The Krone Experiment k-1

by J. Craig Wheeler

  “Jim,” implored Drefke, falling into old, first name habits, “it was a lot more complicated than that. Yes, I did know it, and I had already had it out with him. It’s not what it seems. You can’t take it out of context.”

  “Why don’t you just put it into context for me then?” The President was still angry, frustrated at events that had spun so rapidly out of his control.

  “The simple fact is that we wouldn’t be anywhere on this thing if it weren’t for Isaacs here,” Drefke continued his appeal. “The black hole would still be there, eating away, and we wouldn’t have the faintest idea. This thing was bound to blow up in our face one way or another. We know that after the Novorossiisk, one thing led to another and we’ve gotten into a fine jam over it, but we would still have no idea why. Isaacs broke every rule in the book to reach out to Korolev, but I agree with him that that contact is probably our only way out of this problem. Without Korolev, we could be dealing with a bunch of generals ready, anxious, to finger the button.

  “As it is,” he continued, “there is some evidence that the Russians have been calmer to react than they would have been if Isaacs hadn’t been in touch with Korolev.”

  “Calmer?” The President was incredulous. “They just blew our nuke out of the sky!”

  “They were on the verge of it six weeks ago, when they first put up the hunter-killers. Cooler heads prevailed, and we have reason to believe that Korolev was instrumental.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “We got it from Zamyatin.”

  “From Zamyatin? What the hell is his role in all this?”

  “We don’t fully understand. His appearance this evening was a total surprise to us. But he does seem to be in Korolev’s camp. He’s been the liaison between Korolev and Isaacs.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud!” The President returned and dropped back into his armchair, slopping brandy over the side of his snifter and onto the carpet. “Honest to god, Howard, how am I supposed to run this country if things like this are going on behind my back.”

  “Jim, this has been a complex and rapidly changing situation. We have only begun to appreciate the stakes in the last couple of weeks, to see how it all ties together. You’ve got to look at the signals,” Drefke implored. “There are people over there trying to understand, trying to keep a lid on things. Sure, they’re trying to get some advantage from it; they have to cover their own asses internally. But we still have to seek them out, appeal to the rational ones who see the common danger if we’re going to keep the crazies in check. We need to pacify the Russians and figure out what to do with this damnable black hole, but we must tackle both problems together. We’ve got to open up and work with them on this thing. If we don’t, they’ll cram it all down our throats, the black hole, their laser, everything.”

  Drefke stared at the familiar figure, unsure whether his arguments were effective.

  Isaacs had scarcely breathed during the intense discussion. He appreciated Drefke’s stout support and thought that the Director had established his moral motivation as well as possible. Still, his breach was massive. There were immutable political forces once such things came to the attention of the President. Without seeing the specifics, Isaacs numbly recognized that his career at the Agency was over.

  The President got up and went to the serving cart. He put down the sticky glass and poured some more brandy into a fresh one. He sat and took a reflective sip. After a moment he said, “Let’s put aside the political factors for now. I need to get some feeling for the broader perspective.

  “You say,” the President continued, looking at Drefke, “that this black hole is consuming the Earth, that the Earth is falling into it, as you remarked previously. But apparently there is little directly noticeable effect now. How soon before we have an emergency on our hands? That is to say, a public emergency?”

  “That’s a difficult question to answer,” Drefke said, glancing quickly away from the President to Isaacs and Phillips and then back. “The ultimate danger is apparently many generations away. But let me stress that although that is farther in the future than we are normally used to dealing, the threat is real and implacable.”

  “But what is the future course of this thing?” the President asked. “Professor Phillips, I haven’t heard from you. What is your prognosis?”

  Phillips set aside his brandy and clasped his fingers in his lap before replying.

  “If it continues on its course,” Phillips said, “there will be a phase of increasingly violent earthquakes. As the object grows bigger it will be able to trigger large earthquakes by releasing stress already stored along fault lines. At a somewhat later stage the tunnels themselves created by the passage of the object will be so large that their collapse will engender a continuing series of major earthquakes. As the hole grows even larger, the Earth will begin to orbit it. The oceans will be sloshed from their basins by huge tides. The earthquakes will grow in magnitude until the whole Earth is rent by them and totally uninhabitable. In the final stage, all the material of the Earth will be consumed, and only the black hole grown to about this size will be left orbiting the Sun.” He made an OK sign for illustration.

  Silence filled the room as Phillips finished his description. The President stared into his glass. He gave his head a small shake and looked up toward Phillips. “I must ask again how long it will be before this thing becomes overtly dangerous in the way you have just described? With the earthquakes and tidal waves?”

  “Such a thing could happen now,” Phillips said, “particularly in the Far East or along the coast of California where the orbital plane intersects regions of tectonic activity.”

  “But when will such things begin to occur with regularity?” the President inquired.

  “Very difficult to answer,” Phillips shook his head, “perhaps a hundred years, maybe as much as a thousand.”

  “In a sense then, we have that long before we must cope with this thing directly,” the President asserted, “that long before massive deaths begin to occur.”

  Phillips thought for a moment. “Yes, the hole will become a deadly menace at some point, but that may not be a measure of our grace period in terms of taking active steps against it.”

  The President raised an eyebrow in question. Phillips unclasped his hands to draw an elliptical path in the air with his finger. “As the hole follows its orbit, it is subject to drag forces as the inevitable adjunct of its consuming the matter of the Earth. These drag forces will slowly cause the hole to spiral to the center of the Earth. After a certain period of time, the orbit of the hole will no longer carry it above the surface of the Earth. After that it will be totally inaccessible to us and our fate will be truly sealed. Right now it is difficult to say whether the hole will disappear beneath the surface before or after the massive earthquakes begin. We will not have to rely on theoretical estimates for long, however. Observations currently underway will tell us directly how fast the settling is occurring even if we have no accurate way of predicting when regular extensive damage will begin.”

  The President rested his forehead against his hand, leaning on the arm of the chair. He rotated his head from that position and once more inquired of Phillips, “There remains one more major question then, doesn’t there?” He looked straight into Phillips’ eyes. “What can we do about it?”

  Phillips returned the President’s gaze forthrightly. “Mr. President, on this issue I must be perfectly candid. So far none of our discussions have produced a glimmer of cause for optimism.”

  Phillips glanced at the other two men and then returned his attention to the President. “Understand that I do not mean that we must accept defeat. We have only just begun to study the problem, and it would be foolhardy to suggest that because a possible solution is not apparent now that one will not be forthcoming in the future, if enough ingenuity and manpower are brought to bear. But it would be equally foolhardy to minimize the magnitude of the problem. This object is so tiny and so massive that it
cannot be moved except by the most titanic of forces. My colleagues and I are far from ready to give up on the problem, but we must all be prepared to concede at some point that there is no solution. It certainly is conceivable that the Earth is doomed.”

  The President absorbed the gloomy assessment. “Well, we can’t give up without a fight. You spoke of manpower and ingenuity, Professor. What can this office do to provide the resources necessary to find a solution to this problem, presuming one exists?”

  “Just now the stress must be more on ingenuity than brute manpower,” replied Phillips. “At the present stage we need an idea, or set of ideas, some hint of a useful program. Then I imagine that a massive engineering program such as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo program would be called for.”

  “From the scientific point of view,” the President rubbed a hand over tired eyes, “can we proceed without the Russians?”

  Phillips pondered his answer. “I appreciate the dilemma you are in. You cannot lightly submit to coercion. We have many great scientists in this country, men and women who would gladly give up careers of research to work with you on this. Perhaps, no, we don’t need the Russians in that sense. But you ask me as a scientist. I will tell you this. I do not know the depth of Korolev’s political connections, although I have every reason to believe that he has great influence. But I do know that there is no brain on Earth that I would rather have working on this problem than that of Viktor Korolev.”

  The President nodded, then spoke. “Gentlemen, I have much to think about. Please keep yourselves on call.”

  They left the White House by a side exit and climbed into Drefke’s waiting limousine that whisked them away through the quiet Washington streets.

  Chapter 19

  On the evening of January 5th, a taxi made its way from Logan Airport, skirting the Charles River along the edge of Boston. Eventually, it came to Newton and slowed on the tortuous suburban streets. The air was noticeably colder outside the city, and the snowflakes fell more thickly. The passengers huddled in the corners of the flat Checker seat listening to the wheels plow through the slush. The smaller figure tried to ignore the stream of frigid air that came from his window that would not quite close. He wore a topcoat, but shivered from lack of natural insulation. The man was in his early forties, of average height, thin to the point of frailness. His head was round in profile, but thin so his face was a flattened oval. His sparse hair was combed straight back; a trim Vandyke adorned his chin. He wore old nondescript horn-rim glasses, the temples of which showed the grey corrosion of long exposure to facial grease.

  The other passenger was a large, hulking man. His coarse slavic features were broken by a relaxed smile as he looked out at the snow. His bulky winter coat was undone to display a grey suit of plain utilitarian cut. His mind spun with the excitement of his first visit here, and his eyes had captured all the details—from the gross flashing signs atop Kenmore Square to the fine old houses with large yards they now passed by.

  The taxi finally pulled up in front of a large white house on which the porch light signaled welcome. The cabbie flicked the plexiglass partition open without looking back, disgruntled at the thought of the long trip back to the airport without a fare and scheming for a way to cover that loss. The slim passenger grimaced at the figure on the meter despite it being covered by his expense account and shoved some bills through to the driver, waving for him to keep the change. The driver showed his gratitude by remaining immobile while his passengers worked the doors open and stepped out. The smaller man’s left foot landed ankle deep in water in the gutter. He uttered a quiet exclamation of dismay, shoved the door shut and stepped gingerly to the plowed walkway leading to the front door. He navigated the cleared path, waited for his companion, then pushed the button as he stomped his wet shoe.

  Inside Wayne Phillips rose quickly from the couch and got to the door just before his wife who had come in from the kitchen. He opened the door and greeted the men on the stoop.

  “Clarence! Viktor! Come in!”

  He turned to his wife, “Betsy, you remember Clarence Humphreys from Princeton? And I would like you to meet my good friend and colleague, Viktor Korolev, from the Soviet Union. They’ve been working together in Moscow on our project.”

  “Of course,” she nodded, “how are you? I’m afraid we’ve welcomed you with rather dismal weather.” She spoke with a British accent, being a lifelong cherished companion from Phillips’ youth at Oxford.

  Helping Humphreys off with his topcoat, Phillips was too close to notice the soggy shoe. From her vantage point a few feet off and blessed with an eye for such things, his wife saw it and gave a small gasp.

  “Oh, my! You’ve stepped in a puddle!”

  Humphreys acknowledged this misfortune sheepishly.

  Betsy Phillips immediately took complete control.

  “Here. You sit down before the fire and get those wet, cold shoes off. Professor Korolev, won’t you sit here? I’ll fetch a pair of Wayne’s slippers and fix you both a nice hot toddy.” She guided her guests toward chairs in front of the fireplace. Alex Runyan arose from the couch, his right arm encased in a sling.

  “Viktor, welcome to the United States.” He pumped the Russian’s hand awkwardly, backward, with his left hand. “After all these years—such a delight to have you here. When your name came up in La Jolla, I never actually thought I’d see you working with us.” He turned to the other scientist. “Clarence, how are things in Moscow?”

  “Hello, Alex,” Humphreys returned the greeting. “Well, it’s snowing there too, but the rivers are still in their banks.” He lifted his wet foot and both men grinned.

  Humphreys sat and with a disdain for propriety that belied his academic standing, quickly removed his shoes and socks. He extended white, blue-veined feet toward the fire and wiggled his toes. Korolev looked around the room. It was large and tastefully decorated, mostly in colonial, in keeping with the house that dated back to shortly after the Revolution. The floors were original, wide planks held down with wooden pegs. He was admiring a large heavily decorated Christmas tree in the corner when Betsy Phillips returned with a pair of faintly scruffy slippers and a tray upon which she balanced two steaming concoctions in tall glasses. Humphreys slid his feet into the slippers and smiled gratefully.

  The Russian toasted her with his glass and smiled his broad smile.

  “I’m glad you could stop over before we have to go to Washington,” Phillips said, after his wife had discreetly retired. “That is when the real work will begin, but Alex and I are anxious for a chance to hear your ideas while there is still a little peace and quiet. I understand Krone’s notes have been useful?”

  “Absolutely! They’re invaluable,” said Humphreys enthusiastically. “The man understood an incredible amount, and there’s an even greater wealth of information implicit in the computer data that will require years to completely analyze. We’ve only had time to scratch the surface.”

  Humphreys looked at his Russian colleague.

  “Things have been so hectic. We’ve been under tremendous pressure to digest those notebooks.”

  He spoke to Phillips and Runyan.

  “I want both of you to know what an immense help Viktor has been. More than that, most of the time I have foundered in his wake.”

  Korolev nodded in silent sober acquiescence at the praise.

  “I don’t know what bolt of enlightenment hit the Soviet hierarchy,” Humphreys continued, “volunteering his services for this project when he was not even allowed to attend a conference before. Anyway, we should all be grateful.”

  “Ho,” said the Russian in his deep rumbling baritone. “I explain certain facts to them. Sometimes they understand. But this is a complicated thing. Your government. My government.” He waved a hand in dismissal and tossed down a healthy slug of his drink.

  “The fire was unfortunate,” Korolev said. “Some important things are missing.”

  “Viktor has filled in most of the mis
sing parts,” Humphreys explained, “but there are a couple of awkward gaps. The books weren’t the only casualty. I’d heard you’d been hurt, Alex. How’s the arm?”

  Runyan flexed his fingers slowly. “I had surgery again a month ago,” he said. “Damn tendons are tough to heal.” He leaned back and fingered his beard to show the scar on his jaw. “Got me in the chin and arm with one blow. Tough lady, let me tell you.”

  Humphreys shook his head in sympathy.

  “Where is this man Krone now?” Korolev inquired. “I must talk with him.”

  “Unfortunately, he’s in no condition to talk even yet,” Runyan explained. “He’s in Walter Reed Hospital, and they’re doing everything they can to bring him around.”

  “How about the woman?” Humphreys asked.

  “Well, under the circumstances, I didn’t press charges. Everything she did was under coercion. She’s got an apartment in Washington I hear and visits Krone daily. The doctors think she is a beneficial factor.” Runyan stared into the fire, recalling his encounter with Maria Latvin, and shivered slightly.

  “Listen,” Runyan brightened, shaking off his reverie, “we want to hear more about this idea of yours. You think you have some way of attacking the holes?”

  “Well, it’s not fully worked out yet,” said Humphreys, “but we do have a proposal. I wish we had a bit more time. I’m not so sure how we will fare trying to convince the President and his advisors of its workability.”

  “Try it out on us,” encouraged Phillips. “You suggested in your letter that stimulated emission was involved?”

  “That’s right. You know how the principle works in lasers. Atoms are energized and ready to emit a photon of light. Then if a seed photon is sent in, it stimulates one of the atoms to emit an identical photon. The two photons then induce the emission of two more identical photons, the four become eight, the eight, sixteen and so on, leading to a chain reaction.

  “The same process can be made to work on any system that radiates. If a thing emits photons spontaneously, then it can be induced to emit photons on cue under the proper circumstances. Viktor pointed out that, in particular, this applies to black holes. We know that because of the quantum mechanical uncertainty principle, the event horizon of a black hole is slightly fuzzy and that light leaks out. Every black hole slowly radiates away its substance. The question is, can our black hole be stimulated to radiate away its mass and disappear faster than it would ordinarily?”