“We want to be on the safe side and have you look over what we’ve done so far before we continue,” explained Dressel.
Dr. Cashmore paused and looked at Ty and then John. Then he cleared his throat. “You weren’t seriously planning to melt down the plutonium?”
“Of course we were,” replied Ty. “We need to get it into a hemispherical shape. Why shouldn’t we melt it?”
Dr. Cashmore walked up to the glass door of the oven. “You took all the plutonium out of a bomb and want to melt it down to one piece?” His voice sounded as if Ty had suggested repairing a computer chip with a crowbar.
“Won’t it work?” asked Russell.
Cashmore sighed and shook his head. “No, it won’t work. I thought you knew how to build a nuclear weapon.”
Ty seemed to deflate. “I . . .” he stuttered. “What’s the problem?”
“The different allotropes of the plutonium are the problem. Damn it! I should have been involved in the plans from the start!”
“Allotrope? What’s that?” asked Russell. He’d never heard the term before. Yet again, he was coming across as the dunce.
“Plutonium comes in different forms, depending on the temperature. A bit like diamonds and graphite are two different forms of carbon. At room temperature, the gamma phase dominates, with a medium density. If you heat up the material, it mutates into a different phase. At higher temperatures, shortly before it melts, you reach the epsilon phase, which has a high density. That means that at five-hundred degrees Celsius, the stuff contracts abruptly.” He looked at Ty sharply. “And what happens when a sub-critical mass of plutonium suddenly contracts?”
The weapons expert sunk his head. His face turned as red as a beetroot.
“You get a super-critical mass!” whispered Dr. Dressel.
“Exactly!”
“You mean, the plutonium would have exploded here?” asked Russell.
“No. But it would have turned into a pure nuclear reactor. In the end, the stuff would have evaporated and killed us all with the radiation!” said Dr. Dressel, visibly shaken.
“But we need to get it into a hemispherical shape,” said Ty feebly.
Dr. Cashmore looked at him without blinking. “In the delta phase, plutonium is malleable. You heat it up very slowly to four-hundred degrees, then you can form it into the shape you need using the press. Four-hundred degrees and no higher! If you gradually increase the pressure in the press, the phase won’t change.”
Russell groaned. Ann’s words about Ty echoed in his mind. He turned to Dr. Cashmore. “I want you to help them every step of the way! Nobody does anything if the other two aren’t present. Is that clear?” He grasped Ty by the shoulder. “Is that clear?”
“Yes,” said Ty, and looked at the ground.
Chapter 35
“I thought he knew what he was doing,” said Marlene angrily.
Russell didn’t reply and leaned back into the armchair. “I get the feeling he’s trying to prove something to himself.”
Marlene stood up and paced back and forth behind her desk. “I don’t give a damn what his reason is. He’s a bullshitter. I always thought he’d at least completed some kind of official training. Now I discover that nuclear weapons are just a hobby of his. An obsession, nothing more. If the beasts don’t kill us, Ty will—by playing around with radioactive material in the middle of the colony!”
Russell could understand why Marlene was so angry. He had felt the same after talking to Ann. Ty had acted as if he were a specialist when it came to atomic weapons. Now it turned out it was all a lie. “When he took the bomb apart, I really had the feeling he knew what he was doing. He explained every step in minute detail.”
Marlene stopped pacing and placed her hands on the back of the chair. “Superficial knowledge can be more dangerous than lack of knowledge. Particularly when someone is a good actor.”
“I don’t even think he’s acting. I think he really believes he knows what he’s doing.”
“Even worse,” said Marlene gloomily.
“What do you want to do? Call a halt to the project?”
Marlene groaned. “That’s what I would like to do. By God I would like to stop it. But this suicide mission is our last chance. If I stop it, I really don’t know what else to do.”
“There’s still the option of fleeing to the mountains,” said Russell.
Marlene shook her head. “The supplies!”
“How many people could survive with the food we have”
“Based on the assumption that we have to hold out for half a year? Twenty. At the most!”
“And if we send twenty people into the mountains? Then at least some of the colony would survive,” said Russell. It was a stupid suggestion, and he immediately regretted voicing it.
She shook her head again. “I’ve been through it with Ben already. The colony couldn’t survive with twenty people. And what happens to the rest of us? Fight to the death? We don’t even know when the animals will return to the lowlands. It isn’t a solution.”
“So . . .?”
“So we continue with Ty’s plan, as lousy as the chances of success are.”
“At least he has Dressel and Cashmore helping him.”
She looked at Russell testily. “How many people were involved in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos?”
Russell shrugged. “No idea. A few thousand?”
“At least. The best scientists in the USA worked together to build the world’s first atomic bomb. And it took them years. If it’s a physicist and a chemist doing it under the direction of an amateur Oppenheimer—in four days—it makes me feel sick to the stomach that our lives depend on it.”
Russell was silent. Marlene sat down and rapped her fist on the table. From the dark rings under her eyes, it was clear to see that she hadn’t rested after being awake all night. Her face was drawn and gray. The commander suddenly seemed much older than her fifty-five years. She opened the bottom drawer of her desk, a relict from Earth, and pulled out a half-full bottle of whiskey. She put two glasses on the table and filled them halfway. She pushed one of the glasses across the table to Russell.
“Looks expensive,” said Russell and took the glass.
“It was already expensive on Earth. Here it’s priceless.”
“But it lasted a long time!”
“Perhaps we only have a few days left to finish it.”
Russell lifted the glass to his lips and let the liquid fire trickle down his throat. It immediately made him cough.
“I miss Earth,” whispered Marlene.
Russell had heard this sentence so often in the last twenty years, spoken by many different people, and he always felt responsible. He had destroyed the transporter. It was his fault that that all the people around him could never return to their families and friends, to their home. And he still regarded it as a miracle that so many of the colonists had forgiven him. But he had never heard the words spoken by Marlene.
“I’m sorry.”
She looked up from her glass. “I didn’t mean it like that. . . .”
Russell swilled the whiskey around in his glass. “Would you have destroyed the sphere on Earth?”
“No. I was a soldier and would have listened to orders—not my conscience. I wouldn’t have had the guts.” She took another sip. “But it’s good the way it turned out. At least that’s my logical take on it.” She hesitated. “Emotionally, it’s a little different.”
Russell studied her face. They had spent a lot of time together over the years. But Marlene had always put up an armor, which made it difficult to know what she was really thinking. She always seemed so logical and confident, but she was careful to hide her true feelings from the outside world.
“I wanted to marry. Back on Earth, I mean.”
Russell looked down at the floor, embarrassed. He felt awful. “I didn’t know that.”
“How should you? Once there was no way back, I had to forget about it.”
“Whic
h makes me all the more sorry.”
“I told you, I don’t blame you. I pursued a career as a soldier in the full knowledge that I could die on a mission or be so badly injured that I could no longer live a normal life. After the sphere on Earth was destroyed, I concentrated on the here and now. I’ve tried to see the good side of our situation, and to be a leader of the first colony of human beings in another solar system. Who knows—perhaps I would have chosen such a mission voluntarily. And I’ve always been happy here, even though it destroyed my hopes of having a family. My marriage back on Earth might have failed too, so I see no reason to lose sleep over what might have been.” She paused. “But sometimes, especially when things aren’t going too well, I start thinking about the life I might have had if things had turned out differently. And right now, things couldn’t be worse.”
Once again, Russell was overwhelmed by a feeling of respect for Marlene. “That’s a very rational way of looking at things.”
“Maybe. I guess it’s just the way I am.” She picked up her glass and finished her whiskey. “What about you? How are things?”
Russell knew that she wasn’t talking about the work on the bomb. “Quite frankly? Terrible. I’ve started to notice with every breath I take that my lungs are no longer functioning properly. Without the pills, I probably wouldn’t be able to stand anymore.”
Marlene nodded. “Others would feel sorry for themselves and wait to die in bed. I think it’s amazing that you can still throw yourself into work.”
“Well, to be honest, it’s my way of running away from my problems. I guess it’s just the way I am!”
Marlene grinned and poured them each another whiskey. “Let’s drink to that.”
“I’m not really supposed to drink when I take these pills,” said Russell with a smile. “But I guess I don’t really need to worry about damaging my kidneys anymore.”
They clinked glasses and Russell was about to take a big gulp, when the door burst open, banging against the shelf. A few books flew to the ground.
Jenny was standing at the door, out of breath. “It’s started. The first wave has started to attack the post.”
Marlene put her glass back on the table. “The first wave? What—”
“We just took new infrared pictures with the drone. One of the territorial borders beyond the wotan territory has fallen. The pressure is driving hordes of them toward the post.”
“How many?” Marlene stood up and supported herself on the table.
“I can’t say exactly. A few hundred, perhaps?”
“Oh God,” whispered Russell.
“How long do we still have?” asked Wolfe.
“An hour. At most.”
“Okay. Grab every available colonist. Including any older children who know how to use a weapon, and bring them all to the workshop. We’ll leave in a quarter of a hour!”
The children? Are you sure?” asked Russell, in despair. It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. The children were the ones that they most wanted to protect.
“We need them. If the barrier falls now, we’re all dead.”
“I had hoped we’d have a few more days.”
“It could be worse,” said Jenny. “It’s only the first wave, and it’s only a few hundred animals.”
“. . . only animals,” Russell heard Marlene whisper.
Chapter 36
“If they’re going to come, then please now. The sun will have set in half an hour. I’d rather fight the beasts in daylight,” said Lawrence, his weapon at the ready.
“I agree,” said Russell, who was standing next to him on the lookout and adjusting the scope on his gun. They had been able to mobilize fifty men, women, boys, and girls. A little over half of the colony. Some of them were manning the lookouts, the rest were behind the barbed wire fence and earth wall, which they had quickly erected to provide cover. Marlene had taken over supreme command, which Ben had grudgingly accepted. Beside Russell and Ernie, Eliot Sargent and Ryan Dressel were also standing on the six-foot-wide platform.
“Was it really necessary to deploy the kids?” asked Ernie.
“It was Marlene’s decision,” said Russell. It distressed him to know that even his fifteen-year-old daughter was lying behind the wall with a gun. “I’m as unhappy about it as you are, but if the animals break through the barrier, we’re done for anyway. We’re all fighting for our survival here.”
Ernie grunted and looked through his binoculars. “Nothing to be seen. Are you sure this isn’t a false alarm?”
“I think Jenny’s able to estimate the movements of the herds pretty accurately. I bet we’re going to have our work cut out for us during the next hour or so. We just fooled ourselves into thinking we were safe up there in our settlement.”
Ernie nodded.
“Drew was always saying we needed to do more research,” said Russell despondently.
“Instead we sent her up into the mountains to look for crude natural resources and gave her shifts in the fields like everyone else. If only she’d found out earlier about the regular floods . . .”
“. . . then we would have shut off the pass years ago with a sixty-foot-high wall,” Russell finished off the sentence of his comrade. “Now it’s too late, and we’re atoning for our mistake.”
“What a pile of shit!”
Russell looked to the right. The sun was disappearing behind the craggy peaks of the nearby mountains. In an hour it would be pitch dark. “Do you see anything?”
“Nothing. All quiet.”
Russell turned to Ryan. “Better get more ammo from the hut. I’m sure we’re going to need it.”
The boy nodded and climbed down the ladder. A few minutes later he returned with a bag and tipped the spare magazines into the green ammo crate.
“Careful!” cried Russell. The boy gave a start.
“They aren’t toys, for God’s sake!” Russell shook his head. Although they had taught the children to use weapons, their shooting practices in the forest could hardly be described as military training. Russell’s hopes lay with the adults who had been soldiers back on Earth. Even the scientists had had to do some basic training before joining the military mission. But all that was twenty years ago now.
Russell looked at Ernie, who continued to scour the area with his binoculars. He obviously noticed Russell’s look, because he slowly shook his head.
“This goddamn waiting,” murmured Eliot, who was fiddling around with his jacket.
“Yeah,” replied Russell. “Going into battle is bad enough, but waiting for one that could take us by surprise at any moment is even worse.”
From the corner of his eye he saw Ernie flinch. “What?”
Ernie adjusted the focus of his binoculars. “I can see them,” he hissed. “Wotans! A whole army of them. They’re running out of the whole width of the forest. Dozens, if not hundreds of them.”
Someone else had obviously seen them too. Russell gave a start when the warning bell went off. Ernie put his binoculars down and grabbed his weapon.
“Here we go. Get ready!” shouted Marlene from the neighboring lookout. “Only fire when they’re closer than six-hundred feet. I’ll give the command!”
Now Russell could also see the approaching herd. A brown mass was flooding out of the forest and storming across the grassland. From this distance, it looked like a giant herd of buffalo, ready to flatten everything in their path.
“I’m scared.” Ryan Dressel tugged at Russell’s uniform.
Russell gave him an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry, they’re only animals.” But a hell of a lot of them.
“One thousand-five-hundred feet,” whispered Ernie and cocked his semi-automatic rifle.
The ground was vibrating under the weight of the oncoming herd.
“One thousand three hundred.”
“What we could use now is some good artillery,” murmured Eliot.
There are quite a few things we could use now. But we don’t have any of them.
“On
e thousand.”
“Look out!” cried Marlene.
The wotans were moving in such a tight formation, it was hard to distinguish one animal from the next. And there was no end to the deluge. Russell estimated that there were at least a thousand of them.
“Fire!”
Russell squeezed the trigger.
The sound of fifty automatic rifles being fired simultaneously filled the air. The noise was so deafening, Russell feared he would go deaf. A number of wotans in the first row fell to the ground. Those behind tripped and tumbled over as they were hit by more volleys of gunfire. Others ran straight over the bodies without slowing down.
Russell shot blindly into the mass of animals. He couldn’t say how many he had killed, but the herd continued to stampede toward the barrier. Like trying to drive back the ocean with a shovel.
“My weapon is jammed,” shouted Ryan.
“Rotate the cylinder!” commanded Russell.
“They’re nearing the barbed wire,” cried Ernie.
The first wotans mowed down the outer fence. Three got caught in the safety wire, and tore horrible wounds into their bodies. There was a loud bang, as a beast stepped on a mine. Dirt, blood and acid sprayed high into the air and covered the animals coming up from behind. A second explosion tore apart three more wotans. Another remained twitching on the ground, with its abdomen lying three feet away from it. The wave of animals changed direction and surged into the gap that had been created.
“Concentrate on the gap in the fence,” shouted Russell. His weapon clicked. The magazine was empty. He grabbed some more ammunition and racked the slide before firing again.
More mines exploded. A whole mountain of dead wotans was piling up in the gap in the fence. The animals that followed simply used it as a ramp.
“There are too many,” shouted Ernie. “We don’t have enough mines.”
“Keep firing! Don’t stop!” cried Marlene.
“Fuck, they’ve made another gap in the fence,” Eliot sounded frantic.
“That’s good. It means they’ll spread out across the minefield.” Russell had already emptied another round. He pulled a hand grenade from his belt, pulled the safety ring and threw the egg-shaped grenade into the minefield, right in the center of a group of wotans. A shower of dirt came down on the colonists.
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