Part 7 (1/2)

”Sixty hours. Maybe sixty-five.”

Someone muttered a shocked obscenity. Carter felt his stomach trying to curl up and die. Sixty hours! His eyes swept the room of their own volition, as if looking for a way out, and finally came to rest on Kapoor's abnormally pale face.

The Indian had been right to be so gloomy, Carter thought, feeling strangely light- headed. It had been sheer folly to suppose mankind could tame even a tiny black hole. They might as well have tried to hitch a tiger to a plow....

With a physical effort Carter shook the vertigo from his mind. He couldn't afford to go to pieces. ”All right,” he said. ”You all know what that means. I want some ideas and some solutions. For starters”-he looked at Mahler-”I want the spare DeVega set up as close to the accelerator ring as possible.” He raised a hand as the other started to object. ”I know, at that distance it won't help much. But we need anything we can get, and it may at least buy us some time. Punch some holes in the s.h.i.+elding and collector sphere to let the beam through.”

”Right.” Mahler scribbled a note. ”I'll get a crew on it right now.” Sliding his chair back, the engineer launched himself through the door.

”I'm calling a recess,” Carter said to the others. ”We'll meet back here in an hour.”

Carter remained in his chair until the others had left, staring at the table as he gently kneaded his temples with his fingertips.

”You look tired. You'd better get some sleep.”

Carter looked up in surprise. ”I thought you'd left with the others, Senator.”

Chou shook his head, his eyes never leaving Carters face. ”I meant what I said about sleep, Doctor.”

”Can't afford the time.” He smiled wanly. ”Why the sudden solicitude? I thought you didn't like me.”

”My likes or dislikes are of complete unimportance,” Chou replied. ”If anyone can come up with the solution we need, it will probably be you, and we can't afford to let your intellect break down from fatigue.”

Even to himself, Carter's laugh sounded hollow. ”Some intellect. I wasted several badly needed hours with the iron atom fiasco, and d.a.m.n near lost our control of Firefly in the bargain. I tell you, Senator, if we're relying on me, we might as well quit now.”

Chou was silent for a moment. ”If we can't stop this, how long do we have?”

”Until the explosion? A year, probably. If our theory is right, that is; if it isn't I have no idea. Of course, Firefly will be far too hot to approach long before that.”

”Dr. Carter... can we stop Firefly?”

Carter shook his head slowly. ”I can't see any way to do it. No way at all. My G.o.d, Senator, what's going to happen to all those people?”

”We won't be able to evacuate them in time. Besides, where would they go?

Ceres and Hestia can't absorb any excess population. Maybe we can tow the s.p.a.ce Colonies out of Earth orbit into the asteroid belt; they should be able to survive out there.” Chou shook his head, his face a mirror of horror and pain. ”But Earth has no chance.”

”No.”

Chou looked up. Carter avoided his eyes. The blame is not yours, Doctor,” the Senator said. ”We-mankind's leaders-made the final decision on Firefly. Ours is the responsibility. Not that laying blame helps any.” He sighed. ”Ironic, isn't it?

For the past three centuries we have been continually worried about running out of energy, but now the final crisis arrives in the form of too much energy.”

Something brushed the edge of Carters mind. ”Say that last again, will you?”

”What? I just said our final crisis was too much energy, whereas in the past-”

”Too much. Too much.” Suddenly the fatigue was gone, dislodged from his mind by a maelstrom of new thoughts and ideas. Fumbling out his intercom, he keyed for general 'cast. ”This is Carter. All senior staff, report to conference immediately.”

”Dr. Carter...?”

Carter glanced up and smiled slightly at the Senators uneasy expression.

”Don't worry, I haven't crossed my circuits; at least, not yet. You just reminded me that there are two sides to this problem and we've been ignoring one of them.

Excuse me now, I have to think.”

He was still scribbling on a pad when the others arrived and took their places.

”All right,” he said. ”First of all, has anyone else come up with anything?”

No one spoke, but Carter could feel the drop in tension throughout the room as they realized there was a hidden promise in his question. ”I don't guarantee this,” he warned them, ”but see what you think. So far we've been concentrating on getting more ma.s.s into Firefly. Maybe we can hit the problem from the other direction; namely, to decrease the density of the particle cloud that's keeping the neutrons out in the first place.”

”But it's not like a real, stationary cloud,” Rurik objected. ”It's self- regenerating, more on the order of a bathtub with a faucet at one end and a drain at the other.”

”Exactly. So we're going to enlarge the drain. What is the cloud composed of, gentlemen?”

”Subatomic particles,” Galton said. ”Positive and neutral, mostly.”

”Right,” Carter agreed. ”Why no negative ones? Because the positive plates that hold Firefly itself in place rip away any negatives as soon as they're formed.

Conversely, the plates tend to keep the positives near Firefly. The neutrals don't care either way.” He handed a sketch to Mahler. ”Felix, I propose setting up a pair of negatively charged plates a few meters from Firefly and where they won't block the neutron beams. What I want is to set up an extra electric field that will pull the positive particles away from Firefly without risking moving the black hole itself.

Can it be done?”

Mahler frowned at the sketch for a moment. ”It'll be tricky,” he said. ”Any extra charge near Firefly will change the field of the main plates. What we need is stable equilibrium right at Firefly's position and a small nonzero field a few angstroms away. We'll probably need curved electrodes of some kind; the computer can figure the shape for us.”

”But be d.a.m.n careful with that field,” Rurik spoke up. ”The black hole has got to be at a stable equilibrium point or we'll lose it.”

”I'll set up the programming myself,” Mahler said, making notes beside Carter's sketch.

”Doc, what about the neutral particles?” Rossetti asked.

”I think we're stuck with them,” Carter admitted. ”But if we can decrease the density of positives even a little it may be enough.” The excitement he had felt a few minutes before was wearing off and fatigue was beginning to pull at him. It was an effort to continue speaking. ”If there are no further questions let's get to work. Felix, get those plates designed and built as soon as possible. The rest of you a.s.sist him or stay out of his way. That's all, then. Paul, I'll meet you in the control room in a few minutes.”

Carter had intended only to rest his eyes for a moment before rejoining the others. It was with some shock, therefore, that he dragged himself from a nightmarish dream two hours later to find himself still sitting at the deserted conference-room table. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he pulled out his intercom. ”Carter to control room,” he said thickly.

”Rurik here, Ray.””What's going on up there? Why did you let me sleep this long?”

”We thought you needed the rest. The new electrodes have been made and tested, and Galton and Telemann have just about got them in place. There's nothing you need to do for at least a couple of more hours. Why don't you go back to sleep?”

”In a minute.” Sleep was beginning to fog his brain again, but what he had to say was vital. ”Paul, when they're finished out there I want you to set up those X- ray lasers to fire at Firefly.”

”But the photons don't carry enough ma.s.s to make any real difference.