The Hercules Text

by Jack McDevitt

The security people were cordoning off the area. Others were closing in on the house. “The front of the place looks as if it’s encased in a layer of ice,” Harry said.

  There was a momentary stir among the firemen. They’d gathered in the rubble where the kitchen had been, and they were looking down at the debris. Then they signaled, and someone came forward with a stretcher. They lifted a blackened human form, placed it on the stretcher, and drew a blanket over it.

  Leslie trembled in his arms.

  Wheeler hurried up; his eyes had gone wide at sight of the house. It was the first time Harry had seen Pete Wheeler lose his equanimity. Harry murmured a greeting, but the priest’s attention was fastened on the front of the dwelling.

  They carried the stretcher toward one of the emergency vehicles. “He’s a Catholic,” said Harry.

  Wheeler shook his head impatiently. “Later. Why is everything frozen up there?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Harry. The security people had been holding back the few bystanders who’d appeared, but now they themselves were looking curiously at the glazed siding and concrete and shingles.

  “Even the ground,” remarked Wheeler, “has acquired a sheet of ice.” He knelt just outside the edge of the whitened arc, keeping his hands in his pockets. His breath hung before him. Harry had no feeling in his nose and ears. The rocks and pebbles and concrete within the circle glittered. Harry reached for one, but Wheeler pushed him away with a shout. “Supercold,” he explained. “I doubt you’d get your hand back. Keep everybody off it, Harry. I’m not sure that shoes would be much protection.”

  Harry relayed the warning. “What is it?” he asked.

  “It’ll thaw out in a few days, I suppose,” said Wheeler. He walked toward the rear of the house. Goddard’s emergency coordinator, Hal Addison, was poking in the wreckage with two of his assistants.

  Wheeler asked if he could look around, and Addison, wearing a baffled frown, readily assented. He inspected the thin border between the section that had burned and the area that had apparently frozen, walking back and forth, kicking at timbers and brick dust and charred wood.

  “What are you looking for, Pete?” asked Leslie, joining them.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But there’ll be something here somewhere. Right in the middle.” And with that, he gave a cry of satisfaction and pointed beneath a blackened beam. Harry helped Addison’s men move it.

  In the debris was a blob of melted metal.

  “This is where we found the body,” said Addison.

  “Pete,” asked Harry, “do you know what happened?”

  “Inferno at one end,” said Wheeler. “Supercold at the other. I’ll tell you what it reminds me of: Maxwell’s Demon.”

  Leslie Davies was angry. Harry could see it in her eyes, and he wondered how she managed to conceal her emotions from her patients. She stood at her front door, with her hand on the knob, under bitter late winter stars, in a bathrobe, a nightgown, and a pair of slippers. And her mind was elsewhere. “We need some controls,” she said finally, pushing the door open, but still not moving from the concrete step. “Baines was out working on his own, too. You or Gambini or somebody is going to have to set up some procedures to stop the free-lancing. Did you see that hunk of slag that Pete pulled out of the debris? How’s anybody going to make sense of that? It just means someone else gets to blow himself up later.” Her eyes had fastened on him. They were round and weary and wet.

  “I’m sorry about Cord,” Harry said. He’d never liked Majeski and suspected that Leslie hadn’t either. But that didn’t seem to matter now.

  They went inside. “Harry,” she said, “Cord’s not the only victim. Everyone associated with the Hercules Project—Ed, Pete Wheeler, Baines, you, maybe even me—we should be at the peak of our professional careers, but somehow the project generates only disasters.”

  Harry didn’t know what to say; everything he could think of sounded frivolous, so he only watched her. Her voice shook; her nostrils had widened, and her breathing was uneven. The long stem of her throat disappeared into the bulky folds of her robe, a bland, shapeless garment that completely concealed the body beneath. She started out of the room.

  “Maybe Pete’s right,” Harry said. “Maybe we should destroy the discs.”

  That stopped her. She turned and looked at him. “No,” she said softly, “that’s no solution.”

  “Baines called it the Manhattan Option. Get rid of it while there’s still time.”

  “I’ll make coffee,” she said. “Pete doesn’t have an open mind.” She disappeared into the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened and closed, water ran into a pot, and then she was back at the doorway.

  “Sometimes I think,” Harry said, “he’s concerned that there may be a threat to the Church.”

  “No. It’s more complicated than that. Wheeler’s a strange man; I don’t understand how he could have become a priest. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I wonder how he could have remained one. He doesn’t believe, you know. Not in the Church. Certainly not in God. Although I suspect he’d like to.”

  “That’s absurd. I’ve known Wheeler for fifteen years. He wouldn’t stay with the order if he didn’t believe.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But he may not be aware of his true feelings. We all keep secrets from ourselves. I’ve known people, for example, who don’t know they hate their jobs. Or their spouses. Or even their kids.”

  “And you?” asked Harry, impulsively. “I wonder what secrets you have.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Coffee’s ready.”

  “Pete is the sort of man,” she said later, “who never stops changing. He couldn’t hold a credo for a lifetime. And anyhow his training is all in the other direction. He’s a skeptic by profession: he makes his living by dismantling other people’s theories.” The fire engines were beginning to pull away. “Does that make sense? Compared to what he is today, he was a child when he took orders. The Norbertines saw to his education, and he remains with them out of a sense of loyalty.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Harry. “I know him too well.” She had been standing by the window. Now she seated herself beside him on the sofa. It was a standard GSA issue with sliding square vinyl cushions. She’d thrown an afghan over it, but it didn’t help much; it was still lumpy and treacherous. “Why,” he asked, “would he feel threatened if he has no faith to lose?”

  “Oh, he has a faith to lose. Harry, he has probably, almost certainly, not admitted to himself that he no longer believes in the Christian God. But he’s nevertheless convinced that the orthodox position is a sham: Pete Wheeler no more seriously thinks that he’ll one day walk with the saints than you and I believe in ghosts.” She kicked off her shoes, pulled her knees up under her, and sipped her coffee. “He’s denied God in his heart, Harry. For him, that’s the final sin. But there can be no sin where there is no God. And that is the faith that the Altheans threaten with their talk of a Designer.”

  She was silent for a time. “And you?” asked Harry. “What threatens you?”

  Her eyes dimmed. Shadows moved across her jaw and throat. “I’m not sure. I’m beginning to feel that I know the Altheans pretty well. At least the one who sent the transmission. And what I get is a terrible sense of solitude. We’ve assumed that the communication is from one species to another. But I get the distinct sense that there’s only one of them, sitting in a tower somewhere, utterly alone.” There was something in her eyes that Harry had never seen before. “You know what it makes me think of, with all this talk of Wheeler? An isolated God, lost and drifting in the gulfs.”

  Harry put his hand over both of hers. She was lovely in the half-light.

  “The data sets,” she continued, “are full of vitality, compassion, a sense of wonder. There’s something almost childlike about them. And it’s hard to believe that the senders are a million years dead.” She wiped at her eyes. “And I’m not sure anymore what I’m trying to say.”

  He wat
ched her breast rise and fall. She turned her face toward his. Harry studied the warm geometry of softly curving lip and high cheekbone.

  “I’m never going to be the same, Harry. You know what? I think it was a mistake to bring the translations back here and read them alone at night.”

  “You’re not supposed to do that.” Harry smiled. “Does anybody around here obey the regulations?”

  “In this case, at least, I should have. I’m beginning to see things in the night, and hear voices in the dark.” Her head fell back, and a sound like laughter rose in her throat. He caught her eyes and became aware of his own heartbeat.

  His arm circled her shoulder, and he drew her forward. Their eyes joined, and she folded herself against him. Harry was acutely conscious of the body under the robe. It had been a long time since an honest female passion had been directed, without reservation, at him. He savored it, holding her, tracing the line of her jaw and throat with his fingertips. Her cheek was warm against his. After a time she whispered his name, and turned herself, turned him, so that she could reach his mouth. She fitted her lips gently to it.

  They were warm and full, and her breath was sweet. He explored her teeth and her tongue, and sensed the long well of her throat.

  Slowly, he loosened the robe and drew it down over her shoulders. Beneath the filmy texture of the nightgown, her nipples were erect.

  Senator Randall knew why they were there before either said a word, had known since they called the day before to announce they’d be flying in. Teresa Burgess carried the same heavy black bag she’d carried through half a dozen campaigns in Nebraska. Like its owner, it was somber and inflexible, constructed of stiff leather, and frayed around all the moving parts.

  In her, as in most people with a fiercely competitive nature, competence and ruthlessness had erased the gentler qualities from her expression, if not from her character. She represented the banking interests in Kansas City and Wichita, where she’d supported Randall for twenty years as faithfully as her father had supported the first Senator Randall.

  Her associate was Wendell Whitlock, the ex-officio party boss in the state. Whitlock had been an auto salesman at Rolley Chrysler-Plymouth (“Deal with Your Friends”) when Randall was trying to win a place on the Kansas City School Board. Later he sold dealerships, and eventually he sold influence.

  Randall broke out the Jack Daniels, and they laughed and talked about old times; but his visitors were restrained and not entirely at ease. “I guess you don’t think we can make it in November,” he said finally, looking from one to the other.

  Whitlock put up a hand as though he were going to protest that no such consideration was abroad. But the gesture dissolved. “These haven’t been good times, Randy,” he admitted. “It’s not your fault, God knows it isn’t, but you know how people are. The goddam combines control the prices, interest rates are high, and your constituents aren’t very prosperous. They got to blame somebody. So they’re going to take it out on the President, and you.”

  “I’ve done what I could,” protested Randall. “Some of the votes that upset people, the second farm bill, the milling regulations, the rest of it, that was compromise stuff. If I hadn’t gone along, Lincoln wouldn’t have got the school appropriation, the defense contracts that went to Random and McKittridge in North Platte—out in your country, Teresa—would have gone to those bastards in Massachusetts.”

  “Randy,” said Burgess, “you don’t have to tell us any of that. We know. But that isn’t the point.”

  “What is the point?” Randall asked angrily. These goddam people owed him a lot. Burgess’s Wheat Exchange would still be a tin-pot operation in Broken Bow if it hadn’t been for him. And Whitlock owed his first decent job with the party to the senator’s intervention. He wondered what had happened to loyalty.

  “The point,” said Burgess, “is that there’s a lot of money at stake here. The people who’ve backed you stand to lose their asses if they do it again and you don’t win.”

  “Hell, Teresa, I’ll win. You know that.”

  “I don’t know it. The party is going for a ride. Hurley is going to lose, no matter who the Democrats run, and the people associated with him are going to take the pipe. People may like him personally, but they’re not going to stand for his policies anymore. And nobody in the Senate is more closely linked to him than you are. Randy, the truth is, you probably won’t even be able to get the party’s nomination. Perlmutter is popular downstate. And he looks strong in Omaha and Lincoln.”

  “Perlmutter’s a kid. What could he do for the state?”

  “Randy.” Whitlock didn’t sound so soothing now. He’d grown a mustache since Randall had last seen him. It was hard to understand why: he looked devious enough without it. “This isn’t like before. There isn’t a farmer in the state who’ll vote for you. My God, more than half of those people out there are calling themselves Democrats now. You ever hear of Democrat farmers before?”

  “Farmers always bitch,” said Randall. “They forget their gripes when they get in the voting booth and they’re looking at a choice between one of their own and some goddam liberal who wants to give their money away.”

  Burgess’s chin rose. “Randy, the farmers have no money. Not anymore. And so you don’t get the wrong idea, they’re not alone in this. Now, I’m not saying that my people would leave the party, Jesus no, but I am saying that, for the sake of the party, they’re going to be pushing for a fresh candidate. And they like Perlmutter.”

  “You two,” Randall said accusingly, “could change all that.”

  “We could keep most of the money in line,” Whitlock admitted. “We could probably even cut Perlmutter out. But he’d take his people with him, which would split us at a time when we need everybody.” He took a deep breath. “Randy, if you step down now, the governor will find a decent situation for you—they’re talking about Commerce—and you get spared the embarrassment of November.”

  “Whit.” Randall sought his eyes, but they were, as always, elusive. “Hurley isn’t going to lose.”

  “I wish that were true.” Whitlock smiled.

  Burgess, who was perhaps more observant, leaned forward. “Why not?” she asked.

  “It’s a defense matter.” He hesitated. “I’m not free to discuss it.”

  The banker shrugged. “I’m not free to commit anyone on idle rumor, Randy.”

  No one moved.

  “We’re probably going to be able to do something about the Soviets.”

  On the night that Cord Majeski died, Cyrus Hakluyt was at home in Catonsville. Unlike most of his colleagues, he had no inclination to allow the project to swallow his personal life. He did not put in the overtime that Gambini seemed to expect of everyone, working seven days a week into the early morning hours and then retreating to the bland frame houses that Harry Carmichael had provided in Venture Park.

  Hakluyt had spent the evening with friends, some of whom might have noticed in the usually somber microbiologist an uncharacteristic exuberance. Cy was in a good mood. No one present, even Oscar Kazmaier, who’d known him from Westminster days, had ever before seen him drink too much. But they had to take him home in the early morning hours.

  Actually, Hakluyt could recall two earlier bouts with the bottle. They had occurred on the evening he’d lost Pat and the afternoon that Houghton Mifflin had bought The Place without Roads. His Nobel, which had been awarded for his work with nucleic acids, had prompted no such eruption.

  He was a little late getting to the lab in the morning, where, of course, everyone was talking about Cord Majeski’s death. A memo was tacked to the bulletin board giving the name and address of Majeski’s father and sister.

  “He was building a device he’d found in the Text,” said Gambini. “We don’t know what it was supposed to be, but Pete thinks it had something to do with statistical manipulation of gases inside magnetic bottles. But it must have gotten away from him.”

  “I guess,” said Hakluyt. “Was anyone el
se hurt?”

  “No. He was alone in the house.”

  “Do we know why the experiment blew up?”

  “It didn’t. Exactly.” Gambini frowned. “Listen, Cy, he might have achieved statistical control of the first law of thermodynamics.”

  Hakluyt didn’t laugh, but it took all his restraint. “If I follow what you’re saying, it’s not possible.”

  “The first law isn’t absolute,” said Gambini. “It doesn’t have to be that heat passes from a warm gas to a cool one. It’s only highly probable, because of the molecular exchange. But some of the molecules in the warm gas move more slowly than some of the more active molecules in the cool gas. And vice versa. Cord’s device may have acted as a monitor, creating a Maxwell’s Demon.”

  Hakluyt sat down. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “James Maxwell was a nineteenth-century physicist who proposed that, if a demon could sit between two compartments, one filled with a hot gas and the other with a cool gas, he could create an interesting effect by allowing only the fastest molecules from the cool side to enter the hot chamber, and letting only the slowest molecules from the hot side to pass into the cool chamber.”

  “What would happen,” finished Hakluyt, “is that the hot gas would get hotter, and the cold gas would become colder! And you think,” he said skeptically, “something like that happened to Majeski? It’s absurd.”

  “Have you seen the house? Go down and take a look. Then come back and we’ll talk about absurdities.”

  Hakluyt stared into Gambini’s eyes. His spectacles had slid forward on the bridge of his nose and he persisted throughout the conversation in peering over them. “Okay,” he said. “Maybe it’s time we asked ourselves what we’re dealing with on the other end of this transmission. Has it occurred to anyone that the bastards are vindictive? I mean, why else would they send us directions for something that would blow up in our faces?”

  “No!” snapped Gambini. “We’re just not being careful enough. Nobody’s going to go to all the trouble they did to play a goddam joke! Part of the problem here might have been that we simply didn’t understand the specifications. Maybe we’re not as bright as they think we should be! We couldn’t even work out the power specs.”