the greatest good applies across all worlds
The fortune teller’s voice is dry and vibrates like a hive. One of your grandchildren will drown, she says. You will never get over it. You were supposed to be supervising.
What kind of sick joke is this! replies the patron—standing quickly, knocking over her chair. I paid for something happy. The teller pokes a finger at one of the coloured cards and looks up at her. This is happy news. The patron slaps her.
Rather than rebuke, the teller reveals a world where the woman never enters the tent beside the big top. In that world, she has a granddaughter who grows up confident and courageous. She leads an expedition to Earth’s first alien encounter and is hailed as a great leader in science.
In the possible worlds where the woman enters the tent, the grandchild is a boy. He drowns or grows up to lead the same expedition, but poisons the encounter on a campaign of Earth First. By sheer distance of space, he is an old man when the encountered return and silence the Earth forever. Such was the image of water on the teller’s card, under a wizened digit of the encountered.
