“I wish I could see it!” he muttered, as he looked at the old ‘cathode ray tube’ television monitor mounted over the displays and watched the view from the top of the tower, more than two hundred feet above his head and one hundred sixty above the monotonously flat terrain. He could barely discern the one relevant feature, through the heat haze that blurred the telephoto image: the squat shape of the concrete roof of the half-buried and weather-worn structure within which the reactor sat in judiciously isolated splendour. “Enough power to run a good sized city, and all I have to do is prove it won’t bite back.”
“This is Director Christiansen.” The crackle-ridden voice broke the sense of isolation in the bunker quite effectively. “My visual image appears to have faded to nothing due to a camera failure. We can no longer see the reactor, MAC.”
“Understood.” Isaac grinned, enormously amused by this latest development. Now they are in the same boat as I am. So much for his three day delay to install a receiver dish for this ancient hole! Now he’ll find a way to do it in half an hour, now he needs it himself.
“Suggest we shut down,” the Director’s voice continued when it became obvious to him that Isaac was not concerned. “One of our essential maintenance crews has just completed an assignment ahead of schedule; I can have the camera replaced in forty minutes.”
As long as that? You’re slipping, my officious friend! “I don’t think a shut-down would be wise at this point,” Isaac responded with all the sincerity he could muster. “It might be counter-productive and could even induce neutron hysteresis.”
“Oh… the team suggests that within a further half hour, you could also receive visuals,” Director Christiansen bargained reluctantly, not sure what hysteresis had to do with neutrons, especially in an enigmatic Eliminator reactor. “Hope you can see a way around this, MAC.”
“I seem to have found one, er… M-CAC. I’ll expect them here in two hours. The reactor will be shut down by then.” Isaac authorised a power reduction to twenty percent and watched the displays as the needle on the output monitor slipped smoothly back to the designated level. Now we’ll get to see what kind of glow this thing produces! He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. So much for the future of fusion reactors! He snapped his fingers indulgently.
***
Four hours later, Isaac sat back on his less than satisfactory chair and selected ten percent on his indicator. “Okay, take it from five to ten now, do the ramp over thirty seconds, if you please.”
“We concur, MAC.”
Isaac watched the instruments with a degree of concentration beyond most men. Even if we understood what constitutes abnormal behaviour, I’d rest easier. Latt had provided a most comprehensive breakdown of the characteristics of Eliminator reactors, but Isaac still felt that the demonstration of the working unit brought back from Mars gave him the greatest confidence. They had made a video recording of it too, and he had watched it again and again.
Right at the moment when that reactor had reached sixty percent, the proximity field effects had exceeded the dimensions of the unclad device, and a pink glow had come into existence, like a fluorescent film on the outside of the structure. Latt could not explain the reason for it, but he assured Isaac and the other physicists that all the Eliminator reactors he had operated without their covers had produced the same stunning visual effect.
Pretty awesome. Isaac grinned as he recalled Eric Kirouac’s comment on viewing the video. He got it just right.
“All parameters are exactly as during our first run up, MAC,” Christiansen reported over the old but well-shielded cable.
Isaac glanced briefly at the second monitor now mounted over his instruments. Somehow he had not been surprised to find that the technicians could only provide another old CRT television – it was all part of the rather uneasy relationship between him and the military staff that were required to accommodate him and his unique experiment. This monitor showed that the interior of the concrete bunker was well-lit by fluorescent strips, and that the reactor looked fairly innocuous, with its convoluted stainless steel chamber tuner covers vaguely reminiscent of old-style residential radiators. The entire unit glistened softly as if it were coated in a fine mist. I would have liked an air-conditioned facility, but...
“Let’s run up to twenty percent again.”
“Concur, MAC.”
Within a minute, the readings stabilised again, and Isaac started to feel the first inkling of confidence. “Thirty percent.”
He watched as the power ramped smoothly up, closing on the selected value steadily. He repeated the sequence, and the power was raised over a series of steps, to forty percent. This presented no unexpected consequences, and so the great experiment continued, and in only an hour from the restart they were at fifty percent.
Professor Hardy looked at the second monitor, but, apart from the moisture, which seemed to cover every part of the equipment and the walls behind it, the reactor still looked inactive. Looking forward to the sixty percent effect now…
Isaac had the increments reduced to two percent, with a ramp time of thirty seconds, and the ‘hold’ periods between increments increased to ten minutes. It was another hour before they had progressed to sixty percent, and the anticipated pink glow had appeared, on cue. He kept the hold period as before, and the enjoyment level of observing the effect ‘live’ again, went from the euphoria of a newly-wed couple’s first concept of love to the deep contentment of that same couple’s retired companionship – forty-five years later – in a few minutes. At sixty-two percent the effect was marginally more obvious, and at sixty-four it seemed to have reached a maximum. Sixty-six came and went, and sixty-eight was soon stabilized. The pink glow permeated the entire image, making other items in the remote bunker look pink, too.
Glancing at the live visual image, which he had haggled so hard, but unsuccessfully, to obtain before the test began, but which he had ironically obtained relatively easily, after M-CAC’s own remote failed, Isaac was astonished to see a tile from the suspended ceiling floating into the camera’s field of view. As it drifted, it started to tilt and curved, almost in slow motion, directly towards the camera, and a small lizard jumped down from it, the recoil redirecting the drift of the tile.
“Shut the reactor down!” He shouted as the viewpoint shifted due to the impact of the reptile landing on the camera body. “That white–”
The image on the ‘new’ monitor vanished in an ultra-white flash. A fraction of a second later, the entire bunker seemed to leap into the air. Isaac was thrown into the instruments, then launched back across the room into the solid concrete of the rear wall, where his head contacted the surface with almost explosive force – and everything went black.
***
When he next opened his eyes, Isaac found himself lying on a floor that sloped up at an angle of twenty or thirty degrees to the point where the monitors had once sat. One of them now resided in a crumpled heap barely inches from where his head had lain.
He moaned. Mustn’t move until I’m sure my back is okay. Isaac wiggled his toes, then looked down as he felt the pain in his thighs. The second monitor
Should be viewing a point much further back than the test site, as the building is tilted back... unless the tower was buckled in the shock wave, of course.
The tower was indeed buckled to match the new tilt of the bunker almost exactly, and although the lens of the camera had been ‘sand-blasted’ by the materials thrown out during the explosion, this partially fried unit atop the tower finally managed to refocus temporarily on the distant scene. Isaac was stunned by what he saw, even though he knew the circumstances must inevitably have led
to this result, now that sufficient time had passed for him to have given thought to the tremendous energy which must have been released as the reactor somehow went supercritical. What was it that I saw? Isaac screwed up his eyes in an attempt to concentrate on the strangely elusive memory of the last moments before the explosion, but the view before him proved too compelling, and the dim recollection faded in the light of the stunning scene.
The camera had focused on the far edge of a jagged crater larger than any natural terrestrial phenomena of a similar nature that Isaac had ever seen. I must be the luckiest man on Earth, to live to see– At that moment, the bunker tilted even further, and the emergency power failed, as somewhere nearby a cable snapped, leaving him in total darkness.
***
An interminably long time later, after almost wishing that he smoked, so that he would have possessed a lighter with which he could have broken the absolute blackness, Isaac saw the beam of a flashlight playing over the wall to one side of the bunker, like a beacon of hope.
“Professor Hardy?” came the strong voice behind the light. “Professor Hardy, are you still in here?”
Isaac took a deep breath. “Yes,” he managed a croak a little louder than a whisper. “Yes,” slightly louder this time. “I thought I’d wait to see if it were worth leaving.”
The light swung towards him and another joined it, dazzling him completely. “What’s that, sir?” the voice asked, suddenly close by.
“I was beginning to wonder if anyone else survived,” Isaac grinned. The helmet- mounted light settled on him, revealing his face, covered with concrete dust and smeared with blood and sweat.
“Get the stretcher!” the man shouted over his shoulder. “Where do you believe your main injuries are located, sir?” he continued in a quieter turn as he took Isaac’s pulse.
“Thighs,” Isaac whispered, his voice having faded once again.
***
Fifteen minutes later, he sat up on the stretcher, despite the protestations of his rescuers, and looked down into the pit. In the moonlight, the true size was impossible to gauge, but Isaac was still horrified by the almost unbelievable scale of it. “How... big?” was all he managed to whisper.
The man carrying the forward end caught his meaning easily enough. “Estimated at 4.8 miles; your bunker almost fell into it.”
However will we explain this away to the rest of the world? Isaac shook his head as he lay back, wincing as his legs protested about the motion. The ground around the bunker was left in turmoil, with cracks, fissures, and whole sections of geological formations overturned and slammed into the previously flat surface. Overlaid, in an irregular pattern on top of this, was a layer of ejecta from five to twenty feet thick. Fortunately and logically, the entrance to the bunker was at the back and thus was left largely uncovered when the material rained down, leaving the entrance almost free of blockages. The walk across this rubble was not a steady one, despite the best efforts of the paramedics, and so the Professor passed out again in this stage of the journey.
In minutes, the rescue helicopter was heading back to civilisation, and he regained consciousness once more. He opened his eyes after some time; the noise of the ‘copter was still pounding into his head. After several attempts, he made his next question clear. “What about radiation?”
“Mostly gamma.” The paramedic shouted his reply. “Apparently there’s a lot of short-lived isotopes down in that hole, though. It’s inhuman at the bottom. We dropped a war-issue count-rate meter on the end of a long line. It went off-scale on the highest range – about fifty feet before it reached the bottom.”
Isaac closed his eyes again. And still, we await the more deadly and truly inhuman hazard of the Narlavs. He smiled grimly at the thought of further destruction, and finally drifted off into a drug-induced sleep as the helicopter thundered away from the zone of destruction.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A ‘warm’ welcome…
“Everyone ready?” Richard looked left, at Kirrina, his First Officer and Chief Pilot, then right, at Paranak, his Second Officer and Chief Engineer. His fiancée was wearing a wide-necked, pale grey jumpsuit with flared sleeves and legs, and… his Narlav colleague was completely naked, as always. What a team!
Both responded in the affirmative, the first with a smile and a nod (and a slightly nervous twinkle in her eyes), the second with the side-to-side body movement that showed agreement, and somehow expressed a gruff confidence.
“We’ll emerge way out beyond the orbit of the last gas giant, so that we will have plenty of time to choose to return to Grey Space if we find that the System has been over-run by Narlavs. Kirrina, what destinations have you programmed?”
“Several micro-jumps which could be adjusted to suit – within the System – in case it looks like there are few enough enemies that we can attempt to remove them, and one, rather long one.” She paused for effect. “Back to Earth; we know we’ll be safe there.”
“Okay.” Richard nodded. “Let’s hope we don’t have to make that one.” He shook his head slightly in amazement at his own words. “Paranak?”
“All defensive systems are at maximum; N-beams are on standby, and your message to the Arshonnans is ready to run, just as soon as we locate them. I am ready to back up any offensive action with a strategy based on my understanding of the weaknesses in Narlav Shield design.” The alien looked very comfortable on his incliner, but his arms rested on the panel before him, ready to stretch out to any of the myriads of controls within his prodigious reach, and act instantly, if so required.
“Just a little longer,” Richard announced, somewhat unnecessarily.
They sat impatiently for a couple more minutes, watching the grey mist as it seemed to grow more and more indistinct before their eyes. The lighter shade indicated they were ‘behind’ an area of normal space with very few stars; Frontier Post Nine was in the outer reaches of one of the Galactic arms, so the star field around it would appear very different from their previous destination. Finally, a few faint streaks of light flashed across the viewscreen, and the pale grey dissolved into the velvet black of deep space, sprinkled with a handful of stars.
Paranak leaned over his scanners, checking for the planets he knew should be present, and, more significantly, for the tell-tale traces of energy released by the operation of Star Drives. “Three gas giants, one Earth-type planet. Orbits as predicted. Indications of a few, very small asteroids,” he said with expressionless efficiency. “Also, several ships, some at extreme sensor range, others close enough for a good visual image.” He swivelled and looked at Richard.
“Continue with Drive analysis; give me maximum magnification on those near ships, forward viewscreen.”
Kirrina poised over her navigation controls as the image dissolved and reformed to reveal two ships with the distinctive and heart-quickening arrowhead shape with which they were now so familiar.
“They will be seeing our arrival any second,” Paranak warned his Captain, apparently completely unconcerned about attacking yet more Narlavs.
“Let’s take them both while they are still unaware of our presence and still unprepared!” Richard urged his Chief Pilot, and she completed the modifications to her calculations and engaged her first micro-jump almost as he spoke. They re-entered normal space between the two Pakak, and Richard reached for the Negatruction sphere eagerly. As he did so, green light flashed around them; their ship was rocked by the simultaneous application of the weapons from both Pakak. The Shell Fields flared up as the enemy’s green beads of energy played over their Patrol Craft. Richard gulped, but managed to apply his weapon to the ship that formed the focus of his weapons system scanner.
“Two Shells down!” Paranak cried with alarm as he started to detect the first signs of damage to the target he had selected. “Give us a micro-jump to a safe distance before it’s too late.”
“Stand by,” Kirrina spoke as the surroundings blurred for an instant. “Concentrate on just one, the other is behind i
t!”
Richard’s heart skipped a beat as he saw that she had only moved them a handful of miles, then he focused on the same Pakak which he had previously been attacking; this time he was on its opposite side, with the other Pakak safely screened from them by its bulk. He tried to copy Paranak’s scything action – the technique which had served so well to finish off their last enemy, back in the Arshonnan system, before that ship made good its escape (– into eternity).
Paranak threw his energy into the attack as the Narlav ship finally responded to their startling move with its own weapons once more, and moments later a huge flash tore across the forward viewscreen as their combined weapons broke through the Pakak’s Shell Fields. A few seconds later, once the energy dissipated, the other, slightly more distant ship brought its weapons to bear once again.
“Take us out of here!” Richard shouted, as he saw warnings flashing all over the defensive system display.
Kirrina responded with another micro-jump, and the brief flicker of the stars was replaced by the steady image that they had seen when they had first dropped out of Grey Space. “They are too fast!” she whispered, her hands shaking in reaction. “I thought it would be easy, like last time.”
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