Greg Krojac - The Schrödinger Enigma

The Deputy Administrator interjected.

“It’s madness, I know. But our top forensic scientists have been examining the object non-stop, since it arrived at the lab, and all the evidence is pointing to the object being Voyager One. The same space probe that was launched from Cape Canaveral on September 5, 1977.”

The Administrator shook his head.

“Which it can’t be. The laws of physics don’t allow for it. This has to be a hoax.”

The Administrator pointed again to the ever-increasing distances displayed on the lower screen.

“I mean. Look. It’s out there. Systems have been checked, double-checked, triple-checked. Voyager One has left our Solar System and is getting further and further away from us. That’s Voyager One out there – what we have in our lab simply cannot be Voyager One.”

Sitara was tempted to bite her lip, but she had to say something.

“Unless…”

The Administrator was prepared to hear any suggestion at the moment.

“Unless what, Dr Khan?”

“It sounds crazy.”

“Spit it out Doctor. We’re looking crazy square in the eyes already. You can’t make it any worse.”

“Well, a few minutes earlier, you said that Voyager One can’t be in two places at the same time.”

“It can’t.”

“But what if it can? I mean, I know it sounds absurd, but perhaps it is in two places at the same time? We’ve proved that an electron can be in two places at one time. So can photons. What if it’s only because we don’t yet have the technology to do so that we can’t do the same with larger objects? What if extra-terrestrials have developed advanced technology to do so? It sounds impossible, yes, but if we weren’t open to the possibility of there being intelligent life being out there in the cosmos, SETI wouldn’t exist. And we certainly wouldn’t have put the Golden Records on the two Voyagers. Those compartments didn’t open, remove the contents, and then close by themselves. And the missing equipment didn’t just fall off. It was taken.”

Sitara had the bit between her teeth. Normally she wouldn’t have had the nerve to propose such an outlandish hypothesis, but she’d detected a sense of urgency in the room. The whole situation was bizarre; perhaps an absurd suggestion wouldn’t necessarily be out of place.

“It’s like Schrödinger’s Cat. It appears that Voyager One is here on Earth, being examined by our forensic team, while simultaneously being over thirteen billion miles away travelling out of the Solar System. With no definitive evidence to the contrary, until we can prove otherwise, we have to accept that somehow Voyager One is both here and out there in Space. Voyager One is Schrödinger’s Cat.”

Up until and after Voyager One had left the Solar System in 2012, it had been communicating with the home planet and was still doing so. The signal would eventually be irretrievable, but that hadn’t happened yet. It had sent back data about Saturn, Jupiter, and Jupiter’s moon Titan, information that could only have been obtained if the space probe were physically in those locations. The Deep Space Network of antenna arrays had continued to send and receive messages even though the spacecraft was now travelling outside the Solar System. Admittedly, having access to the Deep Space Network for only six to eight hours per day, it was entirely possible that Voyager scientists wouldn’t actually be physically monitoring the craft if something extraordinary were to happen, but nothing untoward had occurred as far as they were aware, certainly nothing like a return to Earth at technologically impossible speeds.

Then there was the fact that equipment had been removed from the earthbound space probe. That would infer both intelligence and dexterity, meaning that the probe had succeeded in its auxiliary task of making contact with extra-terrestrial beings, a fascinating yet ultimately frightening thought. However, the common consensus at the meeting concurred with the Administrator. The spacecraft at JPL had to be a fake.

“What do you mean, he’s not saying anything? Didn’t he come forward of his own accord?”

Sitting at his desk in his spacious Washington office, the Administrator had a good idea what the response to his question would be. If he were in the same position he too would insist on some reward. The Deputy Administrator outlined the retired employee’s demands.

“He wants immunity from prosecution and his pension upgraded to a full senior management pension with a lump sum payment of two hundred thousand dollars.”

“He’s asking a lot.”

“He knows that, but he also realises the enormity of the situation at hand. He has a granddaughter with severe medical problems and says he needs to safeguard her future.”

“But how does he know about our Voyager One conundrum?”

The Deputy paused for a second. He didn’t like the obvious answer.

“I don’t know. I guess we have a leak somewhere.”

“Shit.”

“Shit indeed, Tony. We need to find out who it is, but that’ll have to wait for the moment.”

“Agreed. Put another hundred thousand dollars in the pot, but don’t use it unless we have to.”

“Understood.”

The Administrator stood up and paced around the room for a few seconds, his right hand stroking his neatly coiffured beard. He placed both hands palm-down on top of his large mahogany desk and leaned into them.

“And make it conditional on his agreement to a polygraph. I know he has us by the balls, and that lie-detector tests aren’t how we would normally do things, but he doesn’t know that. I need time to get the President on board. Pardons are his department.”

Three hours later, ex-assembly engineer Jonas Wade was sitting in a sparsely furnished and dimly lit room, facing an emotionless heavy-set man, whose receding dark hair was just beginning to grey at the temples. On the table that separated them was a polygraph machine. Jonas Wade didn’t much like the idea of having to undergo this procedure, but he needed the money. The emotionless man’s assistant attached nodes onto various parts of Jonas’s body and nodded to the interrogator, who looked straight into the eyes of the engineer.

“Good morning, Mr Wade. My name is Mr Anderson. I shall ask you a number of questions which I want you to answer truthfully. The first few questions will be to provide a benchmark in order to analyse your responses. Do you understand?”

Jonas nodded his agreement and Mr Anderson started his interrogation, while the Administrator and his deputy looked on from the other side of a two-way mirror.

“What is your job, Mr Wade?”

“I’m retired. Before that, I was an assembly engineer for JPL.”

“Were you involved in the assembly of the Voyager One space probe, Mr Wade?”

“Yes.”

The needle of the polygraph machine busily darted up and down the paper. So far none of the responses were unexpected. After several more simple questions, Mr Anderson moved on to a more relevant line of questioning.

“You say that you can provide proof that the space probe in our custody, is the very same spacecraft which you helped assemble. Is that true?”

Jonas took a deep breath. He knew that he needed to be honest if he were to receive his payment. He wasn’t dealing with fools.

“I believe so.”

The Administrator turned to his Deputy.

“I believe so?”

The interrogator turned his head towards the reflective glass and nodded. The Deputy clarified the response.

“Technically, it means that he does believe that he can prove whether our space probe is the real Voyager One or not.”

“So, as far as he is concerned, what he is now going to tell us is the truth.”