“I don’t think we should fool with this,” Elizabeth said.
But it was too late. Saks touching it had activated something. The humming rose up to a whining and the air around them crackled again with building energy. There was that smell of burnt ozone again, electricity and melted wiring. That narrow beam of white light came out of the back of the scope, struck the rear mirror and made it glow. The glow was reflected and broken into prisms of light that struck the front mirror or lens, were amplified into that blue beam of illumination that hit the bulkhead like a spotlight. There seemed to be millions of tiny dots dancing in the beam like bubbles in beer. Right away, buzzing with that blue light, the bulkhead looked insubstantial.
George was just in awe.
That blue glow on the bulkhead looked like the static on a TV screen, but busy and thrumming and alive. Like a blizzard or something. Looked like you could get lost in there and he had a funny feeling that you probably could at that.
“Don’t touch that beam,” Cushing told them. “You don’t know what might happen.”
George said, “We could use this thing, you know? Greenberg said that if you could find the spot where you first came into… into Dimension X, that it might open back up for you sooner or later. Maybe this thing is the key that could open it whenever we wanted it to.”
“Or maybe it would suck you into an alien world,” Cushing said.
Saks put his hand in the beam. “Kind of cold,” he said. “Funny.. . feels like something’s crawling all over my hand.”
“Be careful,” George told him, maybe secretly hoping that idiot would get sucked through and spit out on the sterile plains of Altair-4.
Cushing watched the beam, the dancing flecks of matter or energy in it. “Probably some sort of ionized field. Electrified gas or something. I wouldn’t leave your hand in there too long. Not if you value it.”
“Yeah,” Fabrini said. “You lose a hand, Saks, there goes half your sex life.”
Cushing was studying the machine closely. “That disk underneath could be sort of a generator, I suppose. That scope could be an accelerator. It directs a stream of particles at that rear mirror where something happens to them. Then they’re reflected to the forward lens and that blue light must tear open time/space. Jesus, the minds that must have conceived of such a thing.”
Fabrini was over near the bulkhead now. Before Cushing could tell him not to, he pressed his hand into the blue glow there. His hand went right through it. There was no wall there, just empty space.
“Careful,” George told him. “You read what Greenberg said. If that’s a wormhole, it could come out just about anywhere.”
“Yeah, and maybe back on home sweet home.”
“C’mon,” George said. “You really think that alien opened up a portal into our world? Why would it… she do that?”
Fabrini didn’t seem to have an answer for that. He was not a scientific type by nature or inclination. A lot of what Cushing told him was pretty much indecipherable. Too much theory, not enough fact. All he knew was that the teleporter was maybe a way out and he told them all that.
“No fucking way,” George said. “You’re not going through there.. . you know what the chances are of coming out anywhere?”
“He’s right, Fabrini,” Cushing said. “That alien was working on this thing. Elizabeth says she saw that glow for the past few days. Maybe it was fine-tuning this or something. You just can’t step through there. You could end up just about anywhere… on some planet a million light years from earth or somewhere with a poisonous atmosphere. Shit, your atoms might get scattered like rice at a wedding. You really want to take that chance?”
He smiled. “Damn straight.”
Saks started laughing. “You got to hand it to Fabrini. He ain’t much in the smarts department, but he’s got some serious balls.”
That was about as close to a compliment as Fabrini had ever gotten from Saks and he practically beamed.
Menhaus kept shaking his head. “You can’t, Fabrini. Listen to what Cushing is saying, it’s death in there. Don’t do it, okay?” He went over to Fabrini, laid his hands on his arms. “C’mon, please don’t do this. I don’t want to lose you.”
Fabrini was touched. He patted Menhaus on the back. “Don’t worry, Olly. I’ll be okay. I’m fucking Italian here. We got a great sense of self-preservation, us Italians.”
“Yeah, tell that to Mussolini,” George said.
But that went over his head like a high-flying bird. “I’m going through,” he said defiantly. “If I don’t come back, it’s my own stupid fault. But I’m telling you right now, all of you right now, that I’ve had it right up to here with this bullshit. This sitting around. This waiting. This hoping something don’t chew up our asses so we can make it maybe one more shitty day and find a way out. I can’t handle any more of that. Way I see it, it’s time for action and that’s that. Time to take a chance.”
George didn’t bother arguing: his mind was made up. That much was obvious. But what he was thinking was, Fabrini, you stupid shit! Quit flexing your dick already, that testosterone is going to kill you. This isn’t about who’s got the biggest balls, it’s about using your fucking brain and staying alive.
And, yeah, that’s exactly what he was thinking.
But he didn’t say it and he wished later that he had.
“He wants to go,” Saks said. “Let him go. Guy’s got nuts on him. Can’t say that for the rest of you pussies.”
That was it, then.
Fabrini was going.
Cushing said, “All right, all right. But at least let us tie a rope to you or something. Shit hits the fan, we can yank you back out.” That was what he said and it seemed perfectly reasonable, but there was doubt in his eyes. Bad doubt.
“There’s rope upstairs,” Saks said. “I saw it on our way down.”
“Get it,” Fabrini said.
Saks and Menhaus grabbed a lantern and went topside. They came back two minutes later with two coils of rope. Each had a hundred feet of line on them. They knotted the two ends together, figuring two-hundred feet would be plenty for Fabrini to see what was on the other side. Then they looped another end around his waist. Saks tied the knots. Square-knots strong enough to tow a car with.
“I’ll ask you one more time,” Elizabeth said, “to reconsider. Please, please don’t do this.”
Fabrini was unmoved and she turned away and stood in the doorway, her back to what she was certain was calculated madness.
“Just go in gradually,” Cushing said. “An arm or leg first, then just a peek. And hold your breath when you look in there. You inhale a lungful of ammonia or methane, not much we can do for you. Just go in easy.”
They tied the other end of the rope off to an iron bench across the room that was bolted to the floor. It would have taken a couple bull elephants to yank it free. Fabrini stood near the glowing blue wall, looking pale and tense. Maybe he wanted then to turn back, maybe he wanted to do the sensible thing, but his manhood was at stake now. He couldn’t back down, not in front of Saks.
“Good luck, Fabrini,” Saks said.
And George raised an eyebrow. There was something he didn’t like there. Saks was too… what? Too anxious? Too eager? Definitely, too something. Like he knew what was about to happen, had been waiting for it, and was about to see it all come together. If George had to put a name to that smarmy little smile on his face he would have said, contented.
That sonofabitch is up to something, George found himself thinking. He’s up to no fucking good.
George looked over at Cushing and Cushing seemed to be thinking something along those lines, too.
“Listen,” he said to Fabrini. “You back out, nobody’s gonna think less of you. This isn’t worth the risk. Just stay here. We’ll go up to that ship and-”
“Ah, don’t let em dick you around,” Saks said. “They don’t have any guts, Fabrini. Not like you. You’re the only real man here.”