‘It would take me a day to explain the provenance of any one of these wonders,’ Croq said smoothly. ‘And of course the physical artefacts stored here are only a small percentage of the Palace’s holdings; far more is stored as data in the archives – what survives of them, anyhow.’
‘This is the fruit of the Assimilation,’ Marshal Sand said. ‘I studied the period at military school. It was an age that has some similarities with our modern times, this era of the Scourge – save then it was not the Xeelee burning their way across the Galaxy, but humanity.’
Vala looked up at her. ‘You’re certainly a more complex character than I once thought, Marshal. You’re a soldier who sounds as if she regrets the Assimilation.’
Sand shrugged. ‘What’s done is done. It would have been fascinating to travel the Galaxy before humans consumed its diversity, however.’
‘Do you believe in guilt, Marshal Sand? Do you believe that humanity is now being punished for our actions in the past? Whole religions have been built upon the premise.’
‘I know. Even in the military there are sects who worship the Xeelee as cleansing gods. I’m not a Transcendent, Academician. I don’t believe in the guilt of mankind – or in the possibility of the redemption of the species, as they did. But I do believe that if you waste any more time on analysing my personality—’
‘Quite, quite,’ Croq said nervously. ‘Let’s get to the point, shall we?’
He hurried them along a side corridor, and then into a room equipped with modern-looking Virtuals and data desks. This room, long and narrow, was dominated by two pieces of equipment, rather like upright coffins, Coton thought, made of some featureless grey material, and facing each other along the length of the floor. A couple of assistants, young, bright-looking, but nervous and subservient, huddled in the room’s corners.
Croq watched his party keenly, constantly aware of shifting moods and changing expressions. He really was a salesman, Coton thought. ‘I can see you’re impressed by the equipment we’ve assembled here. We’ve worked hard to get this right for you, Academician, and I believe we’ve found exactly what you required.’
Vala grunted, and flicked one of the coffin-boxes with a dismissive fingernail. ‘This, I presume?’
‘Academician, this is a teleport.’
Marshal Sand seemed intrigued, if unimpressed. She shut down her Virtual displays and stalked around the coffin-boxes, pacing out the distance between them. ‘A teleport, eh? And dug up out of the past – what did I tell you, Academician? No doubt teleports of one kind or another have been invented over and over.’
‘Indeed,’ said Croq. ‘And many alien variants were retrieved during the Assimilation.’
‘But it’s not a technology humans ever used much,’ Vala said. ‘Essentially you convert any object you’re sending – even human beings – into a stream of data to be transmitted. But that stream can be blocked or corrupted or illicitly intercepted. And the process is always expensive, as usually you have to destroy the rest mass of the object you wish to send.’
Sand nodded. ‘Because quantum information laws forbid the making of true replicas.’
Croq said, ‘Nevertheless, Academician Vala, I’m convinced this is your solution. As long as you have a communications link of some kind to your parallel universe out in the Bulk, you can use it to send a teleport signal. In fact I found a variety of suitable technologies in the archives – but I chose this, as I thought there was a certain poetic logic to it.’
Sand arched an eyebrow. ‘Poetic?’
‘This is Silver Ghost technology! And you Adepts are crucial to this process, aren’t you?’ He stepped up to Coton and gazed into his eyes, as if they were windows into Coton’s skull. ‘You actually have Silver Ghost material growing inside your heads. Remarkable! As if you are Ghost-human hybrids.’
Vala looked furious. ‘So you have known this of us all along.’
Coton felt like punching him.
But he said smoothly, ‘Of course we have, madam. There are no secrets to be kept from archivists such as ourselves.’
Sand said, ‘Get to the point, salesman. How does this work?’
And Croq described how the Silver Ghosts, notorious tinkerers at the fringe of physics, had meddled with the values of fundamental constants. ‘An object’s quantum wave function describes the probability of finding it at any particular location. But that function is given its scale by a number called the Planck constant. And if you increase the value of that constant, if only locally, then the probability of the object being found over there rather than here is increased. Then all you have to do is pluck the apple from the tree on which you wish to find it, so to speak: there rather than here. The engineering details are a little complex—’
Sand held up her hand. ‘I don’t care how the thing works. No more words. Show us.’
‘If I may have a test object – perhaps your hat, Marshal?’
Sand’s glare was incendiary.
Coton hastily slipped off his jacket. ‘Here. Use this.’
Croq opened up one of the boxes. Featureless inside, it was easily large enough to accommodate a standing human. Carefully Croq folded the jacket and set it down on the floor of the box, and closed up the door. He nodded to his assistants, who murmured to each other and manipulated Virtual displays. Coton thought he heard the hum of some engine gathering its energies, and an ozone, electric smell in the air.
‘It will take a few minutes to prepare . . .’ Croq looked at Vala. ‘This is a proof of concept. We will have to consider the specific details of your project. For instance, the senders in your universe Beta will need access to some kind of technology capable of quantum-level scanning.’
Vala nodded. ‘The ship that stumbled into Beta was equipped with devices to fabricate food and air – even human skin for grafts. They were clearly capable of quantum-level manipulation. We’re hoping that if the folk in Beta can find one of those machines, and if it’s still working, we can download instructions to adjust its function to our purposes.’
‘But then there’s bandwidth. As I understand it the intercosmic signal is transmitted by a stream of gravitons and neutrinos. The greater the flux the faster and more reliable the transmission.’
‘I’m thinking about that,’ Vala said. ‘We should set up a receiving station deep in the gravity well of the neutron star, where spacetime stress is greatest.’
‘And whose ships will you use to do that?’ Sand asked. ‘Ours, I suppose?’
Vala waved that away. ‘You will need access to the gravity well anyhow if we are to help you use the Starfolk. Our projects complement each other, Marshal.’
‘And of course,’ Croq said, ‘you will also need to consider the capacity of the receiver.’
Coton was aware that the salesman was deliberately not looking at him. Vala said nothing. And Coton felt a deep dread. For, of course, that ‘receiver’ was embedded inside Coton’s own head: indeed, it was part of him.
The machine’s low humming continued, and the assistants fussed at their controls.
‘Not much longer,’ Croq said, soothing. ‘Would you like to sit? Something to eat or drink? Of course, Marshal, there may be other facilities we could offer that might be of interest to you as you embark on separate projects—’