He took the magazine from the shopkeeper’s hands and read the article’s title. I WAS THERE—WHEN THE ATOMIC AGE WAS BORN!
His eyes quickly scanned the text but caught at nothing. “Can I borrow this?” he said, looking up at the shopkeeper.
“Eh, keep it.” The man made a little pushing motion with his palm. “I only save ’em because I’m too lazy to throw ’em away.”
“Hey, thanks.” Gripping the magazine, Ralph turned and ran from the store.
When he got back to his apartment on the base he dropped onto the couch and started to read the article. It only took a few minutes to devour.
The article’s author had been one of the scientists who had worked in 1942 to create the world’s first nuclear pile—CP-1, or Chicago Pile Number One. In typical Reader’s Digest prose, he described the construction, supervised by Enrico Fermi, of the twenty-four-foot diameter sphere from graphite bricks and uranium metal and oxides, and the work crews—University of Chicago graduate students—smearing their faces with the greasy dark stuff and catching their fingers between the heavy bricks.
As a safety measure— Ralph leaned forward, reading the scientist’s words intently— we constructed a “zip rod.” This was a wooden rod running through the pile with strips of cadmium metal tacked to it. Cadmium, the best of neutron sponges, would put out any atomic conflagration that got out of hand. The rod had to be pulled out of the pile by a rope before the nuclear reaction could begin; release the rope and it would zip back into the pile, quenching the neutron activity.
The article ended with Fermi and the rest going on to glory, choirs of radiation counters clattering softly in the background, and the Atomic Age dawning its harsh light over the world.
So what’s that got to do with anything? thought Ralph, laying the magazine down on the couch. Its pages fluttered shut. He couldn’t see any connection between the Metallurgical Project and Operation Dreamwatch. But why did they tear out the pages from the encyclopedia in the Rec hall and round up the ones in Norden? He shook his head, once again feeling weighed down with conjectures that baffled and led nowhere.
Operation Dreamwatch had, he saw now with dismay, generated its own darkness. Sliding over the earth the mysteries bred and multiplied: mysteries that went unanswered, their carcinogens festering until this new inescapable universe had the face of the dreamfield’s slithergadee—malignant and inexplicable. And we just huddle together and cower, thought Ralph, remembering—bitterly—the night Michael Stimmitz had died. But nothing will ever come to lift us out of this place.
He got up, went into the bedroom and pulled open one of the bureau drawers. There, where he’d hidden it beneath layers of underwear and socks, was the tape of Bach cantatas that Michael Stimmitz had left for him. It seemed centuries ago. And I still don’t know, thought Ralph, what he was trying to tell me with it.
In a spasm of anger he plucked the clear plastic reel from the box and threw it against the wall. It bounced to the floor and wobbled around in circles, spinning the mute tape out into a tangled mass.
He inhaled deeply to calm himself but expanded the hollowness he felt growing inside. From the bottom of the tape box, he took the square booklet containing the notes and translations for the cantatas. There were no more secret messages scribbled in its margins now than there had been the first time he had looked through it. So what’s the point? he thought, closing his eyes and running his hand over the booklet’s slick paper cover.
He frowned and opened his eyes. His fingers had touched something—or had they? Turning the booklet to the light, he watched his hand brush across the cover, then stop at the same point he had felt before. A slight indentation, invisible to the eyes, ran around the edges of the capital letter “B” of Bach’s name, as though some-one—Stimmitz?—had carefully outlined it with a dry ballpoint pen or something.
B? thought Ralph. His hand moved down the cover, brushing across it until his fingers felt another incised letter—an “O” in the conductor’s name.
There were only two more letters with indented outlines, for a total of four. So that’s the message Stimmitz left, thought Ralph. There was no need for guessing or deciphering. The four letters spelled BOMB.
Bomb? wondered Ralph, but only for a moment. His mind sorted out the right connections. Spencer got the two things garbled. The Metallurgical Project— and the Manhattan District, that’s what it was called. A long-forgotten fragment of some college lecture came back to him. The Manhattan District was the name for the group of army engineers who constructed the first atomic bomb. The image of a mushroom-shaped cloud blotted out his vision for a moment. Then he could see again. Not everything was explained but enough was.
The Thronsen Home was the closest construction to the gigantic desert military installation, the home base of the plasma jet bombers whose trails laced the sky every night. What if—the thoughts went through Ralph’s mind like electric currents—what if the Thronsen Home wasn’t just part of a harmless mental health program for juvenile delinquents?
What if the supposed therapy was a front for the creation of a nuclear device powerful enough to incinerate the whole area, military bases included? It didn’t seem any less likely to Ralph than any other possible explanation. Perhaps Muehlenfeldt was from another star. Perhaps similar “therapy” programs had been set up for the USSR’s wayward children. China, too? Possibly. Anybody—or thing—ingenious enough to devise a cover-up as elaborate as Operation Dreamwatch could figure out a way to accomplish what it wanted anywhere else as well. And after the Earth’s major military bases were destroyed, would the invasion force that Muehlenfeldt had preceded come at last?
For a few seconds the elaborate explanation that had built itself in Ralph’s mind like an instantaneous coral reef trembled, fragile under the weight of everyday logic. Then it solidified, hard as rock. Who cares if it’s weird? he thought. A kind of desperate hilarity washed through him. Who cares if it sounds like science fiction? When the world becomes science fictional, then only science fiction will explain the world. He dropped the booklet, got his coat from the closet, and ran out of the apartment without closing the door behind him.
The base vehicles—two jeeps and a small truck, with OPWATCH stencilled on their sides—were kept parked behind the administration building. Ralph quickly looked inside each in turn, but none of the keys were in the ignitions as he’d been hoping. He stood for a moment with his hands braced against the door of one of the jeeps, wondering where the keys would be kept. The base commander’s office? That seemed likeliest.
Quietly he went to the side of the building, then stooped down and duck-walked beneath the window of the commander’s office. For a while he waited and listened, but heard no voices or shuffling of papers. He raised himself up and peeked over the sill, hoping the commander was out to lunch away from his desk. The office was empty as far as he could see, the commander’s chair vacant and pushed away from the desk.
Operation Dreamwatch had certainly been cheated by whomever had gotten the contract for the window screens. As everyone in the base apartments knew, the wire mesh could be easily pulled loose from the metal frames. In a few seconds Ralph had a triangular flap loose from one corner, large enough to crawl through. He landed on his hands and feet behind the desk. When he stood up he felt something hard and cold press itself behind his left ear.