‘That’s not possible,’ Souto answered and was echoed by several other voices.
‘All right, smartarses, it was just a suggestion,’ said Saybin tartly.
Dreiser said, ‘Just to make it clear, I can show you what we actually saw in our screens.’
A large 3vid hung in the air above the dais, as Dreiser projected it. The image was as severe as a text-book diagram. It showed, against the fuzzy grey background, a colourless blur that wavered before shooting up a step halfway along, then continuing on a straight horizontal course.
‘The phase is the vertical,’ Dreiser explained. ‘The horizontal is time. In this case, it’s something like 0.5 of a nanosecond from one side of the screen to the other. The step up is 4. As you see, the signal is not at all clear. But the step function makes it plain that something passed through the ring from above to below. Otherwise the step would have been down by the same 4. The oscillation before the step becomes more complex throughout our series of glitches.’
A silence fell over the proceedings.
The image faded from overhead.
Kathi spoke quietly from her seat, without getting up. ‘So you’re all off track. Forget the HIGMO question. The glitches are being caused by Chimborazo itself.’
Laughter came from some scientists as well as the audience.
‘Chimborazo is causing the glitches,’ repeated Kathi, as if the statement was made more understandable by being recast.
This time the laughter was more mocking.
‘Let’s hear what the lady’s case is,’ Dreiser interjected. ‘Give her a chance. What’s on your mind, Kathi?’
She flashed him a grateful look before standing to say, ‘Arnold Poulsen is experimenting to see whether his 16-hertz sound oscillations will cause people to be more conciliatory towards each other. As yet, he has nothing conclusive.
‘Over the last few months, however, I have become convinced that we are experiencing a genuine improvement in personal relations. I notice the difference even in myself.’ At this there was brief laughter.
‘I’ve become equally convinced that this has nothing to do with Arnold’s experiment. Or, for that matter – sorry, Tom – with the Utopia effect. No, it’s Chimborazo working on us, the Watchtower of the Universe.’ She paused to let this sink in, confronting her audience with arms akimbo.
‘We know there is a powerful consciousness in that being. We get a CPS, and this has now been confirmed on an ordinary savvyometer, which we modified to accommodate an extremely low frequency range. Our rapidly advancing friend has plenty of awareness right enough!’
She paused as we all took a deep breath at that.
‘We know too – or we think we do – that Chimborazo is a symbiotic and epiphytic being; all its component life forms have learned to cooperate rather than compete. That strong cohesive influence appears to work satisfactorily.
‘I do not think it would be at all surprising if this “influence”, whatever it is, has had its effect on our own human conscious behaviour. We know that quantum effects can hold over great distances. Quantum entanglements between photons have been observed to stretch over a hundred thousand kilometres at least. Probably there is no limit.’
‘Sounds to me like fifteenth-century mysticism,’ remarked Thorgeson. ‘The Will of God.’
‘Well,’ Kathi said challengingly, in something like her old style, ‘so what does that prove? Not all fifteenth-century mystics were fools!’
Dreiser, ignoring this exchange, said to Kathi. ‘You talk about your Chimborazo – if I’m forced to use that label -having a powerful consciousness. Would you care to clarify that for us?’
Several of the men sitting behind him showed signs of discontent. They evidently did not like the respect Dreiser – the great Dreiser Hawkwood – paid this newcomer.
Once he had given Kathi the floor, she went happily on.
‘Well, we still aren’t sure about consciousness. It’s a riddle awaiting solution. The CPS device is simply a passive detector, much as a Geiger counter used to register radioactivity. It does not in any way alter consciousness. It registers the presence of consciousness by the effect of consciousness on a quantum state-reduction phenomenon – let’s say on some coherent quantum superposition involving a large number of calcium ions.