anything beyond the table. Connolly watched as he tentatively lowered his right hand, dropping the metal a fraction, then held it still to listen for the increased clicking sound, his whole frame rigid with concentration. So this is what it was like, this awful attention, tickling the dragon’s tail. Then he straightened for a minute, staring ahead at the blackboard as if it were a mirror, and took a deep breath. When he bent over again his movements were fluid, no longer hesitant, and Connolly watched, fascinated, as he lowered another cube in a steady, deliberate push.
Suddenly the clicking erupted and a blue light flashed in the room, some terrible new lightning, and Connolly gasped. Eisler whirled around, seeing him for the first time, then swept his arm across the pile of blocks, knocking them over to the floor with a crash. Connolly instinctively froze. The blue light and the frantic clicking noise stopped. For a moment they held their positions, Connolly listening to his own ragged breath, Eisler looking at him in anguish. When Connolly moved, Eisler held his hand up in warning.
“Please stay where you are,” he said calmly. “You’ve been exposed.” Then slowly, with the inevitable movements of a dream, he went over to the blackboard. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Connolly,” he said distantly, absorbed. “How many meters would you say? Ten?” The blocks lay scattered at his feet, now just harmless metal. He picked up a piece of chalk and quickly sketched an outline of the room, like one of Connolly’s maps, then began to fill the space to its side with the numbers and signs of a formula. Connolly stood trembling, watching him move his chalk across the board, methodical as a madman.
“What are you doing?” he said finally, his voice hoarse, scraped by shallow breathing.
“The effect of the radiation,” Eisler said, his back still to him. “It can’t have been more than two or three seconds. That’s something. But it’s the distance that matters. It’s good you stopped where you are. You have good manners, Mr. Connolly,” he said dispassionately, as if it were no more than another factor to compute. “Not to walk in. They may have saved your life.”
“You did,” Connolly said, shaking involuntarily.
Eisler turned to face him. “Unless I have taken it.” He paused. “We will have to do some tests.” Then, sensing Connolly’s shock, “I think you will be all right. It was a very small exposure.”
“But what happened? Was that a chain reaction?”
“Oh yes.” Eisler came away from the board, his shoulders drooping. “I am so very sorry, Mr. Connolly. I didn’t know—”
“But what-what should I do?” Connolly said, his voice still urgent and unsteady.
“Do? There’s nothing to do.” Eisler looked at him, then moved over to the table. “We must go to the infirmary. But first, you will permit me? One note.”
Connolly watched, hypnotized, as Eisler wrote on a sheet of paper. So fast, a simple flash. What if he died? Radiation poisoning was a grisly, painful death. Everyone knew that. But nobody knew anything. Minutes ago he had been hurrying through the rain. Just a flash, like a bullet in combat. Here, as far away from the war as anyone could get.
“May I ask,” Eisler said, “why you came here?”
“Weber sent me. To remind you. The Beethoven.”
“Ah, the Beethoven,” he said wistfully. “He will have to wait, I’m afraid. We must get you to a doctor. Right now.” As he moved forward, Connolly involuntarily stepped back. “No, don’t worry, it’s not contagious. I am not myself radioactive. It doesn’t work that way.”
Connolly flushed. “Sorry.” And then, embarrassed that it had not occurred to him before, “But what about you? Are you all right?”
Eisler shook his head gravely, but his voice had the tone of a wry smile. “No, Mr. Connolly, for me it’s fatal. It’s in the numbers, you see,” he said, pointing to the board. “The numbers don’t lie.”
They lay side by side on the small infirmary examination tables as nurses drew blood samples and the doctor ran tests that, incongruously, reminded him of an annual physical.
“Is there anything wrong with me?” Connolly said. “I don’t feel anything.”
“We’ll just keep you overnight to be sure,” the doctor said. Then, to Eisler, “How long did you say he was exposed?”
“A second. Two. Three. It was not significant. There have been worse cases,” Eisler replied, but he was looking at Connolly, reassuring him. “They don’t know, you see,” he said gently. “They put you under observation, but what can they observe? So now we are to be roommates.”
“Just for the night,” the doctor said. “Just to be sure.” But he meant Connolly. The questions, the light reassurances, were directed to him. Eisler, lying quietly in his hospital smock, would not be expected to leave. He was dying.
Connolly knew it when Oppenheimer arrived. Eisler had busied himself sending apologies to Weber, politely teasing the doctor, making small jokes to Connolly about the makeshift hospital, so that it all seemed no more unpleasant than an interrupted seminar. Then Oppenheimer came into the room, his porkpie hat dripping with rain, and Connolly saw his pale face, the bright, quick eyes for once still and afraid.
“Robert,” Eisler said softly.
Oppenheimer looked at him, a silent exchange, then took off his hat.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he said, his eyes never leaving Eisler.
“I’m sorry, Robert.”
“Friedrich.” He came over and took Eisler’s hand. The gesture surprised Connolly. It was something new in Oppenheimer. He had seen frustration, even a kind of haunted wisdom. He’d never seen simple affection. “We’ll have you moved to Albuquerque,” Oppenheimer said, falling back on authority.
Eisler smiled. “Albuquerque? And leave the project? What could they do in Albuquerque? Here is fine. I’ll have it all to myself. Mr. Connolly here will be leaving tomorrow-he’s quite all right.”
Oppenheimer took him in for the first time. “What the devil were you doing there?” he said quickly, and it occurred to Connolly that it might have been his fault, the interruption.
“Robert, Robert,” Eisler said soothingly. “You blame the messenger. It was nothing to do with him. An accident. Stupid. My own stupidity.”
“Are you all right?” Oppenheimer said to Connolly, an apology.
Connolly nodded. “I guess so.”
“How did it happen?” He turned back to Eisler.
“The dragon. It went critical. You can see the notes.”
“I told you—”
“Yes, yes, a thousand times.”
“How long was the exposure?”
“Long enough.”
“My God, Friedrich.” Oppenheimer took his hand again, disconcerted, and Connolly felt the impulse to turn away, his face to the wall.
“It’s a risk, Robert, that’s all. You don’t take risks? Every day? How else can we go forward?”
“It was foolish.”
“Perhaps. But now there’s much to be done. We have the moment now. We need to calculate—”
But Oppenheimer had got up and was nervously lighting a cigarette, glancing toward the open door.
“Robert, a hospital—”
“It’s my hospital,” Oppenheimer snapped, drawing some smoke. He turned back. “It’s over, Friedrich,” he said quietly. “I can’t allow it.”
“Allow? I’m not dead. The effects aren’t immediate, you know. There will be a week. Maybe two. I can still —”
“I’m asking you to stay here. Or Albuquerque.”
Eisler looked up at him to protest, then, seeing his face, settled back on his pillow. “Under observation.”
“Yes,” Oppenheimer said reluctantly, “under observation.”
Eisler was quiet for a minute. “So I am to be the guinea pig.”
“Friedrich—”
“No. Of course you are right. I myself should have thought of this. Each day we observe and then, in the end, we go a little forward. But you will allow me to help organize it, the experiment?”
“Friedrich.”
“No, no, please. We are not sentimentalists. It’s important to know. We can observe the elements break
