Chasing Schrödinger’s Cat - A Steampunk Novel Read Free Page B

warm, there is no such thing as bad beer.”   Right now he was demonstrating the principle
by quick cooling another Ranier in a flask of liquid
nitrogen.
    “And I’ll tell you something else,”
he said, when the beer had chilled to his satisfaction.   “Hope Buchan is totally out to lunch on dream
analysis.   Dreams have nothing to do with
the subconscious.”
    “So what are they?”
    “Doorways to parallel universes,”
he said, as he examined the glass object I had inadvertently brought back from
my last sleep session.   “You say this
glass thing was attached to a cat’s collar?   If you really did enter a parallel dimension it might have properties we
cannot even imagine.”
    “Or it could just be an ornament.”
    “To me it looks like a miniature
vacuum tube.   Too bad the glass is
cracked or we could test it out.   Bring
back another one next time you’re there.”
    “I’m not sure there’ll be a next
time.   This cat business really has me
spooked.”
    “Or bring back the cat,” Bill
said.   “A genetic freak like that would
go a long way to proving Everett’s contention that parallel worlds may be
governed by different physical laws.”
    “Oh please don’t start talking
about string theory,” I said.   “I’m sorry
I brought it up.”
    Bill said nothing but I could tell
he was offended.   I should know better
than to make fun of quantum physics.
    “So you think dreams are real?” I
said, trying to make amends.
    “As real as we are.”
    “How real is that?”
    “As real as Niels Bohr, as real as Hugh Everett.   Dreams
are how ideas spread themselves from one dimension to another.”
    “Ideas don’t spread themselves.   They need humans for that.”
    Bill looked at me with
condescension.   “Did you ever study
electricity and   magnetism   before you decided to waste your life?” he
asked.
    “High school physics with Mister
Sanderson.”
    “What happens when an electric
current flows through a wire?”
    “It creates a circular magnetic
field around the wire.”
    “And that is what Mister Sanderson
taught you?”
    “It was.”
    “Well Mister Sanderson should have
his pension confiscated.   Magnetic fields
and electrical currents are like conjoined twins.   You could just as easily claim that the
magnetic field around the conductor causes the current to flow.”
    “What’s your point, aside from
slandering a dedicated teacher you   never
even met?”
    “People and ideas are like
electricity and magnetism.   Each develops
the other.   Instead of saying that people
develop ideas, you could argue that ideas have developed people as a
transmission medium.”
    I took a moment to digest this
thought and to open another Ranier .   “Well, if that’s so, I wish ideas would pay
me a fee for carriage.” I said, wiping beer foam from   my mouth.   “Mrs. Gridestone is going to throw my ass out
onto the street if I don’t come up with my rent soon.”
    Bill pulled out his wallet and
peered into it myopically.   “Best I can
do is forty bucks,” he said.
    “Keep your money.   You can’t spare it and it wouldn’t be enough
anyway.”
    “You don’t have any rich relatives
you never mentioned?”
    “As if.   We Liddels have
never been noted for financial wizardry.   And besides, we mostly can’t stand each another.”

    “I’ll tell you what,” Bill
said.   “If you are really strapped, I have
a gig as a waiter at the Chancellor’s reception tomorrow.   I hear they might be looking for extra help.”
    Which is how I found myself in
Wallace Hall the following night, looking and feeling absolutely ridiculous in
a starched white shirt and black bow tie.

Chapter
VII:
    Sherry
Baby – The Masque of the Red Death – Between Two Worlds
    I don’t
consider myself to be too good for menial work (and with good reason, my many
detractors might add) but dispensing drinks to the USW teaching staff ranks
high on my list of all-time embarrassing experiences.