Read Online The Human Blend by Alan Dean Foster - Free Book Online
Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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cheap cosmetic melds? None of it made any sense. Of course, if she had some idea of what the incredibly sophisticated nanoscale device was designed to
do
…
As if that wasn’t sufficient rational overload, the lab had one more for her.
“Subsequent investigation suggests that at least part of the device was composed of metastable metallic hydrogen.”
Ingrid nodded slowly to herself. “Sure it was. And the pressure required to maintain it in that state was the nominal several million atmospheres that happen to exist at the center of the Earth—something not generally found within the cerebral epidermis of a fifteen-year-old girl.”
The inlab did not react to sarcasm. “Atomic-level analysis revealed a crystalline lattice composed solely of protons exhibiting spacing less than a Bohr radius. This is consistent with the detection and presence of MSMH. A quantum state existing within a quantum entanglement. Observation of concurrent superconductivity also suggests that …”
“All right, all right—enough.” What the lab was elucidating was more than mildly insane. Though well grounded in modern science, Ingrid was a physician, not a physicist, and the lab’s explanation was rapidly extending into realms well beyond her level of comprehension. While she was unsureof what she was being told, she
was
sure of something less arcane but equally confounding.
An incredibly advanced nanoscale biomechanical device at least partially fashioned of a material that ought not to exist at normal temperature and pressure had been found where it ought not to have existed. Now it wasn’t there anymore, which precluded further evaluation of it. If she wished to pursue the matter any further it appeared that she could rely only on the inlab’s hastily made recordings of the no-longer extant anomaly. That would make it rather difficult to secure confirmation. Of anything.
She had a lot to do next week. She had patients. She had a life. Did she really want to get further involved with something that defied rational explanation?
Of course she did, she told herself. She was a doctor, all doctors are scientists, and what all scientists want to know more than anything else is what they don’t know.
But how to find out?
If not overtly illegal, the presence of the device in Cara Gibson’s head suggested something problematic. The fact that it had apparently caused the girl no harm was not reason enough to ignore its existence—especially given the lab’s compositional breakdown. As a doctor, Ingrid was as interested in the
why
of it as the
how
. If nothing else, an interesting paper might be derived from further research into the abnormality. Whether anyone would believe certain conclusions enough to authorize publication in a respected scientific journal was another matter entirely.
From a scientific standpoint, expounding upon what she had just seen and heard from the inlab was tantamount to a commercial pilot describing a recent encounter with a flying saucer. As to the actual lab recording, lab recordings could be falsified. A report as elaborate and detailed as this one hardly seemed worth the effort to fake, but if she went public with it that would not prevent detractors from claiming it as the source of not one but several preposterous claims.
She wondered if she should share it with Rajeev, or perhaps with other professional but less intimate associates. She could imagine the reaction.
“Hi Steve, hi LeAndra. I recently removed this delayed quantum entangled piece of nanomachinery partly built out of metastable metallichydrogen from the skull of a local fifteen-year-old girl, and I’d like to know what you think of it. Except since it was quantum entangled it doesn’t exist here anymore, though it did when I first studied it. But don’t let that stop you.”
Oh sure.
It was plain that before she told anyone else about it she was going to have to further research the discovery (or the hallucination) quietly,
do
…
As if that wasn’t sufficient rational overload, the lab had one more for her.
“Subsequent investigation suggests that at least part of the device was composed of metastable metallic hydrogen.”
Ingrid nodded slowly to herself. “Sure it was. And the pressure required to maintain it in that state was the nominal several million atmospheres that happen to exist at the center of the Earth—something not generally found within the cerebral epidermis of a fifteen-year-old girl.”
The inlab did not react to sarcasm. “Atomic-level analysis revealed a crystalline lattice composed solely of protons exhibiting spacing less than a Bohr radius. This is consistent with the detection and presence of MSMH. A quantum state existing within a quantum entanglement. Observation of concurrent superconductivity also suggests that …”
“All right, all right—enough.” What the lab was elucidating was more than mildly insane. Though well grounded in modern science, Ingrid was a physician, not a physicist, and the lab’s explanation was rapidly extending into realms well beyond her level of comprehension. While she was unsureof what she was being told, she
was
sure of something less arcane but equally confounding.
An incredibly advanced nanoscale biomechanical device at least partially fashioned of a material that ought not to exist at normal temperature and pressure had been found where it ought not to have existed. Now it wasn’t there anymore, which precluded further evaluation of it. If she wished to pursue the matter any further it appeared that she could rely only on the inlab’s hastily made recordings of the no-longer extant anomaly. That would make it rather difficult to secure confirmation. Of anything.
She had a lot to do next week. She had patients. She had a life. Did she really want to get further involved with something that defied rational explanation?
Of course she did, she told herself. She was a doctor, all doctors are scientists, and what all scientists want to know more than anything else is what they don’t know.
But how to find out?
If not overtly illegal, the presence of the device in Cara Gibson’s head suggested something problematic. The fact that it had apparently caused the girl no harm was not reason enough to ignore its existence—especially given the lab’s compositional breakdown. As a doctor, Ingrid was as interested in the
why
of it as the
how
. If nothing else, an interesting paper might be derived from further research into the abnormality. Whether anyone would believe certain conclusions enough to authorize publication in a respected scientific journal was another matter entirely.
From a scientific standpoint, expounding upon what she had just seen and heard from the inlab was tantamount to a commercial pilot describing a recent encounter with a flying saucer. As to the actual lab recording, lab recordings could be falsified. A report as elaborate and detailed as this one hardly seemed worth the effort to fake, but if she went public with it that would not prevent detractors from claiming it as the source of not one but several preposterous claims.
She wondered if she should share it with Rajeev, or perhaps with other professional but less intimate associates. She could imagine the reaction.
“Hi Steve, hi LeAndra. I recently removed this delayed quantum entangled piece of nanomachinery partly built out of metastable metallichydrogen from the skull of a local fifteen-year-old girl, and I’d like to know what you think of it. Except since it was quantum entangled it doesn’t exist here anymore, though it did when I first studied it. But don’t let that stop you.”
Oh sure.
It was plain that before she told anyone else about it she was going to have to further research the discovery (or the hallucination) quietly,
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