The Subtle Knife Part 8

At Lyra's question the woman ran a hand through her hair and said, "Well, you're the second unexpected thing that's happened today. I'm Dr. Mary Malone. What do you want?"

"I want you to tell me about Dust," said Lyra, having looked around to make sure they were alone. "I know you know about it. I can prove it. You got to tell me."

"Dust? What are you talking about?"

"You might not call it that. It's elementary particles. In my world the Scholars call it Rusakov Particles, but normally they call it Dust. They don't show up easily, but they come out of s.p.a.ce and fix on people. Not children so much, though. Mostly on grownups. And something I only found out today-I was in that museum down the road and there was some old skulls with holes in their heads, like the Tartars make, and there was a lot more Dust around them than around this other one that hadn't got that sort of hole in. When's the Bronze Age?"

The woman was looking at her wide-eyed.

"The Bronze Age? Goodness, I don't know; about five thousand years ago," she said.

"Ah, well, they got it wrong then, when they wrote that label. That skull with the two holes in it is thirty-three thousand years old."

She stopped then, because Dr. Malone looked as if she was about to faint. The high color left her cheeks completely; she put one hand to her breast while the other clutched the arm of her chair, and her jaw dropped.

Lyra stood, stubborn and puzzled, waiting for her to recover.

"Who are you?" the woman said at last.

"Lyra Silver-"

"No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do you know things like this?"

Wearily Lyra sighed; she had forgotten how roundabout Scholars could be. It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.

"I come from another world," she began. "And in that world there's an Oxford like this, only different, and that's where I come from. And-"

"Wait, wait, wait. You come from where?"

"From somewhere else," said Lyra, more carefully. "Not here."

"Oh, somewhere else," the woman said. "I see. Well, I think I see."

"And I got to find out about Dust," Lyra explained. "Because the Church people in my world, right, they're frightened of Dust because they think it's original sin. So it's very important. And my father...No," she said pa.s.sionately, and stamped her foot. "That's not not what I meant to say. I'm doing it all wrong." what I meant to say. I'm doing it all wrong."

Dr. Malone looked at Lyra's desperate frown and clenched fists, at the bruises on her cheek and her leg, and said, "Dear me, child, calm down."

She broke off and rubbed her eyes, which were red with tiredness.

"Why am I listening to you?" she went on. "I must be crazy. The fact is, this is the only place in the world where you'd get the answer you want, and they're about to close us down. What you're talking about, your Dust, sounds like something we've been investigating for a while now, and what you say about the skulls in the museum gave me a turn, because...oh, no, this is just too much. I'm too tired. I want to listen to you, believe me, but not now, please. Did I say they were going to close us down? I've got a week to put together a proposal to the funding committee, but we haven't got a hope in h.e.l.l..."

She yawned widely.

"What was the first unexpected thing that happened today?" Lyra said.

"Oh. Yes. Someone I'd been relying on to back our funding application withdrew his support. I don't suppose it was that that unexpected, anyway." unexpected, anyway."

She yawned again.

"I'm going to make some coffee," she said. "If I don't, I'll fall asleep. You'll have some too?"

She filled an electric kettle, and while she spooned instant coffee into two mugs Lyra stared at the Chinese pattern on the back of the door.

"What's that?" she said.

"It's Chinese. The symbols of the I Ching. D'you know what that is? Do they have that in your world?"

Lyra looked at her narrow-eyed, in case she was being sarcastic. She said: "There are some things the same and some that are different, that's all. I don't know everything about my world. Maybe they got this Ching thing there too."

"I'm sorry," said Dr. Malone. "Yes, maybe they have."

"What's dark matter?" said Lyra. "That's what it says on the sign, isn't it?"

Dr. Malone sat down again, and hooked another chair out with her ankle for Lyra.

She said, "Dark matter is what my research team is looking for. No one knows what it is. There's more stuff out there in the universe than we can see, that's the point. We can see the stars and the galaxies and the things that shine, but for it all to hang together and not fly apart, there needs to be a lot more of it-to make gravity work, you see. But no one can detect it. So there are lots of different research projects trying to find out what it is, and this is one of them."

Lyra was all focused attention. At last the woman was talking seriously.

"And what do you think it is?" she asked.

"Well, what we we think it is-" As she began, the kettle boiled, so she got up and made the coffee as she continued. "We think it's some kind of elementary particle. Something quite different from anything discovered so far. But the particles are very hard to detect....Where do you go to school? Do you study physics?" think it is-" As she began, the kettle boiled, so she got up and made the coffee as she continued. "We think it's some kind of elementary particle. Something quite different from anything discovered so far. But the particles are very hard to detect....Where do you go to school? Do you study physics?"

Lyra felt Pantalaimon nip her hand, warning her not to get cross. It was all very well, the alethiometer telling her to be truthful, but she knew what would happen if she told the whole truth. She had to tread carefully and just avoid direct lies.

"Yes," she said, "I know a little bit. But not about dark matter."

"Well, we're trying to detect this almost-undetectable thing among the noise of all the other particles crashing about. Normally they put detectors very deep underground, but what we've done instead is to set up an electromagnetic field around the detector that shuts out the things we don't want and lets through the ones we do. Then we amplify the signal and put it through a computer."

She handed across a mug of coffee. There was no milk and no sugar, but she did find a couple of ginger biscuits in a drawer, and Lyra took one hungrily.

"And we found a particle that fits," Dr. Malone went on. "We think it fits. But it's so strange...Why am I telling you this? I shouldn't. It's not published, it's not refereed, it's not even written down. I'm a little crazy this afternoon.

"Well..." she went on, and she yawned for so long that Lyra thought she'd never stop, "our particles are strange little devils, make no mistake. We call them shadow particles, Shadows. You know what nearly knocked me off my chair just now? When you mentioned the skulls in the museum. Because one of our team, you see, is a bit of an amateur archaeologist. And he discovered something one day that we couldn't believe. But we couldn't ignore it, because it fitted in with the craziest thing of all about these Shadows. You know what? They're conscious. That's right. Shadows are particles of consciousness. You ever heard anything so stupid? No wonder we can't get our grant renewed."

She sipped her coffee. Lyra was drinking in every word like a thirsty flower.

"Yes," Dr. Malone went on, "they know we're here. They answer back. And here goes the crazy part: you can't see them unless you expect to. Unless you put your mind in a certain state. You have to be confident and relaxed at the same time. You have to be capable- Where's that quotation..."

She reached into the muddle of papers on her desk and found a sc.r.a.p on which someone had written with a green pen. She read: "'...Capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.' You have to get into that state of mind. That's from the poet Keats, by the way. I found it the other day. So you get yourself in the right state of mind, and then you look at the Cave-"

"The cave?" said Lyra.

"Oh, sorry. The computer. We call it the Cave. Shadows on the walls of the Cave, you see, from Plato. That's our archaeologist again. He's an all-around intellectual. But he's gone off to Geneva for a job interview, and I don't suppose for a moment he'll be back....Where was I? Oh, the Cave, that's right. Once you're linked up to it, if you think think, the Shadows respond. There's no doubt about it. The Shadows flock to your thinking like birds...."

"What about the skulls?"

"I was coming to that. Oliver Payne-him, my colleague-was fooling about one day testing things with the Cave. And it was so odd. It didn't make any sense in the way a physicist would expect. He got a piece of ivory, just a lump, and there were no Shadows with that. It didn't react. But a carved ivory chess piece did. A big splinter of wood off a plank didn't, but a wooden ruler did. And a carved wooden statuette had more....I'm talking about elementary particles here, for goodness' sake. Little minute lumps of scarcely anything. They knew what these objects were They knew what these objects were. Anything that was a.s.sociated with human workmanship and human thought was surrounded by Shadows....

"And then Oliver-Dr. Payne-got some fossil skulls from a friend at the museum and tested them to see how far back in time the effect went. There was a cutoff point about thirty, forty thousand years ago. Before that, no Shadows. After that, plenty. And that's about the time, apparently, that modern human beings first appeared. I mean, you know, our remote ancestors, but people no different from us, really...."

"It's Dust," said Lyra authoritatively. "That's what it is."

"But, you see, you can't say this sort of thing in a funding application if you want to be taken seriously. It does not make sense. It cannot exist. It's impossible, and if it isn't impossible, it's irrelevant, and if it isn't either of those things, it's embarra.s.sing."

"I want to see the Cave," said Lyra.

She stood up.

Dr. Malone was running her hands through her hair and blinking hard to keep her tired eyes clear.

"Well, I can't see why not," she said. "We might not have a Cave tomorrow. Come along through."

She led Lyra into the other room. It was larger, and crowded with anbaric equipment.

"This is it. Over there," she said, pointing to a screen that was glowing an empty gray. "That's where the detector is, behind all that wiring. To see the Shadows, you have to be linked up to some electrodes. Like for measuring brain waves."

"I want to try it," said Lyra.

"You won't see anything. Anyway, I'm tired. It's too complicated."

"Please! I know what I'm doing!"

"Do you, now? I wish I did. No, No, for heaven's sake. This is an expensive, difficult scientific experiment. You can't come charging in here and expect to have a go as if it were a pinball machine....Where for heaven's sake. This is an expensive, difficult scientific experiment. You can't come charging in here and expect to have a go as if it were a pinball machine....Where do do you come from, anyway? Shouldn't you be at school? How did you find your way in here?" you come from, anyway? Shouldn't you be at school? How did you find your way in here?"

And she rubbed her eyes again, as if she was only just waking up.

Lyra was trembling. Tell the truth, Tell the truth, she thought. "I found my way in with this," she said, and took out the alethiometer. she thought. "I found my way in with this," she said, and took out the alethiometer.

"What in the world is that? A compa.s.s?"

Lyra let her take it. Dr. Malone's eyes widened as she felt the weight.

"Dear Lord, it's made of gold. Where on earth-"

"I think it does what your Cave does. That's what I want to find out. If I can answer a question truly," said Lyra desperately, "something you know the answer to and I don't, can I try your Cave then?"

"What, are we into fortune-telling now? What is this thing?"

"Please! Just ask me a question!"

Dr. Malone shrugged. "Oh, all right," she said. "Tell me...tell me what I was doing before I took up this business."

Eagerly Lyra took the alethiometer from her and turned the winding wheels. She could feel her mind reaching for the right pictures even before the hands were pointing at them, and she sensed the longer needle twitching to respond. As it began to swing around the dial, her eyes followed it, watching, calculating, seeing down the long chains of meaning to the level where the truth lay.

Then she blinked and sighed and came out of her temporary trance.

"You used to be a nun," she said. "I wouldn't have guessed that. Nuns are supposed to stay in their convents forever. But you stopped believing in church things and they let you leave. This en't like my world at all, not a bit."

Dr. Malone sat down in a chair by the computer, staring.

Lyra said, "That's true, en't it?"

"Yes. And you found out from that..."

"From my alethiometer. It works by Dust, I think. I came all this way to find out more about Dust, and it told me to come to you. So I reckon your dark matter must be the same thing. Now Now can I try your Cave?" can I try your Cave?"

Dr. Malone shook her head, but not to say no, just out of helplessness. She spread her hands. "Very well," she said. "I think I'm dreaming. I might as well carry on."

She swung around in her chair and pressed several switches, bringing an electrical hum and the sound of a computer's cooling fan into the air; and at the sound of them, Lyra gave a little m.u.f.fled gasp. It was because the sound in that room was the same sound she'd heard in that dreadful glittering chamber at Bolvangar, where the silver guillotine had nearly parted her and Pantalaimon. She felt him quiver in her pocket, and gently squeezed him for rea.s.surance.

But Dr. Malone hadn't noticed; she was too busy adjusting switches and tapping the letters in another of those ivory trays. As she did, the screen changed color, and some small letters and figures appeared on it.

"Now you sit down," she said, and pulled out a chair for Lyra. Then she opened a jar and said, "I need to put some gel on your skin to help the electrical contact. It washes off easily. Hold still, now."

Dr. Malone took six wires, each ending in a flat pad, and attached them to various places on Lyra's head. Lyra sat determinedly still, but she was breathing quickly, and her heart was beating hard.

"All right, you're all hooked up," said Dr. Malone. "The room's full of Shadows. The universe is full of Shadows, come to that. But this is the only way we can see them, when you make your mind empty and look at the screen. Off you go."

Lyra looked. The gla.s.s was dark and blank. She saw her own reflection dimly, but that was all. As an experiment she pretended that she was reading the alethiometer, and imagined herself asking: What does this woman know about Dust? What questions is she she asking? asking?

She mentally moved the alethiometer's hands around the dial, and as she did, the screen began to flicker. Astonished, she came out of her concentration, and the flicker died. She didn't notice the ripple of excitement that made Dr. Malone sit up: she frowned and sat forward and began to concentrate again.

This time the response came instantaneously. A stream of dancing lights, for all the world like the shimmering curtains of the aurora, blazed across the screen. They took up patterns that were held for a moment only to break apart and form again, in different shapes, or different colors; they looped and swayed, they sprayed apart, they burst into showers of radiance that suddenly swerved this way or that like a flock of birds changing direction in the sky. And as Lyra watched, she felt the same sense, as of trembling on the brink of understanding, that she remembered from the time when she was beginning to read the alethiometer.

She asked another question: Is this this Dust? Is it the same thing making these patterns and moving the needle of the alethiometer? Dust? Is it the same thing making these patterns and moving the needle of the alethiometer?

The answer came in more loops and swirls of light. She guessed it meant yes. Then another thought occurred to her, and she turned to speak to Dr. Malone, and saw her open-mouthed, hand to her head.

"What?" she said.

The screen faded. Dr. Malone blinked.

"What is it?" Lyra said again.

"Oh-you've just put on the best display I've ever seen, that's all," said Dr. Malone. "What were you doing? What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking you could get it clearer than this," Lyra said.

"Clearer? That's the clearest it's ever been!"

"But what does it mean? Can you read it?"

"Well," said Dr. Malone, "you don't read read it in the sense of reading a message; it doesn't work like that. What's happening is that the Shadows are responding to the attention that you pay them. That's revolutionary enough; it's our consciousness that they respond to, you see." it in the sense of reading a message; it doesn't work like that. What's happening is that the Shadows are responding to the attention that you pay them. That's revolutionary enough; it's our consciousness that they respond to, you see."

"No," Lyra explained, "what I mean is, those colors and shapes up there. They could do other things, those Shadows. They could make any shapes you wanted. They could make pictures if you wanted them to. Look."

And she turned back and focused her mind again, but this time she pretended to herself that the screen was was the alethiometer, with all thirty-six symbols laid out around the edge. She knew them so well now that her fingers automatically twisted in her lap as she moved the imaginary hands to point at the candle (for understanding), the alpha and omega (for language), and the ant (for diligence), and framed the question: What would these people have to do in order to understand the language of the Shadows? the alethiometer, with all thirty-six symbols laid out around the edge. She knew them so well now that her fingers automatically twisted in her lap as she moved the imaginary hands to point at the candle (for understanding), the alpha and omega (for language), and the ant (for diligence), and framed the question: What would these people have to do in order to understand the language of the Shadows?