LOWER THE RIVER
I worked for a dozen years at Avco Everett Research Laboratory, in Massachusetts. In many ways, it was the best experience of my life. I was living a science-fiction writer’s dream, surrounded by brilliant scientists, engineers, and technicians working on cutting-edge research in everything from high-power lasers to artificial hearts.
We got involved in developing superconducting magnets in the early 1960s. Superconductors can generate enormously intense magnetic fields, and once energized they do not need to be continuously fed electrical power, as ordinary electromagnets do.
But they only remain magnetized if they are kept below a certain critical temperature. For the superconductors of the 1960s, the necessary temperature was a decidedly frosty —423.04 Fahrenheit, only a few degrees above absolute zero. The coolant we used was liquified helium.
In the 1980s, «high-temperature» superconductors were discovered: they work at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, —320.8T. Whoopee.
The search for a room-temperature superconductor, one that will remain superconducting at a comfortable 70 F and therefore would not need cryogenic coolants, is being pushed in many labs.
In the meantime, business colleges have sent their graduates into all sorts of industries. What would happen, I wondered, if one of these MBAs tried to use the management techniques of goal-setting and negative incentives on a physicist who is laboring to produce a room temperature superconductor?
«Lower the River» is the result.
Jackson Klondike did not look like a world-class physicist. He was a shaggy bear of a man with a gruff manner and a ferocious sense of humor. Yet he was the unchallenged leader of the Rockledge Research Laboratory’s bright and quirky scientific staff.
William Ratner did not look like a research lab director. He was astonishingly young, astoundingly handsome, and incredibly vapid. Yet he held a master’s degree in business administration, and the Rockledge corporate officers (including his uncle Sylvester) had handed him the directorship of the lab.
With one single demand: Get results!
Klondike was smolderingly unhappy as he sat in front of Ratner’s desk. It was obvious that he felt the time spent in the director’s office was wasted; he wanted to be back in his own rat’s nest of a lab where he could do some creative work.
Ratner had peeked into Klondike’s lab only once. It looked like a chaotic mess, wires dangling from the ceiling, insulated tubing snaking everywhere, and vats of some mysterious stuff boiling and filling the chamber with steam that somehow felt cold instead of hot.
Klondike was the resident genius, though. His specialty was solid-state physics. For years he had been experimenting on superconducting magnets.
«I have a directive here from corporate headquarters in New York,» Ratner said, as sternly as he could manage, rattling the single sheet of paper in one hand.
Across his desk Klondike sat straddling a chair he had turned backward, leaning his beefy arms on the chair’s back, his chin half-buried in their hair, his eyes glowering at Ratner.
«A directive, huh?» Klondike vouchsafed.
Sitting up as straight as he could, Ratner said, «I know you don’t think much of me, but I’ve been studying this superconductivity business for several weeks now.»
«Have you?» Klondike’s voice rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest, like distant thunder.
«Yes I have,» Ratner said. «Superconducting magnets could be a major product line for this corporation, if it weren’t for the fact that you need to keep them cold with liquid oxygen.»
«Liquid nitrogen,» reverberated Klondike.
«Nitrogen. That’s what I meant.»
«Used to be worse. When I first started in this game, we hadda use mother-lovin’ liquid helium for cooling the coils. Liquid nitrogen’s easy.»
«But it’s still a problem, as far as practicality is concerned, isn’t it?»
«Nah. The real problem’s the ductility of—»
«Never mind!» Ratner snapped, unwilling to allow Klondike to snow him with a lot of technical jargon.
Klondike glared at him, but shut up.
«I know what we need, and I made the suggestion to corporate management. They agree with me.» He rattled the paper again.
Klondike remained in scowling silence.
«What we need is a superconductor that works at ordinary temperature, so we won’t have to keep it cold with liquid—uh, nitrogen.»
Klondike lifted his chin off his shaggy arms. «You mean we oughtta produce a room-temperature superconductor?»
«That’s exactly right,» said Ratner. «And the corporate management agrees with me. This directive orders you to produce a room-temperature superconductor.»
Barely suppressing his disdain, Klondike replied, «Orders me, huh? And when do they want it? This week or next?»
Ratner smiled shrewdly. «I’m not a neophyte at this, you know. I understand that breakthroughs can’t be made on a preconceived schedule.»
Klondike glanced ceiling ward as if giving swift thanks for small mercies.
«Any time this fiscal year will do.»
«This fiscal year?»
«That gives you nearly six months to get the task done.»
«Produce a room-temperature superconductor in less than six months.»
«Yes,» said Ratner. «Or we’ll have to find someone else who can.»
Five months and fourteen days went by.
In all that time Ratner hardly saw Klondike at all. The man had barricaded himself in his lab, working night and day. His weekly reports were terse to the point of insult:
Week 1: Working on room-temperature superconductor.
Week 7: Still working on r-t s.
Week 14: Continuing work on rts.
Week 20: Making progress on rts.
Week 21: Demonstration of rts scheduled for next Monday.
Ratner had been worried, at first, that Klondike was simply ignoring his instruction. But once he saw that a demonstration was being set up, he realized that his management technique had worked just the way they had told him it would in business school. Set a goal for your employees, then make certain they reach your goal.
«So where is it?» Ratner asked. «Where is the demonstration?»
Klondike had personally escorted his boss down hallways and through workshops from the director’s office to his own lab, deep in the bowels of the building.
«Right through there,» Klondike said, gesturing to the closed door with the sign that read: ROOM TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTOR TEST IN PROGRESS.
ENTRY BY AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY!
Feeling flushed with triumph, Ratner flung open the insulated door and stepped into a solid wall of frozen air. He banged his nose painfully and bounced off, staggering back into Klondike’s waiting arms.
Eyes tearful, nose throbbing, he could see dimly through the frozen-solid air a small magnet coil sitting atop a lab bench. It was a superconductor, of course, working fine in the room temperature of that particular room.
Klondike smiled grimly. «There it is, boss, just like management asked for. I couldn’t raise the bridge so I lowered the river.»
THE CAFÉ COUP
This tale also deals with time travel, and the intriguing question of whether history could be changed by time travelers.
One of the standard arguments against the possibility of time travel is that if time travel actually existed, time travelers would be deliberately or accidentally changing history. Since we have not seen our history changing, time travel has not happened. If it hasn’t happened yet, it never will. QED.
But if time travelers were altering history, would we notice? Or would our history books and even our memories be changed each time a time traveler finagled with our past?