Touchstone (Meridian Series) by John Schettler, Mark Prost Page A

he’s been responsible for in
all that time.”
    “True,” said Dorland,
overlooking his friend’s persistent error with the terminology. “I admit I’m
reaching. But Maeve is convinced this is a Temporal Variation, and we’ve got to
check on that DVD. In fact, we should do this now, before we go to the
lab. Kelly’s life is in danger here.”
    Nordhausen looked sharply at
Dorland. “You think it’s gone, don’t you.”
    Dorland kept his eyes on the
road. “No, I don’t, I just agree with Maeve, that we should keep it in a safer
place.”
    Nordhausen was silent for a
moment. “Kelly is in a Schroedinger’s Box,” he said with a sudden finality.
Dorland’s gave him an odd look, waiting for him to explain himself.
    Nordhausen went on. “Kelly is
like the cat in the Schroedinger’s Box. Except, he’s outside the box, but we
don’t know if he is alive or dead!”
    “Go on.” Paul was listening very
closely now, his attention divided between his driving and Nordhausen.
    “Well,” said Nordhausen, slowing
down as his theory ramified in his mind, “as you know, Schroedinger set up a
thought experiment, in which he put a cat in a box, with a bottle of prussic
acid and a trigger on the bottle hooked up to a Geiger Counter.”
    “Yes, yes, and the Geiger
counter was monitoring a source of ionizing radiation, with even odds that it
would or would not emit a detectible particle in any hour.” Dorland hurried him
along.
    “Slow down, let me work this
out,” Nordhausen protested. “Okay, let me see… In the thought experiment, after
the passage of an hour, the source either has or has not radiated, and the cat
is or is not dead, but occupies a condition that is both, until you open the
box and look.”
           “Yes, yes, Schroedinger tossed that out as an offhand
comment, and said that it was solved by observation, and a half dead and half
alive cat in a box was a logical nonsense. Many liberal artists like you take
it to mean more than it does.”
           “Well, whatever nonsense it is, we have a black box, and we
don’t know what is in it, and we are relying on what is in it to
maintain Kelly’s existence against Paradox. Sounds like a Schroedinger’s box to
me!”
           Dorland went into a brown funk as he drove, his mind
wrestling with time theory even as he twisted the wheel to navigate the narrow
road. They were in the Berkeley Hills, working their way along a wooded road
behind the university and the Lab complex.
           The night had come early with the appearance of a low, wet
front. The sky was darkening, although the rims of the clouds in the western
horizon were made brilliant by the low sun. It was suddenly cold and blustery,
with a light rain speckling the windshield. Dorland gripped the wheel harder,
his head poking forward to see through the rain. Thankfully,  a full moon was
riding high through the moving clouds, illuminating the way ahead with a
silvery sheen.
           “A Schroedinger’s box!” Dorland came out with that very
suddenly, as though his thinking had just reached a sure conclusion. “How can
you plan for something like that?”
     
    8
     
    Nordhausen was gripping the handle over the door in a struggle against the
momentum of the car as it rounded a tight bend in the road. His face was lit by
the green glow from the instrument dash, the only light in the darkness of the
cabin.
    “Perhaps Maeve is right,” he
said. “Maybe we should just dismantle the whole shop, shred the documents, and
part out the hardware.”
    “No! Taking care of Kelly is one
thing; the project is another matter entirely. Once we recover the DVD, and
figure out how to protect it, Kelly will be fine, and we will be able to
continue the project—and find out about your Rosetta Stone for starters.”
    “What is the project now
Paul? What are we supposed to do with it all?”
    “We’re standing a watch,” Paul
said. “We’re out on the walls of eternity with