Worlds Fall

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

12/13/96:

In all hindsight Friday the 13th was the perfect day for my
world to end.

Ok, that sounds a bit sever, it wasn't the end of the world
exactly, Earth is still right where I left it, and in mostly
the same piece. It's just MY world that end, in a
spectacular splat on the comic wall.

I suppose I should actually explain what I'm talking about.
It was about noon-time and I had just come though the fold
from Earth. Wiping the blood from my hand, I walked though
the hallways of the City around the Marble Hall.

Not even stopping, I pushed though a unlabeled office door.
Inside was a simple office with two desks, a wall full of
schematics and other such things.

There was only two inhabitants of the office. Both where
dressed in semi-formal suits. One was sitting behind the
desk, reading over some documents. His glasses sort of
hanging on the end of his bill.

The other was standing in front of the wall of schematics,
checking out something of interest, his wide beaver like
tail patting the floor gently.

There where twins, named Rhan and Jock, and both where
platypuses. The only way to tell them apart was the Jock had
the glasses, and Rhan had a tendency to bounce his tail on
the floor when he was thinking.

These two where my general R&D team, a pair of high-tech
contractors that I had gotten out of a jam a time before I
was exiled. They where also the pair I had sent to Earth's
moon to move the fold for me. And of course, they where the
first people I turned to when my fold starting going out of
wack.

They where the Brothers, or more actually the _Platypuses
Brothers_.

How they got the name is a long and convoluted story. To
make it short, after my Exile, I showed them a few tapes of
_Tazmania_, it stuck. For you who never seen the show, don't
worry. For those of you who have, there a lot more competent
in real life then in the show.

I closed the door, a bit harder then I needed to, but I did
anyways. Jock looked up from what he was working over,
pushing his glasses up his bill. "Oh Fox, welcome back. I
trust you have the data we want?"

Nodding I pulled out a small odd-shaped device from my
pocket. The brothers had me keep it on myself each time I
used the Earth fold. They wanted me to return it after about
ten round trips.

With a flick of my wrist, I threw it though the air. Rhan
caught it it mid-air, giving it a quick once over. "Well, no
external damage," he stated, "so it's not an over load."

Throwing the device to Jock, he said. "Check out the data
collection."

Jock caught it, and nodded. Then hitting the side of his
desk, cause a computer terminal to slide out of one side,
and rise up to be even with the desk top. He connect the
device into an input, and started to talk to the system.

I sat back and waited. I knew them both well enough that
when they where involved with something it was best not to
interrupt them with out good reason.

After a few minutes Jock stared to tisk. Turning around he
said. "This is bad."

I had already guessed that. "How bad?"

He paused for a second. "The fold has started to
destabilize. I would say that a month more of your usual
use, and it would go up in a very sizable explosion."

I gulped, sizable was an understatement. When a fold
destabilizes to an extreme level, it did something close
falling into it's self, and rending open a hole in the
universe. This only last for a second but has the next
effect of releasing enough energy to take out anything with
in about half an AU of Earth.

"How near is it being critical?" I asked. That was another
side of it, there was it's own level of critical mass where
the explosion was inevitable.

"Ten of your days, maybe twelve. At this distance that is.
If you bounce to your base, then to Earth, twenty at most."

I sighed. Here came the most important question. "How? A
fold destabilizing is not natural."

Jock let out his own sigh. "I'm afraid it's our fault."

At this Rhan turned around, slapping his tail against the
wall. "Our fault, how? We never did anything that could
effect the fold in that way."

"Yes and no," Jock explained. "When we moved the fold for
Fox, we didn't do anything to effect it. What we did do was
make an open opportunity for the universe to cause this."

"The supernova." I stated bluntly.

Jock nodded. "Yes, the supernova that happened two-thousand
light years away from us when he moved the fold. The effect
on your fold was to start it's desensitization."

I pulled my hand over my face. "How long until it heals?"

Jock said something to the computer, and watched as the
output rolled over the screen. "With no use at all, twenty
years. If the fold is used with in it's minimum safe period,
which is from 90 to 200 of your days between round trips,
thirty years."

I grumbled. "Well, there's not much I can do there. Though
it's not to serious of a problem. I can just take the
flitter to and from Earth, say a month here and a month
there. More like two weeks. Not a problem."

Jock nodded, then looked to his brother. "In that case,
we'll see if we can find a way to..." he searched for the
word, "expedite the healing process."

"Good luck you two." I said.

They nodded, already talking deep in thought.

I left them that way.

* * *

Walking into the outer lobby of Rachel's office, I noticed
that her secretary was gone. I shrugged and knocked on her
office door.

"Come in." She said through the door.

Twisting the handle, I steeped inside. She gave me a smile
when she saw me, setting down a stack of papers. "Fox, just
who I wanted to talk to."

I nodded. "I need to talk to you as well. It's about those
meetings with the council members."

She wrinkled her muzzle a bit. "That's also what I wanted to
talk about. You go first though."

"All right. I need to reschedule the meetings. I'll need
about two or three weeks between each set of of meetings,
the same time for the meetings."

She twisted her ears a bit. "Why?"

Sitting down in a chair, I told her what had been happening,
and what I had found out. I watched as her face went from a
look of curiosity, to a look of anger.

As I finished, she sat back in her chair, grimacing hard.
"Shit fox, you have no idea what this means."

"Which is?"

She grabbed a file of her desk, and threw it into my lap.
"Read that."

I gave her a quizzical glance, then opened the file. It
consisted of only two papers, one on each side of the
folder. The one on the left side was a simple report on a
launch of a council probe. A simple device aimed at a
gathering information for a first contact with the selected
verse.

Glancing down at the bottom, I read the verse number, then
read it again, and again. I looked up at Rachel. "This was
sent to Earth, *MY* Earth!"

She nodded. "After hearing about your fight with Page, one
of the members decided to make sure you where involved in
the council by bring your world in. The probe was launched
three weeks ago, and would have reach your solar system
almost ten days ago."

"And you knew?"

She shook her hair. "No, I just found out about it today."

"What happened, was contact made?"

She sighed. "Read the other report."

I looked down to the second sheet of paper. It was a simple
report on the results of the probe. Usual it was long, but
this one was short, almost half a page to be exact. I won't
go into the actually wording of the report, but to be strait
to the point, the probe was attack and destroyed, and all
evidence pointed to one source of the attack.

"Earth?!" I nearly yelled. "They don't have anything to even
find the probe that far out, let alone destroy it!"

She shook her head. "From what information the probe sent
back before it was destroyed pointed to the Earth system,
with at most a two light second margin for error."

I groaned, another mystery to solve.

"No Fox, there's more."

With a snap I closed the folder. "What?"

"There is a precedent for this."

"What kind of precedent?"

She signed. "Ever hear of a forbidden world?"

I winched, that was the one of the few rules I couldn't
break. Using a fold to go to a forbidden world was
punishable by death and nothing else.

She nodded. "The few that have had a the probe destroyed in
this way all turned out to be violently hostile. It has
fallen into the rules that of a probe is destroyed by the
plant it was sent to..." she hesitated, then just blurted it
out. "The world is instantly marked forbidden."

I jumped out of my seat. "What the hell are you saying!?" I
yelled.

She gave me a sad look. "Your Earth is now forbidden to go
to. Normally you can use the fold to go directly to Earth,
or use another fold to go to a non-native world and then go
to Earth, or direct someone to send a ship to Earth and a
thousand other things."

I slowly sat back down, folding my hands. "So I can't go
home?"

She shook her head. "No, your native, there are special
rules about that, just as there is with relationships. You
can use the Earth fold, but in a limited way. You can not go
to Earth any other way unless there is contact with other
race that you're not involved in. And you can not use other
fold after use the fold to Earth. If you go, you stay until
you can use your fold again."

I groaned. "Oh gods, this means I'll have to take long term
trips to Earth, then back again."

"No, that is the big problem."

I gave her a dark look. "Big problem?"

"I've been told already, that if you stop the meetings,
everyone will back out of the Council. Also, that if you do,
a few have threatened to have you assassinated, and these
are the type to actually do it. The same if you don't join
the Council in some form."

I felt bile rising in my throat. "Gods no."

She nodded.

I rolled my head back. "So I have the choice of staying
here, only going back home for a few days a year, or just
stay home, and risking being killed."

She nodded again. "Actually with this, it's more likely that
they will just start to play with the fold enough to send it
up faster then anything could be done to stop it. Also your
not taking a risk, this is nearly guaranteed, you leave and
you die."

I started to chew my lip. "The bio-drone can't work for more
then a month and a half at most. Even if it could, there is
no way it can go as long as I would need it to, and be safe
to take back the memories."

She sighed. "I hate to be the one to tell you this, but
there was no one else. Page is still not in the mood to even
talk to you."

"So I have a choice, go to Earth, and risk my live, and
everyone's there. Or stay here, and basically abandon my
home for the next thirty years."

She nodded. "You have a choice."

I shook my head. "Some choice, some fucking choice. I have
to stay, it's as simple and as plane as that."

She slumped a bit. "I'm truly sorry Fox. I don't like to see
this happen to anybody at all, let alone a friend."

I rose form my seat. "I don't hold it against you Rachel, I
can't." I signed. "I'm going to go take care of some things,
I don't have much time left." Then slowly I turned, and
walked out of her office.

Stopping in the outer office, I picked up her secretary's
garbage can, and spit out a mouthful of blood I had been
hold for the past few minutes. As well as a chunk of flesh
had I literary chewed off my lip.

Setting it down, I started to head back to the Brother's
office. There was a lot more to do now.

My world had ended, and it ended with a whimper...