“Nothing.” I was at a loss for words. I liked Snow, but I distrusted him, or rather I distrusted the purpose of his visit.
“Nothing? Surely . . .”
“What?” I pretended not to understand.
Eyes half shut, he leaned so close to me that I could feel his breath on my face:
“This business has all of us confused, Kelvin. I can’t make contact with Sartorius. All I know is what I wrote to you, which is what he told me after our little conference . . .
“Has he disconnected his videophone?”
“No, there’s been a short-circuit at his end. He could have done it on purpose, but there’s also . . .” He clenched his fist and mimed somebody aiming a punch, curling his lips in an unpleasant grin. “Kelvin, I came here to . . . What do you intend doing?”
“You want my answer to your letter. All right, I’ll go on the trip, there’s no reason for me to refuse. I’ve only been getting ready . . .”
“No,” he interrupted. “It isn’t that.”
“What then? Go on.”
“Sartorius thinks he may be on the right track,” Snow muttered. His eyes never left me, and I had to stay still and try to look casual. “It all started with that X-ray experiment that he and Gibarian arranged, you remember. That could have produced some alteration . . .”
“What kind of alteration?”
“They beamed the rays directly into the ocean. The intensity was only modulated according to a pre-set program.”
“I know. It’s already been done by Nilin and a lot of others.”
“Yes, but the others worked on low power. This time they used everything we had.”
“That could lead to trouble . . . violating the four-power convention, and the United Nations . . .”
“Come on, Kelvin, you know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter now. Gibarian is dead.”
“So Sartorius makes him the scapegoat?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about that. Sartorius is intrigued by the visiting hours. They only come as we wake up, which suggests that the ocean is especially interested in our sleeping hours, and that that is when it locates its patterns. Sartorius wants to send our waking selves – our conscious thoughts. You see?”
“By mail?”
“Keep the jokes to yourself. The idea is to modulate the X-rays by hooking in an electro-encephalograph taken from one of us.”
“Ah!” Light was beginning to dawn. “And that one of us is me?”
“Yes, Sartorius had you in mind.”
“Tell him I’m flattered.”
“Will you do it?”
I hesitated. Snow darted a look at Rheya, who seemed absorbed in her book. I felt my face turn pale.
“Well?”
“The idea of using X-rays to preach sermons on the greatness of mankind seems absolutely ridiculous to me. Don’t you think so?”
“You mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Right,” he said, smiling as if I had fallen in with some idea of his own, “then you’re opposed to the plan?”
His expression told me that he had somehow been a step ahead of me all the time.
“Okay,” he went on. “There is a second plan – to construct a Roche apparatus.”
“An annihilator?”
“Yes. Sartorius has already made the preliminary calculations. It is feasible, and it won’t even require any great expenditure of energy. The apparatus will generate a negative field twenty-four hours a day, and for an unlimited period.”
“And its effect?”
“Simple. It will be a negative neutrino field. Ordinary matter will not be affected at all. Only the . . . neutrino structures will be destroyed. You see?”
Snow gave me a satisfied grin. I stood stock-still and gaping, so that he stopped smiling, looked at me with a frown, and waited a moment before speaking:
“We abandon the first plan then, the ‘Brainwave’ plan? Sartorius is working on the other one right now. We’ll call it ‘Project Liberation.’ ”
I had to make a quick decision. Snow was no physicist, and Sartorius’s videophone was disconnected or smashed. I took the chance:
“I’d rather call the second idea ‘Operation Slaughterhouse.’ ”
“And you ought to know! Don’t tell me you haven’t had some practice lately. Only there’ll be a radical difference this time – no more visitors, no more Phi-creatures – they will disintegrate as soon as they appear.”
I nodded, and managed what I hoped was a convincing smile:
“You haven’t got the point. Morality is one thing, but self-preservation . . . I just don’t want to get us killed, Snow.”
He stared back at me suspiciously, as I showed him my scribbled equations:
“I’ve been working along the same lines. Don’t look so surprised. The neutrino theory was my idea in the first place, remember? Look. Negative fields can be generated all right. And ordinary matter is unaffected. But what happens to the energy that maintains the neutrino structure when it disintegrates? There must be a considerable release of that energy. Assuming a kilogram of ordinary matter represents 10^8 ergs, for a Phi-creation we get 5^7 multiplied by 10^8. That means the equivalent of a small atomic bomb exploding inside the Station.”
“You mean to tell me Sartorius won’t have been over all this?”
It was my turn to grin maliciously:
“Not necessarily. Sartorius follows the Frazer-Cajolla school. Their theories would indicate that the energy potential would be given off in the form of light – powerful, yes, but not destructive. But that isn’t the only theory of neutrino fields. According to Cayatte, and Avalov, and Sion, the radiation-spectrum would be much broader. At its maximum, there would be a strong burst of gamma radiation. Sartorius has faith in his tutors. I don’t say we can’t respect that, but there are other tutors, and other theories. And another thing, Snow,” – I could see him beginning to waver – “we have to bear in mind the ocean itself! It is bound to have used the optimum means of designing its creations. It seems to me that we can’t afford to back Sartorius against the ocean as well as the other theories.”
“Give me that paper, Kelvin.”
I passed it to him, and he poured over my equations.
“What’s this?” He pointed to a line of calculations.
“That? The transformation tensor of the magnetic field.”
“Give it here.”
“Why?” (I already knew his reply.)
“I’ll have to show Sartorius.”
“If you say so,” I shrugged. “You’re welcome to it, naturally, provided you realize that these theories have never been tested experimentally: neutrino structures have been abstractions until now. Sartorius is relying on Frazer, and I’ve followed Sion’s theory. He’ll say I’m no physicist, or Sion either, not from his point of view, at least. He will dispute my figures, and I’m not going to get into the kind of argument where he tries to browbeat me for his own satisfaction. You, I can convince. I couldn’t begin to convince Sartorius, and I have no intention of trying.”
“Then what _do_ you want to do? He’s already started work . . .”
All his earlier animation had subsided, and he spoke in a monotone. I did not know if he trusted me, and I did not much care:
“What do I want to do? Whatever a man does when his life is in danger.”
“I’ll try to contact him. Maybe he can develop some kind of safety device . . . And then there’s the first plan. Would you cooperate? Sartorius would agree, I’m sure of it. At least it’s worth a try.”
“You think so?”
“No,” he snapped back. “But what have we got to lose?”
I was in no hurry to accept. It was time that I needed, and Snow could help me to prolong the delay:
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay, I’m going.” His bones creaked as he got up. “We’ll have to begin with the encephalogram,” he said, rubbing at his overall as if to get rid of some invisible stain.
Without a word to Rheya, he walked to the door, and after it had closed behind him I got up and crumpled the sheet of paper in my hand. I had not falsified the equations, but I doubted whether Sion would have agreed with my extensions of his theory. I started abruptly, as Rheya’s hand touched my shoulder.
“Kris, who is he?”
“I told you, Dr. Snow.”
“What’s he like?”
“I don’t know him very well . . . why?”
“He was giving me such a strange look.”
“So you’re an attractive woman . . . .”
“No, this was a different sort of look . . . as if . . . .” She trembled, looked up at me momentarily, then lowered her eyes. “Let’s go back to the cabin.”
9 THE LIQUID OXYGEN
I have no idea how long I had been lying in the dark, staring at the luminous dial of my wristwatch. Hearing myself breathing. I felt a vague surprise, but my underlying feeling was one of profound indifference both to this ring of phosphorescent figures and to my own surprise. I told myself that the feeling was caused by fatigue. When I turned over, the bed seemed wider than usual. I held my breath; no sound broke the silence. Rheya’s breathing should have been audible. I reached out, but felt nothing. I was alone.