Fade Out (20 page)

‘Before you go, General, did you experience any reaction at the crater?' asked Wedderkind.

‘Yes. A slight coolness – here.' Allbright put a thumb and forefinger to his temples.

‘A tingling sensation?' asked Connors.

Allbright nodded. ‘Yes. Not at all unpleasant.'

‘Yes, rather like a mild high.'

Allbright took hold of the palomino's reins and put a foot in the stirrup. ‘I'm familiar with the terminology of the drug culture, Mr Connors, but not the experience.'
He swung up into the saddle. ‘Let's say a slight feeling of elation.'

Connors smiled. ‘That would be about it.'

Allbright patted the neck of his restive horse. ‘I've arranged a briefing session for the project leaders at 19:00 hours. There will be food and drink available. Mr Larsen will accompany you till then. You can also contact me through him if the need arises.' Allbright gave them a casual salute, then wheeled his horse around and cantered off down the slope followed by his two wingmen.

Connors exchanged a look with Wedderkind, then turned to Brecetti. ‘These, er – vibrations that people are getting from the crater. Could they cause any permanent damage – I mean, to the brain?'

‘I'm not really competent to answer that,' said Brecetti. ‘I know the brain currents can vary between fifty and one hundred and fifty microvolts but I don't know the maximum level of tolerance.'

Wedderkind turned to Wetherby. ‘Do you still feel sick?'

‘No, I'm okay…'

‘Would it be possible for us to generate a field as powerful as this?' asked Connors.

‘It's theoretically possible,' replied Brecetti. ‘We are already producing immensely powerful magnetic fields for our researches into plasma.'

‘I've told him about Princeton's Large Torus,' said Wedderkind.

‘Ah, yes, that's quite something. You've seen the way the light glows down the middle of a neon tube? Well, in the PLT, a line of plasma, pure molten energy, is held away from the sides of a circular tube by this magnetic field.' Brecetti shook his head. ‘The problems – '

‘He doesn't want to know about the problems,' said Wedderkind.

‘Sorry, I got carried away.'

‘Arnold said the operation was burning up a lot of electrical energy,' said Connors.

‘Enough to heat and light a whole city,' said Brecetti.

‘One thing that no one has mentioned so far is super conductivity,' said Wetherby. ‘You can generate enormous field stengths with quite small units – and with very little electrical energy.'

‘Hell, yes, of course.' Wedderkind turned to Connors. ‘Do you know what we're talking about?'

‘Vaguely. Is it a low temperature magnet?'

‘Right. We've been opening up this whole field over the last ten years or so. The electrical resistance of a metal decreases as its temperature drops. When certain metals – like lead, tin, vanadium, and alloys such as niobium and tin – are cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero, their resistance suddenly vanishes. All you need is a ring of one of these metals cooled to the transition temperature – introduce an electrical current, and wham! It creates a fantastically strong magnetic field.'

‘Got it,' said Connors. ‘While you were talking, a thought occurred to me – could Crusoe harness the
Earth's
magnetic field to form a shield around itself?'

‘Good question,' said Brecetti.

‘It's possible, but he would have to find some way to intensify it.' Terrestrial magnetism fell within Wetherby's scope as a geographer. ‘The Earth's field is normally rated as being about ten thousand times weaker than an ordinary horseshoe magnet.'

‘That's right,' said Brecetti. ‘My guess is that Crusoe's probably generating his own field. It will be interesting to find out how he does it.'

‘And why it jams our radar,' said Connors. ‘If we can crack that problem and find some way to use it ourselves…'

Wedderkind gave him a pitying look. ‘You really do have a one-track mind.'

‘Arnold, let's get one thing straight. Regardless of what my personal views may be, if all we're going to get out of this encounter is a blueprint for a brave new world, forget it. The people in Washington won't want to know – nor will the people in Akiak, Alaska, or Zanesville, Ohio.'

‘You don't really believe that.'

‘I wish I didn't. For anything that affects our national security, money is no problem. But you know the government's policy on pure research. There have to be spin-offs. The right kind of spin-offs – like the military got from the space program. The private foundations may take a more altruistic point of view, but the US Navy doesn't pay people to play around with dolphins just because they like fish – '

‘The dolphin isn't a fish,' said Wetherby.

‘It doesn't make any difference,' said Connors. ‘They're laying down good government money because they think the dolphins are going to produce a sonar breakthrough that will be bad news for Russian submarines.'

‘Bob, we know all that. But this is different.' Wedderkind pointed towards the crater. ‘Somewhere under there could be the answers to the questions that Man has been asking for centuries. That some of the greatest minds have spent a lifetime trying to answer. Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Is Man unique – or has the seed of Man been sown throughout the universe? Are we a purposeless evolutionary accident, biological freaks? Or do we have a higher purpose?'

‘Arnold,
we
all want to know the answers, but nobody else does. Look what a big yawn the space program has turned out to be. The television networks soon found that out. I don't think the world is ready yet – and the way things are going, it may never be.'

‘But Man
has
to know,' said Brecetti. ‘That's what distinguishes him from the rest of the animals. He searches for knowledge, for truth. It's a fundamental drive one cannot suppress.'

‘You haven't been in government,' said Connors. ‘Aren't we concealing this project?'

‘Yes, but only temporarily – for practical reasons,' said Wedderkind.

‘Don't count on that,' said Connors. ‘We're in business just as long as we come up with the right answers. No one is going to let Crusoe upset the apple cart.'

‘Bob, the process is irreversible. You can't stop technological progress. You can't hold back knowledge. The Luddites went around smashing mechanical looms but they didn't stop the Industrial Revolution.'

‘Perhaps they should have tried harder,' said Wetherby.

‘This is hardly the time to start opening
that
can of beans,' said Wedderkind.

‘Just what kind of knowledge would you consider unwelcome?' asked Brecetti. ‘I don't mean you, personally.'

‘Well,' said Connors, ‘it could be argued that it serves no useful purpose for us to know that there is intelligent life in a star system a thousand light years from here – or even one that's nearer. It's a totally irrelevant piece of information. To know he is not alone in the universe is not going to improve the quality of Man's existence. It doesn't help solve any of the problems that face us here on Earth. Maybe that's where all our energies should be directed. After all, 99.999 per cent of the population isn't going anywhere else.

‘As for bad news, I'm sure we could all make out a list, but I'll throw in three ideas straight off the top of my head – supposing Crusoe was found to contain the secret of everlasting life, would we want that? Would the
Vatican want irrefutable proof that they'd been handing down the wrong message for the last two thousand years? Would we want to be told how to run things by a bunch of Soviet-type spaceniks fresh off a collective in Cassiopeia?'

As Connors asked the question, they all became aware of a deep-throated roar. They looked down the ridge and saw a heavy yellow truck come grinding up through the pines and on to the plateau. There were about a dozen people hanging on to the outside of the cab and the back of the truck, all waving orange hard hats. As the truck pulled up near the crater with its motor running, the men on it gave a ragged cheer of triumph.

Connors and the others walked down towards them. Wedderkind took hold of Connors' arm briefly.

‘Robert, you and I need to have a talk,' he said. ‘Just to make sure we're on the same side.'

‘I thought we were,' said Connors.

Max Nilsson jumped down from the cab as they approached. Max was a big, broad-shouldered blockbuster whose body seemed charged with the compressed energy of a Superball. He smoothed down his extravagant black moustache and swaggered forward with a broad grin.

‘Bob Connors?'

‘Yes.'

‘Max Nilsson, CIA. I'm MRDC's Operations Manager on this Project.'

‘Good to meet you. This is Arnold Wedderkind, head of the research group – Phil Brecetti – Al Wetherby.' Connors nodded towards the diesel. ‘Is that the first of the converted trucks?'

Max shook his head. ‘They're still being worked on. We decided not to wait. I thought you might want to get
started with this.' He waved at the stack of girders and equipment on the long trailer.

‘What is it?' asked Connors.

‘A light drill rig. We've brought enough pipe to go down two thousand feet. Got a core sampler as well.'

‘What do you plan to use for power?'

‘Steam.'

‘Steam?'

Max grinned. ‘It was good enough to get this whole industry started back in 1859 – has to be better than a pick and shovel – right?'

‘Right,' said Connors. ‘Away you go, Max. Arnold here will tell you where he wants the rig spotted.'

‘Okay. It shouldn't take us too long to get set up. We might even make contact before midnight.'

The heavy beat of the truck's motor faded as the driver took his foot off the pedal to ease the cramp out of his right leg.

Max spun around and shouted. ‘Keep it running, keep it running!'

The motor roared back into life.

‘Back it up to the edge of that hole and get that rig unloaded!' yelled Max through cupped hands. He turned back to Connors. ‘I guess we were kind of reluctant about driving up here. Nobody wanted to stall halfway and be left standing around with egg on their face. Now I know how easy it is, I'll get some more trucks up with the trailer units.'

Max snapped his fingers and pointed to Wedderkind, ‘Oh, yeah, one thing you may want to know. We had all our lights on as we drove up. They cut out just past that line of red stakes.'

‘Where the other vehicles are.'

‘Yeah. Otherwise no problem.'

HASKILL, one of Allbright's aides, cantered over to
see what was going on. ‘Are you going to be bringing up more equipment on to the ridge?' he asked Max.

‘Yeah, I'm going to start shipping in the trailer units first. I' like a few of your boys to trim out some of those pines.'

‘Okay, we'll get going on that.'

‘Our tyre tracks'll show you the route,' said Max.

Haskill nodded and larruped his horse into a canter from a standing start.

‘Hey, cowboy!' yelled Max.

The horse's back legs almost slid from under him as Haskill pulled up short.

‘Give me a good ten feet on either side!'

‘Wilco!' yelled Haskill. He rode off across the plateau like a Junior Rough Rider.

Max gave Wedderkind a friendly thump on the shoulder. ‘Okay, Einstein. You wanna show me where you want this hole?'

Wedderkind rolled his eyes at Connors, then walked off with Max. Brecetti and Wetherby followed.

Connors turned to Larsen. ‘If anybody wants me I'll be over on the south side. I've got some paperwork to do.'

‘Very good, sir. You'll find one of the tents has your name posted outside.' Larsen signed off with a snappy salute.

By the time Max Nilsson's first truck had been unloaded, news of its safe arrival had been sent down to the base camp with instructions for more big diesels to load up and head for Crow Ridge.

The crew of roughnecks got the drilling platform levelled up in the centre of the crater and rapidly assembled the prefabricated sections of the rig. The first thirty-foot length of drill was locked into the rotary table just after six o'clock. Steam hissed out of the valves of the engine
and it thumped away smoothly as Max, with a show of ceremony, threw the lever to connect the drive. The rock drill began to bite into the loosely-packed topping of gravel.

Max patted the vibrating engine housing and grinned broadly at Connors. ‘Hear that sweet sound? Who'd think this little lady's more'n eighty years old?'

‘Where did you dig it up?'

‘Borrowed it from a private museum. Belongs to an oil millionaire down in Texas who owes me a favour. He's got all kinds of junk there, and it all works. Does most of the repairs himself.'

Two more heavy trucks ground their way up through the trees. Ever since the late afternoon there had been a constant background roar from their heavy engines as the drivers obeyed Max's injunction not to cut the motors.

The trucks were bringing more accommodation units. Some were already in position on their jacks, and with the arrival of the fifty Air Force technicians from Kirtland AFB, and the rest of Wedderkind's people, Crow Ridge suddenly seemed to come to life:

Wedderkind came over to the rim of the crater where Connors now stood watching the drilling. ‘I've just heard there's now a phone down by the red stakes. It's hooked up to the base camp. Allbright's going to get us wired into the SAC landline system to give us a direct link with Washington. How's it going here?'

‘They're down to about eighty feet. Max had to pull one of his guys off the platform. Same trouble as Wetherby.'

‘Nausea?'