The Quantum Magician

by Derek Künsken

  Iekanjika’s hand, bigger than his, closed around his wrist and held the button close to his face. Her face neared. He flinched away from the complexity of her expression and met the barrel of a sidearm.

  “You left a tracking device at the Mutapa?”

  She was so angry. Anger felt thick and tactile around her. He didn’t like being this close. Let go.

  “They’re just entangled particles,” he said. “They don’t work as a tracking device, unless I can make them work as one. No one has ever tried. I want to see if I can guide the Jonglei back to the Expeditionary Force without your navigational systems.”

  “Who else has these?” she demanded.

  “No one,” he said. “They’re entangled particles. They only come in pairs.”

  She put away her sidearm and flicked at other buttons on his jacket. “These are all entangled particles?”

  “Sets of them,” he said.

  “Who else has this tracking technology?”

  “It’s not a tracking technology,” he said. “I don’t even know if it will work.”

  She released him and made a sound of exasperation.

  “You wanted magic,” he said.

  “I want to be on the other side of the Puppet Axis!”

  “Then stop slowing me down.”

  Iekanjika and Ruhindi conferred. Shona. He thought they were speaking Shona. Iekanjika approached and removed his jacket, so that he had no buttons except the one in his hand.

  “Those aren’t easy to make,” he said.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “The Homo quantus, in the fugue, are able to perceive quantum fields, including the ones linking entangled particles,” he said. “I may be able to follow the line of entanglement to the other particle, and then direct an induced wormhole.”

  “You’ve never done this?” she asked.

  “No one has ever done this. Can you shut off the navigational systems?”

  The main display and its interestingly patterned numbers winked away, leaving internal ship status dashboards.

  “Can you move the ship?” he asked. “I know where we are.”

  “Not without the navigational displays you don’t,” the colonel said.

  “I memorized everything before you shut it off.”

  The colonel’s fingers twitched and shifting gravity returned. Half. Three quarters. Full. With changes in angle. They rotated and thrust in three dimensions. To lose him. To make it harder. Fine. That was the least of his worries.

  To do this, he had to enter the fugue, to cease being himself entirely. He was already halfway to being someone else. Savant shut down all sorts of cognitive functions, changing who he was by temporarily damaging his brain. But entering the quantum fugue meant not being anyone. He’d avoided the fugue for years, run from it and from home. His hands trembled. He put them under his arms. They watched him. Watching him. Stop watching me.

  “I need the most detailed possible dashboard of the wormhole induction coils,” he said quietly.

  The dashboard shrank and a series of graphs and charts bloomed instead, measuring strength, shape and texture of the magnetic field.

  “Can I have access to the configuration settings?” he said. “I need to display things more logically.”

  The Jonglei’s computer created a limited access for him and he began restructuring the displays, getting to data orders of magnitude beyond what the ship’s navigators needed. Patterns of coil temperature, curvature, magnetic polarization, electrical resistance and surface free density reflected each other through complex geometries.

  Gravity vanished again. Relative velocity was zero. Iekanjika stood beside him.

  “What do you want to do now, Arjona?” she asked.

  “I need you to wait. As long as I ask,” he added, in response to a huffing exhalation from her.

  In the early days of quantum theory, scientists and philosophers had argued heatedly over the meaning of the quantum wave function, and what the superposition of states meant. What did it mean when a single electron could pass through two slits at once? Reality at the atomic level was slippery. This slipperiness had been made famous by Schrödinger’s cat; the cat who was entangled in the uncertainty of the quantum world because its fate depended on an observation. Some argued that the cat became part of the quantum world, assuming a similar duality of states: neither dead nor alive. Others argued that the experiment itself created new universes, one in which the cat was dead, and another in which the cat was alive. Both interpretations carried so much baggage that neither view won out. If either of them had, the Homo quantus, and Belisarius,might never have been created.

  The Homo quantus project was born when it was discovered that consciousness was the element that collapsed quantum systems into clear outcomes. Humans, as subjective, conscious beings, could never directly observe quantum phenomena. As soon as they looked, the cat was either dead or alive, and the electron passed through one slit or the other of the experiment. Superposition and overlapping probabilities disappeared whenever humans came close. Consciousness turned probability into reality. The goal of the Homo quantus project had been to engineer humans capable of discarding their consciousness and subjectivity so as not to collapse quantum phenomena.

  For Belisarius, approaching the quantum fugue was like standing on a diving board. Self stood above the water, reflecting upon it. Dissolution waited in the water, the extinguishing of self. To plunge in was to become part of the environment, to become like space and stars and the void, to cease to be a subject capable of experiencing. To plunge meant joining the category of things that were collections of rules and algorithms without minds, like insects and bacteria. Entering the fugue was to become one among countless things in the indeterminacy of the quantum world. His stomach twisted. He’d stood on the diving board, staring at his reflection. He hadn’t stepped off the diving board for a decade.

  Few Homo quantus could enter the fugue at all, and even then only with great difficulty. For them, entering the fugue was like climbing a steep hill. Engineered instincts assisted them. Geneticists had strengthened the instinct for pattern-recognition and curiosity, bringing it closer in each generation to the strength of the instinct for self-preservation.

  They’d overshot their goal in Belisarius. His need to learn and understand was as strong as his sense of self-preservation. He couldn’t rely on his instincts; they might kill him. There was no predicting what his brain would do when his consciousness was extinguished. The fugue was dangerous to him. But there was no other way here and now. He needed a functioning Homo quantus, and he didn’t have another around. He triggered the fugue. Like a switch turning off, Belisarius the person ceased to be.

  Chapter Seven

  THE QUANTUM INTELLECT coalesced in the absence of the Belisarius subjectivity. Millions of magnetosomes fed the intellect billions of qubits and qutrits of magnetic and electrical information. The intellect constructed a map of the signals, in all their mutually exclusive, superimposed richness. Quantum perceptions bloomed in an array of overlapping probabilities.

  A hypothesis needed testing: could a line of probability connecting entangled particles accurately guide an induced wormhole to a precise destination?

  The quantum intellect found the thin filament of probability that connected the entangled particles within the vast frothing of the quantum world. Nerve endings in the Belisarius physicality created signal transduction cascades within muscle cells, causing spindle fibers to rotate the orientation of the sub-cellular magnetosomes, which shifted the magnetic field around the entangled particles in the button. The nuclei of the entangled particles in the pin also rotated, sending an instantaneous signal along the filament of probability to their entangled counterparts a third of a light year away. Like a light switching on, the location of the other entangled particles became clearer. That was the approximate location of the Mutapa.

  The Limpopo was two hundred and twenty-five kilometers anti-spinwa
rd, relative to the Stubbs Oort cloud, and within the Limpopo was the pair of conjoined Axes Mundi.

  The quantum intellect issued directives. “Increase magnetic field strength to four hundred and eight thousand Gauss. Down-angle starboard coil three point eight degrees. Decrease coil curvature by two inverse centimeters.”

  The Iekanjika subjectivity approached. Stood still. Looked close. Possessed a facial expression. “Where are we going, Arjona?”

  The quantum intellect repeated. “Increase magnetic field strength to four hundred and eight thousand Gauss. Down-angle starboard coil three point eight degrees. Decrease coil curvature by two inverse centimeters.”

  Superimposed probabilities became richer. Light second by light second, perception expanded.

  The Iekanjika subjectivity and the Ruhindi subjectivity issued sounds. Interacted. Processed analog information. The magnetic field strength rose. The starboard coil curvature decreased and pointed further from the ship’s axis. The shape of the ship’s field shifted.

  “Increase port coil curvature by one point seven inverse centimeters and increase the permeability of the coil core by four micronewtons per square ampere.”

  The fingers twitched on the Ruhindi subjectivity. Code detected. Code cracked. It was a three-finger hexadecimal replacement cipher into français 8.61.

  The quantum intellect issued directives. “Raise field strength to five hundred thousand Gauss.”

  The magnetic field from the coils pressed against magnetosomes.

  “Raise field strength to five hundred and twenty-one thousand and sixty-three Gauss and increase curvature of the port coil by zero point four one inverse centimeters.”

  A hollow formed in space-time, through uncurling and expanding dimensions. The hollow stretched, forming a throat. Fingers twitched. Systems shut down. Magnetic pressure from coils ended. The intellect reduced the current from electroplaques to magnetosomes. Cold gas jets pushed the ship forward. The Jonglei entered the induced wormhole. Silence. No space. No where. No one.

  Then, the Jonglei emerged into normal space-time. Displays winked on. Twenty-one kilometers away, the Limpopo floated in a slow, distant orbit of the Stubbs Pulsar.Holographic yellow outlined the shape of the Limpopo. Dorsal cargo bays. Port and starboard weapons placements. Inflaton drive channel. Bunkered bridge and engine. Ruhindi whistled, signalling an emotion.

  The quantum intellect’s sensory input expanded. Novel probability wave patterns washed over the intellect, produced by a tightly coiled loop of causality: the interfering Axes Mundi carried in the Limpopo.

  “If your goal was to get us back to the Mutapa, Arjona, you missed by a couple of hundred kilometers,” Iekanjika said.

  “Not bad over a third of a light year,” Ruhindi said, implying an assessment of error tolerance.

  It was not an error. The intellect had targeted the induced wormhole precisely, to be able to observe the patterns of interference of the paired Axes Mundi.

  The Belisarius subjectivity had embedded instructions for the quantum intellect to return processing control to the Belisarius subjectivity after the transit and observations. But these instructions were of low priority compared to the possible data to be gained from continued observation. The temperature of the Belisarius physicality rose to forty-one degrees. The quantum intellect overwrote the subjectivity’s instructions. It would remain in control for as long as physically possible.

  “Arjona, I’m talking to you!”

  Shaking. Threat? Qubits were protected from mechanical and thermal disruption. Quantum computing capacities remained coherent, and cognition continued to expand.

  “He’s hot. Feverish.”

  “Quarantine?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s contagious.”

  “He can’t stay here.”

  “Corporal, rack him in sick bay.”

  Hands declamped boot magnets. The quantum intellect compensated by adjusting the current to the magnetosomes. The Belisarius physicality was carried from the dashboard displays, but the perceptions of the quantum intellect continued to grow. It was imperative that it continue to observe and complete its analysis of the wormhole data.

  Temperature forty-one point six degrees.

  Temperature forty-one point seven degrees.

  Chapter Eight

  BELISARIUS STANK. VOMIT crusted his lips. His head pounded. Only by tucking his fingers under his arms would they stop trembling. Fever. His stomach wanted to bring up more, but had nothing left to offer. He lived in an aching and empty world filled with punishing light.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Arjona?” Iekanjika said. Her voice was grating. Strong. The accent over mildly antique French was elegant, now that he’d gotten used to it.

  “You have an appalling bedside manner, major.”

  “Our medical computer thinks you almost died last night,” Iekanjika said. “Twice. Hyperpyrexia.”

  “That’s a damn high fever,” he said. Dryness stung his throat.

  “The computer couldn’t get your temperature down. Cause: drug effects or sepsis,” she said. “I hadn’t given the order to poison you.”

  Belisarius groaned. Had she cracked a joke? Probably not.

  The light aching at his eyes was just a lamp on the ceiling. Some kind of small sick bay, decorated in bleak industrial tones.

  “Your feat of navigation might have impressed me,” she said, “but I don’t really see the point, and the cost to you seems prohibitive.”

  “I never said I was good at being a Homo quantus. We normally enter the fugue with a bit more medical support.”

  “So all Homo quantus are built this poorly?”

  “It’s fair to say I’m the sum of many generations of flaws.”

  “You can barely navigate zero grav, you get sick when you try something unusual, and you missed the Mutapa,” she said. “Our own navigation could have come closer.”

  “I get it,” he groaned. “You don’t agree with the decision to hire me.”

  “Correct.”

  “Then don’t hire me if you don’t think I can do the job.”

  “I’ve seen no sign that you can.”

  “Can I get cleaned up?”

  “You’re still feverish.”

  “The fugue fever lasts a few more hours and then breaks.”

  Iekanjika left. The computer, with different manipulators, started cleaning him roughly.

  He’d never gone that far into the quantum fugue, so deep into the fever. After forty-one degrees, not even the quantum objectivity could reliably store memories, and it sounded like it had held on for longer than that. His own rising temperature had probably caused the quantum objectivity to decohere. It was the physiological equivalent of stopping a train by running it into a wall.

  The objectivity had not intentionally tried to kill him. It minded Belisarius’s physical safety within the context of competing priorities, some of which were more important. If Belisarius died, it would cease to exist, but it didn’t care. His programmed instincts had a bug that couldn’t be fixed. To be so callously valued by the thing holding his life was chilling.

  But he’d thrown the dice and won.

  He wouldn’t survive another dip into the fugue, but the past twenty-four hours had given him information he could use. Firstly, the Union data he’d broken into had shown him how two wormholes could interact stably. Secondly, he now knew that a quantum intellect, together with entangled particles and a good wormhole-inducing ship, could navigate very precisely, beyond the limits of the ship’s own systems.

  He had the start of an idea for getting the Expeditionary Force to the other side of the Puppet Axis, but that was just navigation, playing the cards. The larger problem would be playing the Puppets. They wouldn’t be easy marks.

  Chapter Nine

  BY EVENING, BELISARIUS’S fever broke, and an invitation to a mess dinner waited for him. It was from Major-General Rudo, Commander of the Sixth Expeditionary Force. He’d never atten
ded a mess dinner. It seemed quaint and pointless. Formalized, regimented fun didn’t sound like fun at all. But a dour MP came for him at seven.

  They’d accelerated the Mutapa to simulate a fifth of a gravity. A broad mess hall had been decorated with old tablecloths, white plates and bowls, and real silverware. Flags of the Sub-Saharan Union, without the fleur-de-lis of the Congregate, hung on the walls.

  They provided Belisarius with a brown uniform, absent any insignia. The fleet’s uniforms were not very different. Metal and ruby on collar, shoulder and wrist indicated ranks, from Rudo’s Major-General to a few majors, including Iekanjika. But no one had any medals, not even the Major-General. When Belisarius noted this distinction from all other militaries, the president of the mess, a gray-haired colonel, told him that no one would want a medal while their nation lived under the patronage of the Congregate.

  The president of the mess introduced Belisarius, and the minor mystery of Iekanjika’s disproportionate authority evaporated. Major Iekanjika was the junior wife of Major-General Rudo’s triptych marriage. A tall colonel was introduced as Rudo’s and Iekanjika’s middle husband. Belisarius had had little reason to study the social dynamics of the Union, and hadn’t realized they’d adopted the triptych marriage customs of their Venusian patrons.

  Two dozen senior officers attended the mess dinner, including the colonels commanding each warship, the lieutenant-colonels and majors in important command positions, and the two brigadiers who commanded the two wings of the Expeditionary Force. No one warmed to Belisarius. They seemed suspicious, whether of him or of strangers, or both, he didn’t know. He supposed he would be wary of strangers after forty years of isolation.

  They seated Belisarius to the left of the Major-General, across from a hard-faced brigadier and beside Iekanjika and the diplomat Babedi. Officers sat along both sides of the table. The conversation in front of him toggled between falsely jovial and forced politeness. Corporals in ceremonial uniforms served frugal courses as the volume of the conversation slowly rose. Some spoke accented French, but most spoke Shona, a language Belisarius didn’t have on file and hadn’t yet decrypted.