Ten Words No. 17:
The Malvern Hills
A Short Story by Sylvia Sikeston
(See 10 Words Intro for an explanation of the concept.)
The random words:
insufficient, multiplexer, Attlee, fibrosity,
agglutinin, role, Olympics, knack, Cambridge, Szilard
insufficient, role, Olympics, knack,
insufficient,
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Szilard Attlee was having a hard time concentrating on the image from the scope, much less the flood of numbers filling the monitor screen of the multiplexer. He kept glancing out the window at the fine spring day on the Cambridge green, thinking what a fine birding opportunity he was missing in the Malverns. The agglutinin they’d added last week had produced unexpected, and unacceptable, fibrosity in certain areas of the brain tissue that was the heart of this very expensive, long-running project. Anything that upset the delicate structure they had created was unacceptable. Szilard Attlee sighed deeply, as he knew he’d been doing a lot lately, since this inexplicable problem arose. The two tiny bits of neural flesh were so fragile, so carefully chosen and cultivated, and so monstrously infringed on. The whole lab was, in effect, a giant telemetry unit, all of whose many types of measuring devices were focused directly on, wired and lasered directly into, the two interconnected pieces of gray matter dimly visible in their life-sustaining bath of nurturing liquid. All had gone so well until this bump, which really threatened to put them back a good two years, back to constructing another minuscule reproduction of bicamerality. The funding till now had been generous and solid for such a wild guess—could they reproduce? create? induce? a low level of consciousness in otherwise inert tissue by copying the gross structure of the mind? But Szilard wasn’t sure how the funders would respond to the news that his team had made an elementary mistake. They had chosen substance to which the neural tissue had responded by constructing sheaths of protective matter around itself, but, strangely, only in its depths. The surface tissue was left unprotected, bare, exposed to the world and whatever the world might offer. No. He couldn’t let it happen. He walked to the wall of windows, hit a button, and watched as the glass quickly turned opaque. No spring day, no fine walk in the Malverns, no birds. This room was his world for now. At three in the morning he had sent the whole team home, told them to get some rest, come back anytime today, whenever they felt rested. He knew they would begin straggling in soon. His role as project director not only meant that he would take responsibility for the mistake, it also meant that he should find a solution. He stared at the screen. Where previously there had been an intricate, beautiful, lacy matrix of neurons hanging in space like the framework of some unbuilt fairy palace, now he saw an ugly, thickening patchwork of slowly growing encapsulation. He reached over and flicked on the radio. The announcer was going on about the glories of the simple chants written by some 13th century German mystic nun. His voice faded and the sound of Hildegard von Bingen filled the lab. Szilard found himself listening and staring mindlessly at the blank windows, imagining the sunlit countryside beyond. Drifting with the music, he jumped when he felt a nudge. He knew he was alone in the lab, but someone had touched his shoulder. He glanced down at the sample, looked at the screen of the scope, then at the monitor. Nothing had changed. Another nudge, this one sharper. For reasons he never understood, he closed his eyes. This time he not only felt the nudge, he in some sense saw it, there was a dim flash of deep blue light. He would’ve not paid attention to it, but it came precisely at the moment when he felt the nudge. Now his attention was fully engaged. The light came again, but no nudge this time. The light came, stayed, pulsing slowly. Then, for an instant, his entire reality, all his self, he felt, was filled with one concept which, he knew, had somehow been translated from that pulsating blue light. The concept, the message was: INSUFFICIENT. His eyes started open. Nothing was different in the lab. He looked down at the sample. Nothing different. But he was absolutely clear that communication had occurred. Those few shreds of neural tissue had broken through and communicated to him their situation and their problem. Insufficient? Insufficient what? He closed his eyes again, tried to relax, to return to the mind-wandering state he’d been in before. He took deep breaths, imagined walking through the low, lovely mountains to the west. And it came again. The nudge, the light. And then: MORE. Szilard stopped breathing. Waited. Waited. Waited. Nudge. And: LIGHT. He ran to the window, punched "Full Transparency," and the sun filled the lab. Szilard settled himself again by the monitor and closed his eyes. Nudge. And. And. No word came this time, only a powerful sense of relief, fulfillment, affirmation, safety, security. It was, he realized, very similar to the feeling he had on his best walking days in the hills. He heard the lab door. He opened his eyes, grabbed his clipboard as if nothing untoward had happened. Two mid-level workers were walking toward him. As he rose to greet them, his eyes fell on the monitor screen. Which was blank. He looked more closely. No, it wasn’t blank. An occasional dot, an alphanumeric "period" was appearing. In a pattern. First one period. Pause. Two periods. Pause. One Period. Pause. Two periods. Szilard leaped to his feet, hurled the clipboard at the ceiling, and shouted at his startled techies:"We just won the all-time, all-galaxy Olympics guys! Get your tuxes out. Get ready for a trip to Stockholm! Come look at this!" The techies came and looked. Szilard pointed out the pattern of dots and started telling them what had happened. The techies didn’t seem to be listening, instead they began working frantically around the sample container. Szilard finally stopped talking, was silent a moment, then said, "What? What is it?" One of the technicians, who’d always had a knack for irritating him, said, "Sy, you gotta get some rest. Go home. Sleep." "What? What is it? What are you talking about?" The techies glanced at each other. One technician looked at him, looked away. "It’s dead, Sy. The sample is dead. Probably just happened a few minutes ago. It’s just a piece of useless organic waste." Szilard said, "No." "Look. Look at the monitor, Sy." Szilard looked. The dots he had seen were there. But they had stopped. He looked at the sample container. It looked the same, but the multiplexer was also silent. No clicks. No hums. "You want us to drive you home?" Szilard smiled. "No. No. I think the walk will do me good. Maybe a long walk. You guys ever been to the Malverns?" END
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