Beside me, Amelia sighed, almost a sob, but leaned forward, studying the console intently.
Burley peered directly out of the screen. "Peter Blankenship did know something-or at least believed something, that profoundly affects you and me. He believed that unless we take action to stop it, the world will come to an end on September fourteenth."
There was a picture of the Multiple Mirror Array on the far side of the Moon, irrelevant to anything, tracking ponderously. Then a time-lapse shot of Jupiter rotating. "The Jupiter Project, the largest, most complex scientific experiment ever conducted. Peter Blankenship had calculations that showed it had to be stopped. But then he disappeared, and came back in no shape to testify about anything scientific.
"But his assistant, Professor Blaze Harding" – an inset of Amelia lecturing – "suspected foul play and herself disappeared. From a hiding place in Mexico she sent dozens of copies of Blankenship's theory, and the high hard mathematics behind it, to scientists all over the world. Opinions are divided."
Back in his studio, Burley faced two men, one of them familiar.
"God, not Macro!" Amelia said.
"I have with me tonight Professors Lloyd Doherty and Mac Roman. Dr. Doherty's a longtime associate of Peter Blankenship. Dr. Roman is the dean of sciences at the University of Texas, where Professor Harding works and teaches."
"Teaching isn't work?" I said, and she shushed me.
Macro settled back with a familiar self-satisfied expression. "Professor Harding has been under a great deal of strain recently, including a love affair with one of her students as well as one with Peter Blankenship."
"Stick to the science, Macro," Doherty said. "You've read the paper. What do you think of it?"
"Why, it's ... it's utterly fantastic. Ridiculous."
"Tell me why."
"Lloyd, the audience could never understand the mathematics involved. But the idea is absurd on the face of it. That the physical conditions that obtain inside something smaller than a BB could bring about the end of the universe."
"People once said it was absurd to think that a tiny germ could bring about the death of a human being."
"That's a false analogy." His ruddy face got darker.
"No, it's precise. But I agree with you about it not destroying the universe."
Macro gestured at Burley and the camera. "Well, then."
Doherty continued. "It would only destroy the Solar System, perhaps the Galaxy. A relatively small corner of the universe."
"But it would destroy the Earth," Burley said.
"In less than an hour, yes." The camera came in close on him. "There's no doubt about that."
"But there is!" Macro said, off camera.
Doherty gave him a weary look. "Even if the doubt were reasonable, and it is not, what sort of odds would be acceptable? A fifty-fifty chance? Ten percent? One chance in a hundred that everyone would die?"
"Science doesn't work like that. Things aren't ten percent true."
"And people aren't ten percent dead, either." Doherty turned to Burley. "The problem I found isn't with the first few minutes or even millenniums of the prediction. I just think they've made an error extrapolating into intergalactic space."
"Do tell," Burley said.
"Ultimately, the result would just be twice as much matter; twice as many galaxies. There's room for them."
"If one part of the theory is wrong – " Macro began.
"Furthermore," Doherty confined, "it looks as if this has happened before, in other galaxies. It actually clears up some anomalies here and there."
"Getting back to Earth," Burley said, "or at least to this solar system. How big a job would it be to stop the Jupiter Project? The largest experiment ever set up?"
"Nothing to it, in terms of science. Just one radio signal from JPL. Getting people to send a signal that will end their careers in science, that would normally be hard. But everybody's career ends September fourteenth, if they don't."
"It's still irresponsible nonsense," Macro said. "Bad science, sensationalism."
"You have about ten days to prove that, Mac. A long line is forming behind that button."
Close-up on Burley, shaking his head. "They can't turn it off too soon for me." The console went dead.
We laughed and hugged and split a ginger ale in celebration. But then the screen chimed and turned itself on without my hitting the answer button.
It was the face of Eileen Zakim, my new platoon leader. "Julian, we have a real situation. Are you armed?"
"No-well, yes. There's a pistol here." But it had been left behind, like the ginger ale; I hadn't checked to see if it was loaded. "What's up?"
"That crazy bitch Gavrila is here. Maybe inside. She killed a little girl out front in order to distract the shoe guard at the gate."
"Good grief! We don't have a soldierboy out front?"
"We do, but she patrols. Gavrila waited until the soldierboy was on the opposite side of the compound. The way we've reconstructed it, she slashed up the child and threw her, dying, up against the sentry box door. When the shoe opened the door, she cut his throat and then dragged him across the box and used his handprint to open the inner door."
I had the pistol out and threw the dead bolt on the door. "Reconstructed? You don't know for sure?"
"No way to tell; the inner door isn't monitored. But she did drag him back into the box, and if she's military, she knows how the handprint locks work."
I checked the pistol's magazine. Eight packs of tumblers. Each pack held 144 razor-sharp tumblers-each actually a folded, scored piece of metal that shatters into 144 pieces when you pull the trigger. They come out in a hail of fury that can chew off an arm or a leg.
"Now that she's in the compound – "
"We don't know that for sure."
"If she is, though, are there any more handprint locks? Any monitored entrances?"
"The main entrance is monitored. No handprints; just mechanical locks. My people are checking every door."
I winced a little at "my" people. "Okay. We're secure here. Keep us posted."
"Will do." The console went dark.
We both looked at the door. "Maybe she doesn't have anything that can get through that," Amelia said. "She used a knife on the child and guard."
I shook my head. "I think she did that for her own amusement."
GAVRILA HUDDLED IN A cabinet under a laundry sink, waiting, the M-31 cradled, ready to fire, and the guard's assault rifle digging into her ribs. She had come in through a service door that was open to the night air, and locked it behind her.
While she watched through a crack, her patience and foresight were rewarded. A soldierboy slipped silently up to the door, checked the lock, and moved on.
After one minute, she got out and stretched. She had to either find out where the woman was staying or find some way to destroy the whole building. But fast. She was ridiculously outnumbered, and in gaining the advantage of terror she had sacrificed the possibility of surprise.
There was a beat-up keyboard and console, gray plastic turning white with some kind of soap film, built into the wall. She went over to it and pushed a random letter, and it turned itself on. She typed in "directory" and was rewarded with a list of personnel. Blaze Harding wasn't there, but Julian Class was, at 8-1841. That looked like a phone number, rather than a room number.
Guessing, she rolled a pointer over to his name and clicked on it. That gave her 241, more useful. It was a two-story building.
A sudden loud rattling startled her. She spun around, pointing both weapons, but it was just an unattended washing machine that had been dormant while she was hidden.
She ignored the freight elevator and shouldered though a heavy FIRE EXIT door that opened on a dusty staircase. There didn't seem to be any security cameras. She climbed quickly and quietly up to the second floor.