Artifact

by Gregory Benford

  “Shee-it,” John said softly.

  “I cannot believe he would—”

  “Well, he did. Point is, what do we do?”

  “Remember Friday, the way he was so unpredictable? You two blustered at each other, but all the time his team was figuring out how to come back, break in—”

  “I repeat, what do we do?”

  “Try to work these chairs over to the desk? Knock over the phone? Dial the police with my tongue?” Claire snorted.

  “If only Abe comes in early,” John said. He worked his hands around but Sergeant Petrakos had secured them well, using nylon rope.

  “He might,” Claire conceded. “The police could spot that truck.”

  “Especially since I saw the license plate number,” John said. “It was reflected in that stainless steel plating on the spectrometer—see over there?”

  “Marvelous! Their flight can’t leave immediately. There’s a lot of paperwork for shipping something that heavy air freight. A call to Logan—”

  “How’s your tongue?”

  “Good point. I can’t even move this damned chair.”

  John sighed. He was sore between the legs and still feeling nauseous. He couldn’t get his feet free enough to lift the chair and move it. All the solutions that movie detectives used didn’t seem to apply here. Maybe a university cop would come by on his rounds, but that was probably infrequent on a Sunday. Kontos had undoubtedly had some way to find that out, too. He had channels.

  “One good thing,” John said.

  “What could possibly be good about this?”

  “No need for you to be nervous anymore. Kontos won’t show up at your talk tonight.”

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  Mr. Carmody from Washington was a good dresser. His thick brown hair was cut close and his shoes gleamed with fresh black polish. He sat comfortably at his desk, careful to not blunt the creases in his gray double-knit suit. On his coat rack, Claire noted, a jaunty narrow-brim hat right in line with fashion sat atop a russet topcoat.

  They were on the eighth floor of the JFK Federal Building between Cambridge and Congress Streets. The heating didn’t seem to be on during weekends. Claire shivered. Mr. Carmody had apparently appropriated the office with a two-minute phone call. As a testament to his power it was impressive. Thick carpeting, maroon drapes to offset the pastel walls, even a couch. He had just finished telling them about how disturbed the State Department was about all this, which was why he had taken the first flight in from Washington.

  “This is a small matter, or at least it seemed to me, until Dr. Zaninetti spoke to some figures in the administration,” Carmody said. He threaded his hands solemnly. In contrast to his immaculate clothes, his face was pock-marked and rough, a rhinestone in a golden setting.

  “He did?” Claire was surprised.

  “Must’ve gotten right on the phone,” John said.

  “Dr. Zaninetti has a theory that this object, the stolen object, may be dangerous.” Carmody looked for confirming nods from them.

  Instead, John said forcefully, “It’s not his theory, but he may be right. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the problem, more than Zaninetti, and yes, the singularity at the center of the cube is probably in a precarious equilibrium.”

  Claire sighed. She knew what came next. Carmody asked the predictable questions about singularities and John replied—how big? (infinitesimal); weight? (a few hundred pounds, no more); binding energy? (megatons of TNT); why did it stay in the cube so long? (trapped in magnetic fields produced by the iron inside the cube).

  Carmody asked how the ancients had found it, and Claire said that it must have made some sound or given off light when a piece of stone fell into the singularity. She pointed out that the amber cone was translucent; perhaps they were awed by the occasional bursts of light from inside. There weren’t any solid answers yet.

  Then discussion returned to binding energies. As John struggled to convey the provisional nature of his calculations, she thought ahead about tonight. The lecture was certainly going to have a dramatic conclusion now—an announcement that the cube was stolen. And strangely, the hubbub of the day had made it impossible to be nervous about giving the speech. She had her slides, and now felt no need of rehearsing. In popularizing a scientific development it was always crucial to sail the narrow strait between the Scylla of professional contempt and the Charybdis of public befuddlement. Perhaps, then, she could err on the side of strait-laced professionalism, relying on the public drama to provide human interest.

  Abe had found them about an hour and a half later. The first police to arrive were two bull-necked clichés in a squad car. They studied the steel drop door intently for clues, as though they had never seen one before; and then stood around looking bored. A detective from the Cambridge station appeared, not particularly excited either. He had called the airport quickly enough, but there was no record of anyone shipping a large object to Greece. They were looking into other destinations. Meanwhile the airport police were on the lookout, and so forth.

  Beyond that the police were not vastly concerned. Compared to a weekend load of traffic accidents, break-ins with colateral violence, and a sniper incident nearby in Somerville, losing an old piece of rock was not pulse-pounding stuff.

  Claire had called Hampton, who was suitably shocked. He professed no knowledge of Kontos’s true plans, and emphasized that he, Hampton, had made quite plain the need to let the physics measurements go on at MIT for another week. Hampton had gone on at great length about Kontos’s reputation, about how it must be some terrible misunderstanding which had forced the man to do this.

  Only Zaninetti had been agitated at the news, and had acted, using the full weight of his contacts in the National Academy and probably elsewhere. Zaninetti was at this moment trying to get more action from the local police.

  “Mr. Carmody,” Claire interrupted John’s carefully phrased explanations of the physics. “You are from the State Department?”

  “No, I obtained my information through them. Until today they were handling this as a diplomatic difficulty.”

  “Then what do you represent?”

  Mr. Carmody smiled disarmingly. “Let’s say I’m a general kind of troubleshooter. I size up situations when the bigger agencies, well, they might take a little longer to get men in place.”

  “So somebody thinks this could be dangerous,” Claire said flatly.

  “If Dr. Zaninetti is correct, and Dr. Bishop, then this, ah, singularity is a potential, well, bomb.”

  “And the Greeks got out of the country with it.”

  Carmody shook his head. “Not through any airport near here. A private plane, perhaps—though I do not understand how they could get it through customs.”

  “Kontos could fake the papers,” she said. “I did it once.”

  Carmody raised his eyebrows at this revelation, but said nothing. Then he pursed his lips and murmured, “The truck, however, we have located.”

  “Where?” Claire asked.

  “On a street leading into Logan.”

  “They must have taken it out by air.”

  “But the air freight authority says—”

  “What about private planes?”

  “Those must go through the same procedures. There has been no sign of the Greeks, or of such cargo.”

  “Check again,” Claire said adamantly.

  “Ah. Well, this also indicates they cared little about whether the truck was found quickly. After what Kontos said to you about flying away, he knew we would look at Logan first.”

  “So you figure,” John said, “they thought they’d be far gone by the time you turned up that truck.”

  “Yes. A mystery. They went into Logan, but they didn’t fly out.”

  “No,” Claire said, “the truck ended up there. Where we’d expect it.”

  Carmody sucked on his teeth. “And they took the artifact elsewhere?”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Any damn where. Wher
e’s the truck from?”

  “Hertz.”

  “Uh.” John scowled. “If they transferred the cube to another truck…”

  “Doesn’t that seem like a lot of trouble, when you’re trying to get away?” Claire asked.

  “These people took pains. They planted bugs all over that lab of yours. My people just found half a dozen.”

  John said, “What? To eavesdrop?”

  “Right. They heard your ideas. Undoubtedly knew you weren’t planning on working there Sunday morning.”

  “Damn!” Claire said. “That fight.”

  “What?” John looked puzzled. “Oh, I see. While Kontos and I went at it, his people planted the bugs.”

  “I thought there was something odd about the way that happened,” Claire said. “He seemed so damned smug.”

  “So what? He’s always that way,” John said wanly.

  Carmody said, “Depending on how much you said to each other in the lab, Kontos knows some of your ideas about the singularity. That it might be a weapon.” He regarded them steadily, as if expecting some reaction.

  “Weapon? I never used terms like that,” John said.

  “Good. It occurred to Professor Zaninetti.”

  “Look, we don’t know enough to even imagine how such a particle could be used that way,” John said. “It’s all speculation.”

  “Kontos has real pros with him. Sound intelligence people. Hell, we helped train them, I imagine. Given time, they’ll figure this out.”

  John said, “Even if they do, it’s a big leap—”

  Carmody tapped the desk. “With the Russian nationalists moving divisions around, the Turks surly, and the depression, this region’s a tinderbox.”

  “But that’s just local politics,” Claire said.

  “We don’t want anything as explosive as this getting into the wrong hands. In the eastern Mediterranean, there are plenty of them.”

  John said with a touch of impatience, “Point is, where’s the artifact? Can’t your men track Kontos?”

  Carmody smiled wanly. “We’re stopped cold.”

  “There must be something simpler,” Claire said. “I mean, maybe Kontos changed his plans, after we caught them.”

  “I’d say ‘caught’ isn’t the right word,” John said ruefully. “More like the other way around.”

  “No, I mean, he couldn’t be sure we hadn’t seen the license plate of that truck.”

  “Or that somebody might get it when they drove away,” Carmody agreed.

  “This is too confusing,” Claire said.

  Carmody said, “And not our proper function. The police know more about such things, though of course this is not your customary burglary.”

  “We could look at other ways to get out of the country,” John put in.

  “Drive across into Canada?” Carmody asked. “The police will routinely—”

  “No, by sea. Just sail away with it.”

  “Ummm. Seems a slow method for someone running from the police.”

  “Kontos has unusual resources. Greek freighters all over Boston Harbor, for one.” John looked at his watch. “Claire, it’s getting around to that time.”

  “What time?”

  They told him about the lecture. Carmody scowled. “No, you can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” Claire demanded.

  “You’re not the only scientists in the world. Kontos may be a fool, but others won’t be. This thing may have enormous implications, and it is missing. If it is unstable, and could be in Boston, could be anywhere—you see?”

  Claire could, which was unfortunate. She had counted on her talk to get her reputation back, or at least to stem the tide of gossip now running through every archeology department in the country, if not in the world.

  She began to explain this, but Carmody shook his head. “You must understand that your interest, and the archeological aspects of this, are secondary.” Carmody sucked on his teeth again, a habit which was beginning to annoy her. “National security interests demand that you not speak. In the end, perhaps in a few days, we will probably have it back. Then”—he beamed—“then you can tell all. Is that too much to ask?”

  Yes, she thought, and ground her own teeth. But there seemed no way out. In one day she had lost her artifact and her chance to speak out.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  At least his sore ribs were better, John reflected ruefully as he crossed the Charles the next morning, a clear sunny Monday. Everyone had forgotten that particular humiliation, the way Kontos had not only bruised John, but had done it as a cover for planting bugs. It was that last bit that really stung.

  He put it out of his mind. His telephone had jangled for an hour this morning with calls from friends who had heard rumors. Abe got through to say that Zaninetti wanted a meeting right away at the lab, to get their story straight. Obviously it was going to be closely scrutinized by Carmody and then, inevitably, the press. Hampton had already agreed. John called Claire and left.

  He saw a crowd at the entrance of MIT. They spilled onto Memorial Drive beneath a hard gray sky. TV units paid them the attention and respect now automatically given to any mob with a cause. For a moment he was afraid the news had broken, but as he crossed the Harvard Bridge he could see the placards were filled with the word NUCLEAR, usually written in red with orange outlining to indicate, perhaps, radiation.

  As he worked his way through the crowd, which had begun chanting, a woman approached with a large placard and a sheaf of propaganda. The placard said:

  NUCLEAR POWER = NUCLEAR WAR = NUCLEAR MEDICINE

  She said, “Will you join us?”

  “How do you feel about the nuclear family?” he replied, and walked on.

  A few weeks before he had been reading a student senior thesis on the history of science in this century, and had found some of it surprising. In the 1930s people wanted to become radioactive. It was the newest buzz word. Radium could help cancer patients, of course, but that wasn’t all. Many thought that a little radioactivity was a healthful stimulant. Spas proudly advertised the natural radioactivity of their waters. You could take radium by capsule, tablet, compress, bath salts, liniment, cream, inhalation, injection or suppository. You could eat mildly radioactive chocolate candies, then brush your teeth with radioactive toothpaste. The manufacturers claimed that their nostrums would give relief from tuberculosis, rickets, tumors, baldness and flagging sexual powers.

  Now society was suffering through the backlash. Everything nuclear was tarred with the same brush, uniting Luddites and pacifists and the anti-anythings, Quixotes tilting at satanic mills. John shook his head. It was sad, in a way, because the true stupidities of the age lay elsewhere. To him it was madness to burn precious oil to provide electricity, like making coat hangers out of platinum. What was becoming clear now, only as the oil supply visibly dwindled, was that oil was more valuable as a lubricant, particularly at high temperatures, and there were no good replacements. But this was a subtle argument, unlikely to charm the sign carriers. He sighed. Imagine what this crowd would make of the singularity. He sighed again.

  And ran straight into the camera crew at Abe’s lab. They were waiting impatiently outside, one leather-jacketed man pounding on the steel doors. They saw him approach and turned to shout questions. John used his key on the side door and slipped in before they reached him.

  Donald Hampton came striding forward to greet him, “I want you to know how shocked I am at all this attention.”

  “You brought those TV people?” John asked sharply.

  “Well, after Claire’s call, I had to notify the president of our university, and he—”

  “Great. Do they know anything about the physics aspects?”

  “Well, all things considered, I had to account for the fact that the artifact was not returned immediately, and I repeated something of what Abe had said, but—”

  “Oh God.”

  Claire was talking to Abe. John told Hampton to go out and de
al with the damned TV crew, since he was the leak, and to talk only about archeology and the regrettable theft. The others were gathered around the forlorn spot where diagnostics waited in an expectant circle for an artifact that wasn’t there.

  As he approached Claire said, “Ah, you got rid of him. Saves me the trouble of scratching his eyes out.”

  “Okay, look, he made an error—”

  “Impossible. To err is human.”

  “—And there’s nothing we can do but cover it over, not alarm the almighty media.”

  Claire asked, “How is your jaw? It looks terrible.”

  John touched it gingerly. “Stiffened up overnight.” He spoke with teeth clenched to reduce movement. “Closest I’m going to get to a Harvard accent.”

  Claire smiled affectionately. Abe’s white caterpillar eyebrows arched and he pressed on, “I much agree, no TV. Those bastards have got my data. If I can negotiate its return before this gets onto the idiot tube, perhaps then there comes a chance to get it back. Also, if it is as dangerous as you and Zaninetti say, we should inform the Greek government.”

  They all agreed. Abe added, “My x-ray and gamma-ray counters, I checked them, too. That is part of the story. They registered a rising flux, steadily going up in time through Saturday night, until it was snatched.”

  “On all counters?” John asked.

  “No, the ones over here show about three times the average count rate.” Abe walked to five counters that covered a quadrant. His herringbone jacket bulged with electrical instruments he had absently pocketed and forgotten. “The cone was pointed this way, you remember.”

  “Yes…” Claire said slowly. “We were looking at emission from the plug, and I suppose we neglected the cone side.”

  John studied the count rates at each detector and frowned. The maximum was along the cone axis, which was unsurprising—less rock to stop the emission. But why was the strongest radiation along the cone, rather than the plug? “The singularity is giving off radiation preferentially in one direction,” he said.