“I think,” Stevie begins slowly, “that the therapy and the medication he’s already on may have done Joe more good than we realise. The seizure yesterday was horrible, I’m not trying to minimise that, but he recovered enough for a session with me afterwards – which is remarkable in itself – and he was able to talk about his situation in a way I’ve never heard before. I think I understand it the way he understands it now. I think I can see a way to use that to help him.”
I listen to the explanation, forcing myself not to interrupt, and again I can’t help wondering whether Joe hasn’t managed to convince Stevie that these ‘voices’ of his are real. What’s being proposed surrenders to the delusion way too much for my liking, and I finally have to say so.
“So what?” says Beth. “If talking to them, giving them – I don’t know – some kind of house room gets Joe his mind back, what’s wrong with that? Lots of people believe in all kinds of rubbish, and as long as they don’t do any harm we just let them get on with it. That’s sort of what you’re saying, isn’t it?” This to Stevie as I sit back, dumbfounded.
“Sort of,” says Stevie, who at least has the good grace to look a little stunned as well. “What’s going on with Joe is a lot more profound than thinking there are fairies at the bottom of the garden, or aliens in Area 51, or whatever. It’s not anything he wants to believe in, it’s… forcing itself on him, and we don’t understand why. Like Dr Panko said, something about this resists our attempts to tackle Joe’s condition the way we normally would. We’ve worked out that the harder we try, the worse it gets for Joe. So I suggest we stop trying the usual stuff. Let’s see what happens if we accept the delusion; let him be a bystander, treat the voices as the entity we’re in dialogue with. Act like we’ve really bought into it, like Joe is just their translator, or transmitter, or whatever. Maybe that’ll give us – and him – a different angle, a way to get some kind of purchase.”
A glance at me. “There are no guarantees here Beth. Dr Panko may be right, it might turn out to be just a waste of time, and Joe suffering all the while. But the thing is, once he’s on the programme she’s proposing, that’s it. Those meds might give him relief, but they’ll end any chance of an actual recovery. The part of his brain they’ll destroy is also involved in intelligence, creativity, how he perceives the real world as well as the imaginary one. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
There’s a long silence. I feel I should say something, but I can’t think what. Stevie’s reiterated my position for me, and neatly capped it off with the consequences. There’s nothing I can add that won’t look pushy, or calculated, or callous.
“He likes you,” Beth says, to Stevie. “He says you spend the most time with him.” She flinches at her own words.
Stevie’s quicker than I am this time. “Don’t feel bad about the things you can’t control, Beth. For goodness sake don’t feel bad about having to work, having a life. You’ve already saved him, more than once. Joe knows how lucky he is to have you. You’re the one he most wants to get back to. To get back for.”
It’s a good speech. Even though I recognise all the buttons Stevie’s pushing here, I still have to swallow past the lump in my own throat. Beth looks at me.
“Yes,” I say, “but wanting to doesn’t mean he can, Beth. He’s been trying hard for a long time. I’m afraid this might just push him further down the rabbit hole.”
“It might,” she says, “but if it does, your plan is still an option. Right?”
“Right,” I agree, “but he’ll be that much more damaged by then.” I consider adding, Assuming he’s still alive. I bite it back, but I hold her gaze, and I think she knows what I’m thinking.
“I need to see him,” says Beth. “I need to talk to him, just the two of us, work out what’s best. I want him to understand what he’d be gaining.” She swallows. “And what he’d be giving up. Either way.”
There’s nothing I can say to that. I look across at Stevie, and read my own thought reflected. We’ve done all we can.
“I’ll walk you over there,” Stevie says, standing up. “Dr Panko?”
I consider briefly whether to accompany them, keep up the pressure, remind her again how unlikely Stevie’s scheme is to work, what the dangers are. It would be the correct, professional, responsible thing to do.
I decide not to. I shake my head, murmuring an excuse as I see them out.
Stevie’s being scrupulously honest and I can’t, hand on heart, swear that this plan is any worse for Joe than mine. Beth is being sold a hope, not a certainty, and I find it’s not in me to beat it to death. Not even for Joe’s sake.
Especially not for Joe’s sake.
Aether
Robert Reed
Thoughts pass through you without pause, and only a slender portion of these thoughts is noticed. The best and the prettiest ideas are happily claimed as your own. Of course. Any well-received cleverness that comes from your mouth is owned by your mouth. The same can be said for sound decisions and sharp, funny jokes as well any loud noise bearing the loft and cadence of wisdom. You like to be important. You like to be admired. But you are satisfied to earn a paycheck, to walk the dog on a summer day, and to carry the smile that makes that fine woman proud.
Emotions are wrapped around the best thoughts, and people gladly share their emotions. Love hate joy despair envy terror enthrallment, and such and such and such. And inside that mayhem, every fleck of life clings to warm lustful desires about potential mates as well as imaginary, impossible lovers.
Look anywhere.
Look hard.
The baryonic universe is built from quite a lot of hydrogen and a substantial portion of helium, plus a variety of angry contaminants, some rather common while most are scarce to the brink of nonexistence.
The baryonic universe is an imperfection, a contaminant, drifting blindly within something much grander.
Better than most, you know this. After all, you are a cosmologist, and better than almost anyone else, you appreciate what isn’t known: Dark matter. Dark energy. Geometries of the impossible. Dimensions separated from the familiar by no distance whatsoever.
Two decades of your life have been applied to understanding this bizarre magic. You’ve also invested angst and ego and your health and more boastings than you ever felt comfortable delivering. But how else can the funding be found for a project like yours? One of the rarest of rare elements had to be isolated and made pure. Because of you, there is a lake of xenon resting in an old gold mine, under a billion years of bones. Despite its official designation, this is your lake. This is your livelihood and the only grand future that you have ever tried to imagine. The lake serves as a telescope, protected by the ground and surrounded by electronic eyes, each eye patiently waiting for the tell-tale signature of an impact. Something magical will pass through the crust above or the entire earth below, and once in a great while it will strike a citizen of your baryonic realm, causing one tiny, brilliant flash, and that flash will be the first concrete evidence for a dark matter that is both real and knowable.
That will be the great day, when it happens.
It hasn’t happened, but it will. How can most of the universe, the heart of reality, stubbornly remain out of reach?
Fantasies of a press conference, champagne bottles exploding, and the feel of a tuxedo purchased for your first trip to Sweden. That is what you are thinking about now. A splendid, glory-washed daydream where the world applauds and old enemies bow at your feet and every old loss is made small by your glorious, well-deserved success.
You are driving as these thoughts pass through your head.
Everybody dreams behind the wheel.
And meanwhile, wise old instincts keep your hands steady, your foot gentle on the gas, and your little car in its lane, at a sober speed, safe.
You have a wife.
She used to be lovely and in love with you, and she still is lovely, and you still love each other. But not in the same ways as before.
&n
bsp; You share two children, a boy and a very different boy.
There is also a daughter. She was born to an alcoholic woman. You were drunk together once in college, and you enjoyed each other twice, and the experiences have almost, almost been forgotten. You know nothing about this daughter. Even the possibility of her existence is beyond your vision. And because her mother died with the secret, your offspring resembles the darkest matter.
How would one build a telescope to find a man’s missing child?
The invisible is everywhere, massive and powerful. The baryonic universe is shaped by everything that is dark, and the influences don’t end with the alignments of faraway galaxies.
The two sons call you “Dad”, and one of your rock-solid duties, provided you aren’t traveling to a conference or to the telescope, is to drive the younger boy to school. School is where strangers try to make children into humans. Isn’t that what education has always been? You have met the boy’s teacher. She is an older woman, and she watches him more every day than you watch him in a week. Yet past her name and the lined, vaguely grandmotherly face, you know nothing about the woman. And you know even less about your son’s classmates, including the little girl who sits up front, and who, in another ten years, will break his suffering heart.
Even the people closest to you are full of the unknown. For instance, you don’t realize that when he’s alone, your boy stomps on ants. He loves to crush ants and dig up their helpless nests. But only when he is alone, unobserved. He has an instinct for shame that will eventually save him, and one day he will be a good man – good enough that many people will take credit for his success.
That unfinished human is riding in the back of your little car.
Thoughts of dead ants make him smile.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, you see the grin and maybe hints of your face made young again, and how can a man not smile in response, believing what he wants and needs to believe?
Brilliance.
There is an appeal to being exceptionally smart, knowing the universe better than anyone else knows it. But for most people, being strong and handsome and quicker with the good joke are the qualities to covet. And smart as you are, you appreciate how little you understand when set against billions of years and trillions of worlds.
Pulling up to a red traffic light, your foot mindlessly brakes while your head recalls something once said by a former graduate student. One of your very best, he began the conversation by asking, “Have you ever wondered?”
“Every day,” you replied.
And he laughed. He had a fine laugh, a simple sound dripping with charm. Then he continued, saying “Suppose. Suppose we keep looking for one kind of dark matter, maybe two. Using the xenon, using whatever. And we manage to find the ghost particle. Every question answered, nobody left to impress.”
“Every day, that’s what I want,” you said.
His laugh was more polite this time. Less honest. “But maybe there isn’t just one kind of dark matter, or two. Or even ten. Maybe that other part of the universe is just as complicated as ours, or more so. Which would make it nearly impossible to do our work and make it definitive, maybe ever.”
You laughed for a moment, alone.
Then he said, “Imagine. Dark matter is complicated and rich and breeds its own kind of life. That life looks at the math, at the data, and it says, ‘Gosh, there’s something mysterious here that we can barely see. This hypothetical stuff is a fraction as common as we are, and let’s call it baryonic, and let’s build a fancy, wondrous facility of fabulous that pierces the gloom. And after fortunes have been spent and time has passed, we’ll discover that this lesser realm is built of some simple beast called hydrogen. And then after the awards are handed out, a second signature is spied. That’s helium, and after more investments and more careers, helium is named and known. Which means that most of the baryonic universe has been discovered. Which means that almost nothing of value has been found.’”
You liked that student, and you still like him. He was a champion wrestler with a winner’s infectious attitude, handsome enough to put on old Greek jars, and even when his looks fail in the future, he will remain charming and humorous and a little bit sweet. It was the humor and the sweetness that made your wife like him. You never suspected the affair, although if she confessed it to you now, you’d only be a little surprised. In secret ways, you might even feel pride. He was a splendid boy, and she enjoys being desired, and to protect your ego, you would convince yourself that the student’s career will never match yours.
But you are an organized man, and suppose you did learn about that indiscretion. After the shock and after the pride, you would start referring to calendars and likely insemination dates, always with the question in mind that the boy riding behind you – the murderous little fellow with a head full of dead ants – isn’t really yours.
But that isn’t today’s question.
Or it won’t ever be.
The invisibility of existence holds firm over you and almost everything else, and the traffic light has turned green, welcoming motion.
What you think of now – the idea that gains your focus – is something that your lovely smart and rather promiscuous wife said to you last week.
Or was it several months ago?
Time plays tricks as you age. And at any age.
The conversation began with a question that nobody can answer. “Where are the aliens that we want and deserve and hope to find?”
“What are you asking?” you asked, closing the journal article on your finger, marking your place. “What aliens where?”
“Nowhere,” she said.
You nodded, waiting. Fifteen years of marriage teaches people to respect the rules of conversation, unless you want to squabble.
“I was reading on-line,” she said. “I don’t remember where exactly. But the point of the article was that maybe the aliens we imagine, the big-headed spacefaring people, are the least likely of all. Because it’s too expensive and too silly to travel between stars.”
“Too silly?”
“And because life evolves along predictable lines, we won’t find them. Creatures like us are sure to vanish soon after they appear.”
“You’re talking about war,” you assumed.
But she said, “Oh, no,” and added a scornful laugh.
Again, you waited.
Not as patiently this time.
“Intelligence is a natural phenomenon,” she said. “Once it arises, intelligence adapts along predictable lines. It pays to be tiny, to be swift, and to be made from materials more durable than blood vessels and fat neurons inside a thin bowl of bone.” Your wife has a gift for language, though sometimes she pushes a little too hard for effect. “What the article claimed is that creatures like us, intelligent tool-using culturally-infused animals, are transitional. They exist quietly for a few thousand years, gaining technology, and then they reach some intellectual tipping point, and the next phase begins with them, with us, turning into machines.”
“I’ve heard this song,” you said.
“And you don’t approve,” she said. “I remember that.”
“That’s right. I don’t approve.”
“But listen,” she said. “It occurred to me that becoming a machine is just another phase, a temporary stage, before intelligence finds ways to become even smaller and swifter than machines can be.”
“Like how?” you asked.
“Like energy.”
“What kind of energy?”
She laughed. “Do I know about these things? No.”
“Well then,” you said, returning to that critical, mostly forgotten article.
“Or it’s something better than energy,” she persisted.
You said nothing.
“I was thinking about your realm,” she said, in summation. “The mysterious darkness.”
You shrugged, and with a diplomatic tone, you said, “Maybe.”
And she dropped the subject. Yo
u read and she said nothing, letting her thoughts drift to another graduate student of yours. A current graduate student. Your wife doesn’t normally think about women in this way, but the girl has had a sad life and her voice is sweet, and there is something about her features that reminds her of you, and that’s why she finds that girl deeply, wickedly attractive.
Thought.
The universe is built from many realms, but much of its mass, and its black energy, is built from good hard relentless thought. Which is only reasonable, since the earliest life crossed out of its birthplace very early, and long before there was the sun and the earth, thought was everywhere.
You are a primate riding inside a package of iron and aluminum and carbon and oxygen. All those elements were born inside stars and delivered to this one place, to this single moment. Yet you aren’t thinking about anything so lofty just now. You are driving, and the truck in the opposing lane makes a small, huge blunder. In an instant, a much larger vehicle leaps across the center stripe. There is no time to react. The universe in your head is focused on the happy sounds made by the boy riding in the seat behind you. You are alive, and then you aren’t. Every amazing idea continues, spread across the universe, and the oncoming truck crushes your car, and your skull is torn open, and thoughts keep washing through what used to be you.
The boy survives.
The boy is screaming, but healthy.
Grief flows through the carnage, and because grief is a fine emotion, a wonderful emotion, it is older than oldest xenon.
Perhaps your soul joins the rain.
But more likely, it never left.
The End of the World
Keith Brooke and Eric Brown
One
The first time he woke he was Ben Richmond. Mid-thirties, born in Poplar in the East End of London. Married. A successful professional man. But... there were gaps. His memory... it was as if everything have been sketched in. Drill down and the detail was fuzzy or not there at all.
Paradox: Stories Inspired by the Fermi Paradox Page 19