Nesta said, “Don’t talk. Watch your heading, Roger. Don’t want to run out of fuel over the drink.”
“Too right.”
She said, “I can see the aircrew’s chopper, not far to the right. About six miles ahead of us, I’d say.”
I replied, “You’ll see a hell of a lot more than that in a few seconds from now …”
*
An entire ocean seemed to erupt behind us. There, towering more than fifty thousand feet higher than our own altitude, a column of water tried to link ocean and sky. Through its core, a mushroom cloud, livid and active and frightful, started to show its hell’s blossom before we sharply averted our eyes to avoid being blinded. Sheer fluke that the water had been so dense that — even with the goggles on — our eyes hadn’t burned out.
The shock wave caught us and I thought it must inevitably rip the frail aeroplane apart. But the gargantuan column of water had absorbed a proportion of the shock and we survived the headlong, crazy dive toward the sea. Significantly, I regained control when no automatic pilot could have done so.
The tidal wave resulting from what turned out to be the biggest underwater nuclear explosion in history killed twenty thousand people, they say. Had the warheads reached the targets on which they were trained, you could safely add three zeros after that figure. Only a man like Richter could have hoped to prevent those three zeros from decimating the population of the ‘civilized’ world as we know it.
*
I have, since I started putting this all on paper, made one more visit to Orscombe after I made the trip I mentioned at the very beginning. I did not take Nesta.
There was a reason for this visit. The government board of enquiry intend to drill into the concrete that marks the spot where the house called Tithings once stood. If they persist in doing this, it could have unforeseen results. The reason is simple and I have urged, in every official quarter, that they abandon this idea altogether.
The fallout from the Pacific explosion, though mercifully not comparable with that resulting from an equivalent yield of a surface explosion in terms of radiation, must inevitably contain fragments of crystal mosaic. In view of the effect of extreme neutron radiation on crystalline substances and the equally significant properties of superblast, it is calculable that the odds in favour of a fresh outbreak are about a thousand to one if contact between mosaic particles in the Fallout is made with dormant fragments beneath the concrete at Orscombe. If this occurs, the species is unlikely to be very forgiving toward the human race and our extinction in that event is almost inevitable. But the shroud of secrecy the Civil Service has attempted to impose on all that’s happened means that few scientists are aware of the dangers. Those who are seem to be hedging their bets; they don’t want to lose credulity in the wombs of their universities any more than they wish to miss the chance of hopping on the bandwagon of Enlightenment. As usual, they want to be publicly acclaimed as prophets whichever way the cookie crumbles.
You may be wondering why I did not make a further visit to that ignominious hospital on Exmoor. My reasons are personal: despite my forebodings, Nesta is going to have our baby. I didn’t feel I had the right to go against her decision and so far there is no indication that there is anything wrong with the embryo. But I certainly can’t face the tragic spectacle of what can — all too often — go wrong and it goes without saying that Nesta did endure a very serious attack of Electronic Cancer. But Nesta is a woman of optimism and I find it very contagious: we’ve bought the cradle and I have myself decorated the nursery. It’s a human fact of life that we always think that we are the ones who are going to be spared, whatever happens to other people.
The Treason charges have already been filed against me. I can’t help regarding this fact as a very sick joke. Yet there are few who will speak up in support of what we were driven to do and official heads are buried deep within the sand — as are the remnants of the United States Sixth Fleet and the ‘borrowed’ Concorde. I can well imagine what Counsel for the Prosecution will have to say about my personal account. The late Lee Crabtree’s colleagues have to make money; Lee’s recalcitrant daughter is, of course, keeping bad company. My ‘influence’ over her will render her evidence suspect throughout the case.
I mentioned this only the other day, after she had read through this typescript. Her comment was noteworthy: “Roger, don’t underestimate the effect of feminine venom. Juries are susceptible and you seem to think I’m good to look at. When the case comes up I shall still be pregnant. In that condition I shall charm the jurors and slay the people in authority who have such weak stomachs. Justice, my love, is persuasion. We shall by then be married. I’ll make that White Paper look so anaemic it’ll need a blood transfusion before it even gets into print. I’ll keep you out of jail all right, after they’ve witnessed a few of my well-timed tears in court, so don’t panic.”
“Check. There are more pressing things to panic about.”
“Like what?”
“Nesta, this whole world is an electronic mosaic never mind the crystal species. Ten years from now, unless someone calls a halt to the rat-race of Unnecessary Technology, we won’t even be able to do this without computers knowing about it.”
“Won’t be able to do what?”
“This.”
If you enjoyed The Thinktank That Leaked check out FISTFUL OF DIGITS by Christopher Hodder-Williams here.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My warmest thanks go to all those who so kindly and scrupulously contributed to the preparation of this book. They are:
Molly Twomey
Harry Berry …
both of British Airways. Between them they have seen through every single novel I have written which in any way concerned flying.
Also of British Airways:
Brian Hampson (Senior Officer, Operations Supt. Simulators) John Cowell (Flight Simulator Pilot Instructor, Special Duties) … under whose guidance I spent a memorable night on the Boeing 747 Flight Simulator. Brian Hampson additionally read through my first draft and put me right on many points of technical accuracy.
Quintin Young, of the London School of Flying, gave me much enjoyment in putting me through my paces on the Grumman Trainer. It was there at Elstree that I originally learned to fly, on Chipmunks.
Dr. Chris Evans, himself a pilot as well as a distinguished Computer Scientist, most kindly read through an advanced draft and gave the book a clean bill of health on both counts.
As usual, my wife Deirdre not only retyped the novel but picked me up on innumerable points which demanded acute attention.
The rest of the research carried out for THE THINKTANK THAT LEAKED was executed concurrently with the preparation of previous novels involving both Computer Science and Flying. Vital help given for these has been acknowledged in earlier books. I salute all concerned here; and express the hope that they will not be disappointed with the way in which I’ve tried to develop the themes that link this new novel with its predecessors.
Christopher Hodder-Williams 1979
*
‘The last enclave of human skills is now under siege. Once thought beyond the reach of non-human agency, it has now become clear that tasks requiring intelligence can be performed by machines.’
Dr. Abbe Mowshowitz
THE CONQUEST OF WILL
*
‘… If you asked the machine how you should control the machine then the question arises whether the machine will act as though it wants to be controlled. And this is very doubtful … I tend to believe that the computers are the next Species on this Earth.’
Professor I.J. Good
*
‘One thing that’s curious is the notion that they may become in control of their own evolution.’
Dr Chris Evans.
*
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BBC Radio 3
*
On page 225 are some stanzas from These Things Shall Be, the poem by John Addington Symonds (1840-1893). This poem was superbly set to music by John Ireland in 1937.
The Thinktank That Leaked Page 28
