Fade Out

by Patrick Tilley

  Neame joined up the last point with the centre of the crater to complete a classic thirty-sixty-ninety-degree triangle. He pointed to the two charges in the inner ring on either side of the line he’d just drawn. ‘If those two blow, then we’ll know he’s coming back – right on target.’

  It seemed too much to hope for. The next patrols reported that all the lights in the grid were still on, and unaffected by Crusoe’s cutoff zone. It meant one of three things. Crusoe was stationary, off on a new course away from the Ridge to somewhere quieter, or heading straight down.

  Friday/August 31

  CROW RIDGE/MONTANA

  Wedderkind hung around the research shack until after midnight, then retired, leaving instructions to waken him if anything broke.

  He undressed and took a long shower.

  The fibre-glass unit in his trailer was like a stand-up coffin. Wedderkind slumped round-shouldered against one of the walls and let the spray blast down over the back of his neck. He tried to marshal into some sort of order the myriad possibilities that were whirling around inside his head.

  Crusoe had turned back twice. Would he turn back again? He had blocked their radio communications, stalled cars, downed a helicopter, cut their power… why did he need to go underground? To protect himself? Against what – Man?

  Or had he gone underground for some other reason? While they thought they were getting the measure of his reactions, was he merely testing theirs – measuring their intelligence?

  Wedderkind mulled over Neame’s ideas on the geometry of Crusoe’s course and tried to read some significance into it. If Crusoe made a sixty-degree course change he would come back to the crater.

  If the two charges indicated by Neame exploded, that at least would be proved beyond doubt… Wedderkind got an idea. Supposing Crusoe changed course as they hoped and found that the charges he expected to find weren’t there? Would he get the message that they had predicted his move and were prepared to accommodate him?

  Wedderkind lurched out of the shower, towelled the more vital parts of himself dry, and pulled on his pyjama trousers and bathrobe. He went out leaving the water running.

  Max, who could really have done with the sleep, was still up playing cards and drinking bourbon.

  ‘Those two charges that we’re expecting to blow,’ said Wedderkind. ‘Can you pull them up?’

  Max looked at the five cards in his hand. ‘You mean now?’

  ‘Yes, right away. It’s urgent.’

  Max hissed out the word ‘shit’ between clenched teeth, threw his cards face down on the table, and scooped up his money.

  The roughneck who was dealing began to gather up the cards.

  ‘Leave that.’ Max jerked his thumb at the door. ‘Go wake up Cab and Lee.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Max to the other three cardplayers. ‘The sooner you get your asses out of here, the sooner we can get back to the game.’

  Working under the glare of hissing acetylene gas lamps, the roughnecks hauled up the two one-hundred-pound charges of dynamite. The five-pound sticks, taped together in five sections of four each, were almost too hot to handle with bare hands.

  Wedderkind was about to reach out to test the heat for himself when Max pushed him aside.

  ‘If you’ve got warm hands I wouldn’t touch them.’ Max broke the charges up and had them dumped into buckets of water.

  Wedderkind suddenly realized that in his excitement, he’d been standing between two potential explosions, either of which could have reduced him to hamburger meat.

  ‘That was close,’ he said, simultaneously aware of the bravery of Max’s crew and his own incredible foolhardiness.

  ‘Looks as if he’s headed back this way,’ said Max.

  ‘That’s why I wanted those two charges lifted,’ said Wedderkind. ‘If he’s braced for more explosions and nothing happens, it might give him something to think about.’

  Max gave him a mean look. ‘If I thought he was guaranteed to come back through here, I’d put a couple of thousand pounds down either side of him and blow his brains out.’

  ‘After all your hard work?’ asked Wedderkind. ‘Think of the loss to science.’

  ‘Fuck science,’ said Max.

  Wedderkind walked back with Max towards the trailer site in gloomy silence. He felt cold and rather ridiculous.

  They reached Max’s trailer first.

  ‘Thanks, Max. I’m sorry I had to interrupt your card game.’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Still, who knows?’ said Wedderkind. ‘I probably saved you some money.’

  Max turned around in the entrance to his trailer. ‘On four kings and an ace?’

  The door slammed shut in Wedderkind’s face.

  Breakfast, as well as bathtime, was another unsatisfactory experience for Wedderkind. He liked real, black, strong coffee. Everything to drink on the Ridge, apart from the liquor, came out of a machine. It was a sobering object lesson. The science and technology that had put men on the moon still couldn’t reconstitute coffee that tasted like the real thing made fresh from the bean.

  Neame came into the breakfast room and leaned on Wedderkind’s table as he was spooning up cereal and wondering if he should send off for the slingshot jet glider advertised on the pack to give to his grandson.

  ‘Crusoe’s back on the grid,’ said Neame.

  Wedderkind tore the glider coupon from the cereal pack, and followed Neame to the research hut.

  Inside, they found eight more of the research group crowded around the model of the Ridge. Neame and Gilligan disconnected the small blue bulbs as Spencer read out the numbers supplied by the cutoff patrol. Crusoe had blacked out a hundred-yard-wide circle of lights.

  By ten o’clock, it had nearly doubled in size and was edging along Neame’s projected course towards the crater.

  Brecetti clapped Wedderkind jubilantly on the back. ‘He’s coming up!’

  Everyone began to talk at once, speculating on what might appear, and watching Crusoe’s progress across the grid with a growing sense of excitement.

  Wedderkind rode one of the diesels down to the gatehouse and got through to Connors in Washington. ‘If you hurry, you might just get here in time to see it.’

  ‘Will you be able to film it?’ asked Connors.

  ‘Yes, on a telephoto lens from outside the cutoff zone.’

  ‘Great. I’ll run and get my toothbrush and grab the first available plane.’ Connors put the phone down, buzzed Greg, and told him to line up a westbound flight.

  ‘Right away?’

  ‘No, there’s no panic.’ Connors looked at his watch. ‘The late afternoon will do.’

  ‘That should put you on the Ridge at about eight this evening.’

  ‘Fine…’

  With the big event being recorded on film, Connors didn’t mind missing the chance of a grandstand seat. He was still digesting the full implications of the President’s plan to take out Crow Ridge at the first sign of trouble. Now that he was aware of its existence, it seemed more prudent to stand well back while Crusoe surfaced. It was true he would miss a moment of history, but he could always watch the recorded highlights.

  On Crow Ridge, the surface area of the cutout zone continued to widen and its centre continued to edge towards that of the crater. There was now little room for doubt. Crusoe was climbing steadily towards his original point of entry.

  Wedderkind’s one fear was that after the underground bombardment Crusoe had undergone, he might surface and head for home without stopping to meet his tormentors.

  Yesterday, Crusoe had been moving at about 250 feet an hour. If he maintained a similar constant rate of ascent, they could expect him to surface some time between one and two o’clock that afternoon.

  On the high part of the plateau, two Air Force photographers set up movie cameras well outside the expected cutoff zone.

  By twelve-thirty, the air was charged with excitement. Nobody but Max’s crew felt like having lunc
h. Max guessed that Crusoe would still be around when they were through and drove off on a borrowed bulldozer with his friends hanging on to the cab.

  An hour later, the circle of blacked-out lights was firmly centred on the crater. It now measured one thousand yards across. Wisps of smoke began to curl up from the loose soil at the bottom of the crater.

  At ten minutes to two, the floor of the research hut began to vibrate under Wedderkind’s feet as a series of minor earth tremors ran through the Ridge. He rushed out of the hut and up the path on to the plateau, closely followed by Brecetti and Wetherby.

  Almost all the population of Crow Ridge seemed to be lining the edge of the plateau – sheltering behind large rocks in case Crusoe turned out to be a Hollywood B-picture space monster.

  Wedderkind found Spencer, Neame, and Gilligan at the top of the path.

  ‘He’s blacked out the whole grid,’ said Spencer.

  Wedderkind looked up towards the crest of the Ridge where the Air Force photographers had sited their movie cameras. Both film crews appeared to be grappling with a technical fault. One of the cadets broke away and came bounding down the slope. Wedderkind put out an arm as he drew level.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘He just zapped both cameras,’ gasped the cadet. ‘They fused.’

  ‘Scheisse –!’

  ‘We left all the spares in the shack.’ The cadet ran off.

  The rhythmic ground tremors continued to shake the Ridge, and gradually they all became aware of a steady, oscillating wave of sound that was not so much heard as felt inside the head as vibrations, drilling first through the bone of the skull, then pulsating through the enclosed tissue with growing intensity. People began to edge back, crouch down, or seek cover.

  Wedderkind thought that his brain was about to explode inside his skull. Even so, some impulse drove him forward. He pushed between Wetherby and Spencer and ran towards the crater.

  One of the cadets began to move after him. ‘Sir –!’

  Brecetti grabbed his arm. ‘Leave it – I’ll catch him.’ He ambled off after Wedderkind with one arm outstretched, beckoning him back.

  Fifty yards from the crater, the ground rocked violently under Wedderkind causing him to almost lose his balance. The soil in the crater began to quiver. Loose chunks of earth and small stones rolled down the sloping sides. Smoke was now pouring out of the ground and Wedderkind could see small darting tongues of flame. The glowing top of a large dome-shaped object burst through the soil. It was white-hot, like a freshly cast ingot. Wedderkind felt a wave of heat strike his face as he was dragged back from the edge of the crater by Brecetti and the cadet who had followed him.

  Crusoe continued his upward thrust for about five minutes. Then the pulsing vibrations faded away, and with it any further movement.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then, quite unexpectedly, all the remaining charges planted by Max in the two rings around the crater detonated in a single mass explosion.

  Caught totally by surprise inside the rings, Wedderkind, Brecetti and the cadet fell to the ground and covered their heads. For a moment, they didn’t know what had hit them. Then, as they looked at each other cowering on the ground, they realized what had happened and felt rather foolish.

  The whole episode looked much more dramatic from the spectators’ point of view. As the plumes of smoke drifted away from the boreholes, and the last of the dirt spattered down, a dozen more heroes ran in to rescue Crow Ridge’s first three casualties, all of whom were on their feet and full of apologies by the time help arrived.

  Wedderkind led the party back to the edge of the plateau. Allbright was waiting for him.

  ‘Mr Wedderkind, perhaps you and I ought to get together to talk over a few basic safety rules.’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ said Wedderkind. He brushed some of the dirt off his crumpled suit and tugged disgustedly at the sleeves. ‘Three hundred dollars from my wife’s nephew. A horseblanket would fit me better.’ Wedderkind produced a handkerchief, wiped some of the dust and sweat from his plump face, then waved the handkerchief towards Crusoe. ‘That was like standing next to an open oven.’

  Wedderkind slithered down to where Allbright was standing. This left only his head and shoulders above the general level of the plateau. After the two-ring explosion, everybody seemed to have taken up less exposed positions. Allbright passed over his field glasses.

  ‘Thanks.’ Wedderkind focused on Crusoe. Now cooling on contact with the air, the glowing orange hull was turning a reddish black.

  Wedderkind turned to the cadet who had helped pull him back, from the crater. ‘Could you run up and see if the two movie crews managed to get their cameras working?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The young man raced away.

  Brecetti touched Wedderkind’s arm. ‘Can I, er –?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Wedderkind. He handed Brecetti the field glasses.

  ‘What do you make of it?’ asked Allbright.

  ‘Well, it’s big, but it doesn’t look too gruesome. In fact, I’m a little disappointed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The shape looks so familiar. Curving hull like an upturned saucer – with a small dome on top. It reminds me of every fake flying saucer I’ve ever seen. Frankly I was hoping for something more – ’

  ‘More what?’ Brecetti passed the field glasses back to Allbright.

  ‘More exotic,’ said Wedderkind. ‘What do you think, General?’

  ‘I think I’ll reserve judgement until the whole thing has been dug out of the ground,’ said Allbright. ‘Am I correct in assuming that is what you intend to do?’

  ‘When he’s cooled down,’ said Wedderkind. ‘In the meantime, I think we ought to run another check for radioactivity before anyone goes out there.’

  ‘Let me know the result,’ said Allbright. ‘There’s no point in taking any needless risks – is there, Mr Wedderkind?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’

  Allbright gave them a brief salute and walked away, followed by his two aides. The cadet returned from his errand on the crest. ‘The cameras are both working. They started shooting film just after Crusoe broke through.’

  ‘Great. Thank you.’

  As an additional precaution, the research group exposed photographic plates that were sensitive to X rays as well as ultraviolet radiation. The results proved negative, and confirmed the measurements obtained by the MRDC survey plane based at Miles City. Allbright sent a cutout patrol riding across the Ridge resetting the cutouts on two lines of lights, one running north-south, the other east-west. The rocker-switch cutouts had been set near the top of the six-foot-high wooden stakes so that a rider could flick them back on with a glancing blow from his gloved hand as he rode past.

  Wedderkind walked part way up the crest of the Ridge to watch the progress of the riders across the plateau. The two lines of blue lights blipped on one after another from edge to edge of the grid, crossing at right angles only ten yards from the crater.

  The cutoff zone had disappeared.

  Wedderkind turned happily to Brecetti. We’re back in the electricity business! Heat, light, power, and no more transport problems. Marvellous!’ They hurried down to break the news to the rest of the group.

  At the same time as Crusoe surfaced, the total fade-out on the radio wavelengths began to recede, and by the time Connors landed at Glasgow AFB, reception on the long-wave bands was almost normal, and the medium-wave bands had begun to clear. The people in the Glasgow control tower were beginning to get excited at the prospect of a return to clear, uncluttered radio communications. After being cut off for almost three weeks, their excitement was understandable. Before leaving the base, Connors telephoned the Crow Ridge base camp to check on the state of play. He learned that Crusoe had surfaced, apparently without incident, and was cooling into a depressingly familiar shape. Reassured, Connors boarded the helicopter and flew south, landing at the base camp at 8:10 P.M.

 
When Connors reached Rockville, he found Wedderkind and most of the research group having supper in the canteen. He told them about the noticeable improvement in radio communications and ended by apologizing to Wedderkind. ‘Sorry, Arnold, I had a few last-minute problems.’

  ‘That’s okay, you didn’t miss very much.’

  ‘Only Arnold’s kamikaze attack on the crater,’ said Wetherby.

  ‘Very funny,’ said Wedderkind. ‘When Bob’s through eating, why don’t you run the film for him?’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  ‘Did you see Crusoe as you came over the plateau?’ asked Wedderkind.

  ‘It would have been difficult to miss him,’ said Connors.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He looks like something dreamed up by RKO.’

  ‘Yes, I know, that’s how we feel.’ Wedderkind got up and slid his chair back under the table. ‘I’ll see you later. Phil and I are just going for a walk.’

  Brecetti followed Wedderkind out of the canteen. They walked along the northern flank of the Ridge, then angled up the slope when they were about level with Crusoe. The sun had dipped behind the crest of the Ridge, throwing the plateau into shadow.

  Wedderkind looked at Crusoe, then turned towards Brecetti. ‘No one else seems to have noticed, Phil, but do you see what I see?’

  Brecetti took a long look at the exposed portion of Crusoe’s domed hull. ‘Do you mean – what happens if you project the hull lines down under the earth?’

  ‘Yes.’ Wedderkind moved up beside him. ‘I may be wrong but – ’ He stuck out his hands, to describe Crusoe’s shape. ‘If you continue those curves logically….’

  ‘It means he’s now larger than the hole he made when he buried himself.’