About thirty yards further down the long axis of the hall was a second pillar bearing an identical hoop. The two circles faced each other, chattering bits of light.
That was all. But it was enough to stop my heart. Because whatever this place was, it was still working — and working for the Xeelee, lurking like watchful spiders in their Prime Radiant at the Galaxy’s core — only three days away in their magical ships.
I stepped forward with my portable data desk and began to mark and measure.
The sequence of sparks in the hoop nearest the door was random, as far as I could tell. So was the sequence in the other hoop — but it was an exact copy of the first sequence, delayed by a nanosecond.
I worked out the implications of that, and then I leaned carefully against a low pillar and breathed deep enough to mist up my face plate.
Think about it. Ring A was talking to ring B, which got the message delayed by a nanosecond. Each ring was a light nanosecond across. And the rings were placed a hundred light nanoseconds apart.
So all the delay was in the structure of the rings — and the communication between them was instantaneous.
My face plate fogged a bit more. Instantaneous communication: it was a technological prize second only in value to the hyperdrive itself…
The secret had to be quantum inseparability. When a single object is split up, its components can still communicate instantaneously. That’s high school stuff, Bell’s theorem from the twentieth century. But, everyone had thought, you couldn’t use the effect to send meaningful messages.
The Xeelee had really got their fingers into the guts of the Universe this time. It was almost blasphemous.
And very, very profitable.
My sense of awe evaporated. I found myself doing a sort of dance, still clinging to the pillar, booted heels clicking. Well, I had an excuse. It was the high point of my life.
And at just that moment, in walked a giant alien monster with a zap gun. Wouldn’t you know it?
At least it wasn’t a Xeelee. About all we know of them is that they’re small, physically. My superstitious terror faded to disgust.
“You tailed me,” I said into my suit radio. “You sneaked up on me, and now you’re going to rob me and kill me. Right?” I looked at the zap gun and remembered the joke. “Right, sir?”
I don’t suppose it got it. Silhouetted against a violet doorframe was a humanoid sketch in gun-metal gray. Its head was a cartoon; all the action was in a porthole in its stomach, through which I caught grotesque hints of faces. It was like an inside-out bathyscaphe with weird sea-bottom creatures peering out of darkness.
And it had the zap gun. The details of that don’t really matter; it was essence of gun and it was pointing at me.
I labeled it the Statue.
The silence dragged on, maybe for dramatic effect, more likely because the Xeelee-derived translator box I saw strapped to one metal thigh was having trouble matching up our respective world pictures. Finally it spoke.
“Allow me to summarize the situation.” The box’s voice was a machine rasp; the stomach monster twitched. “I have discontinued your vessel. I estimate your personal environment will last no more than five human days. You have no weapons, or any means of communication with your fellows — none of whom are in any event closer than a thousand light years.”
I thought it over. “Okay,” I said, “I’m prepared to discuss terms for your surrender.”
“The logic of the situation is that you will die. You will therefore move outside this structure—”
Actually the logic was that I was dead already. I thought fast, looking for the edge. “Of course, you’re right.” I stepped forward—
— and whirled like a leaf — and snapped one sky blue hoop off its pillar — and draped it around my neck.
It was over before either of us had a chance to think about it. The whirling pink sparks faded and died.
The Statue’s limbs were motionless but its stomach thrashed. I felt breathless and foolish; the hoop around my neck was like a lavatory seat put there during a drunken teenage party. “Logic’s not my strong point,” I apologized.
You see, I had a plan. It wasn’t a very good plan, and I was probably dead even if it came off. But it was all I had, and I noticed I was still breathing.
The Statue stared. “You have damaged the artifact.”
“You see, there had to be a reason why you didn’t shoot me in the back before I knew about it. And that reason’s got to be your ignorance of humans. Right?” I snapped. “Despite the fact that you and your kind have been tailing me for months—”
“Actually years. We find humans are resourceful creatures, worthy of study.”
“Years, then — if you zapped me, maybe I’d explode, or melt, or in general make a horrible mess of the Xeelee equipment. And you won’t hurt me now for fear of doing even more damage.” I clung to the frail hoop around my neck.
The Statue moved further into the building, the interesting end of the zap gun unwavering. We stood along the axis of the structure. The Statue said patiently, “But even with this awareness you are scarcely at an advantage.”
I shrugged.
“You are still isolated and without resources.” The Statue seemed confused. “All I have to do is wait five days, when you will die in undignified circumstances and I will retrieve the artifact.”
“Ah,” I said mysteriously. “A lot can happen in five days.” In fact, maybe in three — I kept that to myself.
The stomach monster thrashed.
I walked around the pillar and sat down, taking care not to squash my catheter. “So we wait.” I settled the hoop more comfortably around my neck.
Giant wings of gas flapped slowly beyond the translucent ceiling, and the hours passed.
Time stretches like a lazy leopard when it wants to.
I spent a day staring out a statue and not thinking about my catheter — or Tim.
I snapped out, “You’ve no idea what you’re stealing from me here.”
The Statue hesitated. “I believe I do. This is clearly a Xeelee monitoring station. Presumably one of a network spread through the Galaxy.”
Instantly I wished I hadn’t spoken. If it had thought through as far as that… to distract it, I said, “So you watched my experiments?”
“Yes. What we see must be a test rig for the instantaneous communication device.”
“How do you suppose it works?” Stick to details; keep it off the Xeelee—
A longer pause. Through the ceiling skin I watched a cathedral of buttressed smoke. The Statue said, “I fear the translator box cannot provide the concepts… At one time these two hoops were part of a single object. And an elementary particle, an electron perhaps, would be able to move at random between any two points of that object, without a time lapse.”
“Yeah. This is quantum physics. The electron we perceive is an ‘average’ of an underlying ‘real’ electron. The real electron jumps about over great distances within a quantum system, quite randomly and instantaneously. But the average has to follow the physical laws of our everyday experience, including the speed of light limit.”
“The point,” it said, “is that the real electron will travel at infinite speed between all parts of an object — even when that object has been broken up and its parts separated by large distances, even light years.”
“We call that quantum inseparability. But we thought you could use it only to send random data, no information-bearing messages.”