“The protocol is a two-device.”
“What is the distance?” Dr. Kim asked.
“Not a distance. A where-when loop.”
“Where does the energy come from?”
As if in answer, the Shadow began to flicker and fade, and I leaned over the bowl (even though I no longer believed that the Shadow was inside of me). And like a dark whale surfacing, the Shadow twisted into its bowl. I wondered how such a tiny space could contain a space so huge.
While the lunies cleared the room, and Hvarlgen hurried down to Grand Central to make a phone call, I pulled my chair over to the bed and sat with Dr. Kim.
“I see it’s no longer accessing our universe through your butt,” he said. “Maybe it has what it needs.”
“Hope so,” I said. “Meanwhile—what’s a Feynman device?”
“Have you ever heard of the EPR paradox?”
“Something to do with Richard Feynman?”
“Indirectly,” Dr. Kim said. “The EPR paradox had been proposed by Einstein and two colleagues in an unsuccessful effort to disprove quantum physics. Two linked particles are separated. The ‘spin’ or orientation of each is indeterminate (in true quantum fashion) until one is determined, up or down. Then the other is the opposite.
Instantaneously.”
“Even if it’s a million light-years away,” Hvarlgen said, from the doorway. She rolled into the room, shutting the door behind her. “I told Sidrath about your question. He liked it.”
“It was never answered.” Dr. Kim shrugged.
“In other words, we’re talking about faster-than-light communication,” I said.
“Right,” said Dr. Kim. “Theoretically, a paradox. It was Feynman who proved that the paradox wasn’t a paradox at all. That it was true. And that FTL communication was, at least in theory, possible.”
“So that’s what our little isn’t is,” I said. “A muon bridge.”
“An ansible,” said Hvarlgen. “A device for faster-than-light communication. As I said, Sidrath agrees. What we have here seems to be some version of a Feynman device. Everything that happens to it here happens simultaneously, perhaps as a mirror image, at the other ‘end.’”
“Across the galaxy,” I said.
“Oh, much farther away than that, I think,” said Dr. Kim, taking another shot of PeaceAble. “We may be dealing with realms of space and time that don’t even intersect our own. I think, for sure, that we are dealing with forms of life that aren’t biological.”
At noon I asked for a sandwich. “I’m going to quit worrying about my lower intestine,” I said. “The Shadow has quit worrying about it.”
“We’re not sure,” said Hvarlgen. “Stay on moonjirky just one more meal. This afternoon, we’ll try the session with your pants on and see what happens.”
The Shadow didn’t seem to notice. (I was a little hurt.) It twisted in its bowl, diving into—another form (my own) which appeared across the room as before.
“When is this communication going to occur?” asked Hvarlgen.
“Soon.” The way the Shadow said the word, it sounded almost like a place—like “Moon.”
“What is soon?”
“When the protocol is adjusted.”
There was a long silence.
“What kind of communication will it be?” asked Dr. Kim. “Will we hear it?”
“No.”