The Doomsday Testament

L

They arrived at Heathrow airport still in the clothes they’d worn to climb the Himalayas. The two travel-stained pariahs held in isolation at the back of the Air India flight had attracted the curious stares of their fellow passengers — the consensus seemed to be drug smugglers caught in the act — but in their weariness and with the memory of Tenzin’s sacrifice still fresh, they barely noticed.

Sarah insisted on stopping off at her flat for fresh clothing before they continued to Kensington and after they’d showered it seemed sensible to fall into bed where they slept for the best part of the afternoon. It was only when they were up and dressed that she noticed the red light flashing on her telephone that indicated a new voice message.

Jamie busied himself in the kitchen while she listened. When she joined him the news was clearly not good.

‘Vanderbilt have cut us loose. They say we breached the conditions of our contract. I’m not sure how it works, but I suspect we weren’t supposed to get involved in a shooting war. There was also a suggestion that the museum won’t let the painting out of Poland again. They’ll pay me for the feature, but we can forget about buying a yacht.’

‘Does it bother you?’

‘Being poor again?’

‘Yes.’

‘It doesn’t seem to matter.’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘So what happens now? We can’t just stop.’

He smiled and kissed her hair. This was the old Sarah talking.

‘I’ve arranged to speak to an old friend who knows all about that stuff Tenzin told us about. Nuclear fission and fusion. The Holy Grail and all that. I also think we need to find out more about the secret American operation to smuggle Nazi scientists out of Germany at the end of the war. We’re not finished yet.’

Mike Oliver had known Jamie long enough not to expect him to be on time. He was sipping his beer patiently in the corner of the pub when the familiar rangy figure walked in. What did surprise him was his friend’s choice of companion. Here was something much more exotic than the fragile and often rather dull English roses who normally lasted a couple of months with Jamie before mutual apathy prised them apart. Sarah was wearing tight leather trousers and a short, tailored jacket that emphasized her slim figure. With her golden complexion and high cheekbones she could have had star billing in one of those commercials for Italian designer gear, but something told him this girl was much more than a clothes-horse. He ran a hand through his thinning hair, and not for the first time, wished he had more of it.

‘What’ll you have? Mike Oliver, this is Sarah. Mike is a mad scientist.’

They shook hands while Jamie went to the bar. ‘Have you known Jamie long?’ he asked.

She stared at him and he wondered if she was reading more into the innocent enquiry than he’d intended.

‘About a month, but it seems like years. Every day with Jamie is one big adventure.’

Caterpillar brows elevated in surprise. ‘Then you must be good for him. It’s only about eight months since I last met him and he looks about five years younger. How did you get him out of his tweed jacket? Actually, forget I said that. What I mean is you’ve improved his clothes sense, er, made him more fashionable.’

‘Why, thank you, Mike,’ she said, giving her drawl the full works and studying his own cherished, but well-worn leather bomber in a way that made him blush. ‘Like all you men, all he needed was a little push in the right direction. Come to think of it, you don’t look like my idea of a mad scientist. I imagined a little more hair and a white coat. What is your speciality?’

He grinned, accepting the gentle mockery in the spirit it was intended. ‘I keep my madness well hidden, madam. It only comes out when there’s a full moon. Then again, I’m a humble jobbing astrophysicist and it is a well-known fact that all astrophysicists are certifiable.’

‘Don’t let him kid you.’ Jamie appeared, grinning, with two pints and a glass of white wine. ‘There’s nothing humble about Professor Michael Oliver MSc and bar. The man’s a genius. Certifiable, yes, but never humble.’

Mike accepted his pint.

‘So what can I do for you? You said you wanted to bend my ear. Sarah tells me you’ve been having a few adventures and I have some questions of my own about that giant burrow you stumbled across in Germany, but you have the honour.’

Jamie looked at Sarah and chewed his lip. He hadn’t been joking about Mike being a genius. The scientist was one of the cleverest men on the planet, with more degrees than Jamie had GCSEs. What to reveal and what not?

‘We were musing on the subject of celestial objects, as you do of an evening.’ He ignored the other man’s scowl of disbelief. ‘I know it’s in the realm of science fiction, but what are the chances of finding something previously unknown from a meteorite?’

Mike shot him a tight smile. ‘You’re taking the piss, right?’

Jamie shook his head.

The scientist sighed. ‘Something tells me we’re not a million miles away from the hole in the Harz. What do you mean by something? Are we talking bacteria or something more substantial?’

‘More substantial.’

‘A material, right?’

‘Right,’ Jamie and Sarah said simultaneously.

Mike sat back in his seat and his voice took on the formal tone that Sarah guessed he usually kept for the lecture theatre. ‘Science fiction has a curious tendency to become science fact. Look at Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. You can follow a direct link between what Wells wrote through to the development of the V2 rocket and the Americans putting Neil Armstrong on the moon. What we know now is most definitely not what we will know in ten years. Has anything been found? No. Is there a possibility? That’s different. Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place or in the wrong way. Maybe we don’t yet have the tools to understand what might be there. But we are looking and the possibilities are interesting enough to have the Yanks and the Russians sending out teams to study impact sites all over the world. The Chinese, too, more recently; that’s one of the reasons why they’re investing so heavily in Africa.’

‘What about the practical implications?’ Jamie asked.

Mike gave him a shrewd look. ‘So that’s what this is all about. The rumours have been flying about that place you found in Saxony. Obviously, the practical applications depend on exactly what it is you discover. But whatever it is, it will open up whole new areas of scientific study. Maybe even whole new branches of science. Science spawns research, which spawns development, which spawns technology, which spawns industry, which spawns profit.’ The possibilities were reflected in his voice, which grew in power as he spoke. ‘The current big thing is nuclear fusion. It’s a pipe dream at the moment, but think of it as harnessing the power of the sun. A perpetual source of energy. Enough output from a swimming pool full of sea water to fuel the entire planet for a year. Of course, like nuclear power it would have weapons applications as well. There were stories during the war of some kind of German breakthrough, but they turned out to be as real as Mr Hitler’s wonder weapons. Unless…?’

Jamie shrugged and kept his voice low. People were staring at them. ‘It looked like a scrap metal yard to me, Mike. We were more interested in the painting.’ He could see that Mike didn’t believe him.

‘So why have you suddenly become so interested in my, albeit fascinating, branch of science, Jamie? And don’t give me that musing bullshit. You know something. Well, if you tell me what it is, maybe I can help you.’

Jamie opened his mouth; why not tell Mike about the sphere? But the warning look in Sarah’s eyes forced a change of direction.

‘Believe me, Mike,’ he said regretfully, ‘if we knew anything solid we would tell you, but this is all entirely theoretical.’

‘Then why do I have this feeling that somebody’s tugging on my chain? If we didn’t go way back I’d be out of here and you and your new girlfriend could go to hell. But since we do I’ll have another pint.’

Sarah picked up the glasses and Jamie carried on as if nothing had been said.

‘Let’s just say this pipe dream is a possibility: who would be the big winners?’

Mike shook his head. ‘Jesus, Jamie, what happened to old, boring, non-confrontational, wouldn’t-sayboo-to-a-goose Mr Jamie Saintclair? I think I liked him better.’

Sarah reappeared with the drinks. ‘Why, he fell under a train, Mike. This is the new improved version.’ Her laughter was so infectious that Mike couldn’t help joining in.

‘Ach, to hell with it. Who’d win? Whoever got there first. The Yanks, the Russians, who’ve already got us by the balls with their big gas reserves, or, God help us, the Chinese. They’re way ahead on research, but they haven’t made the big breakthrough yet. So, governments. And corporations. One of the big global industrial companies would, literally, pay the earth for something like this.’ He sobered. ‘In fact, they’d kill for it. Any of them. So maybe you’re right and your Uncle Mike doesn’t need to know. Then, of course, there is the potential down side. You’ve heard of the Hadron Collider?’

Jamie shrugged. ‘Vaguely.’

‘Christ, where have you been? Cern. A four-billion- dollar investment. A seventeen-mile tunnel dug through France and Switzerland to bury the biggest particle accelerator ever created so that they can mimic the conditions of the day the universe was born. The Big Bang. And if that bang isn’t big enough they’re also hoping to find the God particle and shed light on what we know as Dark Matter. Taken all together, it could open the door to what we’re talking about. Sustainable nuclear fusion.’

Jamie frowned. ‘So if they’re already doing this, what’s the big deal about it all?’

‘Because no one knows whether it will work and there’s that teeensy-weensy down side.’

‘Teensy-weensy?’

‘The very small matter of it going out of control and creating a Black Hole that could swallow the planet.’

‘And you really think that’s a possibility?’ Sarah demanded.

Mike smiled at her naivety. ‘The whole point of scientific experiment is to push back the boundaries of our knowledge. To do that, scientists have to stick their noses in some dark and sometimes dangerous corners. Just ask Marie Curie. How likely does a global catastrophe have to be for a scientist to back off from a big experiment? A couple of guys, including the president of the Royal Society, looked at the Collider and worked out that, based on astronomical evidence and assumptions about the physics of a few hypothetical particles called strangelets that we don’t really understand, the odds of turning the earth into a dead planet were about fifty million to one. Good odds, eh? About the same as my chances of winning the lottery. Only someone out there wins the lottery most weeks. Scientists are as fallible as the next man, Sarah. The Hadron Collider is playing with the building blocks of the universe, and the truth is that nobody has the slightest idea what the true risk is. Hell, they must cross their fingers every time they press Start.’