“That’s why they call it Blueprint.”
“I guess. I’m not sure what it means.”
“But they haven’t started it yet?”
“Not Blueprint, no.”
“When are they going to begin?”
“Gaspard didn’t know. He’s not sure they’ve set a date yet.”
“Okay, thanks, Eric. I’ll take it from here.”
GASPARD WAS IN New York. She jotted down his code and asked George to connect with him.
He was a physicist acting as liaison between Manhattan Labs and a consortium based in Marseilles. She was surprised by his appearance. He looked not much older than a high school kid. He had a bright smile and a lot of energy. Cinnamon-colored hair, matching eyes, and a long nose. She immediately thought of a young Sherlock Holmes. But he dispelled that quickly with a decided French accent. “Yes,” he said, after she’d introduced herself, “I spoke with your Mr. Samuels.”
“We’re fascinated by what you’re doing, Professor.” It seemed an odd title for one so young. “Do you really expect to be able to penetrate beyond the Big Bang?”
He lit up. His favorite subject. “Yes,” he said. “There is no doubt.”
“Can you explain it to me? Tell me what you plan to do?”
It would be his pleasure, madame. He launched into a description of particles, equations, evaporating holes, collider capabilities. She tried to follow but quickly got lost. It didn’t matter. She asked innocuous questions: How long do you think it will take to get that result? How much energy is employed? And, eventually, one that intrigued her: “What kind of results do you expect? What will you find?”
“That’s impossible to answer, Madame Hutchins. We are only at the beginning of transuniversal physics. At the moment, we know almost nothing.”
She wondered why anyone would want to destroy the effort. It seemed harmless enough. “Do you foresee the possibility that we will acquire weapons capabilities from this?”
“Weapons?” He let her see the question was absurd. “I can’t imagine how. But who knows? Why do you ask?”
“Idle curiosity, Professor. I’m impressed that you can manipulate black holes. I would have thought that would entail a level of risk.”
“At no time,” he said. “It was never an issue. The black holes we have always worked with. They are quite small. Microscopic. They are by nature unstable.” He shrugged and smiled. Voilà.
“You told Eric you weren’t sure when they would run Blueprint?”
“That is correct. They haven’t set a date yet, but I suspect it’s imminent. Most of their support personnel left last week.”
“You’re not going?”
“Oh, yes. I’m leaving Tuesday. But I’ll be there purely as an observer.”
“I see.”
“If everything goes according to plan, it will be an historic occasion.”
“That makes it sound as if they’re going to be working with a more massive hole.”
“Ah,” he said, “holes do not have mass. But for practical purposes, that’s true. We need more energy than we’ve been able to produce previously. Blueprint will be bigger than anything we’ve done before. That is the advantage of having the hypercollider. And this is only the beginning. We are entering a whole new era, madame. I would very much like to be here when the project is finished.”
“You’re referring to the construction of Origins.”
“Yes. When it is finally done, I think everything will lie open to us.”
“Is the larger hole safe?”
“Oh, yes. There’s no question about that. We wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t safe.”
“It’ll dissipate on its own.”
“Absolutely.”
“You look doubtful, Professor.” Actually, he looked supremely confident.
Gaspard waggled his head back and forth. Grinned. “Well, of course, when you’re dealing with a completely new area of research, you can never be one hundred percent certain. Of anything.”
“What could go wrong?”
“Nothing, really.”
She smiled at him. Come on, Gaspard, we’re all friends here. “Worst-case scenario.”
He considered it. “There’s a remote chance, extremely remote, the experiment could cause a tear.”
“In —?”
“The time-space fabric. But the chance of that happening is so slight that it is essentially zero.”
“If that did occur, Professor, a tear in the time-space fabric, what would be the result?”
He looked uncomfortable. Tried to wave it away. “It would disrupt things.”
“What things?”
“Pretty much everything.”
“Are we talking about losing the facility?”
“Well, yes. Along with — ”
“Everything else.”
“Yes. But it’s not going to happen.”
“It would proceed how? Instantaneous lights out for all of us?”
“Oh, no. It would be limited to cee.”
“Light speed.”
“Yes.”
“We’re talking about the possibility of destroying, what, the entire cosmos?”
“I keep trying to explain, that is not really a consideration — ”
“Maybe it should be.”
THE TRUTH WAS, Hutch didn’t want to believe Amy’s experience had actually happened. Not only because the prospect of a shoot-out with a species that appeared to have advanced technology was not a happy thought, but also because the whole idea of an apparition in a lonely museum just begged to be written off as someone’s imagination.
She had to decide whether she believed the story or not. If she did, she was going to need the commissioner’s support. There could be no cautious statements with him, no observation that we have reason to believe. Either it was so, or it wasn’t.
She found him in a downtown restaurant. He had company and wasn’t happy about being disturbed. “Yes, Hutch,” he said wearily. “What is it?” She could hear the murmur of conversation in the background and the occasional clink of dishes or silverware.
“Sorry to bother you, Michael. I thought you should know what’s happening.” They were audio only, but there was no mistaking the resignation in his voice. “There was a direct encounter, a conversation, with the moonriders.”
“We talked to them?” His voice became simultaneously hushed and high-pitched. “Wait a minute.” She heard his chair scrape the floor. He assured someone he’d be right back. Then: “We talked to them by radio? Are you sure?”
“Not radio. At the museum.”
“They stopped by the museum?”
“Yes. In a manner of speaking.”
“Hutch, what are you talking about?”
She described the incident, holding back only that the moonrider had resembled her. “If she’s right, they’re all in danger out there.”
“Amy?” He sounded despondent.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s just great. Does the senator know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll have to tell him.” He sounded like a man in pain. “Why on Earth are they doing these things?”
She hated to mention her suspicions about Blueprint. He’d want to dismiss it. And might use it to dismiss everything. But it would come out eventually. So she told him everything. To her surprise, he listened quietly. When she had finished, she could hear him breathing. Then: “God help us. You really think there’s something to it?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Let me talk to Taylor. Then — ”
“Michael, don’t say anything to him until tomorrow. Give me a chance to get back to Amy. Warn her, so she can tell him herself.”
“You say they’re going to run this Blueprint soon?”
“It sounds as if they’ll do it within a week or two.”
These things don’t happen. “It’s a kid with an overactive imagination,” he said. “It has to be.”
“She told the others about Blueprint right after it happened. It’s too much of a coincidence, Michael. How much clout do we have with the Europeans?”
“Not much. Look, even if I pass this along, I can’t swear to it. Nobody’s going to believe it.” He was talking to himself under his breath. “Okay. I’ll head home. Keep a channel open. We’ll talk to Allard from there.”
We?
SHE ALERTED AMY, who got annoyed. “I wish he wouldn’t involve my father.”
“We don’t really have a choice.”
She was silent for a time. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”
“Something else you should be aware of. We’ll try to keep your name out of it, but I doubt we’ll be able to. You’ll probably have to deal with the media again. This time they might be a bit more aggressive.”
ASQUITH WAS IN a dinner jacket when he appeared in Hutch’s home office. He was also in a foul mood. Maybe it didn’t help that it was raining, and he looked wet. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when it first happened?” he demanded.
“I didn’t think there was anything to the story. That’s beside the point now. We need to call the Europeans. Warn them.”
He dropped into a chair, looked away, played with his cuffs. “How?” he said. “How do I tell them to evacuate two hundred people, but the only evidence we have is a kid’s dream? How are we going to look?”
“You’ll also want to tell them to cancel Blueprint.”
“Hutch, this is crazy. My career is on the line here. So is yours.”
“There’s a lot more on the line than our careers, Michael.”
“That’s easy to say. You know, this probably is nothing more than the kid’s imagination.”
Hutch was tired. It had been a horribly long day. “Let’s grant that. So we give them a warning, nothing happens, and you and I look dumb. But suppose it’s the other way round and we sit on this and two hundred people die?”
“I know. It’s not an easy call.”
Don’t say what you’re thinking, Babe. “We have no choice, Michael. If you want, you can disappear, and I’ll make the call. If it goes wrong, you can deny all knowledge.”
“No.” He climbed gallantly out of his chair. Squared his shoulders. “It’s my job.” It was right out of a vid. You go ahead, get clear, I’ll take the heat on this one. He told the AI to get Dr. Allard. Then he turned back to Hutch. “Make yourself comfortable. This might take a while.”
It took only seconds. Allard’s official title was Director of the European Deep Space Commission. Hutch had met him at a formal dinner several years earlier, but had never really had a chance to talk with him. It was four or five A.M. in Paris, but he nevertheless seemed to be in his office. “Hello, Michael,” he said cheerfully. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”