‘So far, so good,’ Fortescue said and was just turning back to the experiment when an incredibly loud squeal burst from within the neutron emitter. A bright-orange beam of light shot across the room, making the air sizzle as it went. The intense stink of ozone reached their noses and stung their eyes. The beam hit the metal dish on the front of the receptor. There was a bright flash and the two men saw a fireball expand from the heart of the device then rapidly dissolve. The mahogany box exploded with a low-pitched thudding sound, sending shards of wood and metal around the room. A section of the receptor dish slammed into the screen protecting the physicists. It cracked the glass with a piercing snap of noise. Both men ducked involuntarily.
As the boom of the explosion died away, the emitter let out a squalling sound; the noise from the vacuum tubes ebbed to nothing and their white glow faded. Rutherford and Fortescue rose from where they had crouched under the control panel, each looking a little sheepish. The younger man ran a hand through his slick black hair and a smile broke across his face.
‘Well, I say, sir,’ he commented quietly. ‘That was… well… really quite astonishing.’
9
During the weekend, the mercury had risen. In London, it was not so bitterly cold as it had been in the Manchester lab where Fortescue and Rutherford had conducted their experiments. Indeed, as the hansom cab turned into Whitehall, the sun was high in a blue unclouded sky and the trees lining the street were free of frost for the first time in two months.
Rutherford was nervous. ‘You have everything straight in your mind, Egbert?’ he asked, turning in the seat to face his assistant.
‘I hope so,’ Fortescue responded with a grin. ‘Bit late now if I haven’t, sir.’
‘I’m being serious, man!’
Fortescue nodded, his face straight. ‘I could not be better prepared, professor.’
Rutherford turned at a noise from outside and peered through the glass. The grey stone buildings and black railings were sliding past, but then out of the corner of his eye he caught something quite extraordinary. Two women had handcuffed themselves to a line of railings close to the entrance to Downing Street. In their free hands they held placards. One declared: VOTES FOR WOMEN; the other proclaimed: WOMEN BRING ALL VOTERS INTO THE WORLD. They were yelling something he could not make out.
‘Good Lord!’ Rutherford declared, unable to draw his eyes away from the spectacle.
‘What is it?’ Fortescue asked. Rutherford did not answer, just pointed towards the women. The younger man managed to catch a glimpse of a black dress and a crisp white blouse, then he saw a police officer walking briskly towards the protesters. The hansom turned right into Downing Street and the sounds of the suffragettes dwindled to nothing.
The cab stopped outside number 10 and the door on Rutherford’s side was opened by a footman who escorted the two scientists up the steps, past the police officer on duty and through the black door into the hall.
The two visitors each carried a briefcase stuffed with documents and scientific papers. The footman guided them towards the sweeping staircase and led the way up. To their left hung portraits and photographs of the thirty-two prime ministers preceding the present incumbent dating all the way back to Robert Walpole.
They reached the first-floor landing. The footman stepped to one side of a door with a brass handle, bowed and swung the door inwards.
They were the last to arrive. The four men already in the room rose together and the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, came round a dark oak table dominating the centre of the room, his right hand extended.
Asquith had a warm, lean, intelligent face, slightly unruly white hair and a piercing gaze. He escorted the new arrivals to the table and began his introductions.
‘Gentlemen, I’m sure these men need no introduction, but good manners demand it of me.’ Asquith indicated the man to the left of the three, a rounded-faced individual wreathed in blue smoke from a fat cigar. A chubby hand was stretched out towards them. Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty. Asquith then nodded to the middle man. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is Mr Whitelaw Reid, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St James.’ The American was elderly, a little stooped with a shock of pure white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He gave the two scientists a curt nod and shook their hands. And here,’ added Asquith, ‘is someone you may have already met: Mr Thomas Edison, who has sailed over from New York to attend this meeting.’
Rutherford and Fortescue were a little taken aback.
‘My goodness!’ Rutherford exclaimed. ‘No, we have not met, but this is indeed a great honour, sir…’ He stepped forward and shook hands with the American inventor, who clasped the Englishman’s shoulder and produced a broad smile.
‘It is my pleasure, professor,’ he said in his gruff Midwest accent. ‘I have read much of your work.’
They all sat and the prime minister began the discussion. ‘You will, of course, realize, gentlemen, that what is exchanged in this room will not go beyond these walls. We are here to ruminate on one of the most important military and social matters humankind has ever faced. I am no scientist; although I do not understand the technicalities, I do realize the import of what the esteemed gentlemen, Professor Rutherford and Dr Fortescue, have discovered.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Now, I suggest that the professor explains his findings, so that we are all at least aware of his work from the horse’s mouth as it were.’
Rutherford cleared his throat and explained to the gentlemen their discovery of ibnium…
‘… and when the isotope is split open,’ he concluded, ‘… it forms two smaller atoms, or isotopes, and a certain, rather large amount of energy. I believe that it would be possible for a special team with enough funding and resources to use my technique to generate a form of energy that could improve upon our steam turbines presently in use and power industry far more efficiently and with hitherto unimagined potential.’
The room was quiet for a moment. Winston Churchill leaned back in his chair appraising Rutherford and Fortescue. ‘Professor,’ he said, ‘you offer a picture of truly inspiring development, but have you considered other applications of this new science?’
‘Well, of course, for every application to benefit mankind there would be an alternative use. The potential for this advance to be used militarily has not escaped us.’
Churchill nodded and took a puff on his cigar, staring at the scientists through the haze. ‘It strikes me that your work has come to fruition at a particularly auspicious juncture.’