Текст книги "Ancient Shores"

Автор книги: Jack McDevitt

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“Feels like beveled glass,” she said. “I think I can see into it.” She took out a flashlight, switched it on, and held it close to the patch. But the sun was too bright. Dissatisfied, she removed her jacket and used it to create shade.

“What is it?” asked one of the workers.

“Can’t tell yet.” April looked at Max. “The light penetrates a little bit.”

“You’re going to freeze,” he said. But he put his head under the spread jacket. He could see into the object.

April produced a file, took off a few grains, and put them in an envelope. Then she looked up and spotted Lasker. “Be careful,” she said. “We don’t want any spades near it. I don’t care if it takes all year to get the dirt out. Let’s not damage this thing.” She put her jacket and gloves back on and climbed out of the hole. “Don’t know, but that doesn’t look to me like the roof of a shed. Maybe we’ve really got something.” The envelope was the self-sticking kind. She sealed it and put it in a pocket. “Max,” she said, “I need a favor.”

“Name it.”

“Fly me back to Colson?”

“The action’s here.”

She shook her head. “Later it will be. But this afternoon the action will be at the lab.”

April never understood how the media found out so quickly. The Ben at Ten TV news team arrived before she and Max could get off the escarpment, and they were quickly joined by some print reporters.

“No,” she told them, “I don’t know anything about a UFO.”

She told them she had no idea how the story had got started, that they weren’t looking for anything specific, that there’d been reports of a buried object atop the ridge, and that they had found some thick glass in the ground. “That’s it,” she said. “It’s all I can tell you for now.”

Carole Jensen from Ben at Ten pressed for a statement.

“How about tomorrow morning?” said April. “Okay? Nine o’clock. That’ll give us a chance to try to figure out what we’ve got. But please don’t expect any big news.”

Max flew them back to Chellis Field. April wasted no time jumping into her car, declining his invitation for lunch. “I’ll call you when I have something,” she promised.

Max checked in at the office, ordered pizza, and turned on his TV just as the noon news reports were coming on. And it was not good. There he was, standing beside April and looking foolish, while she transparently dodged questions. Worse, the reporter identified him as the owner of Sundown Aviation.

The anchor on The News at Noon referred to the delusions often associated with UFO buffs, and cited a gathering two weeks earlier on an Idaho mountaintop to await the arrival of otherworldly visitors. “Is the Fort Moxie dig another example?” he asked. “Stay tuned.”

In midafternoon the clips showed up on CNN, which lumped Johnson’s Ridge in with a report on the crazy season. They interviewed a visibly deranged young man who maintained there was a power source within the Pembina Escarpment that allowed people to get in touch with their true selves. In Minnesota a group of farmers claimed to have seen something with lights land in the woods near Sauk Centre. There were stories of alien abductions in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. And a man in Lovelock, Nevada, who’d crashed into a roadside boulder and tested positive for alcohol, swore he was being chased by a UFO.

“Max, you’re a celebrity,” Ceil told him. He hadn’t seen her standing in the doorway. She was wearing an immaculately pressed Thor Air Cargo blazer, dark blue with gold trim. Her hair was shoulder-length, and it swirled as she pulled the door shut.

Max sighed. “On my way to fame and fortune,” he said.

She sat down opposite him. “I hope you make it.” Her expression was set in its whimsical mode. “I was down looking at the Zero today.”

“And?”

“If you really have a UFO up there, the rest of this stuff is going to look like pretty small potatoes.”

He grinned. “Don’t bet the mortgage on it.”

“I won’t, Max.” She smiled. Max felt warmth flood through him. “Listen, I’m going up to Winnipeg. You busy?”

He shook his head. “Just waiting for a phone call. How long are you going to be there?”

“Up and back. I’m delivering a shipment of telecommunications parts.” Her eyes went serious. “Max, is it really there?”

“I doubt it,” he said.

She looked disappointed. “Pity. Anyhow, why don’t you come along? You can show me where you’re digging.”

Max saw himself coming out of a Washington studio after an interview with Larry King. Ceil would be waiting, but as she approached he would wave her away. “Talk to you later,” he’d say. “I’m on my way over to do the Tonight show.”

“Max?” she said.

“Yeah. Sure, I’ll go.” He did want to hear April’s results as soon as they became available. “Which plane?”

“Betsy.”

“Okay. Let me finish up here and I’ll meet you outside.”

He called April, got her answering machine, and told her how to raise the C—47. Then he left a note for Stell (who was at lunch), pulled on his jacket, and wandered out onto the runway.

Ceil was already on board. He could see her up in the cockpit, going through her checklist. The C—47 still carried its original insignia. The only external concession to its real mission was the corporate mallet and the legend Thor Air Cargo tucked away on the tail.

Max climbed in through the cargo door and closed it. The interior was filled with packing cases. He threaded his way through to the cockpit. Ceil, talking to the tower, raised a hand to acknowledge his presence. Max took the copilot’s seat.

The engines were turning slowly.

“What’s the big rush on the telephones?” he asked. Usually he would have expected a shipment like this to go by land.

“Somebody screwed up. Production is waiting. So I get the assignment. Most of my business comes from picking up the pieces when people get things wrong.” She grinned. “I’ll never lack for work.”

She taxied out onto the north runway. A few clouds floated in a gray sky. Snow tonight, Max thought. He liked the feel of the C—47. It was a durable and exceptionally stable aircraft. If you were going to haul cargo through hostile skies, this would be the plane you’d want to have.

“On our way,” she said. She gunned the engines, and the C—47 rolled down the tarmac and lifted into the early afternoon.

Max had discovered more than a year earlier that romance with Ceil wasn’t going to happen. Once that had been got out of the way, he found her easy to talk to. She was a good listener, and he trusted her discretion absolutely. “What scares me,” he said, “is that all this is becoming so public. The whole country now thinks that we think there might be a UFO up there. It makes us look like kooks.”

“What do you think?”

“That it’ll turn out to be something else.”

“Then why are you going to all this expense?”

Max thought about it. “On the off chance—”

Her laughter stopped him. “See? You are kooks. Anyhow, I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ll be fine if you really do have a UFO.” It was cold in the cabin, and she turned up the heat. “If it’s there, Max, I want to ride in it.” She looked at him, and he laughed and gave her a thumbs-up.

She climbed to fourteen thousand feet and turned north. Life was good in the cockpit of the C—47, where the sun was shining and everything was peaceful. “Who would own it?” she asked.

“I guess it would belong to the Sioux.”

“The Sioux?”

“It’s on their land.” The thought of the Sioux winding up with the world’s most advanced spacecraft amused him. “I wonder what the Bureau of Indian Affairs would say to that.”

“You can bet your foot,” she said, “that the Sioux wouldn’t be allowed to keep it.”

They picked up the Maple River near Hope and followed it north. When they were over Pleasant Valley, the phone rang. Ceil picked it up, listened, and handed it to Max.

It was April. She sounded out of breath. “It’s one-sixty-one, Max,” she said.

“Just like the boat?” He squeezed the phone and caught Ceil’s eye. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, Max. I’m sure.” She made no effort to suppress her delight.

“Congratulations,” said Max. Ceil was watching him curiously.

“You, too. Listen, we should go back up.”

“Actually, I’m more or less there now. I’m on my way to Winnipeg. I’ll be back this evening, and we can fly up tonight. Okay?”

“Sure. That’s fine. Call me when you get here.”

Max said he would. “Have you thought about the press conference tomorrow?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve thought about it.”

“Seems to me we have no reason to keep it quiet anymore.”

“What?” asked Ceil, forming the word with her lips.

Max could almost hear the wheels go round in April’s head. “I’d feel better,” she said, “if we waited until we have the thing dug up.”

“You probably won’t have that luxury.”

“I take it,” Ceil said moments later, “you have a UFO.”

“No, the news is not that good. But it is good.” He explained.

She looked at him, and her eyes grew round and warm. “I’m happy for you, Max,” she said.

Johnson’s Ridge was coming up. Max looked down on the flanking hills, smooth and white in the afternoon sun, and the saddle, low and flat and emptying off abruptly into space.

“You’ve got a lot of people down there,” said Ceil.

Too many, as a matter of fact. There were people everywhere, and the parking lot overflowed with vehicles. “I guess we’ve got some sightseers,” he said.

Ceil banked and started a long, slow turn. “It’s probably just the beginning,” she said. “You might want to start thinking about crowd control and security.” She extracted a pair of field glasses from a utility compartment and raised them to look at the ridge. “I don’t think your people are getting much work done.”

Max reached for the phone, but she touched his wrist. “Why don’t we do it in person?” she said. “I’d like to see it for myself, anyhow.”

She put the glasses down and pushed the wheel forward. The plane began to descend. “You aren’t going to land down there, are you?” Max asked. “There’s an airport a few miles east.”

She pointed down. “Is that the road?”

The two-lane from Fort Moxie looked like stop-and-go traffic. “That’s it.”

“We don’t have time to negotiate that. Look, Max, I’d love to see a UFO up close. You’ve seen the ground. Any reservations?”

The top of the escarpment was about two thousand yards long. It was flat, treeless as long as she stayed away from the perimeters, marked with occasional patches of snow. “You’ve got a pretty good crosswind,” he said.

She looked down, and her expression indicated no sweat. “It’s less than twenty knots. No problem for Betsy.”

“Whatever,” he said.

She laughed. “Don’t worry, Max. If anyone complains, I’ll tell them you protested all the way down.”

Ten minutes later she set the big plane on the ground without jostling the coffee. Everyone turned to watch as they taxied close in to the site. Lasker was waiting when Max opened the door.

“I should have known it was you,” he said. Before he could say anything else he saw Ceil, and he got that same goofy expression that seemed to afflict every man she got close to.

“Ceil,” Max said, “this is Tom Lasker. Our straw boss.”

They shook hands.

Tourists and sightseers were everywhere. They engaged workers in conversation, blocked bridges, and generally got in the way. Many were standing on the edge of the excavation, others were dangerously close to the precipice. “We need to do something,” Max said.

Lasker sighed. “I had some people trying to keep them away. But they’re aggressive, and there are just too many to control. Anyway, nobody up here has any real authority.”

Max watched an unending stream of cars approaching across the top of the plateau. “Okay,” he said, “we’ll ask the police to establish some controls on the access road. Maybe limit the number of tourists they allow up here at any one time.”

“They don’t want to do that.”

“They’re going to have to. Before somebody gets killed. We’ll need to make up ID cards for our people.”

“What do we do in the meantime? We’re almost at dead stop here.”

Max took a deep breath. “Send everyone home early.” He looked at the swarms of people. “Who’s the chief of police?”

“Emil Doutable.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah. We don’t run in the same social circles, but I know him.”

“Call him. Explain what’s happening and ask for help. Tell them we’ve been forced out of the excavation, and ask him to send some people to clear the area.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

“Meantime,” Max said to Ceil, “I guess you’d like to see the whatsis?”

“Yes,” she said. “If you don’t mind.”

They crossed a wooden bridge over the main trench. In the inner area, heaps of dirt were thrown up everywhere, and several other ditches had been dug. Max peered into each as they advanced. Finally he stopped. “Here,” he said.

The excavation was wider than it had been in the morning. And the green patch had also grown. “It looks like glass,” Ceil said.

Several minutes later, Lasker rejoined them. “Cops are coming,” he said.

“Good. By the way, Tom, April says this is more of the same stuff. Maybe we’ve really got ourselves a UFO.”

Lasker shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Max had been careful not to allow himself to get carried away by his hopes. But Lasker’s comment, and something in his tone, disappointed Max. “Why not?” he asked.

Lasker looked pained. “Follow me,” he said.

He led the way back to the main ditch and descended one of the ladders. Max and Ceil followed. It was cold and gloomy in the trench. Boards had been laid along the ground. People were digging everywhere. Others hauled dirt away and loaded it into barrels. The barrels were lifted by pulley to the surface, where they would be dumped.

“Here,” said Lasker. He pointed at a curved strut that emerged from the earthen wall about five feet over his head and plunged into the ground. “There are several of these,” he said. “The upper end is connected to the outside of the object. This end,” he added, pointing to the lower section, “is anchored in rock. Whatever else this thing might be, it sure as hell wasn’t meant to go anywhere.”

11

The entire macroindustrial system is predicated on a persistent and statistically predictable level of both dissolution and waste. That is, on major components of what is normally defined as use. A significant reduction in either of these two components could be relied on to produce immediate and quite volatile economic disruptions.

–Edouard Deneuve, Industrial Base and Global Village, third edition

“I’d like to start by putting an end to the flying-saucer rumor.” April spoke directly into the cameras. She was flanked by Max, who would just as soon have been somewhere else but was trying not to look that way. A state flag had been draped across the wall behind them. “I don’t know where that story came from, but it didn’t originate with us. The first I heard about it was in the Fort Moxie News.” She smiled at Jim Stuyvesant, who stood a few feet away, looking smug.

They were in the Fort Moxie city hall. Max had been shocked at both the number and the identities of the journalists who had turned up. There were representatives from CNN and ABC, from the wire services, from several major midwestern dailies, and even one from the Japan Times. Mike Tower, the Chicago Tribune’s celebrated gadfly, was in the front row. For at least a few hours, the little prairie town had acquired national prominence.

April and Max had made a decision the previous evening to hold nothing back but speculation. If they were going to show up on CNN, they might as well do it with a splash. April had rehearsed her statement, and Max had asked every question they could think of. But doing it with the live audience was different. April was not an accomplished speaker, and there were few things in this life that scared Max more than addressing any kind of crowd.

April pulled a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase. “But we do have some news. These are lab reports on a sample of sail found with the Lasker boat and on a sample of the exterior of the object on the ridge. The element from which these objects are made has an atomic number of one hundred sixty-one.”

Photojournalists moved in close and got their pictures.

“This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart.”

Several hands went up. “What exactly does that mean?” asked a tall young woman in the middle of the room.

“It means it is not an element we have seen before. In fact, not too long ago I would have told you this kind of element would be inherently unstable and could not exist.”

More hands. “Who’s capable of manufacturing this stuff?”

“Nobody I know of.”

Cellular phones were appearing. Her audience pressed forward, holding up microphones, shouting questions, some just listening. April asked them to hold their questions until she completed her statement. She then outlined the sequence of events, beginning with the discovery of the yacht. She named Max and Tom Lasker, giving them full credit (or responsibility) for the find on the ridge. She described in detail the test results on the materials from the boat and from the excavation site. “They will be made available as you leave,” she said. She confessed an inability to arrive at a satisfactory explanation. “But,” she added, “we know that the object on the ridge is a structure and not a vehicle of any kind. So we can put everyone’s imagination to rest on that score.” She delivered an engaging smile. “It looks like an old railroad roundhouse.”

Hands went up again.

The Winnipeg Free Press: “Dr. Cannon, are you saying this thing could not have been built by human technology?”

CNN: “Have you been able to establish the age of the object?”

The Grand Forks Herald: “There’s a rumor that more excavations are planned. Are you going to be digging somewhere else?”

She held up her hands. “One at a time, please.” She looked at the reporter from the Free Press. “Nobody I know can do it.”

“How about the government?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. But you’ll have to ask them.” She turned toward CNN. “The element doesn’t decay. I don’t think we’ll be able to date it directly. But it appears that the builders did some rock cutting to make room for the roundhouse. We might be able to come up with a date when the rock cutting took place. But we haven’t done that yet.”

A woman to her left was waving a clipboard. “Do you have some pictures?”

April signaled to Ginny Lasker, who was standing beside a flip chart. She lifted the front page and threw it over the top, revealing a sketch of the roundhouse. “As far as we can tell,” April said, “the entire outer surface is made of the same material. It feels like beveled glass, by the way.”

“Glass?” said ABC.

“Well, it looks like glass.”

More hands:

“What’s inside?”

“Are you sure you haven’t made a mistake here somewhere?”

“Now that we have this material, will we be able to reproduce it?”

And so on. April responded as best she could. She had no idea what lay within. She had arranged to have the samples tested by a second lab, and the results were identical. And she had no idea whether anyone could learn to manufacture the material. “If we could,” she added, “we could make sails that will last a long time.”

“How long?” asked the Fargo Forum.

“Well.” She grinned. “Long.”

They had the security problem under control. ID badges were passed out to workers, and police kept tourists from wandering onto the excavation site.

The press conference, if nothing else, had alerted Max to the nature of the beast he was riding. He gave several interviews but was careful not to go beyond the limits they’d set. What is really happening here? Who built the roundhouse? Max refused to be drawn in. We don’t know any more than you do. He was, he said, content to leave the speculation to the media.

Journalists at the excavation outnumbered the workforce. They took pictures and asked questions and stood in several lines to look at the translucent green surface, which had now been reached in several locations.

Just before noon Tom Lasker caught up with Max in the control van. The phones were ringing off the hook, but they’d brought a few people in from the dig to help out. “They’ve broken in on the networks with this story, Max,” he said. “Bulletins on all the stations. By the way, Charlie Lindquist called. He loves us.”

“Who’s Charlie Lindquist?”

“President of the Fort Moxie city council. You know what he said?”

“No. What did he say?”

“He said this is better than Nessie. So help me.” Tom’s grin was a foot wide. “And the wild part of it is that it’s true, Max. This is the biggest thing in these parts since Prohibition. Cavalier, Walhalla, all these towns are going to boom.” There were raised voices outside. Max looked out the window and saw April trading one-liners with a contingent of reporters. “I think they like her,” he said.

“Yeah, I think they do. She gave them one hell of a story.”

The door opened, and April backed in. “Give me an hour,” she shouted to someone, “and I’ll be glad to sit down with you.”

“We’re into my childhood now,” she said, safely inside. “Some of them want to turn this into another story about how a downtrodden African-American makes good.” She sighed, fell into a chair, and noticed Lasker. “Hi, Tom. Welcome to the funny farm.”

“It’s like this at home, too,” he said. “Huge crowds, unlike anything we’ve seen before, and an army of reporters. They were interviewing the kids when I left this morning.”

April shrugged. “Maybe this is what life will be like from now on.”

“I can deal with it.” Max was enjoying himself.

“Hey,” she said, “I’m hungry. Have we got a sandwich here anywhere?”

Max passed over a roast beef and a Pepsi from the refrigerator. April unwrapped the sandwich and took a substantial bite.

“You were good out there,” Max said.

“Thanks.” Her lips curved into a smile. “I was a little nervous.”

“It didn’t show.” That was a lie, but it needed to be said.

Someone knocked. Lasker leaned back and looked out. He opened the door, revealing a thin, gray-haired man of extraordinary height.

The visitor looked directly at April, not without hostility. “Dr. Cannon?”

“Yes.” She returned his stare. “What can I do for you?”

The man wore an air of quiet outrage. His hair was thin but cropped aggressively over his scalp. The eyes were watery behind bifocals that, Max suspected, needed to be adjusted. His glance slid past Lasker and Max as if they were furnishings. “My name’s Eichner,” he said. “I’m chairman of the archeology department at Northwestern.” He looked down at April from his considerable height, which his tone suggested was moral as well as physical. “I assume you’re in charge of this—” He paused. “—operation?” He coated the term with condescension.

April never took her eyes from him. “What’s your business, Dr. Eichner?” she said.

“My business is preserving the past, Dr. Cannon. You’ll forgive me for saying so, but this artifact, this whatever-it-is that your people are digging at, may be of great value.”

“We know.”

He flicked a cool glance at Max, as if challenging him to disagree. “Then you ought to know that the possibility of damage, and consequently of irreparable loss, is substantial. There are no controls. There is no professional on site.”

“You mean a professional archeologist.”

“What else might I mean?”

“I assume,” said Max, “you’re interested in the position.”

“Frankly,” Eichner said, still talking to April, “I’m far too busy to take over a field effort just now. But you have an obligation to get somebody up here who knows what he, or she, is doing.”

“I can assure you, Dr. Eichner,” said April, “that we are exercising all due caution.”

“All due caution by amateurs is hardly reassuring.” He produced a booklet and held it out for her. The legend National Archeological Association was printed on the cover. “I suggest you call any university with a reputable department. Or the Board of Antiquities. Their number is on page two. They’ll be happy to help you find someone.”

When she did not move, he dropped the booklet on the table. “I can’t prevent what you’re doing,” he said. “I wish I could. If it were possible, I would stop you in your tracks this moment. Since I cannot, I appeal to reason.”

April picked up the booklet. She slipped it into her purse without glancing at it. “Thank you,” she said.

He looked at her, looked at the purse. “I’m quite serious,” he said. “You have professional responsibilities here.” He opened the door, wished them all good day, and was gone.

Nobody spoke for a minute. “He’s probably right,” said Lasker.

Max shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not a chance. The archeology department at Northwestern doesn’t know any more about digging up this kind of thing than we do.”

“I agree,” said April. “Anyhow, Schliemann was an amateur.”

“Didn’t I read somewhere,” said Lasker, “that he made a mess of Troy?”

Everything April had hoped for was on track. She was living the ultimate scientific experience, and she was going to become immortal. April Cannon would one day be right up there with the giants. And she could see no outcome now that would deny her those results. She was not yet sure precisely what she had discovered, but she knew it was monumental.

They made all the networks that evening and were played straight, without the crazy-season motifs. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer produced a panel of chemists who generally agreed that there had to be an error or misunderstanding somewhere. “But,” said Alan Narimoto of the University of Minnesota, “if Dr. Cannon has it right, this is a discovery of unparalleled significance.”

“How is that?” asked Lehrer.

“Setting aside for the moment where it came from, if we are able to re-create the manufacturing process and produce this element—” Narimoto shook his head and turned to a colleague, Mary Esposito, from Duke, who picked up the thread.

“We would be able,” she said, “to make you a suit of clothes, Jim, that would probably not wear out before you did.”

ABC ran a segment in which April stood beside the roundhouse with a two-inch wide roll of cellophane tape. “Ordinary wrapping tape,” she said. She tore off a one-foot strip, used it to seal a cardboard box, and then removed the tape. Much of the box came with it. “Unlike cardboard, our element interacts very poorly with other elements,” she continued. She tore a second strip and placed it against the side of the building, pressed it down firmly, loosened the top, and stood clear. The tape slowly peeled off and fell to the ground. “It resists snow, water, dirt, whatever. Even sticky tape.” The camera zeroed in on the green surface. “Think of it as having a kind of ultimate car wax protection.”

The coverage was, if cautious, at least not hostile. And April thought she looked good, a model of reserve and authority. Just the facts, ma’am.

Atomic number way up there. Over the edge and around the corner and out of sight. This element is very high on the periodic chart. In fact, it would be safe to say it is off the chart. The science writer from Time had positively blanched. What a glorious day it had been. And tonight researchers across the country would be seeing the story for the first time. She hadn’t published yet. But that was all right, because she had proof. And she was, as of now, legend. It was a good feeling.

There was no bar at the Northstar Motel. April was too excited to sleep, and, unable to read, she was about to call Max and suggest they go out and celebrate some more (although they both had probably already had too much to drink at a rousing dinner in Cavalier with the Laskers) when her phone rang.

It was Bert Coda, the associate director at Colson. Coda had been around since World War II. He was a tired, angry, frustrated man who had substituted Colson Labs for wife, family, God, and country a long time ago.

His greeting was abrupt. “April,” he said, “have you lost your mind?”

That caught her attention. “What do you mean?”

“You talked to all those cameras today.”

“And?”

“You never mentioned the lab. Not once.”

“Bert, this had nothing to do with the lab.”

“What are you talking about? Last time I noticed, you were working for us. When did you quit? Did you pack it in when I wasn’t looking?”

“Listen, I was trying to keep the lab out of it.”

“Why? Why on earth would you want to do that?”

“Because we’re talking UFOs here, Bert. Maybe little green men. You want to be associated with little green men? I mean, Colson is supposed to be a hardnosed scientific institution.”

“Please stop changing the subject.”

“I’m not changing the subject.”

“Sure you are. This is about publicity. Tons of it. And all free. I didn’t hear much talk out there today about UFOs.”

“You will.”

“I don’t care.” It was a dangerous rumble. “April, you are on every channel. I assume that tomorrow you will be in every newspaper. You, April. Not Colson but Cannon.” He took a long breath. “You hear what I’m telling you?”

“But it’s bad publicity.”

“There is no such thing as bad publicity. When they line up again in the morning, as they assuredly will, please be good enough to mention your employer, who has been overpaying you for years. Do you think you can bring yourself to do that?”

She let the seconds run. She would have liked to defy the son of a bitch. But the truth was that he intimidated her. “Okay,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Oh, yes. That’s what I want.” She could see him leaning back with his eyes closed and that resigned expression that flowed over his features when he confronted the world’s foolishness. “Yes, I would like that very much. By the way, you might mention that we’re especially good in environmental services. And listen, one other thing. I’ll be interested in hearing where you were and whose time you were on when this business first came to your attention.”

12

A little gleam of time between two eternities; no second chance to us forever more!

–Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, V

Temperatures fell to minus twenty on the Fahrenheit scale the day after the press conference. The ground froze, people came down with frostbite, and Mac Eberly, a middle-aged farmer who’d brought half his family with him to the ridge, suffered chest pains. During the holidays the weather deteriorated further, and April reluctantly gave up and closed the operation for the season. She paid a generous bonus and announced they would restart the project when they could. In the spring, she added.