Page 101 of The Paradox Club

“He loved Tess,” said Richard. “The Tess from this universe. But he would have loved you, too.”

“So, all this is my fault?” said Tess.

“No,” said Richard, putting an arm around Tess’s shoulders. “This is absolutely not your fault.”

“I should have stopped him,” said Tess. “In my universe I should have stopped him. I saw him and Vivian go into the circle. I saw them take the radio. I didn’t know what they were doing, but I knew I should stop them, and I didn’t.”

“I don’t know what happened in your universe,” said Vivian, “but in this universe, no one could have stopped Harry.”

“Harry in this universe was trying to get his dead daughter back,” said Tess, “but what about Harry in my universe? Why did he take the risk?”

“If I had to guess,” said Vivian, “I’d say it was his complete inability to subdue his scientific curiosity. Don’t get me wrong, Harry was no Pilgrim 3. He didn’t want to connect universes for personal glory and a place in the scientific history books. And of course he had no idea he was endangering you—that you were missing from our sister universe and it would try to replace you. But even without the motivation of trying to recover his dead daughter, I could imagine Harry wanting to satisfy his own curiosity about whether it could be done. Of course, I can never know for sure unless I meet Harry in that universe.”

“But you would never do that,” said Tess. “You said yourself an organic UFO could endanger all humankind.”

“I wouldn’t go as a UFO,” said Vivian. “You see, Tess, there’s something else you should know. I’ve never explained to you the true nature of my stories.”

TESS AND HARRY ON THE DOCK

“Is there gravity on the moon?” asked Tess.

“Of course,” said Harry.

“Then how come when you showed me that video of the men on the moon, they could take giant leaps and soar through the air?”

“There isn’t any air on the moon.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Every object in the universe has gravity. The moon just has less than the earth because it’s smaller. The amount of gravitational force exerted by an object is proportional to its mass.”

“You mean how big it is?”

“In simple terms.”

“But even a tiny object has gravity?”

“That’s right.”

“Even these two rocks have gravity?” Tess set two small, smooth stones from the beach onto the dock about a foot apart.

“Yes.”

“If they both have gravity, shouldn’t they pull each other closer?”

“Very good, Tess. They should do exactly that. And how strong that pull is depends on their mass and how far apart they are from each other. Objects that are very far apart have only a tiny gravitational pull on each other.”

“But these stones are close together.”

“But they also have very small masses. The earth has enough gravity to keep you from floating away, but compared to the mass of the earth, these stones are miniscule.”

“Miniscule?”

“Extremely small.”

“But even a very small force should bring them together eventually.”

“That’s right. But only if there are no other forces acting on them. These stones have to deal with the gravitational pull of the earth, the friction of the dock, the resistance of the atmosphere, and the impatience of a little girl. But if we could take all those forces away, eventually, in a very long time, these two stones would be drawn to each other by gravity.”