“It isn’t,” Garrod said firmly. “I’ve seen the advance reports.”
“Of course, the Aurora was turning when it crashed.” Leygraf’s grey eyes had widened slightly. “You could say an aircraft turns in the vertical plane when it lands, couldn’t you?”
“Yes, it’s called the flare-out—except that in this case Renfrew didn’t flare out soon enough. He almost flew the Aurora straight into the ground.”
Leygraf jumped to his feet. “He turned too late! And that’s what the Stiletto drivers tend to do. They underestimate the time they need to cross the opposing line of traffic. That’s it, Al.”
Garrod’s heart began to fill his chest like a pillow. “That’s what?”
“Your common factor, of course.” “But where does it get us?”
“Nowhere—it validates your new data, that’s all. But I’m beginning to swing in favour of your idea that Thermgard affects the light which passes through it—supposing it alters the wavelength of ordinary light and makes it harmful? A sick driver or pilot would probably…”
Garrod was shaking his head. “In that case colours wouldn’t be true when seen through the material. Windshields have to meet all kinds of standards, you know.”
“Well something has to slow the drivers’ reactions,” Leygraf said. “Look, Al, you’re dealing with two factors here. There’s light itself—which is an invariant—and there’s the human…”
“Don’t say any more. Don’t speak!” Garrod gripped the arms of his chair as the floor seemed to tilt ponderously beneath him. He felt a cool prickling sensation on his forehead and cheeks, and when he tried to voice the thought which
had just occurred to him the gulf between logic and language proved too great a bridge.
Two hours later, after a punishing drive through the rush hour traffic, the two men reached the cream-coloured building which was the research and administration centre of Garrod Transparencies Inc. It was a fine October evening, and the air was soft and thick, nostalgic. From the parking lot they could see a distant tennis court, gem-like in a setting of trees, where white figures played perhaps the final game of the season.
“That’s what I should be doing,” Leygraf said bitterly as they walked to the main entrance. “Do you have to be so secretive about why you dragged me out here?”
“I’m not being secretive.” Garrod could feel himself moving carefully, like a man who was unsure of his footing. “It’s just that I don’t want to influence your thinking in any way. I’m going to show you something, and you have to tell me what it means.”
They entered the building and took the elevator to Garrod’s second-floor office suite. The building had seemed deserted, but a stocky man who wore screwdrivers in his breast pocket like fountain pens met them in the corridor.
“Hi, Vince,” Garrod said. “You got my message?”
Vince nodded. “I got it, but I don’t understand it. Did you really want a breadboard rig with two room lamps on it? And a rotary switch?”
“That’s what I wanted.” Garrod slapped Vince on the shoulder, a gesture of apology for not explaining the mystery, and went into his office. It was a combination of executive suite and design facility, with a drafting table sharing pride of place with a large untidy desk.
Leygraf pointed at the blackboard which ran the length of the wall. “Do you really use that thing? I thought they only had those in the movies. Old William Holden movies.”
“It helps me to think. When there’s a problem on that board I can see it and work on it no matter what’s going on in here.” Garrod spoke slowly as he examined the piece of makeshift equipment on his desk. It consisted of a chipboard base carrying two lamps and a variable-speed rotary switch, all connected by plastic-covered wire and linked to a power point. Some day, he thought, with a curious lack of emotion, the world’s science museums will be bidding against each other for this assembly of junk. He plugged the cord into a wall socket, operated the rotary switch and both lamps began to flash in unison. Moving the switch control slightly, he adjusted the cycle so that the lamps were lit for roughly a second, out for roughly a second.
“Just like Times Square.” Leygraf sniffed loudly to draw attention to his sarcasm.
Garrod caught his arm and drew him closer to the desk. “Do you see the kind of circuit we have here? Two lamps and a switch wired in series.”
“It wasn’t covered in my computer course at Cal Tech, but I think I get the general drift. I think my mind is expanding to grasp the advanced technology involved.”
“I just wanted to be certain you appreciate…”
“For God’s sake, All” Leygrafs patience began to desert him. “What is there to appreciate?”
“Just this.” Garrod opened a cupboard and removed what appeared to be an ordinary, if rather thick, piece of glass. “Thermgard.”
He carried it to the desk where the two lamps were blinking in unison, and stood it vertically in front of the breadboard rig, positioning it so that only one of the lamps was visible through the glass.
“What way are the lamps behaving now?” Garrod did not look at them himself.
“How can they behave, Al? You haven’t done anything to…Oh, Jesus!”
“Precisely.” Garrod leaned sideways and looked at the two lights from approximately the same angle as Leygraf. The lamp behind the glass was still emitting its one-second flashes, but now it was out of step with the other. He removed the glass and both lamps were in unison again. He replaced the glass and they were out of phase.
“I wouldn’t have believed it,” Leygraf said.
Garrod nodded. “Remember, I said Thermgard had no right to be transparent? It appears that even light has difficulty in passing through it—so much difficulty that the journey of half-an-inch through this piece of material takes it about one second. That’s why drivers of Stilettos have been involved in too many accidents, and that’s why the pilot of the Aurora almost flew it into the ground—they were out of step with their surroundings, Carl.
“They were seeing the world as it had existed one second in the past!”
“But why should the effect show up so much in turns?”
“It will have been present in other circumstances too, causing misjudgements of distance and probably some minor bumper-to-bumper collisions between cars in the same line of traffic. But in those cases the relative speeds are small and not much harm would be done. It’s only when a driver mistimes a turn against opposing traffic—and it’s ama/ing how finely we judge the split-seconds in those turns, Carl—that the relative speeds are high and the result is disastrous.”
“How about when turning a corner?”
“Speeds are low, and the corner isn’t rushing towards you at sixty miles an hour. Probably, too, when turning a corner the driver is also looking out of the side window at the footpath and instinctively compensating, but when turning across a traffic lane his eyes are fixed exclusively on the oncoming car visible through his windscreen—and his eyes are fed faulty information.”
Leygraf rubbed his chin. “I suppose all that applies in aviation, too?”
“Yes. In straight-line flight the delay would make little difference—and don’t forget the Aurora had the sky to itself—but a turn magnifies the phenomenon.”