Band of Gypsys by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

her cause. Jack Vries had not been among them… But a lot of people had been forced to accept invitations to Rivermead that winter; most of them ignorant of the full horrific truth. She had no damning evidence against Vries, though she was damn’ sure it existed. It’s the way of the world, there are always villains who can’t be rooted out, and at least he was being kept out of office. So far. (Though what was he doing here?)
    There’d been nasty cans of worms the Rock and Roll Reich had never dared to open, in their day. Live with it.
    ‘Good. So, let’s begin at the beginning.’
    The smartboard was suddenly flooded with colour and movement: psychedelic roses blooming. The same images repeated, in smaller scale, on the slates.
    ‘These are cognitive brainscans. There’s a brief annotation on your earbeads. I’ll give you a moment, for those who need to listen.’
    The party apparently didn’t need notes. Green hardliners frowned in distaste.
    ‘Magic is a real force,’ began Fiorinda coolly. ‘Or rather, there is a real force, of which we’ve been dimly aware as long as there’ve been modern humans around, a leakage through the barrier between mind and matter. It’s been called by various names: magic will do for our purposes. In the last decade before Dissolution new theories were being matched by new technology, allowing lab scientists to approach the threshold where the barrier can be broken. It was believed, by some, that under certain conditions this breakthrough, also known as “fusion” might unleash extraordinarily powerful “occult” powers—’
    She paused. The false-coloured scans disappeared. An equation (not yet condensed into anything as recognisable as e=mc2) Powerpointed sedately into place, line by line. ‘I’m sure you’ve all seen that before. We won’t trouble to decipher it in detail. As you know, science currently favours a model of the universe as being “made of information”. Anything you care to mention can be expressed in binary code. Zebras, genes, neutrinos, hatred, can all be seen, equally, as objects in information space. This implies a fundamental level where the material 0s and 1s “outside our heads” are continuous with the immaterial 0s and 1s “in our minds”. When we speak of “breaking the barrier”, we mean finding a means to access this continuity, and to manipulate the material world as if it were a set of ideas. The theory of Mind/Matter physics states that all mind/brains —a poor description, suggesting dualism where actually we’re supposing an integrated system, but it seems to have taken root—have a vestigial, infinitesimal interaction with the code “outside our heads”, and therefore an infinitesimal abilty to affect the arrangement of this vast body of information: not only our perception of the world out there , but the material universe itself. That’s been the implicit desire of all magical practice, in every occult tradition.’
    ‘To shift the whole fifteen dimensional kaleidoscope,’ put in Chip, gravely.
    Some faces betrayed confusion. Kaleidoscope ? What kaleidoscope?
    Most remained attentively blank, waiting for the keywords.
    ‘The theory goes on to propose that tiny “fusion consciousness events” tunnelling through the barrier between mind and matter, happen all the time: often unnoticed, sometimes perceived as “psychic experiences”; or providing frustrating unrepeatable data in parapsychology experiments. It suggests that successful stage magicians, and powerful shamen, have always been people with a natural, slightly elevated interaction with information space. This advantage allows them to draw on the vestigal abilities of a group of believers; or even a group of passionate sceptics, and add to the their own power. Strong arousal is an adjuvant: and it’s a positive loop. The more the “magician” can steal, the more he can steal.
    ‘Yet magic is still a very weak force. A stage magician can “mess with