“How is that?” asked Lehrer.
“Setting aside for the moment where it came from, if we are able to re-create the manufacturing process and produce this element—” Narimoto shook his head and turned to a colleague, Mary Esposito, from Duke, who picked up the thread.
“We would be able,” she said, “to make you a suit of clothes, Jim, that would probably not wear out before you did.”
ABC ran a segment in which April stood beside the roundhouse with a two-inch wide roll of cellophane tape. “Ordinary wrapping tape,” she said. She tore off a one-foot strip, used it to seal a cardboard box, and then removed the tape. Much of the box came with it. “Unlike cardboard, our element interacts very poorly with other elements,” she continued. She tore a second strip and placed it against the side of the building, pressed it down firmly, loosened the top, and stood clear. The tape slowly peeled off and fell to the ground. “It resists snow, water, dirt, whatever. Even sticky tape.” The camera zeroed in on the green surface. “Think of it as having a kind of ultimate car wax protection.”
The coverage was, if cautious, at least not hostile. And April thought she looked good, a model of reserve and authority. Just the facts, ma’am.
Atomic number way up there. Over the edge and around the corner and out of sight. This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart. The science writer from Time had positively blanched. What a glorious day it had been. And tonight researchers across the country would be seeing the story for the first time. She hadn’t published yet. But that was all right, because she had proof. And she was, as of now, legend. It was a good feeling.
There was no bar at the Northstar Motel. April was too excited to sleep, and, unable to read, she was about to call Max and suggest they go out and celebrate some more (although they both had probably already had too much to drink at a rousing dinner in Cavalier with the Laskers) when her phone rang.
It was Bert Coda, the associate director at Colson. Coda had been around since World War II. He was a tired, angry, frustrated man who had substituted Colson Labs for wife, family, God, and country a long time ago.
His greeting was abrupt. “April,” he said, “have you lost your mind?”
That caught her attention. “What do you mean?”
“You talked to all those cameras today.”
“And?”
“You never mentioned the lab. Not once.”
“Bert, this had nothing to do with the lab.”
“What are you talking about? Last time I noticed, you were working for us. When did you quit? Did you pack it in when I wasn’t looking?”
“Listen, I was trying to keep the lab out of it.”
“Why? Why on earth would you want to do that?”
“Because we’re talking UFOs here, Bert. Maybe little green men. You want to be associated with little green men? I mean, Colson is supposed to be a hardnosed scientific institution.”
“Please stop changing the subject.”
“I’m not changing the subject.”
“Sure you are. This is about publicity. Tons of it. And all free. I didn’t hear much talk out there today about UFOs.”
“You will.”
“I don’t care.” It was a dangerous rumble. “April, you are on every channel. I assume that tomorrow you will be in every newspaper. You, April. Not Colson but Cannon.” He took a long breath. “You hear what I’m telling you?”
“But it’s bad publicity.”
“There is no such thing as bad publicity. When they line up again in the morning, as they assuredly will, please be good enough to mention your employer, who has been overpaying you for years. Do you think you can bring yourself to do that?”
She let the seconds run. She would have liked to defy the son of a bitch. But the truth was that he intimidated her. “Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”
“Oh, yes. That’s what I want.” She could see him leaning back with his eyes closed and that resigned expression that flowed over his features when he confronted the world’s foolishness. “Yes, I would like that very much. By the way, you might mention that we’re especially good in environmental services. And listen, one other thing. I’ll be interested in hearing where you were and whose time you were on when this business first came to your attention.”
12
A little gleam of time between two eternities; no second chance to us forever more!
Temperatures fell to minus twenty on the Fahrenheit scale the day after the press conference. The ground froze, people came down with frostbite, and Mac Eberly, a middle-aged farmer who’d brought half his family with him to the ridge, suffered chest pains. During the holidays the weather deteriorated further, and April reluctantly gave up and closed the operation for the season. She paid a generous bonus and announced they would restart the project when they could. In the spring, she added.
The following day a blizzard struck the area. And the wind-chill factor on New Year’s Eve touched a hundred below. The story quickly dropped out of the newspapers, shouldered aside by the run-up to the Super Bowl, a major banking scandal involving lurid tales of sex and drugs, and a celebrity murder trial.
April published her findings, and, in accordance with tradition, the new element was named cannonium in her honor. The NAACP awarded her its Spingarm Medal, and the National Academy of Sciences hosted a banquet in her honor. She was, of course, ecstatic. But nevertheless the long delay weighed on her spirits.
Max returned to Fargo, resumed his life, and proceeded to cash in on his newfound fame. People who were interested in buying, selling, or restoring antique warplanes were making Sundown their preferred dealer. Furthermore, Max found he was now in demand as a speaker. He’d never been comfortable speaking to groups of people, but offers were in the range of a thousand dollars for a half-hour. He took lessons in public speaking and learned that, with experience, he was able to relax and even became good enough to command interest and get a few laughs. He talked at Rotary Club affairs, business luncheons, university award presentations, and Knights of Columbus gatherings. When he found out April was getting an average of six thousand per appearance, he raised his price and was surprised that most groups were willing to meet it.
He spent a weekend with his father. The colonel was delighted. For the first time in Max’s memory, his father seemed proud of him and was anxious to introduce him to friends.
April, meantime, became a regular dinner companion. Somewhere during this period Max recognized a growing affection for her and made a conscious decision to maintain a strictly professional relationship. He told himself that the Johnson’s Ridge project was potentially too important to risk the complications that might come out of a romantic entanglement with the woman who had emerged as his partner in the venture. Or it might have been more complicated, a mix of race and Max’s reluctance to get involved and a fear that she might keep him at arm’s length. She had, after all, done nothing to encourage him. But when she introduced him to a police lieutenant she was dating and confided to Max that she really liked the guy, he was crushed.
Occasionally they took out the Lightning and flew over the escarpment. The blowing snow had filled in most of the excavation; only heaps of earth remained as evidence of the frenetic activity on the ridge. It was almost as if they had never been there. On one occasion, a cold, frozen day in late January, she asked him to land.