Timeline: A Novel by Michael Crichton

Author:Michael Crichton [Crichton, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Fantasy, Travel, Science Fiction, Adventure, Historical
ISBN: 0345417623
Amazon: B000FC1PB6
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2003-11-04T06:00:00+00:00

36:02:00

It was one in the morning. From inside his office at ITC, Robert Doniger stared down at the entrance to the cave, illuminated in the night by the flashing lights of six ambulances parked all around. He listened to the crackle of the paramedic radios and watched the people leaving the tunnel. He saw Gordon walking out with that new kid, Stern. Neither of them appeared to have been hurt.

He saw Kramer reflected in the glass of the window as she entered the room behind him. She was slightly out of breath. Without looking back at her, he said, “How many were injured?”

“Six. Two somewhat seriously.”

“How seriously?”

“Shrapnel wounds. Burns from toxic inhalation.”

“Then they’ll have to go to UH.” He meant University Hospital, in Albuquerque.

“Yes,” Kramer said. “But I’ve briefed them about what they can say. Lab accident, all that. And I called Whittle at UH, reminded him of our last donation. I don’t think there’ll be a problem.”

Doniger stared out the window. “There might be,” he said.

“The PR people can handle it.”

“Maybe not,” Doniger said.

In recent years, ITC had built a publicity unit of twenty-six people around the world. Their job was not to get publicity for the company, but rather to deflect it. ITC, they explained to anyone who inquired, was a company that made superconducting quantum devices for magnetometers and medical scanners. These devices consisted of a complex electromechanical element about six inches long. Press handouts were stupefyingly boring, dense with quantum specifications.

For the rare reporter who remained interested, ITC enthusiastically scheduled a tour of their New Mexico facility. Reporters were taken to selected research labs. Then, in a large assembly room, they were shown how the devices were made—the gradiometer coils fitted into the cryostat, the superconducting shield and electrical leads outside. Explanations referred to the Maxwell equations and electric charge motion. Almost invariably, reporters abandoned their stories. In the words of one, “It’s about as compelling as an assembly line for hair dryers.”

In this way, Doniger had managed to keep silent about the most extraordinary scientific discovery of the late twentieth century. In part, his silence was self-preservation: other companies, like IBM and Fujitsu, had started their own quantum research, and even though Doniger had a four-year head start on them, it was in his interest that they not know exactly how far he had gone.

He also was aware that his plan was not yet completed, and he needed secrecy to finish. As he himself often said, grinning like a kid, “If people knew what we were up to, they’d really want to stop us.”

But at the same time, Doniger knew that he could not maintain the secrecy forever. Sooner or later, perhaps by accident, it was all going to come out. And when that happened, it was up to him to manage it.

The question in Doniger’s mind was whether it was happening now.

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