“That was just the detonation device. Now I’m going to start actually dismantling the bomb.”
Ty removed more screws, then gently jimmied the outer casing. The half sphere, which was barely three millimeters thick, loosened, and Ty carefully removed it. Meanwhile, he explained to the others what he was doing.
“The weapon lying in front of us is a W97 warhead. I downloaded the operating and maintenance instructions from our database. It’s an advanced version of the W48 nuclear weapon that was already tested by the American Atomic Energy Commission in Nevada in 1957. This is one of the smallest explosives in our arsenal, but it still has an explosive force of one kiloton of TNT. This version of the warhead was used for tactical command missions.”
“How much uranium is in there?” asked Marlene.
“No uranium. Plutonium 239. After Little Boy exploded over Hiroshima, almost no more uranium bombs were built. They’re simple to produce, but considerably less effective.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Russell. “I only know that when nuclear fuel undergoes fission, it somehow starts a chain reaction.”
Dr. Dressel smiled. “It’s easy really, once you’ve understood the basic physics.” He pointed at the bomb. “Inside is a mass of plutonium 239. The number 239 refers to the number of protons and neutrons in the plutonium isotope.”
“And how does the chain reaction take place?” asked Marlene.
“The plutonium atoms in the bomb split when they capture a neutron. Then they release energy, as well as two or three new neutrons, which in turn are captured by other plutonium nuclei. Then those split, make new neutrons, and so on. It’s a self-perpetuating process. The final number of split atoms is unimaginably high, and thereby so is the energy that is released.”
“You mean there’s just plutonium in there and you shoot in a neutron?” asked Russell.
Ty laughed. “It’s not quite that simple. Plutonium has the property of emitting neutrons itself. It would explode on its own if you tipped enough of the stuff on one heap. You need about twenty pounds of plutonium for an explosion. Once you have that much, it’ll explode of its own accord. There are various ways of detonating a nuclear bomb. But ultimately they’re all based on the same principle. Two subcritical masses are brought together fast enough to create a critical mass.”
“Aha! So I simply bash together two chunks of plutonium and it goes bang?” asked Marlene.
“No, you would burn yourself and get a high dose of radiation. It’s not that simple. The secret is to bring the two plutonium halves together into a critical mass quickly enough. You only have a few microseconds to assemble the critical mass correctly. The simplest nuclear weapon design is a simple gun barrel, with which you fire one piece of uranium-235 down the barrel of the gun to join another. That’s quick enough. The Hiroshima bomb was based on such a design.”
“But this doesn’t look like the barrel of a gun.”
Ty smiled. “That’s true. The tactical explosive here is based on the two-point method. This core is egg-shaped, just about subcritical and surrounded by a cylinder of high explosive, which is detonated from both ends. The shock waves created by the explosive mass presses the egg roughly into a spherical shape. The surface area of the plutonium core is reduced, less neutrons can escape and . . . boom!”
“Well, the nuclear weapons program seems to have had many creative minds,” said Marlene, barely able to suppress the sarcasm in her voice. How somebody could devote their life and their creative energy to building an atomic bomb was utterly incomprehensible to Russell, too.
“Some of the best,” said Ty. “Some men, like Ted Taylor from Los Alamos, were living legends.”
“Never heard of him,” said Russell.
“Ted designed the biggest as well as the smallest atomic bomb tested by the USA. He and his colleagues at the nuclear weapons laboratory in Livermore competed to construct the smallest atomic bomb. In the process, he found out that you can build functioning bombs out of the tiniest amounts of plutonium, small enough to easily fit in a suitcase. This worried him so much, he spent the rest of his life warning against the dangers of nuclear terrorism.”
“I’ve heard enough,” said Marlene. “Could we please continue with the work?”
“Okay,” said Ty, and removed another plastic husk from the bomb. A green mass became visible. “That’s the explosive mass that presses the plutonium into the right shape in an explosion. Here on the side are the detonators.” He loosened two plate-like inserts, one on each side of the bomb, and pulled out the thin, two-veined cables. “The detonators actually look fine.” He passed the inserts to Donald. “Can you measure them? Thanks!”
Then Ty busied himself with the explosive mass. With a thin screwdriver, he pulled the two halves apart. He ended up with an oval, hand-sized mass in his hand. He laid the explosive in a plastic bowl.
“What is that stuff?” asked Russell.
Ty checked in the instruction manual, which was open beside him. “For the first atomic bombs they still used Baratol and RDX. In modern weapons they use new explosives like TATB. Makes it possible to reduce the diameter of the bomb from over three feet to this basketball size.”
In a hollow in the bottom half of the explosive, a finger-long, shimmering silver egg could now be seen. Russell got goose pimples. There was something mysterious and powerful emanating from the small object. “Is that …?”
Grazier nodded. “Yes, that’s the core of the bomb.”
“That’s the plutonium?” asked Marlene. Cautiously she took a step forward.
“Yes, although the surface is plated with a thin layer of nickel so that it’s shielded from the air. Plutonium is highly reactive, it would immediately go up in flames if it came into contact with oxygen.”
“It seems to emit warmth,” said Russell.
“You’re right. Touch it. Don’t be afraid.”
Russell cautiously touched the silver egg with his fingertips. He felt uncomfortable doing so. It was as if he were stroking the egg of a dragon that had brought a mystical power into this world. Then he very slowly laid his hand on the surface of the nuclear explosive. It was warm. Very warm, in fact, as if the stuff had been lying in the sun for hours. Russell couldn’t shake off the feeling that the plutonium was alive, that it was in a feverish sleep and just waiting to wake up and unleash the fire of hell on them. He could feel the hairs on the back of his hand standing on end. “It tickles!” Hastily he pulled his hand away.
Ty grinned. “The warmth comes from the decay of the plutonium. It’s slightly radioactive and transforms with a half-life of around twenty-thousand years into uranium. Heat is released in the process. The core of the bomb also emits gamma rays.
Marlene immediately stepped back. “Isn’t that unhealthy?” She felt very uncomfortable being in the vicinity of this dangerous substance.
Dr. Dressel shook his head. “No. The radiation is very weak. One X-ray puts a greater strain on the body than standing next to a plutonium core for a whole afternoon.”
Ty Grazier took out his screwdriver again and stuck it in a barely visible gap on the equator of the bomb core. He levered half of the mass upward. With his gloved right hand he carefully, and with some difficulty, pulled out the top half of the bomb core. He set aside the screwdriver, took the plutonium core in both hands and carried it over to another workbench, on which various measuring devices were standing. “There shouldn’t really be a problem with the core, but still, I’m going to measure the gamma rays it’s emitting.”
He fiddled around for a few seconds with an implement that sprung to life with a beeping sound, then returned to the table where the bottom half of the bomb core was still lying, embedded in explosive.
When he looked more closely, Russell could see that inside there was another little sphere, no bigger than a pea. He pointed at it. “There’s something inside the plutonium core!”
Ty smiled. “Yes. That’s the most complicated part of the whole bomb. The initia
tor!”
Marlene and Russell’s eyes met. Russell shook his head. Ty was clearly enjoying playing the atomic bomb expert. Dr. Dressel obviously knew enough about the principles of nuclear fission to look unimpressed.
When neither Russell nor Marlene responded, Ty continued. “The little sphere consists of a mixture of polonium and beryllium. Beryllium emits alpha particles which polonium turns into neutrons. The two substances are arranged in a complicated way, so that at exactly the right moment during the detonation, a large surge of neutrons is sent into the plutonium.”
“And without this pea?”
“Without an initiator, you only have a rather elaborate, radioactive firecracker.”
Marlene pointed at the parts of the bomb. “That’s all well and good. That was an interesting lesson on how to build atomic bombs. But how does it help us? Why didn’t the thing detonate?”
Ty scratched his head. “That’s a good question!” he said histrionically.
Russell rolled his eyes. It was starting to get on his nerves that Ty was making such a show out of examining the bomb.
Donald Bell piped up from behind them. “The electrical detonator is working fine. And I’ve measured the ignition plate. All in order.”
For the first time Ty looked baffled. “Strange. I expected there to be some problem there.”
“Could it have to do with the initiator?” Russell asked.
“No, definitely not. It only starts working when the plutonium is pressed into the critical form by the explosive.”
“Perhaps there’s something wrong with the explosive?” suggested Marlene.
Ty looked at the greenish mass. “Hmm, it looks normal to me . . .”
“I thought you’re the explosives expert,” said Marlene. “It seems to me you know more about plutonium than normal explosives.”
“Well, I’ve never had to deal with TATB,” grumbled Ty.
Marlene sighed. She turned to Donald, who had placed the electrical detonator back on the table. “Please get Dr. Cashmore.”
“What are we going to do if we can’t fix the bomb?” asked Russell. His head was spinning again. He gripped the edge of the table to regain his balance, and hoped the others hadn’t noticed anything.
“We could always try the second atomic bomb,” suggested Dr. Dressel.
“We won’t have any other option. But if it also fails …”
“Then we’ve got a real problem on our hands,” said Russell. “We need to think of a Plan B.”
“There is no Plan B. Using the atomic bomb is the only way of closing off the pass.”
“Maybe we’ll be able to defend the observation post if we strengthen it enough,” said Ty.
“We’ve been through that already. We don’t stand a chance against hundreds of thousands of wotans and snipers. And anyway, the post will be flooded. In two weeks it probably won’t even be there anymore.”
“And if we built a new observation post half way down the canyon? At the narrowest point? Wouldn’t we have a better chance of defending it?”
Russell shook his head emphatically. “The animals will steamroll through everything. If we had more time, a few weeks perhaps, we could maybe build a proper wall. But in the space of a few days—impossible. We don’t even have the building materials.”
“Shit. There must be a way.”
“The only other alternative is to flee,” said Marlene, a note of resignation in her voice. “Into the mountains. Take as many provisions with us as possible and hope we survive until the flood subsides. But we don’t know when the beasts will return to the lowlands. And our provisions won’t last us that long.”
The door opened and Donald came in with Dr. Cashmore. Marlene pointed at the dismantled bomb and explained what they had found out so far. “Could it have to do with the explosive?”
The chemist bent over the hemisphere. He frowned, and took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket. With one corner, he brushed carefully over the greenish mass, held the handkerchief up to his nose, and sniffed at it.
“Aha,” he said decisively and nodded.
“What?” asked Russell.
The chemist held the handkerchief up to Russell’s nose. Right away he felt a burning sensation in his nostrils.
Cashmore threw the handkerchief in a bin and turned to Marlene. “The explosive material has decomposed. It’s sweating hydrazine. Just like old dynamite discards nitroglycerine. You can see it at a glance. Usually TATB is yellow, not green.”
“How can that be?” asked Marlene.
“Well, the bombs have been lying around here for twenty years. And not exactly in ideal storage conditions. I’m sure the high humidity here has played a role.”
“And that means?” asked Dr. Dressel.
Cashmore turned around and shrugged. “It means that our two atomic bombs are just radioactive waste.”
Chapter 25
“For Christ’s sake, Ernie! What are you doing here? You should be in Eridu taking care of yourself,” said Marlene, after she had climbed up to the viewing platform at the observation post. Ernie sat grinning on a chair, polishing his binoculars. His broken bone had been fixed after his return from the oil spring, and his leg was in a cast.
“Hell, what’s the point of staying at home? If the wotans start attacking the observation post, I’ll be needed here. It’s our last line of defense.”
“But only until the observation post also gets flooded.”
Ernie shrugged.
“How are things?” asked Marlene.
“Strangely quiet. I’ve been sitting here for two hours and haven’t seen a single one of the beasts.”
“That’ll change soon,” said Marlene. She only hoped that by then they had found a solution to their problem.
Ernie looked over the wooden railing at the sweeping grassland. It was still early morning, and the grass glistened in the dazzling morning sun rising over the forest treetops. Swirls of mist rose from patches of lush green grass. There was not a cloud to be seen in the deep azure sky; it was going to be a hot day.
“In a few hours, Lee will be here with some men,” said Marlene. “They’re bringing materials with them to build a second barrier. Around sixty feet from the first one. That should help to withstand a stampede.”
“It won’t help much if thousands of the beasts attack at the same time,” grumbled Ernie.
“Of course not. It’s just to give us a bit more time. Nothing more.”
“It sure sucks that the explosion didn’t work.”
“You can say that again!”
“What’s the plan now?”
Marlene sighed. “We don’t have one. But probably our only remaining option will be to flee.”
Ernie snorted. “Flee? Flee where?”
“That’s the big question. Originally I intended to pack together as many provisions as possible and to head for the mountains.”
“I thought we don’t have enough supplies.”
Marlene nodded. “We don’t.”
“Great plan!”
“Russell had another idea. If it works, it could be a viable alternative.”
“Russell? What’s his plan?” asked Ernie.
“To use the transporter.”
Ernie’s jaw dropped. “The transporter? We haven’t used that creepy thing since we got here. We can’t get back to Earth. Where does he want to go?”
“He wants to talk with the sphere’s artificial intelligence to find out if there are other planets with friendly environments that can sustain us.”
Ernie laughed. “And that’s gonna work? How will the transporter know if there’s something for us to eat on another planet?”
Marlene was unsure herself. She doubted that they would be able to find a suitable planet in the short amount of time they had left. Quite apart from the evacuation. But Ernie didn’t need to know what she was thinking.
“It’s worth a try. Unfortunately our options are narrowing.”
Ernie grunted.
“But flee to another planet? Leave behind everything here? It’s taken us twenty years to make a home for ourselves here. We might be better off trying to take on the beasts.”
“We don’t stand a chance, Ernie. There are too many of them. It would be suicide.”
Ernie pulled a hip flask out of his jacket. He unscrewed the top and took a big swig. Immediately his face turned red.
Marlene rolled her eyes. She wanted to make a pointed remark, but decided against it. Many years ago, Dr. Cashmore had found some plants that could be fermented into alcohol. She had wanted to forbid it, but obviously people would still make it in secret. Marlene looked over the parapet at the broad stretch of grassland and the nearby forest. How many animals were fleeing from the flood and heading in this direction?
“We’re screwed,” said Ernie and took another swig.
Chapter 26
Russell took a deep breath and laid his hands on the outer wall of the transporter. He winced when an opening appeared.
He hesitated. It had been a long time since he’d last set foot in the alien contraption. The transporter even looked sinister from the outside. The material of the outer shell was so black, it was impossible to make out any texture. From inside, a surreal gray light shimmered and awakened memories of his first missions with the transporter over twenty years ago. On a trip to a black hole, Russell had almost died. It was only thanks to a lot of luck that he had been able to return to Earth. Some of the others, like Sean O’Brien, had been less lucky. Sean had been transported to a planet with an atmosphere of sulfuric acid. Somehow he had managed to activate the return transport, but Russell and the other guinea pigs had had to watch as his body dissolved and he died an agonizing death.
Russell stepped into the contraption, a heavy backpack with sample containers and lab equipment slung over his shoulder. The inner walls were gray. Nobody had found out what emitted this diffuse light. It seemed to come from all directions, and Russell didn’t cast a shadow. The interior was spherical in shape and had a diameter of about thirty-five feet—it reminded Russell a little of the inside of a gas tank. Even more sinister was the inner sphere, which hovered like a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot pearl in the middle of the room. This sphere was the actual teleportation device. When you stepped inside, you could be transported to countless other transporters around the galaxy.
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