Rossetti, at the control board, didn't wait for Carter's nod. "Firing," he said.
"Eight and a half," Mahler muttered to no one in particular. "They're better than I thought."
Carter smiled slightly, but it was an automatic response. His full attention was on the meters that gave Firefly's luminosity and temperature, both of which had been running. The indicators jumped wildly, as always happened when a new beam was brought to strength, and Carter's heart rate jerked in sympathetic response.
"Beam's steadying down," Rossetti muttered.
"How's it look?" "It's hard to say, Doc. We're getting extra power just from the gravitational energy effects—since the iron atoms are heavier than neutrons—and that's fouling all our calibrations." Rossetti stared hard at the temperature indicator. "If Firefly's cooling down I can't tell from this. Not yet, anyway."
"We could shift the feed on the other DeVegas," Mahler suggested. "That would make any temperature change more visible."
"I'd rather not risk shutting off the neutron beams for the time that would take," Carter said. "Not until we're sure it'll do us any good. Let's give this an hour or so and see what happens."
—
The results after two hours were very clear. Firefly's temperature was still increasing.
"Damn!" Carter muttered through clenched teeth. "It's got to work. Galton's numbers prove that. What's going wrong?"
He threw a glance around the room, a glare brimming with frustration that most of the others seemed to interpret as fury. "I've looked over Galton's work, Ray," Rurik spoke up with some hesitation. "I can only think of one effect that hasn't been taken into account."
"Well?"
"We're dealing with iron atoms here, much larger than neutrons, and with electron clouds at—relatively—great distances. As the atoms approach Firefly, the first things to be swallowed will be an electron or two, which will leave the atom with a net positive charge. Since the black hole is also positive, the atom—the ion, now—will be deflected slightly before the nucleus gets to Firefly."
"And some of the shots that would otherwise have hit don't make it in," Carter growled. "Makes sense. Unfortunately. Is it worth switching the other two beams, do you think?"
"I doubt it. We'd gain a little, maybe, but most of that would be offset by the losses while the DeVegas are being altered."
"Doc, would it help to run the beams faster?" Rossetti asked. "If the time interval between ionization and contact was smaller, the atoms wouldn't be deflected as far."
Carter looked at Mahler and raised his eyebrows. "Possible?"
"Sorry. These DeVegas were specially designed to deliver high-particle currents, and for technical reasons we can't boost the velocities any higher than they are now." There was a moment of silence. Then Kapoor's soft voice broke into the others' thoughts. "Dr. Carter, are you going to switch back to a neutron beam?"
"Why? The iron atoms aren't doing any worse than the neutrons are and we'd just lose ten more minutes of beam during switchover."
"It seemed to me, sir, that if the black hole is absorbing one or two electrons from even those atoms which are deflected—"
Kapoor never got to finish his sentence. "My God!" Rurik exploded. "He's right, Ray. We've got to change that beam, fast."
"Right." Carter had caught Kapoor's drift at the same time Rurik had, and his heart was pounding violently in his ears. "Felix, get your men on that beam, now."
Mahler was already talking urgently into his intercom.
"I don't understand, Dr. Carter," Senator Chou murmured from his left.
Carter turned to face him. "The only thing that keeps Firefly in place is the electric field from the main plates, and for that to work Firefly has to have a heavy positive charge. Each extra electron that goes in cancels one of those charges. If the charge goes down to zero, we'll have no way of holding Firefly in the neutron beams."
"You couldn't recapture it?"
"Not in time. Possibly not at all."
Mahler looked up. "Okay, Ray, Beta's down again. Santos and Trumbell will have it running with neutrons in a few minutes."
"And I've just talked to the control room," Rossetti added. "Firefly's still holding positive charge, well within safety limits."
Rurik leaned back in his chair. "We were lucky," he muttered to no one in particular.
"Yes," Carter agreed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing. "Gentlemen, we still have a crisis on our hands. We have got to find a way to get more mass into Firefly. Suggestions?"
There was a long silence. "I don't suppose it would help to enclose Firefly in degenerate matter of some kind," Rossetti said hesitantly.
Rurik shook his head. "We'd need better than neutron star density to make any headway—and even if we could make material like that we'd never get it near Firefly. The thing's just too hot."
Mahler looked up from a tablet he'd been writing on. "Whatever we're going to do, we have to do it fast," he announced quietly. "At the current rate of temperature increase, Firefly's radiation pressure will soon match the driving force behind the neutron beams. When that happens the DeVegas are, for all practical purposes, useless."
Carter had to force the words out. "How long?"
"Sixty hours. Maybe sixty-five."
Someone muttered a shocked obscenity. Carter felt his stomach trying to curl up and die. Sixty hours! His eyes swept the room of their own volition, as if looking for a way out, and finally came to rest on Kapoor's abnormally pale face. The Indian had been right to be so gloomy, Carter thought, feeling strangely light- headed. It had been sheer folly to suppose mankind could tame even a tiny black hole. They might as well have tried to hitch a tiger to a plow....
With a physical effort Carter shook the vertigo from his mind. He couldn't afford to go to pieces. "All right," he said. "You all know what that means. I want some ideas and some solutions. For starters"—he looked at Mahler—"I want the spare DeVega set up as close to the accelerator ring as possible." He raised a hand as the other started to object. "I know, at that distance it won't help much. But we need anything we can get, and it may at least buy us some time. Punch some holes in the shielding and collector sphere to let the beam through."
"Right." Mahler scribbled a note. "I'll get a crew on it right now." Sliding his chair back, the engineer launched himself through the door.
"I'm calling a recess," Carter said to the others. "We'll meet back here in an hour."
Carter remained in his chair until the others had left, staring at the table as he gently kneaded his temples with his fingertips.
"You look tired. You'd better get some sleep."
Carter looked up in surprise. "I thought you'd left with the others, Senator."
Chou shook his head, his eyes never leaving Carters face. "I meant what I said about sleep, Doctor."
"Can't afford the time." He smiled wanly. "Why the sudden solicitude? I thought you didn't like me."
"My likes or dislikes are of complete unimportance," Chou replied. "If anyone can come up with the solution we need, it will probably be you, and we can't afford to let your intellect break down from fatigue."
Even to himself, Carter's laugh sounded hollow. "Some intellect. I wasted several badly needed hours with the iron atom fiasco, and damn near lost our control of Firefly in the bargain. I tell you, Senator, if we're relying on me, we might as well quit now."
Chou was silent for a moment. "If we can't stop this, how long do we have?"