Synopsis
Book by J Gregory Keyes
Extrait
Alice Kimbrell pushed back from the screen angrily.
"Ridiculous!" she snapped, to no one.
It was a word she would repeat, often. A word that would haunt her when
the killing began.
She went to the kitchen to make coffee, which she always needed
midafternoon. She stopped, reaching for a cup. There sat Albert's old mug,
asking to be filled.
Ridiculous. She should throw it away.
The coffee steaming, she stepped out to her balcony and tried to take a
moment to contemplate the sea. But the paper's title glowed in her mind,
and all the coffee did was brighten the glare.
Investigations into Biochemical Sensory Transmission by Duffy and
Philen, June 2115.
Ridiculous.
She stared hard at the lavender sea, as if concentrating could make her
appreciate it. "I love this view. It reminds me of Denmark," Albert had
once remarked. It had seemed a soulful thing to say at the time. As if
Albert had more than the parody of a soul.
She wished she had an office. People who had offices could escape their
homes.
She stalked back to her workstation and looked at the abstract again. It
hadn't changed.
A sample population of 1,000 volunteers was screened for metasensory
abilities using standard set Zener cards, Black Box Randomizer, and blind
curtain tests. Two individuals demonstrated consistently accurate results
for each test, and ten demonstrated statistically improbable accuracy. HCI
and Dao imaging demonstrated collateral brain cortex activity between
senders and receivers in accurate tests. The sample population was
increased to 5,000 individuals. Two members of the larger sample
conclusively demonstrated metasensory abilities, with thirteen sets of
statistically improbable results. Cortex imaging was consistent with the
findings of the preliminary study.
Okay, she thought. Prove it to me.
Unfortunately, they did. She read it again, summoning even more skepticism.
Of course, data could be faked, but as per usual, they had included a
complete data set with verifying codes. Most damning of all, there was the
cover letter signed by Drs. Jacqueline Wilson and John Yazhi. The authors
might be graduate students, but two of the most prestigious
neuropsychologists at the Harvard School of Medicine backed them up. That
was probably what got the paper past her screeners to start with.
Worse and worse. As editor of the New England Journal of
Medicine, she could think of no good reason not to publish. Which
was a shame, because then her career would join her personal life on the
slag heap.
She reached for the phone. By God, she would find a reason not to
publish it.
"It's not a joke," Dr. Yazhi said, swaying his long physique up from
behind his desk to shake her hand.
"Dr. Yazhi, you must understand--"
"Look, it started out that way. Ms. Duffy and Mr. Philen were writing a
paper for the New Drinkland Journal of Medicine. You know it? It's
a sort of hazing ritual. The first year students are required to write at
least two hundred pages of garbage on some nontopic, but they have to
research it, give it all the good form of a journal article. It's a
student competition to see who can treat the most absurd subject in the
most clinical fashion, using the most jargon and academic doublespeak.
It's a bonus if they can make it recognizably similar to something that
has actually been published.
"Philen and Duffy chose to research telepathy. They set up a study
and--and, well, they began to get results. When they were sure they
brought it to me, and I came on board as their adviser."
"Yes, but Zener card readings--"
"Can be faked, yes. But we went on from there. In the end--you read the
paper, I assume? In the end we did simultaneous pattern scans on the
brains of the subjects, first with an HCI and then a Dao imager. The
results were what you saw in your data sets. Spontaneous--and I might add,
impossible--cortex pattern similarities at the moment of 'transmission.'"
He paused, stroking his lean, dark face. "I've read your work, Dr.
Kimbrell, and I think you've been a credit to the journal since you began
editing it. I understand your reluctance, but I think the data behind this
paper is quite solid. I'm certainly willing to say so."
"It's just that--" She paused, marshaling arguments. "All through the
twentieth century they did these same tests, and nothing. Why?"
He shrugged. "Maybe when they got results they didn't like, they ignored
them--that was pretty common in the nineteens. They didn't have HCIs then,
just EEGs and the like, nothing that could holistically image microneural
activity. That's what convinced us, of course." He pursed his lips. "Just
ask yourself--if this paper were on any accepted subject, or even a
marginal one, would you publish it? Is it well written? Is it evidenced?
Is the data set verifiable? Are the experiments replicable?"
She met his eyes, wanting to challenge him further, finding she could not.
She sighed. "Thank you, Doctor."
"My pleasure."
She put it off. Albert called and she hung up on him. Her father called,
and she pretended not to be home. Her stockbroker called, wanting to buy a
thousand shares of something-or-other and she told him to buy Antarctica
if he wanted, but to leave her alone.
She went to a salon, had her hair cut into a short, blond bob. She picked
away at her own research, wrote letters to some colleagues, went running
and swimming, lost three pounds. In the end she returned, saw the
submissions piling up, and sighed.
She remembered how proud she had been--the youngest editor in chief of the
oldest continuously published medical journal in history. Quite the coup.
As she sat down at her workstation, she wondered if she would be able to
get a teaching position somewhere, perhaps at a community college. In the
Yukon maybe. At least it would be easier to dodge Albert there.
Senator Lee Crawford sighed as he strode into the sunlight and saw the
reporter. Was that all he rated these days, a single reporter from a minor
newspaper? It seemed so.
He put on his most genial smile.
"Senator Crawford," the young woman began--in a rush, as if she feared he
might brush past her--"I'm with the Union Discoverer--"
He shoved his hands into his pockets and cocked his head slightly.
"Couldn't find anyone more important to talk to, Ms. Hoijer?" He said it
without accusation--just a gentle self-deprecation. He let a little drawl
through. They liked that.
It got her. The Discoverer was far from the most prestigious reporting
syndicate around, and she must have had her own share of snubs. And he had
remembered her name from, what, three months ago. Her eyes softened a bit.
She was a pretty thing, dark skin, green eyes, slim, perhaps thirty.
"I ..." She paused and cleared her throat, and he revised her age downward
to twenty-five. "Would you care to comment on the defeat of your latest
bill?"
"Only that it's a shame, a shortsighted shame," he said, without heat. "In
time, people'll come to see that." He relaxed his shoulders. "Tell me,
what do you think?"
"Excuse me?"
"You asked what I think. What do you think?"
"Senator, that's my job, asking you what you think."
He shrugged. "And what's mine? I represent people, Ms. Hoijer. Aren't you
a person?"
"But I am not American, Senator--I don't vote for you."
"Details. C'mon, what do you think? Phrase it as a question, if you must,
but tell me."
If you insist," she said, "I have to say I agree with your opponents. Our
taxes have funded the DeepProbe project for twenty years, with no results.
I don't see why we should fund yet another--and more expensive--search for
extraterrestrial life."
"Intelligence," he corrected gently. "Life we have found, and yet at one
point it was far from clear that we would. And you answer your own
question. The DeepProbe project uses technology twenty years out of date.
It's time to upgrade."
"But why? The search for extraterrestrial intelligence began more than a
hundred years ago. Don't you think that if there were anything to find, we
would have found it by now?"
He chuckled his patented chuckle and nodded as if in agreement. "Do you
know why the people at home voted for me? Do you know why I ran?"
"You ran on a Globalist platform. And you were the hero of Grissom
colony--"
"There's that--that's how I got on the ticket, not why I ran, not why
people voted for me. For almost two hundred years, change in science and
technology has been the most important fact of life on this planet, and
for two hundred years politicians have lagged so far behind the leading
edge--well, it would be funny if it were a joke. People who don't
understand the first law of motion make decisions regardin' the funding
and disposition of space platforms. Doesn't that strike you as even
faintly ridiculous? I ran because I think at least one politician should
have some conception of more than how to schmooze.
"And to answer your question directly, no. With the technology available
in the last hundred years, we couldn't even find one of our own space
probes without knowing exactly where it is, much less intelligent life
among a trillion trillion worlds."
"Be that as it may, Senator, the polls would seem to indicate an erosion
of your popular support. How do you respond to that?"
He shrugged. "My opponents are very good at politics--I've never denied
that. But politics--as you must know, being a reporter--is a world unto
itself, and unfortunately has little to do with the world we live on. It's
too bad my opponents are more concerned with that than the welfare of our
race. I trust the voters, Ms. Hoijer. They have common sense. Never tell
me what the polls say."
"You accuse your opponents of playing politics, and yet there are some who
charge that your entire posture on extraterrestrial intelligence was a
calculated response to the panic of '10. That you latched onto a popular
sentiment, which has now begun to flag."
He chuckled again. "Well, I can hardly blame you for saying that--after
all, who can trust a politician to be sincere about anything? But the
people who voted for me know better. I'm dead serious. Look at history.
Robert Goddard invented the liquid-fueled rocket in North America, and yet
there was no funding for rocket research there until after Nazi V1s and
V2s had shown their usefulness by blowin' things up. Underfunding the
near-Earth asteroid search nearly got us all dinosaured in 2011--it was a
miracle that got us through that, pure and simple. The political machine
registers nothin' till it's already too late.
"I'm still determined to change that, uphill battle though it may be. And,
frankly, I hope to do it before it is too late. There's more than enough
hints that there's somebody out there. They might be angels; they might be
devils. Frankly, I think they'll be most dangerous if they're just folks
like us. But this I know--we'll be a lot better off all around if we
notice them before they notice us."
"Then you will continue to bring your bill before the Senate?"
"Damn right. And you can quote me on that."
"Even without the support of your party?"
"Ms. Hoijer, I'm only doing what I promised. That might be a shock to my
colleagues--it might even be a shock to my party--but it's no shock to the
voters. You'll see that come the election. Now it's been a real pleasure,
and I thank you for your time, but I have an engagement across town."
He found Tom Nguyen waiting for him in his office.
"The party has withdrawn their support," Tom said, youthful face twitching
with agitation.
Reaching for the bottle of oude jenever, Lee froze momentarily. Then he
finished his motion. "Why, thanks, Tom, I'm doin' fine. Nice day to you,
too. How about a drink?"
"No, no, Lord, that would kill my stomach right now."
"You have t' build up an immunity," Lee said, pouring the shot and resting
a bit of the potent stuff on his tongue. "They really did it, huh?"
"Lee, you had to know it was coming. That bill was dead when you wrote it.
Face it. The science thing got you elected, but people have forgotten it
now. In their eyes, Senator Tokash made you look foolish. U.S. voters
don't like the U.S. to look foolish, and the party doesn't like its golden
boy to look foolish."
"Pinheads. People are such idiots."
"That may well be, but they pay your salary. Lee, this is serious."
"No shit." He downed the shot. "Anything else?"
"I think we should discuss strategy. You were offered the chair of the
Committee on Technology and Privacy--"
"It's just a bone they're throwin' me, Tom. A tired old bone. Pity won't
get me any votes. I can just see Hirosho's campaign ads now. Me, on the
do-nothing committee, with my head down and great big Zs comin' up. What
happened? Last year we were on top of the world!"
"Well, that was last year. Forty is too young to be living in the past,
Lee."
"Thirty-nine, damn your eyes." He leaned back in his chair and blew out,
found a grin. "Just hang in there, Tom, and let me know if you have any
ideas. We aren't licked yet. Now, go on, I want to look at my news."
"Ignoring it won't make it go away."
"I'm not ignoring it. Take the day off. Go see your kids."
Tom hesitated. "You're okay?" he asked.
"Watch it, Tom, you're lettin' that all-business face slip off again. You
might learn something from me yet, and that'd be a shame. Sure you won't
have that drink?"
Tom managed a little smile. "Maybe just one," he said.
He talked Tom into two, before it was over, and told a few jokes that even
got him to laugh.
When the door was closed, he went to the window and looked out at the city
of Geneva. The smile fell away, and he felt that old familiar hole opening
under his feet. "You've bitten off more than you can chew, this time,
haven't you, Lee?" He grunted. He could see his reflection against the
glass. Close-cropped brown hair, fast going grey, the angular face that
had been likened variously to Andrew Jackson, David Bowie, and Luis
Espinosa. "Enough," he said, this time to the universe at large. "I'll
beat you, you bastard."
He went to his desk, sat down, and tapped his terminal on.
"Index," he said. "Journal abstracts."
He began a slow scroll though the lists his computer had assembled. Four
new planets that might be Earth-like, some interesting speculations about
the self-replicating goo beneath Europa's icy crust, a better fusion
reactor, a new theory of language origins. All interesting, but useless.
But then, toward the end, he came to the New England Journal of Medicine.
A headline caught his eye, so he scanned the story. He stopped, read it
again. And again. He printed the whole article and read that, too.
"Nguyen, Tom," he said, keying the phone link on the terminal.
After a pause, the screen flickered and his aide appeared, leaning into
his car. Behind him, the snowcapped Alps were etched against a very blue
sky.
"Lee?"
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