“It’s okay,” Bruce said, as much to himself as to his mother.
It was the work of but a few minutes to get Bruce’s face cleaned off and a bandage applied. Fortunately the cut wasn’t especially large, nor did it require stitches; it had simply bled a good deal. In no time at all, Bruce and Davy were running back outside. Kathleen, shaking her head, settled back across the table from a wan but smiling Edith.
“Strange; he hardly made a peep. Any other kid would’ve wailed his head off,” Kathleen observed.
Not wishing to dwell on it excessively, Edith simply shrugged and said, “That’s Bruce. He’s just like that. He’s just so . . . bottled up.”
Professor O. T. Wren, a lean man with an occasionally distracted air but incisive mind, had been working with David Banner on and off for the last year. He found Banner to be an aggressive researcher, but somewhat unpredictable. Professor Wren had heard through the grapevine that Banner had had some sort of altercation with General Ross, and strongly suspected it had not gone well for Banner. Deciding that an avuncular approach to the problem might be in order, he sauntered down to Banner’s workstation near the cyclotron to talk with him.
When he arrived, all of Banner’s material was gone: all the work papers, everything, cleaned out. He stood there scratching his head, puzzled, and then he realized something else.
The cyclotron was shut down.
Completely shut down.
And the second this horrified realization hit him, the alarm bells around the huge particle accelerator began to sound in a unified blast of noise.
“Oh, my God,” said Professor Wren, and ran to sound a general alarm throughout the base.
And as he did that, David Banner drove at high speed across the desert, heading home to settle accounts with that little monster of his, once and for all.
sabotage
The one thing that gave Thunderbolt Ross’s day any meaning was running toward him.
“Daddy!” Betty cried out. She toddled toward him, all of two and a half years old, in a yellow sundress and her hair in pigtails. Ross stepped down out of the jeep that he had driven back to his home, a modest white A-frame with a neatly trimmed lawn. He went down on one knee, scooped Betty up, and held her high in the air, swinging her around in a circle. Betty let out a delighted squeal and shouted, “Again!”
“No ‘again,’ little girl. Last time I did, I wound up wearing your lunch on my uniform jacket.”
“Not lunch. Ice cream,” she said proudly. “We went for ice cream, and then I got sick on you.”
“How charming you remember that,” he told her, but he didn’t sound charmed about it. He set her down, and she promptly wrapped herself around one of his legs. “So what did you do today?” he asked.
“Played,” she informed him. “Mommy had a headache. She lied down.”
“Ah,” was all Ross said, and his gaze flickered toward the house. He knew all about his wife’s headaches. Betty understood that every so often her mother needed time to rest. Betty didn’t understand about something called brain cancer. She didn’t need to. All too soon, she’d have to deal with it, but not yet. Not yet.
Then Ross heard the phone ringing inside his house, but as he started toward it, there was an abrupt, frantic honking from a car horn behind him. He turned and saw a small convoy of cars and jeeps. In the lead was one of his aides with Professor Wren, one of the scientists from back at the base, in the backseat. In the passenger seat was Colonel Billings, Ross’s second in command.
“Billings, what’s wrong?” Ross said immediately.
Billings wasted no time. “Sir, I’ve had to order an evacuation of the base.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s the cyclotron, sir,” Professor Wren stepped forward, looking extremely flustered. “It’s been shut down.”
Ross felt as if he’d missed something. “Shut down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And why is that a problem?”
“I didn’t understand either at first, sir,” Billings started to say, “but . . .”
Turning toward Wren, Ross said briskly, “Professor, I keep the military aspects of the base running. I know jack-all about the science half. So why don’t you tell me why turning something off is worth evacuating the base.”
“General,” Wren said, talking calmly with great effort, “the cyclotron has been running for over a decade. It’s not like . . . like a light switch or a Buick that just gets turned on and off when it’s needed. This is a seventy-million- dollar Tandem Accelerator Superconducting Cyclotron. It’s . . .”
“It’s really large; I’ve seen it. Big, cylindrical, blue . . .”
“Yes, all true,” said Wren, “and shutting one down properly is a very lengthy and involved procedure. We never do a cold shutdown of a cyclotron. Ever. Understand, General: The cyclotron holds about 2,000 liters of liquid helium, maintained at a temperature of minus 270 degrees Celsius. Shutting it off cold, as was just done, means that the core temperature will eventually rise to room temperature. The liquid helium will then convert to 2,000 liters of helium gas, enough to fill approximately 1 million balloons. It’s like . . . like putting water into a pot, screwing a lid on tightly, and then putting the pot on a burner. Sooner or later—probably sooner—there’s going to be an explosion.”
“My God,” said Ross, beginning to grasp the immensity of the situation. “How big an explosion? What type? Nuclear?”
“From the cyclotron itself? Probably not.”
“Probably?”
“I’m not an expert on cyclotron explosions, General!” Wren said in obvious exasperation. “I’m not sure what we’ll get! And need I remind you there are other potentially explosive materials in the lab as well. When the cyclotron goes . . .”
“I understand the problem, Professor,” said Ross, and he turned to Billings. “Is the base clear? Are we far enough away where we are right now? How long have we got?”
“Evacuation was almost accomplished
