‘Uncle George?’
He turned to Kate, a lost look on his face. ‘It’s hard to believe! I don’t know if this is work that Rutherford was doing with Fortescue or if it was something the young man was developing on board the Titanic, but it’s truly remarkable.’
‘Uncle, you’re talking in riddles!’
The old man ignored Kate and focused on the pages. Then he put them back down carefully on the table. ‘Astonishing!’ he said and looked at his young guests. ‘These later equations describe a means to develop cold fusion.’
‘But I thought—’
‘That we can’t do that today?’ the professor interrupted.
‘Well, yes,’ Lou said.
‘We can’t,’ Campion said. ‘You probably know there have been many attempts, but Rutherford and Fortescue were almost…’
They all fell silent for a few moments, taking in the enormity of what the professor had just said. Kate and Lou each knew enough physics to realize this work had the potential to solve all the world’s power demands with clean, almost limitless resources.
‘It must have been Fortescue doing this work on his own, when he was on the ship during the first days of the voyage leading up to the night the Titanic hit the iceberg,’ said Campion.
‘How can you possibly know that?’ Kate asked.
‘There’s a faint imprint at the top of the paper… see?’
Kate and Lou leaned over and saw the words: ‘White Star’.
‘The company insignia,’ Kate said. ‘How did we miss that?’
‘Fortescue’s reasoning, though… it seems to jump,’ the professor went on. ‘Hang on…’
The room fell silent except for sounds from the kitchen.
‘There’s a dramatic leap in the math… but Fortescue must have reasoned through the missing section. He couldn’t have gone straight from here to here.’ Campion tapped at the paper.
‘What do you mean, sir?’ Lou asked.
‘This isn’t all of it,’ the elderly man said. ‘It’s clear Fortescue was working away on this stuff solo, developing these ideas about cold fusion while he was crossing the Atlantic. Problem is… there’s a chunk missing. There must be another set of documents somewhere that fills in the gaps. And I guess they can only be in one place, can’t they?’
16
It had grown dark and storm clouds had brought with them a fretful, squally evening.
Lou and Kate had agreed to stay for dinner and George Campion built a fire from logs that had been stacked in an old brass bucket beside the grate. He had just managed to get a roaring blaze going as Joan Campion came through from the kitchen pushing a trolley carrying a huge casserole dish. Lou lifted it into place on the table and Joan started serving the piping-hot food into heavily patterned bowls.
The guests made appropriately appreciative noises as they sampled the casserole.
‘Joan is an exceptional cook,’ George commented. ‘You can see it wasn’t just her looks that attracted me to her.’
Kate and Lou laughed.
‘And it wasn’t his sense of humour that hooked me!’ Joan retorted with a grin.
‘So, professor, you believe Fortescue’s notes are just chunks of the last work he did?’ Lou asked. ‘You’re sure it’s not all there in the documents?’
‘Sadly, it’s not. There are gaps. In the papers are a few conclusions, but they could not have been reached just from the equations in the rest of the material.’
‘But there are some important results on the way to realizing cold fusion?’
‘I didn’t say that. There are no final solutions in the papers you’ve recovered, just partial solutions. If you can get the missing sections, then I think… we might just be able to piece together what the man was thinking and see if it was indeed a practical solution.’
‘So, who’s for coffee?’ Joan asked.
Kate and Lou helped clear the plates, but Joan insisted only Kate and she should take them to the kitchen while Lou and George refuelled the fire.
Joan put the kettle on and ensured the door was closed. ‘So, Kate, is Lou your young man?’
She shook her head, smiling. ‘We work together.’
‘Come on,’ the older woman coaxed. ‘He is a sweetheart and very handsome; those blue eyes!’
‘Joan!’ Kate exclaimed and set some cups and saucers on a tray. ‘Look, we were romantically involved a while back, but…’
‘But?’
‘It got too complicated. We agreed to just stay friends.’
Joan gave Kate a sceptical look.
‘That’s how it is, Joan.’
‘I can sense a lot more going on between you.’
‘Can you now!’ Kate placed the milk jug on the tray and her godmother made the coffees. ‘You’re an incorrigible romantic, aunt.’
Joan led the way back into the dining room and Kate helped her distribute the cups.
‘So what happens next?’ George asked.
Lou shrugged. ‘To be honest, professor, we’re playing it by ear.’
‘I don’t really know that we can be much help to the military,’ Kate said. ‘It’ll be up to their science guys to make anything of what we brought up. I imagine studying the isotope will be their first priority.’
‘They’ll try to reverse engineer,’ George offered. ‘But, really, the important thing is not so much the ibnium isotope, it’s Fortescue’s documents.’
‘But as you said, uncle, if he had the rest of the work with him on the ship, it has almost certainly been destroyed.’
Lou glanced at his watch and turned to Kate. ‘I think maybe we ought to head back.’
‘You’re most welcome to stay the night,’ Joan offered. ‘It’s pretty foul out there.’
‘That’s very kind of you, aunt,’ Kate replied. ‘But we’ve got an awful lot of work to catch up on.’
‘That was absolutely delicious, Mrs Campion,’ Lou said. ‘I wish we could stay longer. ‘He turned to George. ‘And thank you, sir, for sparing the time…’
George waved his comment away. ‘Don’t be silly, young man. It’s not every day I get to see Fortescue’s handwritten work… It’s a marvel.’
They ran for the car parked in the narrow lane just past the hedge. The Campions stood arm in arm at the door to the cottage, the warm glow from inside surrounding them. The rain was coming down in sheets. Lou got into the driver’s side and brought the car to life and the wipers began to swish away the water from the windscreen. Giving a final wave, they set off into the darkness, the twin beams of the car headlights the only illumination.
The trees skirting the lane flashed past like spectres in the night. After a few minutes they reached the main road, and the lights of civilization. They turned onto the highway heading east back towards the institute.
‘Do you really think there’s another set of notes somewhere down in the wreck?’ Lou asked.
‘George seemed pretty certain about it. God knows if they have survived, though. And what are the chances of finding them now, a hundred years after the Titanic sank?’
‘Couldn’t the work have been done in Manchester? Maybe Fortescue hid the stuff there.’
‘I don’t think so. One thing I’ve learned from my godfather is that mathematical physics is an organic mental process. One physicist can see the mental processes at work when they study another’s equations. It’s a bit like when we peel away the debris from a relic and can see what has happened to the object over intervening centuries.’
Lou was distracted by headlights in the rearview mirror. ‘God! They’re driving fast!’
‘Who?’
The lights grew brighter as a car drove up close behind.
‘Them.’ Lou flicked his head back. ‘I’m doing a steady sixty, they must—’