‘Fissile? As opposed to what?’ she asked.
‘The decayed Uranium 238,’ said Stone. ‘The Uranium 235 decays much more quickly, and that means it’s rare. In the four billion years the earth has been around, wherever you look on earth, the uranium had decayed to where it’s only 0.7 percent fissile. That’s why you have to enrich it to 2.7 percent to make nuclear fuel, and even more to make a weapon. I guess the three percent concentration here was because the uranium landed in the meteor.’
Virginia looked at him suspiciously. ‘Sometimes you sound like a real professor. It’s not a great look, Stone.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he said. There was renewed activity at the back of the cabin, where the medical team in white suits and masks were preparing Semyonov for the landing with padded plastic straps.
Virginia continued, ‘You could be right though. This is what I wrote when Steven was telling me. I have to read Steven’s words verbatim, because I’ve no idea what it all means.’ She began to read. ‘“It was known that at three percent uranium 235, a natural nuclear reaction could occur in the ground. French scientists had identified the phenomenon at a site in Gabon, West Africa in the early Sixties. All that was needed was ground water, which would act as a neutron moderator.” I mean, what the hell? “It would also naturally control the reaction. As the water boiled off in the heat, and pressure increased, the fission would stop, and begin again when water re-entered the deposit.”’
Stone was gently clapping his hands. You had to hand it to Semyonov. ‘How fascinating is that? They discovered the reactor grade uranium, and realised that all they had to do was to force water into the ground, and they would have a permanent supply of nuclear energy, self-regulating, spouting right out of the ground. No wonder Lin Biao was interested.’
‘So what difference does any of this make?’ asked Carslake. ‘I mean, did they build the reactor or what?’
‘It looks like the discovery was reported to Lin Biao, and nothing was pursued after his death,’ said Stone. ‘Meanwhile, the spoil from the mine threw poisonous heavy metals around the crater and killed off all the trees and plants. That explains the barren crater. There was no nuclear test.’
‘Jeez,’ said Virginia. ‘No wonder they closed the place up. Anyhow, they blew up the workings in 1980 when they saw what damage the pollution had done.
‘What about the Machine?’ said Carslake. ‘Where is it? We have to go into a poisoned fucking mine?’
A grave, strained voice spoke from behind them. ‘The Machine is held in a cylinder, twenty inches in diameter.’ It was Semyonov. ‘As Virginia said, the mine is closed, the workings were blown in 1980. But the Machine and all its data are held in that cylinder. It’s five feet long and twenty inches in diameter. Half a mile below the ground.’
‘If the mine is blocked, how did it get in there?’
‘A shaft,’ said Semyonov. ‘We drilled a service shaft a half a mile deep and lowered the Machine into the deepest of the old workings. The shaft is barely twenty-two inches wide. That’s why the cylinder had to be so small.’
‘Hold on,’ said Carslake. ‘You’re talking about the whole of the information from the whole of the Internet here. Plus some incredible level of processing power to analyse it. How does it fit it something barely bigger than an office file server?’
‘Supercooled to minus two hundred. The most efficient, densest database ever built.’
‘It must eat the power,’ said Carslake. ‘How the hell do you supply that much power half a mile below ground? I didn’t see any power lines around the crater.’
‘I think we know the answer to that,’ said Stone. ‘There’s plenty of power down there already. It’s the reason he chose this mine, with it’s own nuke power source. Did you design all this, Semyonov? Or did…’
‘Correct,’ said Semyonov, voice still straining. They were coming in to land. ‘It designed itself. Even chose the location. Who knows what else it’s done in the weeks its been down there.’ There was a roar of the cool night air outside as the undercarriage deployed. ‘Carslake was right all along,’ said Semyonov. ‘There is an alien intelligence at the bottom of that hole. But I created it.’
It was still three hours before morning prayers when the black turboprop droned over the monastery. Panchen stirred, half-awake on the wood floor of his cell. There was a creak from the wooden boards of the corridor. A small creak, from a light body. Velvet steps. Panchen sat bold upright, his neck and shoulder muscles taught in the perfumed darkness. That tiny creak from the floorboards. He’d heard it before.
She slid past the door, and he smelt her soft musk. She spoke in Chinese.
Chapter 66–12:54am 14 April — Garze Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, China
Lin Biao may be a footnote in history, but his many palatial bomb shelters and bunkers are dotted all over China. Some were let to ruin, some are museums, some curios, and one or two have even been turned into hotels. Lin Biao’s legacy. Now, there was one guy who was prepared for when the thermonuclear shit hit the fan.
Lin Biao’s fantastical apartments a few metres below the rocky surface had something of the Robert Oyang about them, except they were forty years old and very damp. Weird, impossibly ornate, and with a feeling that time had stopped.
Each chamber was hewn straight from the dark grey rock, including the enormous, high-ceilinged living area. Besides the living rooms there was a true warren of passages and tunnels down there, quite separate from where the mine workings would have been. It was like living in a movie set from Journey to the Centre of the Earth, except the lighting was worse. Much worse. And above all it was damp. Warm air space-heaters crouched like small jet engines in every room, droning away. It seemed to have no effect. Stone could see his breath in the large room, and rivulets of damp water ran down the walls. Whether it was condensation, or natural groundwater — it didn’t matter.
There were ancient, uncomfortable-looking sofas and easy chairs with lace and chintz. It had the feel of Beijing Fordidden City meets miner’s cottage, and it reminded Stone of his grandmother and her cold, unwelcoming “frontroom”. The one she “kept for best”. Which meant she never went in, and never lit the fire in there. “Kept for best” meant cold, musty and damp. Lin Biao’s underground palazzo had been “kept for best” for nearly forty years. The “bedrooms” were stone cells. Nicely furnished with high ceilings and narrow but comfy-looking beds. But damp, stone cells nonetheless. It must have been the height of luxury in the China of the Cultural Revolution. But now, above all, it was simply “kept for best”.
Stone joined Virginia in the vast main “reception” hall of Lin Biao’s underground apartments. ‘Let’s get that supercooled trashcan out of the ground and get out of here,’ said Virginia. ‘Steven’s not going to last much longer if we stay here.’
That was wishful thinking from Virginia. Semyonov wasn’t going to last much longer — period. Which was why they were all here. If Semyonov died without downloading and unlocking what was inside the Machine, it would be lost forever. Pioneering whole new fields of technology, but cut off, half a mile below the ground, thinking its great thoughts century after century.
Semyonov’s “cleantent” had been installed down there, underground, in the middle of Lin Biao’s apartments. It was in the cavernous reception room — a kind of hallway and living room combined, with high ceiling cut out of the rock, tens of metres below the surface.
Stone had to talk to Semyonov through the sheeting again. ‘What’s the score with the Machine down there? Do I just attach the cable and hoist it to the surface? It can’t be that simple.’