'Excellent. Interestingly, some workers once thought that sort of thing might happen in a particle accelerator. They called that state 'Lee-Wick matter,' and they feared it would be so dense that it would accrete everything else into it. Perhaps, do you see?, even turning the whole Earth into Lee-Wick matter.' He wiped his lips with a napkin, grinning. 'They were incorrect. No accelerator can reach those forces, though at the Crunch-'
'Yes?'
'Why, then,' Papathanassiou said, nodding, 'yes, perhaps it could be possible. Not in the form of Lee-Wick matter, no; one is pretty confident now that that doesn't exist after all. Rather it would be in the form of strange matter. That's to say, matter made from quarks-do you know what a quark is? Well, never mind; but strange matter would be very dense indeed, and it would keep on getting denser and denser. You cannot imagine how dense, Mr. Dannerman.'
'Like a black hole?' he hazarded.
'Far denser than even a black hole. It would encompass the entire universe, you see, for as soon as it began to form it would transform everything around it into strange matter. Do you know our story of King Midas and his touch of gold? Like that. But only for a tiny fraction of a second, because such matter has a net positive charge-no electrons, you see-and so it tries to fly apart, like a bomb. Have I answered your question?'
'Well, yes.' Dannerman cleared his throat. 'That part of it, anyway. But it's funny you should mention a bomb.'
Papathanassiou's cheerful expression faltered. 'I beg your pardon?'
'Someone was asking about you,' Dannerman lied. 'He mentioned bombs? And a brother?'
The astronomer's smile was gone. 'I don't understand. Who was this person?'
'I don't know. Greek, I think. You know that bar downstairs? 1 was having a cup of coffee, and he sat down next to me and asked if I knew you. Do you think I should mention it to Dr. Adcock?'
'Dear God, no!'
'I mean, so she can find this man and make him stop. He said some very unkind things about you, Dr. Papathanassiou.'
'No! Please, no,' the astronomer begged.
'Well,' Dannerman began, then paused as his communicator beeped at him; there was an incoming call on the observatory system. In any case, he thought, that was a good place to stop; the hook had been planted, and it would be worthwhile to let Papathanassiou worry for a while. 'I'd better take my call,' he said. 'Anyway, I won't say anything to her today. But I need to think this over; maybe you and I can talk again tomorrow? Here? I think that would be a good idea-and, oh, yes, thank you for explaining to me about the Big Crunch.'
The call turned out to be Gerd Hausewitz from the Max-Planck Institut again, and he was looking aggrieved. 'You promised to supply the specs for the Starlab mission,' he reminded Dannerman.
'I know, Gerd. I've requested them.'
'It is only that we supplied the data you asked for at once.'
'I know you did. What can I tell you? I don't know how it is in your place, but here it takes time to get people to move.'
'Yes, of course, Dannerman, but-' He looked over his shoulder and spoke more softly. '-my superiors are quite interested in this matter. They were not pleased that I delivered your material without at once receiving what we asked in return. This could be difficult for me here.'
'I'll do what I can.'
'Please, Dannerman.'
'Yes, I promise,' Dannerman said, half turning as he cut the contact. Someone was at his door and, surprisingly, it was the Chinese astronaut, PRC Space Corps Commander James Peng-tsu Lin.
He was wearing a propitiatory smile. 'Hey, Dan,' he said. 'I owe you an apology.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'No, really. I was pretty rude this morning, and I didn't mean to be-had to get down to the embassy and all that red tape, had a lot on my mind. So let's start over, okay?'
'Glad to, Commander Lin-'
'Just Jimmy, all right? Listen, what I was thinking, are you free for lunch? Looks like we're going to be working together for a while, and I like to get to know new people when they come to work here. Especially if they're Pat's cousin. They tell me there's some pretty fine ethnic food just around the corner-?'
'That'd be fine,' Dannerman said, with pleasure. Whatever had turned Lin around was a mystery, but it was also a break: you didn't often get a subject volunteering to let you interrogate him. 'I'll get my stuff and meet you at the elevator.'
And then, as he picked up his twenty-shot weapon from Mick Jarvas, another little mystery solved itself. Jarvas was in the men's room, but when he came out he looked almost cheerful until he saw Dannerman waiting for him. Then he gave Dannerman that peculiar look again as he handed over the gun. He didn't let go of it.
'Is there something you want to say to me?' Dannerman asked, holding the barrel while Jarvas held the butt- he was glad to see the safety was firmly on.
Jarvas's eyes were on the ground, but Dannerman thought he muttered something. 'What did you say?'
Jarvas looked up angrily. As he let go of the gun at last, he managed to get it out. 'About that business in the street yesterday? I just said thanks.'
Jimmy Lin was in the waiting room, busily chatting up the receptionist. In the elevator he said appreciatively, 'I have to say your cousin Pat doesn't mind hiring other good-lookers. How'd you like to do the Twin Dragons Teasing the Phoenix with that Janice lady?'
'The what?'
The astronaut guffawed. 'The Twin Dragons Teasing the Phoenix. It's an old Chinese expression. It's like, well, like when a lady has two gentleman paying attention to her at once.' He grinned sidelong at Dannerman. 'Just a joke, you know. Phew, what a mob.' He led the way along the block to turn the corner, moving rapidly. When he noticed that Dannerman was lengthening his stride to keep up with him he said apologetically, 'Sorry, I guess I'm always in a hurry. It's a genetic fault; my dad was the same way-except with the ladies, of course. Anyway, here's the place.'
To the surprise of Dannerman, who had been preparing himself for Chinese food, the ethnic restaurant was not Oriental at all. What it was, was Tex-Mex. The place was almost as crowded as the sidewalk, but Lin had a whispered conversation with the waiter and money must have changed hands; they got an immediate table. 'I hope you like this stuff, Dan. I guess I got an appetite for it in Houston. First time I was there this lady from El Paso introduced me to it, then I introduced her to the Jade Girl Playing the Flute. Aw,' he said, grinning, lowering his voice as he glanced at the waitress who was hovering just out of earshot, 'that doesn't mean anything to you, does it? It's another of those old Chinese expressions. One of these days I'll show you some books that were written by my great-great-I-don't-know-how-many-greats granddaddy, Peng-tsu. I got my middle name after him; the old man's kind of famous, in some circles, anyway. He was a Taoist sage two thousand years ago-I'd have to say, a pretty horny Taoist sage-and he wrote some dandy books on what he called 'healthful life.' His idea of health, though, was to prong the ladies as often as he could and make up a list of all the ways there are of doing it. Well, enough of my sordid family history. Let's go ahead and order, we don't want to keep that good-looking little cowgal over there waiting, and then you can tell me all about Dan Dannerman.'
And that was the way it went. It didn't take Dannerman long to realize that the astronaut was as interested in pumping him as he was in finding out about the astronaut. They didn't talk shop. They talked the way long-lost friends talk when they catch up on each other's lives after years of separation. Jimmy Lin wasn't reticent about himself. Garrulous would've been more accurate; in the first half hour Dannerman learned that the Lins were a wealthy old Hong Kong family who moved to Beijing after the reunification and got even richer there, as the People's Republic discovered the wonders of entrepreneurialism. Jimmy Lin himself had been educated in America, of course. That, along with the fact that he spent a lot of his spare time in his father's place on Maui, accounted for his accent-free American English. Then, instead of going into the family business, he'd been accepted for astronaut training. 'But,' he said, sighing, 'I'm no credit to my ancestors. The top brass fired me out of the astronaut corps a year ago-they had some damn political charge.' He looked ruefully embarrassed. 'What they called it was 'left-wing, right-wing zigzag deviationism,' if you can imagine that. But actually about half the corps got dumped at the same
