A new world. There couldn't be any other explanation for the meteorological readings. Temperatures that low, that kind of subarctic coniferous forest, hadn't been found in this part of the world since the last of the ice ages. The implications were enormous. For starters, this was the second new world that the Wu family's knotwork could take a world-walker to. What happens if I use the original knot, from somewhere in this fourth world? Probably it takes me to yet another... even without discovering new topologies, ownership of both knotwork designs implied access to a lot more than three, or even lour, worlds. The knots define a positional transformation in a higher order space. Like the moves of different pieces on a chessboard-able to go forward or backward, but if you used your bishop to make a move in one direction, then swapped your bishop for a rook, you could go somewhere else. It meant everything was up for grabs.
For over a century the Clan's grandees had doppelgangered their houses-building defenses in the other world they knew of, to protect their residences from stealthy attack-without realizing that the Wu family could attack them from a third world. Now there was a fourth, and probably a fifth, a sixth... where would it end? Our core defensive strategy has just been made obsolete, overnight. And that wasn't the worst of it. The Wu family knot was a simple mistake, the lower central whorl superimposed over the front of the ascending spiral, rather than hidden behind it. There would be other topologies, encoding different positional transformations. That much seemed clear to Huw, although he'd had to limit his forays into Mathematica to half an hour per day-trying to work out the knot structure was a guaranteed fast-track route to a migraine. There will be other worlds.
He lay awake long after Yul and Elena had dozed off, staring at the ceiling, daydreaming about exploration and all the disasters that could befall an unwary world-walker. We'll need oxygen masks. (What if some of the worlds had never evolved photosynthesis, so that life was a thin scum of sulfur-reducing bacteria clustered around volcanic vents, at the bottom of a thick blanket of nitrogen and ammonia?) Trickster-wife, we may need space suits. (What if the planet itself had never formed?) Need to map the coastlines and relief, see if plate tectonics evolves de-terministically in all worlds...
He blinked at the sunlight streaming in through the
front window. How had it gotten to be morning? His mouth tasted of cobwebs and dust, but his head was clear. "Gaah." There was no point pretending to sleep.
Someone was singing as he wandered through into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. It was Elena: she'd found the stash of kitchenware and was filling the coffee maker, warbling one of the more salacious passages of a famous saga to herself with-to Huw-a deeply annoying air of smug satisfaction.
"Humph." He rummaged in the cupboard for a glass but came up with a chipped coffee mug instead. Rinsing it under the cold water tap, he asked, "Ready to face the day?"
"Oh yes!" She trilled, closing up the machine. She turned and grinned at him impishly. "It's a wonderful day to ex-' plore a new world, don't you think?"
"Just as long as we don't leave our bones there." Huw took a gulp of the slightly brackish tap water. "Yuck." Ease up, she's just being exuberant, he told himself. "Where's Yul?"
"He's still getting dressed-" She remembered herself and Hushed. "He'll be down in a minute."
"Good." Huw pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Memo to self: do not taunt little brother's girlfriend, little brother will be tetchy. "Coffee would be good, too, thanks," he added.
"What are we going to do today?" she asked, eyes widening slightly.
"Hmm. Depends."
"I was thinking about doing breakfast." rumbled Hulius, from the doorway.
"That- " Huw brightened "-sounds like a great idea. Got to wait for the duke's say-so before we continue, anyway," he added. "Breakfast first, then we can get ready for a camping trip."
