“All right, but if you see Burt you’ll be burning your bridges. Your colleagues will never forgive you. Have you thought of talking to the physicists here? You can’t put pressure on Hallam on your own, but a whole group of you—”
Lamont shook his head vigorously, “Not at all. The men at this station survive by virtue of their jellyfish quality. There isn’t one who would stand against him. Trying to rally the others to put pressure on Hallam would be like asking strands of cooked spaghetti to come to attention.”
Bronowski’s soft face looked unwontedly grim. “You may be right.”
“I know I’m right,” said Lamont, just as grimly.
7
It had taken time to pin the senator down; time that Lamont had resented losing; the more so since nothing further in Latin letters had come from the para-men. No message of any kind, though Bronowski had sent across half a dozen, each with a carefully selected combinations of para-symbols and each incorporating both F-E-E-R and F-E-A-R.
Lamont wasn’t sure of the significance of the half-dozen variations but Bronowski had seemed hopeful.
Yet nothing had happened and now Lamont was at last in to see Burt.
The senator was thin-faced, sharp-eyed, and elderly. He had been the head of the Committee on Technology and the Environment for a generation. He took his job seriously and had proved that a dozen times.
He fiddled, now, with the old-fashioned necktie that he affected (and that had become his trademark) and said, “I can only give you half an hour, son.” He looked at his wristwatch.
Lamont was not worried. He expected to interest Senator Burt enough to make him forget about time limits. Nor did he attempt to begin at the beginning; his intentions here were quite different from those in connection with Hallam.
He said, “I won’t bother with the mathematics, Senator, but I will assume you realize that through Pumping, the natural laws of the two Universes are being mixed.”
“Stirred together,” said the senator, calmly, “with equilibrium coming in about 1030 years. Is that the figure?” His eyebrows in repose arched up and then down, giving his lined face a permanent air of surprise.
“It is,” said Lamont, “but it is arrived at by assuming that the alien laws seeping into our Universe and theirs spread outward from the point of entry at the speed of light. That is just an assumption and I believe it to be wrong.”
“Why?”
“The only measured rate of mixing is within the plutonium-186 sent into this Universe. That rate of mixing is extremely slow at first, presumably because matter is dense, and increases with time. If the plutonium is mixed with less dense matter, the rate of mixing increases more rapidly. From a few measurements of this sort it has been calculated that the permeation rate would increase to the speed of light in a vacuum. It would take some time for the alien laws to work their way into the atmosphere, far less time to work their way to the top of the atmosphere and then off through space in every direction at 300,000 kilometers per second, thinning into harmlessness in no time.”
Lamont paused a moment to consider how best to go on, and the senator picked it up at once. “However—” he urged, with the manner of a man not willing to waste time.
“It’s a convenient assumption that seems to make sense and seems to make no trouble, but what if it is not matter that offers resistance to the permeation of the alien laws, but the basic fabric of the Universe itself.”
“What is the basic fabric?”
“I can’t put it in words. There is a mathematical expression which I think represents it, but I can’t put it into words. The basic fabric of the Universe is that which dictates the laws of nature. It is the basic fabric of our Universe that makes it necessary for energy to be conserved. It is the basic fabric of the para-Universe, with a weave, so to speak, somewhat different from ours, that makes their nuclear interaction a hundred times stronger than ours.”
“And so?”
“If it is the basic fabric that is being penetrated, sir, then the presence of matter, dense or not, can have only a secondary influence. The rate of penetration is greater in a vacuum than in dense mass, but not very much greater. The rate of penetration in outer space may be great in Earthly terms but it is only a small fraction of the speed of light.”
“Which means?”
“That the alien fabric is not dissipating as quickly as we think, but is piling up, so to speak, within the Solar system to a much greater concentration than we have been assuming.”
“I see,” said the senator, nodding his head. “And how long then will it be before the space within the Solar system is brought to equilibrium? Less than, 1080 years, I imagine.”
“Far less, sir. Less than 1010 years, I think. Perhaps fifty billion years, give or take a couple of billion.”
“Not much in comparison, but enough, eh? No immediate cause for alarm, eh?”
“But I’m afraid that is immediate cause for alarm, sir. Damage will be done long before equilibrium is reached. Because of the Pumping, the strong nuclear interaction is growing steadily stronger in our Universe at every moment.”
“Enough stronger to measure?”
“Perhaps not, sir.”
“Not even after twenty years of Pumping?”
“Perhaps not, sir.”
“Then why worry?”
“Because, sir, upon the strength of the strong nuclear interaction rests the rate at which hydrogen fuses to helium in the core of the Sun. If the interaction strengthens even unnoticeably, the rate of hydrogen fusion in the Sun will increase markedly. The Sun maintains the balance between radiation and gravitation with great delicacy and to upset that balance in favor of radiation, as we are now doing—”
“Yes?”
“—will cause an enormous explosion. Under our laws of nature, it is impossible for a star as small as the Sun to become a supernova. Under the altered laws, it may not be. I doubt that we would have warning. The Sun would build up to a vast explosion and in eight minutes after that you and I will be dead and the Earth will quickly vaporize into an expanding puff of vapor.”
“And nothing can be done?”
“If it is too late to avoid upsetting the equilibrium, nothing. If it is not yet too late, then we must stop Pumping.”
The senator cleared his throat. “Before I agreed to see you, young man, I inquired as to your background since you were not personally known to me. Among those I queried was Dr. Hallam. You know him, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.” A corner of Lament’s mouth twitched but his voice held even. “I know him well.”
“He tells me,” said the senator, glancing at a paper on his desk, “that you are a troublemaking idiot of doubtful sanity and he demands that I refuse to see you.”
Lament said in a voice he strove to keep calm. “Are those his words, sir?”
“His exact words.”
“Then why have you agreed to see me, sir?”
“Ordinarily, if I received something like this from Hallam, I wouldn’t have seen you. My time is valuable and heaven knows I see more troublemaking idiots of doubtful sanity than bears thinking of, even among those who come to me with the highest recommendations. In this one case, though, I didn’t like Hallam’s ‘demand.’ You don’t make demands of a senator and Hallam had better learn that.”
“Then you will help me, sir?”
“Help you do what?”
“Why—arrange to have the Pumping halted.”
“That? Not at all. Quite impossible.”
“Why not?” demanded Lament. “You are the head of the Committee on Technology and the Environment and it is precisely your task to stop the Pumping, or any technological procedure that threatens irreversible harm to the environment. There can be no greater, no more irreversible harm than threatened by Pumping.”