is right at the middle of the range.”
“Where else?”
“In the interior of a neutron star. A collapsed supernova remnant: very small, very hot, very dense, the mass of the sun crammed into the volume of a city block. And when the pressure gets high enough quark matter can form. All you need is a tiny part of the core of the star to flip over, and you get a quark matter runaway. The whole star is eaten up. It’s spectacular. The star might lose twenty percent of its radius in a few seconds. Maybe half the star’s mass — and we’re talking about masses comparable to the sun, remember — half of it is turned to energy, and blown out in a gale of neutrinos and gamma rays.”
Quark matter runaway. She didn’t like the sound of that. “Which origin are we favoring here?”
“I’d back the Big Bang. I told you our nugget is right in the middle of the mass range the cosmogenic-origin theory predicts. On the other hand we don’t have a real good mass spectrum for neutron-star nuggets, so that isn’t ruled out either. But then there’s the slow velocity of our nugget. The nuggets should squirt out of neutron stars at relativistic velocities. That is, a good fraction of light speed. But the Big Bang nuggets have been slowed by the expansion of the universe…”
Slowed by the expansion of the universe. Good God, she thought. What a phrase. This nugget is a cosmological relic, and it’s right here in this plastic schoolroom. And brought here, perhaps, by children.
He spread his hands. “Anyhow that’s our best guess. Unless somebody somewhere is manufacturing nuggets. Ha ha.”
“Funny, Dan.” She bent to see closer. “Tell me again why Tinkerbell shines. Neutrons?”
“It will repel ordinary nuclei, because of the positive charges. But it can drag in free neutrons, which have no charge. A neutron is just a bag of quarks. The nugget pulls them in from the air, releasing energy in the process, and the quarks are converted to the mix it needs.”
Converted. Runaway. “Dan, you said something about a drop of this stuff consuming an entire star. Is there any possibility that this little thing—”
“Could eat the Earth?”
She’d tried to keep her tone light, but her fear, she found as she voiced the notion, was real. Was this the beginning of the Carter catastrophe, this little glowing hole in the fabric of matter?
“Actually, no,” Dan said. “At least we don’t think so. It’s because of that positive charge; it keeps normal nuclei matter away. In fact the larger it grows the more it repels normal matter. But if it were negatively charged—” He waved his ringers, miming an explosion.” — Ka-boom. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Listen, Ms. Della, there are opportunities as well as threats here. If you feed a nugget neutrons or light ions it will eat them, giving off energy in the process. You could conceivably throw in radioactive waste. Tritium, for instance. Then, when the nugget is fat enough, you could bombard it with heavy ions to split it. Two nuggets. Then four, then eight… A safe, efficient, clean energy source. Extremely valuable. And—”
“Yes?”
“I don’t have to outline the weapons potential. More than half the researchers here are from military labs.”
“Okay. And I take it the children won’t tell you how they managed all this.”
“No.”
So, Maura thought, Tinkerbell was at once a great possible boon to humankind, and at the same time a great possible threat. Both carrot and stick. Almost as if the children planned it that way.
These Blue children, it seemed, had upped the stakes. For the first time a group of children had moved beyond eerie behavior and startling intellectual stunts to the physical, to something approaching superhuman powers.
Already we were terrified of them, she thought. But if… when this news gets out…
“Okay, Dan. What now?”
“The children want to talk to you.”
“Me? I have no power here.”
“But the children know you. At least, Tom Tybee does.”
She closed her eyes, took a breath. But who am I negotiating with, exactly? And on behalf of whom? It seemed humankind’s relationship with its strange Blue offspring was about to reach a new crisis.
Dan grinned. “It’s take-me-to-your-leader time, Representative.”
“Let’s do it.”
They walked out of the lab room. Her shadow, cast by the trapped cosmological glow, streamed ahead of her.
Anna was waiting for her in the principal’s office. Maura walked in with Reeve and Dan Ystebo.
When they entered, Anna backed away against the wall. Maura could see bruises on her neck, and when she opened her mouth she was missing a lower front tooth. “Just you,” Anna said to Maura. Her voice had the faintest trace of Aussie twang.
Principal Reeve said, “Now, Anna—”
Maura held up her hand.
“Just you,” Anna said. “That was the deal.”
Maura nodded. “If you say so. But I need your help. I’d like Dan here—” Maura indicated him. “ — to stay with me. I don’t understand as much of the technical stuff as I ought to.” She forced a smile. “Without Dan to interpret, it will take me a lot longer to figure out what you want. I guarantee, positively guarantee, he’s no threat to you. But if you want him to leave, he leaves.”
Anna’s cool gray eyes flickered. “He can stay. Not her.”
Reeve was visibly tired, stressed-out, baffled, angry. “Representative, she’s a child. And you’re letting her give you orders.”
“We nearly allowed her to be killed, Principal,” Maura said gently. “I think she has a right to a little control over the situation. Don’t you?”
Reeve shook her head, furious. But she left, slamming the door behind her.
Anna showed no reaction.
Maura said, “We’re going to sit down, Anna. All right? In these two chairs, on this side of the desk. You can sit, or stand, whatever you want.”
Anna nodded, and Dan and Maura sat down.
Anna said, “Would you like a drink?”
Maura was surprised. “I — yes. Yes, please.”
Anna crossed to the water cooler, neatly extracted two paper cups, walked gracefully around the table and handed them to Dan and Maura.
“Thank you,” Maura said, sipping the water. It was warm, a little stale. “Now, Anna. Tell me what it is you want.”
Anna dug her hand in a pocket of her gold jumpsuit, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and pressed it on the desk. She pushed it across to Maura.
The paper looked like a page torn out of an exercise book. It contained a list written out in a childish hand, complete with errors, a couple of the longer words even phonetically spelled.
She passed it to Dan Ystebo. “Deuterium,” he read. “A linear electrostatic decelerator… Maura, I think they want to grow Tinkerbell. Maybe even make her some companions.”
Anna said, “We will give you the Tinkerbell. And others.” She frowned with the effort of speaking, as if English were becoming unfamiliar. “They could light cities, drive starships.” She looked at Maura. “Do you understand?”
“So far,” Maura said dryly.
“We have other gifts to offer,” said Anna. “In the future.”