Page 11 - Unlikely Stories 1

Perils of Scanference

important military and civilian technologies. But not all of its
implications have been carried to their ultimate conclusion, lacking
either intellectual credibility or experimental means of verification.
Doctor Lovenitz, in a routine survey of related material, found
reference to a single demonstration of a device called a quantum
reticulator. That presentation resulted in the destruction of the
equipment and the institutionalization of its inventor, the late Simeon
Gibbons. It was sponsored by an organization offering a prize for
irrefutable evidence of clairvoyance; thus its results did not appear in
*
the usual scientific journals. But Doctor Lovenitz saw something in
the newspaper account of that trial that piqued his interest, and he
made the effort to locate Gibbons’s notes and technical
specifications.
Gen. Esel: Did anyone else have access to them? Are they secure
now?

Dr. Silberfisch: As far as we can tell, they had been packed with his
other few personal effects and stored in the basement of his final
residence, a psychiatric nursing home. Doctor Lovenitz was able to
claim them as abandoned property just in time: Gibbons had no
relatives, or at least none interested in his generally shabby
possessions. The scientific papers were undisturbed under a pile of
legal documents and unpaid bills in a cardboard box sealed soon after
the experiment that apparently drove Gibbons mad. So it is very
unlikely that they have been examined by anyone competent since
then. Now that we have them, they certainly will not see the light of
day again.

Gen. Esel: Another risk. Forensics agrees with you?
Dr. Silberfisch: Yes. The box could not have been opened and
resealed. That leaves virtually no window for other prying eyes. We
can establish an unbroken chain of custody from Gibbons’s rented
house from the day he left it locked to the court-mandated clearance

*
See “The Quantum Reticulator” in Gluckman, Psychoceramics and the Test of
Fire (Los Angeles, 2011).
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