The Coming of the Quantum Cats

Before the man's head was an object—perhaps it should be called an image—about the size of a beach ball. It was composed of points of light. Seen from outside, a galaxy might look like that, if the galaxy were densely enough packed with stars. Most of the points of light were pale blue, but within the sphere were angry tracings of green, yellow, orange, even red, like the radiating lines of gangrene around an infected wound. Over the sphere was a line of what might have been mirrors reflecting the man's concerned face— except that they were not mirrors. Some of the images had longer hair or shorter or less. Some were tanned and some pallid, some fatter, some thin. "Now that we've synched," said the seated man, "I think we can see the extent of the problem. I've measured harmonics up to sixth-order already, and still propagating. "He paused to look at the other faces for disagreement. There wasn't any. "If this goes on, "he said evenly, "I project a nine-nines probability that within one standard year the disturbances will be effectively both plenary and irreversible."