'Interesting. Rather as if someone who actually knew quantum mechanics had written the draft of a science- fiction novel in a documentary style, disguised as research notes whose bizarre quality increases as one goes on.'
'Peter certainly knew…knows…his physics,' Ellen said.
The Frenchman looked at her in surprise. 'Peter?'
'Peter Boase, ScD from MIT.' She didn't say doctor; in France that applied only to physicians, dentists, apothecaries and vets. 'Later he worked at the Los Alamos laboratories. I was the one who, ah, acquired his notes. Long story.'
'I know of him, a very sound young man, if adventurous…but he is dead, surely? Several years ago.'
'Not as of this spring, although it was put about that he died. I came to know him rather well.'
Adrian interrupted. 'We could save a good deal of time by a little practical demonstration.' He looked at her. 'Two days, is it not, my sweet?'
'Red cell count doing fine, so Power away, darling, and the drinks are on me tonight.'
'Then this is justified. Professor, that is a perfectly ordinary water glass, is it not?'
The older man nodded briefly; it was, of a long-stemmed type.
'Then please observe closely,' Adrian said, and murmured under his breath: ' I-Moh'g, tzee, sha.'
Oh, how I hate the sound of Mhabrogast, Ellen thought. She could see Duquesne wince too, though he didn't know why. You wouldn't think a symbol set could sound evil, but it does.
Then Adrian frowned in concentration. Duquesne waited skeptically, glancing between him and the glass. Then he blinked.
Slowly, and without any fuss, the water was beginning to run up the inside of the glass, a thin film inching evenly up the surface. The physicist's eyes went wider and wider as it reached the rim and flowed over it and rilled down the stem, leaving a spreading stain around the base. The last of the water in the bottom froze with a crackle.
Duquesne reached out and touched it. 'Cold…'
'Some of the energy came from subtracting the heat from the rest, I suspect,' Adrian said.
'You suspect?'
The physicist sounded scandalized. Adrian shrugged again.
'The process is unconscious. But tell me, Professor Duquesne, how long would you have to wait before the molecules in a glass of water spontaneously behaved in that manner?'
Duquesne sat silent for thirty seconds, his eyes locked on the spreading blotch on the tablecloth.
'Not until proton decay and the end of matter,' he whispered at last. 'I am assuming this is not some sort of hoax. Though I very much wish that it were.'
'No. You will require further proofs, of course; extraordinary claims-'
'-require extraordinary proofs, yes,' the professor said. 'For the sake of argument I am willing to grant for the moment that this is genuine.'
His face lit with enthusiasm. 'This phenomenon must be studied! Evidently Penrose was right after all! A quantum consciousness-'
Adrian shook his head. 'I am very sorry, Professor, but study is not possible. Not in the sense you are using the term.'
Before Duquesne could boil over Ellen put a hand on his. 'Professor Duquesne, you're not a biologist. But consider, how would such an ability arise?'
'If there was something for evolution to work with, a means whereby the mind could affect quantum states, the obvious selective advantages- Oh,' he said.
'Exactly.' Ellen took a deep breath and closed her eyes. 'I had it explained to me as…'A long time ago, when humans first spread out from Africa-which was far longer ago than the archaeologists think-a small band of hunters was trapped in the mountains of High Asia, a few families, perhaps twenty or thirty in all. Each year the glaciers rose around their plateau, and the food was less, and the cold was more. It was most likely that they would merely eat one another and die. But one was born who was lucky…''
'Why would the whole human race not have such abilities by now?' Duquesne asked.
'To a certain extent they do,' Adrian said. 'As you said, consciousness is a quantum process. My… subspecies…has taken this to another level. Unfortunately, it arose very long ago as a bundle of abilities associated with, how would one say, a particular ecological adaptation.'
Duquesne had an abstracted look for a moment. 'Predation on human beings?' he said. 'But why…Ah, the same phenomenon would make a human consciousness easier to affect, eh? And once committed to that, path dependency would maintain it even if it was no longer essential when the ability had grown. A legacy system, as it were.'
Well, he's a cool one! Ellen thought. Then: Well, judging by Peter – which is to judge by a sample of one – the stereotype is true to the extent that physicists really can get lost in an idea. But then, so do artists. Or even art historians like me. Or anyone in a field that requires really deep thought and intense commitment.
'I am deeply sorry, but by involving you in this matter, I have endangered you, Professor Duquesne,' Adrian said gently. 'You now know of our existence, and of the Power…'
'The Power?'
'The term for the ability in general.'
The man made a dismissive gesture. 'Let me develop my line of thought. So, if this phenomenon is instinctive, it is not well understood even by those who possess it?'
'No. There are many techniques for amplifying the effect, but no real scientific understanding.' He smiled bleakly. 'My breed is many things- paranoid, sociopathic, sadistic-but we have produced no scientists that I know of, though some have been scholars. It is only a few generations since the whole business was thought of in superstitious terms, as magic.'
'If I could do such things'-Duquesne nodded towards the glass-'I might not have developed a scientific sensibility either.'
He thought for a moment. 'The information you sent me…in retrospect, and taking them seriously, the sections on the-'
Duquesne was still speaking French, but Ellen lost him after half a dozen words. She could see Adrian do the same a few seconds later.
'Professor, you are speaking to scientific illiterates,' Adrian said. 'Can you put this in layman's terms?'
The academic made a quick impatient gesture. 'No. Not without complete misunderstanding.'
'There is nothing you can say?'
Another string of technicalities, ending with phase shifts.
'And that is why silver resists the Power?' Adrian asked.
'From what Boase said, the transuranics should as well. Fascinating!'
'No less fascinating is that the memory stick itself had…I find myself in the same position as you, Professor… it is hard to express…a feeling of no feeling. Usually anything linked to a significant nexus of probabilities in the future has a feeling of importance. Or of nonimportance if it does not. This information simply did not show either.'
'Fascinating,' Duquesne murmured again. Then he laughed. 'Perhaps it is as it was with the Large Hadron Collider. The future is interfering with the present to prevent certain information from being accessible.'
He stopped laughing when they both stared at him expressionlessly.
'That was a joke, monsieur,' he said.
'I'm afraid it isn't.' After a moment Adrian went on: 'You are willing to continue this research?'
'Ah…well, that is a difficult matter. I have commitments to other projects. I certainly cannot do research in isolation, without informing colleagues…It would all be completely irregular. Things are not done in such a fashion. But if a project can be arranged-we must think and plan in some detail.'
'Of course,' Adrian said soothingly.
After a little more conversation Duquesne left, still shaking his head.
'The poor man,' Ellen said wistfully. ''This is his last normal moment, isn't it?'
'Yes, alas,' Adrian said. 'Wait…wait… now we follow him.'
'How many?'
