Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Kip averted his eyes. “I can't tell you,” he said, “how many times I'd fantasized about asking you to go to a movie with me. But I never could bring myself...” He covered his awkwardness by stirring his tea, even though he drank it black. “I was almost clinically shy,” he said softly, as if to himself.

  “I'm very glad you're back with us now,” she said, cheerfully, clearly trying to redirect his mood. “So tell me. What is this experiment of yours about?"

  “You don't know?"

  “No. Neville thinks it's...” She bit her lower lip.

  “Absolute nonsense,” Kip supplied. “Yes. He's expressed his views to me as well. As far as belfries are concerned, he rather thinks I have bats in mine."

  “In any case"—Audrey took a sip of her tea—"he's refused to tell me anything about it."

  “Well, I'll tell you.” Kip gave a mirthless smile. “You'll likely think it nonsense also. And indeed it might well be."

  Kip picked up the saltshaker. “First the how, and then the why.” Plopping it down at the center of the table, he said, “This is our tower, Tower North.” He picked up the peppershaker and then snagged another from an adjacent table. He set both shakers down, making them into vertices of an equilateral triangle. “And these are Tower West and Tower East."

  “Holy whatever and Saint what's-his-face,” said Audrey.

  “Precisely. And these are not just any towers. All three have a ring of eight bells tuned in D.” Kip placed a forefinger at the center of the imaginary triangle. “And Tuesday, I'll be here—in radio contact with the three tower captains.” He glanced at Audrey. “You know this much, yes?"

  Audrey nodded. “We'll all be ringing a peal of Stedman Triples."

  “A synchronized peal,” said Kip. “I'll be giving instructions to the individual captains to speed up or slow down—to keep them together."

  “I don't think Old Caruthers likes the idea."

  “Oh?"

  “Even though no one's ever done a multi-tower ring and it will certainly be in the record books"—Audrey picked up the Tower North salt shaker—"he likes being the captain, likes being in control."

  “He will be in control.” Gently, Kip retrieved the shaker and returned it to the table. “He's still tower captain, but.... “Kip laughed. “But, for the day, I'm sort of the tower field marshal.” He stared at the Tower North shaker as if he were contemplating Hamlet's Yorick. “Funny,” he said. “Old Caruthers. Hard to think of him as old. It's been twenty-five years since I'd seen him last. Back then, he was ‘Mister Caruthers, sir.’”

  “And you were just one of the little tower brats.” Smiling, Audrey tapped the top of Tower North. “I never understood why you spent so much time here, considering your opinions on religion. Playing violin at Christmas concerts, playing with the youth hand bell choir, tower ringing."

  “I loved the old place,” said Kip. “Still do. I really wanted to be an organist, but that would have required more of a church affiliation than I was willing to put up with. So instead, I took up the violin."

  Audrey chuckled. “The devil's instrument."

  “So I've been told."

  “Oh, I'm just teasing you.” She smiled, softly. “In fact, if I remember, you almost got a violin scholarship to study at the Royal Conservatory."

  “Almost.” Kip took a sip of his tea, lukewarm from neglect. “Physics was my default plan. Had I won the scholarship, well ... I'd intended to become a concert violinist. But of course, you know that."

  “I didn't want you to win it,” said Audrey. “I didn't want you to run off to London to study. I would have missed you terribly."

  Kip knew he was blushing and sipped at his tea to try to conceal it. “Back to the experiment,” he said. “The why of it."

  Audrey crossed her hands on the table and gazed expectantly at him. She looked like a little girl at school.

  Kip knew it would be tricky—explaining the physics without talking down to her, or at least without her detecting she was being talked down to.

  “There are forces in nature,” he said. “There's the force of gravity, the electroweak force, the strong nuclear force.” Already he could see he was losing her, so he backed up. “The electroweak force, for example, is why an electron and proton attract each other. And the strong force is what keeps an atomic nucleus from ripping apart."

  Audrey nodded.

  “We think,” said Kip, “that there might be another force."

  “Who is we?"

  “Me."

  “Oh.” Audrey smiled. “All right, then. What would this other force do?"

  “We ... I think it keeps the dimensions from ripping apart. It's related to entropy and it determines the arrow of time.” Despite the baffled look on her face, he plunged ahead. “And since life seems to violate the law of increasing entropy, it looks like this force is important in living creatures."

  “You do know,” said Audrey, “that I've not the vaguest clue what you are talking about?"

  “Yes, I know.” Kip shrugged. “Sorry."

  Audrey gave a tight-lipped smile.

  “Anyway,” said Kip, “an oscillating mass makes gravity waves, and an oscillating charge makes electromagnetic waves—"

  “You mean radio waves?"

  “Yes, exactly. And I think oscillating extended compressible matter makes dimension waves. D-waves, I call them."

  “Oscillating extended compressible matter?” Audrey laughed. “What language is that, please?"

  Kip felt himself blush. “I guess I should have just said ‘sound waves in air.’”

  “I see,” said Audrey, smiling. “And you're looking for D-Waves, which is why the bells must be tuned to the key of D."

  “No. You don't understand. It has nothing to do with...” Then Kip noticed her smile. “You're teasing me again, aren't you?"

  She nodded.

  “Perhaps.” Kip picked up Tower West. “Perhaps we've talked enough science for the day.” He returned the shaker to its proper table.

  As Kip slid the other shakers together, Audrey put a hand on his. “But you haven't told me,” she said, “what bell ringing has to do with all this."

  Kip started from her touch and drew back his hand, then extended it and placed it over hers. “Well, here's where it gets strange,” he said.

  Audrey gave a short chuckle. “Here is where it gets strange?"

  “Okay, more strange.” He took a breath, and plunged on. “I'm trying to establish a standing D-wave pattern over a small area in the middle of the triangle defined by the towers."

  “Using tower bells."

  “Unlikely as it seems, yes."

  Audrey, gazing down at her tea, tapped the side of her cup and watched wavelets form on the surface of the liquid. She looked up. “Maybe not all that unlikely,” she said. “I've always felt that the sound of tower bells in the air creates a kind of collective consciousness in those that hear them.” Again, she toyed with the teacup. “If there is such a thing as a collective consciousness, I shouldn't be too surprised if a clever scientist managed to detect it."

  “Collective consciousness.” Kip played with the words, and then with the idea. “That's wonderful.” He gazed in admiration; Audrey had heard his theory for the first time and already had augmented it.

  Feeling almost as if he were speaking with a colleague now, Kip went on. “Since the D-waves should make nodes where living creatures are, in some sense, synchronized and a band of ringers engaged in the exercise is about as synchronized as it gets, the ringers should help create a stable resonance pattern.” He took a quick breath and concluded, “The tenor ringing D at the end of each row of changes should establish the resonance and the changes themselves, being permutations, should dampen any unwanted harmonics."

  “Assuming that I understood all that,” said Audrey, “tell me. What does your experiment actually do?"

  “At the center of the triangle, I hope to detect a very tiny variation in the flow of time."

&nbs
p; “And?"

  “And?” Kip laughed. “And nothing. That's the experiment."

  Audrey seemed disappointed. “I'd have thought there'd be something more impressive."

  “Not strange enough, huh?"

  “Well, it's just that ... Perhaps I've just seen too many movies of energetic scientists and big machines."

  “Ah. That reminds me.” Kip glanced at his watch. “Oh dear! I really must apologize, but I've got to run up to the university to check on a not-so-big machine—my time variation meter. I told my technician I'd be there ten minutes ago.” He waved for the bill and took out his wallet. “Can I drop you off somewhere?"

  “No, thanks. I think I'll just dawdle here over my tea a while.” She stared at him for a moment. “But you should go on being the energetic scientist. It suits you."

  Kip paid the bill and, looking back as he left Beowulfie's, saw Audrey smiling at him. He felt fifteen again.

  * * * *

  In the Physics Department electronics shop late that afternoon, Kip finished calibrating the time variation meter. Housed in an aluminum tube about four feet long by three quarters of an inch thick, the device had a hand grip, an on/off switch, and a small meter calibrated in nanoseconds. Inside were atomic clocks at each end, a solid-state memory module, and a cell-tower triangulation module to give position data. The TVM was designed to measure the difference of time flow between the ends of the device.

  Kip lifted the unit at the grip end and, wielding it like a sword, made passes in the air with it.

  In mid-pass, the door opened, and Neville ambled into the shop.

  “Still a Musketeer, I see,” said Neville, a coolness evident in his voice.

  “Oh.” Kip felt both surprised and sheepish, the way he had when, long ago, Neville had found him playing with a toy he was too old for—in Neville's unalterable opinion. Kip placed the TVM onto a lab bench. “Tuesday,” he said, “I'll be using this a lot. I just wanted to get the feel of it."

  “Yes, of course you did,” said Neville, displaying the characteristic disdain that Malvyn had always managed to keep in check. “Look,” he said from the doorway. “I'm glad to see you back in England, of course. But let's try not to give the university a bad name, shall we?"

  “In what way?” said Kip, genuinely puzzled. “If the experiment fails, well, it's just an experiment that failed. Most do."

  “But they usually don't fail in front of media reporters.” Neville whipped off his glasses. “This ... this experiment of yours attracts the press like flies to treacle.” He looked off toward a window, avoiding Kip's gaze. “Junk science usually does,” he added, softly.

  Kip worked to keep his voice cheerful. There was nothing to be gained by losing his temper. “Why are you so set against this?” he asked.

  “Research money is difficult to come by these days,” said Neville. “There is a lot of good science languishing because more meretricious projects get the funds."

  “Such as one of your own projects, perhaps?"

  Neville glared.

  Kip pointed to the TVM. “This is good science,” he said.

  “One might differ."

  “Why?"

  “For one,” said Neville, “your extrapolation from the Klein-Gordon equation is little more than speculation. And there is no way to know if this supposed entropy force could couple to the matter field. The effect, if it exists at all, might be localized to a micron or two and, even then, I can't see that the arrow of time would lose meaning in the localized field.” With a show of deliberation, Neville put on his glasses. “But principally,” he said, glowering behind his thick lenses, “bell ringing, synchronized human minds—that is not physics."

  “Well, damn it, who made you the god of physics?” Kip, annoyed he'd allowed himself to be goaded, tried for a veneer of pleasantness. “We differ on this,” he said with a forced smile. “But I do thank you for letting me use the resources of your department."

  “Thank your National Science Foundation.” Neville walked to the door. “They've been very generous.” More forcefully than necessary, he closed the door behind him.

  Tuesday morning, after visiting each of the three towers, Kip drove as close as roads allowed to the geographic center of the triangle. He parked the car on the side of the road, flipped on his radio transceiver, and popped it into his jacket pocket. Then, carrying the TVM, he stepped out onto the familiar soil—a tree-rich hill that was, coincidentally, a mere five-minute walk to the house he'd grown up in. He'd played here as a boy. All the Musketeers had.

  Kip repositioned his hands-free headset from around his neck to over his head, then checked his watch: fifteen minutes to ten. The tower captains had been instructed to turn on their transceivers at ten, precisely.

  While waiting for ten o'clock, Kip meandered the gentle woods, the crunch and rustle of the fallen leaves breaking the sylvan silence as he walked. Despite Neville's forewarning, there were no reporters dogging his steps; he was quite alone.

  Then, in the overcast but unseasonably warm morning, he heard the bells of Tower North. The bells, left down after use, were being rung up to their start positions. A minute later, there was silence again.

  A few seconds before the hour, Kip leaned against a tree—a very familiar landmark, one he'd climbed repeatedly through the years of his childhood. It looked smaller now.

  “Tower North,” he said. “Are you there?"

  “Yes, Kip, my boy,” came Caruthers’ voice from his headset. “Tower North, ready."

  Kip checked the other towers, paused, then said, “Tower North. On my mark, begin rounds.... Mark."

  “Treble's going,” said a voice from the tower. “She's gone."

  A second or so later, Kip heard the joyous cascade of rounds—the repeated descending scale, each repetition ending with the rich, mellow D from Great Peter.

  12345678

  12345678

  Kip brought in the second tower and spent the next few minutes coordinating the two rings of bells into synchronization.

  “Tower East,” he said, “try to listen only to the earphones. You're a little ahead of North."

  Finally, with North and East ringing in unison, Kip brought in Tower West and talked it into synchrony. Then he listened. The sound was uncanny. With the three towers ringing as one, the chorus of iron came from no discernable direction—the cry of the bells seemed to radiate from everywhere: the hills, the trees, from the ground itself.

  12345678

  “Tower captains,” said Kip. “On my mark, begin the method.... Mark."

  21354768

  23145678

  32416578

  The peal of Stedman Triples had begun. If the peal did not break down, Kip would have over three hours to collect data.

  Using the tree as ground zero, Kip walked slowly in a widening gyre, sweeping the TVM in horizontal arcs as if he were looking for buried treasure. At first, Kip kept his eyes locked on the meter dial, eager to see the first success of his theory. But after about an hour, with the pointer stubbornly refusing to budge from zero, his mind's eye took over; he imagined Neville, not even trying to disguise his glee at the failed experiment. Kip tried to convince himself that the dial was but a crude indicator. The important data would be recorded in memory. Computer analysis would build a data map of the region showing the true signal strength at any point to three or four significant figures.

  Kip continued his spiral until he could just barely hear phase differences between the towers. Then he turned back, repeating the measurements in the eerie shadow of directionless sound. If nothing else, the simultaneous peal would go into the record books and would certainly get a big write-up in Ringers World. But that would hardly impress the American National Science Foundation.

  After a few minutes where his eyes were locked on the TVM's circular dial, Kip glanced up. Ahead, he saw the vaguest hint of a circle or maybe a sphere—an afterimage of the dial, he supposed. Transparent almost to the point of invisibility, the image had
an ill-defined boundary, which appeared to start about nine feet above ground level. Kip moved his head, but the image didn't move. Not an afterimage, but likely a trick of the light.

  As he walked toward the ghostly object, he noticed that the ground-zero tree penetrated into it—that is, if there was indeed an it. Immersed in the dense tapestry of sound, Kip observed that the object might be shimmering in synchrony with the tenor bells. He wasn't sure; it took an act of will to even see the sphere at all. And sometimes it seemed more pyramidal than spherical.

  Near the base of the tree, Kip, almost by reflex, reached up with the TVM to touch the object. But there was nothing to touch, no resistance, only a near-subliminal change of color. Kip froze as the meter dial caught his eye. The pointer, no longer fixed at zero, vibrated across a quarter of its range. Kip stood on tiptoes and raised the tip of the TVM higher into the object. The meter fluctuated wildly, making soft clicking sounds as the needle pinned itself against the stops. Although uncertain of exactly what was happening, Kip had no doubt that a few feet above his head, something very strange was happening to time. A wave of satisfaction washed over him; his experiment had succeeded. At the same time, he reproached himself for overlooking the third dimension. Of course the effect would be significantly above ground level; the bells were high in towers.

  He stuck the TVM in his belt like a sword and examined the tree for hand and foot holds. He'd climbed the tree before; he would climb it again. As he began to clamber upward, he smiled. He was taller now, but perhaps not as lithe. Although pleased with himself at how easily he climbed, he knew that, unlike twenty-five years ago, he would feel the aftereffects the next day.

  Breathing heavily from the exertion as he fought for altitude, he reminisced—remembering his previous visits to the tree. He locked his mind onto one particular arboreal excursion—and noticed he was gesticulating and also moving his lips.

  Abruptly, Kip realized he wasn't so much reminiscing as reliving the experience—the way one would do in a dream. Finding a familiar cleft between two branches, Kip wedged himself in. He had to think.

  It could just be the hypnotic effect of the bells, but it seemed real. He experimented again, this time with his mind and his will.