Foundation

by M J Kendrick

  “Does that mean they’ll be finished by the morning?” asked Jean.

  David nodded. “I’m thinking that might well be the case. I’ve been asked by the facilities management guys and HR to stay away until eleven tomorrow. I suppose to give them time to finish. Just as well, really, because I’m bushed. Anyway, enough about me. How was your day up at the cryo lab?”

  Jean’s laboratory, where she had worked for the last nine years, was more of a low-key affair. Advanced Cryo Research or ACR, as everyone referred to it, was located on the other side of town. It was nowhere near as large in size as David’s facility, but ACR was still under the same overall umbrella of the parent organization, which was just called Omni, making it a close affiliate to the farm.

  ACR had been built with the staff in mind and had far more facilities, such as a gym, which Jean often used to keep her figure in shape.

  “Oh, my day was just fine, no real dramas to speak of. I spent a couple of hours with HR myself, actually.”

  “Don’t tell me you blew your lab up as well?” he asked jokingly.

  “Ha-ha, no such luck. I was sorting out my long-term leave arrangements.”

  David looked up, confused. “Long-term leave arrangements? What do you mean? You know I can’t leave my work just now to go on vacation.”

  “We’re not going on vacation. I’ll be taking a few months off.”

  “But Jean, how can you do that? What about your cryo research? What are you going to do in all that time? Don’t forget we’d be down to just one salary.”

  “Relax, honey, it’s not as if we’re short on money, and besides, I’ll still be getting paid,” said Jean, as she wryly looked at David, who appeared to be getting more and more confused.

  “How can that be? You know two weeks is the maximum they would ever allow us to take off at any one time.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, relishing the moment. “It’s in my contract. Actually, I think it’s in most contracts.”

  David frowned. “Well, it certainly isn’t in mine!” he said.

  “Well, it probably wouldn’t be. You’re not a woman.”

  “I don’t see what being a woman has to do with it. We’re both on similar grades, so why would you get extra time off over a man?” he asked, clearly frustrated.

  Smiling and unable to contain her excitement any longer, she said, “Well, for one thing, darling, men don’t need maternity leave!”

  David’s jaw dropped open. “Maternity leave? But how... when... I mean... are you saying... ?”

  “Yes, darling, I’m two months pregnant!”

  David threw his arms around her and pulled her in. “I’m so happy for us.”

  Tears of happiness streamed down their faces as he held her tightly.

  A contented sleep took them quickly that night as they lay together, holding each other close.

  ***

  David arrived at the farm a little before eleven in the morning and hurried to see how the progress was going with his lab. To his surprise, it was all finished.

  “Isn’t this great,” said Rose. “Maybe you should blow the lab up more often!”

  “Err, no thank you. I don’t want to go up in front of the boss, cap in hand, ever again. “David smiled. “Let’s not waste any time, is everything up and running?” he asked.

  “It certainly is,” replied Freddie.

  “Okay then, best we get to work. First things first. I want us to retrace our movements and actions that led up to the accident, second by second, step by step. Leave nothing out. Not even the smallest detail.”

  “Is there something wrong, David?” asked Rose.

  “Not necessarily wrong, but there are some unaccountable inconsistencies that are niggling away at me.”

  Freddy looked up from a large microscope. “Uh oh. I recognize that tone. You’re onto something, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” answered David. “I doubt it, but from what it seems with events leading up to the accident, two and two isn’t exactly adding up to four. In any case, we do need to dissect and analyze every aspect, equipment, action, and reading. In fact, anything and everything for as long as it takes, even if it is only for our own benefit.”

  “Does Professor Stanton know of this?” asked Rose.

  “Let’s put it this way. As far as the professor, Bellows, and anyone else is concerned, the matter has been fully dealt with. I’ve had my reprimand, Bellows has had his pound of flesh, and the professor has successfully averted a disaster and the wrath of the board. Even so, I would like to avoid discussing this with anyone other than between ourselves, at least for the meantime.”

  The two scientists looked at each other and smiled.

  “God, I love a bit of intrigue,” said Freddie, and with that, they both scrambled to their workstations to pull up the data and notes from two days ago in preparation to re-run the test.

  At four that afternoon, they were ready to power up. David was about to give the go signal when Rose piped up, “David, I’ve just had a thought. What if the reaction was the result of a gradual build-up of energy? We won’t know until it ejects or the clamp fails again. We need to add a kinetic stress sensor array between the clamp and the ingot. That way, we will be able to monitor any build-up.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Rose. I was concentrating so much on recreating the test I hadn’t thought about trigger points, only the end result. I guess I’ve a lot on my mind, especially with Jean.”

  “Understandable,” said Freddie. “I’ll see what sensors I can round up. I know they use them over in aerospace. Maybe I can call in a favor.”

  David smiled. “Well done and good thinking. I hope you guys didn’t have any plans tonight. It looks like it could be another late one.”

  It was nine thirty. when the sensor array had finally been installed and calibrated.

  “It’s a pretty neat piece of equipment,” remarked David.

  “It sure is,” said Freddie. “They use them at the tips of wings on some new-fangled contraption they’re secretly working on. It’s supposed to be good for up to about four tons, but the coolest thing is that it can also monitor extremely minor stresses of just a few grams.”

  “I thought everything in this place was a secret,” said Rose.

  Freddy smiled. “It is—well, it’s supposed to be. It is amazing how much more smoothly things run within the ‘old boy’ network, or more importantly, how slow they would run without it! Can you imagine how many signatures and bits of paperwork we would have to fill out to get one of these bad boys!”

  “Amen to that,” said Rose. “We all do it—even your old pal Bellows next door does it.”

  David looked up, “He does?”

  “Yep, just last week he asked to borrow some iridium, so I gave him one of the ingots, god knows what for. Maybe he wanted a paperweight or something.”

  David looked surprised. “Did he bring it back?”

  “Sure did,” said Rose. “Actually, he only had it for about half an hour. Maybe he didn’t need it.”

  “Still didn’t stop him putting the oar in, though,” David added sarcastically. “Guess you know who your friends are.”

  Rose nodded in agreement.

  “Okay,” said David. “Everybody ready?”

  Both scientists nodded.

  “Great, start recording. Engaging automatic thermal scale... powering up... Now.”

  The faint, low hum of power delivery was barely audible.

  “Moving up through the millivolt range, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, nothing as yet,” said Freddie as he monitored the readouts.

  David’s concentration was contagious. “Anything registering on the sensors yet?”

  “Nothing as yet, continuing voltage increase.”

  Freddie continued reading off the numbers, “Seventy, seventy-five, eighty... still no change.”

  “What was the exact range just before the accident?” asked David.

  Rose leaned over. “Ju
st around 427 volts we think, but we can’t really be certain. Our attention was always elsewhere at that point.”

  “Anything?” asked David.

  “Nothing, not even a blip,” said Freddie.

  David sat up from the observation port. “We must have missed something. Surely there would be some expulsion of energy at this point, even if it’s minuscule.”

  Rose walked over to look through the port. “Maybe there is a threshold that kick-starts the reaction. Let’s take it up to 427. If that fails, we’ll just have to try something else.”

  David nodded. “Okay, we’ll run this, then knock it on the head for tonight.”

  Rose smiled. “Sounds good to me.”

  Chapter Three

  The next day saw the trio of scientists arrive early, and, by eight, they were each on their fourth cup of coffee and ready to start the second post-accident test run. Despite the super quick refit of the lab making testing easier, the previous day’s results had proven frustratingly negative, with no real progress being made. David felt as if they were going backward.

  “Before we start,” he began, “let’s just go over the changes one more time.”

  Rose grabbed her clipboard, which to David looked like a pile of badly written hieroglyphics. “How is it even humanly possible to read that?” he asked.

  “Ha-ha, I’d like to see you blindly taking notes when your head is buried in a monitor. Anyway, you’d be surprised what information I can scribble down,” she replied.

  David perched himself on the corner of the high bench. “Whatever floats your boat. So what have you got?”

  “Well,” she said leafing through her notes, “it looks like we correctly identified all of the changes. In short, they consist of the location, the clamp, and the iridium nano matrix ingot. Everything else is exactly as it was, no differences.”

  David nodded. “All right, on this test, we will recreate the exact same criteria. Do we still have the supporting data?”

  Rose flicked over the page. Looking up, she said, “Yes, we do, actually. It was the pre-set program we used. The exact same one that we ran all previous tests.”

  “Okay, what about the clamp itself?”

  Freddie came over holding a clamp which he placed on the counter. “This is one of the spares. It’s exactly the same as the one we used yesterday.”

  David inspected the clamp. “Pretty much as we thought. What about the iridium ingot?”

  Freddie looked at Rose.

  “The block we tested was smaller than the one that ejected, but its composition and molecular patterns are the same. The only differences I could see were that the retest block was grown at a slightly later date than the original, and of course, it has a more regular shape.”

  “Hmmm,” David said with a frown. “Given the laws of probability, I think we should concentrate on the iridium nano matrix ingot.”

  Rose and Freddie both agreed.

  David stood up resolutely. “Right then, this is what we’ll do. As we are already set up with the replacement block, let’s run this test and use the exact same parameters as we did on the day of the accident. If we’re on track, then we shouldn’t get a reaction, and we can start to narrow down the options.”

  Freddie retrieved the spare clamp and headed for their storage area, playfully spinning Rose’s chair as he passed, leaving her to face David. “What about our regular work schedule? Our weekly report is due in two days.”

  “I’ve already covered that. The next three weeks’ reports are all fairly routine boring stuff to do with slow nano growth rates, so we’ll start with those. That will buy the time we need for our little side project.”

  Rose smiled. “Smart and devious, eh? Who’d have thought!”

  “We can’t be too devious, though,” he added. “We still need to use the testbed and containment facilities for our regular work, so we’ll be juggling a little.”

  Freddie, having returned to his station, looked up sharply. “Look, we don’t need a lot of space for that. Why don’t we section off about a third using one of those toughened laminated glass panels? We can easily ‘acquire’ one and use it as a mobile partition. I’m sure workshops can run up a moveable frame to hold the panel without too much trouble.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea,” said Rose. “We just have to be doubly careful about cross contamination. If we stuff up the nano growth program, we’ll be for it. Plus, if we do successfully create a reaction on the other side and that, in turn, stuffs up the containment area and our regular work, we’ll be super stuffed and for it.”

  David smiled. Rose’s Australian roots always surfaced when she became excited and enthused by something.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Right, let’s get to it.”

  By late afternoon, the second post-accident test was complete, and as expected, there was no hint of any reaction.

  “Well, at least we know where we stand,” said David, just as the lab door entry buzzer sounded. Freddie jumped up and used his ID swipe card to open the security door. In front of him were two scruffy looking engineers, clearly struggling under the weight of the heavy, toughened-glass partition.

  “Ah, fantastic. Please, can you bring it in and place it in the containment area over there?”

  “It’s gonna be a bit tight, mate,” said the shorter man in front. “This is designed to be floor to ceiling, and I don’t mind telling you it weighs a bleedin’ ton!”

  Freddie smiled. “Come on, I’ll help.”

  The three of them struggled but finally wrestled the partition into place. “There you go,” said the short man. “Solid as houses that is.”

  “What if we ever need to move it?” asked Rose.

  “No problem, luv,” said the short man with a smile. “Just kick down the stabilizing pedal at the base there, and it’ll drop a couple o’ inches onto the built-in castors so you can slide it around, then just flick the pedal back up to lock it into place. When us Brits build ‘em, we build ‘em good!”

  He was clearly proud of his work and his heritage. David thanked him and assured him that when he wanted something done properly, he’d know where to go. The two engineers proudly strode out of the lab and headed back to their maintenance section.

  “This is superb,” said David admiring the craftsmanship. “How on earth did you manage to organize that so quickly?”

  Freddie chuckled. “The old boy network, of course.”

  “If only the professor knew what went on behind his back.” Rose laughed.

  “That’s for sure,” said David looking at the wall clock. “It’s too late to run another test today, so let’s just prep the new area for the nano growth schedule. Tomorrow’s another day. We’ll instigate the program to start first thing and see what time we have left before we carry out a further test.”

  They were all beat and were grateful for the midweek six o’clock finish.

  ***

  The next two days proved to be slow going. The nano growth program had taken far longer to set up than expected. Configuring the apparatus needed to grow and monitor the nano tube ingots was a precise affair, and squeezing everything in had been a challenge. Eventually, the new partition had to be moved, almost reversing the original layout so that just over two-thirds were given over to the program, leaving just enough space to accommodate the re-testing project.

  They all knew that they only had a limited time to get to the bottom of the accident. It was an unusual event that had piqued all of their curiosity. Rose could see that identifying the reason meant far more to David than he let on. Even earlier that morning, when Rose met up with David’s wife to use the shared facilities over at the ACR gym for their usual morning workout, Jean had mentioned that his failure in getting promoted last year still weighed heavily on him. She suspected that may be why he wanted the mystery solved before the annual reviews that were looming—perhaps this would help. Rose was all for anything that would put him above that idiot Bellows, as was Freddie, and they want
ed him to succeed. He was long overdue.

  It was past four when they were ready to begin the program.

  “Finally,” said Rose. “I thought we would never get it up and ready.”

  Freddie looked over from his computer. “Tell me about it. At least we can set the auto program to operate over the weekend. We should have a tangible block by Monday.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said David. “Don’t forget we’re using yttrium this time, the first of the rare earth metals, so progress probably won’t be anywhere near as quick as with the iridium. Even so, we need to collect all of the growth data.”

  “Anybody got any idea what this type of nano matrix ingot can be used for?” asked Rose.

  “Beats me,” said Freddie.

  “Look at it this way,” said David. “No one has grown one of these before, probably because of its unstable nature. However, apart from use in LEDs and medical applications, there would be value in development of an enhanced yttrium nano-based oxysulfide, which can be used in lens manufacture. Also, in ingot form, it would be a pretty excellent semiconductor. Either way, it shouldn’t be looked at as a thankless task with little eventual use. Despite our ‘other’ side project, this does have real value.”

  Rose was smiling. “I forgot how much you loved your metals, with all this going on.”

  “Yes,” agreed Freddie, also with a smile. “I’ll think twice next time before commenting.”

  After a lengthy double check of the setup, David finally hit the start button and the process began. For a moment or two, the three scientists just sat and stared at the containment area, none of them were really certain that they would actually see anything happen. It was just that once the program was instigated, it silently marked the end of a very hectic week, and they all felt a little fatigued.

  “For once, I’m really looking forward to a relaxing weekend,” said David.

  “And me,” added Freddie.

  Rose was already up out of her chair and making for her coat.

  David looked up at her questioningly. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” she said with a smile. Swiping her card at the door, she glanced back and said, “Have a good one. I’m outta here.”