Analog Science Fiction and Fact 04/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  “Maybe it was somebody else,” Tomma Lee suggested. “Somebody who just sounded like me.”

  Avery shook his head, still not looking at her. “Only a guy from the mailroom. You should have seen the look he gave me.”

  Tomma Lee knitted her brow, the glimmer of an idea forming. “What did you hear? I mean, what did I say?”

  “‘How high are we?’ ” Avery licked his lips. “And then something about wind. I thought you were making a joke, so I said, ‘Tomma Lee, there’s no wind in an elevator.’ ” Avery forced himself to look at her and smiled weakly. “Then you said, ‘Who are you?,’ like I had butted in on a private conversation. And then you yelled, real loud, like you were scared, ‘Where is my husband?’ ”

  Avery looked down, his hands knitted in his lap. “I heard it, Miss Evans. I know you’re not married, but I heard you say that.”

  XVI

  Tomma Lee spent an hour in her cubicle, combing the net for recent stories of apparently sane people who had reported hearing voices. Avery’s description of his elevator episode had evoked enough of her dimly remembered dream to suggest something unexpected and potentially the key to a big story. Her dream had been a disturbingly altered version of the Paris honeymoon with Adrian a decade ago, probably evoked by the news coverage of the UNERCO bombing and all this recent preoccupation with the Neighbors.

  The ghost voice reports were scattered all over the place, but she had to dig for them. Individually, they still looked like Silly Season filler: A light-plane lands in an Iowa cornfield, the lone pilot claiming that someone had begun screaming in his earphones; a nun in Naples reports hearing an angel’s warning about the Neighbors; a New York City cabbie abandons his taxi at an intersection when a voice yells in his head to run for cover; a man in a Moscow suburb is arrested for shooting at a microwave tower with a rifle, claiming it was broadcasting into his brain.

  By 2:30 she had collected a dozen stories from all over the world and was dialing Adrian, hoping he was still at the Institute.

  “Yo, Tomma Lee! What’s up?” His hair was again tousled, his eyes looked bleary, and he was scratching at a five o’clock shadow. He bore the marks of a prolonged lunchtime tryst, but Tomma Lee was glad he was safe.

  She got right to the point: “Adrian, what do you know about telepathy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Is it possible?”

  Adrian gave her a heavy-lidded stare and leaned back in his chair. “You come up with some interesting questions, Tomma Lee.” He ran a hand through his hair, but it fell back in disarray. “Actually, a few years back we were speculating about those noises the Neighbors make, then digitally convert into human languages. Some people thought the whole process was for human consumption, that they communicate telepathically to each other. We never got very far with that. Paranormal research has been pretty much on a back burner around here since the Neighbors were evasive about the subject.”

  Tomma Lee was determined to get more information. “But is it real? Can you give me a capsule summary of what you know about it?”

  Adrian rubbed his chin. “The subject’s been around a long time, in and out of favor as either science or pseudo-science for a couple of centuries. Serious study of parapsychology began in the 1880s with the British. A lot of famous people got into it: scientists like William Crookes, politicians like Arthur Balfour, even writers like Arthur Conan Doyle. The U.S. followed soon after, led by the psychologist/philosopher William James. Lots of schools took it up in the twentieth century: Stanford, and especially Duke University, where Joseph Rhine did a lot of controlled—presumably controlled—studies. I read somewhere that even Wolfgang Pauli—you know, the exclusion principle?”

  Tomma Lee shook her head.

  “Well, even a highly regarded physicist like Pauli became a believer.”

  “So, is telepathy real?”

  Adrian snatched a pencil and began tapping a nervous rhythm on his desktop. “That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “I think it was Margaret Mead, the anthropologist, who got the Parapsychological Association affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. AAAS is as big and prestigious as scientific societies get. Over the years some members, like the physicist John Wheeler, tried to get the connection broken, but as far as I know they are still linked up.”

  “So a lot of scientists believe there is something to it?”

  Adrian spread his palms. “It’s hard to say how many. The subject goes up and down in interest. In the 1970s and ’80s a lot of work went on in Europe, America, and the former Soviet Union, but by the early twenty-first century many active centers, like the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, were shutting down. The work never completely stopped, though, because private funding kept other labs going. And lately, interest has been picking up again.”

  Tomma Lee was not satisfied. “Do you believe in it?” she asked.

  Adrian grimaced a little. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll answer that, but then you’ve got to tell me what this is all about.” He leaned back in the office chair, the pencil between his hands. “I’ve read a lot of research reports on paranormal studies: ESP, precognition, clairvoyance, you name it. Thanks to watchdog organizations like the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the James Randi Educational Foundation there are now very few cases of purposeful fraud in the technical literature. Most recent investigations appear to be properly designed experiments, something that was decidedly not the case in many of the twentieth century studies. A persistent problem, though, is the improper use of meta-analysis in combining results for publication.”

  “You’re going to tell me what that means?”

  “It’s bias on what low-population data sets get selected to create a statistically significant large data set. You ignore, or reject as flawed, studies that are inconsistent with your preconceived conclusion.”

  Tomma Lee couldn’t help a brief smile. “You scientific types wouldn’t do that, would you?”

  “Sometimes, its just honest stupidity,” he said, grinning. “But to finally answer your question, Tomma Lee, I believe there is a small, but undeniable, positive deviation from pure chance that doesn’t go away when all sources of bias have been removed. Yes, I think telepathy exists, but it is a rare and wild effect about which we know nothing substantive.”

  Tomma Lee realized that she now owed Adrian an explanation for this call. “Okay, then,” she said. “I have another question for you.” Adrian raised his eyebrows expectantly. “What if that rare talent could be chemically induced?”

  XVII

  Two days later, when the weekly edition of the Reflecting Pool appeared on the net, it did not contain a story about the Somnomol sleep-aid broadcasting people’s nightmares into the heads of unsuspecting citizenry.

  Tomma Lee had spent two hours discussing the possibilities with Adrian and another two downloading the “ghost voices” stories from more than twenty wire services. The writing had taken most of the night. But Cliff had rejected the feature after reading the first two pages.

  “Too speculative,” he had typed back. “You’ve got no hard evidence. And those pills have been approved for over-the-counter sale by the food and drug agencies of over forty countries. Friel would sue us. When I gave you that ‘Doc’s Corner’ assignment I didn’t expect this . . .”

  It had hurt. Especially because Tomma Lee, writing it almost as a personal memoir, had qualified her conclusions on every page. She had clearly conceded that Somnomol was undoubtedly safe for the person who uses it. But she had also suggested that mental disturbance and possibly grave physical harm could accrue to those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of the nightmare transmissions. On the net she had found several auto and one plane crash that sounded like the results of the effect. God only knew how many people kept their experience hidden, or how many had sought psychiatric care.

  Tomma Lee was pacing the floor in her apartment, the homepage of the Reflecting Pool glowing in the ai
r above her theater table. Cliff had assigned Alex a feature on world reaction to the terror attack in Paris, complete with “talking-head” clips as a replacement for her copy. The “Doc’s Corner” filler on Somnomol ran as she had originally submitted it, with no reference to any problem with the drug.

  There had been a time, when she had first come out west, when Cliff would have run her story. Back then the journal was trying to make a name for itself. Now crusading journalism was boat-rocking. She had no idea what kinds of pressure Cliff now responded to. The Fidelis Group and its huge pharmaceutical arm, Compcare, had a long reach, she knew. Running Tomma Lee’s feature would have been like asking for some sort of real or imagined behind-the-scenes corporate retribution. Even Adrian had waffled when she suggested that he reopen the investigation of the drug at the Institute. The only promise she could evoke was a follow-up study if her write-up received the positive response they both expected. It amounted to more gutless fear of a reprisal of some kind from Friel.

  God! Even Adrian!

  Tomma Lee stopped pacing and began the familiar ritual of loading the black-and-metal espresso machine. Minutes later the steaming demitasse was in her hand as she dialed the number Cliff had given her.

  Friel’s private secretary put her on hold. After a full two minutes of watching a rotating Fidelis Group logo, the young woman’s face reappeared. “Mr. Friel is currently en route to our Compcare division in Melbourne, but he is available. I’ll connect you.”

  Immediately, the toothy grin appeared, framed by the blond beard. Friel was wearing a white cable-knit turtleneck. He was seated in a leather reclining chair and there was an iced drink in his hand.

  “I’ve read your current issue, Miss Evans, but I missed your by-line.”

  Tomma Lee chose to ignore the comment. “Mr. Friel, this time I’ve got a story to tell you.”

  “Noel, please . . . We’re old friends now . . .” He sipped at the glass and sat back expectantly. “Please go ahead, I’ve got a good half hour before touchdown.”

  Tomma Lee gave him the whole story with all the qualifications and provisos that she could remember from the rejected article.

  When she had finished, Friel was pensive and silent for a minute. “They wouldn’t print it?” he asked at last.

  Tomma Lee shook her head, hardly knowing what to expect from him.

  “While I appreciate your editor’s caution, if your premise proves valid, sooner rather than later someone else will go public with this. We’ve got a couple of billion units out worldwide. Right now I’m on my way to a meeting about expanding production.” Friel reached off-camera and retrieved his drink. “Miss Evans, do you remember our talk about the motivations of the Neighbors and that forbidden area in the Hive?”

  Tomma Lee bit her lower lip. “I’ve thought about that quite a bit lately,” she said. “What if the Holy Alliance and the Holy Union are right, in essence? What if the Neighbors want the Earth, and the forbidden area of the Hive is a brood hatchery of future colonists?”

  Friel was about to drink, but stopped and glared at her. “And they’re trying to kill us off with our own projected dreams? No, Miss Evans, if the Neighbors had wanted the Earth they would have taken it long ago. Your discovery has suggested a quite different motivation. They could be trying to stimulate a latent mental potential.”

  “To make humans telepathic? Why?”

  “The forbidden area of the Hive comes out of the translators as ‘archive.’ The Neighbors came here for information about us—deep information about how our minds are structured and how our thought processes work. It makes a kind of sense that a telepathic race would make such details transparent to them.”

  Tomma Lee had forgotten that she still held the demitasse. She drained it and set it down. “Could the way we think be that different?”

  Friel was not smiling now. “I believe that they sent these Hives from their home world to learn all the myriad modes of sentient intelligence. It may be more vastly varied than we, or even the Neighbors, can imagine.” His face took on a pensive expression. “Somnomol was likely meant as a test to check on the biochemical response. The next gift could be something much more potent . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Tomma Lee felt a tremor run down her spine. “They intend to just give us this power?”

  “In order to understand us more completely. But all the Neighborly gifts have been beneficial. No harm could result.” Friel now seemed to be talking to himself. “I wonder, though, why they haven’t been more open about this. . . .”

  Tomma Lee felt for a moment that he’d almost forgotten her. “Even with the best of intentions,” she said, “how well do the Neighbors know us? Isn’t that gift a bit like giving a nuclear bomb to a pack of howling lemurs?”

  Friel snapped out of his reverie and fixed her with his good eye. “It seems to me, Miss Evans, that we handled that crisis ourselves a century ago. I see no reason that we won’t handle this one as well. Knowing each others’ thoughts and feelings could be just what we need to finally grow up, live in peace, join in an interstellar community . . .”

  “You’re joking! We’re nowhere near ready . . .”

  Friel smiled dismissively. “We’re approaching the airport. I really must be signing off, Miss Evans. It was a pleasure. . . .” And the connection was cut.

  When Tomma Lee tried to replay the conversation she found the recording had been coded to self-erase. For several moments she was stunned, struggling with the irrational feeling that Cliff and Adrian and Friel had conspired against her, yet knowing that they were each separately acting out of self interest. She spun the theater table dial, her hands cold and trembling. A special report on the latest round of threats and demands from Liam O’Brien appeared. All of it now seemed to have taken on the aspect of a strange dream.

  What had Adrian called REM sleep? Dramaturgy.

  We’re all actors, she thought, a decision taking shape in her mind. Such stuff as dreams are made on.

  Then Tomma Lee typed short messages to Cliff Barnes and Scott Narvick, resigning one role and accepting another.

  Reflecting Pool News Service:

  . . . The recall of the Somnomol sleep-aid has had a significant negative impact on the third quarter earnings figures for Compcare Pharmaceuticals. However, division vice president Malcolm Seabring has expressed confidence that a new vitamin-supplement formulation currently under development, which the company claims enhances mental clarity, will improve the outlook for the next fiscal year. N. Joel Friel, who, as chairman of the Fidelis Group, sits on the Compcare board, was unavailable for comment, having undertaken a solo around-the-world voyage on his racing yacht, the Sand Dollar.

  Copyright © 2011 Thonas R. Dulski

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  The Qarasht surveyor hefted a bark-brown teardrop that looked to me like the pod off a branch of seaweed, but much bigger. She set it on the table, using eight-fingered hands that looked like clustered chicken feet. Her sense cluster was extruded; she clearly wanted to talk. “Truly, this was not even the interesting part,” she said.

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