“That’s easily arranged. Are you going to write out your story for me to vet it?”
“Sorry—I don’t work that way.”
“I thought you might want me to check the science.”
“I’ve done all the double-checking that’s necessary.” Helig gave Ambrose a quizzical glance. “Besides, the science isn’t important—this is a news story.”
Ambrose shrugged and switched on the windscreen wipers as the first drops of rain began to shatter themselves on the dusty glass in front of him. The dust was momentarily smeared into two brownish sectors which disappeared as the rain grew heavier. There was another silence which lasted until they had stopped at the bungalow, at which point Ambrose turned right round in his seat and tapped Quig’s knee. Quig, who had been sitting with nodding head and closed eyes, gave a start.
“Didn’t you say you have a friend in the lab at the new power station?” Ambrose said.
“Yes, Jack Postlethwaite. He came out at the same time as Benny and myself.”
“Do you know for certain that they have a Moncaster machine in the laboratory?”
“I think so. Isn’t it something like a signal generator, except that it gives you different kinds of radiation fields?”
“That’s exactly what it is.” Ambrose took the ignition keys frorfi the dash and dropped them into Quig’s hand. “Des, I want you and Benny to take my car, drive over to the power station right now and hire that machine from your friend.”
Quig’s jaw sagged. “But those things cost a fortune—and this one isn’t even Jack’s property.”
Ambrose opened his wallet, took out a thousand-dollar bill and dropped it in Quig’s lap. “That’s for your friend, for a couple of days’ hire of the machine. There’ll be the same amount for you when you get back, to divide between you -provided you have the machine with you? Okay?”
“You bet it’s okay.” While Culver nodded vigorously, Quig scrambled out of the car, sped round it to the driver’s door and stood jigging in the rain while Ambrose got out.
“Not so fast/ Ambrose said to him. “We still have to unship our gear.”
Snook, who had been watching the transaction with interest, kept an eye on Ambrose during the unloading operation. Overnight the scientist seemed to have grown a little older, a little harder around the eyes and mouth, and he was moving with the jerky energy of a man whose mind was on fire. As soon as the car had swished away down the hill with Quig at the wheel, Ambrose gave Snook a wry grin.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “You’ve got one hell of a debriefing session in front of you.”
Snook remained leaning against a wooden upright of the verandah. “Let’s stay out here for a minute.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more private than in the house. You know, of course, that young Quig and Culver and their friend could get jail—or worse—if they’re caught borrowing that machine. The power station is state property.”
“They won’t get caught,” Ambrose said easily. He opened a pack of cigarettes and handed one to Snook.
“Do you need that machine to bring the Avernians through to Earth?”
“Yes. They couldn’t do it if we didn’t help by setting up the right local environment. I’ll have to get a supply of hydrogen today, as well.”
“What’s all the hurry?” Snook stared hard at Ambrose’s face above the transparent blue shoot of his lighter flame. “Why do you have to try this thing when the conditions are all wrong?”
“I disagree with you about the conditions, Gil—they’ll never be as good again. You know that tomorrow top dead centre will occur just a couple of metres above ground level, but from then on Avernus will permanently be swelling out through the Earth’s surface. It’ll be like a flat dome which gets five hundred metres higher every day. That may not seem like much, but we’re dealing with a tangent which is practically zero, which means that the edge of that dome will be spreading out in all directions at tremendous speed.
“True there’ll be two lesser top dead centres, one north of the equator and one south of it, but they’ll be running away from the equator all the time, and it will be difficult to set up equipment at one of them and hold station with respect to a corresponding point on Avernus. This time, right now, is the only time when we’ll only have to deal with movement in one sense…” Ambrose halted the flow of words, meeting Snook’s gaze.
“But those weren’t the conditions you meant, were they…
“No.”
“You were asking why I want to try it when we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trigger-happy storm-troopers who would shoot us as soon as look at us.”
“Something like that,” Snook said.
“Well, one reason is that nobody in the world today is going to like the idea of a race of alien supermen muscling in on what’s left of our resources. The UN is likely to veto the whole thing on quarantine reasons alone, so it would be better to aim for a fait accompli. The chance is too good to miss.”
Ambrose put his finger into a domed raindrop on the verandah railing and smeared it out flat.
“What’s the other reason?”
“I got on to this thing first. I came here first. It’s mine, Gil, and I need it. This is my one chance to be the person I set out to be a long time ago—can you understand that?”
“I think so, but does it mean so much that you don’t care about people getting hurt?”
“I don’t want anybody to get hurt—besides, I don’t think I could drive Des and Benny off with a shotgun.”
“I was thinking more about Prudence/ Snook said. “Why don’t you use your influence with her and get her out of the country?”
“She’s her own woman, Gil.” Ambrose sounded unconcerned as he turned to go indoors. “What makes you think I’ve got any influence in that direction?”
“You’ve slept with her, haven’t you?” Snook was unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Or doesn’t that count any more?”
“That’s all I’ve done—slept with her. I was too whacked for anything else that morning.” Ambrose looked at Snook with new interest. “It’s a good thing I was pole-axed—it probably spared me an embarrassing scene.”
“How?”
“Our Miss Devonald isn’t as casual about sex as she likes people to believe. It’s when you try to treat her like a woman that she begins acting like a man. And not just any man. General George S. Patton, I’d say.” Ambrose walked to the door of the house and then came back.
“How about you, Gil?” he said. “Are you going to pull out on me?”
“No. I’ll stay around.”
“Thanks-but why?”
Snook gave him a brief smile. “Would you believe it’s because I like Felleth?”
By the last decade of the twentieth century the standard of living in even the most advanced of the world’s countries had become patchy. The Orwellian prediction that people would be able to afford nothing but luxuries had been amply fulfilled. It was, for example, difficult to obtain a safely edible fish, and the World Health Organisation had solemnly, and with every appearance of conviction, halved its mid-century estimate of the number of grammes of first-class protein that an adult needed each day to maintain good health.
On the other hand, communications were excellent—the synchronous satellite and the germanium diode ensured that practically everybody on the planet could be informed of an important event within minutes of its occurrence. It was, however, only possible to broadcast information—not understanding—and there were many who maintained that people in general would have been better off, certainly happier, without the ceaseless welter of news which bombarded them from the skies. The principal achievement of the telecommunications industry, they claimed, was that it was now possible to start in minutes the same riot that would have required days a few decades earlier.