"Im sorry," said Dr. Malone. "Yes, maybe they have."
"Whats dark matter?" said Lyra. "Thats what it says on the sign, isnt it?"
Dr. Malo down again, and hooked another chair out with her ankle for Lyra.
She said, "Dark matter is what my research team is looking for. No one knows what it is. Theres more stuff out there in the universe than we see, thats the point. We see the stars and the galaxies and the things that shine, but for it all to hang together and not fly apart, there o be a lot more of it—to make gravity work, you see. But no one detect it. So there are lots of different research projects trying to find out what it is, and this is one of them."
Lyra was all focused attention. At last the woman was talking seriously.
"And what do you think it is?" she asked.
"Well, what we think it is—" As she began, the kettle boiled, so she got up and made the coffee as she tinued. "We think its some kind of elementary particle. Something quite different from anything discovered so far. But the particles are very hard to detect. ... Where do you go to school? Do you study physics?"
Lyra felt Pantalaimon nip her hand, warning her not to get cross. It was all very well, the alethiometer tellio be truthful, but she knew what would happen if she told the whole truth. She had to tread carefully and just avoid direct lies.
"Yes," she said, "I know a little bit. But not about dark matter."
"Well, were trying to detect this almost-uable thing among the noise of all the other particles crashing about. Normally they put detectors very deep underground, but what weve done instead is to set up aromagic field around the detector that shuts out the things we dont want ahrough the ones we do. Then lify the signal and put it through a puter."
She handed across a mug of coffee. There was no milk and no sugar, but she did find a couple of ginger biscuits in a drawer, and Lyra took one hungrily.
"And we found a particle that fits," Dr. Malo on. "We think it fits. But its se ...
Why am I telling you this? I shouldnt. Its not published, its not refereed, its not even written down. Im a little crazy this afternoon.
"Well ..." she went on, and she yawned for so long that Lyra thought shed op, "our particles are stratle devils, make no mistake. We call them shadow particles, Shadows. You know what nearly knocked me off my chair just now? When you mentiohe skulls in the museum. Because one of our team, you see, is a bit of an amateur archaeologist. And he discovered something one day that we couldnt believe. But we couldnt ig, because it fitted in with the craziest thing of all about these Shadows. You know what? Theyre scious. Thats right. Shadoarticles of sciousness. You ever heard anything so stupid? No wonder we t get rant renewed."
She sipped her coffee. Lyra was drinking in every word like a thirsty flower.
"Yes," Dr. Malo on, "they know were here. They answer back. And here goes the crazy part: you t see them unless you expect to. Unless you put your mind in a certain state. You have to be fident and relaxed at the same time. You have to be capable— Wheres that quotation ..."
She reached into the muddle of papers on her desk and found a scrap on whieone had written with a green pen. She read:
" ... Capable of being in uainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reag after fad reason. You have to get into that state of mind. Thats from the poet