“Well, it’s a bit early to say yet. Let’s just say for now that I’m pretty certain you’d find our work at Sudbury interesting. Now, obviously, I didn’t call just to talk about academic stuff. It so happens that I’m looking around for people who are suitably qualified and experienced in our particular field, and from what Heinrich said, I think you two might just fill the bill. I’d be interested in talking to you about it. Also, if you’re in the kind of jam he says you’re in, then . . .” He left the sentence unfinished but his expression said the rest. “Well, how about it. Interested?”
“You mean there’s a chance we might get into ISF?” Clifford sounded incredulous.
“That’s about it.”
Aub was gaping unashamedly.
“Yes,” he said after a few seconds. “We’re interested.” It was a masterpiece of understatement.
“Fine.” Morelli looked pleased. “How about two days from now? Could you get here by then? Don’t worry about the cost or anything—ISF will fly you here and back, naturally.”
Clifford and Aub looked at each other, nodded, and turned toward Sarah. She nodded back vigorously.
“Seems fine,” Clifford said. “No problem there.”
“Fine,” Morelli declared again. “I’ll get my secretary to log in a couple of reservations and call you back with the details. See you both Thursday then, huh? Have a good trip.”
That night Clifford, Aub, and Sarah had another wild celebration out on the town. They drank to the future of ISF, to the health of German astronomers, to the ghost of Carl Maesanger, and to network freaks wherever they might be. But most of all, Clifford and Aub toasted the pure, unsuspected genius of a certain young English lady.
Chapter 11
Clifford and Aub caught the early-morning suborbital shuttle from Albuquerque to Logan Airport, Boston, where they landed just under thirty minutes after takeoff. Sarah was needed at the hospital that day and was unable to accompany them. They received a smiling welcome from Morelli’s secretary, who flew them the rest of the way to Sudbury in an ISF airmobile.
The Institute for Research into Gravitational Physics comprised an aesthetically pleasing collection of functional buildings, all clad in a mix of pastel plastics to add a splash color to the browns and drab greens of the surrounding pine woods. A large lake bordering one edge of the Institute’s grounds appeared like a pool of liquid sky among the trees as they descended toward the landing pad. But better still than all these things, there were no wire fences and no armed guards.
Morelli was a stockily built, energetic, and purposeful man, endowed, as had been evident from his image on the Infonet screen, with a swarthy complexion and deep-brown eyes that had evidently been handed down to him along with his name. By midmorning Aub and Clifford were seated in his spacious and comfortable office overlooking the lake, while Morelli told them something about the kind of work that he and his researchers had been engaged in for the past few years. He had described to them how, through the 1990s, he had worked in many areas of particle physics, his main specialty being the phenomenon of particle-antiparticle annihilation. Near the end of that decade he had discovered to his astonishment that he could set up an experimental situation in which particles could be induced to self-annihilate—to vanish without the involvement of any antiparticle at all. Even after Morelli had spent some time explaining how this was achieved, Aub still found it amazing.
Aub leaned back in the deep armchair and gazed at Morelli with unconcealed awe. “I still can’t get over it,” he declared, shaking his head. “You mean you can actually produce conditions in a lab that cause particles to vanish—not just to annihilate mutually with an antiparticle—to do so on their own? I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
Morelli looked back across his desk with evident amusement. “Sure we can,” he said, as if making light of it. “We do it every day. After lunch I’ll take you to have a look at how we do it.”
“But it’s fantastic,” Aub insisted. “Nobody at Berkeley ever talked about that kind of thing. I never read about it. . . . How come the results have never even been published? Surely that kind of thing should have been published all over.”