Singularity

by Bill DeSmedt

  A frown crossed the Russian’s broad features. “But this is standard scientific nomenclature—”

  “Face it, Medvedev: calling the thing a TCB is an admission of defeat. It says you don’t know what you’re talking about, that your so-called ‘evidence’ is full of holes, inconclusive in the extreme. Except, of course, in those instances where it actually lends support to the Jackson-Ryan hypothesis.”

  “Support?” Medvedev snorted. “To what support do you refer?”

  “Well, take the geomagnetic storm that Irkutsk Observatory tracked for hours following the impact. That effect could easily be accounted for by the right type of primordial black hole. At the same time, it just about rules out your own candidate for the Tunguska Cosmic Body. You guys from Tomsk have been pushing the TCB-as-comet theory for as long as anyone can remember. But comets aren’t magnetic—they’re mostly made of ice.”

  “A meteorite after all, then,” Igor put in, to Medvedev’s evident displeasure.

  Jack turned to him. “Okay. Only now you’re stuck explaining away another key piece of geophysical evidence: no crater. By Medvedev’s own calculations, his TCB would’ve been the biggest thing to hit Earth in fifty thousand years. And base camp here can’t be more than a mile or so from the epicenter. So why aren’t we sitting at the bottom of a hole the size of the Grand Canyon?”

  “As is well known,” Medvedev said stiffly, “the lack of a crater is due to the event having been an airburst.”

  “An explosion kilometers up, resulting in complete volatilization of a meteoric body?” Jack said. “Sorry, I don’t buy it. All right, maybe, if it was a stony meteorite. But you need a ferrous meteorite to explain the magnetism, and there’s just no way that much iron could totally self-destruct.”

  He shook his head. “No, when you add it all up, the airburst theory begins to look like just another circular argument: the strongest support for it is the thing it’s supposed to be explaining. ‘No crater? Okay, then, must have been an airburst!’ Call that evidence? Give me a break!”

  “I see no reason why we must sit here and listen to this, this—” Medvedev began.

  But Jack wasn’t done yet, he’d saved the best for last. “And let’s not forget who started this whole airburst business. One of Kazantsev’s crackpot theories, wasn’t it? That’s some strange company you’re keeping, Academician.”

  No one spoke. The only sound was the crackling of the campfire. Igor sucked in his breath but said nothing. Luciano choked on a laugh and covered his mouth with his hand. Medvedev glowered, his eyes far redder than could be accounted for by the pungent woodsmoke.

  To so much as mention the mountebank Kazantsev in the same breath as the revered Academician was nothing short of scandalous. For it was Aleksandr Kazantsev who, fresh back from a 1946 inspection tour of the Hiroshima devastation, had startled the world with the claim that the 1908 Tunguska catastrophe had resulted from a similar high-altitude nuclear explosion—the explosion, in fact, of a nuclear-powered spaceship from Mars!

  Medvedev had lurched to his feet now, and was standing there hunched over, still not speaking. The firelight cast his distorted shadow huge against the wall of Kulik’s old cabin. In its eerie glow he bore the look—eyes widened, teeth bared—of a beast baited almost beyond endurance.

  Jack wasn’t about to back down. “Take your pick. Whichever hypothesis you choose, there’s always some piece of your geophysical evidence’ guaranteed to undermine it.”

  For a moment Jack thought the Russian was going leap the firepit and attack him physically.

  Instead, in a voice shaking with barely-checked rage, Medvedev bellowed, “Yes? Well here is a piece of geophysical evidence I invite you to explain, Adler: your lack of a so-called ‘exit event.’ ” He drew a deep breath. “If your ridiculous theory were true and the TCB were in truth one of your micro-holes, nothing could have prevented it from boring down through the Earth and out the other side, true? Your friends Jackson and Ryan said as much, predicting that it would come rocketing up out of the North Atlantic shortly after its touch-down here. Their 1973 Nature article, in fact, offers this retrodiction as a test of the whole hypothesis.”

  “Aha! So you have read it then.”

  “Oh, do not look so surprised, Adler. Of course I have read it. I enjoy science fiction as much as the next fellow.” Medvedev smiled tightly. “But, here is my point. If your ‘micro-hole’ could cause such devastation on landing here in Tunguska, how could it not do so again on erupting up out of the ocean on the other side of the world?”

  “Well—” Jack began.

  But there was no stopping Medvedev now. “It should, in fact, have raised a catastrophic tsunami, not so? Vessels in the Atlantic shipping lanes should have been capsized by the shockwave. A wall of water fifty feet high should have gone crashing against the shores of Iceland and Eastern Canada—areas far more densely populated than Central Siberia, then as now. Why then do the newspapers of the time contain no reports of such a disaster?”

  The Russian leaned closer, teeth bared in an unpleasant grin. “I will tell you why, Adler. Because it never happened! None of it did. To think otherwise is the worst sort of naivete and scientific irresponsibility!”

  All eyes were now on Jack, waiting to see how he would respond.

  Jack chose his next words carefully. “Remember your Sherlock Holmes? The one where he says ‘Once you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable.”

  “ ‘Must be truth,’ ” Medvedev finished for him, “Yes, yes, this is well known. But what is your point?”

  “Just this,” Jack said in a low voice, “I don’t think the thing ever came back out.

  “I think it’s still in there.”

  4 | Reacquisition

  IT HAD been worth the wait.

  Knox sat spellbound as a slideshow fit for a Senatorial subcommittee flashed across his NetMeeting window, telling the tale of an agency known as CROM.

  The initials turned out to stand for Critical Resources Oversight Mandate. On its face, that fit right in with the parent Energy Department’s mission statement. But the title was just more misdirection: the “critical resources” CROM oversaw weren’t oil reserves or plutonium stockpiles, they were . . . people.

  Specifically, scientists of the former Soviet Union, with the occasional Pakistani or North Korean thrown in for good measure. Scientists working in the so-called WMD disciplines—the old nuclear, chemical, biological Weapons of Mass Destruction mavens.

  CROM was the little Dutchboy with his proverbial finger in the dike, trying to stem a brain drain of death-dealing expertise. Trying to keep privation-weary Russian and Third-World researchers from selling their souls and their secrets in the worldwide mass-destruction marketplace. Yet another silent struggle on the darkling plain of the war against terrorism, a war without victory or boundary or end.

  None of which explained why some CROM operative was out there electronically impersonating consultants. But Knox thought he knew how to find out.

  “Mycroft, great job. You really outdid yourself.”

  “My pleasure.” Mycroft beamed back from the small face-to-face frame in the corner of the widescreen. “Will that be all, Jonathan?”

  “Not quite.” Knox hesitated. Normally, he’d have known better than to ask at all, but not this time. “When were you going to tell me how to find this CROM outfit’s back door?”

  “Back door? Jonathan, let me assure you—”

  “Never bullshit a bullshitter, Mycroft. You didn’t just cobble that presentation together on the spur of the moment. Every frame in the deck carried a DOE watermark.”

  “Um, yes, well, I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that, actually. Those electronic signets are the very devil to remove without degrading the image itself. And given the time constraints—”

  “Save it. Where’d you get it?”

  “Are you sure you want to know this, Jonathan? Plausible deniability, after all.”


  “It’s hereby waived. Just tell me how to follow the breadcrumbs, I’ll take it from there.”

  Mycroft blinked but said nothing.

  “I don’t think you understand. I need to get into that site!”

  “Want to hold it down a little, Jon? People are trying to sleep.” This time the voice came not from the videoconferencing window, but from the corridor outside his office.

  “Huh?” Knox looked up to see Richard Moses hulking in his doorway. “Oh, hi, Richard.”

  Most mornings, the Archon CEO’s round, pleasantly plain face could be counted on to be wearing a puckish grin. That helped counter the initial impression conveyed by the crewcut, broken nose, blocky torso, and ham fists. Richard didn’t really fit the somatype for a systems analyst; without the grin he looked more like a prizefighter gone to seed.

  The grin wasn’t there today. Richard kept his expression carefully neutral as he glanced back into the corridor and said, “He’s right in here, Ms. Bonaventure. I’m sure Jon didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long.”

  Knox sighed. “Richard, I’m right in the middle of something.”

  “Kill it.” Richard drew an index finger across his throat. “Big client here to see you.”

  Back to work then. Knox turned back to Mycroft. “We’ll pick this up later.”

  Mycroft frowned. “If we must. In the meantime, the primary site lists some external links that might merit a follow-up, once I break the encryption.”

  “Whatever, just so long as you tell me how to track down my email spoofer.” Knox terminated the session and said to himself, “God, do I want to nail the bastard that pulled that stunt!”

  Knox turned to face Richard again. He wasn’t there. Instead, a young woman stood in the doorway. The same young woman last seen cooling her heels out at the reception desk.

  Now that he could see her in the flesh, Knox revised his initial estimate. She was not striking; she was drop-dead gorgeous. A goddess in business casuals. Tall—at least five foot eight—with a figure more lithe than voluptuous . . . almost catlike. A mane of glossy dark hair framed the finely-chiseled features of her pale face: dark eyes, a straight, slightly upturned nose, and that mouth! A swelling red bow beneath, complemented above by a perfectly sculpted, slightly everted upper lip. A small moist highlight shimmered on that exquisite lipline.

  And, behind those dark brown eyes. Something of an edge there. What would that be about?

  “Mr. Knox? Marianna Bonaventure.” When she spoke her name in that husky voice it was a poem. She held out her right hand and flashed an ID in her left—a holographic picture ID with the initials CROM emblazoned across the top.

  There was the merest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of Marianna Bonaventure’s perfect lips. “I’ve got a feeling I’m that bastard you wanted to nail.”

  The goddess drove as if possessed by a divine madness. As if the New Jersey Turnpike had been designated her own personal Indy 500 for the duration of this Wednesday afternoon.

  Knox had a pet cheory that some people became cops just so they could do the things cops put other people in jail for doing. Marianna Bonaventure might not be a cop, not exactly. But she seemed to take the same characteristic delight in crossing over the line, in throwing her weight around in ways that would have had a mere civilian up on charges.

  As she had done back at Archon. In short order, Knox had found himself conscripted, requisitioned, whatever the fuck the bureaucratic term was for it. And Richard, that wuss, had gone along with nary a peep of protest.

  “Good of the firm, Jon,” he’d said. “Don’t want to go eyeball-to-eyeball with the feds here, Jon,” and, “This’ll get us on DoD’s preferred-vendor list for sure, Jon.” Not for the first time Knox was reminded that Richard Moses looked on him, along with the rest of the consulting staff, not as personnel, but as product. And CROM had anted up the sticker price.

  Now, a scant three hours later, Knox was motoring through the Turnpike’s lunar landscape toward Newark Airport, a new assignment, and an uncertain destiny, with a madwoman at the wheel and no clue as to what he was supposed to do!

  Not that the last part was so unusual. Over the past fifteen years, Knox had grown used to the rush of inferential uncertainty—“Why this? Why me?”—that inaugurated every new client relationship.

  One thing seemed certain: if all this “CROM” wanted was another lifer specialist, they’d have hired one. Instead, they’d opted to pay top dollar for a generalist, a card-carrying member of corporate America’s homeless elite. There had to be a reason.

  A reason that doubtless had to do with a little matter of identity theft.

  Knox turned to Archon’s new “big client,” if that’s what she was, and gave it one last try. “I don’t suppose you’d consider telling me what you were doing screwing around with my email the past couple days?”

  She made a face which on a mere mortal might have passed for a pout. Gauging how much to tell him, no doubt. Then she sighed, and, without taking her eyes from the road, began rummaging through her carrybag.

  She pulled out a photo and handed it to him. “Do you know this person?”

  A careworn blonde in a washed-out summer dress peered blankly out at him, nondescript cityscape wavering in the heat behind her.

  “Who’s she supposed to be?”

  “Interesting turn of phrase,” the client said. “She’s supposed to be Galina Mikhailovna Postrel’nikova.”

  Try as he might, Knox couldn’t map the image of this tired, middle-aged woman onto the vibrant girl he had known so long ago. The shot was blurred by the speed of the drive-by vehicle, but—could that be Galya? Had two decades of Soviet and post-Soviet privation so leeched the spirit out of what had once been a vivacious eighteen-year-old Wunderkind? Only a year or two separates a devushka from a babushka—a girl from a grandmother—as the saying goes. Still and all . . .

  He frowned and tried to jog memories from half a lifetime ago. The first time he had seen Galina Mikhailovna Postrel’nikova—Galya, for short—she had been standing on the escalator of the Oktyabrskaya Metro station, comforting a frightened child.

  . . . A child Knox had borrowed for the day.

  Stevie Schumacher was four years old and cute as a button. Perfect for purposes of storming the bureaucratic barricades.

  And three weeks into his year as a stazhyor, or exchange student, at Moscow State University, Jonathan Knox had just about had his fill of those barricades. Soviet officials were grand masters of red tape and procrastination, and those in the university Registrar’s Office were no exception. Their whole purpose in life seemed to lie in devising new roadblocks to Knox’s proposed program of archival research.

  But the bureaucracy had a soft underbelly, and Knox had tumbled to it. Like most Soviets, its functionaries were suckers for little kids.

  Knox was never quite sure why Soviet society, not otherwise renowned for its humanitarian proclivities, was so universally child-friendly. The political theorist in him guessed it had something to do with the regime’s concept of the child as ideal citizen: dependent, obedient, infinitely malleable. His sociologist side saw it rather as a carryover from the extended parenting endemic to Russian village life.

  Whatever the reason, Knox saw an opening and dove for it. Gary and Anne Schumacher were pleased, if somewhat nonplussed, by the offer of free babysitting from a friend and fellow stazhyor. They never realized they could have charged Knox by the hour for the privilege.

  Because bringing Stevie along on his rounds worked like a charm. Hardened Soviet timeservers softened and melted when Knox showed up with the tyke in tow. Small cellophane-wrapped hard candies magically materialized out of vest pockets and desk drawers. More to the purpose, administrative obstacles impeding Knox’s access to TsGAOR, the Central Archive of the October Revolution, vanished just as miraculously.

  All of which left Knox, his paper-chase completed in the record time of seven hours, with only the one last chore of delivering St
evie to his father at the Lenin Library in central Moscow. Since the bureaucratic scavenger hunt had led far out on the Sadovaya ring road, their best route back to town lay via the Metro station in nearby Oktyabrskaya Square.

  Rush hour was still ten minutes away when Knox and Stevie walked through the double doors into the station’s mezzanine, but a line had already formed in front of the ticket-checker. Knox gave the hall’s ornate vermilion-and-white marble appointments only a cursory glance: once you’d seen one People’s Palace, you’d seen them all. His attention was directed dead ahead, at the escalators. He’d been through Oktyabrskaya once before.

  “We ride the train to Daddy now, Uncle Jon?” Stevie tugged on Knox’s hand. Knox wasn’t sure what accounted for all the enthusiasm—seeing Daddy or riding the train.

  He chose the likelier of the two. “Yes, Stevie, we’re going to ride the train.”

  “Goodie!” Stevie began jumping up and down.

  He kept on jumping all the time they stood on the line. The abnormally slow-moving line. The ticket-checker, seventy years old if he was a day, was being a prick, officiously checking for anyone who’d forgotten to renew their monthly Metro pass now that September had started. A glance at the lengthening queue in front of the ticket booth made Knox glad he’d remembered.

  “Stay with me now, Stevie.” Knox retightened his grip on his stillhopping charge. Lord knew, even a grown man could find a trip down the Oktyabrskaya escalator somewhat, well, daunting.

  At more than three stories below street level, the Oktyabrskaya stop was one of the deepest stations on Moscow’s old Southwest line—sunk so far underground that workmen had died of the bends building it back in the 1930s. The depth was deliberate: in the pre-atomic era it had still been possible to hope that a metropolitan population might survive aerial bombardment, given enough air-raid shelters. And that’s what Moscow’s subway system was—a network of enormous air-raid shelters masquerading as rapid transit.