Harold’s brow furrowed. “Trick question, right? If the beams are coming here, then they’re leaving there.”
“Which means that they haven’t been able to take any data. No beams.”
A shocked look appeared on Harold’s face. “That means that their experiment, as far as they know, is a failure. And—”
“And their government is probably just as unlikely to fund a failing experiment as ours is,” Roy concluded for both of them.
They were silent for a moment, then Harold said, “They can’t. They can’t shut down their collider. We’re so close.”
“Well, that just may be what they’re doing. Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“For the past few months, I’ve been trying to imagine what it would be like for me to live in that universe. What if I had gotten my collider, and then, just as it seems to be working, the beams keep vanishing? What would I do?”
“What you did in this universe. Keep fighting until the bitter end.”
“Right. But what if we were the ones losing beams? I would have called you in to examine the data, and what would you have found?”
It took Harold a few seconds. “The physics of the bridge is the same in either universe. I could probably have developed this theory in the other universe as well.”
Roy smiled. “Which means?”
Harold’s eyes lit up. “Which means that they know about us! So if their collider is in danger of being shut down, they would try to let us know about it!” He snatched the paper out of Roy’s hands, studied it for a moment, and whistled.
“It’s Morse code. See here, where the data begins to get loopy? It’s an SOS!”
“So what does the rest of the message say?”
“Give me a minute. It’ll be easier if we use the computer to graph the pulse length versus time…”
It was more like ten minutes until Harold had completely translated the message. Most of the message confirmed their ideas about the other universe. But it ended on a very ominous note.
Harold read, “ ‘Shutdown scheduled in few weeks. Must present data. Do you have any?’ ” He looked up at Roy, who rubbed his eyes.
“Well, yeah, we do,” Roy said, “but how do we share it with them?”
Harold got that twinkle in his eye again.
“You mean, how do we signal them back when we don’t have a beam?”
“Yes.”
Harold laughed. “Easy. Same way they signaled us, but in reverse. We set up the detectors to turn on and off very rapidly in Morse code, so when they send a beam over to us, they get a staggered disappearance instead of the usual ‘zing!’ kind. Our communication does depend on their sending us a beam, but we can still communicate. It’s a simple application of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Bell’s Theorem. We’ll just need a SQUID.”
A Superconducting Quantum Interference Device. A tiny integrated circuit cell made with superconductors, about the size of a transistor. Roy nodded. That made sense. They needed to interfere with the quantum mechanical nature of the beams, and both ideas Harold had cited involved quantum interactions. Bell’s Theorem, in particular, involved the quantum nature of information transfer. “If you can figure it out—”
“I can.”
“Then let’s do it.”
9. Spin Up
“I don’t believe it, sorry,” Louis Reichen said.
Kristin jumped up and hit Ray’s desk with her fist. “Damn it, Reichen, look at it! We’ve contacted them! They’re sharing their data! All we’ve got to do is keep the SSC running!”
“Kristin,” Ray said quietly.
This was not the way to convince Reichen, Kristin realized. She mumbled an apology and resumed her seat.
“Thank you,” Reichen said icily.
“Now, as I was saying, I do not believe this.”
“So what do you think?” Ray asked. “Frankly? I think that you and Dr. Anderson are grasping at straws, trying to come up with anything to save your pet project.”
“You’re accusing me of making this up, aren’t you?” Kristin asked.
Reichen turned to look at her. “Not in so many words, no.”
“But you think I’m lying.”
Reichen sighed. “Dr. Anderson, let’s say that I do think you’re lying. Most likely, I would say that, in desperation, you have come up with some scheme for convincing me to keep the collider running. But I’d much rather not have to put such a thing in my report, if you catch my drift. It wouldn’t exactly be to your benefit, and I do have some sympathy for your situation.”
He turned back to Ray. “I’m here to supervise the shutdown of the SSC. I have an order here from the DOE that you are to stop running your experiments immediately.” He took a paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Ray. Ray took it without comment.
Reichen stood up. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks. I’ll try to make the shutdown go as smoothly as possible.” With that, Reichen stormed out the door.
“He threatened me. He actually threatened me.”
“I noticed.”
“You believe me, don’t you, Ray?”
“I believe you now.”
“So what do we do?”
“What do we do?” Ray opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a piece of paper, which he passed over to Kristin. She read it and whistled.
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“I am.”
She waved the paper in Ray’s face. “Why didn’t you show me this before?”
“I just worked out the physics a few days ago. Besides, I didn’t think it would come to this. I thought that once Reichen saw what we had, he’d naturally let us continue.”
“But he doesn’t believe in the people of the other universe.”
“No, so he doesn’t believe that they’re sharing data with us.” Ray took the paper from Kristin and ran his eyes over it. “I think this may be our only option. We just have to convince our counterparts in the other universe to cooperate.”
“Ray, maybe we shouldn’t attempt this. It sounds too dangerous. Maybe you were right—maybe it’s time to end things, here and now.”
Ray’s eyebrows shot up. He stood up, turned around, and walked to the window behind him. He stared outside, with his back to Kristin. When he next spoke, it seemed to Kristin that he spoke as much to himself as to her.
“You know, back when they were about to test the first atomic bomb, Enrico Fermi started taking bets on what the bomb would do. There was a small possibility, they said, that the bomb might ignite the atmosphere, and destroy the world completely. If I remember the story correctly, Fermi took the other side of the bet, figuring that if he lost he wouldn’t have to worry about paying up.”
“I thought he took the side that the atmosphere would ignite, and that he was relieved that he had to pay up.”
Ray turned to look at Kristin. “Either way, there comes a time when you have to do the experiment, because—because you just have to.” He walked back to his desk, bent over to write a message, and handed it to Kristin. “Here. Send this to them. We’ll schedule it for tomorrow afternoon. Make sure Reichen finds out in time to show up. But not in time to stop it.”
Kristin took the message and hurried out.
10. Spin Down
Roy Schwitters looked at the group of people he had assembled here on this empty plain, for what he hoped would be a historic first. Harold Volin, of course, who had figured everything out down to the last millisecond; they stood at T minus ten minutes. There were some of the other scientists recruited to work on the SSC as well, gathered around the makeshift cryonic chamber, half the height of a man, which they had managed to construct to contain the SQUID. They had barely an inkling of what was about to transpire.