Twistor (46 page)

'No problem,' said David, 'except that I would have liked to be able to eat breakfast while you were in transit. I haven't had an Earth breakfast in over two weeks, you know.'

Pickering glanced at Hodgkins, who blinked. 'Dr Harrison, Miss Gordon,' Pickering said, 'I regret the inconvenience, but this is a matter of some urgency. I've come on direct orders from the highest levels of the White House. I'm here to discuss with you this new "twistor" effect you've discovered. I specifically want to caution you to divulge no further information about it to anyone until its defense and espionage potentials have been evaluated and it can be assigned a security status.'

David frowned. 'Yes, Mr Pickering, I thought it would be some BS like that,' he said. 'You're all ready to clamp a lid of secrecy on our work, whether we want it or not. Is that it?'

Pickering looked pained. 'Dr Harrison, this is a matter of protecting our national interest. The phenomenon you've discovered is dangerous. You've already used it as a weapon, to kill a man. Consider how, in the wrong hands, it might be used for political assassinations and terrorist acts. No political leader would be safe. Consider how it might be used in espionage to discover our national secrets. Think of the security problems. I assure you, of course, that we have no intention of keeping your work secret any longer than—'

'
You're too late,' Vickie broke in.

Pickering frowned. 'What do you mean?' he asked, turning to her.

'We submitted the papers last night,' she said. Then she smiled.

'But—' Pickering protested.

'I'm afraid,' David added, 'that you've wasted the taxpayers' money on a fruitless trip, Mr Pickering. By now two scientific papers, one describing the twistor effect and the other the apparatus we used to make it, are in the hands of the editors of
Physical Review Letters
and
Review of Scientific Instruments.'

Pickering stood. 'I must make a phone call,' he said.

'Just relax,' said David. 'If that was all, perhaps you could still intercept them. But preprints of the papers have also gone to physics groups all over this country and the world. The twistor effect is essentially already in the open literature. Sorry you had to come all this way for nothing, Mr Pickering.'

Pickering scowled down at David. 'I don't wish to question your veracity, Dr Harrison,' he said, 'but what you say isn't possible. According to the TV coverage, you came back from this "shadow universe" of yours only late yesterday afternoon. From our reports, you were interviewed at the physics building for several hours, ate a quick meal, and spent the remainder of the evening in the company of Miss Gordon. We know that all the lights in your apartment were out by eleven P.M.'

David frowned.

'How,' Pickering continued, 'could you possibly have had time to write and prepare two papers, have them typed and reproduced, and put them into the mail? There was simply not time to do all that, Dr Harrison, and we would have observed you doing it.'

'You're mistaken,' said David. ' "All that" took less than an hour last night. You see, the papers were already done. I'd written both of them more than two weeks ago.
All
Vickie and I had to do was make a few changes to bring them up to date. I transmitted them by phone to the physics department's HyperVAX. From there we mailed them electronically, using a computer network system called BitNet. We physicists use BitNet routinely for scientific communication. I just pointed the HyperVAX at the files with the papers and the file with the distribution list, and the rest was automatic. At this moment people in Osaka, Beijing, Tel Aviv, Zurich, Rome, Athens, Paris, and Berlin should be reading our papers. And at Los Alamos and Livermore too, Mr Pickering. And they're probably using BitNet now to forward copies to their colleagues. I'm sure your NSA monitors foreign BitNet traffic and will be sending you copies soon. You're dealing with a
fait accompli,
Mr Pickering. The twistor effect belongs to the world. You're too late.'

Pickering looked crestfallen. David couldn't be sure, but he had the distinct impression that Agent Bartley was amused.

* . . . and with the evil magician dead,' said David, 'Ton and Elle flew with the Surplice back to the house of Ton's father, where she met his family. Then they went on to the kingdom of Elle's father.' It had been another long day for David and Vickie. The FBI had kept them in custody until early afternoon while Pickering conversed repeatedly with Washington. Finally, grudgingly, they were released.

Elizabeth had prepared an elegant homecoming dinner, and, even though it was not a Wednesday, David had consented to finish the story for the children after the dinner was finished.

'The old king was delighted to have his beautiful daughter returned to him. And he was very taken with young Prince Ton. He let it be known that he was willing to give half his kingdom to this powerful prince who had saved his daughter and who could now use his powerful magic
to
protect both halves of the kingdom from the powers of evil. And of course the king's daughter, Princess Elle, was included in the deal.

'Ton and Elle were married in a beautiful royal wedding that made all the papers. And they lived happily ever after.' David glanced across at Vickie and smiled.

'The End,' he concluded, and looked around.

Paul, Elizabeth, Vickie, and Melissa clapped enthusiastically. Jeff looked thoughtful, then clapped too.

'Halloween is in two days, David,' said Melissa, acting quickly before her mother could mention bedtime.

'So it is,' said David. 'Do you have a costume yet?'

'I'm going to be a shadow kitten,' said Melissa. 'I'll wear my tan leotard and use some of Mom's pantyhose stuffed with cotton to make extra legs . . . '

Elizabeth looked surprised.

' . . . and I'll have pointed ears and a tail like Shadow,' she continued. 'Shadow and I will go out trick-or-treating together. We'll be like twins. Only I'll be bigger.'

'I'm gonna be Ton,' Jeff spoke up. 'I'll have a Surplice and a Pricklance and an Urorb, and I'll wear my shadow-bear necklace, too.'

'Ton didn't have a shadow-bear necklace,' said Melissa with a note of scorn.

'But I do!' said Jeff. He smiled, satisfied.

'It's bedtime now, Universe-Hoppers!' said Elizabeth.

Without complaint Jeff and Melissa, with Shadow on her shoulder, said good night to the guests and went to their bedrooms.

Elizabeth turned to Vickie. 'How are things with your brother? How is he taking all the publicity and interviews?'

'William seems to be taking it all very well,' said Vickie. 'He went back to high school today after a week of hiding out. He seems delighted to get back to a more normal existence. And he has a new project. He's hard at work tonight cramming for the November SAT tests.
He's
decided that he wants to uphold the family tradition and go to CalTech, as Dad and I did. Some of his grades haven't been too hot, so he'll need some spectacular SAT scores to be able to squeak in.'

'Does he still want to study computer science?' asked Elizabeth.

'That's the interesting thing,' said Vickie. 'He's decided that he wants to major in physics. He says that now that he's cracked the universe of computers, he's ready to take on real universes . . . all seven of them.'

Paul smiled. 'Talk him out of it, Vickie, before it's too late,' he said. 'We aging theorists don't need his kind of competition.' From a tall, frosted-green bottle with a little gold centaur on the label he poured cognac into wide crystal snifters and passed these to his guests.

David swirled the amber liquid in his glass, inhaled deeply, and rolled his eyes heavenward in appreciation. 'You know,' he said, 'this universe does have a lot to offer.'

Paul raised his cognac snifter. 'I'd like to propose a toast,' he said. 'To David and Vickie and their marvelous future, in this universe or any other.'

'And to the twistor effect and the better world it will bring,' added David. Together they clinked their glasses and drank the dark fragrant liquid.

AFTERWORD

The Physics of
Twistor

Reading hard science fiction is a poor way to learn science. That can be better accomplished by the traditional methods of reading textbooks, attending classes, and receiving on-the-job training. However, there is a related function that hard SF can perform: to communicate the feel and the excitement of actually doing science and provide some insight into what the activity of scientific research is about and how it works. I have tried to do some of that in this book. The University of Washington Department of Physics is in fact the academic department where I teach and do research. The people in the book are my own creations, and bear no resemblance to my own colleagues on the physics faculty. In particular, our chairman is considerably more pleasant as a person and effective as a chairman than is Ralph Weinberger in the story. None of my colleagues, to my knowledge, operate private business or attempt to exploit their students or postdocs in the style of Allan Saxon. The characters and circumstances are changed, but the feel of scientific research is as real as I could make it.

Those who have an interest in picking up a bit of extra scientific information in reading hard-SF novels like this one should be warned of a trap lurking at the core of all hard science fiction. The trap is that by SF convention there are no indications or clues as to which science in the story is 'straight stuff and which is 'rubber science': speculation, extrapolation, fabrication, or invention inserted by the author to add interest to the story and further
the
plot. In well-written hard SF the seam between true and rubber science is intentionally made invisible to the reader. The reader must be carried smoothly from correct and accurate science into the speculative realm, without any suspicion that he's been had or when it happened.

In many ways this procedure resembles the technique of root grafting used by horticulturists: the lower portions of a sturdy tree that possesses a robust root structure, but is rather prosaic-looking, is joined to the upper part of another tree that is more delicate and fragile but produces rich and dramatic flowers. The good horticulturist makes the graft invisible, so that only the closest inspection will reveal its presence. The result is a tree that is both dramatic and well grounded. Hard SF should be the same.

This literary device, however, may have an unfortunate side effect: that the reader is led to believe that the rubber science used in an SF novel is in fact correct. As Charles Sheffield has pointed out, many of us grew up believing that astronomers had discovered canals on Mars, that human and pig embryos were so similar as to be indistinguishable, that computers which reached the complexity of the human brain would exhibit intelligence, that spaceships could easily travel faster than the speed of light by slipping into hyperspace, that J. B. Rhine of Duke University had conclusively demonstrated the existence of telepathy, that the pineal gland of the brain was a rudimentary third eye and the seat of parapsychological powers, that the British physicist P.M.S. Blackett had produced a theory which connected magnetism, gravity, and rotation and would be the key to antigravity, and so on. Thus the reader of science fiction – and particularly hard SF – may 'know' many things that are not so, if only through the process of osmosis.

Not all readers are necessarily interested in the underlying science of hard SF. Those who are more interested in the feel and texture of hard SF, or who would prefer
not
to view the backstage machinery that operates the sets
and
props, should feel no obligation to read what follows. But for those who would like to be shown where the boundaries are between the real and the rubber science in this novel, I've provided this Afterword.

1.
The Theory/Experiment Dichotomy.
In much of science fiction 'the scientist' is a stock figure with glasses, a white coat, and a humorless and rather otherworldly attitude, rather like a medieval monk in habit and tonsure. This caricature is not particularly accurate, and it misses one of the most important distinctions in modern science: the distinction between experimentalists and theorists. The relationship between theoretical and experimental physicists as depicted in this novel is as accurate as I could manage. The necessary specialization of modern science is such that no one individual can remain in a forefront position in theoretical physics and at the same time actively participate in the design and execution of experiments. There are too many theoretical techniques to be mastered, too much new experimental technology of which to stay abreast. This is not to say that there are
not
some individuals who try to do both, but these are a rare breed and even in those cases one of their strengths usually dominates the other.

2.
Warm Superconductors and Holospin Waves.
Warm superconductors were discovered between the time the first and second drafts of this novel were written. The discovery happened at an ideal time to provide a backdrop for the condensed matter physics that plays an important role in the early part of this book. Layered fluoridated perovskite crystals are real and can be read about in the journal
Physical Review.
Holospin waves and memory devices, however, are my fabrications, based on my conjecture that holographic images might conceivably be stored in the bulk spin
structure
of a warm superconductor. As far as I know, there is no physical basis for this conjecture.

3.
Shadow Matter and Superstring Theories.
Super-string theories indeed exist and are presently
the
hot topic in particle physics. This may or may not persist until
Twistor's
time period. The discussion of superstring theories here is as accurate as I could make it, but the reader should be cautioned that I am not an expert in this field. Shadow matter and shadow particles have indeed been predicted by certain variants of the superstring formalism. It is not clear, however, whether shadow atoms with identical chemical properties, etc., are a consequence of such theories. Further, the notion of a *shadow spin' vector which is three units long and leads to (2*3•1) or seven distinct varieties of shadow matter is my own elaboration of conventional superstring theories and has no theoretical basis.