knew they had their audience hooked.
Bengt Suomi’s next sentence confirmed it. He said, “Let us dip into the past. Sometimes old theories have their uses. During the nineteenth century, the age of the Sun was much in dispute. Biologists and geologists needed many tens of millions of years for natural processes to have the necessary effect. Physicists, on the other hand, could imagine nothing that would offer the Sun so long a lifetime. Finally, Kelvin and Helmholtz came up with a proposal. It was wrong, as it happened, but it made sense. They suggested that the Sun remained hot because it was gradually shrinking in size. During that slow collapse, gravitational potential energy was converted into heat energy. There would be enough energy to keep the Sun hot and shining for many millions of years. The same thing happens when a star suddenly collapses. A vast amount of energy is released, enough to blow the outer layers of the star far way into space.
“Now consider our situation. If all the hydrogen on Jupiter underwent a sudden phase change to a denser form, the planet would shrink to a thousandth of its present size. There would be a gigantic release of gravitational potential energy. We would see Jupiter collapse, but at the same time flare bright enough to make the Sun appear dim. Actually, we would see only the first millisecond of that change, because Ganymede and all the other moons would instantly become charred cinders. That was Nadeen Selassie’s ultimate weapon; a weapon not based on fission or fusion, but on the release of planetary gravitational energy. The collapse would not be stable — at those induced temperatures, the phase change would rapidly reverse. But it would come too late to save anything from here to the Oort Cloud.”
Magrit Knudsen said, in tones of wonder, “She was insane. She wanted, to kill everyone.”
“Oh, yes.” Bat nodded with every evidence of satisfaction. “Her final vengeance. In all this, it is difficult to feel any compassion for Nadeen Selassie. Our sympathies should go to Sebastian Birch. It is clear that he enjoyed no freedom of action in what he did. He was compelled, by Nadeen Selassie’s modification of his brain and his conditioning, to seek death within the atmosphere of Jupiter or Saturn. However, it turned out that Nadeen Selassie was wrong. Somewhere in her calculations she made a fatal error. The death of Sebastian Birch, fortunately for us, did not result in the extinction of all life in the solar system. But Sebastian Birch himself—”
Valnia Bloom said suddenly, “She wasn’t.” And, as the others stared at her, “Nadeen Selassie wasn’t wrong.”
“But we are alive,” Bengt Suomi said. “She intended all of humanity to die. She made a mistake.”
“No, she didn’t. You are alive because we were lucky.” Valnia Bloom walked forward and peered at the transparent cylinder. “Those nodules, plus a few more back at Christa Matloff’s facility in earth orbit, should be the only ones in existence. Every nodule inside Sebastian Birch’s body was broken down and removed from him during a sluicing operation. The final check, to make sure that sluicing was complete, ended just a couple of days ago. If he had managed to get his hands on a spacecraft before that, and flown it down to Jupiter…”
“We would not be here to discuss his actions.” Bat gave a great and gusty sigh of satisfaction. “A fortunate outcome, and a lesson learned. Sluicing of the nodules from Sebastian Birch’s body: we were ignorant of that all- important fact. ‘Against ignorance, the gods themselves contend in vain.’ Just so.”
He seemed well content. It was Magrit Knudsen who said urgently, “You can talk about how lucky you were later. Don’t you understand the danger? I’ll pass the word at once. Every remaining nodule, anywhere in the solar system, must be located and destroyed. If I hear you correctly, a single one of them, dropped into the atmosphere of any of the outer planets, would start an irreversible reaction that would kill us all. We’ll start here.” She moved forward and grabbed the cylinder from the bench, ignoring Bengt Suomi’s gesture of protest. “I’m taking charge of this. Dr. Bloom, I want you to call the Earth facility at once. Every nodule that they can find must be accounted for and placed in high-level quarantine until we have agreed upon a safe method for disposal. Who directed the sluicing operation?”
“Harold Launius.”
“I don’t know that name, but I want you to go and find him. Tell him that no matter what he’s doing, he is now on special assignment and will report directly to the Jovian cabinet. We need to know exactly what he did, and how he did it. He must talk to no one else.”
“He’ll have it all on record. He’s the best.”
Valnia Bloom hurried out. Magrit Knudsen advanced on Bat.
“Rustum Battachariya, you are a genius and someday I’m going to kill you.” She moved so that she could address everyone in the room. “I’m going to make myself unpopular with all of you. I know you have other work that you’d like to be doing, but this takes precedence. Anything that you know, or think, or even suspect may be slightly relevant, we have to hear about. I’ll apologize in advance, but you are going to be pestered until you wish you’d stayed in bed and missed this meeting. If anyone else asks what’s going on, you don’t tell them. Refer them to me. Any questions?”
Bat glowered. Alex Ligon said tentatively, “My predictive models…”
“Will manage for a while without you. Kate Lonaker and Ole Pedersen can hold the fort. Even in your worst scenario, as I recall it, humanity had a run of at least another half century. With Nadeen Selassie’s doomsday weapon in the picture, we almost went yesterday, and we could all go tomorrow. In any case, I’m not suggesting that we abandon other work — only that this must occupy the highest priority. Anyone else?”
Milly was tempted to ask about the SETI effort, but she kept her mouth shut. She needed to talk again to Jack Beston. She wasn’t sure that she was ready or willing to resume their curious love-hate relationship. Yesterday the SETI signal and Jack had been the most important things in her universe, but what Bat and Bengt Suomi had said was finally sinking in. Yesterday, that same yesterday when the SETI signal mattered so much, she had almost died and never known it. The whole of life was suddenly a fragile possession, a delicate mystery that could vanish as randomly and inexplicably as it had appeared.
Milly had said nothing, but Magrit Knudsen caught something from her expression. The older woman smiled at her.
“There are days like this, my dear. You just have to hope that you’ll live to see a lot of them.” Magrit Knudsen turned again to Bat. “One more thing. I know how much you love to collect lost weapons from the Great War. I sympathize with that, and normally I approve of it. Now, I can imagine you saying to yourself, if I could obtain a few nodules that Nadeen Selassie implanted in Sebastian Birch — or even just one — that would be the finest war relic anyone could ever hope to own. And I would enclose them and insulate them and guard them so well in the depths of the Bat Cave, the nodules would never be dangerous to anyone. I couldn’t ever mention to anyone that I had them, but they would still be mine. Well, Bat, I have just one thing to say about that line of thinking. Don’t go there. Even if your devious mind sees a way to get your hands on more nodules, don’t do it.”
“Very well.”
“Is that a real yes? A personal promise, from you to me?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
Bat was half a meter taller than Magrit and at least four times her mass. She stood, hands on hips, staring up at him in silence as he frowned, pursed his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and gave every appearance of a man in supreme torment.
Finally he reached a hand into the pocket of his rumpled shirt and fumbled around. His hand emerged holding a great mass of detritus. Milly saw papers, an interface coupler, three keys and a tiny electronic lens, all glued together by what appeared to be lumps of hard candy. Bat reached into the middle of the mess with his other hand and delicately removed a capped metal tube a couple of centimeters across. He handed it over.
As he did so he sighed like an expiring whale and said, “There is more than one way to kill a man, Magrit Knudsen. Take this; and with it, you have my solemn promise.”
35
CLOSURE, AND OPENING
Bat floated in the bath, eyes closed and only his face and an island of rounded belly showing above the surface. He had not bothered to remove his clothes. Either the protozoan cleansers would be smart enough to recognize and ignore them, or they would eat them away along with every trace of grime upon his body.
