Ferracini thrust his hands deep into his overcoat pockets and walked slowly past the houses and shops; the church standing behind trees inside walled grounds; the school at the bottom of the hill and the hospital beyond, halfway up—the world that his older brothers and sister had grown up in before he was born. He wasn't exactly sure why he had come back again now; he had never thought of himself as sentimental.
Orders had come through from Winslade for the Special Operations force to be ready to move to England. A detachment of plainclothes U.S. Military Police would be taking over security at Gatehouse. This was just something that Ferracini had felt he had to do before they left.
Just curiosity, he'd told himself, not nostalgia. It was Janet's day off; she'd wanted to come with him, but he had said no. It was something he'd wanted to do alone. He would go back to the flat afterward and say good-by to her and Jeff.
He stood for a long time on a corner, staring at his parents' house from a short distance along the opposite side of the street. It had become run-down by the time Frank had first pointed it out, and Ferracini remembered feeling disappointed. Now, however, it looked cheerful and clean, with freshly painted woodwork, bright curtains, and its small front yard neat and trim. A light drizzle began falling. Ferracini turned up his collar, but remained standing on the corner, his mind filled with memories of the stories his aunt and uncle had told him of times gone by, and of the photographs in the albums that he had pored over as a boy.
As soon as he saw the woman in the dark coat appear around the corner at the end of the street, he knew why he had been waiting. It was his mother. The dark-haired girl walking beside her and gripping her sleeve would be his sister, Angela, who had been four in 1939. He watched as they came nearer on the far side of the street, his mother small, frail, and hunched slightly with the weight of the shopping bag that she was carrying, and Angela chattering and skipping a step or two in every few. They arrived at the house, entered the front yard, and as she turned to close the gate, his mother paused for a moment to glance curiously at the bareheaded, tousle-haired young man in the overcoat, watching from the corner. For a fraction of a second, the distance seemed to telescope, as had the time, and he felt as if he were looking deep into the face that he had seen only in pictures—a brave and determined face, yet at the same time gentle as only a mother's can be, lined by a lifetime of struggle and sacrifices that had deserved better reward. Then she turned away and disappeared into the house.
After a while, Ferracini began walking slowly back the way he had come. It wasn't a tear on his face, he told himself. The rain was getting heavier. He had only come out of curiosity, after all.
Early the next day, in a chemistry laboratory at Columbia, Jeff was crouched down before one of the cupboards beneath the workbench, holding a list of apparatus required for the morning's experiment in one hand, and lifting out tripod, beakers, Leipzig Condenser, test-tube rack, and burner with the other. As he was finishing, a foot planted itself in his field of vision, and a tall, thinnish figure with glasses materialized above. "Did you bring it?" Asimov asked.
Jeff closed the cupboard door and stood up. "Bring what?" he asked, at the same time feeling a pang of guilt as he remembered. Harry had showed up at the apartment the evening before to announce that he was leaving for an indefinite period; after his earlier admission to Janet that he would be going overseas, the mystery and excitement had driven all thought of Asimov's story from Jeff's mind.
"The draft you said you'd read over", Asimov replied "The story about the spaceship trapped in the gravity field that can't communicate out because its frequencies are shifted. You promised you'd let me have it back today."
"Oh . . . oh, yes. Jeff reached for his bag on the stool behind him and pulled out folders and papers. But even as he started making a show of rummaging through them, he had already remembered with a sinking feeling that the manuscript had been lying near some things of Harry's that Harry had scooped together and taken with him the night before. He was pretty sure, too, that it had no longer been there after Harry had gone. "I . . . I must have left it at home," he mumbled There was always a chance that Janet might have set it aside somewhere.
Asimov's face dropped. "Hell and dammit, Jeff! I wanted it tonight to work in a couple of new changes I've thought of," he grumbled irritably.
"Sorry, Isaac, it slipped my mind. I'll look for it tonight."
"Look for it? Asimov blanched. "My God! You don't mean you've lost it?"
"No, of course not."
"Okay, well, try and let me have it tomorrow, will you, Jeff?"
"Tomorrow," Jeff repeated, managing a sick smile.
Meanwhile the five outgoing members of the Proteus military contingent—Ferracini, Cassidy, Payne, Ryan, and Lamson—were assembling with their personal kit in the mess area at Gatehouse. The other baggage and equipment for England had already been sent ahead by ship to Liverpool, in two duplicate shipments because of the U-boat hazard. They themselves, following confidential arrangements made between Roosevelt's and Churchill's staffs, would be flown to England in a converted U.S. Army bomber; for official records, the bomber would be making a test flight to evaluate transatlantic delivery routes for long-range military aircraft. As to what was supposed to happen after that, all they knew was that they would undergo some kind of training and then proceed to active operations "somewhere overseas".
"We'll go in by sub," Cassidy told the others as they collected their things together in final preparation to move out. "Wait and see—straight into the Baltic. Five dollars says it's by sub."
"They wouldn't risk it," Ryan said. "Too many British subs operating around the Baltic. The German defenses would be on alert all the time."
"Where else, then?"
"Up from the south—Mediterranean, through Italy," Ryan said. "Why else d'ya think they brought Harry along? He looks the part, see."
Cassidy looked at Lamson. "Any guesses, Floyd?"
Lamson shrugged and heaved a backpack onto his shoulder. "Who cares? Guessing isn't gonna change anything. It could be an air drop."
Mortimer Greene and Kurt Scholder were waiting to escort them to the front of the building. The two FBI agents who would be accompanying the party to Mitchel Field on Long Island came forward to help with the bags. After a last look around at what had become, since January, a home in many ways, they filed through the doorway in the partition that separated off the machine area.
Some of the scientists were working as usual. Einstein was puffing his pipe and listening to Fermi, a small but vigorous man with lively brown eyes and an immense brow formed by his receding hairline, who was gesticulating excitedly as he talked. Szilard was busy at one of the consoles, and Teller had been around fifteen minutes or so earlier. In addition, partly to make up for the loss in technical assistance that the departure of the troops would entail, more technicians and scientists had been recruited to the group.
Einstein and Fermi stopped talking and came to say their farewells. Szilard got up from his console and joined them.
"So the time has come, yes?" Einstein said. "What should one say on an occasion such as this? To each of you, may your own kind of God, whatever that might be, go with you. And to anyone that doesn't have one, well, you might find one that suits you. But whatever, good luck, my boys."
"Good luck," Szilard repeated as lots of hands were being shaken in turn. "Let's hope that we manage something useful over on this side to back you up."
"Not good-by, but arrivederci," Fermi said. "I'm sure you will all be back again sometime, when the Fascists are no more. Before then, too, all of America will be fighting with you. You will see."
Teller reappeared just in time to add his own good wishes, and then the group walked through the front area of the warehouse to the loading bay where another guard was waiting in the bus.
As the bus passed the Brooklyn Bridge, Ferracini stared across the river at the familiar skyline and thought of all the things he had found that he had n
ever imagined existed, and which would now have to be left behind. Always in his life it had been the same. Perhaps, he brooded inwardly, some things were better left undiscovered.
Back at Gatehouse, Einstein came through from the machine into the mess area and ambled over to the side-table where the coffeepot and tea urn stood. "Enough work for one morning. Now I will relax a little," he murmured. Scholder and Greene, who had returned from the front of the building and were talking over cups of coffee at the large table, nodded to acknowledge his presence. The place seemed strangely quiet and empty with none of the troops around. Einstein poured himself a cup of tea from the urn, stirred in a spoonful of sugar, and sat down in an armchair nearby to refill his pipe. More voices sounded from the other side of the partition. A moment later the door opened again, and Szilard came through with Fermi and Teller. Szilard, as usual, was doing the talking.
"In each element of the superposition, the object-system assumes a particular eigenstate of the observer. What's more, every observer-system state describes the observer as perceiving that particular system state. . . ."
Einstein sighed and looked around while he sipped his tea. His eyes roamed over the mess of oddments and litter that the troops had discarded in the last stages of packing and eventually came to rest on an overflowing trash bin standing near his chair. On top was a thin wad of typed sheets of paper. Einstein lifted it from the bin and set it down on his knee to scan casually while he lit his pipe. "Ach so, der spaceship that goes to the stars, ja?" he murmured to himself. He turned the page and settled himself back more comfortably, moving his feet to make room as Fermi came over to pour some coffee.
"In each element, the system is left in an eigenstate of the measurement," Fermi said over his shoulder. "If a redetermination of the earlier observation is made at that stage, then every element of the resulting superposition will describe the observer with a memory configuration in which earlier impressions are consistent with later ones. That makes it inevitable that any observer will perceive the system as 'jumping' into an eigenstate randomly, and then remaining there for subsequent measurements on the system."
"Yes, I agree," Teller said. "The main point, though, is that . . ."
In the chair, Einstein smiled delightedly and nodded his approval. "Ah, so here we have General Relativity. . . . Yes, very good, very good. . . . Trapped in the intense gravity field, eh? . . . Oh, is not so good. . . ."
"Each memory sequence yields a distribution of possible values," Szilard was saying. "And each of the distributions may be subjected to statistical analysis."
"Yes, exactly!" Fermi answered, waving his hands. "That's my point. The conventional statistical interpretation must emerge from the formalism itself. Every observer must deduce that his universe obeys the familiar statistical quantum laws. The universal state vector becomes a tree, and every branch corresponds to a possible universe-as-we-see-it."
"Mein Gott!"
The exclamation from Einstein stopped the conversation dead. The others looked at him as he rose slowly to his feet with a strange look on his face, while the papers which he had been reading fluttered to the floor. "Are you all right?" Szilard asked cautiously.
Einstein didn't seem to hear. "The communications link didn't work . . . because time at the two ends didn't run at the same speed. . . ." he murmured distantly.
Szilard looked at Teller, then at Fermi. They all shrugged. Scholder and Greene watched with puzzled expressions. "If you will excuse me, I must go back to my calculations and think some more," Einstein said, still sounding faraway. He began moving toward the door, at the same time nodding rapidly to himself. "Yes, suddenly a chink of light: . . possibly, possibly," they heard him mutter as he hurried out of view
CHAPTER 28
THE FLIGHT TO BRITAIN was uneventful. A chilly, misty December dawn was breaking when the plane finally landed at Prestwick, on the west coast of Scotland, where the five Americans were met by a Captain Portel and a Lieutenant Cox of the Royal Navy. The arrivals were tired and bleary-eyed, and after brief introductions everyone climbed into a wagon to drive ten miles to Kilmarnock, where they would catch the London train coming from Glasgow. The conversation was forgettable and fully in keeping with the bleak scenery of wet, gray stone houses, the soggy-looking hills in the background, and the cold, ungodly hour of the morning.
The station cafeteria was just opening when they arrived, and they had time for a ham and cheese sandwich and a pint mug of strong, sweet, steaming tea, which quickly put life back into their cramped limbs and restored some color to their faces. A Christmas tree was standing in one corner near the stove. Opened on display in front of it was one of the hamper boxes, containing various items of food and candies, jars of chutney, pickles, and preserves, and knitted articles such as socks, mittens, and ear muffs, that the local branch of the Women's Voluntary Service was sending to "The Boys at the Front".
As they stood around the stove warming themselves, Payne commented on the frivolities being reported in the American press. "All that the troops in France seem to be doing is digging holes and playing soccer for newsreel cameramen," he said. "Is that really all there is going on over there to write about?"
"I suppose everyone's relieved that all the things the experts were promising for years didn't happen," Portel replied.
"They told everyone the sky would be black with Heinkels and Dorniers, wingtip to wingtip, within hours. There were thousands of papier-mache coffins piled up ready, all the hospitals were standing by with acres of empty beds . . . and nothing happened. Now, of course, it's all the government's fault for not knowing anything about anything. But you can't blame poor old Neville for everything. He's not a bad bloke really—does his best, you know."
With evacuations, the military call-up, and relocations of key personnel and government departments, about half the families in England had at least one member on the move somewhere, and the train down to London filled quickly until even the corridor was packed with baggage and people, with many khaki, navy, and RAF uniforms. A lot of troops got on at Carlisle, but by that time Portel and his party had found themselves a compartment.
"They won't tell us how many lives the bloody blackout has cost," Lieutenant Cox said. "But it's cost a lot more than anything the Germans have done. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up patching things up with Hitler and calling the whole thing quits. I mean, if either side were serious, they'd have done something about it by now, wouldn't they?"
Even the sinking of the Royal Oak had been "a pretty good show by Raeder's chaps," in Portel's opinion. Ferracini was incredulous as he listened. It was all still a game of king-size cricket. A sporting, "Well hit, sir!" had been earned by the other side. It didn't seem to have registered that what had been knocked for six was over eight hundred British sailors.
But at least the British were doing something, he reflected.
"What do people in America think?" Cox asked him.
Ferracini had to answer, "To be honest, most of them have forgotten there's a war on over here at all."
There were innumerable stops and delays, and it was dark when the train arrived at King's Cross Station. They emerged, stumbling over curbstones and sandbags, into an eerie, black, treacherous world of unseen steps, corners, and lampposts, vaguely outlined buildings, and shuffling bodies. Pedestrians materialized suddenly in the gloom, most of them carrying flashlights and wearing at least one piece of white clothing, usually an armband, coat, hat, or scarf. In the roadway itself, drivers cautiously inched their way forward, guided only by thin pencils of light coming through slits cut in their headlight masks.
Portel vanished into the murk to find a cab. How, Ferracini couldn't imagine. "Man, oh, man, I never realized Broadway was so beautiful," Cassidy's voice muttered from somewhere behind as they stood waiting.
Portel evidently knew the ropes and reappeared after what seemed a miraculously short time with a taxicab, into which Cox squeezed with half the group. Then, to prove it had
n't been a fluke, Portel repeated the performance by finding another cab for the rest. Twenty minutes later, they were all reunited at the Kensington Garden Hotel near the Albert Hall. Rooms had already been booked, and Major Warren and Gordon Selby were waiting to welcome them. While the arrivals from New York went upstairs to clean up and change into fresh clothes, Portel and Cox went for a quick "noggin" in the bar with Warren and Selby; then, their charges safely delivered, the two British officers departed. The others reassembled for a late dinner, which Warren had arranged to be served in a private room.
"It's a lot different here from Manhattan," Gordon Selby said as they sat down. "I still haven't figured out how the cabbies find their way around at all."
"Doesn't anyone talk about anything else but the blackout?" Ryan asked.
Selby grinned apologetically. "I must be picking up English habits already," he admitted. "The big scare's over, so now they grumble—about the food rationing, about the Civil Defense people sitting at their posts and drinking tea with nothing to do all day, about the lousy benefits that the wives of the guys who are drafted get paid. . . ." He nodded. "But sure, mostly about the blackout."
"How about the trains—have you tried them yet?" Cassidy said. "They're really something."
"But in this England, we just walked on," Lamson reminded him. "We didn't need any travel permits stamped by the local Polizeiführer. The Gestapo weren't on the train checking papers. That's something, too."
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