by Trevor Hoyle
Three levels down and ninety feet underground they came to the Launch Control room, row upon row of empty metal racks and faceless consoles, the equipment and instrumentation stripped away. One panel remained intact, its fascia protected by a solidly bolted stainless-steel cover two inches thick. Nick read out the inscription.
“ ‘Silo Door Release Mechanism.’ ” He fingered one of the bolts. “Pity we can’t find out if it still works.”
At the very bottom of the missile silo they were able to gaze up the circular shaft lined with black ceramic heat-deflector tiles to the silo door itself, two hundred feet above them, dimly reflecting the beam of the flashlight.
Chase’s ghostly voice echoed upward. “They had to keep the missiles at a constant sixty degrees Fahrenheit and thirty percent humidity. The air-conditioning plant in just one of these silos is enough for a one-hundred-twenty-room hotel.”
Nick said, “And if it’s radiation-proof, which it must be, it’s got to be airtight as well. It could have been custom-built.”
They looked at each other, their faces bathed in the penumbra of the upturned beam, the same thought in both their minds. The silo and adjoining control rooms were a self-contained sealed enclosure. They could provide protection and life support irrespective of the conditions outside. There were over a hundred such silos in this complex alone, connected by two to three hundred miles of tunnels. Desert Range was perfect.
On the way back up, pausing for breath on one of the landings, Nick said, “Has it occurred to you that the joker who christened this hole might have been a prophet as well as a cynic?”
Chase frowned at him. “Christened it?”
Nick gestured upward, his expression lugubrious. “The Tomb.”
A few minutes later they were climbing over the sand and windblown debris that had spilled through the door. Chase switched off the lamp, squinting in the daylight. A shadow rippled down the sand-covered steps, and Chase stopped and stared at the figure of a man, the clear blue sky behind him so that his face was in shadow. All that Chase could make out was spiky blond hair, and recognition came to him instantly, without effort; the time of their last encounter telescoped so that it might have been yesterday. Chase’s throat was parched dry. He was thirsty and he was also afraid.
Sturges turned and disappeared from view. Nick stumbled up the shallow slope behind Chase. “Who is that?”
A six-wheeled square-bodied van, painted silver, with large rectangular smoke-blue windows was parked not far away. Attached to it was a long streamlined silver trailer, rounded at both ends like a bullet. Van and trailer bore an embossed motif in the shape of a golden conch shell.
Sturges stood by the open door of the trailer. Under the full glare of the sun his eyes were screwed tight and hidden in a slit of shadow beneath a tanned, deeply lined forehead and shaggy brows. He waited impassively, a glint of gold at this throat and wrist.
“I don’t get this,” Nick murmured in Chase’s ear. “What’s happening? What’s going on?”
“I think we’re about to find out.”
Chase walked across, past Sturges, and up the three open-mesh aluminum steps into the trailer. Close behind, Nick gave Sturges a narrow stare as if he might be the devil incarnate.
After the harsh desert light the interior seemed pitch black. Then they were able to discern a sheen of greenish light reflecting off curved metal. There was a panel of green dials set in gleaming steel casings and an impressive layout of silver switches and red and black dials with white calibrated markings. Taking up most of the space in the middle of the trailer was a bulky cylindrical shell, metal at the far end, transparent at the end nearest them, connected by flexible silver tubes to a coil from which came soft bubbling and swishing sounds, rhythmical and sinister.
Now they could see the foreshortened shape of a man inside the metal-and-plastic shell. He was bald and gaunt-cheeked, his rib cage clearly outlined in the emaciated torso.
The door of the trailer clicked shut behind them. Sturges unhooked a pencil microphone from the wall and thumbed the button. “I have them, Mr. Gelstrom. They’re here.”
Chase saw pale skeletal fingers inching toward a keyboard that was positioned vertically, allowing Gelstrom to view it without lifting his head on its stalk of a neck from the foam pillow. The fingers tapped and on an angled screen above the shell a moving white dot spelled out:
IS THE SITE SUITABLE, DR. CHASE?
Sturges handed the microphone to Chase. The pump gave a long-drawn-out aaaaaahhhhh as it evacuated the spent air.
Chase released his clamped jaw. His voice was tight and hoarse. “Nobody said anything about the JEG Corporation being involved in this project.”
The fingers touched the keys.
MY STIPULATION TO PROTHERO. I THOUGHT YOU WOULD REFUSE OUTRIGHT. EMOTION OVERCOMING RATIONAL BEHAVIOR. BUT YOU HAVE ACCEPTED AND AS I’M FUNDING THE PROJECT PERSONALLY I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW YOUR VERDICT. SUITABLE OR NOT?
The trailer was cool and yet Chase could feel pinpricks of sweat between his shoulder blades. “Yes, it’s suitable.”
GOOD. ARE YOU WILLING TO GO AHEAD?
The pump churned and sighed aaaaaahhhh.
Chase gripped the microphone, which felt cold and slippery. He couldn’t think straight. The past was all mixed up with the present. And the future.
When he didn’t answer, Sturges said over his shoulder, “A few months ago Mr. Gelstrom suffered an attack that left him dependent on drugs and this respirator lung. The condition was diagnosed as acute anoxia. Mr. Gelstrom is prepared to back the project with all the resources, personal, financial and corporate, at his disposal.”
Chase bent forward, his shoulders shaking. Spittle hung on his beard. He was laughing so hard he nearly choked. Gelstrom caught in his own trap. He’d helped inflict the damage and now he was trying to buy his way out. Ten million dollars for the promise of salvation. No, make that fifty million. Or better still, a hundred million. Two hundred. Whatever it takes. As much as you need. Just name your price.
But there was a fatal flaw and Chase exulted in it. With a deep gloating satisfaction he spelled it out, as plainly as the words on the screen.
“It won’t work, it’s too late,” he said, wiping his mouth. Hysterical laughter quivered in his throat. “You’ve reaped the profits from all this and you’ve reaped your own destruction in the bargain. What did you think, Gelstrom? That if we succeeded you’d get your life back? Is that it?” Chase shook his head. His triumph was exhilarating, like a surge of adrenaline through his bloodstream, and it also disgusted him. “Your disease is terminal. You’re going to die, Gelstrom, and there’s nothing you can do about it—not even if you spent every last cent you possess.”
The big blond man at his shoulder said, “That isn’t what—”
But Chase cut him short. “It’s too late, too fucking late! This project, even if it succeeds, is a lifetime too late for him! Don’t you understand? He’s got years and this will take decades, perhaps centuries.”
He stood over the transparent shell, fists clenched, staring down into two sightless eye sockets in the shriveled face. The hand moved, felt for the keyboard, tapped. The dot raced across the screen.
I KNOW ALL THIS. I EXPECT NOTHING FOR MYSELF. LIKE YOU, DR. CHASE, I HAVE A SON. NINE YEARS OLD. I WANT HIM TO LIVE, TO HAVE SOMEWHERE TO LIVE. YOU WANT YOUR SON TO LIVE. I HAVE MONEY. YOU HAVE KNOWLEDGE. TOGETHER WE CAN SAVE THEM. PERHAPS.
Chase said nothing. The silence in the trailer was broken only by the rhythmic churning sound of the pump and its sighing aaaaaahhhhh.
It happened just as Prothero got out of the car, on the steps leading up to the entrance, inside the bulletproof screens. There must have been fifty of them, milling around in their black robes and chanting one of their meaningless repetitive dirges.
For a few moments Prothero was completely surrounded, almost submerged. He struggled through them, jostled from side to side, not making much headway until three UN security guards pushe
d forward, casting bodies aside, clearing a path.
Prothero had been an atheist since the age of fourteen. He never had and never could understand how rational and supposedly intelligent people could fall for such claptrap. It was a spiritual crutch, that was his opinion. But what depressed him more was the fact that most of these were kids, in their teens and early twenties. As for what they believed in—or what crank sect they belonged to—he hadn’t the faintest notion. There were so many quasi-religious groups about these days that he couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between them.
That’s supposing there was any difference.
The green overalls hid his robes. The face mask and respirator (nonfunctioning) gave him the appearance of any other member of the maintenance staff. He carried the cylinder in plain sight across his shoulder so that the guard in his glass cubicle at the subbasement entrance hardly spared him a glance before returning to his glossy porn magazine.
In a deserted locker room Mara threw off the mask and respirator and stripped off the overalls. He fitted the cylinder into its harness and arranged his robes to cover it. He attached the hose and nozzle to his right arm with tape and made sure the butane lighter was in the small leather pouch at his waist.
There was no need to rehearse. Mara had practiced the sacred ritual many times in dummy runs. In his mind the sequence was sharp and exact, the operational manual’s instructions etched into his memory as if he had the page in front of him.
1. Left hand/grasp/flick—ignition
2. Right hand/extend/twist—jet
3. Left hand/apply/withdraw—flame
4. Right hand/advance/aim—target
5. Right hand/aim/sweep—burn
6. Right hand/sweep/approach—conflagration
7. Right hand/retract/end—death
Mara came out of the locker room and moved hunchbacked to the elevators. There he paused, his finger hovering over the panel of buttons. Direct route to the assembly hall unwise. Guards. Official passes. Access points under surveillance. Corridors patrolled.
His crouching shadow slid along the wall. He turned a corner and eventually came to an illuminated sign: EMERGENCY EXIT.
Underneath it a printed notice, red capitals on white.
CAUTION!
SEALED ENCLOSURE ENDS HERE.
OXYGEN LEVEL IN STAIRWELL.
BELOW TOLERABLE LIMIT.
RESPIRATORS REQUIRED.
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Mara closed his eyes. His awareness shrank to a single glowing point. His breathing slowed. His heartbeat became like the slow ponderous beat of a drum. Gradually the world became distant and faded away. Everything was quiescent.
He had to use both hands to release the door from its thick rubber seal and to overcome the pressurized air inside the building. The stairwell was lit by caged red globes. The door hissed and thumped solidly shut behind him, and Mara began to climb the steps in the red gloom.
“You don’t feel sick or dizzy or anything? Sure?”
“I’m all right now. Honestly.”
Cheryl ruffled Dan’s hair and he squirmed away, embarrassed.
“Don’t! I’m all right.”
“I certainly hope so.” Cheryl frowned at Chase accusingly.
Nick said, “He was perfectly okay in Princeton. Jen said he ate like a horse.” He winked at Dan. “Must have been all that female cosseting.”
The four of them were in Chase’s hotel room on Broadway, which overlooked what had once been the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts. Since the city’s bankruptcy the center had drifted downward, from recording studio to supermarket to discount furniture store. Now it was a squatters’ refuge, charity clothing shop and soup kitchen combined. In a sense it had come full circle—the land it occupied from West Sixty-second to Sixty-sixth streets fifty years ago had been the notorious West Side slum area, celebrated in a stage and screen musical.
Chase stood looking out at the murk; even if there’d been something to see he wouldn’t have seen it. He felt restless and nervy, and guilty too. What in hell did he have to feel guilty about? Don’t answer that question. He knew damn well—and it had nothing to do with Dan being sick.
“Is Madam Van Dorn expecting you?” Cheryl asked him, the “Madam” sounding distinctly chilly.
“Yes, but she’s got a heavy schedule today. It’s her annual address to the General Assembly.”
“I still don’t understand, Gavin.” Cheryl wished he’d turn around to face her; he’d been staring out at nothing for the last ten minutes. “You’ve always insisted that we have to change people’s attitudes first, that real progress is impossible politically or scientifically. That was the whole idea behind Earth Foundation, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you’ve agreed to this.” Cheryl shook her head, puzzled and resigned. She couldn’t understand his decision, nor his reluctance to discuss it. This wasn’t a bit like him. “We’ve got our hands full already with Earth Foundation. We can’t do both.”
“There’s no reason why Earth Foundation shouldn’t continue,” Chase said. “But I happen to believe that a project like this has a chance of succeeding. It could make a real and positive contribution.”
“You mean find a practical solution? But you’ve always said that until and unless we can change people, change the way they think, nothing else is worth a damn. Don’t you believe that anymore?”
“Yes, but I also believe that as scientists we have a duty to sort out this mess—if it can be sorted out.” At last he turned to her. “Why do you think your father spent years of his life on a lump of rock in the middle of the Pacific? Not for wealth or personal glory, but because he wanted to use his gifts, his talents, whatever, in the service of mankind. That’s what he was best fitted for. So was he wrong? Was his life wasted?”
Their eyes met and locked, yet it seemed to Cheryl that for the very first time she couldn’t see inside him. It was as if a fine gauze separated them, impeding direct communication. It was Chase who broke away, turning back to the shrouded mausoleum of Lincoln Center, and Cheryl said:
“What do you think about this, Nick?”
“About the project? I’m not really sure.” Nick leaned back, hands clasped behind his balding head, gnawing his lip above the frizzy fringe of beard. “In theory there’s no reason why we couldn’t undo the harm we’ve done. That’s point number one. Point number two is how. Point number three—assuming we find the answer to point number two—is do we have the urge and the will to change things for the better?”
“What do you mean, the urge?” Dan asked. He was hunched forward on the arm of the couch, chin propped in his hand.
“I mean that the human race seems to have a collective death wish, like somebody who accepts that cigarettes cause lung cancer and still carries on smoking. Bloody hell, we’ve known for decades that we were damaging the environment, perhaps irrevocably, and what’s been our response—the response of a supposedly intelligent species?” His elbows lifted in a shrug. “Just to keep right on doing it.”
“But you think there’s a chance, do you?” Cheryl said.
“What, of finding a scientific solution? Yeah, I think there is, providing the thing’s organized properly and the funds are available.” Cheryl was studying the back of Chase’s head. “Well, they’ve got the organizer, haven’t they?” she said, a small frown on her lightly freckled face. “That only leaves the money.”
There was a silence, and then Chase said, “The money’s there. Ingrid Van Dorn and Prothero have fixed it.”
“The UN is funding it?” Cheryl said in plain disbelief.
Chase turned and leaned on the sill and met her gaze. “No,” he said calmly. “They’ve arranged private sources. Companies. Trusts. Wealthy private individuals. That’s one of the things I want to discuss with them.” He looked at his watch. “In fact I’d better go. Try and catch her before her speech.”
Cheryl didn’t say anything. There was an expression on
her face that Chase couldn’t read, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.
At the UN his mood wasn’t helped by a young security officer who looked him up and down as if to imply that Chase was displaying quite remarkable effrontery in asking to see the secretary-general in person. Covering the mouthpiece with a white-gloved hand he smirked sideways at Chase. “I don’t expect you have an appointment, do you?”
There was a blank at the end of the sentence, the “sir” conspicuously missing.
“No, I don’t have an appointment,” Chase replied, his tight smile costing him great effort. “But I think the secretary-general will see me all the same.”
The officer nodded, humoring this imbecile. Then the smirk became fixed and wooden and his eyes glassy as he listened to the voice on the phone. He put the receiver down slowly, made a jerky gesture over his shoulder, and a white-helmeted guard marched forward, stamping to attention.
“Dr. Chase, the secretary-general asks if you wouldn’t mind waiting in the Kurt Waldheim hospitality suite until after the General Assembly. Senator Prothero will join you there shortly.”
Several minutes later, after a ride in the elevator and then a trek behind the guard through a maze of identical corridors, Chase was shown into a large elegantly furnished room with gilt chairs, silken drapes, and chandelier. There was a bar in one corner, and in another, set at an angle, a back-projection movie-size television screen.
Chase helped himself to a whiskey and soda. He switched on the giant TV from the remote-control device on the bar and sat down in a nearby armchair, thinking it an odd time—one-thirty in the afternoon—to be addressing the General Assembly. Then he recalled that the speech was being transmitted live. In Europe it would be timed just right for the early-evening newscast, while on the West Coast it was midmorning. Obviously, Ingrid Van Dorn was hoping to capture the biggest possible worldwide audience.