LITMIR.BIZ

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A smokeless coal fire – for this was a smokeless area – did its best to burn cheerfully in the hearth. Wrinfield and Bruno occupied an armchair apiece: Fawcett was presiding over a cocktail cabinet, one of the portable kind.

      Bruno said carefully: ‘Tell me again, please. About this anti-matter or whatever you call it.’

      Fawcett sighed. ‘I was afraid you might ask me that. I know I got it right first time, because I’d memorized what I had to say and just repeated it parrot fashion. I had to because I don’t really know what it’s all about myself.’ Fawcett handed round drinks – a soda for Bruno – and rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll try and simplify it this time round. Then maybe I’ll be able to get some inklings of understanding myself.

      ‘Matter, we know, is made up of atoms. There are lots of things that go to make up those atoms – scientists, it seems, are becoming increasingly baffled about the ever-increasing complexity of the atom – but all that concerns our simple minds are the two basic constituents of the atom, electrons and protons. On our earth – in the universe, for that matter – electrons are invariably negatively charged and protons positively charged. Unfortunately, life is becoming increasingly difficult for our scientists and astronomers – for instance, it has been discovered only this year that there are particles, made of God knows what, that travel at many times the speed of light, which is a very upsetting and distressing concept for all those of the scientist community – and that was one hundred per cent – who believe that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. However, that’s by the way.

      ‘Some time ago a couple of astronomers – Dicke and Anderson were their names – made the inconvenient discovery, based on theoretical calculations, that there must exist positively charged electrons. Their existence is now universally accepted, and they are referred to today as positrons. Then, to complicate things still further, the existence of anti-protons was discovered – this was in Berkeley – again electrically opposite to our protons. A combination of positrons and antiprotons would give rise to what is now termed “anti-matter”. That anti-matter does exist no serious scientists seriously dispute.

      ‘Nor do they dispute that if an electron or positron or proton and anti-proton collided or both sets collided the results would be disastrous. They would annihilate each other, giving off lethal gamma rays and creating, in the process, a considerable local uproar and a blast of such intense heat that all life within tens or perhaps hundreds of square miles would be instantaneously wiped out. On this scientists are agreed. It is estimated that if only two grams of anti-matter struck our planet on the side out-facing the sun the result would be to send the earth, with all life immediately extinct, spinning into the gravitational orbit of the sun. Provided, of course, it didn’t disintegrate immediately on contact.’

      ‘A delightful prospect,’ Wrinfield said. He did not have the look of a convert about him. ‘No offence, but it sounds like the most idle science-fiction speculation to me.’

      ‘Me, too. But I have to accept what I’m told. Anyway, I’m beginning to believe it.’

      ‘Look. We don’t have any of this anti-matter stuff on earth?’

      ‘Because of anti-matter’s unpleasant propensity for annihilating all matter with which it comes into contact, that should be fairly obvious.’

      ‘Then where does the stuff come from?’

      ‘How the hell should I know?’ Fawcett hadn’t intended to be irritable, he just disliked treading the murky waters of the unknown. ‘We think ours is the only universe. How do we know? Maybe there lies another universe beyond ours, maybe many. It seems, according to latest scientific thinking, that if there are such universes, there is no reason why one or more should not be made of anti-matter.’ Fawcett paused gloomily. ‘I suppose if any intelligent beings existed there they would consider our universe as being composed of anti-matter. Of course, it could have been some rogue material thrown off at the moment of creation of our own universe. Who’s to say?’

      Bruno said: ‘So the whole matter is speculation. It’s just a hypothesis. Theoretical calculations, that’s all. There is no proof, Colonel Fawcett.’

      ‘We think there is.’ He smiled. ‘Forgive the use of the “we”. What could have been, in the terms of human lives, a disaster of the first magnitude occurred in a happily unpopulated area of northern Siberia in 1908. When Russian scientists got around to investigating this – almost twenty years later – they discovered an area of over a hundred square miles where trees had been destroyed by heat: not fire but by instantaneous incineration which, in many cases, led to the petrification of trees in the upright position. Had this extraordinary phenomenon occurred over, say, New York or London, they would have become blackened cities of the dead.’

      ‘Proof,’ Bruno said. ‘We were speaking of proof, Colonel.’

      ‘Proof. Every other known damage caused to the earth by the impact of bodies from outer space has, without explanation, been caused by meteors. There was no trace of the meteor that might have caused this Siberian holocaust and no signs of any mark upon the ground where the meteor might have crashed into it; when meteors crashed into Arizona and South Africa they left enormous craters in the ground. The now accepted and indeed inevitable conclusion is that Siberia was struck by a particle of anti-matter with a mass of something of the order of one hundredth of a millionth of a gram.’

      There was a considerable silence, then Wrinfield said: ‘Well, we have already covered this. Second time round it’s a bit clearer, but not much. So?’

      ‘Some dozen years ago there was scientific speculation as to whether the Russians had discovered the secret of anti-matter but this was dismissed out of hand because – well, because of anti-matter’s unpleasant propensity of annihilating all matter with which it comes into contact, the creation, harnessing and storage of it was impossible.

      ‘Was impossible. What if it were possible or about to become possible? The nation that held this secret could hold the world to ransom. Comparatively, nuclear weapons are inoffensive toys for the amusement of little toddlers.’

      For a long minute no one spoke, then Wrinfield said: ‘You would not be talking in this fashion unless you had reason to believe that such a weapon exists or could exist.’

      ‘I have reason so to believe. This possibility has obsessed the intelligence agencies of all the modern world for some years now.’

      ‘Obviously this secret is not in our hands, or you wouldn’t be telling us all this.’

      ‘Obviously.’

      ‘And it wouldn’t be in the hands of a country such as Britain?’

      ‘That would give us no cause for anxiety.’

      ‘Because when the chips are down they would be allies with responsible hands?’

      ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

      ‘Then this secret resides – if it does reside anywhere – in the hands of a country which, when the chips were down, would be neither friendly nor responsible?’

      ‘Precisely.’ Pilgrim, Fawcett reflected, had warned him not to underrate Wrinfield’s intelligence. Wrinfield said slowly: ‘Pilgrim and I have already made some tentative arrangements, come to preliminary agreements. You will know that. But he never told me any of this.’

      ‘The time wasn’t right.’

      ‘So now it is?’

      ‘Now or not at all.’

      ‘Of course, you want this secret or formula or whatever?’

      Fawcett began to revise his opinion of Wrinfield’s intelligence. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘What makes you think our hands are more responsible than those of a score of other nations?’

      ‘I’m a paid employee of the United States government. Mine is not to reason why.’

      ‘It will

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