"And this field structure expands and collapses under different stresses," Prudence said.
Timberlake nodded. "And that field structure itself would be the phenomenon we call consciousness."
"Are you two agreeing with him?" Flattery asked.
"For the moment," Timberlake said. "Now, let's follow this assumption. The organic receptor would be subjected to a constant storm of impressions."
"And most researchers think the cerebellum is the focus of that storm of impressions," Prudence said.
"But it's certainly not the seat of consciousness," Flattery objected.
"There may be no seat of consciousness," Prudence said. "We're talking about a motile phenomenon. It can move by itself."
"Okay," Timberlake said. "What's the impression input? What does the cerebellum receive?"
"Electrical inputs of some form," Prudence said.
"Yes.... but how is that input sorted into its receiver?"
Flattery inhaled a deep breath, caught at last by the feeling of the hunt with the quarry near. Was it possible that this crew would succeed? He grew conscious that Prudence had asked him a question.
"What?"
"Do you understand this concept? We're talking about electroform inputs of nerve-impulse groups and each group would be of extremely short duration."
"But the groups wouldn't be absolutely discrete," Flattery said.
"Of course not," she said. "It's like the ambiguity of light. Sometimes the physicist has to think of light as waves and sometimes as particles."
"Wavicles," Flattery said, his tone musing.
"Right. So sometimes we think of these nerve-impulse groups as discrete units, particles, and sometimes we think of them as a continuous flow... waves."
"Track that discrete flow for me," Timberlake said.
She glanced away from the big console, studied Timberlake. There was no avoiding the excitement in him. With that intuitive sense of his, Timberlake had leaped ahead somewhere and the others were supposed to follow.
"The track's pretty well plotted," Flattery said: "Action currents are conducted over the cortico-ponto-cerebellar tract. What're you driving at?"
She saw it then as a diagram in her mind: (1) cortico- (2) ponto- (3) cerebellar. Three phase! Were those the essential three of Bickel's field-self?
Prudence put this thought into words, waited, not knowing quite what to expect from the others.
"Three tracks, not one," Flattery mused. "No... that's not it." Then, pouncing: "Holographic!"
"A holographic field," Prudence said. She saw that Flattery, too, had been caught up in Timberlake's excitement. But the board demanded her full attention for a moment and it was only later that she realized she had missed some silent exchange between Flattery and Timberlake - perhaps a knowing look, a nod...
Presently, Timberlake said: "I want you to say it. What's the terminal point of all that input?"
"It goes into the silent or nonfunctional areas of the cerebellum," Prudence said.
Flattery felt a need to expand on this. "That's the superior and inferior lobes, the declive, the folium, and the tuber - the major portion of the cerebellum."
"Mediation is across the tract from the cerebral cortex," Prudence said.
"Silent or nonfunctional?" Timberlake asked. "Don't you medical people ever listen to your own words?"
"What do you mean?" Flattery asked. There was an edge of anger in his tone.
"What's the potential, the effect?" Timberlake demanded.
"I don't -"
"Energy arrives! Does it turn a wheel? Does it turn on a light? You can't keep piling energy into any system indefinitely without some kind of output... or balancing effect."
"But you said -"
"What's the output, the potential, the balancing effect? The energy goes in. What does it do?"
"Are you suggesting that this... this potential, that it's consciousness?" Prudence asked.
And she remembered Bickel calling the field system an "infinite sponge."
Flattery cut across this thought. "Didn't Bickel say something about consciousness being like the vestibular reflex of the inner ear?"
"The way we balance," Timberlake said. "The thing that tells us which way is down and which way is up."
"The strangest thing," Prudence said. "I feel as though I'd been a little bit asleep all along, not awake enough to realize what Bickel was driving at."
"But now you're beginning to get it," Timberlake said.
"That storm of sense impressions doesn't stop when you're asleep," Flattery argued. "Are you trying to tell me that sleep is a form of consciousness?"
As he spoke, he remembered making the same argument to Bickel, but now he had to be honest with himself and face up to the obvious answer plus everything that the answer implied.
"Yes, of course," Flattery said. "Sleep's a form of consciousness. It just falls near one end of the spectrum."
"And all that unexplained energy?" Timberlake insisted.
"It has to be used for something," Flattery said. "Yes, I see that."
"All right," Timberlake said. "The consciousness-effect - field or whatever - may mediate that energy balance. Perhaps it's a homeostat."
"All biological control mechanisms are homeostats," Prudence said. "So what?"
"It's not enough to say that consciousness juggles the storm of sense impressions," Flattery said. "That still leaves your question unanswered, Tim. What happens to the energy?"
"There must be another effect somewhere in the system," Timberlake said. "There has to be an unexplained flow of energy somewhere - or a flow that's been explained the wrong -"
"Synergy," Prudence said.
Flattery shot a surprised glance at her. The word had been on the tip of his tongue.
"Synergy," Timberlake mused. "Any medical surprises in there?"
Prudence heard the question within the question. The life-systems engineer had a working acquaintance with synergy, but he wanted to know if a medical simplification might help him. Timberlake was sniffing down a hot trail.
"It's the effect produced by our spinal reflexes," she said. "Synergy acts through the cerebellum, an extra effect. It's on the side of the... ahhh, circuit that leads out from the cortex."
"We're looking for an integrating or balancing effect," Timberlake said.
"That's... possible," Flattery said.
This wasn't enough for Timberlake. "Simple synaptic integration is enough on the side leading toward the cortex. Does synergy involve output from the frontal lobes or the gyrus? Could it account for our missing energy?"
"Why the gyrus?" Flattery asked.
"I keep looking for secondary mediation areas. We don't dare overlook anything....ave to be right the first time or we go down the tube the same way all the other ships did."
"You're going around in circles the same way Bickel does," Flattery objected. "So you narrow down the mediating area to the frontal lobes. So what?"
Timberlake wouldn't be distracted. "Lot's of researchers think the frontal lobes -"
"Fine!" Flattery interrupted. "No end of good people may've suggested that the frontal lobes are the mysterious center of consciousness. But Prue may be closer to it than you are. Motile, remember? There may be no seat of consciousness."
Timberlake blinked. "What good does it do to know where it is if you don't know what it is?"
Flattery pressed him. "Synergy may not be totally explained, but it's still useful as a concept. However, if you're suggesting that synergy is consciousness..."