Part 10 (2/2)
Dr. Maslowski had to return to his office but gave Martin a map so he
would not get lost. The road to the valley of the Mocho River took him right back past Livermore, where he found Mines Road running off Tesla. Mile by mile, the last houses of the suburb of Livermore dropped away, and the ground rose. He was lucky in the weather. Winter in these parts is never very cold, but the proximity of the sea gives rise to thick dense clouds and sudden banks of swirling fog. That January 27 the sky was blue and crisp, the air calm and cold. Through the winds.h.i.+eld he could see the icy tip of Cedar Mountain far away. Ten miles after the turnoff, he left Mines Road and turned onto a dirt road, clinging to the side of a precipitous hill. Down in the valley far below, the Mocho glittered in the sun as it tumbled between its rocks. The gra.s.s on either side gave way to a mix of sagebrush and she-oak; high above, a pair of kites wheeled against the blue, and the road ran on, along the edge of Cedar Mountain Ridge into the wilderness. He pa.s.sed a single green farmhouse, but Lomax had told him to go to the end of the road. After another three miles he found the cabin, rough-hewn with a raw stone chimney and a plume of blue woodsmoke drifting up to the sky. He stopped in the yard and got out. From a barn, a single Jersey cow surveyed him with velvet eyes. Rhythmic sounds came from the other side of the cabin, so he walked around to the front to find Daddy Lomax on a bluff looking out over the valley and the river far below. He must have been seventy-five, but despite Sandy's concern, he looked as if he beat up grizzly bears for a hobby. An inch over six feet, in soiled jeans and a plaid s.h.i.+rt, the old scientist was splitting logs with the ease of one slicing bread. Snow-white hair hung to his shoulders, and a stubble of ivory whiskers rimmed his chin. More white curls spilled from the V of his s.h.i.+rt, and he seemed to feel no cold, although Terry Martin was glad for his quilted parka.
”Found it then? Heard you coming,” said Lomax, and split one last log with a single swing. Then he laid down the ax and came over to his visitor. They shook hands; Lomax gestured to a nearby log and sat down on one himself.
”Dr. Martin, is it?”
”Er, yes.”
”From England?”
”Yes.”
Lomax reached into his top pocket, withdrew a pouch of tobacco and some rice paper, and began to roll a cigarette.
”Not politically correct, are you?” Lomax asked.
”No, I don't think so.”
Lomax grunted in apparent approval.
”Had a politically correct doctor. Always yellin' at me to stop smoking.”
Martin noted the past tense.
”I suppose you left him?”
”Nope, he left me. Died last week. Fifty-six. Stress. What brings you up here?”
Martin fumbled in his attache case.
”I ought to apologize at the outset. It's probably a waste of your time and mine. I just wondered if you'd glance at this.”
Lomax took the proffered photograph and stared at it.
”You really from England?”
”Yes.”
”h.e.l.luva long way to come to show me this.”
”You recognize it?”
”Ought to. Spent five years of my life working there.”
Martin's mouth dropped open in shock.
”You've actually been there?”
”Lived there for five years.”
”At Tarmiya?”
”Where the h.e.l.l's that? This is Oak Ridge.”
Martin swallowed several times.
”Dr. Lomax. That photograph was taken six days ago by a U.S. Navy fighter overflying a bombed factory in Iraq.”
Lomax glanced up, bright blue eyes under s.h.a.ggy white brows, then looked back at the photo.
”Sonofab.i.t.c.h,” he said at last. ”I warned the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Three years ago.
Wrote a paper warning that this was the sort of technology the Third World would be likely to use.”
”What happened to it?”
”Oh, they trashed it, I guess.”
”Who?”
”You know, the pointy-heads.”
”Those disks-the Frisbees inside the factory-you know what they are?”
”Sure. Calutrons. This is a replica of the old Oak Ridge facility.”
”Calu-what?”
Lomax glanced up again.
”You're not a doctor of science? Not a physicist?”
”No. My subject is Arabic studies.”
Lomax grunted again, as if not being a physicist were a hard burden for a man to carry through life.
”Calutrons. California cyclotrons. Calutrons, for short.”
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