Doctor Who_ The Banquo Legacy - Andy Lane [27]
Dr Friedlander intervened before Kreiner could respond. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And we are grateful for the opportunity to give you the benefit of that opinion, aren’t we, Fitz?’ He was smiling that ingenuous smile again. And again I was aware of a depth, an underlying seriousness. ‘So, why don’t you remind us of what’s involved?’ the Doctor went on as he attacked his food. ‘We have, as I said, had rather a long and eventful journey.’ He was looking at Miss Seymour again now. ‘Haven’t we?’ I hoped that my own admiration for her physical attributes was not as apparent as Dr Friedlander’s.
But before Miss Seymour could respond, Harries spoke. I think it was the first time he had deigned to join in our conversation and we were by now in the final stages of the meal – apple pie (cold of course) followed by cheese.
‘An excellent suggestion, my dear Doctor,’ he said. And without waiting for further invitation or to hear whether anyone else had anything to say, Harries outlined his intentions.
Much of what he said I had either heard before of failed completely to understand. But it was evidently news to the Doctor and his assistant. I wondered just what Harries had told them to entice them into travelling across Europe in the middle of winter. George listened politely, while Catherine Harries and Elizabeth busied themselves with clearing plates to the sideboard, from where Simpson and Beryl removed them to the kitchen. Miss Seymour listened attentively, as if the information were new to her too, and I was surprised at her apparent interest.
‘The basic motive behind this experiment,’ Harries concluded, having described his progress with the rats, ‘is to ascertain whether it is possible to induce artificial telepathy of a similar nature between two people by means of a mild electric shock.’
‘Which two people?’ asked Friedlander, a hint of trepidation in his voice.
‘Myself and my brother,’ Catherine smiled at him. ‘We are after all the best suited.’
The conversation meandered for a while as Harries explained the reasoning behind this, none of which made much sense to me. Then he went on to talk about his early experiments with rats, which I was more able to follow. As he spoke, the Doctor’s expression seemed to harden, like stone.
‘I soon realised that the more subjects that did each puzzle, the easier that puzzle became for each successive rat.’
‘How modest,’ I mused; but Harries ignored me.
‘Even if the rats were well apart, this was the case. I tested fifty in one maze in London, and when I tested a further ten rats here the results were unambiguous. The last rat solved the maze in eighty per cent of the time taken by the first.’
‘Could have been a lucky rat,’ Herr Kreiner pointed out.
‘Or a clever one,’ added Susan Seymour.
‘If that were the case the results would not have been so conclusive. I used more than one test on many batches of rats.’
‘And what conclusions did you draw?’ the Doctor asked him. Wallace, I noticed, was silent, and I assumed that he had heard all this before. Probably several times.
‘I hypothesised a form of collective memory.’
‘A what?’ Elizabeth was struggling as much as I was.
‘A shared memory, if you like. All rats have a subconscious access to it. One rat gains new knowledge, so that knowledge becomes available, albeit below his conscious threshold, to all rats.’
‘So,’ said Dr Friedlander, ‘the more rats that solve each puzzle, the more accessible the solution becomes to the other rats. Is that your conclusion?’
‘And the quicker and easier it becomes for them to solve it as well. Exactly,’ concluded Harries.
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Not that far removed from Sheldrake’s theories,’ he murmured.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Harries asked. ‘You are aware of some other published research in this area?’
‘No,’ the Doctor said quickly. He gave a short laugh. ‘No, indeed. Well, not yet anyway. I think you’re well clear of the field.’
‘And from that point you moved on to experiments into telepathy?’ Miss Seymour enquired. Harries nodded, but he was frowning too. Did