The Woman Who Died a Lot (Thursday Next 7)

“Classical probability theory would exclude human expectation from the result,” said Mr. Chowdry in a quiet voice, “but Expectation-Influenced Probability Theory postulates that the observer can and will affect the outcome of events purely by the weight of his own expectations. If enough people believe that HR-6984 will miss, then the eventline will bend to ensure that it does. Similarly, if we all believe that we’re going to die in a fiery cataclysmic event, we shall.”

I stared at him for a moment. The notion seemed . . . well, counterintuitive.

“I know the eventline can be changed,” I said, “but I always thought our intervention was limited to things we could physically alter due to choice and free will—not a chunk of rock the size of the Isle of Wight traveling through space at forty-two thousand miles per hour.”

Mr. Chowdry thought for a moment. “Take your brother Joffy and the Church of the Global Standard Deity as a case in point. For the past thousand years, the existence or nonexistence of God has bobbled around the thirty-two percent mark, given the multitude faith dilution. Once all the major religions were joined together the likelihood of His existence jumped to over eighty percent—and what happened?”

“He revealed Himself,” I said in a quiet voice.

“Right,” said Chowdry, “and once the atheists were on board, He began all this smiting. Without faith He is nothing. But with faith He is everything, and in this context ‘everything’ means real, dangerous, vengeful—and unknowable.”

“Is this proven?” I asked.

“Not at all, “replied Chowdry. “Expectation-Influenced Probability Theory is right on the edge of accepted mathematics. You should get over to the stage if you want to hear your daughter talk.”

I thanked Mr. Chowdry for his candor and walked away. If I had understood it correctly, the asteroid wouldn’t hit if we didn’t think it would. The trouble was, we thought very much that it would. To turn around the 81 percent, we needed something to change people’s minds—like some sort of proof or, failing that, doubt.

I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and headed toward the stage, where I could see Landen standing at the side with Tuesday, chewing her nails. Most of the five hundred seats had now been filled, and those unlucky enough to have been having a quick sandwich or a pee or something were standing at the back.

“You made it, Mum!” said Tuesday, giving me a joyfully nervous hug. “But where’s Jenny? Dad said she’d be with you.” I thought quickly. “She’s with Gran and Polly.”

“They said they wouldn’t be here.”

“They changed their mind. I was just talking to Mr. Chowdry about Expectation-Influenced Probability Theory. Does that make any sense to you?”

“It should,” she replied. “I invented it. It’s a sweet theory because it’s obligingly self-proving and fits in nicely with the human psyche. It will prove itself correct because we want it to. Why are you dressed like that?”

“I got covered in . . . Actually, it doesn’t matter. You look terrific. Ready?”

She pulled a face and crossed both fingers. She looked more like a schoolgirl about to give her first flute solo, rather than the twenty-sixth-finest mind on the planet about to address her peers.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” said the emcee, who had just strode onto the stage. “And welcome to day one of MadCon2004.”

There was a burst of applause, and the emcee went on

to welcome everyone to the conference, and then followed five minutes of boring stuff about where the fire exits were in case someone tried to blow something up or create a white hole or a small bang or something, and then he listed the high points of the conference, such as tomorrow’s demonstration of AA-size Duraspin kinetic batteries, a new form of copperless copper and how earthquakes could be harnessed to prevent earthquakes.

He started to ramble after this, and I lost interest.

I was pondering over Jack Schitt’s curious behavior regarding the copied Zvlkx book when the emcee suddenly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to call on . . . Tuesday Next!”

There was more applause, and Tuesday walked nervously onto the stage.

“It is a great honor to be here,” she began, “speaking at a conference that my great-uncle loved so much and gave so much energy toward. I’d like first to thank the staff of MadCon and the board of trustees for their generous help in . . .”

I moved closer to Landen and grasped his hand, and he squeezed mine in return. Despite recent events— the smiting, Goliath, HR-6984— all I could think of was how much I loved my children and how proud I was. I like to think I’m pretty resilient, but listening to Tuesday talk, I felt my my eyes water and my chest tighten. I remembered what a small baby she had been, how she had walked late, talked early. Of her first Erector Set at two, her first long-chain polymer at four, and of learning Latin at five, so she could better understand the Principia Mathematica. I remembered her first day at nursery school and how the teachers said how much they’d learned, her first patent application for an improved alphabet with only eighteen letters, her going up to collect her doctorate in mathematics at age eight.

But through all that she had been our little girl, and despite her dazzling intellect, we had endeavored to bring her up as normally as possible. And while I watched her fluff over her lines with the nervousness of a normal person rather than the detached and mechanical tone of her contemporaries, we knew at least that we had succeeded in attempting to make her as human as she was brilliant, and with that, we trusted, given her an ability to see beyond the pure science and the application of knowledge and to be able to make a distinction between what science could do and what it should do.

“Makes you proud, doesn’t it?” whispered Landen. We listened to the rest of her speech, but it had become increasingly technical, and by the end we could understand only one word in seventeen. But we were delighted to be on the list of people she thanked at the end, in particular for showing her “the value of normality.”

“That was really good,” said Landen as she came off the stage to thunderous applause. She hugged us both, then was whisked off to do a press conference, leaving us standing quite alone. We wouldn’t be telling her to go to school anymore. As far as we were concerned, our job was done.

“Well,” I said to Landen, “how are things with you?”

He looked at the tattoo on my hand and said that he was fine, that Friday wouldn’t be back until late, given our last trip in to see the Manchild, and that we were parentally redundant. “I suppose that’s what we should be striving for,” I said.

“Thanks for telling Tuesday I was bringing Jenny.”