‘That could be another illusion. Look, along one wall of our office we have one complete set of pigeon holes, all in their nice tidy sequence. Along another wall we have another set of pigeon holes. Two completely different sets. But there is only one light. It dances about in both sets of pigeon holes. Wherever it happens to be, there is the phenomenon of consciousness. One set of pigeon holes is what you call you, the other is what I call me. It would be possible to experience both and never know it. It would be possible to follow the little patch of light wherever it went. There could be only one consciousness, although there must certainly be more than one set of pigeon holes.’
I found this a staggering idea. ‘If you’re right it would be possible to be a million people and never know it.’
‘It would be possible to be much more than that. It would be possible to be every creature on every system of planets, throughout the universe. My point is that for every so-called different creature, for every different person, you need a separate set of pigeon holes. But the consciousness could be the same. There could even be completely different universes. Go back to my decaying nucleus. Hook up a bomb which explodes according to whether you have decay of a nucleus or not. Make the bomb so big that it becomes a doomsday machine. Let it be capable—if exploded—of wiping out all life on the Earth. Let the whole thing go for the critical few seconds, you remember we were considering whether a nucleus would decay in a particular ten seconds? Do we all survive or don’t we?
‘My guess is that inevitably we appear to survive, because there is a division, the world divides into two, into two completely disparate stacks of pigeon holes. In one, a nucleus undergoes decay, explodes the bomb, and wipes us out. But the pigeon holes in that case never contain anything further about life on the Earth. So although those pigeon holes might be activated, there could never be any awareness that an explosion had taken place. In the other block, the Earth would be safe, our lives would continue—to put it in the usual phrase. Whenever the spotlight of consciousness hit those pigeon holes we should be aware of the Earth and we should decide the bomb had not exploded.’
We walked on and on. There were weird implications here. ‘You speak about completely different worlds, different universes. Do you think there was a world in which everything went normally? I know I’m not using words perhaps in the way you’d like me to, but I think you can get the idea. Was there a world in which none of these queer things happened?’
‘I don’t have any doubt about it. There was certainly a world in which, on September 27th, the men in the trenches in Flanders had Lloyd George as their Prime Minister. We know what happened in that world. It remains to be seen what will happen in this one.’
I thought about this for a moment and then burst out, ‘You don’t mean to say those men out there are going through the same experiences that men actually went through in 1917? All the mud and the shellfire?’
‘Yes, of course. We’re not in a pretty world.’
‘But don’t you see what it means? Damn it all I had an uncle killed in those Flanders battles. For all I know he’s out there now.’
‘For all you know he may not be killed this time. For all you know you may see him. It’s fifty years on or thereabouts, so I don’t suppose there’ll be many queer cases. I mean of men being alive twice.’
Incredulously, I realized what he meant, someone who had survived the trench battles might still be living. There might be two of them, a young man out there in 1917 and an old man here in 1966.
‘But it’s fantastic. There can’t be two of you.’
‘You don’t seem to take much notice of what I’ve been talking about. Remember the states of consciousness, remember the subjective impression of consciousness is not the same thing as the pigeon holes of the physical world. The consciousness of the man in the trenches is not the same as the old man living over here. The pigeon holes are different and they can never be lighted up by the same spot of light.’
‘You mean the spot could dance about between the two of them but so long as the pigeon holes are different there would be the subjective impression of their being totally different individuals.’
‘Exactly the same as you and I have the impression of being different.’
We walked back in silence. I think both of us were overwhelmed, not only by these ideas, but by the situation that was soon to develop.
We got back to the garden. Then an odd detail occurred to me, ‘What was all that stuff about seismic disturbances?’
‘My idea, only a fancy if you like, runs something like this. I’ve told you we’re living in a new physical situation. A new bunch of pigeon holes. The game, as I see it, is that the new pigeon holes are similar in most respects to some of the pigeon holes in the other system. It’s as if the present world were built out of copies of bits of the old world. Do you remember the day on the moor below Mickle Fell? Don’t you realize it was a copy that came back to the caravan that night. Not quite a perfect copy, the birthmark was missing.
‘Well, this whole world is a copy of some of the bits from another, the more normal world. This world may be queer by every standard we’re used to but the bits must have a proper relation to each other.’
‘You mean there’s nothing supernatural in it?’
‘You might put it that way. Well, look what’s involved. Think about the Earth. Things change slowly as the years pass. Landforms are not quite the same now, in 1966, as they were in 1866. So if you copy the part of the Earth that corresponds to the England of 1966, and try to fit it to the Europe of 1917, and to the America of 1700 or 1800, things won’t exactly match.’
An idea was working itself around in my head. ‘You’d need a lot of information, wouldn’t you, to make copies like that?’
John paused as we entered the house. ‘Right you are, Dicky my boy. A lot of information. Remember what I said about that infra-red transmission. It was taking an awful lot of traffic.’
‘Traffic needed for the copying.’
John nodded and added in a whisper, almost as if he were afraid of being overheard, ‘Needed for the copying. We still don’t know how it was done but at least we know why. Different worlds remembered and then all put together to form a strange new world. We shall find out more as we go along. This isn’t the end of it.’
Chapter Eight: Allegro Molto e con Brio
As soon as we returned to the house John was collared by one of the service officers. I had spotted a piano earlier in the day. I went to see if there was any chance of my being able to play. Luckily the room with the piano was unoccupied so I shut the door and began to run my fingers over the keyboard. I was horribly out of shape and the first few minutes were pretty bad. I can’t remember exactly what I played. Fragments here and there mixed in with a lot of improvisation. I was pretty wound up. For me this was the best way to get any tensions out of my system.
I became aware that someone had entered the room. It was the Prime Minister.
‘I hope you don’t mind my playing a bit. There didn’t seem to be anybody about.’
‘Not in the least. It’s a relief to hear something different from this appalling situation we’re in.’
‘Is it true then? About Europe I mean?’
‘There doesn’t seem to be any doubt about it. Evidence is coming in from all directions. By radio, and by ships coming into port. The whole thing’s a fantastic chaos. Whenever a ship comes in, both sides, those on board and those on shore, think the other is completely mad.’