Chapter 9

Professor Gounelle made the first breakthrough.

Ethan and Taraskin, having both arrived early for the day’s meeting, were discussing whether anything could be salvaged from Ethan’s failed hexon calculation, and had agreed that Ethan would put together a paper containing some more modest results that had arisen from the work. Gounelle swept in and sat behind her desk. Her eyes were red and clumps of hair had worked loose from her bun.

‘I have managed to use the theory of gravitational geometry to show how a stable object with the spheron’s properties could exist,’ she declared, ‘though I cannot yet explain its mechanism of creation.’

She began writing on the blackboard, vocalising her formulae as nonchalantly as if she were reading out a shopping list. Unable to keep pace with the algeba, Ethan glanced surreptitiously round the office. Taraskin was following Gounelle’s working through narrowed eyes, probing for weaknesses in her argument. Olivia, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Gounelle underlined her final line and put the chalk down. The derivation may have been incomprehensible to Ethan, but the meaning of her last equation was inescapable.

‘Professor Gounelle, are you saying that we’ve … punched a hole in spacetime?’ he said, uncertainly.

‘If you wish to put it so crudely, then yes,’ she said.

‘Then what is inside the spheron?’ Ethan asked, ignoring Taraskin’s smirk at this apparently asinine question.

Gounelle, however, was more sympathetic. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Or rather, your question is as ill-defined as asking what a hole is made of. If my model is correct, then our universe now consists of everything we can see around us, but with the interior of the spheron excised. The spheron is a boundary, the inside edge of space, if you will. This is why we cannot interact with it, and why it is so smooth. It consists of nothing but curved space.’

‘I have been in further contact with my colleague Sergei,’ Taraskin told them. ‘He has confirmed that the detection at SuSGAD was made at precisely the same time the spheron was created. If the spheron is indeed an artefact of spacetime geometry, then the detection likely occurred as a result of its creation.’

‘But there is something else we must consider,’ he continued. ‘Your calculation does not take discrete aetherics into account. In particular, you’ve made no use of the bifurcation equation or the coupling field. They might explain how the spheron was created.’

‘A valid point,’ Gounelle replied, ‘but unfortunately incorporating the bifurcation equation remains mathematically intractable.’

As the meeting drew to a close, Gounelle reiterated her deadline, declaring that in two weeks time she would give a seminar on their findings and invite further collaboration from the scientific community.

***

Ethan trudged across the grounds of the Institute towards the Anderson Building, where an afternoon of marking undergraduate assignments on basic aetherics awaited him.

The prospect of sharing news of the spheron more widely had made MG’s note resurface in his mind. He had come close to revealing to Olivia the truth the last time they visited the spheron, but had not been able to bring himself to do so. He might well have told her after today’s meeting, had she been there.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice hollering from across the quadrangle. ‘The man of the moment!’

He looked up to see Rob Hamilton marching towards him.

‘You’ll be more famous than your father soon.’ Rob winked amiably then strode off in the direction of the Manipulator.

Ethan sank onto a nearby bench. The truth about his plagiarism would inevitably be revealed one day, and the longer it took the worse it would be. He could no longer pretend to himself that the bifurcation equation was all his own work.

He stood up and turned away from the Anderson Building. Marking could wait; it was time to make one last trip to the library to look in the Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées in case there was anything else hidden therein. Then, at tomorrow’s meeting with the professors, he would confess to his fraud.

***

The basement room in the University Library lay lifeless and abandoned, lit only by the light of a leaden sky, filtering through the grimy window. The two copies of the January 1864 edition of the Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées appeared undisturbed since Ethan’s last visit. He selected the same one as last time and settled himself at the nearby desk. Turning to the back of the journal, he began rifling through its pages.

He approached the front cover of the January 1864 edition some time later, having found nothing. He flicked past an editorial … a table of contents … then paused. Tucked behind the title page was a sheet of heavy, cream parchment. He unfolded it to find a short note, handwritten in immaculate script.

December 18th, 1877

Dear Mr Bradshaw,

You may have read about the tragedy at Arnthwaite Hall, Westmorland, earlier this year, as a result of which I no longer have use for this volume. I enclose it in the hope that it finds better use in your library than I could make of it.

I am, Sir, yours very truly etc.

Sir Malcolm Goodwin

Ethan grabbed his Babbage machine from his bag, and searched for the name Malcolm Goodwin. The hub signal in the basement was infuriatingly weak, and when the results finally arrived, it was apparent that none of them referred to a Malcolm Goodwin who might have been alive in 1877.

He tried Arnthwaite Hall next. At the top of the first result was a faded photograph of a man in a top hat, his pockmarked face staring severely out of the screen. Below it was an article.

Fabian the Fabulous

Fabian the Fabulous was a renowned illusionist of the Victorian era, known for his seemingly impossible illusions, many of which remain unexplained to this day.

He came to prominence in the 1880s with a travelling show, which toured throughout Cumberland and Westmorland. As his fame rose, he secured a place on the bill at the Egyptian Hall, London, after which he put on a string of triumphant performances throughout Europe.

Among his most celebrated illusions were The Transplanted Man, in which he transferred himself instantly from one trunk to another, and The Compliant Reflection, in which he commanded his reflection to bend to his will.

Several books have been written by respected historians of magic, speculating how Fabian the Fabulous performed the illusions which so dazzled Victorian society. Some historians believe he possessed a secret twin, though no concrete evidence of such was ever found during his life, and there are no known birth records to check the veracity of the claim. Further doubt has been cast on the theory since any twin would have had to bear an identical set of distinctive facial scars as his brother.

The later career of Fabian the Fabulous was dogged by accusations of malfeasance, including robbery, battery and sexual assault, though no charges were ever brought against him.

The article continued below but did not appear to have anything to do with Arnthwaite Hall and it was unclear why it had even been included in the search results.

The next result was a faded black and white photograph, which slowly materialised onto the screen, showing the burnt out shell of a manor, a forest encroaching onto its crumbling walls. Below it was a reference to a newspaper story. With mounting exasperation Ethan waited for the article to arrive.

Westmorland Gazette

July 21st 1877

STOP PRESS NEWS

Fire at Arnthwaite Hall

The Lady of the Manor of Arnthwaite, Caldmere Moor, Westmorland, is feared deceased in a great fire that, yesterday night, engulfed the family seat of the Goodwin baronetcy.

All persons present, with the exception of Lady Goodwin, have been accounted for, but Arnthwaite Hall itself is reduced to a ruinous shell and is unsafe to enter. The cause of the blaze is believed to be a lightning strike.

The signal in the basement was too weak to warrant searching further. But at least Ethan finally knew the identity of his temporally displaced collaborator: Malcolm Goodwin. The discovery had created more questions than it answered, but, irrespective of the consequences for him personally, this was no longer his secret to keep. It was time to tell the professors.

***

Gounelle and Taraskin were already in Gounelle’s office, chatting animatedly when Ethan arrived the following day, having spent the morning catching up on yesterday’s marking.

‘Professors, there’s something I have to –’

‘Read this, Ethan,’ said Gounelle. He looked down at the sheet of paper she had just shoved into his hand.

Antoinette,

After a tremendous effort by my technicians to move the instruments from the Thomson Building to the Manipulator, Rob and I finally have some results to report. The first thing we did was to weigh the spheron and measure its diameter precisely by interferometry. I can now reveal that its density is similar to that of water.

Unfortunately, that is all I can reveal, because almost all of our subsequent tests ended in failure.

First, we looked at the spheron using a negaton microscope. This was more difficult than anticipated, as it involved using suction cups and evacuation pumps to create a vacuum around a tiny portion of the spheron. It revealed nothing but smoothness all the way in. Whatever the spheron is made of is far smaller than the resolution of a negaton microscope.

Next we fired electromagnetic waves at the spheron. At every frequency, from radio to hyperviolet, the radiation bounced straight back. The spheron appears to be the world’s most perfect mirror.

We also tried ultrasonic scanning, but detected no acoustic transmission whatsoever. Sound simply slides round the spheron like everything else.

Finally, we tried taking samples. Yet our diamond cutters were unable to scrape off so much as a single mote from the spheron’s surface.

I do have one positive result to share with you though, a somewhat serendipitous discovery made by Rob only last night. One of the technicians was wheeling the spheron’s plinth out of the way to let Rob past with the microwave generator when Rob noticed the needle on the electric field-meter flickering. Further investigation revealed the tiny field was present only when the spheron was moving, suggesting that the spheron was magnetic. But this made no sense, for our magnetometer had detected no magnetic fields around the spheron.

After Rob hubmailed me, I returned with a bar magnet to check for myself. I felt a slight attraction from the spheron when I held the magnet to its surface. Yet when I held the opposite pole up I felt the same pull. I tried this all over the surface and it was the same everywhere: whichever pole I held up was attracted to the spheron.

I’m confused. what sort of a magnet behaves like that? Could the spheron be a magnetic monopole – a lone north or south pole without its partner?

So it’s over to you, Antoinette. The spheron is smoother than ice, harder than diamond, perfectly reflective, and exhibits paramagnetic properties which make no sense. What theory predicts this?

I’m enclosing a data sheet containing all our measurements and look forward to seeing you soon.

Angus

Ethan looked up to see Gounelle staring at him expectantly.

‘Your thoughts?’ she asked.

‘My initial reaction was that the spheron is a stable, macroscopic version of the temporary monopoles created within the Manipulator,’ Taraskin said, before Ethan could muster a single thought. ‘But on balance I think it more likely that Angus and his team have made an error.’

‘Evgeny, I would urge you to be more respectful of Angus Cruickshank’s reputation as an experimentalist. Let us accept his results unless we have good reason not to.’

Ethan was little more than a spectator as the professors discussed the development. Gounelle’s theory matched Cruickshank’s data well, though it failed to explain the spheron’s reflective or magnetic properties. If the spheron truly was a magnetic monopole, then the implications were huge. The laws of elemental physics themselves would need to be rewritten.

‘We should postpone next week’s seminar,’ Taraskin said. ‘We are on the cusp of something, and should follow it to its conclusion first.’

Gounelle would not be swayed though, insisting it was their moral duty to share the discovery with the wider community. When it was clear no further progress would be made, the theorists parted ways. Gounelle and Taraskin declared their intention to visit the spheron the following morning. With nothing else in his diary that afternoon, Ethan had no intention of waiting that long.

But as he left the Newton Building, his excitement was tempered by the knowledge that he had once again failed to mention MG’s note. Gounelle and Taraskin would have left to give lectures by now, but Ethan ached with shame and longed to share the burden. He extracted his machine and began to type.

Hi Olivia,

Can you meet me at the spheron? I’m heading there now and I need to share something with you about my work.

There’s also some new data in from Cruickshank, though I don’t know if you’re still interested in this – we haven’t seen you in a while.

Ethan

***

Ethan took a magnet from a workbench near the spheron. Just as Cruickshank had described, he felt a slight pull when he held it up to the spheron’s surface. A little experimentation confirmed the same force was present irrespective of the orientation of the magnet or its position on the surface.

Still harbouring some hope that Olivia would arrive, he paced before his reflection while idly flipping a coin. It was hard to accept Gounelle’s claim that the object in front of him wasn’t really a thing at all. Even if it didn’t feel so, it looked tangible.

Eventually, he accepted that Olivia would not be joining him. With a final toss of the coin he turned towards the lift.

Tails.

He glanced at his reflection in the spheron.

Heads.

Ethan suddenly became acutely aware of his surroundings; the low buzz of the ceiling lamp, now amplified to a roar, the pool of light below it, it’s edges quivering, his scalp tightening, breath shortening, and every pound of his heart, loud enough to echo through the concourse. He cast around and peered into the gloom of the Equatorial Ring Road, but there was nobody there.

Several more times he flipped the coin and as often as not, the tosses did not match. There were discrepancies in the timing of the throws now too, his reflection sometimes releasing the coin an instant before him, sometimes just after.

When he could no longer trust his shaking hands, he fell still, the coin comfortingly solid on his sweaty palm. He clasped his fingers around it, clinging to the certainty it offered.

Finally, he looked up, and his eyes met those of what he realised could not, any more, be called his reflection.

***

Ethan waved, pulled faces and stuck out his tongue. And on the surface of the spheron his distorted image matched his every movement, almost, but not quite, perfectly. It was as if the spheron contained a twin, amusing himself with a game of imitation.

He could not hear the Ethan within the spheron, and when he reached out he was still unable to feel anything as his hands slipped across its surface.

Reaching into his bag, he unrolled his Babbage screen. Are you me? he wrote and held it up.

The Ethan within the spheron displayed his own screen.

Ethan cleared the screen and wrote, I’m Ethan. 23 years old. Taraskin’s student. At almost the same time, the other Ethan held up a message within the spheron.

It certainly looked like his handwriting, though there were some minor differences in the spacing. But a part of him still did not believe this could really be happening.

Carefully shielding the screen, he wrote, Geography exam. I was 12 years old. I cheated. Nobody else knows. As he held it up, he saw in the spheron a nearly identical message.

As their strange correspondence continued, the disparities in their messages grew and the movements of Ethan’s double became increasingly independent. Ethan realised that they might be able to accelerate the divergence even further. He caught the eye of his double and paused, finger hovering over his screen. There was no need to write the idea down, for they were both thinking it.

He flipped a coin. Heads. The Ethan within the spheron threw heads too. They flipped again. Heads versus tails. Ethan wrote the next message. When you look at me, what do you see?

‘How can each of us see the other as being inside a sphere?’ Ethan murmured.

Did I create you in my experiment? he wrote. He knew what the reply would be before the other Ethan had finished.

It was then that Ethan finally realised what his bifurcation equation really meant. His mirror image duplicate had been there ever since the spheron came into being. But it had taken until tonight for the disparities between them to grow from the subatomic level to the macroscopic.

He began writing another message then stopped and crossed the words out. What could he possibly say? The Ethan within the spheron possessed the same memories as he did. There was nothing one knew that the other did not. Chuckling at the absurdity of the situation, he wrote, I’m not sure if this is a conversation or a monologue, and held up his screen with a shrug.

What do we do next? Ethan wrote. He needn’t have waited for the answer, for he knew what it would be.

Ethan had already composed his reply. Let’s tell our versions of Taraskin and Gounelle. Now.