Analog SFF, May 2007 Read online

  Toth nodded. “The EMP has probably wiped out all the nonhardened electronics within a few hundred kilometers.” He glanced back into the rear. “Including the telepresence. Is Ms. Horne okay, Ms. McPherson?” Linda had folded back C.J.'s VR helmet. The other woman was completely unresponsive, lolling back in the telepresence booth, eyes half closed, her mouth slack and drooling. Only her seat harness kept her from collapsing onto the floor. Even in the best of circumstances, the abrupt breaking of a deep telepresence link could lead to serious psychological trauma. Linda was feeling for a pulse, checking for breathing, pulling up C.J.'s eyelids to look at her pupils. “She's alive, Colonel, but she's completely out of it. I think we need to get her to professional help as fast as possible.”

  Toth nodded. “Can you get us back to Nellis?” he asked the pilot, who nodded in turn. “Let's go.”

  “Yessir.”

  * * * *

  On their arrival, the paramedics had taken C.J. away on a stretcher, while the chopper immediately lifted off again. Toth, however, had ordered them to accompany him for a debriefing. They came into an office to hear General Zemani, Toth's superior, involved in one half of a conversation.

  “No, Mr. President. We don't know what happened.”

  A pause.

  “Yes, it was a nuclear blast. But it wasn't ours. We lost a lot of good people, sir.”

  Another pause.

  “No, Mr. President, we had detected no fission materials beforehand. If we had, we'd've taken a lot more precautions. We have no idea how it managed to blow itself up.”

  Another pause, Zemani now grimacing.

  “We don't know what kind of nuclear event yet, Mr. President. We have teams out doing fallout collection right now. But yes, it seems that it arranged a nuclear explosion without conventional fission materials.”

  Another long pause.

  “No, Mr. President. I can't think of a bigger threat to national security, either.”

  Zemani hung up the phone—a secure link, no doubt, as it was attached to the wall by an actual wire—looked at them, and sighed. “Well, the explosion was seen by half the spysats in the sky, and now the whole world wants to know what the hell's going on. We're trying to tell them that's exactly what we'd like to know, too.”

  “Well, General, it looks like some sort of probe. A damaged probe. A paranoiddamaged probe. It blew itself up to keep its secrets.”

  “Yes, Mr. Gutierrez, I think we all agree on that. The questions are,” he held out one finger and grabbed it with the other hand, “One. Howdid it manage to blow itself up? It's not hard to see the security issues if it's possible to induce nuclear reactions without a fission trigger. All the security around high-grade fission materials worldwide becomes moot.”

  “Two,” he extended the next finger and grabbed it, too, “what are its owners’ intentions? Their technology is clearly way ahead of ours, and having a probe that self-destructs with a nuclear blast suggests they're both paranoid and not very friendly. They're sure not worried about collateral damage. They may even know now that their probe blew itself up. From those polarized neutrinos.”

  “That's impossible, sir!” Colonel Toth protested. “It's been provedtheoretically that you can't send FTL messages with quantum entanglement.”

  “Well, maybe they have different theoretical descriptions,” Zemani said mildly. He had a scientific background, too. “But why else would they be saturating the environment with neutrinos? Polarized neutrinos, no less? They're hardly a weapon! But they can penetrate ordinary matter with ease—ideal for communications, if you can detect them. We came up with the neutrino trap a few years ago. Surely the device's owners have it too. We have to assume that the device's controllers are now aware of its fate.”

  Toth nodded slowly, and Chad felt that same chill as when observing the device's desperation just before it blew itself up.

  “You're going to have to talk about it, then,” Linda said. “The way you've handled it so far, you couldn't have done a better job of acting like you have something to hide. Now everyone's going to think the U.S. was carrying out clandestine nuclear experiments.”

  “Even though that makes no sense?” Toth asked. “With all that desert to use, why would we carry out experiments so close to civilian territory?”

  Linda shrugged. “Military experiments have gone wrong before. Your best bet is to go public with everything. Starting with the nineteenth-century legends. And if the ... the owners are a threat, they're a threat to all humanity. Let's get the rest of the world on our side. It's not just a matter of national security. It's a matter of global security.”

  General Zemani was silent, but to his credit it didn't take long for him to decide.

  “You've got your story, Ms. McPherson.”

  * * * *

  “Chad?” the telephone asked, in Linda's voice.

  “Hi, Linda,” Chad replied.

  “General Z. said your car's fixed. Wanna ride? I'm going out to Pahrump now. And,” she continued, “I've got some steaks.”

  The Air Force had been talked into fixing his car—well, actually, Linda had talked the Air Force into fixing his car, he admitted to himself—and it had been fixed for several days. He just hadn't been able to get out to Pahrump to get it.

  “Well, thanks, Linda,” he said.

  “I owe you dinner, after that scoop you sent me. And I'm not a bad cook, they say. Bring an overnight bag, too. I won't be responsible for making you drive home on the Pahrump highway afterward!”

  Now that was interesting. Should he take it at face value, or what?

  “Sure, Linda, sounds good. And thanks.”

  “So,” she said, “I'll pick you up in ... about five seconds.”

  “Huh?” Chad said, just as the doorbell rang. He clicked the doorway monitor, and sure enough it was Linda.

  “That was quick!” Chad said.

  Linda laughed. “I figured you'd agree, so I called from the curb.”

  “Tricky. Is that a reporters’ ploy? Catch ‘em before they change their minds?”

  She snorted. “It's pretty old hat. And anyway, someone who really doesn't want to talk to the press is not going to be locatable so easily.”

  “Well, some of us like to be located. At least by certain reporters.”

  Linda looked at him. “Well, Chad, I'm flattered!”

  Chad replied, jokingly, “You should be, after what I've put up with from some of your colleagues!” He'd gone into the bedroom to throw a change of clothes together and shortly emerged with a small duffel bag. A golden glint then caught his eye. The jewelry rock lay on the top of the dresser. On impulse, he picked it up, too, and put it in his pocket.

  “Good luck charm, I guess,” he said. “And it's too valuable to leave here.”

  “I hopeit's a good luck charm! It's been a bit ambiguous so far.”

  They walked out the front door, Chad locking it behind him, and put his bag in the trunk. “So how goes with the journalist celebrity?” Chad asked as he slid into the passenger's seat.

  Linda rolled her eyes. “Okay, I guess. It's been a bit of a whirlwind. Maybe I won't be just a stringer all my life. But let's save the heavy discussion for later. I don't want to deal with it when I'm driving. It feels too much like work.”

  After dinner, while the appetizing smell of the grilled steaks still lingered, they sat over drinks. Chad was feeling mellow, but Linda was obviously wanting to talk about something. She was fidgeting, staring at her drink, stirring it.

  Chad said conversationally, “Well, they said I could go on up to Tonopah. The fallout isn't that bad, for some reason. So maybe I still have a job.”

  Linda sighed. “That's part of the problem.”

  "Huh?"Chad asked, startled.

  “The low fallout. It's not something I've written about yet, but I'm going to have to soon. It's ironic. I've been the one advocating openness, and now I'm having second thoughts.”

  “About what?”

  Linda continu
ed as though she hadn't heard. “Not only has the DoD gone public, but they've invited in the Indians, the Chinese, the Russians ... anybody who wants to do their own tests, in fact.”

  “Well, that's vindication for you!” Chad replied. “They'd never have done that if you hadn't pressured them.”

  “Well ... I guess,” Linda said. “But I'd give up feeling vindicated if I didn't get the impression they're terrified.” She absently drew designs on the table in the condensation left by her drink. “Chad. There's no fission products. No fusionproducts. The good news is that radioactivity is minimal. The bad news is that the explosion was not any sort of conventional nuclear blast. It's not cold fusion, whatever it is. That was their big worry, and now they wish it was justthat.”

  “What canit be, then?”

  She was quiet for a minute. “They're thinking it's antimatter. Nearly all of the scientists think it must've had a store of antimatter for its power source. A few, though, are saying there's no way a stash of antimatter could have lasted so long, and somehow the device can ... can ‘invert’ ordinary matter into antimatter. Apparently there's some theories that say that's possible. Some sort of quantum-mechanical resonance. And if that's the case...” she trailed off.

  Chad said thoughtfully, “Well, the good news was that the fallout's not bad. But that's also the bad news, huh?”

  “Well, I guess it's good news for your company,” Linda said.

  “For now, I guess. Unless some alien technology turns matter into energy directly. Then who's going to care about growing algae in ponds!”

  “That's true, too, I guess.”

  “But there's some serious military implications right here on Earth, huh!”

  “Well, yes, if there's an energy-conversion technology that uses ordinary matter. I can't decide if that's scarier than hostile aliens or not. And that leads into the other thing. There's now some rumors that other probes have been found ... but no one's saying anything."

  “Found? How?”

  “Apparently they give off a distinctive neutrino signature, and people started looking. There aren't many neutrino surveys of Earth's surface. The neutrino trap is new enough that no one's bothered.”

  They were silent for a minute.

  Then Linda commented, “Oh, I saw C.J. She said you'd visited.”

  Chad tried not to sound defensive. “The seriously injured member of our party. Someone should have visited her!”

  Linda looked at him. “I'm remembering a line from Gilbert and Sullivan: ‘The question is, had she not been a thing of beauty/Would he be swayed by quite so keen a sense of duty?'”

  “Oh, Linda, you yourself said she's got brains, too.” But that's part of the problem, Chad realized, too late. He shut up.

  Linda didn't say anything at first. “Yes, she does, at that.”

  Chad sensed that it was time to stay quiet.

  “And she's young and pretty,” Linda continued.

  “And she was seriously injured, Linda.” Chad spoke again. “Apparently sometimes they can't even bring them back from that deep psychological trauma.”

  Linda sighed, “That's also true. I did a story on one of those people once. Another of Murthy's students, in fact.” She paused again.

  Finally she turned to him and said, “Don't leave me alone. Even if I don't have a long blond ponytail!”

  * * * *

  “Pull!” shouted Linda. Two dark disks sailed out into the sky at the command. She raised the shotgun to her shoulder in one graceful motion and fired. One target vanished into a puff of dark smoke. She then turned smoothly and fired at the other target. It didn't dissolve into dust, but kept flying raggedly as a piece chipped off the side.

  “Dead pair.” Chad logged the score and then shook his head as he tallied up the totals. “Remind me never to be a clay pigeon anywhere near your place. Beat me by three.”

  “You know,” Linda commented, “I've never understood why guns were supposed to be macho. They need skill, not raw strength. They're the great equalizer.”

  “Makes the merest slip of a girl the equal of a two-meter Viking with a battleax,” Chad agreed as they walked back to the car. “Still, loud noise, recoil, smashing things ... those are guy things, traditionally. And guns do them really well.”

  Linda chuckled as they cased the shotguns and loaded stuff into the car. Chad then asked her, “What did you find?” They'd driven up to Tonopah directly from Pahrump.

  Linda shrugged. “Just some human interest stories. Where were you when the A-bomb went off? Not a few people think it's really a secret government project that got out of hand, so that makes for some interesting interviews, too. You've got a century of paranoia here. It's a weird love-hate codependency thing, since the gunnery range has also been a big part of the economy all this time. How about you?”

  Chad shrugged in turn. “As you'd said, there was minimal fallout so the ponds are all okay. Of course, though, if revolutionary energy technologies are on the way it's all beside the point!”

  “What about the claim jumpers that tried to waylay you?” Linda asked.

  Chad snorted. “I checked with the sheriff, and they've all skipped town. The evacuation of Tonopah was an easy cover! With the emergency there wasn't enough to hold them on.”

  He paused briefly. “It's all moot now anyway—that vein was barely a hundred meters from ground zero. So at least there won't be anyone chasing us today.”

  “That's good,” Linda said. “But I need to get back to Vegas. I need to get hold of General Z. again. Those rumors about some powers working on probes of their own seem to be true. But they're still not saying anything ... much less letting U.S. investigators in.”

  “They won't let us in? We let themin!”

  “They're playing that angle, Chad,” Linda replied wryly. “But guilt trips only go so far in international relations!”

  “Like personal relations, huh?” he quipped, and then was instantly sorry he had.

  Linda looked at him. “You just don't give up, do you, Chad?”

  “I'm sorry. I was just trying to joke.”

  Linda didn't say anything, but she shut the car door unnecessarily hard when she got in.

  It's going to be a long quiet ride to Vegas, at this rate!Chad thought. They rode in uncompanionable silence, Chad regretting his big mouth but not sure what else to say.

  At length he glanced in the rearview, and was struck with a thoroughly unpleasant feeling of déjà vu.

  “Linda,” Chad said urgently. “Grab your shotgun. Grab mine, too. Load them. And our shell vests.”

  Linda looked both startled and displeased. “What?”

  “I've got a bad feeling about this car coming up behind us.”

  Linda looked in the rearview. “Why?”

  “I've just had bad experiences recently with dark sedans with dark windows going way too fast on the Tonopah highway. Please.”

  She shrugged and did as he'd asked. Even as she did so, the sedan went out around them as though to pass, and then abruptly swerved toward them to sideswipe their vehicle. Chad reflexively braked hard, fighting the wheel to keep from being shoved off the road, and the other car shot ahead, scraping along the left side of their vehicle as it did so. Its brakelights flared in turn. Herewe go again!Chad thought. This time the other vehicle was willing to crash into him. And this time he could see gun barrels pointed out the left side of the sedan, toward where he would be if he passed on the outside. Not to mention that there was at least one barrel pointed out the back, firing low. He could see chips of pavement explode up in front of them as bullets hit. A loud clang announced that at least one had hit their undercarriage. Clearly they were trying for the tires, though so far they'd come nowhere close.

  Chad dodged to the right, veering onto the broad but rough shoulder off the pavement. Evidently taken by surprise, the other car didn't respond for a second, then it swerved back toward him. A metallic crunch and a further lurch to the right announced that they were trying
to force him off the highway again. Chad clenched the wheel, managing to keep the car on the shoulder even through the bouncing. When the other car broke away, he stepped on the accelerator. He'd pulled about even with the sedan when out of the corner of his eye he saw the dark car swerve back toward them.

  Suddenly the cab rang with a terrific explosion, as though a bomb had gone off by his left ear. Chad winced and took his foot off the accelerator involuntarily. Two more explosions followed in quick succession, ejected shotshell cases rattling off the inside of the front windshield. Chad then had the presence of mind to step hard on the accelerator. He saw with peripheral vision that the windshield of the other car had dissolved into fragments. Linda now withdrew her shotgun from where she'd fired it behind him, out the driver's window. Gray smoke wafted pungently from the barrel and open receiver of her gun.

  Chad kept accelerating while checking out their pursuers in the rearview. The sedan was slowing down on the shoulder behind them. At least Linda looked to have disabled the driver, though how long that would last ... well, just take advantage of the reprieve. That was definitely worth the ringing in his left ear from the muzzle blast.

  He had another thought and called out, “Linda! Call Z. and tell him we're being attacked.”

  Linda nodded and took out her phone. She evidently had trouble getting through at first. Between driving and the ringing in his ear, Chad could hear neither what she was saying nor the response, even though she'd turned the speaker on her phone on so he could hear both sides of the conversation.

  Finally, she hung up. “Z. says it isn't them—which is good to hear!—and they're sending a helicopter as fast as they can. They'll also alert the sheriff, but we have to hold out meanwhile.” On his gesture that he couldn't hear, she repeated the message, shouting it toward his right ear.

  Chad checked the rearview again. He'd seen figures scrambling around the pursuing car after it had stopped. Presumably they'd swapped drivers by now, and sure enough, the vehicle looked as though it was starting to move again. And now the rear end of his car was starting to shudder.

  “Linda, I think they hit a tire. The self-sealing has limits. We don't have time to change it, and our buddies look like they're coming this way again. They can certainly catch us on the main highway, and they won't make the mistake of coming within shotgun range again. We've got to get off the main highway. It worked for me once!” Chad laughed grimly with an edge of hysteria.