Timeline

00:21:52

In the control room, Stern watched as the technicians dipped the pale rubber membrane into a bucket of adhesive, and then placed it, still dripping, inside the mouth of the glass shield. Then they attached a compressed-air hose and the rubber began to expand. For a moment, it was possible to see that it was a weather balloon, but then it expanded still further, the rubber spreading and thinning, becoming translucent, assuming the curving shape of the glass shield until it had reached every corner of the container. Then the technicians capped it, clicked a stopwatch, and waited while the adhesive hardened.

Stern said, "How much time?"

"Twenty-one minutes to go." Gordon pointed to the balloons. "It's homely, but it works."

Stern shook his head. "It was staring me in the face, for the last hour."

"What was?"

"Blowouts," he said. "I kept thinking, what are we trying to avoid here? And the answer is, blowouts. Just like a car, when the tires blow out. I kept thinking of car blowouts. And it seemed odd, because blowouts are so rare now. New cars hardly ever have them. Because the new tires have an inner membrane that's self-sealing." He sighed. "I kept wondering why this rare thing was on my mind, and then I realized that was the whole point: there was a way to make a membrane here, too."

"This is not self-sealing," Kramer said.

"No," Gordon said, "but it'll add thickness to the glass and spread the stress."

"Right," Stern said.

The technicians had put balloons in all the tanks, and capped them. Now they were waiting for the glue to harden. Gordon glanced at his watch. "Three more minutes."

"And then how long for each tank?"

"Six minutes. But we can do two tanks at a time."

Kramer sighed. "Eighteen minutes. Cutting it close."

"We'll make it," Gordon said. "We can always pump the water faster."

"Won't that stress the tanks more?"

"Yes. But we can do it, if we have to."

Kramer looked back at the monitor, where the field was undulating. But the peaks were clearer now. She said, "Why are the field bucks changing?"

"They're not," Gordon said without looking back.

"Yes," she said. "They are. The spikes are getting smaller."

"Smaller?"

Gordon came over to look. He frowned as he stared at the screen. There were four peaks, then three, then two. Then four again, briefly. "Remember, what you're seeing is really a probability function," he said. "Field amplitudes reflect the probability that the event will take place."

"In English?"

Gordon stared at the screen. "Something must have gone wrong back there. And whatever it is, it's changed the probability that they will return."