I went home with the waitress
"Go right on through, sir," said Tom Kirkendall. There was mild sympathy in the security guard's voice as he hunched over the retinal scanner. "Looks like you're in the barrel today."
( I went home with the waitress )
Gordon nodded; that was about the right term for it. The anti-mass spectrometer was an awe-inspiring sight, to be sure, but even in the face of so much sheer science it was all but impossible for him to maintain that awe from start to finish. And today promised to be an exceptionally long day. At least he had enough storage space in the suit's few available compartments to tuck away a few energy gel packets, but he had a feeling that by the time today's experiments were over, all he'd want would be a bowl of complex carbohydrates and as much Steinbeisser as his liver could tolerate.
( The way I always do )
He rounded the corner and the door to C-33/a hissed open at his approach. "Ah, Gordon," said Dr. Magdesian, his voice heartily cheerful. "Here you are. We just sent the sample down to the test chamber."
Dr. Kleiner, it appeared, was running late; the other two scientists were Ted Jones, who Gordon had never liked, and Tom Csordas, a man Gordon only barely recognized. Csordas cleared his throat a little. "We boosted the anti-mass spectrometer to 105 percent," he said. "Bit of a gamble, but we need the extra resolution."
"Dr. Breen is very concerned that we get a conclusive analysis of today's sample," Jones interjected, lifting his eyebrows meaningfully. "I gather they went to some length to get it."
The words were neutral enough, but Gordon knew the tone all too well: so you'd better not screw up with it, Freeman. He suppressed the urge to scowl and dropped a bare nod of acknowledgment instead. Perhaps sensing Gordon's impatience, Magdesian spoke up again. "They're waiting for you, Gordon- in the test chamber."
Never one to ignore a clue when he was clubbed over the head with it, Gordon stepped away from the senior scientists and waited for Magdesian to unlock the next door. He knew the sounds of the place by now, all the beeps and whirs and electronic hums almost too high to hear; that was as much a part of a normal day as the tram announcements. Today, though, the sounds were off- too high, maybe. Too thready, or something. Gordon couldn't quite put his finger on it; he closed his eyes as he waited for the elevator down-
The agonized squeal of a circuit board giving up the ghost snapped his eyes open half an instant before several computer panels on the wall went dark. "It's about to go critical!" a familiar voice cried- Eli Vance, one of the other research associates. Gordon knew the Harvard man quite well, and the sound of that kind of stress in his voice boded ill.
He half-turned to see what was going on, and saw Vance and another scientist struggling to extract the smoking board from the rest of the system. "What the hell is going on with our equipment?" the other man demanded.
( How was I to know )
Vance shook his head grimly. "It wasn't meant to do this in the first place," he muttered, and lifted his eyes to Gordon's.
( She was with the Russians, too? )
The elevator arrived before Gordon could say anything.
"I'm afraid we'll be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedures today, Gordon," said Dr. Rosen. He spoke as if he wanted to get away with an apology before Dr. Sark could stop him.
( I was gambling in Havana )
Sure enough, Sark spoke up immediately. "Yes," he said firmly, "but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us. This is the purest sample we've seen yet."
( I took a little risk )
"And potentially the most unstable," Rosen noted, his tone almost pleading; Sark waved him off.
( Send lawyers, guns, and money )
"Now, now, if you follow standard insertion procedure, everything will be fine..."
( They'll get me out of this )
Frankly, Gordon thought Rosen was probably the more sensible of the two. Before he could indicate the thought, Rosen burst out with, "I don't know how you can say that! ... although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely-"
Wait, thought Gordon, startled. What? Go back and say that again?
"Gordon doesn't need to hear all this," said Sark confidently. (No! No, Gordon does need to hear all this! Go back to that part!) "He's a highly trained professional. We've assured the Administrator that nothing will go wrong."
Gordon started to raise a finger in protest.
"Ah- yes, of course," said Rosen. "You're right. Gordon? We have complete confidence in you."
( I'm the innocent bystander )
Seldom had that phrase inspired such a feeling of dread, but it was already too late for Gordon to say anything. Sark and Rosen had already opened the test chamber door and were waiting expectantly to either side. With a sigh he made one last check of his HEV suit's helmet and stepped in.
( Somehow I got stuck )
The door clanging shut behind him did not inspire much extra confidence, either. Ah, well. No help for it now; he leaned back on his heels and turned his gaze upward. Overhead, the spectrometer's rotors loomed in the shadows like the roof-beams of another man's cathedral. It was a sight that never failed to stir him. The knowledge that this, here, was a place of discovering... that mattered more than all the other nonsense put together. Gordon couldn't really ask for more out of life than-
( Between the rock and the hard place )
"Testing, testing. Everything seems to be in order." That was Rosen's voice over the intercom. Gordon jerked his attention back to the task at hand.
( And I'm down on my luck... )
"All right, Gordon. your suit should keep you comfortable through all this," came Sark's voice. "The specimen will be delivered to you in a few moments. If you would be so good as to climb up and start the rotors, we can bring the anti-mass spectrometer to eighty percent and hold it there until the carrier arrives."
Gordon nodded, for all that they couldn't see him, and crossed the chamber floor. Why the activation controls for the spectrometer were positioned thirty feet off the floor he didn't know, but it allowed for a view all its own. He checked the status monitor on the auxiliary terminal and confirmed that nothing else was about to explode before jabbing the nearby button. A low thrumm began to wend its way through his bones as the spectrometer's rotors activated and began to whirl in the shadows.
"Very good," said Sark. "We'll take it from here."
The crystal sample would be arriving shortly; there was no point to staying up here beyond the view. With everything being pushed to its limits, there was no way to predict how long the system would be able to keep operating. The faster this was finished, the better- so Gordon was already on the ladder, making his way down, by the time the first phase arrays started to form in the energy trails of the stage one emitters. As the stage two emitters activated, he paused, looking upwards once more. It seemed all right-
"Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent," said Rosen, and then paused. "Uh, it's probably not a problem, probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy in... well, no, it's well within acceptable bounds again."
It occurred to Gordon that NASA had probably said something similar back in late January of '86.
( I'm hiding in Honduras )
"Sustaining sequence."
Sark's voice broke in then. "I've just been informed that the sample is ready, Gordon. It should be coming up to you any moment now. Look to the delivery system hatch for your specimen."
Sure enough, a floor panel had slid aside to reveal a cart bearing a lone, perfect, gleaming purplish-yellow crystal the size of a man's head. Gordon glanced at the whirling energy beams of the anti-mass spectrometer, then down at the crystal. Everything's going wrong today, he thought. If this sample is so important, we can't take chances with it, can we?
"Soon, Gordon," Sark said. Gordon sighed, squared his shoulders, and started pushing the cart forward. "Very good-"
The first of the energy beams intersected the crystal with a flash of blinding light. Helmet or no, Gordon threw up an arm to protect his eyes.
"Gordon!" Sark's voice crackled. "Get away from the-"
"Shutting down- no, attempted shutdown-" Rosen's voice was frantic. "It's not- it's not shutting down!"
( I'm a desperate man )
And then the explosion, purple-white and green nightmare energies slicing together through everything-
darkness- nothing but the sound and the feel of his own breathing-
a place of glowing waters under rippling purple skies, and things the size of ponies tentacled at one end and tailed at the other, dashing on two legs through the blue luminescence-
( Send lawyers, guns, and money )
a terrible green flash, and then a circle of red-eyed beings in the darkness, their heads and hands ringed about by metal as their voices droned in incomprehensible alien harmonies-
another green flash, brief as a falling star, and Milliways-
and then darkness again and something hard and terrible smashing him to the ground, and unconsciousness.
( The shit has hit the fan... )
( I went home with the waitress )
Gordon nodded; that was about the right term for it. The anti-mass spectrometer was an awe-inspiring sight, to be sure, but even in the face of so much sheer science it was all but impossible for him to maintain that awe from start to finish. And today promised to be an exceptionally long day. At least he had enough storage space in the suit's few available compartments to tuck away a few energy gel packets, but he had a feeling that by the time today's experiments were over, all he'd want would be a bowl of complex carbohydrates and as much Steinbeisser as his liver could tolerate.
( The way I always do )
He rounded the corner and the door to C-33/a hissed open at his approach. "Ah, Gordon," said Dr. Magdesian, his voice heartily cheerful. "Here you are. We just sent the sample down to the test chamber."
Dr. Kleiner, it appeared, was running late; the other two scientists were Ted Jones, who Gordon had never liked, and Tom Csordas, a man Gordon only barely recognized. Csordas cleared his throat a little. "We boosted the anti-mass spectrometer to 105 percent," he said. "Bit of a gamble, but we need the extra resolution."
"Dr. Breen is very concerned that we get a conclusive analysis of today's sample," Jones interjected, lifting his eyebrows meaningfully. "I gather they went to some length to get it."
The words were neutral enough, but Gordon knew the tone all too well: so you'd better not screw up with it, Freeman. He suppressed the urge to scowl and dropped a bare nod of acknowledgment instead. Perhaps sensing Gordon's impatience, Magdesian spoke up again. "They're waiting for you, Gordon- in the test chamber."
Never one to ignore a clue when he was clubbed over the head with it, Gordon stepped away from the senior scientists and waited for Magdesian to unlock the next door. He knew the sounds of the place by now, all the beeps and whirs and electronic hums almost too high to hear; that was as much a part of a normal day as the tram announcements. Today, though, the sounds were off- too high, maybe. Too thready, or something. Gordon couldn't quite put his finger on it; he closed his eyes as he waited for the elevator down-
The agonized squeal of a circuit board giving up the ghost snapped his eyes open half an instant before several computer panels on the wall went dark. "It's about to go critical!" a familiar voice cried- Eli Vance, one of the other research associates. Gordon knew the Harvard man quite well, and the sound of that kind of stress in his voice boded ill.
He half-turned to see what was going on, and saw Vance and another scientist struggling to extract the smoking board from the rest of the system. "What the hell is going on with our equipment?" the other man demanded.
( How was I to know )
Vance shook his head grimly. "It wasn't meant to do this in the first place," he muttered, and lifted his eyes to Gordon's.
( She was with the Russians, too? )
The elevator arrived before Gordon could say anything.
"I'm afraid we'll be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedures today, Gordon," said Dr. Rosen. He spoke as if he wanted to get away with an apology before Dr. Sark could stop him.
( I was gambling in Havana )
Sure enough, Sark spoke up immediately. "Yes," he said firmly, "but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us. This is the purest sample we've seen yet."
( I took a little risk )
"And potentially the most unstable," Rosen noted, his tone almost pleading; Sark waved him off.
( Send lawyers, guns, and money )
"Now, now, if you follow standard insertion procedure, everything will be fine..."
( They'll get me out of this )
Frankly, Gordon thought Rosen was probably the more sensible of the two. Before he could indicate the thought, Rosen burst out with, "I don't know how you can say that! ... although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely-"
Wait, thought Gordon, startled. What? Go back and say that again?
"Gordon doesn't need to hear all this," said Sark confidently. (No! No, Gordon does need to hear all this! Go back to that part!) "He's a highly trained professional. We've assured the Administrator that nothing will go wrong."
Gordon started to raise a finger in protest.
"Ah- yes, of course," said Rosen. "You're right. Gordon? We have complete confidence in you."
( I'm the innocent bystander )
Seldom had that phrase inspired such a feeling of dread, but it was already too late for Gordon to say anything. Sark and Rosen had already opened the test chamber door and were waiting expectantly to either side. With a sigh he made one last check of his HEV suit's helmet and stepped in.
( Somehow I got stuck )
The door clanging shut behind him did not inspire much extra confidence, either. Ah, well. No help for it now; he leaned back on his heels and turned his gaze upward. Overhead, the spectrometer's rotors loomed in the shadows like the roof-beams of another man's cathedral. It was a sight that never failed to stir him. The knowledge that this, here, was a place of discovering... that mattered more than all the other nonsense put together. Gordon couldn't really ask for more out of life than-
( Between the rock and the hard place )
"Testing, testing. Everything seems to be in order." That was Rosen's voice over the intercom. Gordon jerked his attention back to the task at hand.
( And I'm down on my luck... )
"All right, Gordon. your suit should keep you comfortable through all this," came Sark's voice. "The specimen will be delivered to you in a few moments. If you would be so good as to climb up and start the rotors, we can bring the anti-mass spectrometer to eighty percent and hold it there until the carrier arrives."
Gordon nodded, for all that they couldn't see him, and crossed the chamber floor. Why the activation controls for the spectrometer were positioned thirty feet off the floor he didn't know, but it allowed for a view all its own. He checked the status monitor on the auxiliary terminal and confirmed that nothing else was about to explode before jabbing the nearby button. A low thrumm began to wend its way through his bones as the spectrometer's rotors activated and began to whirl in the shadows.
"Very good," said Sark. "We'll take it from here."
The crystal sample would be arriving shortly; there was no point to staying up here beyond the view. With everything being pushed to its limits, there was no way to predict how long the system would be able to keep operating. The faster this was finished, the better- so Gordon was already on the ladder, making his way down, by the time the first phase arrays started to form in the energy trails of the stage one emitters. As the stage two emitters activated, he paused, looking upwards once more. It seemed all right-
"Overhead capacitors to one oh five percent," said Rosen, and then paused. "Uh, it's probably not a problem, probably, but I'm showing a small discrepancy in... well, no, it's well within acceptable bounds again."
It occurred to Gordon that NASA had probably said something similar back in late January of '86.
( I'm hiding in Honduras )
"Sustaining sequence."
Sark's voice broke in then. "I've just been informed that the sample is ready, Gordon. It should be coming up to you any moment now. Look to the delivery system hatch for your specimen."
Sure enough, a floor panel had slid aside to reveal a cart bearing a lone, perfect, gleaming purplish-yellow crystal the size of a man's head. Gordon glanced at the whirling energy beams of the anti-mass spectrometer, then down at the crystal. Everything's going wrong today, he thought. If this sample is so important, we can't take chances with it, can we?
"Soon, Gordon," Sark said. Gordon sighed, squared his shoulders, and started pushing the cart forward. "Very good-"
The first of the energy beams intersected the crystal with a flash of blinding light. Helmet or no, Gordon threw up an arm to protect his eyes.
"Gordon!" Sark's voice crackled. "Get away from the-"
"Shutting down- no, attempted shutdown-" Rosen's voice was frantic. "It's not- it's not shutting down!"
( I'm a desperate man )
And then the explosion, purple-white and green nightmare energies slicing together through everything-
darkness- nothing but the sound and the feel of his own breathing-
a place of glowing waters under rippling purple skies, and things the size of ponies tentacled at one end and tailed at the other, dashing on two legs through the blue luminescence-
( Send lawyers, guns, and money )
a terrible green flash, and then a circle of red-eyed beings in the darkness, their heads and hands ringed about by metal as their voices droned in incomprehensible alien harmonies-
another green flash, brief as a falling star, and Milliways-
and then darkness again and something hard and terrible smashing him to the ground, and unconsciousness.
( The shit has hit the fan... )