Amirhan, Part 24 - Flower

- Oh, I just remembered something. Could you give us a second, please, I said and gave Enembe and Ismen hand signs to follow me.

We rushed out of the tent and hurried a hundred meters away to be sure that Dr Kroonstad would not hear us. Enembe started first.

- You heard what he said! It was him causing the snow reality in the first place!

- Enembe is right. It all matches up. He caused the snow reality to appear with his first experiment, and it became much larger than he ever anticipated. It covers the whole desert, all the way to Ashakati.

- That makes sense, I agreed. - And it seems that he hasn't observed any of that with his equipment.

- No, because the equipment is still there, and someone has moved them so they are not connected any more. We didn't see any of them in the snow-world. I don't know who would have moved it and why, but that would explain it.

- I have a guess, Ismen said. - He moved them himself.

We looked at him surprised.

- It's the easiest explanation. There are rarely any people here, so who else could it be? We didn't see the equipment, so it is hardly any desert badger or similar dragging them for a few meters. And besides, we would have seen prints on the snow if it didn't happen the same evening. He did the experiment and was expecting some small discrepancy in realities. Instead, it started snowing heavily in the evening and he couldn't imagine that it was caused by him. So, he collected his stuff and went back, disrupting the spatiotemporal connection.

- And why doesn't he hear himself from the other reality, Enembe asked.

- I don't know. But again, I don't hear myself, the other me in the snow-world hears me from here. So maybe the other Kroonstad in the snow world is well aware about what's going on here. He just hasn't baked any bread so that we would know.

- OK, now we have to decide, I said. - We haven't told him anything, because we don't know if we can trust him and whether anything he is telling is true. But if he is honest, he would know a lot about wave functions, and that could be crucial for us, and Svetlana. What do you think?

Everyone fell silent for a while. Then Enembe started.

- Even if he is lying, we can learn important things. And we know so much about this place - more than anyone - that he won't be able to fool us too much.

- I agree, said Ismen.

- Very well, we all agree. Let's go back and tell him everything.

We went to the tent, and Enembe told our story to him. I watched from beside, and I was amazed how visual a person Dr Kroonstad actually was, being blind and everything. It was like looking a silent film, where his expression and posture changed as he learned more things. When Enembe told that his wave function hypothesis was actually correct, he started cheering and danced around in the small tent. When he heard how vast an area was ripped into the alternative reality, he sat down and took the cap from his head, like for a confession, shoulders hanging low and a serious look on his face. When we told that Svetlana was stuck in the snow world, he pressed his left fist tightly with the other hand, and convinced us with very serious and determined face that we would get her out of there. He was very sympathetic about our situation and said that he'd do anything he can to help us out of the trouble. He seemed sincere, and I hadn't had noticed any lies or cheating on things that I knew about, so I was rather sure that it was good having him with us.

The discussion turned to the exact form of the wave function, and that was something that only Enembe could undestand, so we just sat in silence with Ismen and let them talk. Dr Kroonstad had made a classical error when assuming a cosmological constant in his equation. He thought it was needed to scale down the spatiotemporal range of the equation, as the Floating Rocks were located within twenty metres from each other. When he heard that the alternative realisations could span thousand times further, he realised that the constant had mislead him about the nature of the phenomenon. Without the constant, the equation became simpler and more elegant, and it also made it possible to create more precise predictions about the alternative realisation.

Dr Kroonstad got excited about this new unexpected progress and started visioning how he could learn to understand Amirhan better.

- The wave function is much more powerful than I thought. It covers kilometres of space and days of time, and people can be split into two realisations, and Ismen is a living proof of that.

- But why am I the only one who is split? We were all fairly close to the Floating Rocks when the realisations fell apart?

- That's not true, Enembe said. - We were also split, but we merged when we went to the edge of the wave function in Ashakati.

- You mean switched, Dr Kroonstad corrected.

- No, merged. Khorixas told that we came to his place in both snow-world and this world, and in the morning there were just one of us there in this world. So we merged.

- Yes, you told that you went there, but in a merge you would get double memories. Do you remember anything that you did in this world before you woke up at Khorixas'?

Enembe raised his index finger to emphasise what he was about to say, but after opening his mouth, he seemed to disagree with that and kept silent. He looked down for a while, started again, but still didn't say anything.

- We don't remember, I finally said. - Everything we remember was actually things that Khorixas told us that we had said to him. So you are saying that when we switched away from the snow-world, the others disappeared? In any case, they were not there in the morning.

- Well, disappearance seems to be a very low-probability event, because it decreases entropy. Switching is much more likely, which means that the respective objects switch realities. Your twins ended up in the snow-world.

That was again one of those things that we had started to call Amirhan moments. Where you experience something that will change the way you think about the world for ever. So, we were still out there, together with Ismen and Svetlana in the snow-world but without any contact to any of us. Where could we be, and what had we been doing for the whole time? We all thought of these things in silence. Finally Ismen said:

- So you also have a probable twin in the snow world, right? You haven't heard from him, but your tent is in the same place, so he might hear you just like my twin hears me.

- That is possible. I haven't thought of that, but it would fit the wave function.

- Could he contact us? We were able to do that through the microwave when baking bread.

- I don't have any baking materials, just conserves.

- It's not about bread, it must be about the long microwave program we used for baking. We have used the microwave a lot for heating meals, and nothing happens then. The microwaves are somehow in interference with the wave function, Enembe said.

- So we should try it. Write a note in Braille alphabet, we'll stick it into a conserved meal and use the baking program. You have a microvawe here, right? And in addition, you should memorise the instructions, because he might hear your thoughts when you are in the same location, and you seem to sit a lot beside that desk, said Ismen.

That's what we did. Dr Kroonstad kept his microwave under the bed because there it was out of way. The meal turned around on the plate, becoming burned and dry on the corners because the program was too long for it. But when the program finally ended, the meal was gone.

- Wow, that is amazing, Dr Kroonstad said. - But it fits the hypothesis and implies that my microwave is in the same spot in the snow-world. I hope I can get the message I sent. It feels strange to say such things. Now we just have to wait for a response.

- Let's think about an exit plan, I said. - This is becoming more and more complex, and I am becoming more and more confused, even if some things start to make sense because of the wave function hypothesis. So we know that the twin doctor is probably close to his mocrowave which is here, and Svetlana and twin Ismen are at the hub but with a plan to move to Ashakati first thing tomorrow morning.  And we have no idea about twin me and Enembe, who were last seen in Ashakati more than a week ago.

- That is correct, Enembe said. - It would make sense to get everyone to Ashakati, because it would make it easier for everyone being in one spatiotemporal location. But we still don't know how to merge, if the most likely event is a switch. I really don't care for being thrown back to snow-world, especially after I heard from Svetlana how things are there now.

- Ah, the merge will happen, when the wave function collapses, doctor said eagerly. - There is little doubt about that. The tricky part is to be spatiotemporally coherent, because if you are not there in both realities, it is just a matter of luck whether you will merge as one piece in the remaining reality, or disappear with the wave function.

- And why are you so happy about such Rustonian roulette, Enembe asked bitterly.

- Oh, sorry. I was just thinking about the mathematical elegance of such an event. The dance of waves and interferences, strengthening each other in this cosmic world... But you are right, humanely thinking it is absolutely horrible to go through...

 There was a nasty beep. Dr Kroonstad immediately turned toward the microwave and pulled the door open. There was a burned, nasty smelling plastic plate of Happy Pork and Beans from Flower Fields. Enembe grabbed that plate and poked it with a stick. He found a plastic bag from inside, pulled a Braille note out and handed it to the doctor, who read it aloud.

- FINALLY! I can hear my own thoughts from there. Exploding third rock was BAD IDEA. I have done calculations. The wave function will collapse in 6 h with 84 % probability unless you execute my plan. Prepare to evacuate everyone to Ashakati in 30 min with Rock #2. Use probe, I'll use mine. Wait for my detailed instructions before leaving.

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The topic for tomorrow is Flee.