Wormholes (19 page)

“What was going on in there? What’s your background with this guy? This was more than business. You two seemed to have a mutual animosity going on.”

Gerald looked down at the floor, then over at her. He clenched his jaw. “I guess I should have told you. He’s my
father
.”

T
he reporters sat on the folding metal chairs out of the desert sun under the large tent, drinking soft drinks, eating sandwiches from the buffet and grousing about having to drive all the way out into the Nevada desert. But they had still instantly agreed to come. What’s more, they displayed that edgy eagerness for a juicy story that they could sell big to editors. Some of the science writers had already opened their laptop computers and typed in preliminary leads and boilerplate descriptions of the project. The
Newsday
writer had begun work on a commentary observing tartly that the only newsworthy hole here was the one in Calvin Lambert’s head for spending two hundred and fifty million dollars to capture something that most reputable scientists didn’t believe existed.

But it was a big story in any case, so they sat and squinted against the glare, watching sweating television crews recording establishing shots of the isolated complex of sandblasted hangars that had once been an Air Force test site for classified aircraft and rockets.

After four months of work, the complex was operational, complete with a freshly painted Deus, Inc. logo on the gate and refurbished hangars and blast-proof blockhouses. In the guard shack by the highway only a single unarmed guard stood where once squads of soldiers had patrolled with M-16s and dogs. Lambert’s lawyers had negotiated shrewdly with the government to buy the site, as well as to equip it with the masses of instruments needed for the project.

Gerald and Dacey stood in the deep shade of one of the smaller hangars, talking with the San Francisco criminalists Jimmy Cameron and Ralph Gaston. They’d eagerly taken leaves of absence to join the project. After all, a hole that could penetrate any matter would be the biggest ballistics phenomenon in history.

The doctor George Voigt — clad in a suit and tie even in the heat — stood with them. They all peered into the hangars, fascinated as the rotund, sweating Andy Mullins and his Megamag engineers tinkered final adjustments on the huge machines to be activated today.

Although Gerald wore his customary t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he seemed different. It wasn’t just the desert sunburn, or the shagginess from being too busy to get a haircut. He was more intense than before, if that was possible. He was also more driven. Now he wasn’t just chasing some vague hunch. He knew the promise and the profound danger of the exotic object they would soon attempt to harness. He also understood that it would take extraordinary luck, besides the meticulous planning and engineering, to bring a wormhole into their grasp — a creature such as humans had never seen. Knowing that challenge had changed Dacey, too. She hadn’t minded the publicity, with the media trying to paint them as the “Bonnie and Clyde of Science” as one physicist had told
Science
magazine. Nor had she minded the warning her department chairman had given her about getting involved with such a dubious venture. She had tenure. She’d worked damned hard to get it. And now it gave her the freedom to take risks.

She took Gerald’s arm and he patted her hand. He’d given her time to overcome her fear of commitment. And that fear was evaporating.

It was a good group, thought Dacey. They had gravitated to one another almost instinctively and it was natural for them to become a team. Not only did they share the common bond of having encountered the inexplicable holes, they all liked each other. The animated Mullins, scrambling around cheerily urging his men on to greater efforts, was eager for the technical challenge. Cameron and Gaston were itching to apply their investigative training to whatever the effort would yield. George was, as usual, amiably determined to tease apart the strands of the mystery.

They heard the distant whoosh of a small jet and saw Lambert’s plane swoop out of the cloudless blue sky and land on the nearby blinding-white runway.

Gerald set his jaw. Dacey knew he’d only seen Lambert a few times after the first meeting. The occasions had been cordial enough, but they had invariably come on the heels of brutal negotiations with Lambert’s lawyers over commercial rights to the wormholes. Gerald knew that the friction had reflected the lawyers doing Lambert’s bidding.

The jet rolled up beside the hangar and the door opened. Two large dark-suited men stepped out, clearly bodyguards. They were followed by three smaller dark-suited men, and then Lambert, dressed in a sport coat with no tie, a light blue shirt and wheat-colored slacks.

Lambert’s public relations people had arrived the previous day, planning the news event to their boss’s liking. They met him and briefed him on the procedure.

But Gerald forgot all the frustrations as he turned back to the results of their efforts thus far. He still got a thrill out of the machines. What amazing things they would do. Dacey moved up beside him, and they walked out of the hangar and over to the low platform holding the podium with its mass of microphones.

One of Lambert’s suited assistants, his company’s public relations man, called the news conference to order and introduced his boss. Dacey, Gerald and the others sat in the front row on metal folding chairs. Lambert stood easily behind the phalanx of microphones explaining how the Meier theory, as controversial as it was, had convinced him to invest in this project. He yielded the floor to Gerald, who described the facility and the strategy for capture. He finished and gestured to the massive building. “To your right is the hangar containing the first contingent of capture machines. After the questions and answers, we’ll roll them out.” Predictably, the questions came thick and fast, reporters shouting over one another. Lambert answered the questions with the smooth confidence of a billionaire, and Gerald with the sharply contrasting precision of a scientist.

From
The New York Times
: “What do you say to the vast majority of physicists who refuse to believe your theory?”

From Associated Press: “What are the chances of capturing one?”

From
Newsweek
: “What are the dangers?”

From
CNN
: “How do you all feel as this deployment is about to begin?”

From Reuters: “Are you aware that the Chinese Academy of Science has recommended a project to capture a hole?”

From
People
: “Now that you two are working together, do you still consider yourselves estranged from one another?”

Gerald pointedly ignored the last question, stepping down to stand beside Dacey. A last question was directed to Lambert from
Business Week
:

“Do you have plans to commercialize these things?”

“Good question,” said Lambert. “These objects are perhaps the most important ever discovered. Nobody really knows what incredible benefits or dangers they represent to our species and our planet. Of course, there may be commercial applications, but I am interested first and foremost in a basic understanding of their properties. We will only consider applications if they will not compromise this critical basic research.”

Dacey leaned over and whispered to Gerald. “He is an accomplished bullshit artist.” Gerald just shook his head in amazement.

The group moved with their notebooks and cameras to the front of the hangar, and the massive doors began to slide open. From inside echoed the rumble of diesel engines starting up, the faint odor of diesel exhaust.

Rolling ponderously from the shadows into the sunlight emerged two massive armored vehicles, painted a light blue with Deus, Inc. logos on the side. On top of each vehicle, mounted on a boom of thick steel girders, was a thirty-foot-wide hemisphere of clear Lexan, each hemisphere covered with a complex lattice of thick, copper-wound steel bars. The dishes moved up and down, side to side on steel gimbals. Television cameras began to record the scene for live broadcast, and the rapid-fire clicking of cameras could be heard beneath the roar.

Cameron leaned across to Gerald, his grinning face mostly hidden behind sunglasses. “Damn, Gerald, they look like bra cups for the fifty-foot woman!” The remark drew smiles, even from Gerald. His smile also reflected the wry humor he saw in his father, the consummate showman, presuming to explain high-tech equipment.

“These are the basic capture units,” shouted Lambert, standing easily beside the two vehicles. The video crews panned their cameras and the reporters scribbled notes and typed into their laptops. “They’re Hurricane
MAZ-
543
A
Russian artillery carriers. They weigh seventeen tons each and can resist the pull of a hard vacuum without being drawn in. These were solid Soviet vehicles that the Russians sold us for cents on the dollar.” His expression showing deep satisfaction, he patted the side of one of the huge vehicles. “The electromagnets on the hemispheres are powered by diesel generators installed in shielded compartments. The magnets are controlled by one central computer in a separate control van that communicates with the drivers.”

“You sure the seals will hold?” came a voice from the knot of reporters.

“No doubts,” Lambert said tersely. He was annoyed by the question in the middle of his spiel, just as he didn’t like to be interrupted by bankers when he was pitching them on an oil project. “It’s the same basic docking and sealing mechanism NASA uses to connect spacecraft.” He turned quickly to a large van that had followed the carriers out. “Now, the control vans we’re using were radar vehicles for the Russian missile batteries. Got them cheap, too.” The van was also painted blue, its roof crowded with antennas. “The magnets around the hemispheres produce an intense, highly controllable magnetic field that can automatically manipulate the position of one of the magnetic holes. We plan to station units like these in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Moscow, and San Francisco.” He strolled toward a bare sandy area to the side of the hangars. “They are ideal for making a capture, as we will demonstrate.” He nodded to the drivers, who gunned the two carriers out into the sand.

Followed by the control van, the two carriers took up positions about a hundred feet apart, facing one another. The reporters moved away from the hangar behind yellow ropes to witness the test.

Slowly, the two hemispheres rotated on the boom to aim themselves downward into the desert sand. A faint humming issued from them and the earth began to bulge upward. The ground erupted in a whooshing shower of sand as a seven-foot steel sphere tore itself from the ground, bobbing into the air between the two hemispheres. The camera crews moved back and forth behind the rope to get a better angle and photographers again triggered rapid-fire shots.

The hemispheres slowly angled upward, back to their horizontal aim, and the steel sphere rose to float between them, a faint rain of dust falling from its gleaming surface. Finally, the two carriers eased forward, the steel ball still floating between them, until the Lexan hemispheres met, enclosing the ball suspended within the sphere they formed.

“Okay, so you can do a scaled-up version of the lab experiment capturing those little balls,” said the reporter from Associated Press. “What guarantee do you have that it will work in real life … if you ever get the chance?”

“We’ve done plenty of simulations,” said Lambert. “And we’ve set off explosions whose outward blast duplicates in reverse the inward force of a vacuum. If we get the chance, this will work.” Gerald smiled again. Lambert had never even seen the test. He would hardly have toiled away in the desert sun to set the charges, hunkering down in the blockhouse as they went off and climbing all over the dirt-covered test vehicles examining the results.

The carriers shut down their engines, and the reporters moved forward to examine them and the steel ball that now rested on the bottom of the hollow Lexan sphere.

The group boarded buses, which lumbered across the sun-baked desert floor to another hangar two miles away. There, the reporters filed out to tour the three cavernous vacuum chamber rooms, complete with door-sized airlocks, inside which the holes would be suspended.

“
NASA
used these to test spacecraft,” said Lambert, standing beside the large doors, as television cameras recorded the huge blue-painted chambers with the Deus, Inc. logos. “We bought them and installed them here.” After another hour of giving out quotes and doing standup television interviews, Lambert boarded his plane, and it rolled from beside the hangar and vaulted into the sky. He had to be back in Houston for the morning network talk shows the next day. The contract stipulated that he would be the spokesman for the project on national
TV
, even though the booking producers had requested Gerald be included.

Gerald squinted into the blue sky as the plane shrank to a dot and then was gone. Dacey came up beside him and took his arm. As the reporters trooped back onto the bus, they stood together, silently looking at the huge chambers. Without saying so, each knew the other was wondering whether the entire project wasn’t some ridiculous fantasy.

“It’s cooling off a bit. Let’s take a ride,” said Dacey, pointing at a nearby blue-painted jeep with the Deus, Inc. logo.

“Sure. Good idea,” said Gerald. “You haven’t really seen the area, yet.”