men watched. At least they'd stopped cracking jokes.
Once on the road, Nick relaxed and started planning his schedule. He'd use the computer he'd taken to Framlingham Hall. It was faster than his home system and he'd been using it for the past week to process imager data—all the presets were programmed in.
He swung the van into the Hall's gravel drive then backed up to the front door. At least the rain had stopped, he could see the first stars twinkling through gaps in the cloud. He opened up the Hall and switched on the lights then ferried the crates into the large front room that he used as his base. Soon the room was humming to the sound of cooler fans and the electronic whirr and click as each imager disgorged its data into the central processor. Nick checked his watch—6:17pm—another half hour and he'd have the results. He sent his mind skipping into the future, imagining what hefind: a map of a brain ripped into twelve, or however many personalities Pendennis was supposed to have, pieces? Or twelve separate entities—pieces of psychic flotsam washed up on Peter's wrecking shore? And if the latter, what form and extent would they take? A few cells of memory, an entire sub-personality, a jumble of ideas and thoughts?
The prospect was so vast. And begged so many questions. How did they get there? Why there and not somewhere else? Was it a process happening all the time? Was that why memories degrade with age—were we constantly shedding experiences into the higher dimensions? Maybe into a vast collective unconscious, a species memory girdling the planet like a ring, helping shape the development of future generations.
He paced up and down the echoing boards. What a time to be alive. The dawn of a new age of discovery.
That's when he heard the noise. Not the settlement creak of an old house. Or the whirr of a computer. But a distinct thud. And it came from upstairs.
A manifestation? His first thought. A spirit? After all these weeks of inactivity had something decided to materialise? He glanced at the display bank in the corner—no warning lights. All the so-called 'hot' rooms were monitored—sudden temperature change, sound, infra-red, ultra-spectrum, higher dimensional fluctuations.
Had something happened in one of the other rooms?
Another thud. He grabbed one of the wide-spectrum imagers, moved towards the door, then looked back. Should he leave now? Wasn't the Pendennis project more important?
But when you're hot . . . Why not stun the scientific world with two major discoveries in less than an hour?
He moved through into the hallway and listened. Distant traffic noise hummed from outside. Should he switch off the hall light? Use the screen from the imager as a guide?
He looked up the stairs. The wide wooden staircase wound along the outer walls of the hallway—three floors and two half-landings. Cobwebs hung from the undersides of the stairs, draping the upper sections of a wallpaper that had long since faded and peeled along every join.
He turned off the lights and let the house sink into darkness. A pale light shone from the imager's display screen, a view of the stairs—like several pictures overlaid—a two dimensional representation of a ten-dimensional object, using colour and luminosity to portray the different planes. To most people it would have looked like a jumbled mess. To Nick Stubbs it was like second sight.
He ascended slowly, keeping to the outer, less creak-prone, edge. He let the imager pan before him, turning slowly at the half-landing to take in the next flight. Nothing. The display rippled slightly with the motion of his hands, the extreme sensitivity of the imager warping the picture like a desert heat haze.
He reached the first floor, corridors running to the left and right, a door straight ahead—open. He stopped and listened. Distant traffic, still the only sound. He swept the imager in a slow arc through 360 degrees. Nothing moving, nothing
Once on the road, Nick relaxed and started planning his schedule. He'd use the computer he'd taken to Framlingham Hall. It was faster than his home system and he'd been using it for the past week to process imager data—all the presets were programmed in.
He swung the van into the Hall's gravel drive then backed up to the front door. At least the rain had stopped, he could see the first stars twinkling through gaps in the cloud. He opened up the Hall and switched on the lights then ferried the crates into the large front room that he used as his base. Soon the room was humming to the sound of cooler fans and the electronic whirr and click as each imager disgorged its data into the central processor. Nick checked his watch—6:17pm—another half hour and he'd have the results. He sent his mind skipping into the future, imagining what hefind: a map of a brain ripped into twelve, or however many personalities Pendennis was supposed to have, pieces? Or twelve separate entities—pieces of psychic flotsam washed up on Peter's wrecking shore? And if the latter, what form and extent would they take? A few cells of memory, an entire sub-personality, a jumble of ideas and thoughts?
The prospect was so vast. And begged so many questions. How did they get there? Why there and not somewhere else? Was it a process happening all the time? Was that why memories degrade with age—were we constantly shedding experiences into the higher dimensions? Maybe into a vast collective unconscious, a species memory girdling the planet like a ring, helping shape the development of future generations.
He paced up and down the echoing boards. What a time to be alive. The dawn of a new age of discovery.
That's when he heard the noise. Not the settlement creak of an old house. Or the whirr of a computer. But a distinct thud. And it came from upstairs.
A manifestation? His first thought. A spirit? After all these weeks of inactivity had something decided to materialise? He glanced at the display bank in the corner—no warning lights. All the so-called 'hot' rooms were monitored—sudden temperature change, sound, infra-red, ultra-spectrum, higher dimensional fluctuations.
Had something happened in one of the other rooms?
Another thud. He grabbed one of the wide-spectrum imagers, moved towards the door, then looked back. Should he leave now? Wasn't the Pendennis project more important?
But when you're hot . . . Why not stun the scientific world with two major discoveries in less than an hour?
He moved through into the hallway and listened. Distant traffic noise hummed from outside. Should he switch off the hall light? Use the screen from the imager as a guide?
He looked up the stairs. The wide wooden staircase wound along the outer walls of the hallway—three floors and two half-landings. Cobwebs hung from the undersides of the stairs, draping the upper sections of a wallpaper that had long since faded and peeled along every join.
He turned off the lights and let the house sink into darkness. A pale light shone from the imager's display screen, a view of the stairs—like several pictures overlaid—a two dimensional representation of a ten-dimensional object, using colour and luminosity to portray the different planes. To most people it would have looked like a jumbled mess. To Nick Stubbs it was like second sight.
He ascended slowly, keeping to the outer, less creak-prone, edge. He let the imager pan before him, turning slowly at the half-landing to take in the next flight. Nothing. The display rippled slightly with the motion of his hands, the extreme sensitivity of the imager warping the picture like a desert heat haze.
He reached the first floor, corridors running to the left and right, a door straight ahead—open. He stopped and listened. Distant traffic, still the only sound. He swept the imager in a slow arc through 360 degrees. Nothing moving, nothing
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