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figures. You’re a traitor to your profession, Alicia. You’re looking for God in those numbers, and I’m telling you, you won’t find Him. So there, write your response. I’ll be happy to review it for you, but it’s not a focus of this department to consider the quantum, as you know. This is popular science, undeserving of serious attention. Let some other scientists risk their reputations on it. We can’t afford to be blasé.’
    ‘Now that’s just too extreme and you know it. The quantum underlies all else .’
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    ‘Oh, c’mon, Dryden, it’s at least interesting, which is more than can be said for a lot else that goes on around here.’
    ‘And what makes it interesting, my dear? I’ll tell you what. You want your profession to give meaning to your life. And you’ll find that in a Church or some such, not here. This is a job and you have a good head for it, but it’s not about your heart and soul. You need to leave them at the door.’
    ‘So you’re saying you have no passion for what you do here then?’
    ‘That’s not what I said.’
    ‘ That’s exactly what you said actually. You’ve got no desire at all to find something new. You don’t revel in the dream that some discovery one day is going to sweep everything you’ve always believed in aside. You don’t harbour any possibility of finding the answer to everything.’
    Laughing. ‘Of course! I want international renown for being the best at being the same as everyone else!’
    They both laughed.
    ‘Oh, Dryden, now you’re the one that’s joking. We’re not so different, you and I.’
    ‘I’ve always been afraid of that!’
    Alicia’s sparring with Dryden allowed her at least some sense that she belonged in the field. Despite his show of cynicism, she knew Dryden meant in fact to demonstrate his support and that by this exchange he meant only to test her own conviction. It was worthy of him, and of her.
    ‘But seriously, it is time travel , isn’t it?’
    ‘Well, yes, sort of, but not in some popularist Doctor Who sense. It’s particle influence across space, but the particles have to have been in the same locale at some point.’
    ‘And a million miles away implies the possibility of bending time.’
    ‘Well, light theory is undermined by their results, yes.’
    ‘Theoretically.’
    ‘Theoretically.’
    ‘So you’re going to shout this from the belfry tomorrow?’ Dryden smiled.
    ‘Well I shall try and find a way to do so within the narrow confines of my profession as you’ve so clearly defined it, if that’s what you mean. Anyway while I’m up there – in the Belfry that is – I’ll try and get a book deal going with a few Angels shall I?’ They laughed again. ‘After all, our science still depends on the whim of the wider community and those that fund us. Ordinary people are interested in this stuff. We have to be able to communicate it in ordinary terms to them.’
    ‘This stuff! Stuff! We don’t do stuff, Alicia. We’re scientists. Stuff is for the management department and other woolly-headed so-called academics, trying to prove their righteousness to the economists. We’re above that sort of thing. Science is not dependent on ordinary people and their small-mindedness. We don’t subscribe to Scientific American around here. We’re publishers of serious, internationally reviewed and reputable work.’
    ‘Now you’re definitely being arrogant!’ She smiled as she said it.
    ‘Well, my sweet, you have a good day and I hope you’re still in this quadrant tomorrow,’ Dryden said, backing out of the doorway with a grin.
    ‘Oh ha ha! ’ Alicia turned back to her computer and her thoughts.
    She wanted to be part of this exciting new world of science, and whil e Lincoln had been good to her, aside from Dryden’s easy banter, she lacked the day-to-day conversation with others for whom the new science was stimulating. She was at risk of becoming bored, and she knew from experience