Strings: something big is about to happen... (2 page)

“I’m a physicist.
 
My research has been focused on string
theory.
 
My vision, if you want to call
it that, provides a glimpse of the things that science cannot yet reveal.”

“What would
you
call it, if
not a vision?”

Maddy thought for a moment,
wondering why this mattered, and hoping that the doctor would not pick on every
detail, arguing semantics, to extend the visit.

“I have thought of it in many
ways: an insight, a recognition, a truth.
 
Surely it happens in your area of expertise, Doctor Fielding?”

“Certainly.”

“And what would you call it?”

The doctor smiled.

“I am aware that these,
truths
,
appear to you mainly at night.
 
Would
you ever refer to them as
dreams
, Professor Happer?”

She was sure that the doctor knew
that both she and Hugh had already done so.
 
“Not deliberately, no.”

“What exactly do you mean when you
say, ‘not deliberately’?”

Maddy sighed.

*****

“How was it?” asked Hugh, when
they were sitting in the car.

She wanted to be flippant, but she
decided to box clever.
 
“Helpful.
 
He’s a good listener.”
 
She tried a smile, but it came out as a grimace.
 
Hugh would not be fooled.

“Did you make another
appointment?”

“Next week.”
 
If there were a next week!

“Good.
 
I thought we might go to the park.
 
Get some picnic stuff from Marks?”

“Don’t you have to get back?”

“Not until two.
 
What do you say?”

“All right.”

The park was busy, but they found
a bench and opened their sandwiches.
 

“Do you think I’m crazy?”
 
She hadn’t actually asked him directly.

He stopped chewing and looked at
her, and in the smallest measurement of time, before he had arranged the
expression on his face, she saw that he did.

“No.
 
Of course I don’t think you’re crazy.
 
Christ, Maddy.
 
I just
want you to be… more like you
used
to be, that’s all.
 
I think this research you’re doing is
getting to you.”
 
He took her hand.

She resisted the urge to pull it
free.
 
“It’s just work, Hugh.
 
I’m really onto something.
 
Something important.”
 

Some kids were playing marbles on
the path, but the surface was too rough, affecting their trajectory.
 
They launched them fast and hard, and were
surprisingly accurate, scattering the coloured glass and falling about
hysterically when they won, cheering loudly.
 
The very big and the very small
.

“You have to try to trust me,
Hugh.”

“I know, I know.
 
It’s just that… you talk in your sleep,
Maddy.”
 
He blurted out this last
comment, looking at her with something like terror in his eyes.
 
“You say things that don’t make sense.”

“What things?”
 
She wanted to know.
 
Why hadn’t he mentioned this before?

“It sounds like another
language.
 
And it’s always the same
thing.
 
It’s… weird.”

“What do I say, Hugh?”
  

“I can’t.
 
I can’t say it.
 
It doesn’t mean anything.
 
It’s not English, Maddy.
 
It’s
not any kind of language that I can recognise.”
 

That night, she set up the
recorder and microphone next to her bed.
 
Six hours.
 
Hopefully, that would
be long enough.

*****

Sim sent out a signal that they
should rest.
 
There were eight blips to
go and they would need their strength.
 
“Sweet dreams,” he said.
 
The
players became still and continued falling through the vast emptiness of space.
 
Their long, long quest nearing its
conclusion.
 
Their victory practically
in the bag.

*****

“Ratch nor dwl!
 
Ratch!”
 
Maddy listened over and over again to the recording.
 

“When did I start saying this?”

“About three weeks ago.
 
It was after you’d been out.
 
You came back so late and you were pale, so
pale, Maddy.
 
I was worried.”

“God damn it, Hugh!
 
Why didn’t you say anything!”

“I… I thought it was just a
dream.
 
I thought it would stop.”

“Ratch nor dwl!
 
Ratch!”
 
It sounded aggressive, or at least forceful.
 
There was stress on the word ‘ratch’.

“What does it sound like to you?”
she asked him.

“Like an order,” he replied, “or
like a celebration.”

“A celebration. Yes.”

Maddy worked all day on her
paper.
 
‘Strings and Wormholes.
 
A Study of the Very Big and the Very
Small.’
  
The department was keen on papers
that could be presented to the interested public.
 
It brought notoriety to the university, which sparked curiosity
from further afield, which, in turn, generated income.
 
You never knew who might be listening.

As she worked, she was constantly
aware of a thought, deep-rooted and, for the moment, still hidden.
 
It was a state of mind she recognised.
 
Sooner or later, the thought would surface
and become an insight.
 
That was a good
word for it.
 
But so was ‘truth’ or
‘recognition’ or even ‘understanding’.
 
There were so many words that very nearly explained the moment when
everything clicked into place, when a hunch became a deeply felt
perception.
 
To Maddy, it was a moment
she lived for, it was her own kind of ecstasy.
 
If only she could catch this one and tie it down.
 
She laughed.
 
It would be like catching quanta in a butterfly net.
 
Impossible.
 
The image stayed with her.
 
There
she was, running around, able to sense the microscopic universe, and attempting
to trap some of it in a contraption obviously inadequate for the task.
 
She would need a special kind of net, and an
enhanced perception to be able to ‘see’ what was normally invisible. She worked
with a smile on her face, always aware of the thought that was doing its best
to emerge.
 
When it did, she would grab
it.

*****

“Awake, team-members!” Sim sent
out a signal and the players stirred.

“Uh?” thought Rim.

Li poked Rom with a joke and he
turned somersaults.

“Two blips,” announced Sim.
 
“Illuminating screen. Confirm your choices.”

“Shall we take the hot one?”

“Does it support life?” asked, Ti.

“Affirmative,” replied Sim. “Third
solid from the hot. At sub quanta levels.
 
Observe.”

On the screen, strange granular
objects appeared, made of various identifiable elements.
 
Some characteristic of animate, some of
inanimate forms.
 

“There is evidence of organisation
and, in previous studies, this has been proven to assume some level of
intelligence.”

The players passed their thoughts
around.

“We need a hot.
 
One last one, to have victory.
 
We can use the discretionary rule.” Rim
waited for a response.

“Intelligence cannot be accurately
measured at this level of magnification.
 
However, new research suggests that we may soon harness more of the
power of our minds to see beyond what the universe currently reveals to us.”

“We shouldn’t take the hot, if
there is life.”
 
Li contributed his
thought reluctantly.

“When will we meet the next system
choice?” queried Lom.

“7, 081 blips,” said Sim.

“We are so close to winning!”

“Who cares about a few microbes?”

“How long will it take them to
die?”

“If they are alive in the first
place!”

“Depending on intelligence and
location, less than a dwil,” announced Sim. “But you must take into account
that, though a dwil, to us, is nothing more than the blinking of an eye, it
could represent a substantial period of time to a microbe.”

“I never did really understand
that,” said Lon.

There was telepathic jeering from
the others, until Rim shared his thought:
 
“I want to go home.”

The others concurred, regretfully,
but unanimously.
 
And, although Ti still
had reservations, there was always the discretionary rule, which said that, if
a player needed to take a risk on less than adequate information provided, they
could choose to bring home the specimen for study purposes.

“All for one and one for
all?”
 
Sim queried.

“Ratch nor dwl!
 
Ratch!” came the reply.

***

Hugh was watching the news.
 

“Maddy!
 
Come and see this.”

There was something in his voice
that made her come.
 
And, looking at the
screen, a tickle started in her mind, which always signified the beginning of
clarity.
 

“They noticed it two weeks ago,
but they don’t know what it is.
 
Just
that it’s getting closer at some speed that’s impossible to calculate.
 
They don’t think it’s solid.
 
Some kind of gas cloud.
 
They say it will pass right through us.”

The astronomer on the television
explained that the objects detected were nebulous in nature and changed shape
constantly, registering slight changes in density.
 
They covered an enormous area of space and were travelling at
unprecedented speeds, seeming to disappear in one location and reappear in
another.
 
Physicists were excited.
 
They were talking about wormholes.
 
Science fiction aficionados were dressing up
and organising conventions to discuss the possibility of alien visitors coming
to Earth.
 
The astronomer was asked
whether the objects could be travelling at ‘warp speed’, and he laughed with
the presenter, saying that would be really something!

Maddy stared.
 

“What is it?” asked Hugh.

“It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“Ratch nor dwl!
 
Ratch!”

***

“Approaching system, one thousand
dwil.
 
Ready nets.
 
All play!”

Li got off first, barging into
Rim, who used his booster to swing round and face Lon, somersaulting into him
and flinging him away.
 
Ti dived,
streamlining, taking shape, increasing in mass, towards the hot, only to be
shoved off course by Lon.
 

Sim awarded points and penalties
on the scoreboard.
 
Whoever captured
this hot would secure a victory for the team and a coveted distinction for
himself.

“Watch out, lightweight!”
 
Li took on mass and engaged full booster for
twenty dwil.

“No you don’t!” Rim sent out one
of his remaining shockwaves and Li curled into a ball, cursing.

All four were still in the running.

“One hundred dwil remaining,”
announced Sim, calmly.

Shape changing at will, increasing
mass to the max, and using the last allocated energy to boost, Lin veered off
target and lost speed. Li came in and shock-waved Ti, who cursed and
slowed.
 
Two of them left, heat shields
on,
salm
treated nets at the ready. At the last ten dwil, the countdown
began. There would be nothing in it.
 
Lin touched his booster, a dangerous strategy at such close proximity,
and cut in front, drawing back his net and coming around.

“Ratch nor dwl!
 
Ratch!” he cried.

*****

People in the northern hemisphere
screamed, as the sun disappeared.
 
One
moment it was there and the next, the sky was in darkness.

Maddy put her arms around Hugh and
held the thought that blazed in her mind of a coiled string lit by apertures,
into which she flew, emerging into a universe on a scale more enormous than any
she’d ever imagined.
 
And before her,
visions of boys and girls, of sorts, gathered round a table, examining what
looked like coloured marbles in a vast space, brightly lit by lamps that looked
like suns.

*****

“Be sure to examine the blue
particle brought back by Ti Drar, gathered in the proto-nets we’ve been trying
out.
 
Well done to Ti.
 
It was taken under the discretionary rule
and may be of particular interest.”

“Where is it, sir?”
 
asked a female student.