Young to be on the verge of fame, he thought. In any profession but physics. From what Sol had told him, most great physicists did their best groundbreaking work between twenty and thirty. And I suppose it doesn’t look much more ridiculous than what some of my Cavalier ancestors affected at court. The haircut was about what Charles I’s courtiers had worn, beard ditto, and at least Barnes wasn’t sporting high heels, lace and beauty patches.
“Yes, I think I could come up with something to explain the phenomenon,” Barnes went on. “Now that I’ve had some time and equipment to study the Gate. Outta sight.”
He closed his eyes, obviously deep in thought. Then he opened them again, staring across the room at John Rolfe. The master of the Commonwealth forced himself to relax.
By God, to control the Gate! To know what it is, and how to make more! Vistas of fire and glory opened beyond the eyes of his mind, worlds for the taking—
“Nice place you’ve got here,” the scientist went on. “Too bad I won’t see much of it.”
Rolfe’s eyes narrowed, and he felt a stirring of unease; he hadn’t commanded men for thirty years without learning how to read them. The beard and hair emphasized the man’s massive foursquare build, the thick forearms, and the hands like a builder’s or farmer’s, spadelike and callused. Not at all what he’d thought of when the word “professor” came to mind, but Sol’s agents had been extremely careful. It wasn’t easy to find a young, brilliant researcher who wouldn’t be too badly missed, but Barnes had a reputation for eccentricity, as well as genius. For it wouldn’t be utterly out of character for him to… what was the phrase FirstSide? Drop out?
“Real nice,” Barnes went on, nodding to the tall windows that let in a scent of sea and flowers on the warm summer air. “Pity I’m not going to see much of it. It’d be interesting.”
“And why aren’t you going to be seeing more of it, Dr. Barnes?” Rolfe said in a soft, chill tone, leaning forward with hand over hand and his elbows braced on the polished rosewood of his desk.
Without false modesty he knew that he was a strong-willed man, and a frightening one when he chose to be. He’d daunted brave men before this. Now his eyes found the younger man’s brown gaze, and saw no fear there at all, and a stubbornness to match his own. Pearlmutter sighed and put a hand to his forehead, muttering something like gevalt under his breath.
“Because I’m not going to give a fascist bastard like you that sort of power, which means you’ll probably kill me,” Barnes said cheerfully. “Maybe I can’t do anything about you getting this world in your clutches, but I’m not going to give you an infinite series of them to play with.”
“Infinite?” Rolfe said, raising a brow.
“Of course. Now that I’ve seen the Gate, the only thing that makes sense is that the Big Bang was really a quantum fluctuation, the beginning of a universe in a series; in fact that explains the dark matter problem. A standing waveform drawing on zero energy to—Oh, you’re a tricky fascist bastard, aren’t you? Nearly got me going there.”
Rolfe smiled thinly. “More tricky than you know, Dr. Barnes. I know you feel an understandable resentment at being, ah, shanghaied here”—a blaze of pure rage confronted him, all the stronger for being wordless. He’d counted on the man’s curiosity overcoming anything else, combined with promises of rewards. Now he’d have to fall back on threats, and he didn’t think those would work very well. He went on, his voice suave—“and normally we don’t do that, unless someone stumbles across the secret of the Gate and it’s the only alternative to killing him. But we’ve never been able to get many first-rate scientists here. You’ll understand we’re anxious to develop some control, some knowledge, of the Gate. After all, our lives and fortunes depend on its functioning.” He turned the smile charming. “And I assure you I know better than to deny an able man his share.”
Barnes snorted and crossed his arms. “No dice. Hey, asshole, a question for you: Did you ever take lessons from Nixon?”
Rolfe blinked his eyes closed for a second, controlling his temper. “No, in fact, Dr. Barnes, I did not. For one thing I’m not a Quaker, and neither were any of my ancestors. And I wasn’t in the navy.”
“Naw, your folks were slave traders, right?” Barnes said. “I said it once: No dice.” After a moment that stretched: “And yeah, you can call in those goons outside to kill me, or work me over. That won’t get you much physics done, man. And beating me up won’t, either. It ain’t like digging a ditch or picking cotton on your fucking plantation.”
“Tobacco,” Rolfe corrected absently. “My family grew tobacco and raised horses. Well, that raises the question of why I should bother to keep you around, Dr. Barnes… if you’re not useful as a physicist. Or perhaps you could be useful in another career… gold mining, perhaps?”
“Yeah, send me to the mines. Lot of good that will do you.”
A quiet chuckle came from the corner. “I think I better get involved here, Cap’n.”
Barnes’s eyes swiveled around to the small, dark, graying man sitting in the corner. The scientist still didn’t look frightened, but he did look wary—the way a man might, confronted with a small, swift, poisonous snake.
“Thing is, Professor,” Salvatore Colletta said, “the cap’n, he’s a civile—a gentleman; and Sol here, he’s the kind who’ll pick a bug up and throw it out the window insteada swattin’ it. I ain’t, you know? That’s got its drawbacks, which surprised me when I found out, but it sort of gives me advantages too. Like maybe, yeah, a working-over with the rubber hoses wouldn’t get you doing this physics stuff right; you could go through the motions and say nothin’ was working. On the other hand… maybe there’s organs you’re fond of? Or people? Your mother still alive, dottore?”
Barnes began to come out of the chair and froze as Colletta’s hand moved with the speed of a striking mantis. An automatic pistol appeared in it, the muzzle gaping like a cavern and pitted with use; the rest of his short, slight body stayed relaxed, lounging at ease. Rolfe gave a small quiet snort. Sometimes in the midst of the inter-Family maneuvering, you forgot just how deadly the little man could be in person. That would be a mistake.
“He’s no use to us dead, Salvo,” Rolfe said. To Pearlmutter, in a soothing tone: “Don’t worry, Sol. Relax.”
Rolfe sighed, resting his chin on his thumbs and thinking. Let’s see… “The problem is, I think the good doctor here would call my bluff,” he said at last.
Colletta shot him a resentful black-eyed glance. “I ain’t bluffin’, Cap’n.”
“Yes, but I would be,” Rolfe replied.
Salvatore Colletta gave a sour grunt, holstered the gun and stood, adjusting his suit jacket and brushing lint off one sleeve, and taking a cigarette out of a gold case. He shrugged and lit it, puffing and going on: “Then I’ve got things to do. See ya, Cap’n. That soft heart of yours is gonna kill you someday.”
Colletta left; Pearlmutter followed, shrugging and spreading his hands as he passed in a well-I-did-my-best gesture. Rolfe turned to Barnes, his mouth quirking slightly.
“I’m a ruthless man, Dr. Barnes,” he said. “And if I thought it expedient, I would have you killed without hesitation; by the time I was your age, I’d seen and inflicted enough death that it became fairly trivial to me. There are, however, limits… at least for me. I’ve never found Salvo to have any.”
“I can believe it,” Barnes said. He cocked his head. “Why didn’t you try bluffing me?”