Gregory Benford - Timescape

Lakin came by, smiling amiably. He was with Bernard Carroway. “I have heard that you are repeating Cooper’s experiment,” Lakin said without preamble.

“Who did you hear that from?”

“I could see for myself.”

Gordon took his time. He had a swallow from his cup and discovered it was empty. Then he looked at Lakin. “Fuck off,” he said very clearly. Then he walked away.

He found Penny in a crowd gathered around Marcuse. “The newly appointed Communist-in-Residence?” Gordon asked when he was introduced. To his surprise, Marcuse laughed. A black woman graduate student standing nearby did not think anything was amusing. It developed that her name was Angela and that the revolution was not going to be brought about by people at cocktail parties; this was all Gordon could get out of the conversation, or at least all he could remember. He took Penny’s hand and wandered away.

Jonas Salk was off in a corner. Gordon debated trying to meet him. Maybe he could find out how Salk felt about Sabin—who had really developed the vaccine? An interesting question, indeed. “A parable of science,” Gordon muttered to himself. “What?” Penny asked. He steered her instead toward a pack of physicists. Some nagging voice within bid him to shut up, so he let Penny carry their fraction of the conversation. People around him seemed distant and vague. He tried to decide if this was due to him or due to them. The eternal relativistic problem. Maybe Marcuse knew the answer. Some Frenchmen asked Gordon about his experiments and he tried to sum up what he believed. It proved surprisingly difficult. The odd thickness of his tongue had gone away, but there remained the problem of what he himself thought was true. The Frenchmen asked about Saul. Gordon sidestepped the question. He tried to keep discussion focused on the results of his experiments. “As Newton said, ‘I frame no hypotheses’—at least, not yet. Ask me only about data.” He went off in search of more vodka, but the fountain bowl was empty. Sadly, he took the last of the crackers and pâté. When he returned, Penny was standing a little distance away from the Frenchmen, staring out at the view of La Jolla and the satiny glow of the sea. The Frenchmen were speaking French. Penny seemed angry. He tugged at her and she came along, glancing back.

She insisted on driving them home, though Gordon could see no reason why he should not. Going past the beach clubs and rambling private homes, Penny said, “Those bastards” , with sudden vehemence.

“Huh? What?”

She grimaced. “After you wandered off they said you were a bungler.”

Gordon frowned. “They said that to you?”

“No, silly. They started speaking French. They assumed that of course no American understands another language.

“Oh.”

“They called you a fake. A fraud.”

“Oh.”

“They said everybody was saying that about you.”

“Everybody?”

“Yeah,” she said sourly.

IT CAME UP OUT OF THE NOISE, SUDDENLY. ONE MINute the scope showed hash and Gordon was tinkering with a new band-pass filter, a recent circuit he’d breadboarded to cut through the noise. Then, abruptly, the NMR curves began to warp and change. He stared at the scope, unmoving. It was 11 p.m.

He brought his hand up to his lips, as if to mask a cry. The jiggling lines went on. It occurred to Gordon that he might be hallucinating. He bit his finger. No, the ragged lines remained. Quickly, suppressing his excitement beneath the urge to be precise, he began to take data.

ACTION OF ULTRAVIOAMSLDUZ SUNEYDUFK OM CHAINS APPEARS TO RETARD DIFFUSION IN SURFACE LAYERS OF AMSUWLDOP BUT GROWTH RA 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2

RA 18 5 FGDUEL 30 29.2

RA 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2

EFFECTS DIATOM ENZYME INHIBITED B NETWORK CHAIN REPRO ATTEMPT TO CONTACT YOU WITH T CHYONIC BEAM WREDOPRL AL POINT SOURCE CAN VERIFY RA 18 5 3MCDU DEC 30 29.2RDUTFKIGLP ASLDURMFU CAMBRIDOLR CAMBRIDG DIATOM BLOOM GHTUPDM ASANATH DEC 30 29.2 THIS VIOLATES NO CAUSAL POSTULATE UNDER WHEELER-FEYNMAN FORMULATION AS LONG AS FEEDBACK IN CAUSAL LOOP PERMITS EXPERIMENT TO CONTINUE IMPERATIVE YOU PERFORM EXPTS TO CHECK MOLECULAR CHAIN XCDEURDL 18 5 36 DEC 30 29.2 TIME DIFFERENTIAL AUSMP

“Claudia? Is that you?” It was the first time he had ever called her by her first name. “Yes, yes, is this Gordon?”

“Right. I’ve been running parallel with you. Were you people on last night?”

“What?”

“Were you running last night?” “I… no, I don’t… my student was making some measurements. I believed he finished about 6 o’clock.”

“Shit.”

“What? I’m sorry, I don’t believe I can hear you correctly—”

“Sorry, never mind. I, ah, I was running last night around 11 p.m. and I got some anomalous resonance effects.”

“I see. Well, that would be 2 a.m. here.”

“Oh yes. Of course.”

“How long did the effect last?”

“Over two hours.”

“Well, let me see, the student should be in soon; it is a little after eight. Gordon, you are up at 5 a.m.?”

“Ah, yes. I was waiting for you to get in.”

“Have you slept?”

“No, I… I was seeing if there was any more of the—the effect.”

“Gordon, go to sleep. I will talk to the student. We will run some experiments today. But you get some sleep.”

“Sure, sure.”

“I promise you we will do the measurements. But get some sleep, eh?”

“Good. Good. That’s all I want.”

“Gordon, Mrs. Evelstein, she brought over the Life magazine. Why didn’t you tell me? There was my son’s name, big as life—as Life! —and he doesn’t tell me. Weeks ago, it was, and—”

“Mom, look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I—”

“And the National Enquirer thing, she had that, too. That one I didn’t like so good.”

He breathed sourly into the telephone receiver. What time was it? Christ, 5 p.m. What was the Zinnes group getting?

“Look, Mom, I was asleep, I—”

“Asleep? At this hour?”

“I was working in the lab overnight.”

“You shouldn’t, you’ll ruin your health.”

“I’m okay.”

“But I wanted to say, about the Life , it was such a surprise—”

“Mom, I’ve got to go back to sleep. I’m worn out.”

“Well, all right. I wanted to hear your voice again, though, Gordon. I don’t hear your voice so much any more.”

“I know, Mom. Look, I’ll call you in a few days.”

“All right, Gordon.”

He hung up and went back to sleep.

The Zinnes group found nothing. Gordon could not pick up the signal again. He kept checking as the week wore on. On Friday there was a department Colloquium on plasma physics, given by Norman Rostoker. Gordon went and sat well in the back. Rostoker’s first slide was:

I Exultation

II Confusion

III Disenchantment

IV Search for the Guilty

V Punishment of the Innocent

VI Distinction for the Uninvolved

VII Burying the Bodies/Scattering the Ashes

The audience laughed. Gordon did, too. He wondered at which stage he was. But no, the whole message thing wasn’t a directed research project, it was a discovery. The fact that he was the only person in the world who believed it made no difference. “Search for the Guilty,” though, seemed to fit. He thought about it for a moment and then, in the middle of Rostoker’s talk, fell asleep.