Reflex (25 page)

"The difference in temperature between the two locations is over six degrees. There must be some sort of leakage when you jump."

Davy nodded. "Perhaps." His own experience told him he wasn't disappearing one place and appearing another, but that a gate opened ever so briefly. He'd captured it, once, on video tape, and wondered if Conley had. He didn't ask, though. He didn't want to give Conley any ideas.

The next day, when he appeared in the courtyard at Conley's request, he found a strange apparatus consisting of a large, transparent four-foot cube made of one-inch-thick sheets of plastic and held together by a framework of pipe clamps. Davy went closer and smelled acetic acid. He saw that the joints had been heavily sealed with a translucent substance and the smell confirmed silicone caulk.

The chamber's only other feature was a pair of plastic pipe nipples threaded through the top. One went to a large pressure gauge with a range of 800 to 1200 millibars and the other went to a rubber hose that went off to a small air compressor.

Conley was waiting.

Davy stared at the chamber with disfavor. "Do you know anything about diving physiology?" Davy asked.

"A little." He pointed at the gauge. "The reading is absolute. I don't expect to work in differences of more than 20 millibars, so I don't think we have to worry too much about popping your lungs or your eardrums."

Davy stepped closer. The gauge read 1002 millibars but Davy had no idea how close that was to normal pressure at sea level. "Is it pressurized right now?"

"Not a bit." Conley pointed to a valve manifold mounted on the compressor. "It's open to the outside."

Davy crouched down and jumped into the box. It was warmer inside, catching the sun, but the pressure, as Conley had said, was the same. He jumped back out.

"All right. What's your plan?"

"Well, why don't I start by pumping some air into the box, about twenty millibars. Then you jump into it and we'll see what happens to the pressure. If your volume just appears out of nowhere, we should see a slight increase in pressure as the air in the chamber is compressed into a smaller space."

"How much is twenty millibars in pounds per square inch?"

A true physicist, Conley pulled out a calculator. "Uhm, point-two-nine-oh-oh. A little more than a quarter of one psi."

Davy said, "I can live with that."

He watched the gauge carefully as Conley switched valves and added a little air into the chamber. The gauge climbed much faster than Conley expected and he had to bleed some off to get down to the designated 1022 millibars. He shut the valve and said, "There. Barely half an inch of mercury. Just an afternoon high pressure zone."

Davy worked his jaw left to right to ready his eustachian tubes, then crouched again. He opened his mouth wide and jumped into the chamber but didn't really notice any pressure difference in his ears, though he felt air move through his hair for an instant. Davy glanced at Conley through the plastic and saw that the physicist's jaw had dropped.

"What?" he asked Conley, reappearing beside him.

"The second you appeared the pressure dropped back to atmospheric. It
didn't
increase."

"Umm." Davy didn't comment.

Conley frowned at him. "You suspected this, didn't you?"

"Not really. My ears pop all the time when I change altitudes."
But I'm usually not changing to and from sealed chambers.

"Let's reverse it. Get in. Then I'll increase the pressure and we'll see what happens when you jump out."

"No more than twenty-millibars, right?"

Conley held up his right hand, palm out. "Swear."

Davy jumped back into the cube.

Davy's ears popped as the compressor ran. By craning his neck around, he could just see the gauge through the top of the chamber. Conley got the pressure right, 1022, first time, without having to bleed it back down.

Conley shut the manifold and backed away, his eyes on the gauge.

Davy jumped. His ears popped again. He looked at the gauge on the chamber. It read 1002. As he'd suspected.

"I think your gauge must be broken," he said to Conley.

"Tunneling. So that's it. It must've been warm and cold air that carried the temperature difference. When you jump, air flows through the hole."

Davy didn't say anything.

"Go put on some shorts."

"What?"

"Shorts. No socks. No shoes. Please."

Davy returned before Conley had completed his arrangements. Conley carried two plastic dishpans out of the back door of the house and behind him came one of the footmen, carrying a bucket.

Davy stood on the grass, which was cold, but not as cold as the sidewalk. Conley put the two dishpans down and directed the man carrying the bucket to fill one of them. The water steamed slightly in the cold air and Davy was relieved. At least they weren't using cold water.

Conley dismissed the footman and turned to Davy. "All right. Let's see what else passes through the hole." He stuck a ruler into the full dishpan. The water filled three quarters of its volume and the ruler showed five and a half inches at the water-line. "Stand in that, please."

"I'm going to catch my death, traipsing about in shorts with wet feet."

Conley smiled grimly. "Catching your death may be a real problem, but it won't be from a cold."

Davy stepped into the warm water. It rose slightly over his ankle.

"Good," said Conley. "Please teleport into the other dishpan."

Davy obliged. He looked down. There was a good inch of water in the previously empty dishpan he was standing in.

Conley, back at the other pan, was measuring the depth again. "Well, that's interesting, isn't it? Is it flowing through the hole or just clinging to you, a sort of surface effect, when you jump?" He motioned Davy to step out of the tub and measured the water depth. "Three quarters of an inch. Back in please."

"The full one?"

"No, this one," he pointed at the mostly empty pan. When Davy had done this, he motioned Davy to jump back into the filled tub. "Teleport back, will you?"

Davy did so.

"Conley stooped and measured the water in the mostly empty tub. "An inch and a half. The water is not clinging to you. It's flowing downhill, from deeper water to shallow, through the hole—the gate." He stared at Davy, not as a person stares at a person, but as a person stares at an annoying mystery. "You're folding space," he said, accusingly. "We'll need a gravity gradiometer."

They put Davy in the back of a cargo van.

"You're scaring me, you know," he said to Conley.

"It's just like the beach. We've got two split keys, one in a car ahead of us, one behind. You'll be fine."

Davy tapped the door of the van. "Metal. Faraday cage. Electromagnetic interference?"

"Ah." Conley pointed at a loop of wire hanging in the middle of the van ceiling. "I've run an antenna. It conducts the signal quite well. We had a test run this morning over the same route. I sat inside with the meter and there wasn't the slightest dip in signal strength."

"You could have traffic problems," said Davy.

"During the off season? Don't worry. You're not secured. You can jump back to your room at the slightest hint of nausea." Conley shut the door.

Davy sat at the front of the compartment, his back against the bulkhead dividing the cargo compartment from the driver's cab. They hadn't given Davy a watch but he counted off the seconds. There were five minutes of bumpy gravel road, then they turned onto pavement. There were a few stops, as if for a stop sign, and once a stop-start-stop-start that was clearly a few cars waiting to go through a stop sign.

He'd counted out fifteen hundred seconds before he felt the van turn tightly, then reverse. Conley opened the rear door and Davy blinked. It wasn't as bright as he expected. The van was inside an airplane hangar.

It was pretty obvious. An airplane, a single engine utility craft was parked right in front of him. There was a weird boom extending aft from the bottom of the tail section and the letters on the pilot's door said, "BHP Falcon Survey System."

Conley smiled. "We only have this for an hour. It's not the expense, but the fact that there are only a few of them and they're heavily scheduled."

"What is 'this?' " Davy asked.

Conley led him around to an open cargo door in the side of the craft. "It's an airborne three-D gravity gradiometer. They're using technology declassified a couple of years ago—a navigation tool used by nuclear submarines. They use it to locate ore bodies and map hydrocarbon reservoirs."

"How sensitive is it?"

"Perhaps too sensitive. At one meter it can detect the gravity generated by a three-year-old child."

Inside the plane a man sat at a console. A squat black rounded disk was mounted on the floor. Wires led out of gold-colored connectors and snaked down the side.

"I'm surprised you didn't just buy one," said Davy.

Conley sighed, but before he spoke the technician at the console said in a thick Australian accent, "So, that vehicle will be here during the test?"

"Yes."

"Very well. They've set up your screens," he gestured toward the side of the hangar where Davy saw the sort of standing panels used to make cubicle farms in big offices. They were set up in a long row.

"Right," Conley said. "When can we start?"

"I've got to do a calibration run with you lot at least a hundred meters away. It'll take ten minutes."

"Very well. We'll be back in fifteen?"

The tech nodded and Conley led Davy toward the end of the screens and around one end. On the other side, a standard doorway was set into the much larger hangar door. When they were at it, but before he opened the door he said, "Jump back to your room, right? Someone will tell you when to come back here." He pointed at the floor right in front of the exterior door. "Can you do that?"

Rather than answer, Davy just did it, appearing next to the four poster bed back at the mansion.

The clock on the entertainment center showed fifteen minutes elapsed before Abney, the butler, came in to tell him his presence was requested back at the hangar. Davy jumped in front of him. He didn't know how "trusted" Abney was but he hadn't been told to avoid his talent in front of the servants. He had a morbid feeling that they'd all be killed after this.

Conley was waiting for him. They walked back to the end of the screen. Conley pointed out a series of chalked circles on the concrete behind the screen. "All we want you to do is, first, simply walk from this circle to the far circle. Slowly. After that, teleport back to this first circle, count to five, the next circle, count to five, the next circle, count to five, etc."

He had Davy do a dry run while he watched. "Right. I have to clear out so my mass doesn't interfere, but the technician will give you the go-ahead, all right?"

"Understood."

"After the last jump, count to five and go back to the house. Don't come back here cause I'll have turned off the keys." Conley left by the door. As it shut, Davy jumped to it and looked through the rapidly closing gap. All he saw was a stretch of concrete and then low green brush beyond. In the distance, he saw a barn silo. It didn't tell him much. He returned to the first circle. After a moment, the Australian accent called out, "Ready when you are!"

Davy did the slow walk to the far circle, then the series of jumps with the five-second pauses. He waited the additional time before jumping back to the house.

And what did that prove?

There were heavy winds and thunder that night. The rain had stopped by dawn, but the waves thundered still onto the beach the next morning and Davy spent a good hour watching them pound the sand. It was therapeutic. He didn't know which he identified with more—the surf, raging against the immovable stone outcroppings, or the rocks, taking enormous punishment without being able to strike back.

Without thinking about it, he realized the beach faced south. It was the sun's movement across the sky and his memory of its position other times he'd been there.
That fits Martha's Vineyard.

Conley hadn't bothered him after the test in the hangar. Nor had he shown up that morning. Davy was torn—curious about the results, yet happy to be left alone.

They kept a watch on him, when he was on the beach. Not to prevent him from fleeing or wandering out of bounds—obviously the governor did that—but to keep him from communicating with anyone.

Before they gave him clearance to go to the beach, they would send someone out to sit on a tall rock outside the safe zone with a view up and down the shore. If the beach was empty of people, they switched on the key transmitters and told him Davy was clear to jump.

The beach was private, without public access, but there were people in some of the neighboring houses, caretakers and stubborn winter residents surf casting in hip waders, but he'd only see them in the distance. If they looked like they were coming down the beach toward Davy, his watcher would speak on his radio and blow a whistle to let Davy know they were turning off the keys in the next two seconds.

Davy disliked the whistle almost as much as he did the earlier waves of warning nausea. In fact, at the whistle's shrill call, he'd feel nauseated but without the telltale tingle in his throat.

Only when he was back in the box did the sensation leave off.

This morning they blew the whistle before lunch when there wasn't anybody visible on the beach, near or far.

He stood in the box, breathing deeply. The door opened.

It was Hyacinth "Miss Minchin" Pope.

He almost didn't recognize her. She was dressed in a black tailored suit that conformed tightly to her figure. The skirt was short, mid-thigh, and the stockings were patterned lace ending in high-heeled pumps.

And her hair was down, falling past her shoulders in shining waves.

I guess her brains don't fall out.
He felt that familiar tug of desire mixed with fear, but he managed to keep his face impassive.

"Miss Pope."

"Mr. Rice." She sauntered into the room, the heels making her hips roll even more than usual, and perched on the arm of the recliner. "You've come up in the world, I see."