of its friends poke its twin heads out from the bushes, quickly accompanied by a third; the animals apparently hunted in packs.

            Perry ran surprisingly well energized by the excess oxygen and pure fear as the predators bounded after him towards a nearby cliffside stretching a few dozen meters up. He considered that this was what had happened to Carter while climbing a series of boulders that had fallen from above. He scaled the massive rocks and smiled down at the monsters scurrying about below. He rested momentarily against the cliff wall grinning down at his pursuers until one leapt up on a boulder and began following him up.

            Perry whimpered as the creatures climbed and trying to make his way higher. He felt the thick air part his lungs as one of those massive six legs swiped at his heel. He glanced back; they were almost upon him.

            He grabbed a bowling ball sized rock and let the fight part of his mind take over from the flight. He cracked the brown rocky orb down on the animal’s head and pulled back for another blow, but the creature began shrinking away and fled down the cliff side to its companions. They yipped at each other and retreated back into the undergrowth.

            Exhausted, Perry leaned against the rocks panting. He tried to slow his breathing knowing he didn’t need the extra air on this world, but his body forced the habit making him become dizzier. He held onto the rock face fearing that if he let go he would tumble down breaking every bone in his body.

            His attempts to calm down shattered as high pitched laughed crashed down from above. Perry flipped his head up blinking madly at a figure crouched at the top of the cliff holding his gut and pointing down at Perry.

            Thinking it was a hallucination, Perry sat down on the lip he clung to, threw up and began to weep.

*          *          *

            “Welcome back.”

            Perry shot up and squinted trying to see through the darkness. He was temporarily blinded at the bright blue flame that burned in the center of a small cave. “Where am I?”

            “On another world,” the scrawny frame answered. “You did well with the sixty-twos by the way.”

            “Sixty-twos?”

            “Those animals in the jungle; the ones with six legs and two heads? They’re predatory, yet cowardly. If you show the slightest ounce of hostility, they turn running, whimpering like mice.”

Perry sat up and groaned rubbing his temples.

“It’s the oxygen,” the man stated. “Don’t worry, relax and breathe normally, your body will get used to the difference.”

Perry squinted into the blue light at the man but couldn’t make much out while he was silhouetted against the flame. “Are you…Samuel Carter?”

            “Good, they didn’t send me an idiot,” was the response. “What took you guys so long anyway? It’s been twenty-some-odd years, I think. This world has an orbital period at least fifteen days less than Earth’s.”

            “No one sent me.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “I wasn’t supposed to be conducting any experiments with your notes.”

            Carter swore.

            Perry’s sight began to steady. He squinted about the cave and found Carter leaning against the wall. He wore reminisce of brown dress pants frayed short at the knees with a poorly made path on his rump and covered in dirt. His shirt was made from leaves, possibly the large fanning foliage Perry saw outside. His face was rugged with a light beard cut as short as possible and two bright blue eyes looked at him from a hard worn face. The man seemed thin and lanky but hard muscles defined his arms, like bundles of steel cables. He had the look of a wild man.

            “You’ve been here this whole time?” Perry asked. “Why didn’t you come back?”

            “It took me too long to figure out what went wrong. I didn’t dare another trip with the equipment I brought until I figured out the problem. I was attacked by those furry buggers you met this afternoon and everything got swept down the cliff here.”

            “You mean this morning.”

            “It was afternoon here.”

            Perry was still groggy from the air. He noted how the camp fire burned blue opposed to yellow here; too much oxygen. At least food would cook faster from the heat of such a flame. “Do you know what went wrong?”

            “I do. And now that you’re here, with that little portable null-field, we can correct the problem.”

            “You couldn’t correct it yourself, repair your broken equipment?”

            “Repair it with what? I hadn’t thought ahead enough to bring extra materials. I didn’t think there would be a problem.”

            “What did go wrong?” Perry asked.

            “With the science? Absolutely nothing; the problem was the philosophy.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            Carter sighed. “Using a gravity null-field, I thought to gain access to an object’s potential states, sort of like duplication or quantum entanglement, but when you add something to the universe you must take away something, the original object. And it works, but the problem was with our thinking, with how we thought about those potential states. They aren’t potential, they’re real.”

            Perry sat straighter; his mind had difficulty fathoming the idea, neurons still swirling from the oxygen high.

            “Those potential states do exist, but in other dimensions.”

            “Are you saying that we’re not in the same universe?”

            “You got it.” Carter grinned. “You are on Grindious–C, but not the same Grindious–C we sent the seeder ships. You see, when we slipped into this world, we were replaced by our so-called ‘potential’ state back in our own reality.”

            “Then why weren’t you replaced with a copy of yourself?”

            “Because there was no Samuel Carter here, I was replaced with a potential state that was not exactly like me, probably just a gust of wind.”

            “I don’t understand, why a gust of wind, why not another you?”

            “I’m not exactly sure, but I’ve had lots of time to think on that. When I was experimenting with this mode of travel, it appeared to work using short distances giving me a proper copy of probes and books, but at larger scales there must be more potential universes overlapping in the way increasing the potential to exchange matter with a reality without a probe, or another version of me.”

            “Oh no.” Perry buried his face in his hands.

            “Don’t worry boy, we can get you back,” Carter said, “now that we got the tools.”