A whistle informed us that at last the train was loaded and ready to depart; and with the slightest of jolts—barely sufficient to jiggle the ice in my whiskey—we set off. The Rail swept past harbor buildings and then out over the English Channel. The last of the sunlight made the water glitter like a field of diamonds beneath our coach, and I felt a surge of exhilaration and pride.
One of that season’s sensations had been the fitting out of major Light routes with American-style dining cars; and so our monkey-faced steward now called by to inform us that our dinner would be served in fifteen minutes—and to refresh our glasses.
I said to Holden, “So anti-ice is only available in that one place on Earth, Cape Adare?”
“It is logical that only the polar regions could support the survival of the substance,” Holden said, “for if the stuff is brought into warmer climes it rapidly destroys itself—and a good deal of its surroundings. The Antarctic regions have been scoured by our explorers—it is interesting that the British flag was fluttering over the South Pole by the year 1860; who knows when, if not for the incentive of anti-ice, the will would have been found to mount such an expedition?—but no more anti-ice has ever been found.”
“So the cache of ice found by Ross is all there is.”
“Evidently. Its mass has been estimated as a thousand tons; and, as far as we know, that is all there is to be found in the globe. It really does seem as if the old aboriginal tales were true—that the anti-ice fell from the sky, hurtling across Australia to land at Adare.”
I rubbed my chin. “When one considers the fundamental importance of the stuff to Britain’s role in the world, that seems a precious small amount.”
Holden nodded. “Fortunately, with anti-ice, a little goes a long way. No more than a few ounces a month, for instance, would be needed to power this train… Nevertheless, you are right. And we are finding more and more ingenious ways of using up the stuff.
“And this,” he went on, “is an argument used by those who oppose the renewed use of anti-ice as a weapon of war. Britain’s enemies would have no defense against anti-ice artillery… save one: time. When we have squandered our precious lode of ice, they can fall on us like wolves.”
Holden and I finished our drinks and made our way toward the dining car. As I walked with the glow of my whiskeys inside me, I became aware of a rhythmic unevenness in the train’s motion. It felt rather like traveling in a cable car. Glancing out of the windows I saw how the rail as it crossed the sea was suspended from pylons, and as the carriage met each pylon there was the smallest of judders. The pylons were pillars of iron cagework which appeared to sprout directly from the darkening surface of the Channel—but, I knew, the pylons were in fact attached to huge pontoons suspended below the surface. The buoyancy of the pontoons thrust them upwards against the constraint of their anchoring cables, and the result was a platform which was quite rigid and robust in the face of the Channel’s notorious currents.
All three Channel bridges had been constructed in that way, I understood, the reasons being the lightness of the Rail itself and the inability of the Channel seabed to take sound foundations.
We took our seats in the restaurant car and soon were bathed in familiar, soothing sounds: the clinking of cutlery against plates ornate with Light Rail livery, the murmur of civilized conversation, the rich aromas of good English cooking and, later, of port, brandy, coffee and fine cigars. Holden and I said little as we ate; but once the meal was done I pushed back my chair, stretched my legs, and raised my brandy glass to Holden. “Let’s drink to anti-ice,” I said, perhaps a little thickly, “and its progeny, the various wonders of the Age!”
“I’ll drink to that,” Holden smiled. He leaned back and hitched his plump thumbs into his watch- chain. “But I would not advise you to celebrate the toast by dropping a cube of anti-ice into your next whiskey. Anti-ice, you see, has been so christened because of its remarkable antipathy for any ‘normal’ substance—in this case, the whiskey and the glass. The anti-ice, and an equal mass of glass and whiskey, would disappear—and be replaced by an enormous quantity of heat energy, in an explosive fashion. Rather interrupting your enjoyment.”
“So ordinary whiskey—or anything—can be turned into a substance as destructive as, say, dynamite?”
He smiled indulgently and drew a hand through his shock of unruly hair. “Far more so, young Vicars. But we don’t know how. James Maxwell has hypothesized that perhaps the anti-ice reacts in some chemical fashion with normal matter, much as oxygen reacts with other elements, to liberate energy in the form of heat and light.” He studied my face, which, I fear, was blank. He said kindly, “I am describing the normal processes of combustion. Fire, Ned.”
“…Ah. Well, there’s the answer, then! Anti-ice is a new type of oxygen, and what we have here is a new fire.”
“Perhaps. But Joule, following his experiments with Thomson, points out that the energy density of anti-ice reactions is many orders of magnitude greater than that associated with any known chemical reaction. Perhaps we are dealing with forces associated with some deeper structure of matter, below and beyond the known forces involved in chemical reactions. It may be the next century, Ned, before we can probe deeply enough into the heart of matter—with huge microscopes, perhaps—to understand the secrets that lie at its core.”
I called for another brandy. “That’s all very well,” I said expansively, “but what do these famous chaps, Maxwell and—”
“Joule.”
“Joule, yes; what do they have to say about what strikes me as the greatest mystery of all—the fact that the stuff is perfectly safe to handle at polar temperatures, and it is only when you heat the stuff up that it becomes explosive—as poor old Ross found to his cost?”
“Ah.” Holden knocked out his pipe, thumbed in more tobacco from his leather pouch, and lit it. “Careful—and dangerous—experiments conducted at Adare have shown that, within the substance of anti-ice, intensely strong magnetic currents flow. These currents encase the antipathetical substance, insulating it from normal matter. But when the temperature is raised the magnetic fields break down—with explosive consequences.”
I frowned, trying to understand. “And what causes the magnetism? Tiny lodestones, scattered through the stuff?”
He shook his head. “The truth is a little more difficult to grasp—”
“I feared it might be.”
Holden described how the experiments of Michael Faraday had shown that a magnetic field can be induced by the presence of a strong electrical current. In the substance of anti-ice, it seems, powerful electrical currents circulate endlessly, so generating the required magnetism. Holden said, “But there is no tiny dynamo stored in the stuff; it seems that the electrical currents simply flow around and around within the ice, like a river in an enclosed channel; without beginning and without end, and without a First Cause; rather as the Persians say the worm Ourobouros survives by endlessly consuming its own tail.”
“Do they, by Jove? But look here, Holden: a river simply wouldn’t run around and around; it would sooner or later come to rest, for you can’t have a circular channel which runs forever downhill—can you?” I added with sudden doubt.
He inclined his head in approval. “Indeed not. But if your circular canal was walled with some marvelous glass, utterly without friction, the water would flow on indefinitely.”
I struggled to imagine all this. “And how does this canal help to explain the electrical phenomenon?”
“Faraday has traced invisible paths through samples of anti-ice—and along these paths, there is no resistance to the passage of electricity. Just like the glass channels I describe, you see. Faraday has dubbed this phenomenon ‘Enhanced Conductance.’ It is precisely this Conductance which breaks down when the temperature of anti-ice is raised. The electrical currents stop circulating, you see; and so the magnetic fields fail.”