Fugitive From Asteron (26 page)

Chapter 21

While I pondered these new revelations, I removed all trace
of the crime-scene photo from the computer and closed the program I had been
using.

The substance that had injured
Steve Caldwell apparently began with the letters
Z-a-m
. The three
headings I could read contained fragments of the word:
Exposure to Z—
,
Composition of
Za—
, and
Energy Needed to Produce
Zam—
.
Project Z, of course, began with the same first letter.

However, there was another name
associated with this substance, a name that had been handwritten on Dr.
Merrett’s folder and used by Feran. What did this other name signify? Could
Zam
be the beginning of an official scientific name used in the report, and could
sunbeam
be a nickname, or code name, for the same material, written on a folder?
Earthlings often used short names that pinpointed the essence of things, like
Quick
Fix
,
Big Eats
,
Clean Team
, and
QuikCode
.
Sunbeam
had the same ring. What essence did it pinpoint?

I could not yet leave MAS because I
had an idea—actually only a guess. But I had to test it. Quickly!

The lobby of the executive office
building was empty when I arrived and entered with my security pass. I raced up
the stairs and across the third-floor hallway. Walking past the kitchen, I
paused, surprised to find a man and a woman in there eating sandwiches,
apparently two staff members working late on the holiday and taking a meal
break. I did not know these two employees, which was perhaps why they looked at
me curiously.

“Hi,” I said from the hallway as
casually as I could.

“Hi,” they said together, and
smiled.

I continued toward Dr. Merrett’s
office, where the doors to both the reception area and the conference room were
shut. Hearing no voices inside and ensuring that no one was in the hallway to
see me, I entered the conference room, where I knew the keypad code to open the
door. I quietly closed it behind me, and I checked to be sure that no one was
inside the inner office or reception area. Then I sat at Dr. Merrett’s desk and
turned on the computer. Using the password I had previously lifted with Code
Cracker, I unlocked his files. From my seat, I could look out the windows and
keep an eye out for anyone approaching the building. A glance at my watch
showed it was five o’clock in the afternoon. Surely Feran’s spies would not
arrive so late.

I knew where to look, and I made my
way through the various databases and subdirectories until I came upon a folder
called, simply, Z. When I tried to enter it, a security window appeared, asking
for a further code word, as it had on my previous attempt at a time that seemed
long ago but was only yesterday morning. Now I had a word to try for access—the
word handwritten on Dr. Merrett’s folder.

However, it was unclear from the
writing on the folder whether
sunbeam
was spelled as one word or two,
or which letters might be capitalized. I knew from my prior experience that I
had only three chances before I would be locked out for this session by the security
system. I made one attempt. It failed. Another attempt. It too failed. I had
one more chance left before the computer would shut me out. I tried to imagine
how a busy, direct person, as Charles Merrett seemed to be, would write the
code word. He would cut to the essence, I figured, so I gave the computer
simply one word with no capitals:
sunbeam
. A new electronic hum and
change of color greeted this last attempt. To my astonishment, flashing on the
screen before me was nothing less than a menu of files that were the secret
documents of Project Z!

So the name appearing on the report
folder for Steve Caldwell’s injury was the password into Project Z. That was
proof
of the connection I had suspected. I skimmed the entire database, finding
reports written by those who worked on the project, letters between Charles
Merrett and his customer, and memos circulated among the small group of trusted
insiders who knew the full nature of the undertaking. I studied the screen,
mesmerized by the treasure trove I had unearthed. The mystery of Steve
Caldwell’s injury and the undertaking of Project Z were unfolding before me.

Somewhere on the edge of my mind, I
noted that although Feran knew the name
sunbeam
, proved by the comment
he had made on Asteron about the sunbeam’s sting, the name alone would not have
been enough to gain him access to the project’s files. Computer access would
have required Feran to know that
sunbeam
was a valid code for getting into
the database, at least on Dr. Merrett’s computer, and also to know a valid password
for that terminal. Instead, Feran had resorted to a camera for reading the
Project Z files from Dr. Merrett’s computer screen. The supreme snooper somehow
used the robot Dustin to plant the camera and replace it regularly while it
cleaned Dr. Merrett’s office, thereby providing him with ongoing data.

I located the laboratory notes that
Steve Caldwell had recorded on the night of the accident and began my search
there. He was testing a sample he had received from the MAS Space Research Center,
a group studying materials collected from other stars and planets in the
galaxy. That night Steve’s sample was a rock taken from the dusty terrain of an
uninhabited planet named . . . 
Zamea
.

In studying the nuclear structure
of the alien matter, Steve placed a sample of it in the beam of a particle
accelerator. This produced a new kind of subatomic energetic particle with
properties unknown to him. Steve then experimented with these particles to
learn more about them. He collided them with matter from Earth. Then something
truly extraordinary happened: The masses of the Zamean matter and Earth matter
in the experiment
completely annihilated
each other, leaving no
residue—no liquid, gas, or ash—of any kind. This did not happen with the fundamental
particles naturally occurring in Earth’s matter, Steve noted.

Was the Zamean mass
completely
convertible into energy? Steve asked in his notes. If so, this would make the
Zamean rock the most powerful energy-producing substance ever discovered.

Steve commented that of all the
energy that fueled the Earth, even from the planet’s most powerful nuclear
reactions, only a very small amount of mass was ever converted into energy. From
this small conversion, the amount of energy produced was tremendous because it equaled
the mass multiplied by the speed of light squared. Steve calculated that if the
Zamean matter could be collided with Earth’s matter to convert
completely
into energy, then the two-pound sample sitting on his lab counter could
generate enough energy to power the entire Earth for one whole day! And
according to the Space Research Center, he noted, there were millions of pounds
of the same rock readily available on Planet Zamea—enough to power the Earth
for millennia.

Reading these notes, I understood
why Steve had gotten so excited.

He found the Zamean rock capable of
generating particles that were totally different from the ones found in Earth’s
matter, particles that were
mirror images
of Earth’s particles, which
meant particles that had the same mass but opposite charge, just as positrons
are mirror images of electrons.

Actually, something like what
occurred with the Zamean matter did exist on Earth, Steve noted, but only in
small experiments. Scientists knew that Earth’s fundamental particles and their
mirror images could be collided, and that they could completely annihilate each
other, forming pure energy. However, the researchers were unable to produce mirror-image
particles except in infinitesimal quantities and at great expense in
experimental labs. Using Earth’s matter, scientists could produce only a scant
few million mirror-image particles yearly, an amount smaller than a grain of
sand and insufficient to generate enough energy to power an Earthling home for
five minutes. But the Zamean rock, Steve observed, seemed able to produce such
mirror-image particles in abundance and on a monumental scale. The implications
for a revolutionary new kind of energy production, he noted, were staggering.

Steve wanted to learn more, so he
was going to repeat his tests, this time using a larger sample of the alien
matter. I directed the computer to give me the next page of Steve’s notes, but
there was none. That was the last comment that Steve Caldwell ever made as a
scientist.

Next, I located the report on
Steve’s injury, whose printed copy had been stolen from Dr. Merrett’s home. It
confirmed Steve’s findings that when Zamean matter was accelerated, it produced
a new energetic particle, and that this particle could be collided with Earth’s
matter, leading to the complete annihilation of mass and the creation of pure
energy. The investigation, however, revealed a fact that Steve did not know:
Before he had redirected the energetic particles to interact with Earth’s
matter, he had been exposed to them, and they were indeed harmful. Dr. Merrett
and his team later isolated and studied these particles, which they named the
Zamean beam.

Nowhere in the stolen report did I
encounter the word
sunbeam
. At the time, it must have been merely Dr.
Merrett’s personal nickname for the Zamean beam, appearing only as a
handwritten term on the charred folder landing in his fireplace. Later, when
Project Z began, the nickname must have stuck, because I saw it used in print
on project materials, and not only by Dr. Merrett but also by members of his
inner circle in their private memos. Feran must have encountered this name in
material photographed from Dr. Merrett’s computer screen through the hidden
camera in the plant.

In the report on Steve’s injury,
Dr. Merrett’s scientists described their studies of the harmful new radiation
emitted by the Zamean beam. Though it had no damaging effect on inanimate
matter, this ray of subatomic energetic particles, they found, penetrated the
human body and had a chilling effect on brain tissue. The Zamean beam blocked
the proper functioning of nerve impulses in a way that impaired an exposed person’s
ability to make decisions, exercise judgment, and consciously choose among
alternative actions. According to the report, a person’s will, the seat of
personal autonomy, was damaged by the Zamean beam.

After Steve’s accident, others were
exposed to the beam in secret experiments. Convicted murderers awaiting execution
were offered a chance to volunteer to be exposed to the beam in exchange for having
their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment and receiving an antidote
to the radiation as soon as one became available. The judge who permitted the
experiment said he was doing so in the name of science. However, he urged the
murderers
not
to volunteer, because their execution, he believed,
would be preferable to the effects of the radiation, which he described in
detail to discourage them further. Nevertheless, doomed murderers did
volunteer, and twelve were exposed to the Zamean beam.

The results described by the prison
guards were extraordinary. The most disorderly and violent of the inmates,
those constantly clashing with the guards, were reported to have become
completely changed in personality. They became calm, docile, indifferent,
lacking any initiative, much easier to manage, remarkably responsive to
directions, and compliant. One prison guard said: “Even when I give orders
remotely over the computer, the phone, or the loudspeaker, they’re carried out
without question or delay.” So the Zamean beam, which Dr. Merrett called the
sunbeam, produced model prisoners.

Before the robbery, Dr. Merrett
wrote calmly of the implications of a “new and dangerous substance that must
not get into the wrong hands,” and therefore the “need to avoid publicity about
Steve.” Because Earth had experienced no wars for a century and it maintained
the best military force in the galaxy, Dr. Merrett had no real cause for alarm.

However, after the robbery, he
wrote in anguish: “Not only has my beloved wife been brutally attacked and
taken from me and my daughter forever, but we have no assurance that she
succeeded in protecting the secret she fought for with her life. The Zamean
beam in the hands of Asteron—if they are the culprits—could be a real and
horrifying threat to us all.”

Dr. Merrett had contacted the highest
government officials of Earth’s various countries. Their intelligence agencies banded
together to conduct a secret investigation of Asteron. Officials considered
military action, but no hard evidence against my homeland emerged. For one
thing, Earth’s intelligence found no indication that Asteron was producing the
sunbeam. Furthermore, no one was tapping the only known source of the rock on
the planet of Zamea, which was being monitored by Earth. And officials believed
that critical pages of the report on Steve Caldwell’s injury were burned in the
fire.

The Asteronian coin in the
perpetrator’s pocket was insufficient evidence to implicate Asteron in the
crime because such alien coins did circulate on Earth. A high-level government
official commented in a confidential memo: “We need more evidence than just a
coin in someone’s pocket to send our troops to that hostile place to risk their
lives and to open up once again a long, bloody chapter of history that we
closed a hundred years ago.” Because no additional evidence appeared, Asteron
was not invaded.

Earthling fringe groups sympathetic
to Asteron were also investigated, but no evidence was found linking any of
them to the crime at Charles Merrett’s house. I wondered how thoroughly this
investigation had been conducted. Even though Earth had the most advanced
military in the galaxy, it might not have had the most robust human-intelligence
network, I figured. With its peace and prosperity so complete and enduring—without
any wars for a hundred years—the Earthlings seemed innocent, relaxed, and
unwary of evil. Did they really have all the resources needed to seek out and
infiltrate groups where Feran’s spies could be active and recruiting cells to further
their vile aims?