VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 25: PUBLIC EDUCATION
ARTICLE FOR EARTH AND MARS PUBLICATION, FRISOL, 20TH FEB, 2272
Some enquiring minds have written in over the past few months, wanting to know what on Earth I was talking about when I talked about 'bad men with lists' in my little song about 'code red'. Well, I'm not on Earth, I'm on Mars (you might have noticed). In the folksong genre you often get common themes, that you play with, and people can say yes, that's a familiar topic, and then they're more forgiving if you break other rules.
There is one common thought in lots of Martian folk music: that the first colonists (firsters) or their descendants (known on Mars as seconders, thirders, etc) have a higher risk of 'random', 'accidental' death than normal Martians, and so need to hide who they / their parents are from people who're out to get them for unknown purposes.
Allow me to digress into some history of how and why that started, please. Frequent early computer glitches led to the population keeping their records of births and deaths on Mars on paper, with the big record books held well away from fire, windstorm and ultraviolet by the Mars Council. According to my sources, when MarsCorp tried to encourage computerised registration, in the early 2230s, the council said something like 'get people to register themselves if you want to, but we'll stick with paper records for the foreseeable future, it doesn't get radiation scrambled.'
Then, a folk-singer (who's now well known for his paranoia) wrote a song with a catchy tune that can be boiled down to two things:
1. Am I just paranoid for saying that people on the MarsCorp register with big claims have lots more 'fatal accidents' than people with small claims or not on the register, or is someone trying to kill off the firsters in arranged 'accidents'?
2. 'Why would anyone sane want to make it easy for assassins to find them?'
In the small, battered, community of Martians, ascribing unexplained deaths to secretive serial killers or assassins certainly made more sense than alien life-forms, and there did seem to be enough of a bias in the statistics that his idea caught on. When asked to register, people decided that maybe they needed a very good reason to, and decided they needed to check on their heaps, water their cabbages, or teach their children instead. What might be called a form of civil disobedience began, with people asking MarsCorp why they should bother to get on the register, as it had no greater legal force than their existing paperwork. And the MarsCorp employees decided they didn't have a good answer. After all, they hadn't had records until now, so they couldn't show they were actually needed for anything. Paranoia and conspiracy theories became ever more popular, people changed their names, split their holdings under registered aliases and swapped them among their friends and casual acquaintances so that an outsider would have no idea who owned what now. Some even started to speak about MarsCorp removing clauses from the settlement contract, which would grant full independence to Mars on the 75th anniversary of the firsters landing. Certainly there's nothing about that in the copy you'll see on MarsCorp's information site these days.
Young idealistic Martians claim this was also the time when MarsCorp admitted that it wasn't really the government of Mars: by accepting the alias registrations, MarsCorp accepted that it would no longer know who owned the land, and of course it also had no record of the number of Martians. Perhaps they have a point: the Council continues to make legal decisions, hold the legal register of Martians, and issue land title deeds. The counter argument, of course, is that if the Council is the government, why does your claim size depend on whether you come to Mars as a full-price ticket holder or on a social ticket?
Earth people might wonder how you can get anything done without birth certificates, etc. Well, thanks to the strict privacy laws, you need a really good reason to ask anyone who their parents are. Not even every criminal gets their parentage recorded. Setting up your first bank account, for instance, you need to confirm your name, but you normally do that with a claim certificate. Oh, and you don't need a driving licence for a Mars-buggy, you just demonstrate to the sales person or owner that you know what you're doing.
Heading slowly back to my song, MarsCorp press releases on Earth say they've no record of firsters, seconders or thirders. A typical born-Martian would reply to MarsCorp's statement, “Yeah, well, I'm not on their database either, that proves nothing.”
Were the assassins so successful then? Or is it that they're hiding successfully? Certainly, none have come forward to say 'Hey, I don't believe there's assassins or a hit list, let me register'. None have come forward to be interviewed by me either, for that matter, so who on Earth knows the truth? (those on Mars aren't telling of course).
So, maybe the folksongs are right, and seconders and thirders are mixed in the general population, quietly hiding their ancestry, and not claiming the rights the settlement contract their brave ancestor signed gives them. If there are assassins out there, trying to snuff them out, they'd be jits not to, wouldn't they?
Assassins aside, I think what it actually proves is that a small worried sub-group within Mars's population have managed to make sure that the Mega-corporation that runs most of the infrastructure on Mars has no way to find if they're alive. That's quite impressive in its own way.
To my mind, MarsCorp's press release some years ago should have said we presume they're dead or hiding, rather than that they're dead and then eulogising the firsters pioneering spirit. But the press relations office is on Earth. I've written before about massive wall of silence that grew up between Earth and Mars, and hopefully I've managed to break that wall down a little. It would seem very simple for it to affect MarsCorp employees too, unless someone at head-office told the press office to run everything past the Mars-based staff for an on-the-ground check. There is practically zero rotation between MarsCorp's Earth-based and Mars-based administrative staff, and the MarsCorp administrators sent to Mars that I've talked to were only slightly better prepared for the life and culture here than any colonists were. Reports presumably got filed without the cultural stuff percolating into staff orientation, or maybe people just hunker down and do the work head-office expects of them, without bothering to report what everyone at this end knows.
So actually, my song used this set of 'memes' in two ways. Not only do I talk about the 'men with lists', hunting people for some unknown reason, I'm also (fictitiously) reporting a conversation that a seconder or thirder mother might have with her children, fearing that the 'storm' (only deadly if you're caught unprepared, remember?) that made them hide before is returning.
Is it, or has it blown itself out it? Yesterday, the Mars Council released information that there were reports of someone claiming to be an autograph hunter with a list of seconders he was looking for. One source said he'd told her he was 'taking up where his Dad had stopped ten years before'. Conspiracy theorists would point out that ten years ago is when the last breather failed, (prior to mine, that is). The 'autograph hunter' was certainly on Mars at the time a box full of damaged breathers was delivered (including the one that might have killed me — I must have accidentally swapped with the original recipient). Others from the same batch have been traced have been subjected to destructive testing; they do not have the same damage. The Mars Council would be very happy to interview him, but it seems he is no longer working in his previous job as a comet catcher, and returned to Earth before he could be questioned. There is of course no hard evidence against him, only hearsay, suspicion and circumstance. Not enough for an arrest warrant, certainly. But there have been no more failed breathers, either.
So, there are many questions left unanswered, conspiracies continue to circulate (including, I admit, in my code-red song), and any seconders and thirders on Mars are breathing a little easier now the autograph-hunter has left. But I do find it interesting that the risk-taking Martian descendants of the greatest risk-takers in modern times are quite so concerned. Perhaps MarsCorp will release statistics about claim size and mortality rate from their records, so that the public can judge for themselves if it was just paranoia? And perhaps someone will be brave enough to talk to me at my office and show me their family tree, perhaps? I promise not to record your picture or address.
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ARTICLE FOR EARTH AND MARS PUBLICATION, MONSOL, 23RD FEB.
I have had some results at this end. I imagine that on Earth you're still reeling from the impact, but I can't delay this, sorry.
Since asking in my article for a release of data from MarsCorp, I've had a number of anonymous data-crystals arrive in my postbox. They show a distinct pattern. There's an encrypted backup from a database, and a little note that says something along the lines of 'when I was a student entering register data in 22XX at the MarsCorp office, I had access to this, and was told I should keep a copy at home as a backup in case of a glitch. I probably should have deleted it when I left, but I wasn't explicitly told to.' They then attached the password.
I've sought to check if it is indeed MarsCorp policy that this data be made available to temporary workers, and I've heard a number of other accounts of lax security practices, but no official word. The office is certainly swamped during the bi-annual influx, and I've heard anecdotes about a number of time-saving short-cuts being made. So, I've been handed multiple copies of a database showing arrivals (including ship and cabin number), births, deaths, claim sizes, parents, address at time of entry and for some people their account number. The size of the dump grows based on the date the leaker claims to have worked there. I've checked some friend's data and it seems to be accurate, which is quite scary, actually. I know roughly what this data would be worth on Earth to the criminal classes and the nefarious purposes it might be put to, and it'd certainly make me feel like a complete jit if I'd volunteered such information. In case you're wondering, there's a little box you can tick on your landing form that says you'd rather stay out of MarsCorp's database.
I have a dump from last year, so I've checked that I'm not on it. Well, I am, sort of; my name and ship is there but not the personal data.
So, I have no doubt that the dump is genuine. Urm, better data security in the future please Mars Corp?
It's too long since I studied statistics, but I extracted some anonymous data and showed it to a statistician at the university. They glanced at the data, hummed the melody of a famous song I've mentioned and showed me an archived but unpublished paper by the song-writer, from thirty-five years ago. The statistician assures me the analysis is correct. So, thirty-five years ago, when the song was written, there was significant correlation between registered claim size and mortality, but no correlation between claim size and mortality if you looked at the unregistered population. Statistically speaking, it was very unlikely to be random.
Looking at the more recent data: in the ten year block afterwards, there was still a correlation, but with less large claimants registering the data was less clear-cut. In the next ten-year block, three large claimants registered, all died from breather-failure within a year of registering.
So, it would seem, statistically speaking, that there is or was a serial killer or assassin after people with big claims.
Further, thirty five years ago, the scared song-writer split the dataset between those with firster blood and those without. Most of those registered with firster blood were dead. There was hardly any correlation between mortality rates and claim size in the general population, and further analysis showed that if he included people who by chance had the same surname as firsters the correlation went away entirely. Being registered and having some link to firsters, he concluded, was the principle cause of the increased mortality rates.
Even if better data security practices had been in place, that's no guarantee that the unknown killer would have found it impossible to access the database somehow, so we shouldn't follow the finger pointing of conspiracy theorists. But registering was indeed a really jit thing to do, and indeed with that level of insecurity, it still is. No wonder the seconders and thirders are hiding, no wonder that MarsCorp and the Mars Council, faced with a patient, careful, anonymous killer, allowed them to. It was the only way to protect them.
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MESSAGE TO WILLIAM MAUGH. MONSOL, 23RD FEB, 2272
Hi, William.
A mutual friend pointed this old photo of grandad out to me a while back. Don't you think it might be appropriate to re-publish it before some journalist digs out their copy, or an original signed copy of the contract turns up somewhere, say in the hands of an group of seconders?
Hope you still have your job after the upcoming shareholder's meeting.
Eloise
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MESSAGE TO ELOISE MAUGH. FRIDAY, 23RD FEB, 2272
So seconders do exist outside myths and songs?
William
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MESSAGE TO WILLIAM MAUGH. MONSOL, 23RD FEB, 2272
Yes. One sings folk music which sent shivers up my spine.
Eloise.
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URGENT MESSAGE TO EMILIA TREVORS, 3PM, FRIDAY 23RD FEB, 2272
Emilia, please consult archives for original of this picture. It was taken around the departure day for the first colonists. I'm not sure if the reference code is still correct. My suspicion is that our folk-music appreciating friend has a copy.
William Maugh.
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MESSAGE TO WILLIAM MAUGH. 4.30PM FRIDAY, 23RD FEB, 2272
Dear Mr Maugh,
It seems our computerised photographic archives have suffered from a computer glitch. All files that look like they should be photos from that period have been overwritten with the phrase 'Copied to archive crystal, July 2225'. This should have been a tagging process, not a replacement.
Checking up on our history page, I see that this was just before the renovations, during which an accident with a welding laser destroyed the Corporation's crystal based archives.
Eloise.
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URGENT MESSAGE TO EMILIA TREVORS, 4.45PM, FRIDAY 23RD FEB, 2272
Dear Eloise,
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Please explain to a selection of news organisations that we're trying to verify the authenticity of what seems to be an old press release picture. Summarise ancient accident, quote the reference number and attach a low resolution version (such that text on plaque is unreadable), and ask if they have that or similar pictures in their archives.
Many thanks,
William
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NEWS CLIP FOR MARS PUBLICATION, 24TH FEB
Hey, guess what! MarsCorp have just contacted my boss, admitting they lost a lot of rather important records. Here's some my paper's dug out of it's archive: Happy reading, the missing clauses are found.
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PRESS RELEASE FROM MARS CORP, MONDAY 26TH FEB, 2272
Mars Corp wishes to extend its heartfelt thanks to International News for helping rebuild part of the corporation's history. An extensive archive of press release photos from the founding of the corporation seems to have been lost about 50 years ago in an accident during some rebuilding work. We don't know if no one thought of asking news organisations at the time, or if it was decided that they were not interesting enough to bother.
One fascinating picture shows a plaque of the Martian settlement contract that contains a number of additional clauses to the version we know today. While we do not doubt the authenticity of the photograph, there is some uncertainty about how there came to be two versions of the contract.
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NEWS ARTICLE: GLOBAL NEWS, TUESDAY 27TH FEB 2272
Did MarsCorp conveniently forget independence for Mars?
Angry words are expected at MarsCorp HQ over the coming weeks, as an old photograph of a different version of the contract with the first hundred settlers has been found. Congratulations are to be given to MarsCorp for acknowledging that something's gone wrong, but really? Just forgetting a thing like independence for the colony? Those Martian conspiracy theorists are going to love this one, but we expect the shareholders are not going to be impressed.
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NEWS ARTICLE: INTERNATIONAL ENQUIRER, TUESDAY 27TH FEB 2272
Steal of the century: How Corporation almost stole brave Martians' future
MarsCorp's convenient fire and 'accidental' destruction of critical archive data has been rectified today, as they admit that the brave Martian colonists who've been living under threat of assassination for years have also been robbed of their rights. Since June the 6th, 2264, Martian colonists should have had between them a majority voice on the governance of MarsCorp. This right has been denied and ignored by the corporation, presumably much to the benefit of the big three shareholders and the executives who've mostly been making sure that the Martian voice isn't heard. Quite how their voice will be heard is going to be a challenge, but if most of the shareholders can't easily get to the shareholders meeting, perhaps the head office of MarsCorp ought to move to Mars.
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NEWS ARTICLE: INTERNATIONAL NEWS, TUESDAY 27TH FEB 2272
Palace: let promises to Martian heros be honoured.
In an unexpected breach of the protocol of silence that normally ensues if you ask any government which is a shareholder in MarsCorp about the corporation, the palace has today given the following reply about the confusion from MarsCorp about which contract was signed:
His Majesty's government are of course unable, under the terms of the shareholder treaty, to discuss any matter relating to governance of MarsCorp, but as there seems to be a matter of historic record at stake, which is indeed of constitutional priority, we hope that the attached image of the Martian settlement contract, as held in the Government archives, is helpful.
Clearly their majesties would be fully in favour of honouring the promises the corporation agreed with the firsters should any come forward, since any failure to do so would place their majesties in a constitutionally impossible situation. Our political correspondent expects a lot of angry words at the United Nations about how this state of affairs came to pass.
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NEWS ARTICLE FOR PUBLICATION ON EARTH AND MARS, MONSOL 1ST MARCH, 2272
Well, how's this for news? On Frisol I was all innocently on my way home from the office when I got stopped by my famous singer friend. As everyone who knows knows, he's known as Scaredy Jim — and it was his ancient paper I wrote about. Honestly, I didn't know there were still copies around. Now, sorry for keeping secrets, but... I've got to protect my sources, and under Mars law that includes protecting their privacy... so, I've actually known he was a seconder for a long time, but he asked me not to say. There's a surprise, he's been hiding.
He suggested that I'd like to come to a meeting, at his home. Wow! This is the most paranoid person on the planet, who most people don't even think has a home, and he's inviting me to it and telling me I can do an interview there, and write about where it happens. As long as I don't describe how to get there of course. Actually, I can tell you part of it: you grab your husband, cancel plans and let yourselves be blindfolded, and get in his MarsMobile, and wake up all arrived the next morning after you've dozed off. Part of the way there, he did let us take off our blindfolds. Have you ever driven across the Martian landscape by moonlight? Of course you haven't. No one's that paranoid. Oh. Yes he is. It's beautiful but... eek! I put my blindfold back on. Ignorance of missed rocks a few centimeters from the vehicle is definitely bliss.
After a while, around midnight, we stopped, and I looked outside. I could see some other MarsMobiles arriving, and others stopped already. Were we there? No, we were just waiting for a dust storm to start. He'd lead the way, he just didn't want anyone to look out of a spaceship and notice a convoy of MarsMobiles. Fortunatly, he did use his headlights during the storm. I'm pretty sure we didn't take a direct route, but like I say, I fell asleep. I woke up in what ought to be on the maps as a beauty spot, but knowing my friend, it isn't. Oh well, I wasn't here to take pictures, or describe the scenery. Imagine I was just off the picture in your favourite bit of Mars. No, not there, the other side, behind the cunningly invisible rock.
MarsCorp is absolutely wonderful about providing electricity. They have a power grid that covers almost the whole planet now, powered by lovely top of the line fusion reactors, which spend most of their power warming up the planet. If you have a claim, you can get electricity. OK, you need to pay for the transformer, but they provide the cables. So we had electricity. I don't know how Jim gets his oxygen. Maybe the plants in his underground greenhouses supply enough. Yes, seriously, he's got that much planted. Somehow, Jim must have managed to got hold of one of the tunnel boring machines that make the under-ground links between domes, and the shelters. Oh, it wasn't him, it was his dad. This was his dad's little weekend project after they'd built the first underground shelters and the dome, and they had no plans for the machines for a bit. And he told us all about how he did it. No, not Jim, his dad. Yes, Frank Gandhi is still alive. He doesn't travel much, but I've met a firster. I've shaken his hand and thanked him for the risks he took to open up this beautiful world. And I've seen his Earth driving license, and his copy of the settlement contract, and my wrist unit has verified his I.D. against his fingerprint.
Frank is not very happy with MarsCorp, or his native land, called them all sorts of unrepeatable things, in fact. Blames them for not even asking if he was still alive. But he's happy that they've finally seen sense and decided not to try to hide the truth any more.
How did this meeting happen? Well, someone with the gift of supernatural knowledge had been reporting to the Council that there were no assassins on or near the planet at the moment for the last few months, and Mack Fischer passed on word to his cousin Jim (Mack's father followed his big sister to Mars, but not on time to be at her wedding to Frank). Seeing a dust-storm was on its way, Frank and Jim decided to call a meeting of seconders, all that felt able to come. There were a lot of tearful reunions and a lot more reminiscing. Can you imagine? When these people were born the population was barely a thousand or even less on the whole planet — that's how big my school was — by the time most of them were around ten, eighteen thousand new arrivals were coming per opposition, and now the population is more than a million.
They're a rare breed, in all senses of that phrase. Thirty eight seconder children were born where both parents were firsters, but eight of these precious children died in early childhood. Fatalities were higher among adults, disproportionally so among the women who bore the risks of childbirth without much medical support. This gender imbalance was recognised and so one question that was openly asked of the candidates for the early second wave was would they consider being a widow's second husband or a widower's second wife. The answers were kept from the 24 firsters who remained alive by the time the second wave started. The new arrivals clear expectation was that they might well end up raising kids that weren't theirs. They were welcomed with open arms. There was no pressure, but there was certainly space given for friendships to develop.
Fifteen women from the second wave eventually became step-mothers to these first precious children, and nine of the newly arriving men eventually found themselves falling for the strong characters and resolute good humour of the firster women too. None of the firsters remained single for long. Four or five children per woman was normal, and some had more, so the total count of seconders rose to about a hundred and fifty. Orphans were adopted, and some of those raised as siblings had lost both genetic parents before their youngest sister or brother was born, with their step-mother remarrying. But genetics aside, they were family.
Of those hundred and fifty, thirty came, along with me and my husband, and a few Council members. A few others survive, but weren't able to come. Now, apart from Jim (who hid too well for his girlfriend to find until very recently) they all have children and grand-children. And the day has come when they have decided to declare they live. And they claim their rights under the contract: their votes on the governance of MarsCorp and in 2279, full independence. Quite what that latter means was not determined, but they agree it certainly means the following things:
1. Continuation of MarsCorp as a profit making transport and infrastructure company, overseeing the delivery of vital services on Mars, including the terraforming process.
2. The Mars council will have full control over immigration
3. The end of enforced migration, though certain classes of willing prisoners would be accepted under contract to governments.
4. MarsCorp will have no say in setting prices for transport on ships owned by other operators.
5. Diplomatic contacts with friendly nations
6. Diplomatic representation at the U.N.
7. Taxes. (here follow my inaccurate notes on that)
“Booo, do we have to?”
“Probably.”
“How?”
“Let's tax MarsCorp!”
“Yeah!”
“But we're going to be paying them for terraforming and infrastructure, aren't we?”
“And everyone pays something for deliveries or exports, so it balances.”
“And they're us.”
“But we're not getting any income from them.” (Frank)
“Why not?”
“Read the contract, lad.” (Frank to man of 55)
“Land tax?”
“Get lost. What sort of reward is that? Thanks for helping the colony, have a bigger tax bill?”
“Income tax?”
“Booo, do we have to?”
“How do you tax cabbages?”
“Hey, Jim, you studied economics, didn't you?”
Jim: “I'm a song-writer, leave me out of it!”
“Someone go hire an economist!”
Mack: “What with, the council's skint!”
Frank: “Gold.”
“What?”
“Go dig up some gold, Mack”
“What do you mean, 'gold', Frank?”
“Half a day that-away somewhere. Don't you read your mail? I told you twenty years ago.”
“That was a joke!”
“No it wasn't.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I did. Where's my glasses, bring me my old exploration diary won't you, Jim?”
“Yes, Dad. You really found gold?”
“'Course I did.”
“You never told me.”
“Must have.”
“Let's tax mining.”
“No. Let's nationalise it.”
“What's that mean?”
“Only we do it.”
“What, seconders?”
“No, the government.”
“Are we the government now then?”
“Good call. Let's leave all this stuff to the Council.”
“What about the gold? Someone'll claim it.”
Frank: “Can't. It's on council land.”
“Council land?”
“Yeah, like Voyager and the rest.”
“Oh, right.”
Me: “Excuse me, what's this about council land?”
Frank: “Can't have planetary treasures like the Voyager [sic] landing sites in the hands of any old grumpy bozo, can you? Gold's a planetary treasure too. Eminent domain applies. Old law from about thirty years ago. You don't want to go finding gold on your favorite claim or the council will push you off. OK, you'll get a massively big claim in compensation, but would that make up for your improvements? I doubt it.”
Jim: “Here's your exploration diary, Dad.”
(all eyes on Frank).
Frank: “Oh (expletive), that's right. I wrote it in code. Sorry guys. Grey matter failure. All I've got here is a list of girls names for the position. Key is lost in time out of mind.”
Jim: “Girlfriends in order, Dad?”
Frank: “I didn't have that many. There's fourteen different names here.”
Eventually, the code was guessed at. Frank had used his friends names: the names of the firsters, their children, and those they'd married from the second wave. He remembered the rest of the code after that. Why just use the women's names? He hadn't, he'd changed the men's names to be their female equivalent.
After the meeting, Frank, Mack and Jim set off on a journey of exploration and the rest of us went home (Simon and I got a lift). Mack tells me that there is indeed some gold, but not huge nuggets. And he asks me to remind people that gold is a strategic resource on Mars, and must be registered. Any land on which gold is found is council land, automatically (though compensation will be granted if it's on your claim). Interfering with another's claim is a serious crime. Interfering with council land is liable to get you sent for a long walk. So, there probably will not be a Martian gold-rush. Any gold people find will not be theirs, and possession of unregistered gold is already an offence.
On the other hand, greater availability of the yellow metal is good news for local industries.
Another type of 'gold rush' might be starting though; it's been proven that assuming the gravity isn't a problem it should be possible to grow sugarbeet locally on Mars. Processing is allegedly 'not too hard if you're not a jit' and my wanna contacts are saying that if they can occasionally feed the sugar craving they brought with them from Earth, then Mars might feel more like a good home now. There's been a long-running debate about whether pollinating insects are a necessary part of domed agriculture. Mars has got by until now without, and it was thought that no one was really missing the honey. It seems they were wrong. Perhaps if there's a demand for honey, it'd be better to have the occasional bee sting than spending a week trying to pollinate those apple blossoms with a little brush, too.
Mars is a beautiful place where it seems the one thing that never changes is change. Well, assuming the U.N. don't reneg on their promises, we've just had what might be the most peaceful revolution in history. What's next?
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“Lovely article, love,” Simon said.
“You're biased. So am I, how's my favourite physicist's work going?” Alice asked.
“It's wonderfully confusing, and very exciting,” Simon said.
“Go on.”
“That storm last month, when we had the power cuts?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“I've just been re-analysing the results from the experiment. Something very weird is happening.”
“This is your impossible hedgehog?”
“Yes. Forcefields only grow between emitters, they don't make little spikes away from one. But every test shows that's what's happening.”
“So what did your impossible hedgehog do during the storm? I thought you said the storm had ruined everything?”
“That's what I'd thought, all those spikes in the readings. But then I saw the official readings and it wasn't spiky. And I checked the log of the power cuts. The spikes coincide with the loss of power.”
“So you're saying you get radiation spikes when your hedgehog loses power? I thought that's what you were examining normally.”
“Yes. But normally I get a tiny little burst after a few hours. This time I got a massive burst after a few minutes.”
“I don't understand,” Alice said.
“My hedgehog as you call it seems to somehow be storing the radiation. You know how I've been puzzled why the better I shield my experiment the worse the numbers I got? Today I put a radioactive source next to it. Massive spikes on turn-off.”
“So you've got some kind of radiation shield?”
“Not really. If it worked as an actual shield, then you'd then have something that would turn it into a burst you really don't want to be near.”
“Not so good then.”
“Not as a shield, no.”
“So why is it exciting?”
“Because now I've got another handle on what sort of force it must be.”
“Yes?”
“You just can't store high energy charged particles by making them go in sub- millimeter diameter circles. They'd emit all their energy probably as gamma rays or something. Whatever my hedgehog is up to it's capturing them, not storing them. Somehow it's borrowing their energy and making them decide that they need to stay where they are. It's like they're getting bound into an atom or something like that. It captures protons, it captures neutrons, and alpha particles. Light and electrons, however, aren't really bothered by it. Does that sound familiar?”
“Not really, sorry.”
“I think my hedgehogs are mucking around with the weak nuclear force, the thing that holds atoms together.”
“Is that reasonable?”
“Not really,” Simon said. “So I need to do a lot more research before I publish much about them.”
“What would happen if you filled your hedgehog up to bursting? A black hole?”
“I doubt it. Nothing more dangerous than a neutron star.”
“That's all right then,” Alice said.
“But that'd mean a lot of fusion too.”
“Just be careful. I hope you're looking at your experiment with othersight to see if it's dangerous from time to time.”