Sputnik Caledonia

by Andrew Crumey

  Kaupff seemed unabashed. ‘I understand you spoke today about King Lear.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Willoughby.

  ‘And I believe you spoke eloquently about the rigid feudalism of Shakespeare’s world.’

  ‘It’s a pity you were unable to be there to hear it,’ Willoughby told him.

  ‘Indeed. But this rigidity reflected a more general view of the universe. Our solar system, Isaac Newton noted, is like a flattened disc, with all the planets wheeling neatly in a single plane. Newton could find no reason for this orderliness, other than intelligent design.’

  ‘Which goes to show,’ Willoughby said drily, ‘that physicists are not to be trusted to speak sensibly about anything other than physics. And even there, we must be on our guard!’

  ‘You are perfectly correct,’ Kaupff said over the ensuing laughter. ‘Of course Newton’s argument was fallacious. Look there, all of you, at that patch of sky above the far end of the College. Do you notice the faint white glow of the Milky Way?’

  Robert had no difficulty tracing the luminous band, which Kaupff had already pointed out to him the previous night.

  ‘I can’t see it,’ said Davis.

  ‘I can,’ Harvey declared, and for some time there was debate among the group about its exact position and appearance, until eventually a division established itself between those who had no trouble viewing it, and those such as Davis whose eyes would never register it.

  ‘The Milky Way is a flattened disc of stars,’ said Kaupff. ‘It’s a very interesting coincidence – our galaxy is like a vastly enlarged version of the solar system sitting inside it: the part mirrors the whole. Why should this resemblance exist? The answer was found by Immanuel Kant, who realized that both the Milky Way and the solar system must have formed in the same way, from a spherical cloud of dust and gas which stretched and flattened as it rotated. The universe, Kant realized, is an evolving structure, impelled towards perfection by its own natural forces. Life itself is an inevitable part of this cosmic evolution.’

  ‘All very interesting,’ said Willoughby. ‘And will you be making the recruits read the Critique of Judgment?’

  Willoughby’s tone made Robert wonder if the remark was a kind of baited trap, but Kaupff leapt at it. ‘I would prefer them to start with Kant’s Theory of Heaven, where he says that the state of gravitational perfection will only be reached after an infinite time. Marx, of course, revised this notion completely, showing how human society must attain perfection in a finite period.’

  Davis sniffed. ‘Your unorthodox reading has thrown up some remarkable observations, Professor.’

  ‘And were not Goethe and Schiller prominent spokes-persons for Kant’s fideistic pseudo-theories?’ Willoughby asked rhetorically. The esoteric ideas were lost on Robert, but not the tone of rivalry or simple malice rising fin-like through the opaque waters of the debate. Robert wished he could return to the telescope standing unused beside them, through whose lens Saturn had looked so peaceful and aloof. By now the planet must have drifted out of the telescope’s view.

  ‘In their very first meeting, Schiller and Goethe discussed the development of plant species,’ Kaupff agreed, too enthused by his prestigious companion’s apparent interest to notice the dangerous current in which he swam. ‘They wanted to understand how evolutionary growth – Bildung – can work in living things, or in art, to create organic microcosms of universal order. This is the message we see in the orbits of the planets or the glow of the Milky Way: everything is connected, cause and effect are circular, not linear. That is why we are gathered here beneath the stars.’

  ‘We are here,’ Davis reminded him, ‘because I instructed it. And I have been greatly interested in everything you have said to us, Professor Kaupff, but I am beginning to fear that Academician Willoughby perhaps has a point when he speaks of the dangers of eclecticism. You are a great physicist, Professor, and you have the admiration of everyone at the very highest level of the Central Committee under whose authority I act. But Lenin once remarked that the greatest physicists can also be the very poorest philosophers, and your own example of Newton bears this out. I think it might be best for us to stick to physics and astronomy from now on, otherwise I fear you may inadvertently say something – through no more than inadequate acquaintance with the facts – which you and all of us would come to regret.’

  Everyone was silent in the cold night air. Robert had struggled to follow the blows and parries of the confrontation, but he knew that if sides were to be taken, his sympathy lay with the professor.

  ‘I think we had better adjourn,’ Kaupff said. ‘I have asked for warm drinks to be served inside, so let’s go and refresh ourselves. There will be plenty of opportunity to look through the telescope again later.’

  He led the party in a slowly proceeding file, back along the darkened path towards the Lodge. Robert walked behind Rosalind and Willoughby, overhearing their conversation.

  ‘Stargazing might appeal to me if you could do it without catching pneumonia,’ the bulky writer told his companion. ‘Communing with the infinite surely doesn’t have to be such an uncomfortable experience.’ Rosalind’s fawn-coloured coat stood out in the feeble light, and Robert saw the movement of Willoughby’s arm across her back. ‘We’d better mind our step,’ he was saying to her as she allowed his steadying embrace, though they disengaged on reaching the brighter region of the courtyard. Soon the group were entering the warmth of the Lodge, where Jason the butler stood waiting to hang their coats, then showed them to the opulent Maxwell Room in which Robert had sat with Kaupff before. A table in the corner bore a large, ornate silver bowl, and Jason proceeded to ladle mulled wine from it into small glass goblets.

  ‘I propose a toast,’ Kaupff announced. ‘To our honoured guest, Academician Willoughby, and to our three heroic volunteers. Long live the Republic!’

  The others echoed Kaupff’s words, then sipped with him in a moment’s silence that allowed Robert to savour the cloying aroma of cinnamon and sugar, and to ponder the equally heavy sentiments combined in the professor’s salutation. Forsyth interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Still up for the Blue Cat tonight, lads?’

  Professor Vine overheard and smiled. ‘You’re going to join the night school, are you?’ Forsyth frowned uncertainly. ‘That’s what we call it,’ Vine continued. ‘A group of us from the College go there most evenings to talk and relax. It’s better than staying here.’ He leaned closer. ‘And there are other pleasures.’

  Forsyth grinned with understanding. ‘That’s what I had in mind.’

  Vine offered him a matey nudge. ‘So I thought!’ Then he gave a sceptical look to the mulled wine in his hand. ‘We’d better save ourselves for the main event. No point getting pissed on this when there’s decent stuff to be had at the Cat.’ He tapped the shoulder of Kaupff, who had been standing silently nearby with Davis, to bring him into the conversation. ‘Heinz, are you going to break the habit of a lifetime and join us all at the Blue Cat later?’

  Kaupff shook his head. ‘The night school is for younger hearts and stronger livers.’

  ‘I’m sure Commissioner Davis will wish to join us,’ said Vine. ‘And Rosalind? Academician Willoughby?’ He had now embraced everyone except the butler in the evening’s entertainment, which no longer sounded to Robert like a visit to a brothel. Forsyth, too, looked disappointed at the prospect of what must after all be an acceptable and anodyne part of the Installation’s social rituals.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll come,’ said Willoughby. ‘Though first I might need to lie down for a little. I had a long journey here today.’

  ‘Is your accommodation comfortable?’ Kaupff asked. ‘I believe you’ve been given the flat adjoining my own.’

  ‘I haven’t really had any time to see it yet,’ Willoughby told him, still with some of the prickliness that had surfaced outside. ‘Except to drop my bag and freshen up when I arrived this morning, before giving the talk you were unfortunately unable to attend
.’

  ‘It sounds as if an early night will be in order,’ Kaupff suggested. ‘You have a few days ahead of you here, when we shall be plumbing your thoughts for all the knowledge and wisdom you can share with us and which we value so highly – for I consider you just as much a part of our patriotic mission, Academician Willoughby, as any of the scientific or technical workers, and I hope our discussions will be long and fruitful. So we must allow you to rest – though should you seek any entertainment tonight here at the College, you might like to join me in hearing Dr Carter, who will be giving a piano recital at eight o’clock. In the meantime, if you need to go to your room then I can escort you there – the building is somewhat of a maze …’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ Willoughby said abruptly. ‘Rosalind has already offered to direct me. And I won’t be joining you for the music. Good evening, gentlemen.’ He gave a stiff nod to the company, handed his and Rosalind’s glasses to the butler who came for them, then turned and left the room with her. Their sudden departure left the others standing in embarrassed silence.

  ‘Writers are an odd lot,’ Vine said eventually, looking at his nearly empty glass and deciding to finish it off, then calling on Jason for a refill. ‘I really wonder if this approach of yours is such a good idea, Heinz.’

  Davis, standing beside him, raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I to understand that the new initiative is solely Professor Kaupff’s idea?’

  Vine sniffed danger. ‘Oh no, it was a collective decision, as always. We are engaged in an extraordinary project, Commissioner, and it requires extraordinary measures.’

  Davis’s impassive face was that of the most skilled card player, who knows how to conceal his superior hand. ‘The Central Committee watches your progress with great interest,’ he said. ‘And it is to be hoped, as a matter of economy, that the eventual rewards – or penalties – will be distributed among as few people as possible.’ Then he, too, left the room, telling the butler who followed the snapping of his fingers that he needed to make a phone call.

  For Kaupff, Vine and the three volunteers who remained, the atmosphere was distinctly uncomfortable. Forsyth stared into his glass, Harvey rubbed his chin.

  ‘We may have taken one risk too many,’ Vine said to Kaupff. ‘These people don’t play games – they want results.’

  Kaupff, despite all that had been said, remained blissfully unperturbed. ‘What? You think we should be building a rocket, as the planning group told us? Why, young Robert here already knows the impossibility of such a scheme, simply from flicking through the popular book I gave him last night. The Red Star isn’t the sort of thing we can fly to.’

  Forsyth and Harvey looked at one another in puzzlement, and eventually it was Harvey who spoke. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘if we aren’t flying there, then what exactly is it we’ll be doing?’

  ‘Let’s all sit down,’ Vine suggested. ‘We seem to have reached the next stage of your training a little ahead of schedule, but at least these leather chairs are more comfortable than the seats in the seminar room.’

  Kaupff took over once the five men were seated in as close a circle as the large armchairs allowed. ‘The universe, we understand, is in a state of perpetual evolution, as Kant and Goethe realized—’

  ‘Please, Heinz,’ Vine interrupted. ‘Do we need to deal with this in literary terms? Can’t we just try and explain to them the second law of thermodynamics?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I am doing,’ said Kaupff. ‘But all knowledge is historical knowledge – that’s what Kant’s discovery implied.’

  Of more concern to Robert right now was the thought of what Rosalind and Willoughby might be doing, for there was no sign of Kaupff’s assistant.

  ‘What we see,’ said Kaupff, ‘is that Bildung is a fundamental force of nature. Goethe recognized this in his scientific work; but he added another insight, which came from his own poetic imagination. In any experiment, he said, the experimenter must himself be considered part of the apparatus. We cannot detach ourselves from what we observe.’

  Perhaps by now she was making Willoughby do what Harvey had been forced to perform for her. Robert imagined the flat beside Kaupff’s to be exactly like the old professor’s, though without the books and other humanizing touches.

  ‘Our bodies are investigative instruments!’ Kaupff declared. ‘We are pieces of scientific equipment; living test tubes and retorts, sensors and recorders. We are all participating in the great natural experiment of life.’ He was speaking of the same psychophysics that Rosalind had described, confirming what the three recruits already knew.

  ‘We’re your guinea pigs,’ Robert said quietly.

  Kaupff shook his head. ‘My dear boy, no! We’re not bourgeois reactionaries who murder to dissect; we’re not proposing to vivisect you.’

  Vine interrupted. ‘Professor Kaupff is trying to tell you that the entropy of the universe is a monotonically increasing function of time, therefore local regions of maximal entropy should contain the most advanced form of structure …’

  ‘Can we have his way again, please?’ said Forsyth, nodding towards Kaupff, who instead looked at his watch.

  ‘We must save the rest for tomorrow.’

  ‘No!’ Forsyth demanded. ‘There’s a simple thing we need to know right now. You keep telling us about theories and structures and stuff that honestly doesn’t mean very much to me. What exactly is it we’re here for?’

  Kaupff smiled. ‘You want the short answer? Here it is. The Red Star is a collapsed state of matter of possibly infinite density. It may be emitting radiation in the form of scalar waves. We need to find a detector for those waves. A human body – yours, for example – might serve as such a detector.’

  Harvey asked, ‘Will any of us ever be doing any flying, or are we just radio antennae in your wave experiment?’

  ‘This is a space mission,’ said Kaupff. ‘You can’t do a space mission without moving through space. So yes, one of you will fly the capsule. And of course it has to be the right man, you all understand that. But now we should arrange your transport back to the Town – unless, that is, any of you would like to stay a little longer so as to use the telescope again.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Forsyth said at once, hoping to learn more.

  ‘Me too,’ said Harvey.

  ‘And you, Coyle?’ Kaupff asked.

  ‘I would prefer not to,’ he said.

  Kaupff raised his eyebrows. ‘Has astronomy lost its appeal? Wouldn’t you like to see Jupiter now that he’s risen?’

  Robert was tired, hungry, irritated by Rosalind’s continuing absence with Willoughby, and in no mood to revisit the telescope now that he would be unable to feel the same pleasure it gave him earlier. But he also knew that he should do his duty unquestioningly. ‘If you order me to stay, then I shall stay. And if you order me to leave, I shall leave.’

  Kaupff looked puzzled, almost hurt. ‘What does this mean?’

  Vine chuckled. ‘Quite the Cordelia, eh, Heinz?’

  ‘So let me seem, until I become,’ said Robert.

  Forsyth stared at him like he thought he was mental; Vine and Harvey were equally nonplussed, but Kaupff gazed with a bemused fascination that quickly turned to warmth. ‘Well, well,’ he said to himself. ‘The slave knows Goethe as well as geometry.’

  ‘A very clever response,’ said Vine. ‘Very clever. Forsyth, Harvey, let’s go and look for Jupiter. We’ll leave your obedient friend here while Professor Kaupff works out what to do with him.’ Robert’s remark had been made innocently, but to his companions it was like the correct answer in an exam, found through cheating. Forsyth gave Robert a hostile look before following Vine and Harvey out of the room.

  Kaupff and Robert were alone now, seated side by side. ‘You realize, don’t you,’ said the professor, ‘that those two are merely experimental controls?’ It sounded a harsh way to talk about Forsyth and Harvey, but there was no contempt in Kaupff’s voice, only detachment. ‘They have important parts to play in the
mission, and so do you.’ Then, as if suddenly changing the subject, he said, ‘Do you remember much about that essay of yours at Cromwell?’

  Like everything prior to his illness, the memory was covered in Robert’s imagination by an obscuring glass that rendered it distant and artificial. ‘It was meant to be about housing-stock renewal.’

  ‘A most worthy and important subject for rational enquiry,’ Kaupff exclaimed with just a little too much false sincerity. ‘It went into your file along with everything else. Now let’s suppose a fire breaks out in the Ministry head-quarters.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never mind, boy, just imagine it.’

  Robert had no difficulty: he saw a woman like Rosalind sitting in an empty office after hours, smoking a cigarette while through an open doorway a man straightens his tie in an adjoining room. The man calls to Rosalind, she gets up from her chair, leaving her cigarette dangling on an ashtray placed over a pile of papers, Robert’s own file, whose top sheet is a page from his essay, and while Rosalind and her lover kiss cinematically, the cigarette falls, and a brown charring hole swells inside a circle of speeding flames.

  ‘I see it,’ said Robert.

  ‘Your essay is burned to ashes and all the little pieces blow away. In fact the whole of your police file goes up in smoke. Now tell me, has the information been destroyed?’

  ‘I certainly hope so.’ Robert didn’t like the thought that his story about wanting to be a spaceman could remain an item of mirth for D5 agents until the end of time.

  ‘Well, it hasn’t,’ said Kaupff. ‘The information has become very inaccessible, very well hidden among the air and dust surrounding the Ministry; but if we were exceptionally clever we could work backwards, step by step, and return all those atoms to their original configuration. You see, Robert, information can never really be destroyed: this is a fundamental law of quantum physics called unitarity. But let’s think of the Red Star. Matter – your police file – falls across its event horizon and disappears forever. There’s no getting it back. The information is lost, violating the law of unitarity. That’s a paradox.’