by Shain Carter
Dawson didn’t answer. He continued towards the patio without breaking stride.
Burt continued pleadingly, the words coming out quickly. “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. More than that - it’s a one time ever opportunity. This could be the most important program ever in the history of mankind. This is the sort of thing any other scientist would kill for.”
Dawson shrugged. “Then get one of them to do it. Becker’s a horse’s ass, and after wasting one day with him, spending the summer at SCU actually looks pretty good.”
“You can’t mean that Dawson - SCU in the summer is hell. Besides, you shouldn’t let Becker’s ego bother you. Yeah, he’s spoiled. Yeah, he’s a rich guy used to getting his own way. But can’t you see what a good thing his program is for you? It’s your chance to prove you were right about the green flame all along. Your chance to use it to make history!”
“Find someone else to make history.”
They were just a few steps from the patio. Derek had been watching Dawson approach and now stood, beckoning Dawson to him. Burt stopped and grabbed Dawson’s arm roughly. “I can’t get someone else,” he hissed. “You’re the only one who can do the job in the short time we’ve got.”
Dawson jerked his arm from Burt’s grip and walked calmly onto the patio. The sun beat against his face and he felt miserably hot. It wasn’t even nine yet, and the air was already stifling.
Becker stepped up to Dawson and clasped his shoulder. “You’re a good stone skipper,” he laughed. “That’s something I could never get the hang of.”
Dawson grunted, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his face. Derek gently guided Dawson to his table and they both took a seat.
“I’ve spoken to the others,” Derek smiled. “They’re all in. The fossil, the white collar, the messenger probe - how could they say no? Yet Burt tells me you’re not so sure, that you aren’t convinced about the whole thing. You’ve had a night to think it over, to try to find the flaws in my analysis. I’ve been doing the same thing myself for the last four months, and I can guarantee you, there are no flaws. Mine is the only logical explanation of the evidence.”
Derek’s voice became low and serious. “Jones, I won’t beat around the bush. I need your help. I don’t have time for you get all warm and fuzzy about it. I want you to come to Turkey with us now. If you get there and change your mind, I’ll fly you back. Anytime, no questions asked. Think about that fossil, about the knowledge that’s waiting for us in that probe. Tell me you’ll come with us.”
Dawson wasn’t thinking about the fossil or the messenger probe. He couldn’t get past thinking about the green flame program and all the dark emotions it dredged up. He had been thinking about the green flame for three days now, since Burt had first brought it up in Tilden’s office, and it was no more appealing now than it was then.
His thoughts moved on to Tilden. Already life at the University was just bearable. Jones’ existence was at the margins, where he lived life like a zombie; not dead, but not quite alive either. Unable to choose which classes he taught, or how he taught them. Not even allowed to assign grades. And causing Tilden to lose a million dollar grant would make things worse, much worse. Tilden had been doing everything he thought of to make life miserable for Jones, but this would spur him to explore new options, to take his efforts to the next level.
Dawson’s gaze drifted over Derek’s shoulder to the next table, where Ted and Meredith sat. Ted had his back to Dawson; Meredith sat across the table, facing towards him. She was listening intently as a very animated Ted was describing something big with his arms. The sun caught Meredith’s hair, giving it golden glow. She looked very pretty sitting there, her face a cross between concentration and amusement. As Dawson watched, a drop of sweat rolled down her forehead and onto the bridge of her nose. She gracefully wiped it away. Watching her reminded Dawson again of how hot and humid the summers could be at South Central. He had read in the paper the previous week that the weather bureau was predicting an unusually hot, dry summer. Burt was right about one thing - that it would be nice to get out of town for the summer.
Dawson focused back on Becker. His eyebrows were arched in anticipation of an answer. Dawson opened his mouth to decline, then stopped. He wondered why he was fighting them - restarting the green flame program couldn’t be that bad. Even if Derek was wrong about the messenger probe, there was nothing Dawson would lose in going along with the program. Besides, if it turned out more badly than a summer at the University, he could always take Derek up on his offer to fly him out if he changed his mind. In fact, he realized, by leaving now he would avoid being assigned to a summer session of remedial chemistry, even if he did return early.
“Sure,” Dawson heard himself say. “I’d be happy to join you.”
Chapter Nine
Dawson left Burt a list of supplies he would need in Turkey and returned home that afternoon. It was Sunday, and Derek’s plan called for them to leave from La Guardia the following Saturday at noon. That left just five days for Dawson to get his affairs in order and, more importantly, to review his green flame work - work that he hadn't even thought about for over a decade.
Dawson spent Monday and Tuesday preparing for the trip. There was the issue of his apartment - prepaying rent, canceling internet service, holding mail, alerting the building custodian to his absence - as well as a few things he needed to do at the office - double check final grades, issue notices of course completions to other departments, arrange to have his burn rate instrument air-shipped to Turkey, and close his lab, such as it was, for the summer. These were all things that Frank Tilden could have had done for him, but Dawson chose to do them himself. Dawson justified spending his time on these chores by telling himself that he wanted them done right, his way, and Tilden could not be trusted to ensure that it was. In reality, though, Dawson did this busy work because it delayed the most depressing - yet most important - job he had to do before leaving: coming up to speed on his old green flame work.
Finally, on Wednesday morning, Dawson could no longer put it off. The night before he had assembled everything he had on the subject - his old folder of declassified government reports, some dating back to the early 60’s, his own notebooks from his first few years at South Central, the eight papers he had published on the subject, and four other papers that had been in various stages of completion when he had abandoned the work.
Dawson sat that morning at his dining room table, a cup of coffee in his hand, a glass of gin on the table, and the papers and notebooks stacked high in a pile before him. With trepidation Dawson reached out and took the top paper from the stack - one he had written in the early days of the program. Anomalous Oxidation Kinetics for Medium Molecular Weight Carboranes, Part I. Just reading the title filled Dawson with dread. As he began to read through the paper itself, though, Dawson discovered the experience to be much less unpleasant than he anticipated. The work was good - excellent, in fact - and the paper was thorough and, he noted with satisfaction, well written.
The second paper was equally good, describing some significant technical hurdles that Jones had overcome. It was the nature of such papers to downplay the difficulties encountered during research, and Dawson laughed out loud when he read his reference to “an incident of uncontrolled thermal decomposition.” This bland description was in sharp contrast to his memory of the actual event - a roaring, emerald green fireball that ripped through the lab, destroying a desk, most of a lab bench and, quite nearly, the hapless graduate student involved.
Picking up speed, Jones read through three more of the completed papers, then turned his attention to the four that had not been finished. He had completely forgotten how close these papers were to submission and was pleasantly surprised to find three of them were essentially completed and the fourth simply lacked some paragraphs on background information.
Dawson was also pleasantly surprised to find that the work was much closer to completion than he had recalle
d. The ultimate goal of the program was to identify a viable fuel mixture, and Dawson’s group had completed all of the necessary physical measurements on the individual fuel components. All that was left was to determine which combination of these ingredients optimized the most important fuel properties - burn rate, volatility, energy densities, exhaust temperature and so on.
At the time Dawson dropped the work, this would have taken his entire group at least a year, with most of that time spent in the painstaking measurement of the physical properties of hundreds of different mixtures. However, Dawson felt confident that he could now do the job by himself in a matter of only three to four weeks. This increased efficiency was mainly the result of the dramatic advances in computer power that transpired in the years since Dawson had discontinued the program. Dawson could use off-the-shelf software to accurately model data already gathered on the individual organoboranes and extend it to mixtures. The modeling software would not only save him time, it also eliminated his need for the burn rate instrument in Turkey. When he realized this, he called the freight company and arranged for the instrument to be returned to his lab. All he would need to do Turkey is to synthesize the mixtures in the lab and use them to test potential nozzle materials for corrosivity.
Becker wanted the team to leave New York by noon Saturday, and Dawson had originally planned to take the early morning Saturday flight connecting through Atlanta. He had all his affairs in order by late morning Friday, though, and began feeling restless. He spent the next few hours drinking and pacing around his apartment. Finally, he decided to fly to New York that afternoon and spend the night at an airport hotel, reasoning that splitting the trip like this would be less tiring. Besides, it would give him something to do.
Dawson slept poorly at the hotel that night, his mind racing with thoughts about the program, and about resuming green flame chemistry. The next morning the hotel shuttle took him to the private aviation terminal. Once inside he found a small restaurant and bar and order a large breakfast - eggs, steak and a bloody Mary. He had just begun eating when Ted Krezler bust into the restaurant, pushing a cart stacked high with luggage of two clearly different styles. When he saw Dawson, he released the cart and waved his arm vigorously.
“Dawson, great to see you, man. Been here long? We just got in. Can’t wait to get to Anjawan. I’ve been thinking about this thing the whole week. Got to hit the john - back in a minute.”
Without waiting for a reply to any of this, Ted pushed the luggage cart next to the table and left in search of the bathroom. A few seconds later, a very tired looking Meredith Nelson shuffled through the door. She had cut her hair short, no doubt for convenience - they all knew there would be few amenities where they were going, and short hair would be easier to deal with than long hair - but Dawson found the style quite attractive on her. Meredith saw Dawson and waved weakly to him, then dragged herself across the room and eased into the chair next to his.
“You two just get in?” he asked. “You look beat.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Meredith smiled weakly. “We were on the same red-eye from LA. I swear, that man does not need sleep. He kept me up the whole night with his dinosaur theories, then practically ran all the way here from baggage claim.”
The waitress came by and Meredith ordered a fruit plate.
“You look pretty tired yourself,” Meredith told Dawson after the waitress left. “Did you get in this morning, too?”
Dawson told her briefly about his trouble sleeping the night before. “Just nerves,” he told her. “I’ll be glad when we get to the labs and can start work.”
Ted reappeared at the doorway and raced to the table, neatly vaulting over Dawson’s bags in the process. “Breakfast, looks great!” he exclaimed, looking at Dawson’s nearly empty plate. He called to the waitress to bring him a plate of the same, then turned to Dawson.
“I was working this out on my way back from the john. You know why the dinosaurs even thought about exploring space in the first place? It was the moon, I’ll bet. It would have been closer to earth back then, so it would have looked larger than it does now. Tides would have been higher, too, and I’m sure they would have realized the connection between them and the moon pretty quickly.”
Dawson glanced over at Meredith. She flashed him a tired, exasperated smile and rolled her eyes. For the next twenty minutes Ted prattled on about his different theories, pausing only long enough to shovel in an occasional mouthful of eggs or steak. Ted’s theories were interesting enough in small doses, but Dawson cringed at the thought of spending the next two days travelling with him in tight quarters.
Ted had just finished describing his theory of dinosaur burial practices when a tall man in a blue uniform entered the restaurant. He glanced around and, spotting the group, walked over to them. A second, smaller man, dressed in an identical blue suit, appeared and followed him over. The first man stopped next to Dawson.
“Mr. ahh…” the man glanced at a paper he held. “Mr. Krezler?” Dawson pointed across the table to Ted.
“Then you’re Mr. Jones?” Without waiting for a reply, the man turned to Meredith. “And you’re Miss Nelson?” Meredith nodded, and the man continued. “Mr. Becker’s plane has arrived and is being refueled. He asked that we take you to it so as not to delay departure.”
They paid their bill as the smaller man piled Dawson’s two bags onto Ted’s cart. They left the restaurant and followed the tall man across the lobby to an exit door. The man punched a code into a keypad and the door buzzed open.
It had begun raining when they were inside. The group walked out onto the wet concrete. The wind had picked up and was gusting hard against them. The taller man motioned them to a white stretch limo idling twenty yards away. Across the open tarmac Dawson spotted Becker’s jet in the distance, wing lights blinking, cabin door open and stairs extended. Fighting their way against the wind, the three crossed to the limo and climbed into the back as the two men loaded the bags into the trunk. A minute later, they were on their way to the plane.
As they approached the Airbus, Metz became visible in the cockpit window. When the limo stopped, the three spilled out into the wetness and scrambled up the stairs, with Ted in the lead and Dawson bringing up the rear.
As they entered the plane, Derek rose from a front seat to greet them. Before he could say anything, though, the three were mobbed by Andy and Cindy, who had rushed up from the rear of the plane. Cindy gave Meredith a big hug while Andy happily exchanged mock blows with Ted. Derek finally calmed the children and officially welcomed Meredith, Ted and Dawson aboard. George, Burt and Alec were already there and exchanged handshakes with the new arrivals. Jones noted with amusement that Alec had on a new pair of glasses; apparently he was concerned there wouldn’t be an adequate supply of electrical tape at the research center to keep the old pair serviceable.
Almost immediately Metz stuck his head through the cockpit door and announced that refueling was complete and they had been cleared for the taxiway. The group strapped themselves in as the engines whined to life. After a moment the plane lurched forward, and five minutes later they were in the air, laboring through heavy turbulence. For the next twenty minutes the plane bounced wildly as it climbed. Suddenly it broke free from the clouds into bright, calm skies. In a few minutes they leveled out and Metz throttled the engines back, making it quiet enough for the passengers to talk.
Derek stood and headed for the center section of the plane, motioning for the others to follow. They arranged themselves around the three tables; Derek, Burt and George at the center table, Ted and Alec at the fore table, and Jones and Nelson at the back table. The children stayed in the front of the craft.
Once settled, Derek addressed the group, welcoming them once again to the project and thanking them for their participation. “We have a lot of work ahead of us,” he told them. “George can fill you in on our new home.”
George stood. “As I told you last week, I have arranged for the use an abandoned research
compound in eastern Turkey. It was to be the site of a new technical university, the largest in Turkey, until an earthquake struck. Now the site is mostly ruins, but with a few partially intact buildings still standing.
“Crews have been working around the clock for weeks to recondition three of the surviving buildings. The first, a dormitory where we will eat and sleep. The second is Building 12, which will house our offices and laboratories. It is ideal for us because it was, in fact, designed to be a laboratory. Finally, there will be a building for our support staff. I received word yesterday that the laborers have completed their work and the facilities are ready.”
“What’s the place like?” Ted asked. “Any pictures?”
“I regret I have none, but I can tell you a little about the area. First, it is remote. Very, very remote.”
“That’s was my idea,” Derek interjected. “That means no distractions and no meddling from curious outsiders. We’ve chosen the Los Alamos model for this work - extreme isolation.”
“There is a small village nearby, though,” George continued. “The town of Anjawan. A thousand people live there, if you can call it living. It is really nothing more than a bunch of mud huts and a small market.”
“Sounds hardly worth a trip into town,” Alec remarked.
“Absolutely correct, Dr. McPherson. In fact, I would highly advise against going into the town at all. It is still backwards in many ways, and the locals view the few foreigners they encounter with both suspicion and contempt. Besides, we will have everything we need provided for us in the compound.”
“Everything?” Ted asked. “Like what?”
“Well, obviously our accommodations will be there. We will have a support staff to maintain the facilities and to tend to our day to day needs: cooking, cleaning, washing the clothes, protection. Power will be provided by surplus army generators, one for each building. They will deliver 110-volt electricity, just like back home, for about sixteen hours each day. Water will be trucked in weekly, but I’m afraid we have no water heaters.”
