by Pat Murphy
As soon as they ordered, Pat pulled out her sheets of equations, set them on the table, and launched into an explanation of her theory. “You know, of course, about Schrodinger’s cat,” she said.
Max nodded. “Yes, of course. Any science fiction writer worth his salt knows about Schrodinger’s cat.”
Pat glanced at Susan, and she nodded. Pat had explained the theoretical beast to her long ago.
“Now there are many explanations of what happens when you open the box, look at the cat, and find out it’s either alive or dead,” Pat continued. “You’ve got two potentialities—two different realities, if you will, superposed on each other. Then you take a look and you’ve only got one. Or do you?” Pat paused dramatically, glancing at Susan, then Ian, then Max. No one spoke.
“Not necessarily,” Pat said at last. “Some have proposed that both realities continue to exist. In one, you are looking at a dead cat; in another, you are looking at a live cat. Two versions of you; two versions of the cat; two different realities. Each reality splits again and again, creating many parallel lines, each following its own course, branching repeatedly.”
Max nodded. “Science fiction has done a great deal with parallel realities.”
“Not just science fiction, Max,” Pat said. “Physics, too. Everett and De Witt worked out the math.” She tapped a finger on a series of equations on the topmost sheet. “But I’ve always had a problem with their theory. They postulate parallel realities, but no mechanism by which these realities are connected. If there are parallel realities, I think there must be a means of interconnecting them.
“That brings us to the work of Eugene Wigner,” Pat said, “In an attempt to settle on what exactly caused potentialities to resolve into realities, Wigner proposed what is now known as the Wigner Interpretation. He suggested that the agent of this action was the mind of the observer. The conscious human mind influenced potentialities and brought about the collapse of the wave function, resolving all the possibilities into one reality.”
“Now suppose for a moment that the parallel realities of Everett’s theory could be connected by the action of the conscious mind, as suggested by the Wigner Interpretation. Consciousness provides the link between the parallel realities. The question I’m wrestling with now is—how does this link occur?”
“Through dreams.” Susan spoke without thinking. Everyone looked at her. She bit her lip and ducked her head. “Just a thought,” she muttered.
“Sure,” Ian said. “In dreams, people from one reality visit other branches.”
Pat blinked, startled at this contribution. “That’s a possibility,” she said slowly. “I don’t know how to represent that mathematically, but it’s an interesting idea.”
“Ordinarily the connection is through dreams,” Ian went on. “But maybe, when conditions are right, people from other realities can actually cross over into this one. Like maybe in the Bermuda Triangle.” Ian grinned at Pat. “Do you think that’s possible?”
Pat frowned. “I don’t know.” She tapped on one of her equations. “I mean—take a look here. There’s a significant energy barrier between the parallel realities.”
Ian kept his gaze fixed on Pat. He liked the ideas more than the math, Susan thought. “I don’t know much about this,” he said, “but what about the possibilities of quantum tunneling.” He glanced at Susan and Max. “Quantum particles that should be confined to one area by an energy barrier sometimes show up elsewhere, as if they tunneled through the barrier rather than jumping over,” he explained. “That’s quite a stretch,” Pat said, frowning at her equations.
“Equating a person with a quantum particle.”
“A virtual person,” Ian said. “Like a virtual particle.” Again he glanced at Susan and Max. “Virtual particles are always popping in and out of the quantum vacuum,” he told them.
“What’s the quantum vacuum?” Susan asked, struggling to keep some kind of a grip on the conversation.
“It’s the sea of potentiality that underlies everything in the universe,” Pat said. “And Ian’s right—virtual particles are always popping out of it, then disappearing again.”
Max chuckled. “There’s a lovely idea for a novel somewhere in there,” he said cheerfully. “I’d say science fiction is ready to incorporate a little more quantum mechanics.”
“Oh, it’s not science fiction,” Pat said. “The pressure exerted by virtual particles was measured experimentally back in 1996 by a fellow at Los Alamos. They’re really out there.”
“So a virtual particle pops into existence and then disappears again,” Max said.
“Usually,” Pat said. “But sometimes a virtual particle can stay on this side of reality. That happens if it collides with a real particle and steals its energy. Then the particle that was robbed disappears and the virtual one becomes real.”
Susan gave up on trying to make sense of the equations and glanced at Max. She was startled to see that the writer looked concerned. But Pat had returned to her equations. “I suppose quantum tunneling is a possibility,” she said. “Look here.”
Ian leaned over to consider the equation.
Susan arrived in the library just a few minutes after the kids got there. She had rushed off, leaving Max with Pat and Ian, considering Pat’s incomprehensible equations.
With Cindy’s help, Susan got the kids settled relatively quickly.
They were ready to hear more of Bailey’s adventures.
She read the next couple of chapters, in which Bailey and his friends were captured by Resurrectionists, a group of space pirates who harvested human brains and nervous systems and used them in the construction of cyborg systems. Bailey’s friends escaped, but Bailey was left behind to face a monster in the hold of the Resurrectionist ship.
The Rattler had once been human, but the Resurrectionists had dismantled her body and given her a new one of an original design: half organic, half mechanical. Rattler’s spinal column stretched the length of a metal frame, supported by magnetized wheels, protected by the burnished steel carapace that housed her organs. She had half a dozen eyes set on stalks that swiveled, like the turret eyes of a chameleon. Metal arms equipped with mechanical claws extended from the front and sides and back of the frame.
Susan wet her lips. She had finally reached the part about monsters, and she found it a little disturbing. She glanced at her audience. Jody was paying close attention, eyes wide and fascinated.
The Rattler had escaped the Resurrectionists’ labs and lived in the hold of the ship. She was more than a little bit mad. She hated the Resurrectionists, but she had developed a hatred of their human victims as well. She knew that they had something she lacked, something that the Resurrectionist had stolen from her during her reconstruction. She wanted to take Bailey apart to see if he had what she needed.
Susan found herself thinking of the monster that she had written about, the one that lurked in the darkness and threatened women who had ventured out where they shouldn’t be. It seemed that her monster shared some attributes with the Rattler. With an effort, Susan kept her attention on the story she was reading.
Bailey was a resourceful norbit, and he managed to escape the Rattler. With the aid of a cyborg spaceship, he rejoined his friends and went to the planet Ophir where he met the Curator, an elderly woman who collected alien artifacts. Susan was startled to read the Curator’s name: Pat Murphy.
Susan glanced up and saw Trudy, waiting in the doorway to reclaim her charges. “Hey, kids, storytime’s over.”
“But wait,” Jody said. “We have to find out what happens next.”
“You’ll find out tomorrow,” Trudy said briskly. “But Halloween is almost here and it’s time to make Halloween costumes.”
On her way back to her stateroom, Susan passed Aphrodite’s Alehouse. As she walked by, she glanced through the door and saw Max at the bar, drinking alone.
She hesitated, then stepped inside. The bar was quiet—just a few people at the scattered tables. “Hey, Max,” she ca
lled. “I was just reading There and Back Again to the kids at story hour. They love it.”
Max looked up from his glass of brandy. “That’s nice,” he said. She sat down on the bar stool beside him. He had the relaxed look of a man who had been drinking steadily for a while. He took another sip of brandy.
“I was surprised you had another character named Pat Murphy,” she said. “There was a Patrick Murphy in Wild Angel. And in There and Back Again, the Curator was named Pat Murphy.”
Max shrugged. Susan got the impression he wasn’t really paying attention. “Its a common enough name,” he said.
“I met an old woman named Pat Murphy yesterday who looked just like the Curator. I talked with her about Pataphysics.”
Max sipped his brandy but did not reply. Frank Robinson, the bartender, came over. She thought he looked relieved to see her. “So nice to see you,” he said. “I thought Max could use some company. What would you like to drink?”
“Just sparkling water, thanks.”
While Frank was filling her glass, Susan asked Max, “Do you have any idea why there’d be a pataphysician named Pat Murphy on board?”
Max shook his head, staring down at his glass of brandy. “I have no idea,” he said. “Unless it has something to do with the quantum vacuum.” He looked up and met her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about the quantum vacuum,” he said slowly. “Considering its implications. I’ve been telling Frank about it.”
Frank looked, Susan thought, a little spooked—like a man who has been listening to ghost stories in a dark room. Not convinced, but not entirely comfortable, either. “Max has been telling me that everything in the universe is just ripples,” Frank said to Susan.
“That’s what Pat said,” Max muttered. “Patterns of dynamic energy. Shifts and tweaks in the underlying field. Nothings permanent; everything’s changing. It’s a great cosmic dance of changing realities. And that’s all right with me. No surprises there. But I don’t like that business of virtual particles becoming real. She says that can happen. A virtual particle can steal the energy of a real particle and become real. I don’t like the sound of that.”
Susan frowned. “He's talking about quantum mechanics,” she told Frank. “It’s all stuff that’s too small to see. It’s not like it’s the real world or anything.”
Max raised his eyes to meet Susan’s. “That’s not so,” he said earnestly. “Quantum mechanics is at the heart of everything. The particles that make up everything in the universe are just tweaks in the field of the quantum vacuum. This bar …” He thumped on the polished teak. “This glass …” He tapped his brandy snifter and make it ring softly. “You. Me. We are all made up of particles that are just tweaks in the quantum vacuum.”
Frank shook his head, looking at Susan. “I’m just a simple bartender and it sounds like fairy tales to me.”
“The quantum vacuum is empty of things, a blank, a featureless void,” Max went on. “It’s empty of things, but it’s filled with potentialities. Like a blank page, filled with possibilities, waiting to be called forth. Weldon Merrimax, Mary Maxwell, Max Merriwell—so many possibilities.”
“Some possibilities are more real than others,” Susan said. “This bar, this glass, you, me—we’re really here.”
Max shook his head, gazing at her owlishly. “Just tweaks in the vacuum,” he said. “Called up in dreams. Always changing.” He swayed on his stool. “Nothing you can count on.”
“I wonder if you might want help Max get back to his cabin,” Frank suggested softly.
Max could walk, though Susan had to hold his arm to keep him on course. He fumbled in his pocket for quite a while, but managed to find his cruise card and use it to open his stateroom door. Then he muttered something about getting ready for dinner, and lay down on his bed. She covered him with the blanket from the foot of the bed and left him snoring quietly.
TWENTY
“What is the best defense against murder?” the woman asked the pataphysician.
Gyro looked up. “Of the nineteen strategies for defense,” he said, “the best is running away. Or, more simply, not being there is the best defense.”
—from The Twisted Band
by Max Merriwell
The real trouble didn’t start until later that evening.
Dinner was relatively civilized. Charles dominated the discussion by complaining bitterly about the weather. Charles seemed to hold Tom responsible for the cloudy skies, asking repeatedly when Tom thought it would clear up. Tom was still recovering from his cold. He had to keep asking Charles to repeat himself, telling Charles that his ears were stopped up.
Charles was perfectly willing to repeat himself. Susan was impressed that Tom managed to remain so calm, explaining patiently that the weather was not within his jurisdiction as security officer. Charles went on to talk about how much better the weather had been when they had cruised with another cruise line.
After dinner, Tom disappeared—heading for bed, Susan hoped. There was a party scheduled for the Atrium. At about ten o’clock, Susan, Pat, and Ian stood on the second level of the Atrium, gazing down at a towering pyramid of champagne glasses that sparkled in the overhead lights.
Ian explained the workings of the champagne fountain to Pat and Susan. At midnight, champagne would be poured into the top glass, until it cascaded over the rim to fill the glasses below. When those glasses overflowed in turn, they would fill the glasses below them. Eventually, every glass in the pyramid would be filled with champagne.
“So what happens between now and midnight?” Susan asked. “We’re in for some spontaneous, organized fun,” Ian said. “First, there’s a limbo contest. Then the winner of the limbo contest will lead a conga line, dancing to the music of the Twisted Band.” Ian gestured to the dance floor, where a guitarist, a sax player, and a steel drum player were setting up their equipment. “Then, for the grand finale, the winner of the limbo contest will be the first to pour champagne into the fountain.”
“This should be interesting in an anthropological kind of a way,” Pat said. “The limbo contest will be a hoot, and the Bad Grrl can make fun of it all later.”
Susan shook her head. All through dinner, she’d been wondering how Max was doing. For the first time that afternoon, the writer had seemed genuinely concerned about what was going on aboard the Odyssey. She couldn’t manage much enthusiasm for a limbo contest. “Let’s go down to the dance floor where we can see better,” Pat said.
“You go on,” Susan said. “I’ll just watch from up here. Maybe I’ll go for a walk.”
It took a little persuasion, but eventually Pat and Ian headed for the dance floor, leaving Susan by herself. It had been a long day, beginning with her breakfast conversation with Max about Weldon, the power of names, the I Ching, and the creative process.
She watched Pat and Ian make their way down the spiral staircase, through the crowd of passengers in evening dress, and to the edge of the dance floor. It was easy to follow Pat’s progress; her brilliant blue hair stood out in the crowd.
On the dance floor, Gene Culver had the microphone and he was encouraging the crowd to dance the Macarena, which blared over the loudspeakers. The people on the dance floor had begun to dance in a self-conscious sort of way.
Susan surveyed the crowd and spotted someone she recognized: the elderly Ms. Murphy who had known so much about Pataphysics. The dancing spread, moving outward from the dance floor into the rest of the room. Viewed from above, it was a staggering spectacle of gyrating hips and waving hands as bald men in tuxes and ample women in sequins danced with enthusiasm. As Susan watched, Ms. Murphy headed toward the doors that led to the Promenade. Susan watched her for a moment, then caught a glimpse of someone else moving purposefully through the dancing crowd.
Weldon Merrimax was following Ms. Murphy as she headed toward the door. There was something ominous about his concentration on the woman. The elderly woman didn’t know she was being followed. It didn’t look good.
Su
san looked for a security guard, but didn’t see one. She looked for a way to get down to the Promenade level and intercept Ms. Murphy, but the spiral staircase was crowded and the dance floor was worse. She hurried to the glass elevators, but there was a crowd waiting there. Glancing to one side of the elevators, she spotted a door labeled “Emergency Exit.” Without hesitation, she opened the door and headed down the service companionway, passing a startled looking waiter carrying a tray of drinks. “This will take me to the Promenade level, won’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and she hurried past before he could stop her.
Jason Jacobs, the leader and songwriter for the Twisted Band, watched the limbo contest with thinly disguised loathing. He did not belong here, he thought. It was a cruel set of circumstances that had brought him to the Odyssey.
He had been working on a graduate degree in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley and playing music in his spare time. A scout for a record company had heard Jacobs’ band playing at a San Francisco club. The scout had been extravagant in his praise of the band. He’d bought them drinks, promised them a record contract, said that they’d be an overnight success.
At that time, Jacobs hadn’t been getting along very well with his dissertation advisor. Jacobs’ dissertation dealt with the patterns of rhythm and melody that appear in ritual situations. He had studied the music used in Inuit shamanistic ritual and Voodoo ceremonies, Hopi dances and the gospel tunes sung in charismatic Christian sects.
In his study, Jacobs had found that certain patterns of rhythm and melody affect the human nervous system, inducing trance states that lead to the internal physiological repetition of the rhythm. Jacobs had become fascinated with these rhythms, incorporating them into his own music. His advisor had suggested that he might spend his time more profitably documenting his findings in the literature, rather than dabbling in pop music.
So the day after his meeting with the scout, elated and hung over, Jacobs told his dissertation advisor that he was fed up with the university’s chickenshit attitude and he was moving on.