The Eidolon

by Libby McGugan

  “Well, that’s what matters. I am not a musician, but I find music touches the soul like nothing else can. Perhaps one day science will tell us why that is.”

  “Not if they keep interfering with research.”

  “Ah, yes. Indeed. Tell me about your research into dark matter. How did you go about it?”

  “We were looking for evidence of WIMPs – Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. We can’t see them directly, but in theory we can infer their presence when they collide with other nuclei. We were using various approaches: semiconductors, crystals, gases, xenon – as the paper outlined. We had some provisional results that we were close to verifying, only we didn’t get the chance.”

  “It’s fascinating, isn’t it? To think that there is so much out there that still evades us. If I’m not mistaken, the dark universe constitutes most of what is around us.”

  “Ninety-five per cent of it.”

  “Really? Why is it so difficult to measure?”

  “Dark matter isn’t visible. It’s not like ordinary matter. Everything around us that we see and feel and hear, it’s all perceptible to us through electromagnetism. Dark matter speaks a different language, even though it accounts for most of the matter out there. The best evidence we have for it is Cosmic Background radiation, or the afterglow of the Big Bang.”

  “And what about dark energy?”

  “We know the universe is expanding, which you’d expect after the Big Bang, but if it were down to only the gravitational effects of galaxies, the expansion should slow down.

  What we’re seeing is the opposite: the expansion is speeding up. Galaxies are accelerating away from each other. So either gravity is misbehaving or there’s a propulsive force that’s driving the expansion. Most scientists think it’s the latter, and they’ve called it dark energy and reckon it makes up over two thirds of the universe. There are different schools of thought – some people think it’s a fifth fundamental force, called quintessence, but nobody really knows yet.”

  “I can imagine it would be quite a breakthrough, if we were to discover what they are. You must have found it difficult to lose your position, given the implications of your work.”

  “It was a bit of a kick in the teeth.”

  Amos nods. “They say that losing your job is one of the biggest life events one can face, after bereavement and separation. But a combination, such as you have had to deal with, can make it particularly stressful.”

  You’ve no idea, Mr Amos. “I’ve had easier times.”

  “I’m sure. But it undoubtedly helps to have the support of someone close. Are you lucky enough to have a wife or a partner, Mr Strong?”

  “Eh... not any more, no.”

  Amos bows his head a little. “Forgive me. I did not mean to pry. All I will say, through personal experience, is that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I was in a position once, not dissimilar to yours. Many years ago I was employed as a research assistant in an environmental agency that worked to protect endangered marine species. It didn’t pay much, but when I lost that job, after the agency’s financial position became untenable, it put a strain on my marriage that was enough to break it. It was a difficult time. But sometimes you need to hit the bottom before you can find your way out of the pit. I knew then that I had the opportunity to invest my time in creating something worthwhile, something that channelled my passions.”

  “And what was that?”

  “I have always been fascinated by science, but I am not a scientist. What I care about, above all, is the future of Earth and the species that inhabit it. Science is a hugely important part of that future, but it has to be the right science that will take our planet forwards, not destroy it. We have seen already the ugly face of scientific discovery, and it’s something we can ill afford to see again. Whilst the physicists have given us the beauty of string theory, they have also given us the atomic bomb. So, I began with only a few like minded people to help me, and it has gone beyond anything I could have imagined.”

  “What exactly do you do, Mr Amos?”

  Amos places his cup to one side and clasps his hands loosely in front of him on the desk. “I am the director of a global corporation, called ORB – the Observation Research Board. Its purpose is to monitor the world’s scientific progress. We oversee projects ranging from nano-therapy and quantum technology to climate modification and space exploration. Our role is to ensure that progress continues, but in a controlled and measured way which will enhance rather than endanger the future of our species. We do not recognise political or geographical boundaries, but rather take a view of the planet as one.”

  I stare at him, feeling a twist in my gut. “So you’re the global science police?”

  He smiles. “I prefer to think of us more as guardians. ‘Police’ has connotations of enforcement that I find a little distasteful. We are more of a guiding hand in keeping our progress on the straight and narrow, as it were.”

  “I like to think I’m pretty well informed in my own field, Mr Amos. Why haven’t I heard of ORB?”

  “You are well informed – that’s why I invited you here. But there is more going on around you than you know, Mr Strong, and some if it would leave you with sleepless nights for many years to come. No. No one outside of ORB knows we exist, apart from a few highly influential international advisers. It works better that way. In order to make an accurate assessment of what is really happening in the field of scientific research, scientists must be allowed to proceed without hindrance or interference or an awareness of being observed. We strive to eliminate the observer effect.”

  “So what do you do if you don’t approve of the research?”

  “We steer it in a more positive direction.”

  I lean forward; I want to be sure I hear his answer to this. “Mr Amos, did ORB close down SightLabs?”

  He laughs. “I’m not aware of any destructive potential in dark matter research, Mr Strong. At least, not yet. I’m sure you would be in a better position than I am to comment. No, that was a political decision taken for financial reasons. Nothing more.”

  I sit back slowly in my chair. “What is it you want with me?”

  Amos looks at me for a moment before answering. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He takes a sip of coffee without breaking eye contact, then sets the cup aside. “Our current area of investigation is focusing on the work in progress at CERN.”

  “You mean the LHC?”

  “Yes. As you know, the Large Hadron Collider was constructed with the purpose of finding the Higgs boson, the elusive God Particle, amongst other things. And the initial experimental data strongly suggests that they were successful, if I’m not mistaken.”

  I nod. “The particle they found seems to have the spin-parity of a Standard Model Higgs boson.”

  “Are you aware of the other elements of the experiments?”

  “The detectors are looking for different things – extra dimensions, unification of fundamental forces, evidence of dark matter.”

  “Have you ever been to CERN?”

  “No. But when I worked with Romfield Labs, I was involved in making the Grid software compatible with the systems at our end.

  “Detailed work, I expect.”

  “Yes.”

  “I understand that you were responsible for its success. That’s quite an achievement.”

  “I was part of a team that worked on it, yes.”

  Amos sits back in his seat. “I had the opportunity to visit CERN recently. It is a phenomenal piece of engineering. Its achievements so far have accelerated our understanding further than we could have imagined. But there is a problem.”

  “Oh?”

  “We have concerns about the safety of the project.”

  I shrug. “They’ve had no issues with the collisions they’ve conducted so far.”

  “Not to date. But the next round of experiments are due to accelerate and collide particles at far higher e
nergies, virtually at the speed of light. No-one has done this before.”

  “That’s the whole point. Finding the Higgs-like particle proves that it works. Higher energy experiments will answer more questions.”

  “Provided we are around to observe it.”

  It’s beginning to make sense now: he’s a doomsday prophet. “There’s been a lot of scaremongering, but there’s nothing substantial in the claims.”

  Amos inclines his head. “That is debatable.” He opens a drawer to his right and hands me a document. “This is a copy of a recent paper by the Risk Assessment Assembly to the CERN Council, endorsed by physicists, philosophers, ethicists and judges. It has only just come to our attention.”

  I flick through the report.

  “It makes for disturbing reading, but the area that is most concerning is the production of strangelets. Do you know about strangelets, Mr Strong?”

  “They’re theoretical particles – a combination of up, down and strange quarks. Some people think that they’re what make up dark matter.”

  “Correct. But if they are negatively charged and their surface tension is large enough, they have the potential to change whichever nuclei are around them into more strangelets, setting up a chain reaction.”

  “The Ice-nine type transition.” A disaster scenario concocted by the kind of person who spends their days figuring out how the world will end.

  “Which, in a matter of seconds, will convert our planet into a large hot lump of strange matter. Oblivion.”

  “Oh, come on. There’s no evidence that strangelets exist, even in neutron stars.”

  “Not in the public arena. But I am party to information that comes directly from the inner sanctum.” He hands me another report. “This is an unofficial document from CERN which confirms that, at these high energies, there is a greater than fifty per cent chance of finding strangelets.”

  I turn the pages slowly. It’s written by Professor Wenton. I saw him speak at a conference last year, on another subject, and three weeks ago I read his obituary in the Journal of Physics. He was sixty-four and died of a heart attack. The last paragraph is what catches my eye:

  Because of the inherent risk that strangelets pose, and the high likelihood of their production in the forthcoming experiments, the price of proceeding with further collisions at high energy is annihilation. The physicists at CERN must decide whether their loyalties lie in the responsible search for truth or the satisfaction of their curiosity at any cost.

  “Where did you get this information?”

  “Professor Wenton is no longer a CERN employee.”

  “I know. He died last month.”

  “The paper,” continues Amos, “and others like it, comes directly from another lead physicist in CERN, who shares Professor Wenton’s concerns.”

  “Well, why doesn’t he take it up with the CERN Council?”

  “He has done, but I regret that they have not taken his concerns seriously. There is a great deal invested in these experiments, from twenty European member states and others, including USA, the Russian Federation and Japan. No-one wants to see it stopped. Not at this stage. We have had some success in stalling events so far, but, after a recent setback, we need something more concrete.”

  “So what exactly are you asking me to do?”

  Amos pauses and his eyes rest evenly on mine. “I need you to stop the experiments proceeding.”

  “How do you suggest I do that?”

  “By assisting my team in creating a cyberattack on CERN. We need your expertise in identifying a weakness in the system. And we need you to release the final product from inside CERN itself.”

  “You’re asking me to sabotage one of the greatest experiments in scientific history?”

  “Do you remember the Challenger disaster, Mr Strong?”

  I stare at him. White noise is ringing in my ears.

  “On 28th January 1986, the Space Shuttle broke apart seventy-three seconds after lift-off, leading to the death of its seven crew members. It resulted from a failure in an O-ring seal on the right rocket booster. NASA had known about a fundamental flaw in the O-ring since 1977, but did nothing about it and would not listen when engineers warned about launching at the low temperatures on that January morning.”

  I rest my forehead on clasped hands. I watched the launch on TV when I was a child. I remember the build up, the buzz, the disbelief that ordinary people could be part of something like that. I remember the blaze of blinding white-yellow light on the launch pad, the clouds of steam, the unending roar as it rose into the air and I remember wondering what they were thinking, on board. I was jealous of them, of what they would feel when they looked back at the earth from up there – a beautiful, perfect blue globe drifting against the backdrop of endless space. I wanted to experience what they did. Until the flash of yellow sparks in the stratosphere, the trail of thick, white smoke that split into two and arced downwards, the wrong way. For a moment, no one on the TV said anything – no one could tell if this was part of the plan. And then the horror sank in, slowly, like fallout, burned into my memory.

  Amos’s voice pulls me from it. “The consequences for the crew of Challenger Space Shuttle were tragic, and it is a small mercy that no one else was harmed. But in our case, if no one listens, the consequences could be cataclysmic. The future of our planet is at stake.”

  A pounding pulse in my temples punctuates the white noise. “You want me to release a virus through the Grid?”

  “We have connections to a Tier One Grid facility, but we are struggling to break through CERN’s firewalls. The virus will have to be released from inside CERN. I can arrange temporary employment there, with all the security clearance you would need. My team here at ORB will give you any assistance you require. Clean and simple. No embarrassment, no fuss. This way, everyone wins.”

  “Everyone wins?” Am I hearing this? “How can you say that they win out of this? It destroys everything they’ve worked for!”

  “But no-one is harmed. Robert – may I call you Robert? – I understand that to you this is like desecrating a temple. But we cannot ignore the genuine concerns of the people who know the facts. It takes great courage to break from one’s past and stand alone against the crowd.”

  “You expect me to buy this on the basis of one man’s opinion?”

  “No. Indeed, I would be disappointed if you did.” He presses the intercom on the desk. “Ms Bishop, would you show Mr Strong to the library?

  “Take as much time as you need. There is not a resource in the world that we cannot access, both published and unpublished, but I would suggest CERN’s unpublished work is worth exploring.”

  “Papers are usually unpublished for a reason.”

  “Like yours?”

  DANA LEADS ME through the atrium down another corridor, which branches off to a dozen more. I pause as a soft rumble comes from the right and something flashes at the end of the tunnel. “You have your own train line?”

  “It’s a big place. So what do you think so far?”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  She raises a slight smile as she pushes open the door marked ‘Library’. I haven’t been in a library like this before. It’s huge, lined with white walls that slope gracefully up to become a domed ceiling. There are spacious desks around the periphery, each with large screens angled like lecterns and padded seats you could fall asleep in.

  “Everything is electronic. The stations are touchscreen readers, and can access any professional database you choose for published work.”

  “Do you have Inspec or SPIRES?”

  “As I said, we have links to all of them. You just need to type in your search.”

  “And what about unpublished work from CERN and other accelerators?”

  “It’s restricted access – I’ll send you the link once you’re logged on.” She raises an eyebrow. “Will there be anything else?”

  “I don’t think so. Not at the moment.”

  She turns a
nd walks away, taking a seat at a large corner desk and taps on a keyboard.

  There’s only one other man in the library. He’s leaning back in one of the seats, reading, slowly dragging his index finger along the bottom of the screen, turning the page. He looks up, watching me as I walk past him, his small eyes dark above his greying beard. He’s wearing overalls with his name on the left breast pocket: Abrams.

  “Alright?” I say in passing. Abrams doesn’t reply, but drops his gaze and touches the screen, then gets up and walks out. I take my place at another seat, underwhelmed by the frosty interaction. The screen’s like a giant iPad and easy to use. I search on SPIRES, a good start for mainstream physics papers.

  It brings up lots of the usual publications: ‘Strangelets and the Quasiparticle Model’, ‘Effects of Surface Tension on Strangelets in the Quasiparticle Model’, ‘Magnetised Strangelets and Temperature Changes’... I scan through them, losing track of time. They’re still speculation. Nothing concrete, nothing that proves that strangelets are real.

  A box appears at the lower right hand corner of the screen. I click on it and find the link to the unpublished work from the accelerators. I open the list from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in the States – the type of particles they collide there makes it more likely that they’ll be the first to find any signs of strangelets, so that’s a logical place to start. There are more unpublished papers on strangelets, some of which have a three sigma effect – a ninety-nine-point-seven per cent likelihood that what they found is real – but not enough to persuade the scientific community. For that, they need a five sigma effect. But they seemed to be gathering momentum. It’s not quite there, but it looks like they were close. Much closer than I’d thought.

  I try the CERN link. It brings up not only abstracts and papers, but proposals, initial results and even email correspondence between individuals. There aren’t any unpublished papers on strangelets there, but it’s not surprising, given the collisions haven’t been running that long.

  I eye the list of email senders. I don’t feel right about it, but then a name catches my eye. Nathanial T. Thorpe. There can’t be more than one physicist with that name. When I was a student, he was one of my tutors for a term. He was also interested in strangelets. A tall lean guy with a mop of black hair whose passion, aside from physics, was playing the mandolin. You could usually find him in some backstreet bar diddling away until the small hours in some session or other. He used to say that physics and music were the same thing, all one big vibrational party. A bit of a child of the ’sixties, but I liked him. I also respected him. He knew his stuff more than most. You’d see his name every other month in the journals until a couple of years ago, when he dropped off the radar. I guess that’s when he must have moved to CERN. I glance round the room, feeling like I’m breaking in, which I am, and click on his email, searching for strangelets in subject and content. There are a couple of references to the unpublished papers I’ve already seen, but not much else.