Discovery: Proton Field #1 Read online

  Apparently recognizing that Vinn was thinking his way through what might be wrong with the objection he’d been about to make, Ellen said, “They stopped because they were contaminating everything with radioactivity. But that’s because the fission bombs—and even their H-bombs used a fission weapon to fuse the hydrogen—were dirty. Several reasons for that. First of all, those bombs often spread around quite a bit of undetonated plutonium. Second, those bombs were neutron rich and those extra neutrons induced radioactivity in other materials through neutron activation. An extra neutron renders a lot of elements unstable. In the ocean, the water doesn’t get activated but radioactivity can be induced in the sodium and chloride of the salt in that water.”

  Vinn nodded, “And we don’t have to worry about that because the gammas released by proton-proton fusion don’t induce radioactivity.”

  “Right, proton-proton fusion to deuterium doesn’t release neutrons if it stops there. On the sun, where fusion of hydrogen goes all the way to helium it does release neutrons. However, both theoretically and in practice the fusion we’re inducing doesn’t release any neutrons.”

  Arlan frowned, “What would be the advantages of underground testing? There are a lot of abandoned lead and zinc mines in southeastern Kansas.”

  “They tested underground because if they fired a weapon far enough below the surface none of the radioactivity would escape,” Ellen said. “We don’t really need to worry about radioactivity other than the gammas released at the time of fusion.” She lifted an eyebrow, “That is, as long as we don’t stand where the gammas can hit us—essentially direct line of sight.”

  “So, we could test underground if we wanted?”

  “Sure, we could,” Ellen said dubiously. “But abandoned mines are dangerous because they can collapse. And, when they did those tests, they filled in the shafts after they’d put their bomb down there. That’d be hugely expensive. Remember, what I’m suggesting is just that we be absolutely sure our devices aren’t somehow able to fuse far more hydrogen than we think they can. In other words, ‘could Joe Blow destroy Kansas City with one of our field generators and a tank of hydrogen?’” Ellen’s eyes tracked to each of the other three people in the room, “If we do accidentally explode a really big bomb, I’d much rather it was out in the trackless expanses of the Pacific than somewhere in Kansas.”

  “We’d kill a lot of fish.”

  She shrugged, “I think marine life density is low out a long way from land. Besides, all our theories say any explosion ought to be fairly small, right?”

  Myr said, “We could make sure it isn’t huge by only providing a certain amount of hydrogen… Maybe twice as much as we think the focal point can fuse, so we can tell if it goes beyond what we expect, but not enough that we’d be firing off kilotons.”

  “I’d rather kill some fish than induce a worldwide nuclear winter.” Ellen said slowly, then grinned, “Besides, I feel like a little vacation to Hawaii, how about you guys?”

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  As Arlan walked into his office in the morning, he saw Joe sitting tautly at the desk Joe usually manned in the outer office. Joe looked very much out of sorts and Arlan stopped, “Hey Joe, you feeling okay?”

  Joe didn’t look him in the eye as he said, “Not really. Can I talk to you in your office?”

  “Sure,” Arlan said, concerned, “somebody sick?”

  Joe shook his head as they walked into Arlan’s office. Joe closed the door behind him; then stood in front of Arlan’s desk, twisting his hands together and looking uncomfortable.

  “Sit, Joe,” Arlan said waving at a chair. “Tell me what the problem is and how I can help. Whatever it is, you know I’ve got your back.”

  Joe took a deep breath, then said, “How you can help… In the best of all worlds, you wouldn’t fire me. In the best I can hope for kind of world, you wouldn’t blackball me for every other job I might ever apply for.”

  Arlan sank back in his chair, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut. Joe went on to tell him about how he’d been approached by someone wanting to be “kept abreast of new developments” at Miller Tech. “Of course, I told him no. But he said he didn’t want any specifics or secrets, he just wanted to know what direction you were moving. What the rumors were in the halls… Nothing,” Joe lifted his hands to make finger quotes, “confidential.” Joe sighed, “The guy made it sound so innocent, like being a reporter or something.” He glanced at Arlan, but then immediately dropped his eyes again, “And, he paid a lot of money. Helped with the kids’ college tuition, you know?”

  “That doesn’t sound like such a big deal,” Arlan said.

  “Yeah,” Joe said, his voice breaking, “but it was classic bait and switch. He kept asking for more information. When I didn’t want to give it, he threatened to blackmail me over what I’d already given him. And,” he continued in a small voice, “of course, he started paying me less since I wasn’t giving him what he wanted.”

  A sick feeling in his stomach, Arlan asked, “What did you give him?”

  “As little as possible.” Joe went on to tell Miller about turning state’s evidence for the FBI and going to his last meeting wearing a wire. “But,” he said, “I did tell him that scuttlebutt was that you were working on fusion. He wanted diagrams and descriptions which I couldn’t have given him even if I’d wanted. I’m pretty sure his people are the ones that destroyed Ms. Sevii’s apartment… I feel pretty awful about it.”

  “But the FBI’s on it now?”

  “They were already on it, from you reporting the break-in at Ms. Sevii’s, and your suspicions about what they might be after. Hopefully I got them a few steps closer to the real spies.”

  Arlan sat, staring at the floor for a couple of minutes. Finally he looked up, “What do you think I should do Joe?”

  His voice breaking, Joe said, “You oughta fire me.” He wiped at an eye, “Of course, I’m hoping against hope that you won’t.”

  Arlan turned his eyes to the window and sat thinking another few minutes. Finally, without turning back around, he said, “Aw hell, I don’t know what to do. Take the day off and we’ll both think about it.”

  Joe blew out a long breath, “Thanks for… for at least considering alternatives.”

  As Joe walked out, Arlan said, “See if you can find someone to man your desk for the rest of the day. Come back and talk to me again tomorrow morning.”

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Myr looked up at the knock on her door frame and saw Dr. Miller standing there. “What are you working on?” he asked.

  She waved at a stainless-steel cylinder, “Assembling our high-powered field generators for the tests in Hawaii.”

  Miller’s eyes widened as he took in the size of the two cylinders.

  Myr chuckled, “Don’t worry; the actual field generator isn’t all that much bigger than our usual ones. There seems to be a law of diminishing returns from oversizing the coils and plates. The main reason these cylinders are so big is that they have to contain the high-powered batteries that activate the generator and power the radio that lets us control it. It also has a set of sensors to help measure the size of the explosion… Well, at least the initial impact before the explosion destroys the device.”

  Still looking concerned, Miller said, “Are we going to be able to get these things on the plane?”

  “Yeah, I checked.” She winked, “It is going to cost you a pile of money though.”

  Miller rolled his eyes, but waved that aside. “I need to talk to you and Vinn. Any idea where he is?”

  “Yeah.” Myr said with a suspicious tone, “This isn’t going to be another one of those,” she deepened her voice, “ ‘you must abandon all research,’ kind of talks, is it?”

  “No, but it’s still probably going to piss you off.”

  She frowned, then sighed. “Let’s go find Vinn and get it over with.” She led out into the hallway.

  Once they were all in a small conference room, Miller said, “Let
’s all sit down.”

  “Oh-oh, is this going to take a long time?” Myr said, trying for a teasing tone but knowing she sounded worried.

  “No,” Miller said, “I just want you sitting down on the opposite side of the table so it’ll be harder for you to come after me.” Myr saw Vinn give Miller just as odd a look as she felt sure she was giving him.

  As soon as they were all seated, Miller said, “Joe Barker, you know, the guy that runs my office?” They both nodded and Miller, looking unhappy, continued, “We probably should fire him, but I don’t want to.”

  “What?” Vinn said, “He seems to do a great job, as near as I can tell. He’s always friendly. If he can’t handle a problem he knows who can. He’s… a great resource—I’d hate to lose him.”

  “I agree with everything you’ve said,” Miller said. But then he grimaced, “However, Joe got sucked into a pit by some kind of industrial spy.”

  Myr felt a sick feeling well up in her stomach. Sitting forward involuntarily, she said, “Is he the son of a bitch that ransacked my apartment?!”

  “No! No,” Miller said, putting up his hands, palm out and waving in a calming fashion. Miller explained how Joe’d been recruited with promises of big payoffs for minor updates about the direction of Miller Tech’s research. But, then how he’d been pulled down a descending spiral of decreasing payoffs, increasing demands for information and threats of blackmail. “Joe’d already gotten a lawyer to help him work with the FBI when your place got burglarized. He’s turning state’s evidence and helping them catch the guy.”

  “Burglarized hell, my place got raped,” Myr heard herself saying in an angry tone.

  Miller nodded, “Yeah, sorry. But it wasn’t Joe that did it.”

  “But he’s probably why they were after my data!”

  “No doubt,” Miller said lifting his palms in a helpless shrug. “But I think of him as a victim in this too. A victim who’s sure as hell learned his lesson. And, a friend and,” Miller’s eyes went to Vinn in acknowledgement, “an important resource for our company. A guy who’s got a family and a couple of kids to support.” Miller looked back at Myr, “However, you’re far more important than Joe. If you say so, I’ll fire him.”

  Myr felt her own eyes widen, “You’re puttin’ this on me?!”

  Miller shrugged, “Yeah. I won’t tell him you’re the one who made the decision unless you want me to, but you’re probably the one he hurt the worst.” Miller tilted his head a little bit and gave her a curious expression, “Things like this are tough. If you’re going to be a leader, you’re going to have to deal with them.”

  Her stomach roiling, Myr said, “He hurt the whole company!”

  Miller only nodded.

  Myr closed her eyes and sat silently for a minute, then she said, “Oh hell. I like him too and I can picture in my mind how he got led down the garden path, then shoved off into the quicksand.” She quirked a small grin from beneath a lowered brow, “I still think you should fire him, but I don’t want you to.”

  Miller took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thanks, I don’t think we’ll regret it.” He looked back and forth from Myr to Vinn, “Otherwise, we ready to go to Hawaii?”

  Vinn grinned, and tossed his head, “Oh hell yeah! I’ve been dieting, getting my tips bleached, bought a new bikini…”

  Miller interrupted, “You don’t have any weight to lose! Besides, this is a working trip.”

  They both snorted.

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  When Joe got to work the next morning he found Miller already there. Uncertainly, he went to stand fidgeting in the doorway of Miller’s office. Miller looked up, “Hey Joe, I’ve got to leave for the airport in a few hours, can you check to make sure all the arrangements for Hawaii are still in place?”

  Joe opened a suddenly dry mouth, “Does that mean I’ve still got a job?” he asked in a trembling voice.

  “Have you learned your lesson?”

  Joe nodded, not trusting himself to speak aloud.

  “Then get back to work and keep doing the same great job you’ve always done.”

  Feeling the tension in his stomach ease, Joe nodded again and started to step away. Miller said, “Joe?”

  Joe turned back, “Yeah?”

  “I’d recommend you apologize to Ms. Sevii. She’s pretty upset about what happened to her place.”

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Rabbie stood on his charter boat, Big Red, dubiously watching the little group approach. Almost all his runs were for deep sea fishing so when Faye had told him that some scientists wanted to go out in his boat he’d refused. That is, he’d refused until Faye had told him how much they were willing to pay.

  Even better, they wanted to go out far enough that it’d require an overnight trip and they were taking enough stuff that it’d justified him chartering Big Red to them. And, they’d requested that he take along an extra inflatable life raft, which they’d paid for and told him he could keep afterward.

  When he’d first seen the little group coming along the dock, he’d thought they must be going out on a different boat. He didn’t know what he’d expected, probably some geeky looking guys with thick glasses and white coats. Instead, the people heading for his boat appeared to be one ordinary looking dark skinned guy in his fifties, a pale woman in her thirties, a slender woman in her twenties that he thought must be a runner because of her well-toned legs, and a geeky looking guy who might barely be 20. The two younger ones had intermediate skin colors. If Rabbie’d seen them on the street, he might have thought they were a guy, his surprisingly young looking—or second—wife, and his two kids. They were dressed like they were on vacation, wearing shorts, T-shirts, deck shoes, and, he suspected, had swimsuits underneath. Up close, the young guy looked quite physically fit as well. There must be something about the way he carried himself that gave Rabbie the impression he was such a nerd.

  As he’d been warned to expect, they were carrying a surprising amount of gear. Rabbie introduced himself, and when they gave him their names he noticed that each one had a different last name—so he decided they probably really were a group that worked together rather than some kind of family group. Teasingly, Rabbie said, “Hey, we’re supplying the food, you didn’t have to bring enough gear to camp out on the boat.”

  Miller, the older guy, smiled at Rabbie and said, “You’d better be bringing the food, all this stuff is scientific gear. Did you get that extra life raft for us?”

  “Sure did. Saburo’ll show you where to stow all that stuff.”

  It was a lot of stuff—they made two trips back to their vehicles before they’d loaded it all onto Big Red.

  It was late afternoon as they headed north out to sea. Rabbie watched his charges excitedly ooh and ah over the scenery. Miller’d joined Rabbie by the wheel, but the younger ones were running around in their swimsuits. The young guy had on a t-shirt but looked pretty muscular considering how much of a geek Rabbie thought he was. Rabbie was having a hard time keeping his eyes off the two women and decided they must be eye candy rather than real scientists. He glanced at Miller out of the corner of his eye, “Where exactly are you guys wanting to go?”

  Miller chewed his lip for a minute. “About eighty to a hundred miles offshore… In your professional opinion, somewhere where there aren’t any fish.”

  “No fish? Why?”

  “Well,” Miller said a little hesitantly, “the reason we’re out here is we want to test some equipment that we think is going to blow up…”

  “Blow up!” Rabbie said turning to look back at where all their equipment was stored, “You brought explosives on my boat?!”

  “Not explosives… no, but devices that can explode. They… they make steam, like for a steam engine? But, they can make a pretty big bang.”

  Rabbie narrowed his eyes, “How big?”

  Miller glanced away, then turned back to look Rabbie steadily in the eye. “By our calculations, about as big as you’d get from a half ton of TNT.
”

  “Holy shit!” Rabbie said, turning a startled glanced back toward where their equipment was stacked. “You brought on a lot of stuff, but it doesn’t weigh a half ton.”

  “Yeah, it’s a device, not explosive chemicals,” Miller said, his eyes back out on the horizon. “You don’t have to worry about it accidentally blowing up. It has to be powered up and correctly assembled before it could possibly go off.”

  “A half ton of TNT…” Rabbie said musingly. How big an explosion is that? I’ll want the boat to be a long ways away.”

  “Yeah, us too,” Miller said. “We’ll want to be completely back behind the horizon which we’re figuring is about six miles… Here, I’ve got some videos of underwater explosions I pulled off of YouTube.” Miller spoke to his AI and a video popped up on the screen that usually displayed the images from Big Red’s radar. “This one’s five tons of high explosive.”

  Eyes wide, Rabbie watched the explosion. The one with five tons was set off about fifty yards from a navy ship and was scary huge with water fountaining far above the top of the boat. Film inside the ship showed people rocked about by the shock wave, though the boat didn’t seem to have been significantly damaged. “Wow!” Rabbie said, “That’s pretty scary. I wouldn’t want this ol’ fishing boat to be that close to an explosion, even one a lot smaller than that, but… why six miles? You should be plenty safe at a few hundred yards and you’d be able to see what happened a lot better.”

  “We’ll be able to see anyway,” Miller said jerking a thumb back over his shoulder toward the equipment. “We brought some drones in that huge stack of equipment back there. They’ll stay near the experiment and send us video.”

  “But still, why do we need to be so far away?”

  “Because… the reason we’re doing this is to make sure our calculations are correct and the explosion isn’t a whole lot bigger.”

  “Oh,” Rabbie said, thinking furiously, “how much bigger? These aren’t some kind of atomic weapons, are they?”