from the Mutapa, far enough to safely induce
it to collapse. This was very different from the
a wormhole. In response to Colonel Ruhindi’s
permanent wormholes of the Axis Mundi,
twitching fingers, the watch officers in the ac-
which were never in danger of swallowing the
celeration chambers shut down ship systems.
transiting ships if there was a mistake.
THE QUANTUM MAGICIAN, PART I
23
ANALOG
The Jonglei’s main and secondary systems
“I can’t.”
were off, but the dashboard showed that the
“What are you playing at?” she demanded.
outside temperature of the warship was 105
“I can’t look at you. The Homo quantus
Kelvins. Small projectors all over the ship acti-
need tremendous mathematical abilities to be
vated to radiate infrared in this range, de-
able to do anything useful. We can turn on
signed to interfere with the black body
prodigy-level mathematical abilities by shut-
radiation of the Jonglei, rendering it so ghostly
ting down other parts of the brain. Language.
cool that it would not disturb the wormhole.
Sensory input. Socialization. It’s a trade-off.
A tenth of a gravity pressed his feet for 2.31
I’ve gone savant.”
seconds, propelling the Jonglei into the
He went still, not looking at her, but adding
throat.
up the digits in the columns and rows of infor-
Then, weightlessness and held breaths. The
mation. A third of a light-year. It wasn’t a third.
wormhole would be closing behind them,
They’d come 0.32977145 light-years. The
shepherding them through. Displays turned
number would improve with more telescopic
green. A chime sounded. The warship trem-
observations.
bled as different systems came online. The
“What?” Iekanjika demanded.
holographic tactical display winked back into
“I can’t look at you,” he repeated exactly.
existence, showing no ships anywhere. Num-
“The Homo quantus need tremendous math-
bers colonized the edges of the display.
ematical abilities to be able to do anything use-
“A third of a light-year,” Colonel Ruhindi
ful. We can turn on prodigy-level
said.
mathematical abilities by shutting down other
Precise numbers lay on the bottom of the
parts of the brain. Language. Sensory input.
holographic display.
Socialization. It’s a trade-off. I’ve gone savant.”
“Is this the limit of what the Jonglei can
She released him in disgust. “You’re no con
do?” Belisarius asked.
man,” she said. “And you’re no soldier.”
Iekanjika stepped closer. He avoided look-
“I’m a bad soldier,” he said, “but I’m a really
ing at her face.
good con man. And I might be able to get you
“This is the outer limit that the crew and of-
through the Puppet Axis.”
f icers would want to try, even in an emer-
“How?” she demanded.
gency,” she said. “The three flagships can go
“What about the blind gates?” he asked.
slightly farther.”
“Ma’am?” Iekanjika asked, throwing up her
“And how fast can the Jonglei gate, again?”
hands. “I don’t know how to answer this ques-
Belisarius asked.
tion.”
“The main and secondary systems have to
Colonel Ruhindi sidled closer on magne-
come online for star f ixes, tactical assess-
tized soles. “What do you want to know?” she
ments, last-minute telescopic surveys of the
asked.
destination, before the whole thing is shut
A heavy, impatient sigh escaped his lips. “I
down,” the major said. “A fast crew can be
want to know the capacity of the Jonglei to
ready in five to ten minutes.”
gate somewhere without taking new star fix-
“What about blind gates?” he asked.
es. Dead reckoning.”
“What do you mean?” Iekanjika said.
Belisarius felt something impatient and an-
He regarded the boots on his feet, visually
gry from her, and maybe other feelings he
and by the feel of the magnets in the soles.
couldn’t name. So much social geography be-
“No star fixes,” he said. “Program the desti-
came overgrown and impenetrable in savant.
nation by dead reckoning.”
Ruhindi’s arms crossed. What did that mean?
“That’s idiotic.”
“Of course the Jonglei can create a worm-
“What if you’re in a hurry?”
hole without taking a star f ix,” Ruhindi said,
He waited. Iekanjika stepped closer.
“but it serves no practical purpose. During a
“Look at me,” she said finally.
retreat, the commander would already be op-
He waited. The major’s left hand took a fist-
erating with complete star f ixes. Emerging
ful of his suit. Dark skin on pale cloth. A lot of
from an induced wormhole ends the situation
strength. She shook him and then jerked him
of retreat. The odds of a pursuing enemy be-
closer. “I said look at me, Arjona.”
ing able to create a wormhole mouth within
24
DEREK KÜNSKEN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
weapons range of ours are miniscule.”
other buttons on his jacket. “These are all en-
The numbers on the bottom of the holo-
tangled particles?”
graphic display were hypnotic. He added and
“Sets of them,” he said.
readied them. He found rounding errors that
“Who else has this tracking technology?”
told him about the settings on the Jonglei’s
“It’s not a tracking technology,” he said. “I
navigational software.
don’t even know if it will work.”
“I’d like the Jonglei to shut off its naviga-
She released him and made a sound of exas-
tional telescopes and induce a new worm-
peration.
hole,” he said.
“You wanted magic,” he said.
“Why?” the colonel demanded, adding
“I want to be on the other side of the Pup-
something in another language. He’d been
pet Axis!”
wondering at their accents. Did they speak
“Then stop slowing me down.”
Shona amongst themselves? His mind puzzled
Iekanjika and Ruhindi conferred. Shona. He
at the shift in language, gnawing at it like a
thought they were speaking Shona. Iekanjika
cryptographic problem. A theory of cultural
approached and removed his jacket, so that he
algebra might not be so hard to develop.
had no buttons except the one in his hand.
Iekanjika stood before him.
“Those aren’t easy to make,” he said.
“What wi
ll this get us, Arjona?” she de-
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
manded. “I feel like you’re jerking us around.
“The Homo quantus, in the fugue, are able
Your magic is hand-waving.” He liked when
to perceive quantum f ields, including the
she explained what she felt. It helped him un-
ones linking entangled particles,” he said. “I
derstand. Her hand movements meant exas-
may be able to follow the line of entanglement
peration. “Where exactly do you want us to
to the other particle, and then direct an in-
make a wormhole to?” she asked.
duced wormhole.”
He removed one of his buttons from his
“You’ve never done this?” she asked.
jacket. It ref lected the colored holographic
“No one has ever done this. Can you shut
light.
off the navigational systems?”
“I took off one of these when I put on my
The main display and its interestingly pat-
vacuum suit,” he said. “I left it outside the Mu-
terned numbers winked away, leaving internal
tapa before you brought us to the Jonglei. In-ship status dashboards.
side the button, in a magnetic trap shielded
“Can you move the ship?” he asked. “I
from thermal vibrations, are a few dozen par-
know where we are.”
ticles in quantum entanglement with the par-
“Not without the navigational displays you
ticles in here.”
don’t,” the colonel said.
Iekanjika’s hand, bigger than his, closed
“I memorized everything before you shut it
around his wrist and held the button close to
off.”
his face. Her face neared. He f linched away
The colonel’s fingers twitched, and shifting
from the complexity of her expression and
gravity returned. Half. Three quarters. Full.
met the barrel of a sidearm.
With changes in angle. They rotated and
“You left a tracking device at the Mutapa?”
thrust in three dimensions. To lose him. To
She was so angry. Anger felt thick and tac-
make it harder. Fine. That was the least of his
tile around her. He didn’t like being this close.
worries.
Let go.
To do this, he had to enter the fugue, to
“They’re just entangled particles,” he said.
cease being himself entirely. He was already
“They don’t work as a tracking device, unless I
halfway to being someone else. Savant shut
can make them work as one. No one has ever
down all sorts of cognitive functions, chang-
tried. I want to see if I can guide the Jonglei
ing who he was by temporarily damaging his
back to the Expeditionary Force without your
brain. But entering the quantum fugue meant
navigational systems.”
not being anyone. He’d avoided the fugue for
“Who else has these?” she demanded.
years, run from it and from home. His hands
“No one,” he said. “They’re entangled parti-
trembled. He put them under his arms. They
cles. They only come in pairs.”
watched him. Watching him. Stop watching
She put away her sidearm and f licked at
me.
THE QUANTUM MAGICIAN, PART I
25
ANALOG
“I need the most detailed possible dash-
and the electron passed through one slit or
board of the wormhole induction coils,” he
the other of the experiment. Superposition
said quietly.
and overlapping probabilities disappeared
The dashboard shrank, and a series of
whenever humans came close. Consciousness
graphs and charts bloomed instead, measuring
turned probability into reality. The goal of the
strength, shape, and texture of the magnetic
Homo quantus project had been to engineer
field.
humans capable of discarding their conscious-
“Can I have access to the configuration set-
ness and subjectivity so as not to collapse
tings?” he said. “I need to display things more
quantum phenomena.
logically.”
For Belisarius, approaching the quantum
The Jonglei’s computer created a limited ac-
fugue was like standing on a diving board. Self
cess for him, and he began restructuring the
stood above the water, reflecting upon it. Dis-
displays, getting to data orders of magnitude
solution waited in the water, the extinguishing
beyond what the ship’s navigators needed.
of self. To plunge in was to become part of the
Patterns of coil temperature, curvature, mag-
environment, to become like space and stars
netic polarization, electrical resistance, and
and the void, to cease to be a subject capable
surface-free density ref lected each other
of experiencing. To plunge meant joining the
through complex geometries.
category of things that were collections of
Gravity vanished again. Relative velocity
rules and algorithms without minds, like in-
was zero. Iekanjika stood beside him.
sects and bacteria. Entering the fugue was to
“What do you want to do now, Arjona?” she
become one among countless things in the in-
asked.
determinacy of the quantum world. His stom-
“I need you to wait. As long as I ask,” he
ach twisted. He’d stood on the diving board,
added, in response to a huff ing exhalation
staring at his reflection. He hadn’t stepped off
from her.
the diving board for a decade.
In the early days of quantum theory, scien-
Few Homo quantus could enter the fugue
tists and philosophers had argued heatedly
at all, and even then only with great diff icul-
over the meaning of the quantum wave func-
ty. For them, entering the fugue was like
tion, and what the superposition of states
climbing a steep hill. Engineered instincts as-
meant. What did it mean when a single elec-
sisted them. Geneticists had strengthened
tron could pass through two slits at once? Re-
the instinct for pattern-recognition and cu-
ality at the atomic level was slippery. This
riosity, bringing it closer in each generation
slipperiness had been made famous by
to the strength of the instinct for self-preser-
Schrödinger’s cat; the cat who was entangled
vation.
in the uncertainty of the quantum world be-
They’d overshot their goal in Belisarius. His
cause its fate depended on an observation.
need to learn and understand was as strong as
Some argued that the cat became part of the
his sense of self-preservation. He couldn’t rely
quantum world, assuming a similar duality of
on his instincts; they might kill him. There
states: neither dead nor alive. Others argued
was no predicting what
his brain would do
that the experiment itself created new uni-
when his consciousness was extinguished.
verses, one in which the cat was dead, and an-
The fugue was dangerous to him. But there
other in which the cat was alive. Both
was no other way here and now. He needed a
interpretations carried so much baggage that
functioning Homo quantus, and he didn’t
neither view won out. If either of them had,
have another around. He triggered the fugue.
the Homo quantus, and Belisarius, might nev-
Like a switch turning off, Belisarius the person
er have been created.
ceased to be.
The Homo quantus project was born
when it was discovered that consciousness
Chapter Seven
was the element that collapsed quantum sys-
The quantum intellect coalesced in the ab-
tems into clear outcomes. Humans, as subjec-
sence of the Belisarius subjectivity. Millions of
tive, conscious beings, could never directly
magnetosomes fed the intellect billions of
observe quantum phenomena. As soon as
qubits and qutrits of magnetic and electrical
they looked, the cat was either dead or alive,
information. The intellect constructed a map
26
DEREK KÜNSKEN
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
of the signals, in all their mutually exclusive,
the coil core by four micronewtons per square
superimposed richness. Quantum perceptions
ampere.”
bloomed in an array of overlapping probabili-
The f ingers twitched on the Ruhindi sub-
ties.
jectivity. Code detected. Code cracked. It was
A hypothesis needed testing: could a line of
a three-f inger hexadecimal replacement ci-
probability connecting entangled particles ac-
pher into français 8.61.
curately guide an induced wormhole to a pre-
The quantum intellect issued directives.
cise destination?
“Raise field strength to five hundred thousand
The quantum intellect found the thin f ila-
Gauss.”
ment of probability that connected the entan-
The magnetic f ield from the coils pressed
gled particles within the vast frothing of the
against magnetosomes.
quantum world. Nerve endings in the Belisar-
“Raise field strength to 521,063 Gauss and
ius physicality created signal transduction cas-
increase curvature of the port coil by 0.41 in-
cades within muscle cells, causing spindle
verse centimeters.”
fibers to rotate the orientation of the sub-cel-
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