sounds like the most idle science-fiction speculation to me.’
‘Me, too. But I have to accept what I’m told. Anyway, I’m beginning to believe it.’
‘Look. We don’t have any of this anti-matter stuff on earth?’
‘Because of anti-matter’s unpleasant propensity for annihilating all matter with which it comes into contact, that should be fairly obvious.’
‘Then where does the stuff come from?’
‘How the hell should I know?’ Fawcett hadn’t intended to be irritable, he just disliked treading the murky waters of the unknown. ‘We think ours is the only universe. How do we know? Maybe there lies another universe beyond ours, maybe many. It seems, according to latest scientific thinking, that if there are such universes, there is no reason why one or more should not be made of anti-matter.’ Fawcett paused gloomily. ‘I suppose if any intelligent beings existed there they would consider our universe as being composed of anti-matter. Of course, it could have been some rogue material thrown off at the moment of creation of our own universe. Who’s to say?’
Bruno said: ‘So the whole matter is speculation. It’s just a hypothesis. Theoretical calculations, that’s all. There is no proof, Colonel Fawcett.’
‘We think there is.’ He smiled. ‘Forgive the use of the “we”. What could have been, in the terms of human lives, a disaster of the first magnitude occurred in a happily unpopulated area of northern Siberia in 1908. When Russian scientists got around to investigating this – almost twenty years later – they discovered an area of over a hundred square miles where trees had been destroyed by heat: not fire but by instantaneous incineration which, in many cases, led to the petrification of trees in the upright position. Had this extraordinary phenomenon occurred over, say, New York or London, they would have become blackened cities of the dead.’
‘Proof,’ Bruno said. ‘We were speaking of proof, Colonel.’
‘Proof. Every other known damage caused to the earth by the impact of bodies from outer space has, without explanation, been caused by meteors. There was no trace of the meteor that might have caused this Siberian holocaust and no signs of any mark upon the ground where the meteor might have crashed into it; when meteors crashed into Arizona and South Africa they left enormous craters in the ground. The now accepted and indeed inevitable conclusion is that Siberia was struck by a particle of anti-matter with a mass of something of the order of one hundredth of a millionth of a gram.’
There was a considerable silence, then Wrinfield said: ‘Well, we have already covered this. Second time round it’s a bit clearer, but not much. So?’
‘Some dozen years ago there was scientific speculation as to whether the Russians had discovered the secret of anti-matter but this was dismissed out of hand because – well, because of anti-matter’s unpleasant propensity of annihilating all matter with which it comes into contact, the creation, harnessing and storage of it was impossible.
‘Was impossible. What if it were possible or about to become possible? The nation that held this secret could hold the world to ransom. Comparatively, nuclear weapons are inoffensive toys for the amusement of little toddlers.’
For a long minute no one spoke, then Wrinfield said: ‘You would not be talking in this fashion unless you had reason to believe that such a weapon exists or could exist.’
‘I have reason so to believe. This possibility has obsessed the intelligence agencies of all the modern world for some years now.’
‘Obviously this secret is not in our hands, or you wouldn’t be telling us all this.’
‘Obviously.’
‘And it wouldn’t be in the hands of a country such as Britain?’
‘That would give us no cause for anxiety.’
‘Because when the chips are down they would be allies with responsible hands?’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’
‘Then this secret resides – if it does reside anywhere – in the hands of a country which, when the chips were down, would be neither friendly nor responsible?’
‘Precisely.’ Pilgrim, Fawcett reflected, had warned him not to underrate Wrinfield’s intelligence. Wrinfield said slowly: ‘Pilgrim and I have already made some tentative arrangements, come to preliminary agreements. You will know that. But he never told me any of this.’
‘The time wasn’t right.’
‘So now it is?’
‘Now or not at all.’
‘Of course, you want this secret or formula or whatever?’
Fawcett began to revise his opinion of Wrinfield’s intelligence. ‘What do you think?’
‘What makes you think our hands are more responsible than those of a score of other nations?’
‘I’m a paid employee of the United States government. Mine is not to reason why.’
‘It will not have escaped you that that was precisely the reasoning adopted by the Gestapo and the SS in Germany during the Second World War or by Russia’s KGB since?’
‘It has not escaped me. But I don’t think the analogy is very exact. The United States doesn’t really want more power – we have already overkill capacity. Can you imagine what would happen if this secret fell into the hands of, say, the certifiable leaders of a couple of the new Central African republics? We simply think we have more responsible hands than most.’
‘We have to hope we have.’
Fawcett tried to conceal his long slow exhalation of relief. ‘That means you’ll go along.’
‘I’ll go. A moment ago you said the time was now right to tell me. Why?’
‘I hope I was right in saying I was right.’
Bruno stirred. ‘What do you want of me, Colonel?’
There were times, Fawcett was aware, when there was little point in beating about the bush. He said: ‘Get it for us.’
Bruno rose and poured himself another soda. He drank it all down then said: ‘You mean, steal it?’
‘Get it. Would you call taking a gun away from a maniac stealing?’
‘But why me?’
‘Because you have unique gifts. I can’t discuss what type of use we would propose making of those gifts until I have some sort of answer. All I know is that we are pretty certain that there is only one formula in existence, only one man who has the formula and is capable of reproducing it. We know where both man and formula are.’
‘Where?’
Fawcett didn’t hesitate. ‘Crau.’
Bruno didn’t react in at all the way Fawcett had expected. His voice, when he spoke, was as bereft of expression as his face. Tonelessly, he repeated
