Fade Out

by Patrick Tilley

  Wedderkind shook his head. ‘Not possible. The heat would have burned or scorched this area. There’s no sign of that.’ He tossed the handful of wood splinters away.

  ‘At least we now know Crusoe isn’t invisible,’ said Connors.

  ‘Don’t count on that.’

  Connors stared at Wedderkind. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Bob, if Crusoe can alter the physical properties of his surface structure so that it fluoresces on a wavelength we can see, he must be able to reverse the process to get himself out of trouble.’

  ‘Oh, tremendous…’

  ‘Bob, all we’re doing is tossing a few ideas around. You might as well get used to it because there’re going to be a lot of sessions like this. We don’t have one single reference point from which we can begin to work out what this thing is or what it does. And when we dig it up, we still may not know. So if you’re waiting for a set of blueprints and a service manual, forget it.’

  ‘I know what the problems are,’ said Connors. ‘And I am not expecting any miracles.’

  ‘Not expecting any? You’ve got a miracle.’ Wedderkind waved towards the crater. ‘Down there. Something conceived by intelligent life beyond Earth. Maybe even containing it. Something that’s travelled across our galaxy past the billions of other stars to the one we circle every year. Why ours? As a star, our sun is way down the list. A shmendrick. And yet Crusoe’s here – not only on our planet, but on our part of it! If you were to try and calculate the chances of something like this happening, they’d be – ’

  ‘Out of this world?’ suggested Connors.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Wedderkind. ‘Forget the problems. We can find a way around them. Just be grateful. A chance like this comes once in a million – no, what am I talking about? Not even that – once in a billion years!’

  They walked up on to the rim of the crater and looked down into it. It was twelve to fifteen feet deep, with shallow sloping sides of loose earth and scattered stones.

  ‘You’ll probably notice a slight tingling inside the head after a few minutes,’ said Larsen. ‘It occurs in the immediate vicinity of the crater.’

  ‘Yes, that makes senes,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Some people are more affected than others,’ said Larsen.

  ‘How?’ asked Connors. He could already feel a faint prickling inside his head. Like tiny needles. Ice cool. It wasn’t unpleasant.

  ‘Mild dizziness. Disorientation. Temporary loss of balance,’ said Larsen. ‘It clears up once you leave the area of the crater.’

  ‘What causes it, Arnold? Crusoe’s magnetic field?’

  ‘Yes. You have minute but measurable chemically-created electric currents flow through the brain, triggering off signals that are translated into thoughts, speech, body functions, or movement. Once you step inside Crusoe’s cutout zone, a surge starts to build up in those currents – just like any other electrical circuit.’

  ‘Does that mean my brain is going to blow a fuse?’ asked Connors.

  ‘No,’ said Wedderkind. ‘But it might stall.’ He walked down the slope towards the centre of the crater with Brecetti.

  Connors followed with Wetherby and Larsen. He still found it hard to believe that Crusoe was buried somewhere underneath them. ‘What do you think he’s going to do?’

  Wedderkind looked at him. ‘Do? The big question isn’t what, but when. You have to remember that he could be operating on an entirely different time scale to us. He may have taken a thousand, ten thousand or ten million years to reach us. He may not be in a hurry to do anything.’

  ‘You mean there might not be any activity in our lifetime?’

  ‘It’s possible. We can either wait and see, or we can let him know that we know he’s down there.’

  Connors felt as if he was about to float. ‘I’m getting some real vibrations, Arnold. Do you feel anything?’

  ‘A slight dizziness,’ said Wedderkind. ‘How about you, Phil?’

  ‘I’m getting a sensation of imbalance,’ said Brecetti.

  Connors nodded. ‘Yes, me too.’

  They all looked at Wetherby.

  ‘I feel as if I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Connors looked around. Beyond Larsen, on the rim of the crater, was General Allbright. He was dressed in spotless olive-drab fatigues, with a bright blue scarf tucked in the open neck, and one of those curvy-brimmed stetsons that the Guam and Thailand-based B-52 crews had made fashionable during the Vietnam War. And he was sitting on a horse – a magnificent, long-maned palomino.

  Behind him, wearing blue hard hats, were two young aides, also mounted, but on lesser breeds.

  Allbright looked down at Connors and the others with deepset prairie farmer’s eyes two shades lighter than his scarf.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, in a way that somehow robbed the word of all respect.’ Welcome to Crow Ridge.’

  Given the fact that no motor vehicles could operate on the Ridge, Allbright’s choice of personal transportation was immensely practical. Nevertheless, it still took Connors by surprise.

  Connors decided it was the horse that had thrown him. The palomino was too good-looking, too photogenic. It wasn’t a solid, US Fifth Cavalry type of horse, it was the type Gene Autry and Ronald Reagan used to ride. It threw an interesting sidelight on Allbright’s character.

  Allbright dropped easily out of the saddle as Connors led the others out of the crater to meet him. Although he topped six feet, once they were face to face, Connors found Allbright less overpowering than he had expected. Like so many heroic figures, he looked a lot taller in the saddle than he did on the ground.

  Connors shook his firm right hand, then introduced the others. If he was expecting sparks to fly, he was disappointed. Allbright was attentive, courteous and briskly efficient. He also possessed the easy amiability of a bridge player with a handful of trump cards.

  He led the way to a vantage point on the peak of the ridge and pointed out the proposed locations for the housing, workshop and research facilities. ‘The boundaries of Bodell’s land are being staked out now. They’ll be patrolled day and night until the high wire and chain link fence go up. We have a civilian contractor starting in on that tomorrow. They’ll be working three shifts from a base camp down by Highway 22.’ As if reading Connors’ mind, he added, ‘Don’t worry. None of them will get any further than the fence.’

  ‘I’m counting on that,’ said Connors. ‘But while they’re around, I think it would be a good idea if your people could keep the hardware out of sight. The two I saw riding shotgun on the gate looked as if they were guarding the Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I know we can’t afford to take any chances on the security of this project, but we don’t want to create a situation where people on the outside start asking the wrong kind of questions.’

  Allbright nodded politely. ‘I think I get the idea.’ He signalled to his aide to bring up the palomino.

  ‘If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’d like to check the progress of the work in hand. Some temporary tented accommodation has been set aside for your use over on the south flank of the ridge.’ Allbright pointed over their heads. ‘You’ll find your luggage there.’

  ‘Before you go, General, did you experience any reaction at the crater?’ asked Wedderkind.

  ‘Yes. A slight coolness – here.’ Allbright put a thumb and forefinger to his temples.

  ‘A tingling sensation?’ asked Connors.

  Allbright nodded. ‘Yes. Not at all unpleasant.’

  ‘Yes, rather like a mild high.’

  Allbright took hold of the palomino’s reins and put a foot in the stirrup. ‘I’m familiar with the terminology of the drug culture, Mr Connors, but not the experience.’ He swung up into the saddle. ‘Let’s say a slight feeling of elation.’

  Connors smiled. ‘That would be about it.’

  Allbright patted the neck of his restive horse. ‘I’ve arranged a briefing session for the project leaders at 19:00 hours. There will be f
ood and drink available. Mr Larsen will accompany you till then. You can also contact me through him if the need arises.’ Allbright gave them a casual salute, then wheeled his horse around and cantered off down the slope followed by his two wingmen.

  Connors exchanged a look with Wedderkind, then turned to Brecetti. ‘These, er – vibrations that people are getting from the crater. Could they cause any permanent damage – I mean, to the brain?’

  ‘I’m not really competent to answer that,’ said Brecetti. ‘I know the brain currents can vary between fifty and one hundred and fifty microvolts but I don’t know the maximum level of tolerance.’

  Wedderkind turned to Wetherby. ‘Do you still feel sick?’

  ‘No, I’m okay…’

  ‘Would it be possible for us to generate a field as powerful as this?’ asked Connors.

  ‘It’s theoretically possible,’ replied Brecetti. ‘We are already producing immensely powerful magnetic fields for our researches into plasma.’

  ‘I’ve told him about Princeton’s Large Torus,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s quite something. You’ve seen the way the light glows down the middle of a neon tube? Well, in the PLT, a line of plasma, pure molten energy, is held away from the sides of a circular tube by this magnetic field.’ Brecetti shook his head. ‘The problems – ’

  ‘He doesn’t want to know about the problems,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Sorry, I got carried away.’

  ‘Arnold said the operation was burning up a lot of electrical energy,’ said Connors.

  ‘Enough to heat and light a whole city,’ said Brecetti.

  ‘One thing that no one has mentioned so far is super conductivity,’ said Wetherby. ‘You can generate enormous field stengths with quite small units – and with very little electrical energy.’

  ‘Hell, yes, of course.’ Wedderkind turned to Connors. ‘Do you know what we’re talking about?’

  ‘Vaguely. Is it a low temperature magnet?’

  ‘Right. We’ve been opening up this whole field over the last ten years or so. The electrical resistance of a metal decreases as its temperature drops. When certain metals – like lead, tin, vanadium, and alloys such as niobium and tin – are cooled to a few degrees above absolute zero, their resistance suddenly vanishes. All you need is a ring of one of these metals cooled to the transition temperature – introduce an electrical current, and wham! It creates a fantastically strong magnetic field.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Connors. ‘While you were talking, a thought occurred to me – could Crusoe harness the Earth’s magnetic field to form a shield around itself?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Brecetti.

  ‘It’s possible, but he would have to find some way to intensify it.’ Terrestrial magnetism fell within Wetherby’s scope as a geographer. ‘The Earth’s field is normally rated as being about ten thousand times weaker than an ordinary horseshoe magnet.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Brecetti. ‘My guess is that Crusoe’s probably generating his own field. It will be interesting to find out how he does it.’

  ‘And why it jams our radar,’ said Connors. ‘If we can crack that problem and find some way to use it ourselves…’

  Wedderkind gave him a pitying look. ‘You really do have a one-track mind.’

  ‘Arnold, let’s get one thing straight. Regardless of what my personal views may be, if all we’re going to get out of this encounter is a blueprint for a brave new world, forget it. The people in Washington won’t want to know – nor will the people in Akiak, Alaska, or Zanesville, Ohio.’

  ‘You don’t really believe that.’

  ‘I wish I didn’t. For anything that affects our national security, money is no problem. But you know the government’s policy on pure research. There have to be spin-offs. The right kind of spin-offs – like the military got from the space program. The private foundations may take a more altruistic point of view, but the US Navy doesn’t pay people to play around with dolphins just because they like fish – ’

  ‘The dolphin isn’t a fish,’ said Wetherby.

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference,’ said Connors. ‘They’re laying down good government money because they think the dolphins are going to produce a sonar breakthrough that will be bad news for Russian submarines.’

  ‘Bob, we know all that. But this is different.’ Wedderkind pointed towards the crater. ‘Somewhere under there could be the answers to the questions that Man has been asking for centuries. That some of the greatest minds have spent a lifetime trying to answer. Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe? Is Man unique – or has the seed of Man been sown throughout the universe? Are we a purposeless evolutionary accident, biological freaks? Or do we have a higher purpose?’

  ‘Arnold, we all want to know the answers, but nobody else does. Look what a big yawn the space program has turned out to be. The television networks soon found that out. I don’t think the world is ready yet – and the way things are going, it may never be.’

  ‘But Man has to know,’ said Brecetti. ‘That’s what distinguishes him from the rest of the animals. He searches for knowledge, for truth. It’s a fundamental drive one cannot suppress.’

  ‘You haven’t been in government,’ said Connors. ‘Aren’t we concealing this project?’

  ‘Yes, but only temporarily – for practical reasons,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Don’t count on that,’ said Connors. ‘We’re in business just as long as we come up with the right answers. No one is going to let Crusoe upset the apple cart.’

  ‘Bob, the process is irreversible. You can’t stop technological progress. You can’t hold back knowledge. The Luddites went around smashing mechanical looms but they didn’t stop the Industrial Revolution.’

  ‘Perhaps they should have tried harder,’ said Wetherby.

  ‘This is hardly the time to start opening that can of beans,’ said Wedderkind.

  ‘Just what kind of knowledge would you consider unwelcome?’ asked Brecetti. ‘I don’t mean you, personally.’

  ‘Well,’ said Connors, ‘it could be argued that it serves no useful purpose for us to know that there is intelligent life in a star system a thousand light years from here – or even one that’s nearer. It’s a totally irrelevant piece of information. To know he is not alone in the universe is not going to improve the quality of Man’s existence. It doesn’t help solve any of the problems that face us here on Earth. Maybe that’s where all our energies should be directed. After all, 99.999 per cent of the population isn’t going anywhere else.

  ‘As for bad news, I’m sure we could all make out a list, but I’ll throw in three ideas straight off the top of my head – supposing Crusoe was found to contain the secret of everlasting life, would we want that? Would the Vatican want irrefutable proof that they’d been handing down the wrong message for the last two thousand years? Would we want to be told how to run things by a bunch of Soviet-type spaceniks fresh off a collective in Cassiopeia?’

  As Connors asked the question, they all became aware of a deep-throated roar. They looked down the ridge and saw a heavy yellow truck come grinding up through the pines and on to the plateau. There were about a dozen people hanging on to the outside of the cab and the back of the truck, all waving orange hard hats. As the truck pulled up near the crater with its motor running, the men on it gave a ragged cheer of triumph.

  Connors and the others walked down towards them. Wedderkind took hold of Connors’ arm briefly.

  ‘Robert, you and I need to have a talk,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure we’re on the same side.’

  ‘I thought we were,’ said Connors.

  Max Nilsson jumped down from the cab as they approached. Max was a big, broad-shouldered blockbuster whose body seemed charged with the compressed energy of a Superball. He smoothed down his extravagant black moustache and swaggered forward with a broad grin.

  ‘Bob Connors?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Max Nilsson, CIA. I�
�m MRDC’s Operations Manager on this Project.’

  ‘Good to meet you. This is Arnold Wedderkind, head of the research group – Phil Brecetti – Al Wetherby.’ Connors nodded towards the diesel. ‘Is that the first of the converted trucks?’

  Max shook his head. ‘They’re still being worked on. We decided not to wait. I thought you might want to get started with this.’ He waved at the stack of girders and equipment on the long trailer.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Connors.

  ‘A light drill rig. We’ve brought enough pipe to go down two thousand feet. Got a core sampler as well.’

  ‘What do you plan to use for power?’

  ‘Steam.’

  ‘Steam?’

  Max grinned. ‘It was good enough to get this whole industry started back in 1859 – has to be better than a pick and shovel – right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Connors. ‘Away you go, Max. Arnold here will tell you where he wants the rig spotted.’

  ‘Okay. It shouldn’t take us too long to get set up. We might even make contact before midnight.’

  The heavy beat of the truck’s motor faded as the driver took his foot off the pedal to ease the cramp out of his right leg.

  Max spun around and shouted. ‘Keep it running, keep it running!’

  The motor roared back into life.

  ‘Back it up to the edge of that hole and get that rig unloaded!’ yelled Max through cupped hands. He turned back to Connors. ‘I guess we were kind of reluctant about driving up here. Nobody wanted to stall halfway and be left standing around with egg on their face. Now I know how easy it is, I’ll get some more trucks up with the trailer units.’

  Max snapped his fingers and pointed to Wedderkind, ‘Oh, yeah, one thing you may want to know. We had all our lights on as we drove up. They cut out just past that line of red stakes.’

  ‘Where the other vehicles are.’

  ‘Yeah. Otherwise no problem.’

  HASKILL, one of Allbright’s aides, cantered over to see what was going on. ‘Are you going to be bringing up more equipment on to the ridge?’ he asked Max.

  ‘Yeah, I’m going to start shipping in the trailer units first. I’ like a few of your boys to trim out some of those pines.’