“Yes, but that is a trick!” I still did not, and did not want to, understand. “The atoms, in the course of their disintegration, jump through the shield?” I asked.
“No. They simply disappear in one place and reappear in another.”
“But that violates the principle of conservation!”
“Not necessarily, because they do this very quickly — something flies in here, something flies out there, you see. The balance remains unchanged. And do you know what transports them in this miraculous fashion? A neutrino field. And one modulated, moreover, by the original emission — a kind of ‘divine wind.’ ”
I knew that such an effect was impossible, but I trusted Donald. If anyone in our hemisphere knew nuclear reactions, he did. I asked about the range of the effect. Yes, already, even before I was aware of it, came evil thoughts.
“I do not know what the range might be. It is, in any case, not less than the diameter of the chamber I used — six centimeters. I did this also at Wilson — twenty-five centimeters.”
“You can control the reaction? Determine the endpoints of these ‘changes of location’?”
“With the greatest precision. The terminus is a function of the phase — of where the field reaches a maximum.”
I tried to understand what sort of process this was. The nuclei decayed within Frog Eggs, but the tracks of the decay simultaneously burst into view outside it. Donald said that the phenomenon lay beyond the frontiers of our physics; from the standpoint of physics, it violated all the laws. Quantum effects on such a macroscopic scale are not permitted — not within the pale of our theories. Gradually he spoke more freely. He had hit upon it by accident, while trying with his partner, McHill — blindly, really — to repeat Romney’s experiment, but in a physical variation. He subjected Frog Eggs to the radiation of the emission, not knowing whether this would yield any result. It did. This happened right before he had to leave for Washington. In his one-week absence McHill constructed, according to their joint plan, a larger apparatus, one that would allow them to extend and focus the reaction to a radius of several meters.
Several meters. I thought that I had not heard him right. Donald, with the face of a man who has been told that he has cancer but is controlling himself phenomenally, said that nothing in principle stood in the way of their building an apparatus that would permit the effect to be increased millions of times — in strength and in range.
I asked who knew of this. He had told no one, not even the Science Council. He explained his motives. He had complete confidence in Baloyne, but did not want to place him in a difficult position, because Yvor was, among us, the one directly responsible to the Administration for all the research. And, that being the case, Donald could not then tell anyone else on the Council. He could vouch for McHill. To what extent, I asked. He looked at me, then shrugged. He was too intelligent not to see that a game was beginning, with the stakes so high that no man now could be vouched for. Although it had grown fairly cold, I was covered with sweat as the conversation continued. Donald told me why he had gone to Washington. He had written a memorandum-petition having to do with the Project and, without informing anyone of this, submitted it to Rush, and afterward took off to hear the answer; Rush had summoned him. There Donald explained to the Administration how harmful the secrecy of our research was. He argued that even if we acquired knowledge that increased our military potential, this would only augment the global threat. The present state was based on a fluid equilibrium, and regardless of in whose favor the scales tipped, if that tipping was too violent it could make the opposing side resort to desperate measures. The balance was preserved by the fact that every step taken by one side was parried by the other. So proceeded the arms race, and the global maneuvering. Although I was a little put out that Donald had not consulted even with me, I kept this to myself and asked him only what sort of answer he had received. But I could easily guess.
“I spoke with a general. He told me that they were perfectly aware of the truth of what I had written, but that we had to continue to act as before, because we did not know whether or not the other side was conducting the exact same research as we. . . so that our eventual discoveries would not be disturbing the balance, but, on the contrary, restoring it. I got myself into a nice mess!” he concluded.
I assured him, though I knew better, that they would simply file his petition away. But this did not put him at ease.
“I wrote it,” he said, “when I had nothing up my sleeve, absolutely nothing. In the meantime, while the petition already lay on Rush’s desk, I hit on this effect. I even thought of withdrawing the miserable document, but that really would have looked suspicious to them! Well, you can imagine now how they will be keeping an eye on me!”
He meant our friend Nye. And I did not doubt that Nye had received appropriate instructions. I asked Donald what he thought about discontinuing the experiment, and disassembling the apparatus or simply destroying it. I knew, alas, what his reply would be.
“One cannot unmake discoveries. And, then, there is McHill. He will follow my lead while he is in this with me and we are working together, but I cannot say what he would do if I were to take the course you mention. And even if I could be sure of him, all that would be gained is a certain delay. The biophysicists have already set up their research plan for the coming year. I saw a rough draft of it. They want to do something similar to what I did. They have chambers, they have good nucleonics people — like Pickering — they have an inverter; they want to analyze the effects of microdetonations in the monomolecular layers of Frog Eggs, in the second quarter of the year. The equipment is all automatic. They will take a few thousand photographs a day, and the effect will stand out like a sore thumb.”
“Next quarter,” I said.
“Next quarter,” he repeated.
What was there to add? We returned in silence across the dunes; barely any light was given by the rim of the red sun sinking below the horizon. I remember that as I walked I saw the surrounding scene with such clarity, and it seemed to me so beautiful, it was as if I would be dying soon. Before we went our separate ways I wanted to ask Donald why he had chosen me. But I did not. There was really nothing that remained to be said.
13
The problem, stripped of its integument of professional terms, was simple. If Donald Prothero was not mistaken and further experiments bore out what the earlier experiments indicated, it would be possible to produce a nuclear explosion that, transmitted with the speed of light, would release its destructive energy not where it was detonated, but at any location one chose on the globe. At our next meeting Donald showed me a sketch of the apparatus, as well as his initial calculations, from which it followed that if the effect remained linear with an increase in power and distance, there would exist no limit to either. One might even blow the moon apart, by accumulating a sufficient amount of fissionable material on Earth and aiming the reaction, as at a target, moonward.
Those were awful days, and the nights were perhaps worse, because it was then that I turned the whole matter over and over in my head. Donald needed a bit more time to set up the apparatus. McHill went to work on that, while Donald and I tackled the theoretical analysis of the data, though of course this meant only their phenomenological formulation. We had not arranged to work together — the collaboration seemed to happen by itself. For the first time in my life I was obliged to apply to my calculations a certain “conspiratorial minimum”; that is, I destroyed all notes, always cleared the memory in the computer, and refrained from telephoning Donald even in neutral matters, since the sudden increase in our contacts could also attract unwanted attention. I was a little afraid of the perceptiveness of Baloyne and Rappaport, but we were seeing each other less often. Yvor had a multitude of things to do in connection with the approaching visit of the influential Senator McMahon, a man of great merit and a friend of Rush; and Rappaport at that time had got himself conscripted by the information theorists.