“Yes, yes. But he is… new,” she grinned.
Sam smiled and nudged Purdue mockingly. Lydia laughed, “Come on, Sam. We have a proper sick bay here in the manor. Let Healy treat that bruise for you.”
“Madam,” Healy began his protest, but to no avail.
“Healy. Take Sam to the infirmary and put something on that bruise that you no doubt caused!” she ordered. She knew her butler far too well. He obliged.
“Come with me, Sam,” he told the journalist, leaving Lydia with Purdue.
“How are you feeling, beautiful?” he smiled.
Lydia wanted to be cynical about it, but she had had enough of her own antagonism for the evening.
“I’m doing well, thanks Dave,” she winked amicably. “How did it go?”
“Easier than I thought. I retrieved a proper plate for you. Not the one you wanted…”
“Dave, I needed that specific storage plate!” she panicked.
“Hey, no worries, my dear Lydia. What I am trying to tell you is that I stole a higher aptitude device than the meager one you thought you needed!” Purdue explained boastfully. “Look.”
He showed her the capacitor he had obtained from the Alice detector when nobody was watching him raid their storage units. “See? High intensity, extra storage of higher energy than the one you directed us to at Alice. The good thing is, when we ransacked the Alice reserves we found Sam. And all that without Healy having to distract the gentlemen and ladies of the workforce based adjacent to us.”
Lydia felt better. Suddenly she felt as if she was surrounded by a whole army of allies. The men involved were all caring, intelligent and willing to help her. The only thing she lamented was the possibility of sacrificing them in the name of science. Not one, but all.
The latter would only be thwarted should she elect to end her own life instead, but Lydia was still reluctant to abandon her mortal vessel before she knew if the price was worthy of the reward. In her anticipation she could not imagine having to wait until morning, but she had to surrender to propriety and let the men settle in, get some rest and prepare for the tests of the new day to follow.
It pained her that she could not order them to march on down to the Voyager III at that very moment and prove to her, once and for all, that her capitulation to a greater force was not in vain after all. But as a good hostess she joined them in light banter in the drawing room after Sam’s cheek was given some ointment and Purdue’s curiosity was reined in in lieu of social interaction. He had to yield to the night and its relaxing activities and it was easier once he had made peace with the fact that he would have the run of the chamber and its curious components when he rose from bed the next morning.
Sam was just grateful that for once he was in a place of lodging with at least one familiar face and voice to put him at ease. Still he knew he had a good, diluted report to concoct to appease Richards and her foundation in the morning, but there were a dozen hours and an equal amount of whiskey glasses between now and then.
Chapter 10
In the morning after breakfast Sam spent about an hour to prepare a proper report for the Cornwall Institute, although he made a solid effort to stretch the truth and embellish the unassuming into something ordinary and accidental. He told Richards and her people that the fire was caused by electrical short and that there was no reason to assume that any deliberate act or sabotage was involved.
“Are you ready, Sam?” he heard Purdue sing from the other side of the guest room’s door.
“Shortly. I just need to send through this e-mail to get the Cornwall Institute off my back. I’ll meet you down in the lab in a few minutes,” he called back.
“Alright. Make it quick. You would not want to miss this, mate!” Purdue shouted as his footsteps hastened away from the door.
Sam uploaded the video footage from his encounter with the Alice engineer and the bit of video he obtained of the burnt metal before Healy’s fist found him.
“Thank God he didn’t break my camera,” he sighed under his breath as he save the last clip to the laptop. He got up and rummaged through his messy bag of clothes. “Jesus, I need a laundry service,” he mentioned quietly as he tried to find a shirt that was not hideously crumbled and creased.
A knock at the door solved his problem. Shirtless, wearing last night’s less than clean jeans, he perked up.
“Mr. Cleave, it’s Healy. Are you alright?” the butler asked.
“Aye! I’m fine, Healy,” Sam replied, hatching a plan to sort out his wardrobe glitch. Gathering his only three shirts he went to answer the door. When he opened the door Sam was instantly humbled by the strict man’s impeccable dress sense. Sam cleared his throat, “Excuse me for being forward, Healy, but can you get this ironed for me? I have nothing else with me and this looks awfully untidy.”
Healy looked down at the shirts. “Very well, sir.” He took the shirts from Sam and started down the corridor, but he suddenly stopped and turned. “Um, Mr. Cleave.”
“Aye.”
“Not to be brash, but those pants you are wearing should really join this bundle, don’t you think?” Healy said plainly, pointing at Sam’s jeans.
Slightly embarrassed, Sam leaned in to the butler and said softly, “I’m terribly ashamed to admit this, Healy. But I did not know that I would be away from home this long… or that I would end up on the ground at some point…”
Healy looked contrite for decking Sam to the floor at CERN.
“…so I have to admit that these are the only pants I have here.”
Downstairs Purdue and Lydia were exchanging ideas on how the Voyager III should be set up for optimal performance.
“For the most efficient energy propulsion, I would replace the RI derivative completely, cut it out,” he suggested.
“But then we have one less component to generate the necessary temperatures. We’ll never be able to accelerate enough in the given time, Dave. We need all the energy sources we can use,” she argued.
Looking at the schematic, they were lurching over the desk on the other side of the Voyager III. Only a double assembly stainless steel sound barrier wall with a small bullet proof triple plated observation window separated them from the subject inside the chamber — which Purdue had agreed to be for experimentation purposes.
From deep in the corridor they heard Sam and Healy approach.
“It’s about time!” Lydia cried without looking up. “We are running out of time. There is a powerful storm coming and I don’t want to run the risk of a lightning strike to fry the circuits. I am not trying to bring a stitched up dead monster come to life. I just want to test a theory.”
Purdue chuckled, “You are far more alluring than Dr. Frankenstein, my dearest!”
Lydia smiled and winked at him. Purdue had always been a flamboyant flirt and she loved it. Doubt filled her about sending him into the chamber, but he was the perfect subject. With his knowledge of this field of study he was the best scientist to send in. After all, with his own theses on Einstein’s arguments to relativity theory and the further perpetuation of quantum gravity this experiment would profit his own studies greatly. Who better than someone like Purdue to observe first-hand the workings of scientific principals he had only found tangible on paper. The paradox had to be shattered.
“Oh my God, Sam,” she head Purdue exclaim. Lydia was curious as to his uttering and peeked around the tall, lean inventor to see Sam wearing Healy’s chino’s and polished shoes. The shirt he wore was extremely unlike what she guessed was normally Sam’s style, but it worked with the ensemble. A tight fitting black t-shirt, slimming style in acrylic and nylon, strained across the journalist’s chiseled chest and gave the impression that his biceps were twice the size they really were.