Twistor

by Cramer, John; Wolfe, Gene;

  'Art,' said his wife's voice, 'I think you'd better check the eleven o'clock news on Channel 6. Hurry or you'll miss it. Call me when it's over. 'Bye.'

  'OK, hon,' he said, and replaced the receiver on its cradle. He took out the remote control from his desk drawer and zapped to life the flatscreen TV that masqueraded as a painting when it was turned off.

  The announcer was doing a voice-over while the camera focused on a small blue catlike animal. It was perched on the shoulder of a pretty redhead, and it seemed to have six legs. They were saying something about a murder/kidnapping and something about physicists at a laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle returning from 'another universe.' What the Hell did that mean? There were pictures of a grubby young man and two dirty children. Then there was a shot of the small boy standing by an enormous ugly animal that was apparently dead. The animal had six legs; its clawed feet projected into the air.

  Finally they cut to a picture which seemed to have been taken in a forest of extremely large trees – trees such as Lockworth, a California native, had never seen. The same small boy was climbing down a crude ladder mounted on the side of one particularly large tree. He had a stick in his mouth. Lockworth examined the picture and noted its color values and block-pixel grain. He concluded that it must have been made with one of those new variable-resolution CCD-to-ROM digital electronic cameras. The U.S.A. had beaten out the Japanese on that development, he thought, satisfied.

  The small boy turned and unrolled what was revealed to be a crudely drawn but accurate version of the U.S. flag attached to the pole. He turned to the camera, poked the butt of the flagpole into a dark patch of soil, and said in a high child-voice, 'I, Jeffrey Ernst, claim this universe, this territory, in the name of the United States of America.'

  'God!' said Lockworth. He had the momentary illusion that he was looking at Pandora's box, standing with lid ajar while tiny winged creatures flew off in all directions. He reached for the gold-colored telephone, the one that connected him directly to the White House. This was going to be a long night.

  David had only a few minutes with Vickie and Paul and the others before the interviews began. He had talked privately with the police and the FBI. They were particularly interested in the circumstances of his disappearance and of the death of Vickie's kidnapper. One of the policemen congratulated David for saving the taxpayers the expense of a trial.

  Then he'd been interviewed at length by TV journalists and by reporters from several local newspapers, the wire services, and a national magazine. Finally he and Vickie had been able to leave Physics Hall together. His car was still parked in the underground garage where he had left it weeks earlier. It seemed strange to be driving through the streets of the University District once more. No giant trees, no six-legged animals.

  They had gone to the Red Robin and David had reacquainted himself with 'Earth food' in the form of three cheeseburgers and most of a pitcher of beer. Finally, completely exhausted but happy, they went to David's apartment.

  It was just after ten as David, with Vickie holding his hand, entered the apartment for the first time in over two weeks. Unless, of course, one counted David's visits from the other universe. Flash had left the place in rather a mess, but they pushed the clutter aside for cleanup tomorrow. David felt totally, terminally, dead tired, a little drunk, and very much in love. But there was one item that couldn't wait. He switched on his little flat Mac III, retrieved a diskette from a lower desk drawer, and called Vickie to come and sit beside him.

  They worked for about an hour making final changes, corrections, and updates. Then he used the internal 9600-baud modem to dial into the Physics HyperVAX. He uploaded the two files, briefly edited his standard address list, and summoned the MAIL utility. In a few more lines the job was done and he logged off.

  As it turned out, they both had plenty of energy left.

  At 7:55 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, a key turned in the door of the offices at 1 Research Road, Brookhaven, New York. The assistant production editor of the American Institute of Physics Publications let herself in and went directly to her office. The computer terminal on her desk listed the papers that had been electronically submitted to the AIP journals overnight. She routed the first stack, the batch for Physical Review Letters, straight to the laser printer for conversion to hard copy. Then she made a full pot of coffee.

  When she had returned with a steaming cup there were a pile of stapled manuscripts in the output stacker of the printer. As she carried them to the editor's office for first processing she glanced at the paper on the top of the stack. It read:

  First Observation of an Extra-Dimensional Precession Effect Induced by the Rotation

  of a Spherical Electromagnetic Field

  by

  D. G. Harrison, V. A. Gordon, and A. D. Saxont

  Department of Physics FM-15

  University of Washington

  Seattle, WA 98195

  And at the bottom of the page she noticed the line: †Deceased.

  'Is Allan Saxon deceased?' she wondered aloud. She made a note to relay the information to Physics Today so that an obituary could be run. He was no older than I am, she thought.

  * * *

  At precisely 8:00 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, the doorbell of David Harrison's apartment rang. He swam to consciousness from a great depth and shook himself awake. He looked around, reassuring himself that he was in his proper universe. Careful not to disturb Vickie, still fast asleep beside him, he carefully closed the bedroom door, stumbled to the front door, and peered out through the chained opening. Two men with dark business suits and narrow ties stood on the threshold. David recognized one of them as Agent Bartley, the FBI man who had interviewed him yesterday evening.

  'Good morning, Dr Harrison,' Bartley said.

  'I suppose it is,' said David, unchaining the door. 'I wouldn't know. Haven't had the opportunity to observe much of it yet.' He yawned.

  Bartley introduced the other man as his associate, Agent Cooper. 'Dr Harrison,' he said, 'I'm afraid we'll have to impose on you again. We need for you and Miss Gordon to come down to headquarters with us. Immediately. On orders from Washington at the highest levels. I wonder if you'd wake her, sir.'

  David looked sharply at Bartley. 'There isn't much you guys miss, is there?' he said.

  Tart of the job, Dr Harrison.' Cooper leered. 'If you don't mind, sir?'

  'OK, dammit,' said David. 'Come on in. Have a seat. We'll be ready soon.' He turned and stalked out of the room.

  David looked at his watch. They'd been sitting in this bare office for almost two hours now. Bartley had provided coffee but no breakfast, and had not been particularly remorseful about the 'hurry-up-and-wait' routine. It was probably part of the standard procedure.

  Finally, at ten-thirty, Bartley came in again, accompanied by two other men. 'Miss Gordon, Dr Harrison, I'd like you to meet Hodgkins, the agent in charge of our Seattle office, and Mr Pickering from Washington.' They shook hands.

  Pickering presented them with identification from a defense-related scientific agency of the U.S. government, one with which David was only vaguely familiar. 'I apologize for keeping you waiting,' Pickering said. 'I was flown into McChord in a two-place military jet this morning, but then I got tied up in a traffic jam on the freeway between Tacoma and Seattle. Should've ordered a 'copter, I guess.'

  'No problem,' said David, 'except that I would have liked to be able to eat breakfast while you were in transit. I haven't had an Earth breakfast in over two weeks, you know.'

  Pickering glanced at Hodgkins, who blinked. 'Dr Harrison, Miss Gordon,' Pickering said, 'I regret the inconvenience, but this is a matter of some urgency. I've come on direct orders from the highest levels of the White House. I'm here to discuss with you this new "twistor" effect you've discovered. I specifically want to caution you to divulge no further information about it to anyone until its defense and espionage potentials have been evaluated and it can be assigned a security status.'
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  David frowned. 'Yes, Mr Pickering, I thought it would be some BS like that,' he said. 'You're all ready to clamp a lid of secrecy on our work, whether we want it or not. Is that it?'

  Pickering looked pained. 'Dr Harrison, this is a matter of protecting our national interest. The phenomenon you've discovered is dangerous. You've already used it as a weapon, to kill a man. Consider how, in the wrong hands, it might be used for political assassinations and terrorist acts. No political leader would be safe. Consider how it might be used in espionage to discover our national secrets. Think of the security problems. I assure you, of course, that we have no intention of keeping your work secret any longer than—'

  'You're too late,' Vickie broke in.

  Pickering frowned. 'What do you mean?' he asked, turning to her.

  'We submitted the papers last night,' she said. Then she smiled.

  'But—' Pickering protested.

  'I'm afraid,' David added, 'that you've wasted the taxpayers' money on a fruitless trip, Mr Pickering. By now two scientific papers, one describing the twistor effect and the other the apparatus we used to make it, are in the hands of the editors of Physical Review Letters and Review of Scientific Instruments.'

  Pickering stood. 'I must make a phone call,' he said.

  'Just relax,' said David. 'If that was all, perhaps you could still intercept them. But preprints of the papers have also gone to physics groups all over this country and the world. The twistor effect is essentially already in the open literature. Sorry you had to come all this way for nothing, Mr Pickering.'

  Pickering scowled down at David. 'I don't wish to question your veracity, Dr Harrison,' he said, 'but what you say isn't possible. According to the TV coverage, you came back from this "shadow universe" of yours only late yesterday afternoon. From our reports, you were interviewed at the physics building for several hours, ate a quick meal, and spent the remainder of the evening in the company of Miss Gordon. We know that all the lights in your apartment were out by eleven P.M.'

  David frowned.

  'How,' Pickering continued, 'could you possibly have had time to write and prepare two papers, have them typed and reproduced, and put them into the mail? There was simply not time to do all that, Dr Harrison, and we would have observed you doing it.'

  'You're mistaken,' said David. ' "All that" took less than an hour last night. You see, the papers were already done. I'd written both of them more than two weeks ago. All Vickie and I had to do was make a few changes to bring them up to date. I transmitted them by phone to the physics department's HyperVAX. From there we mailed them electronically, using a computer network system called BitNet. We physicists use BitNet routinely for scientific communication. I just pointed the HyperVAX at the files with the papers and the file with the distribution list, and the rest was automatic. At this moment people in Osaka, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Zurich, Rome, Athens, Paris, and Berlin should be reading our papers. And at Los Alamos and Livermore too, Mr Pickering. And they're probably using BitNet now to forward copies to their colleagues. I'm sure your NSA monitors foreign BitNet traffic and will be sending you copies soon. You're dealing with a fait accompli, Mr Pickering. The twistor effect belongs to the world. You're too late.'

  Pickering looked crestfallen. David couldn't be sure, but he had the distinct impression that Agent Bartley was amused.

  * . . . and with the evil magician dead,' said David, 'Ton and Elle flew with the Surplice back to the house of Ton's father, where she met his family. Then they went on to the kingdom of Elle's father.' It had been another long day for David and Vickie. The FBI had kept them in custody until early afternoon while Pickering conversed repeatedly with Washington. Finally, grudgingly, they were released.

  Elizabeth had prepared an elegant homecoming dinner, and, even though it was not a Wednesday, David had consented to finish the story for the children after the dinner was finished.

  'The old king was delighted to have his beautiful daughter returned to him. And he was very taken with young Prince Ton. He let it be known that he was willing to give half his kingdom to this powerful prince who had saved his daughter and who could now use his powerful magic to protect both halves of the kingdom from the powers of evil. And of course the king's daughter, Princess Elle, was included in the deal.

  'Ton and Elle were married in a beautiful royal wedding that made all the papers. And they lived happily ever after.' David glanced across at Vickie and smiled.

  'The End,' he concluded, and looked around.

  Paul, Elizabeth, Vickie, and Melissa clapped enthusiastically. Jeff looked thoughtful, then clapped too.

  'Halloween is in two days, David,' said Melissa, acting quickly before her mother could mention bedtime.

  'So it is,' said David. 'Do you have a costume yet?'

  'I'm going to be a shadow kitten,' said Melissa. 'I'll wear my tan leotard and use some of Mom's pantyhose stuffed with cotton to make extra legs . . . '

  Elizabeth looked surprised.

  ' . . . and I'll have pointed ears and a tail like Shadow,' she continued. 'Shadow and I will go out trick-or-treating together. We'll be like twins. Only I'll be bigger.'

  'I'm gonna be Ton,' Jeff spoke up. 'I'll have a Surplice and a Pricklance and an Urorb, and I'll wear my shadow-bear necklace, too.'

  'Ton didn't have a shadow-bear necklace,' said Melissa with a note of scorn.

  'But I do!' said Jeff. He smiled, satisfied.

  'It's bedtime now, Universe-Hoppers!' said Elizabeth.

  Without complaint Jeff and Melissa, with Shadow on her shoulder, said good night to the guests and went to their bedrooms.

  Elizabeth turned to Vickie. 'How are things with your brother? How is he taking all the publicity and interviews?'

  'William seems to be taking it all very well,' said Vickie. 'He went back to high school today after a week of hiding out. He seems delighted to get back to a more normal existence. And he has a new project. He's hard at work tonight cramming for the November SAT tests. He's decided that he wants to uphold the family tradition and go to CalTech, as Dad and I did. Some of his grades haven't been too hot, so he'll need some spectacular SAT scores to be able to squeak in.'

  'Does he still want to study computer science?' asked Elizabeth.

  'That's the interesting thing,' said Vickie. 'He's decided that he wants to major in physics. He says that now that he's cracked the universe of computers, he's ready to take on real universes . . . all seven of them.'

  Paul smiled. 'Talk him out of it, Vickie, before it's too late,' he said. 'We aging theorists don't need his kind of competition.' From a tall, frosted-green bottle with a little gold centaur on the label he poured cognac into wide crystal snifters and passed these to his guests.

  David swirled the amber liquid in his glass, inhaled deeply, and rolled his eyes heavenward in appreciation. 'You know,' he said, 'this universe does have a lot to offer.'

  Paul raised his cognac snifter. 'I'd like to propose a toast,' he said. 'To David and Vickie and their marvelous future, in this universe or any other.'

  'And to the twistor effect and the better world it will bring,' added David. Together they clinked their glasses and drank the dark fragrant liquid.

  AFTERWORD

  The Physics of Twistor

  Reading hard science fiction is a poor way to learn science. That can be better accomplished by the traditional methods of reading textbooks, attending classes, and receiving on-the-job training. However, there is a related function that hard SF can perform: to communicate the feel and the excitement of actually doing science and provide some insight into what the activity of scientific research is about and how it works. I have tried to do some of that in this book. The University of Washington Department of Physics is in fact the academic department where I teach and do research. The people in the book are my own creations, and bear no resemblance to my own colleagues on the physics faculty. In particular, our chairman is considerably more pleasant as a person and effective as a chairman than i
s Ralph Weinberger in the story. None of my colleagues, to my knowledge, operate private business or attempt to exploit their students or postdocs in the style of Allan Saxon. The characters and circumstances are changed, but the feel of scientific research is as real as I could make it.

  Those who have an interest in picking up a bit of extra scientific information in reading hard-SF novels like this one should be warned of a trap lurking at the core of all hard science fiction. The trap is that by SF convention there are no indications or clues as to which science in the story is 'straight stuff and which is 'rubber science': speculation, extrapolation, fabrication, or invention inserted by the author to add interest to the story and further the plot. In well-written hard SF the seam between true and rubber science is intentionally made invisible to the reader. The reader must be carried smoothly from correct and accurate science into the speculative realm, without any suspicion that he's been had or when it happened.

  In many ways this procedure resembles the technique of root grafting used by horticulturists: the lower portions of a sturdy tree that possesses a robust root structure, but is rather prosaic-looking, is joined to the upper part of another tree that is more delicate and fragile but produces rich and dramatic flowers. The good horticulturist makes the graft invisible, so that only the closest inspection will reveal its presence. The result is a tree that is both dramatic and well grounded. Hard SF should be the same.

  This literary device, however, may have an unfortunate side effect: that the reader is led to believe that the rubber science used in an SF novel is in fact correct. As Charles Sheffield has pointed out, many of us grew up believing that astronomers had discovered canals on Mars, that human and pig embryos were so similar as to be indistinguishable, that computers which reached the complexity of the human brain would exhibit intelligence, that spaceships could easily travel faster than the speed of light by slipping into hyperspace, that J. B. Rhine of Duke University had conclusively demonstrated the existence of telepathy, that the pineal gland of the brain was a rudimentary third eye and the seat of parapsychological powers, that the British physicist P.M.S. Blackett had produced a theory which connected magnetism, gravity, and rotation and would be the key to antigravity, and so on. Thus the reader of science fiction – and particularly hard SF – may 'know' many things that are not so, if only through the process of osmosis.