James P. Hogan by The Genesis Machine

Author:The Genesis Machine [Machine, The Genesis]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-02-01T14:21:16+00:00

Chapter 14

The screen and its associated electronics had been salvaged from a basement room of the Institute that had become the final resting place for a bewildering assortment of dust-covered hardware left over from one-time projects whose purpose was long forgotten. The minicomputer that provided local control for the screen and in addition linked it into the Institute’s main computing complex had originally formed part of a body scanner at Marlboro General Hospital; it had been scheduled for the scrap heap when the hospital made a decision to replace the scanner with a more up-to-date system, but had found its way to Sudbury on the back seat of Aub’s car. The control console had been built mainly from panels of roughly cut aluminum sheeting, and included in its list of unlikely component parts: pieces of domestic Infonet terminals, microprocessors from household environmental-control units, Army-reject bubble memory modules, a frequency synthesizer from a sale of surplus stocks by a marine radar manufacturer in Boston, and a selection of items from various do-it-yourself hobby kits. The whole assemblage was housed in a small room adjoining the GRASER and connected by a multitude of cables to the clutter of cabinets and racks that formed the main body of the detector situated out on the large floor, in a space cleared immediately beside the reactor sphere itself.

Professor Heinrich Zimmermann stood back a few paces from the screen, a faint smile of amusement playing on his lips as he contemplated the image being displayed, and accepted good-naturedly the challenge that it implied. Most of the screen’s area was taken up by a plain circular disk of dull orange, showing no internal detail or pattern but lightening slightly to become just a shade more yellow toward the center. The background to the disk was at first sight completely dark, but closer inspection revealed the merest hint of a blood-red mist to relieve the blackness. At length Zimmermann shook his head and looked back at Aub, who was sitting on a metal-frame stool in front of the console and watching him with twinkling eyes that failed to conceal his suppressed mirth.

“I thought that you had shown me everything. Now it appears that you have saved some sort of mystery until the very end. I am afraid I shall have to acknowledge defeat. What is it?”

Aub’s face split into a grin. From behind the professor, Clifford and Morelli stepped forward to complete the semicircle around the display.

“Well, since you’re an astronomer, we thought we’d better lay on something that would have the right kind of appeal,” Clifford replied. “As we said earlier, Aub’s been spending quite a lot of time modifying the detector to give an improved response to cosmic hi-radiation. Okay?” Zimmermann nodded. Clifford continued, “The most intense sources of naturally occurring hi-waves are the concentrated annihilations produced in large masses. Now, what’s the biggest mass you can think of very near where we’re all standing?”

Zimmermann frowned to himself for a moment.

“Near here…? I suppose it would

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