“Admiral-” Steengo said, then broke off.
“Let us do keep it on a first-name basis. And your first name is Admiral. Others?”
“Floyd,” said Floyd.
“And a great pleasure to meet you all. How may I help?”
“An item, referred to as the artifact, was recently brought to the science building. Do you know about it?”
“Indeed I do. I was studying it, so am therefore quite familiar with the strange construction. In fact I had it under observation at the time of the explosion.”
“Did you see what happened to it?”
“Taking the literal meaning of see, dear Jim, forces me to answer that question in the negative. I had no photo pickups operating at the time so I did not physically see what happened to it. The only information I had was the direction that it left in. That was thirty-two degrees to the right of the zero north-polar latitude.”
“There is nothing at all out there in that direction,” Steengo said. “No settlements, no nomadic tribes. Nothing but empty plains right up the polar cap. How do you know that the artifact was taken that way?”
“I know that, mon Amiral, because this artifact emits tachyons and I was observing it with a tachyometer. Keeping count, so to speak, and most interesting it was too. It did not emit many-after all, what source does?-but a few are much better than none. Let the record show that it emitted one tachyon, from the direction I have given you, just microseconds before the explosion that destroyed the equipment I was using.”
“You weren’t-injured?” Madonette said.
“How sweet of you to ask! I wasn’t, because I wasn’t there. As soon as I could I constructed a new tachyometer, conveyed it to the site of the explosion with, unhappily, no results. Now there is just background radiation.”
“Do you know what caused the explosion?”
“Welcome to this easy give-and-take of social intercourse, friend Floyd. To answer your question-I do. It was a very powerful explosive. I can give you the chemical formula but I am sure that you would find that immensely boring. But I can tell you that this explosive was manufactured quite widely for the mining industry at one time. It is named ausbrechitite.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Understandable, Admiral, since it was found to grow unstable with the passage of time. Manufacturing was phased out and ausbrechitite was replaced by newer and more stable explosives.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“A bit over three centuries ago. Would you like the exact date?”
“That will do fine.”
We blinked at each other in silence. Not knowing what to do with this weird historical-scientific evidence. Only Madonette had the brains to ask the right question.
“Aida-do you have any theories about what happened?”
“Simply thousands my dear. But there is no point in telling you about them until I gather some more evidence. Right now you might say that we are in the early moves of a chess game with millions of possibilities for the rest of the game. But I can give you some figures. Chances of an accidental explosion; zero. Chances that the explosion was tied in with the theft; sixty-seven percent. What happens next depends upon you.”
“How?”
“Consider reality. You are mobile, cher Jim while I am, so to speak, tied down to the job. I can give advice, and accompany you in transceiver form when you leave here. But what happens next-that decision is up to you.”
“What decision?” Aida could be exasperating at times.
“I will supply a new tachyometer. If you take it in the direction I have indicated you might be able to track the artifact in this manner.”
“Thanks,” I said and reached out and turned Aida off. “Looks like us humans have to come to a decision. Who follows the trail? Let us not all speak at once but let me speak first because I am top rat. I have the feeling that it is now time to thin our ranks. I say that Madonette does not go any further. We needed her for the music-and wonderful she was too!-but not for crawling around looking for nutcases planting century-old bombs.”
“I second Jim’s motion,” Admiral Steengo said.