The Hollow Man

“Ja,” says Goldmann, his eyes regaining focus and his subtle smile returning. “Only our ghost photography is all too real. We have stumbled upon a means to capture an image of the human soul itself.”

Gail frowns at this mention of a soul, but Jeremy is nodding. “Jacob,” Jeremy says, his voice all but vibrating with emotion, “you see the ramifications of my wave-function analyses?”

“Of course,” says the old man. “We expected some rough equivalent of a hologram. A crude, fuzzy analog to the patterns we were recording. What you have given us is a thousand thousand holograms—all crystal clear and three-dimensional!”

Jeremy leans close to the other man, their faces only inches apart. “But not just of their minds, Jacob …”

The eyes are infinitely sad under their simian brows. “No, Jeremy, my friend, not just their minds … but of their minds as mirrors of the universe.”

Jeremy is nodding, watching Dr. Goldmann’s face to make sure that the scientist understands. “Yes, mirrors, but more than mirrors—”

Jacob Goldmann interrupts, but he is speaking to himself now, oblivious to the presence of the young couple. “Einstein went to his grave believing that God does not play dice with the universe. He became so insistent on making that point that Jonny von Neumann … a mutual friend … once told him to shut up and quit speaking for God.” Goldmann moves his large head until it is cocked at a defiant angle. “If your equations are true—”

“They are true,” says Jeremy.

“If they are true, then Einstein and all of the others who rejected quantum physics were incredibly, terribly, magnificently wrong … and triumphantly correct!”

Jeremy collapses into one of the chairs at the console. His arms and legs are rubbery, as if someone has cut his strings. “Jacob, do you know the theoretical work of Hugh Everett? I think it was published in fifty-six or fifty- seven … then forgotten for years until Bryce DeWitt from the University of North Carolina picked it up in the late sixties.”

Goldmann nods and lowers himself into a chair. Gail is the only one in the room left standing. She tries to follow the conversation through mindtouch, but both men are thinking primarily in mathematics now. Jacob Goldmann is also thinking in phrases, but the phrases are in German. She finds an empty chair for herself. The conversation is giving her a headache.

“I knew John Wheeler at Princeton,” says Dr. Goldmann. “He was Hugh Everett’s adviser. He urged Everett to give a mathematical basis to his theories.”

Jeremy takes a deep breath. “It solves everything, Jacob. The Copenhagen interpretation. Schrödinger’s cat. The new work that’s being done by people like Raymond Chiao at Berkeley and Herbert Walther in Frankfurt—”

“Munich,” Dr. Goldmann says softly. “Walther is at the Max Planck Institute in Munich.”

“Whatever,” says Jeremy. “Sixty-five years after the Copenhagen interpretation and they’re still messing around with it. And still finding that the universe seems to work by magic when they try to observe it directly. Lasers, superconductors, Claudia Tesche’s goddamn squid … and they’re still finding magic.”

“Squid?” says Gail, grasping a word more reliable than “magic.” “What squid?”

“A superconducting quantum interference device,” recites Jacob Goldmann in his raspy old-man’s voice. “A squid. A way to let the quantum genie out of the microbottle, into the macroworld we think we know. But they still find magic. The curtain cannot be drawn. Look behind it … and the universe changes. Instantly. Totally. One side or the other. We cannot see the workings of things. Either particle or wave … never both, Gail, my young friend. One or the other, never both.”

Jeremy rubs his face and remains bent forward, palms over his eyes. The room seems to move around him as if he has been drinking. He rarely drinks. “You know, Jacob, that this way may lie madness … pure solipsism … the ultimate catatonia.”

Dr. Goldmann nods. “Yes. And also … perhaps … the ultimate truth.”

Gail sits up. Since her childhood when her parents became born-again Christians and born-again hypocrites, she has hated the sound of a phrase like “the ultimate truth.”

“When do we eat?” she says.

The two men make a sound somewhere between a laugh and an embarrassed cough.

“Now,” cries Jacob Goldmann, glancing at his watch and rising to his feet. He bows toward her. “By all means, discussions of reality can never match the indisputable reality of a good meal.”

“Amen,” says Jeremy.

Gail crosses her arms. “Are you two making fun of me?”

“Oh, no,” says Jacob Goldmann. There are tears in his eyes.

No, kiddo, affirms Jeremy. No.

The three of them leave together, Jacob locking the door behind him as they go.

This Is Cactus Land

The Two-M Ranch was not in the desert proper but set several miles up a shallow canyon that rose toward wooded foothills. Beyond the foothills snowcapped peaks were visible through the haze of heat and distance.

“Ranch” was hardly an adequate word for Miz Fayette Morgan’s spread. The main house was a modern Spanish hacienda perched between two boulders the size of low apartment buildings. The sprawling hacienda was set on a shelf of land that looked out over the grassy fields and cottonwoods of the stream-fed canyon toward the desert beyond. Half a dozen large dogs came baying at the Toyota; they ceased their growls and howls only when Miz Morgan stepped out and shouted at them. She patted each in turn as it groveled its way to her legs. “Come on into the main house for a beer,” she said. “It’s the only time you’ll be invited up here.”

The house was furnished with expensive southwestern antiques, decor, and art in a finished, interior- designed way that would have looked at home in a spread from Architectural Digest. It was air-conditioned and Bremen stifled an urge to lie down on the thick Stark carpet and go to sleep. Miz Morgan led the way through a gourmet cook’s kitchen into a breakfast nook that looked out through bay windows at the south-facing boulder and the barns and fields beyond. She twisted the caps off two cold Coors, handed one to Bremen, and nodded toward the bench across the table as she sprawled out in a sturdy captain’s chair. Her denim- covered legs were very long and ended in snakeskin cowboy boots. “To answer your unasked questions,” she said, “the answer is yes, I do live alone except for the dogs.” She took a swig of beer. “And no, I don’t use my hired men as stud service.” Her eyes were such a light gray that they gave her a strangely blind appearance. Blind, but in no way vulnerable.

Bremen nodded and tasted the beer. His stomach growled.

As if in response to the growl Miz Morgan said, “You do your own cooking. There’s adequate supplies in the bunkhouse and a full kitchen there. If we run out of something you want … basic stuff, not booze … you can put it on the list when you go in to shop each Thursday.”

Bremen took another swallow, feeling the beer hit him hard on his empty stomach. That and the fatigue made everything seem to have a faint, hazy halo of light around it. Miz Morgan’s dyed-red hair seemed to burn and flicker in the midday sun through the yellow curtains. “How long do you need a hired hand?” he asked, taking care to enunciate each word.

“How long you intend to stay in these parts?”

Bremen shrugged. The white-noise mindroar surrounded the woman like a constant crackle of some wild electrical apparatus—a Van de Graaff generator perhaps. Bremen found the effect soothing, like a constant wind that drowns out lesser sounds. The release from the whisper and burble of neurobabble made him want to weep with gratitude.

“Well,” said Miz Morgan, finishing her beer, “until Deputy Dawg gets some wanted poster on you, we’ll see if you can do any useful work around here.”

“Deputy Dawg?”

“Howard Collins,” she said, rising. “Deputy Dawg’s what most folks around here call him when he ain’t within