Thrice upon a Time (17 page)

"I think Elizabeth said the blanket was a breeder as well," Lee said. "Don't you seed it with deuterium and breed your own H
³
?"

Mike nodded. "Yes. It's got fertile fissiles in it too… U
²³⁸
and thorium 233. After neutron activation and beta decay, they end up as plutonium 239 and U
²³³
. We run a sideline flogging it to fission plants up and down the country—and abroad, come to that. It brings in a bit of extra beer money and helps pay the rent."

The two Americans gazed for a while longer at the scene beyond the glass wall, and then turned back to face Mike. "Any more questions?" he asked them, glancing from one to the other.

"I don't think so for the moment," Murdoch said, shaking his head. "I guess you've covered just about everything."

"Quite a show," Lee conceded.

"We try and give value for money," Mike said cheerfully. "Anyhow, if you've seen all you want to for now, we ought to be thinking about making a move. It's almost twelve-fifteen, and we're supposed to be meeting Elizabeth in the cafeteria over in the Domestic Block at half past. We'll need just about all the time we've got."

"In that case let's go," Murdoch said.

As they began moving between the panels and consoles toward the main door of the control room, Murdoch turned for a last look out at the reactor. He had seen fusion plants before and had come not really expecting any big surprises. But he had to admit that he was impressed.

"That was good," Lee said approvingly, pushing his empty plate away. He nodded his head to indicate the whole of the self-service cafeteria, which the senior executives at Burghead shared with everybody else. "They sure look after you people here."

"We do our best," Elizabeth acknowledged from across the table. She looked feminine as usual, but at the same time businesslike, in a pale-blue, two-piece suit with a white blouse. "You seemed to find the salmon to your liking, I noticed."

"Beats burgers and French fries."

Elizabeth moved her gaze toward Murdoch, who was deep in thought while he finished his coffee. "You're unusually quiet today, Murdoch," she said.

"Oh… I guess I've seen too many new things this morning. It takes a while to filter in."

"Savoring the pride of being a member of the human race, eh?" She made her voice sound flippant, but Murdoch knew by now of her habitual British tendency to use flippancy as a softener when she was being her most serious. "Thirty years ago they thought they had an energy crisis; today we make our own suns to order."

"Not really anything like that. I'm just… " Murdoch checked himself and thought for a moment. "I don't know though… Maybe you're right."

"I think maybe he's a bit mad because this place isn't in Arizona," Lee said.

"I wouldn't worry about it, old chap," Mike commented. "It wouldn't be here either if the Germans and the Froggies hadn't paid for everything except the doorknobs. How much do you think jolly old England was worth after forty years of being run by plumbers' mates? Do you know that in 19—" He stopped speaking and looked up as a figure approached and stopped by the table. It was a middle-aged man with a ruddy complexion, wearing a heavy tweed jacket. Elizabeth greeted him with a look of obvious recognition.

"Jack, hello. I was keeping an eye open for you. We'll need those figures this afternoon, early if possible. How are they coming along?"

"That's what I came over to mention," Jack said. He looked at Mike. "Jan's finished the flux-count matrix. She's stuck until she gets the G2. Morris says you were doing it." He glanced briefly at Murdoch and Lee. "Sorry to butt in, but it's a bit urgent."

"Don't mind us," Murdoch said, shrugging. "The work has to come first."

"Jack, this is Murdoch, and that's Lee," Elizabeth said. "They're over from the States. Murdoch's grandfather is Charles Ross down at Glenmoroch. This is Jack Belford. His group looks after target-chamber instrumentation."

"Hi."

"Hello."

"Charlie Ross, eh." Jack raised his eyebrows. "I've seen some good crowds down there in that castle of his. Give him my regards when you get back. Maybe we'll see you later on this afternoon in Maths and Physics."

"Yes, they'll be paying us a visit," Elizabeth said. "They had the tour this morning. That was what tied Mike up. My fault, I'm afraid."

Jack looked appealingly at Mike. Mike rose to his feet and spread his hands in a gesture of apology. "Well… it looks as if duty calls. You'll have to excuse me. I enjoyed talking to you both. We'll probably see each other again later in the afternoon." He turned and began talking to Jack as they walked away.

Elizabeth moved closer to the table to talk in a lowered voice. "How are things at Storbannon? I've been meaning to call Charles but never seem to get a chance. Is there anything new to report?"

"Not really," Murdoch answered. "We've just been running strictly according to the schedule. The machine's running and piling up results, and none of us even knows what any of them are yet. It's all exactly the way we agreed."

"Oh, I see." Elizabeth sounded slightly disappointed. She sat back in her seat and turned her hands upward briefly to signal an end to that topic. After a short pause she went on, "So… you've seen our main attraction here. Is there anything else you'd particularly like to add to the list? If not we can go on over to Math and Phys, and you can meet some more of the people."

"Sounds good," Lee said.

Elizabeth glanced inquiringly at Murdoch. Murdoch thought for a moment. "As a matter of fact there is something else we could do," he said. "There's a friend of ours who works here. I was thinking maybe we could look in and say hi while we're around."

"I see no reason why not," Elizabeth replied. "Who is he?"

"It's a she. Do you remember that girl we told you about… the one we bumped into in Kingussie last Saturday? She asked us to drop in if we ever found ourselves up this way. She works in the Medical Center here, or whatever it's called."

"The Medical Department," Elizabeth said. "Yes, we could go by that way; it's practically next door. What did you say her name was?"

"Anne… something." Murdoch shot a questioning glance at Lee.

"Patterson," Lee supplied, in a tone that said Murdoch already knew damn well what it was. Elizabeth studied Murdoch's face for a second, and her eyes began twinkling in a knowing kind of way.

"Ah yes," she said. "I think I know the girl you mean—longish dark hair; dresses well; carries herself nicely?… "

"Yeah. That sounds about right," Murdoch agreed, nodding his head casually. Too casually.

"She's very pretty," Elizabeth said. After a short pause she added, "And it would be terribly impolite to come all this way and not even take the trouble to say hello, wouldn't it."

"Terribly," Murdoch agreed solemnly. Lee raised his eyes toward the ceiling and looked away with a sigh.

"Nothing personal, of course," Elizabeth said. She kept her face straight, but there was just enough mockery in her voice to be detectable.

"Of course not," Murdoch told her.

He was beginning, he realized, to get into the English habit of voicing the opposite of what he meant. It could be subtly more emphatic than making direct statements, which would have sounded coarse by comparison, and it had the advantage that a person could never be taken to task on the record of what he had actually said. Perhaps, he thought, that was why the British had never needed a Fifth Amendment.

Murdoch and Lee entered a large room full of X-ray machines, a gamma camera, a body scanner, and an assortment of electronics consoles, and saw Anne working at a computer terminal through the half-open door of a small office off the far side. They had left Elizabeth in another office next door, talking with a Dr. Waring, who was the head of the facility's Medical Department. Waring had told them where they would find Anne, and to go on through for a few minutes. He had given Murdoch the impression of being the kind of person who didn't really approve of social calls during business hours, and Murdoch had taken "a… few minutes… " to mean just that. They walked across to the office door and stopped, but Anne was facing away and too intent on what she was doing to notice them.

"Excuse me," Murdoch said. "We're looking for a black-and-white kitten. You haven't seen one around here by any chance, have you?" Anne turned in her chair and looked up. The surprise on her face lasted for no more than a fraction of a second. Then she smiled, swiveled the chair around to face them, and stood up.

"Well! If it isn't the two cowboys from California. I wondered how long it would be before you showed up here."

"You… what?" Murdoch looked at her uncertainly. She was doing it again already.

"You said you worked on fusion in America, and that Dr. Muir was a friend of your grandfather. It didn't need an Einstein to work out the rest." Anne thought for a moment. "In fact it must have been Dr. Muir who got you in here. Where is she—in Dr. Waring's office?"

That took care of most of the obvious continuations that the conversation might have followed.

"So… what do you do here?" Murdoch moved forward to look at the screen she had been working at. It was packed with lines of computer instruction code. Although Murdoch was primarily a mathematician, machine-language programming was not one of his strengths; he was experienced in using high-level, almost English, languages to formulate problems to be run on computers, but the figures on the screen were used for manipulating processes down at the fundamental level of the machine's registers.

Lee studied the screen with casual interest for a moment. "Real-time I/O coding," he commented. "I didn't know doctors worried about what goes on inside computers. I thought you only needed to know how to talk to them from the outside."

"Oh, that was something I got hooked on when I was at university in London," Anne told them. "We were doing a lot of image processing at one point. I became fascinated at the way in which the computers created pictures you could interact with, so I got myself into a special course to learn how to program them myself." She shrugged. "After that it grew to a kind of hobby. It's come in useful many times though."

"So what's that?" Murdoch asked, gesturing toward the screen.

"It's an image-encoding communications handler I'm working on for linking our system here to the Health Authority's big computers in Edinburgh," she replied. "Part of an idea that Dr. Waring had and wanted to try out." She turned away from the terminal. "Anyhow, what about you two? Have you seen much of the facility yet?"

"Most of it, I reckon," Murdoch said. "We got a bit lost in the subway a few times."

"And what did you think of our modest attempt?"

"Jeez… " Murdoch threw out his hands. "I'd thought I'd seen fusion plants before. What do you want me to say? It's tomorrow today, already."

Lee leaned against the doorpost and inclined his head to indicate the large room behind him, through which he and Murdoch had entered. "Where are all the patients?" he asked. "I know this is a pretty big plant, but why a place this big, equipped with everything? You look all set up for World War III."

"It is a quiet day today," Anne said. "Actually, the fusion facility is only the first phase of what it will be like eventually. Once that's up and running, all kinds of other things will be built over it on the surface… a steel plant, for example. I'm not much of an expert on those things though. But the Medical Department was designed with that kind of growth in mind."

They talked for a while about Murdoch's and Lee's first impressions of Burghead and about its future growth. Murdoch was unable to prevent himself searching her face continually for some sign that she was being more than just polite to a couple of casual acquaintances who had dropped in to say hello, but the eyes that were supposed to mirror the soul worked one way. Eventually it was time to go.

"Maybe we could all get together later since we're up here for the day anyway," Murdoch suggested. "Maybe a bite to eat somewhere. Did you have any special plans?"

"Nothing definite," Anne replied. "I had a large lunch though, so I don't think I could manage a meal. But I could take you up on that offer of a drink that you made last time."

"Sure. Where?"

"There's a pub in a village about half a mile off the main road not far from the plant," she told them. "A lot of Burghead people stop off there for a drink after work. I could meet you there. Maybe you could get to know some more of the people from here too."

Murdoch wasn't particularly interested in meeting any more of the Burghead people, but he tried to sound enthusiastic. "What's it called?" he asked.

"The Aberdeen Angus. Take the main road west for about three miles, and turn off at a sign that says
Achnabackie.
It's right in the middle of the first village you come to. You can't miss it."

"About when, six?"

"That would be fine. We usually go in the Lounge Bar. It's straight on through the bar that's inside the front door. Until about six, then?"

"Sure. See you there."

"Take care," Lee said.