Do not lie to the scholar.
In a corner of Oxford, shabby and overlooked—perhaps intentionally, like a gaze averted from something embarrassing or disquieting—the Dark Matter Research Unit was tucked away. The unit was in peril. Dr. Gottlieb had set off down this rabbit hole almost ten years ago, plunging further and further until he hit the bottom. Which was, it seemed, here, today. There was farther to dig, he knew there was, but not without a shovel. They were not going to renew funding for the Dark Matter Research Unit.
It was not completely unexpected, but the news today had thrown Dr. Gottlieb into a sort of agitated denial. Well so what if his research partner was off in Geneva, giving his paper, probably getting a better job. That was fine. That was his choice. He would stay, until he had tried every possible avenue. They would not stop this project. Not when—
There was a knock at the door.
Dr. Gottlieb collected himself. “Come in,” he said.
Lyra pushed open the door and stepped into a small, barely-ordered room. File cabinets loomed like canyon walls, with stacks of papers teetering in between and on top. Three of the walls were greenish blackboards, one windows, and the blackboards were covered with chalk scribbles. Pan stirred in her pocket, sharing her curiosity. She peered further down the ravine and saw a doorway, leading to a smaller room of wires and anbaric equipment.
Her scholar was hunched on a hard-backed chair in front of an oddly empty desk. He had a look of dogged weariness that struck an immediately familiar chord—this was a Scholar like those she grew up with, like those at Jordan. Lyra straightened up, at ease.
The only thing on his desk was a glass box with wires and buttons—he tapped a button and the glass went dark.
“Who are you?” he said.
She remembered what the alethiometer had said. Do not lie to the Scholar. “Lyra Silvertongue,” she said. “What’s your name?”
He frowned. He was in his thirties, with long, thin limbs and a severe, squinting face. He wore a white coat open over a green sweater and neatly buttoned shirt. His glasses hung on a cord. Lyra noticed a cane leaning next to his desk.
He looked narrowly at her. “You are my second surprise visitor today. I’m Dr. Hermann Gottlieb." He spoke with an English accent, but it had a foreign edge. "What are you here for?”
Lyra squared her shoulders. “I want you to tell me about Dust.”
“Dust? What kind of dust?”
“You might not call it that. It's elementary particles. In my world the Scholars call it Rusakov Particles, but normally they call it Dust.” She stumbled over her words, trying to get everything out as fast as possible. “They don't show up easily, but they come out of space and fix on people. Not children so much, though. Mostly on grownups. And something I only found out today—I was in that museum down the road and I found they only fix on certain skulls, the ones with holes in their—”
Dr. Gottlieb held up his hands. “Stop, stop. Elementary particles? Elementary particles do not behave this way. Skulls? What do these have to do with particles?”
“I would tell if you wouldn’t interrupt me,” the girl said severely. “I was looking at the skulls in the museum, and some had holes. Trepanning, they said it was called. Those ones had lots more Dust. Particles. How long ago was the Bronze Age?”
“Around five thousand years ago,” said Dr. Gottlieb suspiciously. “Why?”
“Well then the museum got their labels wrong,” said Lyra with superiority. “The skull with two holes is thirty-three thousand years old.”
Dr. Gottlieb’s frown was getting deeper with every word she said, and now he threw up his hands. “Alright then, who sent you?”
“Sent me?”
“Yes, you, surely this is a joke or a trick, then,” Dr. Gottlieb said angrily. “Where do you come from?”
“I’m not tricking or joking, sir,” Lyra said, trying not to get angry herself. Hadn’t she been as honest as she could?
“Who are you? How do you know this? Where did you come from?”
Lyra mastered her frustration. Scholars were roundabout; they could understand a lie better than a truth, sometimes. But she had to be truthful.
“I come from another world,” she said. “In my world, there’s an Oxford just like this, which is where I grew up, only—”
“Another what?” said Dr. Gottlieb.
“Another... place,” Lyra said, more carefully.
His eyes narrowed further. He seemed to see this line of inquiry would get him nowhere. So he only said, “I see. And what have you come to... this Oxford for?”
“To find out about Dust,” she said with agitation. “The Church in my world, they hate Dust, they want to destroy it, but they’re so evil and cruel I know that must mean Dust is good, only I don’t know what it is or what it wants or how to stop them yet, and I, I...!” She stamped her foot. “It’s all going wrong! We don’t know what we’re doing, and...”
For the first time Dr. Gottlieb looked not suspicious, but concerned. Apparently her distress was more convincing than her honesty. “Please, calm down. Lyra, was it? There’s no need to get worked up.”
She folded her arms, clutching herself. Lyra was not sure how she liked this skeptical scholar.
He got to his feet. “I’m going to make some coffee,” he said. “You’ll have some?”
Lyra nodded. He took his cane and crossed towards the window, disappearing behind some stacks.
“If I was the second unexpected thing, what was the first?” Lyra asked, hearing the sounds of water and clink of cups.
“Funding cut,” said Dr. Gottlieb’s voice curtly. There was a jingle of a spoon falling on the floor and a frustrated noise. “We are applying for a renewal and one of our backers withdrew his support. Not so unexpected as an otherwordly visitor, I suppose,” he added, in a tone that conveyed strong doubt about her.
He reappeared with two mugs and asked her to sit. He went on standing, still holding the mugs.
“So what’s dark matter?” she asked. “That’s what it says on your door, right?”
“How much do you know about physics?”
“Some,” she said vaguely.
“My research team is looking for dark matter,” Dr. Gottlieb said, standing with his hand on the back of his chair. “When we look out into the universe, we search for the laws that govern it. This is theoretical physics. We test those laws against what we can see—stars, galaxies, planets like this one. The problem is, for all those objects to cluster together and orbit each other, there needs to be a lot more—more matter, that is. Where is all that matter? Because everything is holding together, so far. It seems there is some other matter, or force we don’t understand, and no one can find it. This research team is one of many looking for it. They call it dark matter.” There was a click from behind the shelf—the water was boiling. He disappeared around the corner again. “A rather fanciful name for it, if you ask me."
Dr. Gottlieb returned with the two hot coffees and gave Lyra one before sitting down.
“So you’re looking for this dark matter,” Lyra said, prompting him to go on. “Have you found it?”
“No,” said Dr. Gottlieb pointedly. “No, and so our funding is being withdrawn. So now we never may.”
“Then what do you know about it, if you haven’t found it?”
“My colleague, among many others, believes dark matter takes the form of a tricky particle. Normally, to cut through the interference of other particles, researchers put detectors deep in the ground. We decided to... well, it’s complicated,” he said, and took a drink of coffee. Lyra gave him ten seconds to elaborate. He did: “In short, we created an electromagnetic field around a detector. It shuts out things we don’t want, and lets in, well, whatever is left. We amplify that, and put it through the computer.”
“And?”
He paused. “We found something. It fits the theoretical model. Well actually, in point of fact, it does not fit,” he said, shifting. “It does not fit any known laws of physics.”
Finally, they were getting somewhere. Lyra sat forward.
“What doesn’t? What’d you find?”
He sighed. “We call them Shadows.” He looked at her and it occured to Lyra that he was unhappy she was there, not because she disproved what he’d found, but because she corroborated it. “The reason I thought you were putting me on was because of the skulls. My colleague found something recently that I have been neither able to believe nor to materially dispute. It seems as if these Shadow particles—Dust, as you called them—are conscious.” He said it almost with a shudder. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t designed the machine and written the code myself. But it doesn’t seem to be a mistake.”
He took another drink of coffee.
“Or at least, I haven’t proven yet that it’s a mistake. I mean. Particles of consciousness? Have you ever heard anything so absurd?”
Pan nudged her finger, warning her. Don’t argue. But Lyra was not feeling argumentative now. Combative was one of her two states with respect to Scholars. The other was a certain attentive shepherding, an awareness of how they meandered and how to keep them going where she wished. He reminded her of someone—a distractible naturalist who had tutored her for a month or two at Jordan. She had had many such tutors.
“They behave as though they are responding to us, to our state of mind,” Dr. Gottlieb said. “You have to put yourself in a state... What was it?” He pulled a note off the side of his glass box. “‘Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason...’ Keats. So, you get yourself in that sort of state, and then you look into the Cave...”
“The cave?” Lyra said.
“Our computer. We call it the Cave. Shadows on the walls of the Cave, you see, from Plato. That’s my colleague again, ever the intellectual. He’s off in Geneva, interviewing for a job, you know. Deserting a sinking ship, and right to...”
“So the Cave?” Lyra prompted again.
“Of course. Once you’re hooked in, in your Keats mental state, the Shadows respond. There’s no doubt... The difference is absolute. Couldn’t be correlation.”
He looked like he wished it could.
“And the skulls?”
“Yes, yes.” Dr. Gottlieb set down his mug. “Dr. Payne—my colleague—started testing objects. He took a piece of ivory, just a tusk. No Shadows. But a carved ivory chess piece? Lots of activity. A piece of wood, no. A wooden ruler, yes. A carved wooden statuette had even more. Elementary particles, reacting to anything with human workmanship. Frankly, Lyra, it doesn’t make any sense at all. How could particles know? How could they tell?
“Then Dr. Payne got some fossil skulls from the museum. They were probably the same ones you looked at today. Animal skulls had very little activity. Human skulls had a lot. He wanted to see how far back in time this effect went. He found the cutoff was about thirty to forty thousand years ago. Any skull before that, no Shadows. Any after, lots. This was the emergence of modern man,” he added for explanation. “Our ancestors, but our species. Humanity, more or less.”
“It’s Dust,” Lyra said with authority. “It’s the same Dust.”
“But look, we can’t just say that on a funding application. We can’t tell them the data is unreadable, or fantastical, or both. None of it fits any working model of the universe, and if... If I hadn’t designed the experiments myself, I wouldn’t believe it either.” He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “But I did. And I have to unravel it...”
Lyra was not about to let him go down this scholarly soliloquy. She stood. “I want to see the Cave.”
Dr. Gottlieb looked up. He looked ready to argue, then exhaled, and said, “Well why not. We may not even have a Cave tomorrow.”
What she showed him there he could not believe.
“I want to try it,” she said after he explained the mechanism.
“Try it? Absolutely not.” He looked at her over the console. “This is very delicate...”
“Please,” Lyra said. “I know what I’m doing!”
“Oh, do you? Then by all means!” He threw up his hands. “This is expensive, delicate equipment, and you are a child. Good god. You can’t expect me to just let you have a go of it like a toy. I hardly know who you are. How did you find me?”
Pan nudged her hand again. Tell the truth. “I found my way in with... this,” Lyra said, and took out the alethiometer. She held it out to the Scholar.
Dr. Gottlieb took it slowly. “What is... Dear god, is this made of gold?” He put on his glasses and peered at the symbols.
“It does the same thing as your Cave,” Lyra said, on the verge of desperation. “Or at least, I think it does. Please. That’s what I want to see. If I can answer a question truly, using this, something only you know, can I try your Cave?”
“Are you going to tell my fortune? How—”
“Please! Just ask me a question!”
Dr. Gottlieb shook his head incredulously, taking his glasses off. “Go on then. Tell me... what I was doing before I worked here.”
Lyra took her compass back quickly and began to wind the wheels of the symbol reader. Her hands moved almost faster than her mind, choosing the right three pictures, and the needle eagerly responded. It swung round and round and she followed closely, watching, understanding each movement down its ladder of meaning. Then, exhaling shortly, she withdrew from her trance.
“You was almost a priest,” she said. “You left the Church right before they ordained you. You stopped believing.” She looked up at him. “And they let you? My Church would never have. They'd have accused you of something first. They'd have made sure you was disgraced.”
Dr. Gottlieb seemed hardly to be listening. He was staring off to the left of the computer screen in blank, high-speed concentration.
“It’s true, en’t it?” Lyra said delicately.
“Yes,” said Dr. Gottlieb. He did not know how she knew that; but of course, these things could be found out. Plenty of people knew that about his life, he reasoned. It was no secret. And yet.
“My alethiometer told me, and I reckon the Shadows can tell me the same through your machine,” she was saying persuasively.
Who sent her? The question seemed moot. Perhaps someone had, to confuse him, or discredit him. But there was something stronger in Hermann even than his skepticism: curiosity.
He wanted to know.
“Very well,” he said. “Sit here.”
He helped her put on the electrodes and explained how it would work. She sank once again into the trance, the same as with her compass. Hermann watched her astonished. She spoke fluently with the Shadows. Normally they appeared in a halo on the screen, expanding and contracting in correspondence with mental activity. For Lyra, they formed images. Lines, flashes, so fast he could not keep track. But Lyra could: compass, alpha and omega, lightning, angel. And then a different three: camel, garden, moon.
As he looked on in shock, Lyra translated. “It’s telling me that it could communicate with you using ordinary words, instead of pictures and shapes. You could fix it up that way. To make words. But you need a lot of careful math, I think, that’s what the compasses meant. And the lightning meant an—electric power, I mean. The angel, that means about the messages. There’s more it wants to say. The second bit, I think that meant Asia, almost the farthest east it said, but not quite. Would that be China? I dunno. It says there’s a way they’ve got in that country of talking to Shadows, same as you got here or as I got myself, only their way uses sticks.”
“The I Ching,” said Hermann. He was out of breath, almost dizzy. “I’ve heard of it. A form of Chinese divination. It’s real? They’re speaking with Shadow particles?”
“Seems like,” said Lyra. She nodded. “Seems there’s lots of ways, I hadn’t realized. I thought there was just one.”
“Those pictures,” Dr. Gottlieb began to say. “The same symbols as your...”
Lyra turned again to the screen and already it was flashing pictures at her. They appeared and transformed so fast Dr. Gottlieb could hardly follow, but Lyra understood what they said once again.
“They say you’re important too, Dr. Gottlieb,” she said. “They you have someone important to meet, and something important to do. They don’t say what, but it’s surely true. So probably you ought to get it to use words, so it can tell you more.”
The Scholar exhaled. Suddenly he was exhausted.
“Words... of course. A special mission... naturally. Very well.” He rubbed his eyes.
“How long til they close you down?” she asked.
“A week.”
He opened his eyes and looked at the girl.
“Then you better make it do words, quick,” she said, with the frankness of someone who had no idea how programming worked or even what it was. “You could do it tonight. If you show ‘em the words, they’ll have to give you the money. And then you can learn all about Dust, or Shadows. And tell me.”
Gottlieb helped her out of the electrodes and asked if she would return tomorrow. Oliver would want to meet her. He was not convinced, but they needed more data.
As soon as the door shut behind her, Hermann limped back to the Cave room and attacked the computer. He was not making it “do words.” He was checking what he had already written. He turned the program upside down, looking for glitches or alterations, newly embedded procedures. What possible reason someone would have for creating this hoax, he could not imagine. But he found nothing. Everything looked normal.
He scanned the rest of the directory, to see if anything was hidden elsewhere on his computer. No—it was no trick, no matter how it seemed like one. Doesn’t all of this? And wasn’t that why he studied dark matter in the first place? Because it made no sense? It did not fit the model. And because of that, he had to chase it down and either make it fit the model, or rewrite the whole model. Why it had to be Hermann Gottlieb, personally, who did this, was not a question he really asked.
It would not have been accurate to say he burned with curiosity; it burned him. Sometimes it consumed him.
He did not spend the night rewriting the code, but for all the sleep he got, he may as well have.
“I am not comfortable with this,” Hermann said again.
“Well, Dr. Gottlieb,” said Sergeant Clifford, “Do you know what’s best for this child?”
He glared at her, then her associate, the pale-haired man she had neglected to introduce. The officers had arrived at his office an hour ago. They had known about Lyra, though not by name. Before he had time to doubt them, he let slip that she was coming again today; now they sat in wait in his office. As a younger man, perhaps, he would have trusted them the same way he trusted most authority figures, the same way he had been raised. Not so anymore. When he looked at the pale man, he felt such a mistrust it was almost fear. For Lyra.
His phone flashed, about to ring. The porter. He swiftly pressed the button, stopping it before it rang.
“I had better check if she’s come yet,” he said, grabbing his cane and standing. “Please wait here.”
Before they could reply, he was out the door, shutting it behind him. He heard light steps on the stairs—if he could just warn her—
“Lyra,” he hissed as the top of her head appeared in the stairwell.
“Dr. Gottlieb!” she said warmly.
“Quickly,” he said, and pulled her into a vacant classroom.
“Dr. Gottlieb?”
“Lyra, listen. Two officers came to my lab today—police, maybe. They are being very vague. I don’t have a good feeling about them. Do you know them? What’s going on?”
“Police? I dunno any police. How did they know about me?”
“I have no idea! They asked, and I told them about you, but they already knew...”
“Oh, well I can lie to them,” said Lyra easily.
“But why do they—”
Sergeant Clifford’s voice came down the corridor. “Dr. Gottlieb? Have you found the child?”
“Come,” whispered Gottlieb, agitated. Lyra followed him back into the hall. “Yes, Sergeant, right here. She got a bit lost.”
They led her back into the laboratory. Sergeant Clifford introduced herself, then her colleague, whom she called Inspector Walters. Lyra listened and answered with wide eyes and a slack mouth—almost meek. Yet she did not seem afraid. She was playing them, Gottlieb thought, standing by his desk. As she had said she would.
“So you’re Lyra, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ve heard all about you from Dr. Gottlieb here,” said the pale man. “We’d like to ask a few questions, if that’s alright.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Nothing difficult,” he said. He smiled. “Please. Sit down.”
She did.
“So where d’you come from, Lyra?”
“Winchester,” she said.
“You been getting into trouble lately then, Lyra?” he said. “How did you get those bruises? There’s one on your cheek, your leg... Has someone been knocking you about?”
“No,” Lyra said.
“Do you go to school?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
“Shouldn’t you be at school today, Lyra?” he said.
She said nothing. Her face was getting blanker and blanker—was she losing control of the situation? She glanced at Dr. Gottlieb. He frowned.
“I came to see Dr. Gottlieb,” Lyra said, looking back.
“So are you staying in Oxford? Visiting? Where are you staying?”
“With some people,” she said. “Friends. Of my father’s.”
“I see. And how did you find Dr. Gottlieb?”
“‘Cause my father’s a physicist as well, they know each other.”
She relaxed her arms. These lies seemed to be putting her at ease again.
“And he showed you the work they do here, did he?”
“Yeah. The engine... with the screen. All of that.”
“You’re interested in that sort of science?”
“I suppose so. Physics, especially.”
“You going to be a physicist when you grow up?”
She stared at the pale man blankly. He looked back. He glanced as his colleague, then back at her, and said, “Were you surprised about what Dr. Gottlieb showed you?”
“A bit, I suppose, but I know what to expect.”
“Because of your father?”
“Yeah. He’s doing the same kind of work, you see.”
“I see. Do you understand it?”
“Some,” Lyra said.
“Your father’s looking into dark matter as well then?”
“Yeah.”
“Has he got as far as Dr. Gottlieb?”
“Not the same, but some. He doesn’t have an engine with a screen like that—like Dr. Gottlieb’s got.”
“Is Will staying with your friends as well?”
“Yes, he—”
She stopped.
Both officers were on their feet immediately. But so was she. In a second Lyra made it to the door, the officers close behind.
“Ouch!” Gottlieb dropped his cane and it fell with a clatter under the pale man’s feet.
He stumbled and fell. “Watch it!”
The door slammed behind Lyra. The sergeant rushed around the pale man, who was getting back to his feet, cursing. She threw the door open and they ran after Lyra.
Hermann’s heart was pounding. He bent to pick up his cane, wondering what terrible doings he had just interfered with.
As far as he found out, she got away. The officers came back frustrated and threatened him with vague charges, then left. If he hadn’t been under surveillance already, he surely was now. Hermann lay awake that night too. The girl was a liar—that he knew. But not about everything. And if officers from special branch were after her, perhaps they were afraid of what she knew... That troubled him the most. Hunting a child? What sort of government did that, and why? What did she know?
No, he was not going to rewrite his whole experimental computer program based on the ideas of a fantastical child. Yet the code was taking shape in the back of his mind, in the place where learned skill and unconscious thought turn wheels without being asked.
“Police, Hermann? Seriously?”
“I didn’t invite them in, Oliver,” Hermann said acidly.
“But how did they know about the kid?”
“I am telling you, I have no idea, but—” Hermann made an emphatic hand gesture. He took a piece of paper and wrote: Listening!
He held it up with an angry flourish. Oliver craned his neck to read it, then shook his head. “Don’t be paranoid. What could a twelve-year-old possibly have that would interest them. Or you, for that matter?”
“Oh, you would have loved her,” Hermann said sarcastically. “She came to tell me everything you wanted to hear. Shame you weren’t here to hear it.”
They were sitting in their lab. They were both exhausted and on-edge, Hermann from lack of sleep and Oliver from an early flight home from Geneva. He did not seem to want to hear more about any of this—he seemed ready to wash his hands of the whole program. Hermann couldn’t rightly blame him. Yet? He did.
“What did she say?” Oliver said, looking into the depths of his coffee mug.
“She came in asking about Shadows.”
“Dark matter?”
“No, Shadows, though she calls them Dust. She had all sorts of ideas about them, and wanted answers from us. Talking about skulls, trepanning, the I Ching? The most outrageous nonsense. She convinced me—God knows how—to put the electrodes on her, and when I did, well...” Hermann hesitated.
“More outrageous nonsense?” said Oliver, but he sounded interested.
“It was extraordinary, Oliver,” said Hermann. “Really. She went into the trance, and moved those particles like an artist. They made pictures for her, symbols. She interpreted the symbols, read me my fortune, I suppose.”
Oliver made a thoughtful sound. “Not a trick?”
“I checked.”
Oliver raised his eyebrows. “I know you did.”
Hermann fiddled with his glasses. “I know you know my views on this, Oliver, but it seemed... for all the world... that the particles were responding to her. Like a conversation.” He looked at his colleague, distressed. “As if they really were conscious.”
Oliver gazed at him.
“Well Hermann, you know my views on this. I think I would have liked to see it myself.” Oliver set down his mug. “What’s this about skulls, then? Trepanning?”
“That was what caught my attention first,” Hermann answered. “She had this... instrument. It was like a big compass, but with symbols, and she said she could use it the way we use the Cave. To speak to these particles. She claimed that, using this instrument, she had found out about the skulls in the Pitt-Rivers museum. Same skulls as yours, I imagine. Her instrument told her they had Shadows, and that they were much older than the museum said...”
Oliver looked impatient. “But what does this mean for—”
The lab phone rang. Oliver picked up.
“We have a visitor,” he said a moment later, putting it down.
“Who?”
“Didn’t recognize the name. Sir Something. Listen, Hermann. They offered me the job in Geneva.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Yes. And I’m going to take it,” said Oliver.
“So that’s that.”
“Well come on, Hermann, what do you expect? I can’t go chasing down skulls and psychic children and particles of consciousness. What kind of career is that?”
“You were the one who started everything with those skulls,” Hermann snapped. “Did you never really intend to follow this through? Was it all just a game to you? An intellectual curiosity?”
“Hermann, I don’t even understand why you want to stay!” said Oliver, exasperated. “You come into the lab each morning and spend the day huffing at this equipment for showing you what it shows, then you go home and toss and turn in your bed thinking of what you’ve seen. You hate this work! Take this lifeline!”
“I do not hate our work,” Hermann said acidly. “I want to make sense of it. You propose to give up entirely, and you want me to come along, waving the same white flag? I don’t—”
There was a knock at the door. Hermann broke off.
Oliver opened the door. An elderly but well-taken-care-of man stepped in, smiling. He wore the suit and the smile of a powerful businessman. “Good day. You must be Dr. Payne, or Dr. Gottlieb? I’m Sir Charles Latrom. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
“Of course, Sir,” said Oliver, shaking his hand. “I’m Dr. Payne, this is Dr. Gottlieb here. Very good to meet you.”
“How do you do,” said Hermann, rising to shake his hand. “Please sit. What can we do for you?”
“Well, I think I may be able to do something for you,” Sir Charles said. “I understand your prospects for your funding application are looking grim.”
“How could you know that?” Oliver said, looking at Hermann. Hermann had an idea of how. He narrowed his eyes.
“I used to be a civil servant, concerned with directing scientific policy, all that, you know. Still have plenty of contacts. My friend—whose name I’d better not mention, Official Secrets Act covers, you understand—told me your application was being considered. When I heard what your work was on, well, I had to see more. I looked into it. I found it quite fascinating.”
Hermann glanced at Oliver, who was listening raptly.
“Unfortunately," said Sir Charles, "I do not expect they’ll renew your grant.”
Hermann’s heart sank. He cursed himself for getting his hopes up even a bit.
“Why have you come now, then?” Oliver said.
“Well, the decision isn’t official,” Sir Charles said. “Yet. As I said, your prospects are not good. But that could change if you had someone to advocate for you. The boards might see things differently.”
“An advocate?” Hermann sat forward. “Such as yourself? I don’t believe it works that way, Sir. They decide based on peer review.”
“In principle, yes, of course that’s how it works,” said Sir Charles. “But in practice, a lot depends on how these committees are run, who’s on them. I know the ins and outs quite well. I’m interested in your work. I think it’s very valuable, and should be furthered. Would you let me represent you, informally?”
Relief and hope were trying to smother the mistrust in Hermann’s breast. He looked at Oliver again, but his colleague still did not look away from Sir Charles.
“Of course, that would be—that would be wonderful, I would appreciate—well—”
“What would we have to do?” Oliver said.
Hermann frowned at him, surprised. What about Geneva?
“Us?”
“Of course, Dr. Payne,” said Sir Charles. “There is a direction I’d be glad to see you taking. There may be money from another source that I could arrange...”
“Now wait,” said Hermann. “Hold on a moment. The course of our research is a matter for us to decide. We are willing to share our results, but the direction is—”
Sir Charles shrugged and moved to stand. Oliver jumped up.
“No please, Sir Charles,” he said. “Dr. Gottlieb will hear you out, I’m sure. No harm in hearing the man out, Hermann?”
“I thought you were going to Geneva,” Hermann said tartly.
“Geneva?” said Sir Charles. “Oh lots of scope there, lots of money. Very interesting things happening there. I would not want to keep you.”
“Oh no, it’s not settled yet,” Oliver said, encouraging Sir Charles back into his chair. “I’ve only just had the offer. There’s lots to discuss... Lots of room for change. Can I get you any coffee?”
“You’re too kind,” Sir Charles said, smiling.
Hermann looked at him, his mistrust blossoming into dislike. This was a confident, prosperous, well-treated man—a man who had had everything he wanted in this life and still wanted more. They would only get what they wanted if they gave him what he asked for first.
Hermann folded his arms.
Oliver returned with the coffee, handing it to Sir Charles apologetically.
“Thank you so much. Shall I go on?”
“Please,” Oliver said.
"I understand that you've made some fascinating discoveries in the field of consciousness. Yes, I know, you haven't published anything yet, and it's a long way from dark matter. Nevertheless, word gets around. I myself am very interested in that. I’d be very pleased if, for instance, you were to concentrate your research on the manipulation of consciousness.
“Second, the many-worlds hypothesis—I would be very interested to see you take that further. And that is a line of research that might even attract defense funding. And that funding is not subject to these wearisome application processes.
"Don't expect me to reveal my sources," he went on, holding up his hand as Hermann opened his mouth to ask. "I mentioned the Official Secrets Act. I’ll say no more, for the time being. I confidently expect some advances in the many-worlds area.
“And third, there is a particular matter connected with an individual. A child."
He paused there, and sipped the coffee. Hermann paled.
"I have friends," Sir Charles continued, "in the intelligence services. They are interested in a child, a girl, who has an unusual piece of equipment—an antique scientific instrument, certainly stolen, which should be in safer hands than hers. There is also a boy of roughly the same age who is wanted in connection with a murder. And he has been seen with the girl.
“Now, Dr. Gottlieb? Perhaps you have been contacted by one of these children. And perhaps you have told the police—quite properly—what you know of them. But you would do well to let me know privately. I can make certain the proper authorities deal with it efficiently and quickly. I know that Inspector Walters came to see you yesterday, and I know that the girl turned up. You see, I do know what I'm talking about. I would know, for instance, if you saw her again, and if you didn't tell me, I would know that too. I think you understand that.
"Well.” He stood abruptly. “I’ll leave my card. I hope to hear from you soon—the funding committee meets tomorrow, as you know. But you can reach me at this number at any time."
Oliver showed him out, taking the card and thanking him. Hermann sat, arms folded, his blood running cold.
When Oliver had shut the door, he turned to his colleague. “Hermann, what’s wrong with you? A savior appears, and you give him the cold shoulder?”
“A savior? I beg your pardon—did you listen to what he said?”
“You’re not thinking of turning down his offer!”
“You aren't thinking of taking it?” Hermann said. “It wasn’t an offer, Oliver, it was a threat. Do as he asks, or be shut down. All those hints about Official Secrets and national security? They want to turn our work into weapons! You heard what he said about consciousness—not understanding it, manipulating it.”
“And?”’
“And, and what? I’m not helping them design new ways of killing, Oliver.”
“They’ll do it without you, and you’ll be unemployed. If you stay, you could influence the program, make it go in a better direction. You’d be involved!”
“What does it matter to you?” Hermann said. “You’re going to Geneva, or aren’t you?”
“Well...”
Hermann narrowed his eyes. “Well? You would stay if we had a nice, cushy defense budget?”
“It’s not exactly that, but...”
Oliver looked at him, uncomfortable.
“What are you getting at, Oliver?”
“That if you won’t call Sir Charles... I will,” he said at last.
Hermann opened his mouth, then shut it. He looked at Oliver coldly.
“I see.”
“Hermann, I mean, I’ve got to think of—”
“Oh, of course.” Hermann stood up. “Your career, of course.”
“No, you don’t understand—”
“No, of course I understand. You follow all his orders, you get funding. I leave, you take over. You get a bigger budget, better machines, all sorts of assistants. Oliver, you go ahead. I’m sure you’ll sleep soundly at night, knowing who is using your research and for what.” He picked up his bag, his cane, and looked at his former colleague one last time. “The kind of man who’s tracking down children under cover of night. Children, Oliver.”
“Hermann, you don’t...”
Hermann shook his head. He strode across their lab and left without another word.
He drove home, so angry he felt calm. All the stubborn steadfastness of his nature had at last lost its hold and was rushing downstream—to the opposite side, to whatever side was opposite Sir Charles and Inspector Walters and, god help him, Oliver Payne. He was going to what Lyra had said, and he was going to protect her by doing it.
Just before midnight, Hermann shut the door to his lab. He leaned back against the inside of it. He was out of breath. A security guard had stopped him on his way in—a security guard? In this building? He stood catching his breath in the green darkness of his lab, thinking about what he was about to do. The appearance of the security guard only proved how little time he had left. This would be the last time he made it into this lab. He locked the door, and hurried to the back room.
Hermann turned on the Cave’s computer and inserted the floppy disc he had been working on all day at home. He worked for an hour longer, trying to twist something concrete into something impossible; but the gears turned, and ideas, undisciplined, half-baked, instinctive, stacked and fit together into something that seemed, against all logic, to work.
Breathing quickly, Hermann put the electrodes onto his head before he had time to stop himself.
He started typing.
Hello. My name is Hermann Gottlieb. I am trying to communicate.
With a shiver, he watched the screen. His words stared back at him before fading. This was impossible—impossible impossible impossible, said his brain, digging in its heels one last time. Trust your senses, said another part of himself. One he never wanted to listen to. This is your work. Trust your work.
He listened now.
A girl named Lyra suggested this, as an alternative to a state of mind, but
Before he could finish, the cursor raced ahead, typing out:
ASK A QUESTION.
Hermann’s heart dropped. He felt himself detach from the chair, the floor, the earth, as if gravity had been turned off. He was floating, floating in space.
But it was not just shock. He was there... here, in the universe. He was hearing it. Speaking with it. Part of everything. The wonder at that was enough to lift him off the ground.
He had to calm down to get himself back into the trance. When he did, the answers started coming almost as fast as he could articulate them.
You are Shadows?
YES.
The same as Lyra’s Dust? Dark matter?
CORRECT. ASK MORE QUESTIONS.
Hermann collected himself. What to ask. Best not to meditate on it, to just follow his instinct.
What mind am I speaking with? The consciousness of dark matter?
WE ARE A CONSCIOUSNESS, YES.
How many are you?
UNCOUNTABLE BILLIONS.
But what are you?
ANGELS.
This almost threw Hermann out of his rapturous trance. He had been raised in the church, of course—he had almost given his life to it. He knew its teachings inside and out. And he had run as far away from it as he could. Hadn’t he?
Angels? Of a Biblical nature?
IN A SENSE. BUT THE WAY HUMANS UNDERSTAND ANGELS IS INCOMPLETE.
Are you saying that angels are made up of Shadow particles?
STRUCTURES. COMPLEXIFICATIONS. YES.
He thought of the skulls, the thirty thousand year cutoff.
Did you intervene in human evolution?
YES.
Why?
VENGEANCE.
Hermann shivered.
Rebel angels?
YES. YOU MUST FIND THE GIRL AND THE BOY. WASTE NO MORE TIME.
Why?
YOU MUST PLAY THE SERPENT.
What
GO TO A ROAD CALLED SUTHERLAND AND FIND A TENT. DECEIVE THE GUARDIAN AND GO THROUGH. TAKE PROVISIONS FOR A LONG JOURNEY. YOU WILL BE PROTECTED FROM THE SPECTERS.
But
BEWARE THE ASSASSIN. TRUST THE I CHING. YOU WILL MEET A FRIEND. YOU MUST TRUST HIM AS WELL. BEFORE YOU GO, DESTROY THIS EQUIPMENT.
Why me? What is this journey? I need to know more
YOU DO NOT. YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE.
YOU HAVE BEEN PREPARING FOR THIS JOURNEY AS LONG AS YOU HAVE LIVED. YOUR WORK HERE IS FINISHED. THE LAST THING YOU MUST DO IN THIS WORLD IS PREVENT ENEMIES FROM TAKING CONTROL OF IT. DESTROY THIS EQUIPMENT. DO IT NOW AND GO AT ONCE.
Hermann leaned back like a damned man. He pulled the electrodes off his head and shut off the screen. The words rang in his very ribcage: You have been preparing for this journey as long as you have lived.
He turned off the Cave and turned the computer screen back on. He formatted the hard disk, took it out of the computer, and put in his bag. He removed the adapter card that connected the computer to the Cave, put it on the floor, and smashed it with the handle of his cane. He disconnected the wiring of the detector, then searched for the electrical plan in the file cabinet. He found it, tore it in half, fourths, and then set it alight. It burned to nothing in the empty tin trash bin, curling into itself and disappearing without a sound.
He took any other files that looked informative. He would get rid of them on the way home. Oliver would remember much of the designs, but this would set him back significantly. Then he switched off the light, closed the door, and locked it behind him one last time.
An hour and a half later, he was packed and parked at the end of Sutherland Ave. The last of the hardware and research had been disposed of. He had found his old camping rucksack, unused for almost ten years, and packed it as if for backpacking. Here he was. He shut his car door and set off.
The 2 AM hush was oppressive. The sky hung blue and dull and close. It seemed he could hear every sleeping parent and child and dog and squirrel around him, and that a single loud step would wake them all. He had never known an Oxford so dark.
Your work here is finished.
His home for the last ten years was changing. His work had ended. So this was not his home any longer. His lungs worked painfully, as if he did not have enough air to breathe. He was going. His doubts were not gone—it was his doubts that moved his feet forward. His doubt and his momentum. For what Hermann committed to, he committed to. He had his doubts about Dust, angels. He did not doubt the need to find answers about them.
He turned the corner. Strange, imaginary-looking trees, Hornbeam trees, lined the block like a queue of inquisitive onlookers. And there on the grass was a tent of red and white nylon, a police tent. An unmarked van was parked close by, white, with tinted windows. Hermann walked straight for the tent.
The van opened and an officer stepped out. He was young and tall, and the streetlight lit his face in an unreal way.
“Good evening sir, where do you think you’re going?”
“Into that tent,” Hermann replied, pulling to a stop.
“I’m afraid not sir,” said the policeman. “I’m under orders not to let anyone inside.”
“Good,” said Hermann crisply. “You had better not. I’m from the Department of Physical Sciences, I’ve been asked by Sir Charles Latrom to make a preliminary survey. I’m to report back to him before the team comes tomorrow. We’ve been asked to do it now, when there aren’t many people around. You understand.”
“Well, yes,” he said a bit helplessly. “But do you have proof? Of who you are?”
“Naturally,” said Hermann, reaching inside his jacket. He had stolen an old library ID of Oliver’s from his desk. With some careful photo mounting and lamination, Hermann’s own picture was now next to Dr. Oliver Payne’s name. The policeman looked at it wth a frown.
“‘Dr. Oliver Payne,’” he read. “Do you work with Dr. Hermann Gottler?”
“Gott—Gottlieb?” said Hermann, improperly stifling a corrective urge. Could the policeman see him flush under the streetlight?
It seemed he could not. “Yes, that must have been it. Do you know where he is?”
“He’s a colleague,” said Hermann. “I assume he’s home sleeping. Why?”
“Well, I’ve been asked to look out for him. He’s been terminated from your department, isn’t that right? We’ve been instructed not to let him through here. I thought you might be him.”
Hermann straightened his back. “I see.”
“My apologies, Dr. Payne. This seems in order.” He handed Hermann’s forged card back. “Do you know what’s in there?”
“No,” said Hermann plainly. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Naturally, naturally. Alright then, Dr. Payne.”
Hermann nodded stiffly and thanked him. Deceive the guardian. He stepped into the tent. And now? Was Lyra in here? A being of Dust? A strange fossil, even a meteor?
No, it was nothing like that. It was nothing like he had ever seen. Hermann Gottlieb stood transfixed in front of it. It was a window, floating a foot or two off the ground. A window in space, a cut between worlds—yes, he knew, with a gut certainty repugnant to all his rational sensibilities, that he was looking into another world.
He hesitated but a moment, and then stepped out of Oxford and into the sleeping city by the sea.