By three in the morning, his fatigue ran deep. He tried to replace the journal on the chair arm, but he was well over half through, and the unbalanced volume slipped to the floor. He swore, straightened the pages and marked his place with a dirty sock. Then he undressed, fell into bed, thought briefly again of Pat Danielson, and drifted into a fitful sleep.
Nine o'clock the next morning found the group reassembled in Gantt's room. Danielson and Runyan were talking in quiet tones on the sofa. Gantt had conferred his swivel desk chair to Phillips and taken the seat near the door. The others took their accustomed places.
Phillips broke off his conversation with Isaacs, who was seated next to him, as Noldt, the last to arrive, came in swinging the door against Gantt's chair and causing him to slosh some of his post-breakfast coffee into his lap. Noldt dithered in helpless apology while Gantt waved him off and dabbed the spot with a handkerchief. After Noldt took his chair. Phillips cleared his throat and began.
'We have no formal agenda this morning. Would anyone care to add to yesterday afternoon's discussions?'
'That is to say,' broke in Runyan, 'can anyone put a quick and merciful end to Runyan's folly?'
There were several chuckles which died away into silence as it became clear that no one was about to volunteer a viable counterhypothesis or cite an obvious failure in Runyan's logic.
'With all due respect to you as our resident astrophysical pundit, Alex,' said Fletcher, breaking the silence, 'if you're on the right track, don't we need to call in some expert help on this problem, someone who knows about this particular subject of small black holes?'
'Absolutely,' answered Runyan. 'There are several individuals whose advice would be invaluable, for instance, Korolev in Russia or Pearlby in England. I'd love to discuss this problem with Korolev over a glass of vodka.'
Isaacs straightened perceptibly, startled by this sudden injection of Korolev's name. But of course, he thought, these people are probably old friends, cronies. Phillips saw Isaacs start and took the lead.
'There is, ah, a question of security here, of course,'
Phillips said.
'Surely not in the classical sense,' said Noldt with some bewilderment. 'This isn't just a national issue. The whole bloody world is being sucked up.'
'There's no proof of that yet, Ted,' reproached Phillips.
'In any case, there seems good reason to proceed cautiously at this point.'
'What about a colleague of mine at Princeton ,' suggested Fletcher, 'Clarence Humphreys?'
'Of course,' Runyan enthused, 'Clarence could be very helpful. I don't know about his stand on security matters, but he should be approached.'
'There seems to be a consensus, then,' summarized Phillips, 'that we will proceed on the assumption that Alex has provided the correct explanation of the events reported. We will try to enlist the support of an expert on black holes, particularly the miniature variety — starting with Humphreys. We've already established that Gantt will set up a gravimeter experiment to seek direct evidence for or against the black hole theory. Alex, you mentioned the need for detailed orbit calculations. Can you see to that end of things?'
'The best way to proceed there would be to make use of the computer facilities and programs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,' said Runyan. 'I could move up to Pasadena for the rest of the summer. As for security, we can't simply ask them to calculate a black hole orbit inside the earth. I must have special personal access to the computers, but I'll need to consult with the experts on the relevant codes which require modification. Someone will have to do some arranging for me.'
Phillips looked at Isaacs who nodded in confirmation.
Phillips then addressed the group again. 'Anyone have anything else to add?'
After a moment Zicek spoke up.
'Our course of action is just as you have outlined, Wayne — some straightforward steps to better define the situation. Last night I took a different tack and spent a good deal of time pondering Alex's basic premise. He not only wants a small black hole careening through the earth, but he led us to the brink of concluding that such a dung must have been artificially manufactured. Despite his logic, like many of us here, I found that idea prima facie absurd. And granting that absurdity, I questioned the whole scheme. My apologies, Alex.'
Runyan shrugged and waited for the point to which all this was preamble.
'This morning,' Zicek continued, 'I am not so sure.'
His eyebrows compressed together as he paused to formulate his words.
'I do not see how to create such a little monster, but I am no longer so positive that to speak of such a process is absurd.
'As many of you know, I am actively involved in Project Antares at Los Alamos. Our goal is to create controlled thermonuclear reactions by imploding a pellet of deuterium and tritium. The present scheme has six gas lasers the size of locomotives producing seventy-two laser beams which are brought to focus on the pellet. The pellet is drastically compressed, creating high enough temperatures and densities to trigger the fusing of deuterium into helium.
'This is only one of the projects currently being undertaken by our government and by that of the Soviet Union , which appears to me to bear on this problem. The others, given the current political situation, are related to weaponry. I speak of beam weapons of many kinds which unload their destructive power at the speed of light and will render normal missiles and aircraft obsolete and defenceless.
'I myself have had a role in developing the infrared chemical laser which the Navy is using in their Sea Light lethality verification programme and the related Talon Gold pointing and tracking tests. The Air Force has its own parallel programme with a carbon dioxide gas laser on an NKC-135 at Kirtland Air Force Base.
'While I'm not involved with them, except as a competitor for funding, there are several programmes developing particle beams. The White Horse project at Los Alamos aims for a space-based neutral beam generator using a radio frequency quadrupole accelerator. The Advanced Test Facility at Livermore is producing an electron beam, and the RADALAC at Sandia can fire electrons, protons, or negative hydrogen ions at near the speed of light. Lord only knows what sort of gadgets the Russians have by now. Most of our ideas were stolen from them. We know they have developed techniques to use chemical explosions to drive magnetic flux compression generators. They have used stupendous electric currents generated by these devices to power rail guns — linear induction motors which can be used to hurl payloads into orbit or drive armour piercing bullets at hypersonic velocities.'
Zicek leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs and interlocking his fingers. 'Now my point is, any of these devices — lasers, relativistic electron beams, rail guns — can, in principle, be focused inward to achieve implosions. So far the goal of implosion studies has been to achieve high density and temperature and produce nuclear fusion. Such processes cannot achieve extreme densities because the energy expended to raise both the temperature and the density is too high. Alex and Harvey discussed that yesterday.