Moonseed n-3 Page 17

  He stood up. “We’ll find him. I think I know where he is.”

  She glanced around. “What the hell are you doing in here, Henry?”

  “I’m building an STM. A scanning tunnelling microscope.” He looked at her. “It’s a device that uses quantum effects to… Well. The point is you can study individual atoms. You can move them, even.”

  “Why? What for?”

  “So I can study the Moon rock. Why else?”

  “There must be STMs in the lab.”

  “Dream on, baby. But I need one, so I have to fall back on good old Yankee can-do… This pile of tyres and Styrofoam is the shock absorber.” He grinned. “Low tech but effective. I scrounged a piezo to fix the needle to. I use a loudspeaker coil to move the needle in towards the sample.” He looked at her, to see if she was understanding. “A coil from a telephone headset. I can move my needle to an accuracy of less than an angstrom. That’s less than an atomic diameter. I can feel my way across the atoms on the surface of a sample, like working along a river bottom. I—”

  “Henry,” she said, “why are you in the car park?”

  “Because the liquefaction is coming.”

  “The what?”

  “The quicksand. Jane, it’s coming this way. Running through the old igneous structures in the bedrock. The only uncertainty is when it gets here. The lab block over there is a warren. I don’t want to get caught in that.”

  “But the university people—”

  “ — won’t listen. So I’m making my protest, out here. This way, I might persuade more people to take this seriously.” He stood up and held her shoulders. “Never mind. Let’s go find Mike.”

  They considered taking her car, but the roads were impossible. The career types had gone to work, but now the survivalists in their laden 4WDs were mixed up now with the school run.

  But still, Venus had set, and the light was a little more normal.

  They walked, to Arthur’s Seat.

  She studied him. She said, “Aren’t you freaked out too?”

  “Sort of. This is spooky stuff. But the bigger part of me is—”

  “Excited.”

  “Yes.”

  “By what? Nano-machines from the Moon? String theory? The end of the world?”

  “Not really. Just about figuring stuff out. You were right. That’s the thrill.” He smiled. “Especially right now, when I have the excuse to skip the detail.”

  She felt the urge to punch his smug face.

  “How do you know where Mike will be?”

  “I don’t. But I have a hunch.” He turned to her, evidently gauging her reaction. “You know, he’s kind of changed over the last few days.”

  “I know,” she said. And I know why, she thought. Mike’s figured it out too.

  They climbed the Seat. Henry stopped a couple of times to inspect the grass, which had turned, in places, brown and wiry: dead, poisoned somehow.

  They reached the dust pools, a ragged garden of them a thousand yards across. The police had given up trying to tape off the perimeter, but there were many of them here, in their fluorescent emergency-yellow ponchos, patrolling. Jane saw how the officers, many of them very young, kept a wary eye over their shoulders on the advance of the quicksand.

  Outside the ring of police officers she spotted a group of scientists working close to the quicksand perimeter, with handheld probes and white-box lab equipment and flickering laptop screens. They were wiring the Seat, in Blue’s term. A couple of them were preparing a small, turtle-shaped robot which looked as if it was going to be sent into the quicksand itself.

  And there were TV and radio crews, with big fold-up antennae pointing at the sky. The tone of the broadcasts had abruptly changed, Jane thought; now that people had died, it seemed a great city was gathering itself in fear, and the earnest tones and body language of the reporters conveyed that, cartoon-style.

  Around the broadcasters and scientists there was a broader ring of sight-seers, mostly teenagers and young adults. Some were studying the quicksand, or watching what the scientists were doing, or listening soberly to the news people. Others were just, it seemed to Jane, enjoying a novelty in the sunshine.

  It was, in fact, crowded here. There was a lively mood. Like a Bank Holiday crowd.

  It wasn’t hard to find the Egress Hatch encampment; it was at the centre of the densest knot of sight-seers. The cultists were sitting around in their pyjama uniforms in a rough circle, as close, it seemed, as the police would allow them to the quicksand puddle. At their centre was the leader, Bran. He had on a Madonna microphone headset, and was strolling easily before the quicksand, his words amplified by a bank of ghetto blasters. He looked for all the world like a stand-up comic, she thought. His audience was no passive congregation; they laughed and whooped as he spoke to them.

  Hamish Macrae had mastered the seduction of humour, she thought. He had grown up a lot since that lift shaft.

  And here, as Henry had appeared to expect, was Mike, sitting among the cultists. He was still wearing a white lab coat, which stood out among the pastel colours of the cultists” pyjamas.

  Jane moved forward — she had to step over a few rows of cultists, who dipped out of her way with gentle smiles — and hissed until she had Mike’s attention. He looked back at Bran as if wistfully, but he unfolded his legs, stood and climbed out to her.

  Henry spoke first. “I was worried about you. We missed you at work.”

  Mike seemed surprised. “You did?”

  “Well, Marge Case makes lousy coffee. Anyhow, you don’t have the pyjamas for this.”

  Mike smiled weakly. “Pyjamas will be provided.”

  “When?” Jane snapped. “When you all beam up to the fucking mother ship?”

  Mike wasn’t reacting. “You can’t mock this, you know. Bran mocks himself.”

  “Yeah,” Henry said. “I noticed. He’s smart.”

  “Dad thinks we should get out of here,” Jane said. “Out of the city. We want you to come. We need you.” She hesitated. “Jack needs you.”

  Mike frowned. “I think I’m needed here.”

  “Why?” Jane said sharply. “To atone?”

  Mike wouldn’t reply.

  Henry touched her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She flared. “We can’t just leave this little arsehole.”

  “What are you going to do, slug him and haul him over your shoulder? You know, these guys will have to come off this rock soon anyhow. The rate of progress of the dust—”

  “Moonseed,” Mike said.

  “What?”

  “That’s what Bran calls it. Moonseed.”

  Jane said, “Why?”

  “Because it comes from the Moon.”

  She held Mike’s arm, just for a moment. “We’ll be waiting,” she said.

  He nodded tightly, already looking back at Bran.

  “Moonseed,” Henry said. “It’s a better word than quicksand. But it’s still just a word.”

  “I think Mike’s gone crazy,” she said.

  “No. You mustn’t think that. None of them are crazy. Bran isn’t crazy. I think Bran has looked at the same evidence as me and come to the same conclusions, in some way I don’t understand. Now, given all that, how is Mike supposed to react?”

  She felt herself get more angry. “This is all bullshit.”

  But Henry was still talking. “In a way Bran’s thinking has gone far beyond mine; he isn’t questioning the data he sees, or trying to construct hypotheses about it. He is already trying to deal with the consequences. He was brought up to expect a lack of disturbance. A stable world to live in. A long life. Hell, we all were. Now, that’s gone. Bran is offering a way out. At least an explanation. Very skilfully presented. And Mike, and the others, are accepting that. I can’t blame them for that.”

  “But it’s all guff.”

  “I agree. But I don’t have a smarter alternative to offer anybody right now. Do you?” He studied her. “So why are you so angry tod
ay?”

  “Because of Mike. Because of you, you smug bastard.”

  “No,” he said.

  No, she thought. Because I don’t want this to be happening. I want it to be yesterday, when I still had control of my life.

  His hand covered hers. “I know,” he said.

  “What?”

  “About Mike.” He glanced at her. “That’s it, isn’t it? The quarantine breach. How it got out.”

  “Yes. And it’s killing him.”

  “He couldn’t have known. It wasn’t his fault. If we can get him to—”

  A soft warble came from his jacket pocket; he pulled out his mobile phone. He opened it up and listened. “Yeah… Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Something at the lab. An explosion. I have to go.” He paused a moment, unwilling to leave her. “There’s nothing you can do about Mike now. Come with me. Then we’ll go to your family, and get the hell out of here.”

  She hesitated for a second, looking back at the crowds at the base of Arthur’s Seat, her brother among them.

  And, visible at the heart of the concentric circles of people milling and laughing and arguing, there was the Moonseed pool, spread like parachute fabric over the Seat. It glimmered softly, the familiar contours of the Seat slowly dissolving into its silky, seductive smoothness; and the silent light-bursts at its perimeter came steadily now, as the Moonseed ate its way through the ancient basalt.

  She grabbed Henry’s hand, and they started to run.

  15

  When Ted Dundas got back from the train wreck, he found the house empty, save for Jack.

  Jack stared at the blood and dirt on Ted’s face. Ted let him get used to it. It wouldn’t be the last blood he’d see.

  The lad had done a good job of assembling the supplies his mother had asked for. They were stacked up in the hall, blankets and cans and camping gear and clothes. Good kid. Ted made a few suggestions. Anything run by battery, like torches and radios. Any batteries they had, in fact. His own old wind-up watch. Any kind of bottle or container they could find, filled up with clean water. Any medicines in the house. Clothes, for hot weather, cold, wet, snow. Towels, for Christ’s sake.

  Jack showed him his own stuff, a shoebox of toys and books he was taking. Some kind of spaceship, wings shaped like a black sycamore seed, so worn from play it had hardly any paint left at all. A book, some trashy thing about a virtual reality Gulliver’s Travels theme park, the spine broken from rereading. And so on.

  But the lad had only allowed himself this one box. He looked up at Ted seriously. He understands. Ted ruffled Jack’s hair.

  Ted gave Jack the keys to the car, and said he should start packing up. Then Ted went to his bedroom, stripped off, and ran a deep, hot bath. There ought to be time for this, and it might be a while before he got another chance. He showered first, to scrape off the worst of the gash, and then climbed in.

  Lying in the tub, he made plans.

  As near as he could make out, it was as if an earthquake was hitting the area. So: when the earthquake comes, what do you do? He dug into his memory, the emergency training he’d had as a copper.

  Run for the hills. But first, prepare the home. Batten down all loose objects. Fill the bath tub and the sinks with water. Switch off the electricity and gas. If he had time, put duct tape on the windows to prevent falling glass.

  Find ways to mitigate the problem, not add to it.

  He got out of the bath, towelled himself briskly, and pulled on fresh clothes.

  He thought about Ruth Clark, a couple of doors down.

  It would be murder trying to get Ruth to come away without her damn moggie. Well, he should try; there would be room in the car.

  He walked out to the living room, drying his hair.

  His relationship with Ruth had never exactly caught fire. And it had been inhibited further since Jane and Jack had come back home to live. Still, when he thought about the future, he’d always pictured Ruth somewhere in it. And he liked to think she thought of him the same way. And—

  The floor was buckling, the carpet gathering in a fold.

  Oh, Christ.

  It happened in a second. It was as if the house had collapsed around him. Furniture fell, plaster showered down from the ceiling, his wife’s collection of painted plates tipped gently off the Welsh dresser to the floor.

  He found himself on his knees, as if someone had tugged the floor out from under him.

  He heard the house frame crack, a window explode somewhere. So much for planning. Where was the lad?…

  Later. He had to get through this himself. If he could get under the big dining room table—

  The floor bucked, and he was thrown flat.

  Jack was screaming.

  Ted rolled on his back. Jack was somehow standing in the doorway, clutching his box of toys; he was crying.

  Ted tried to sit up.

  But here came the TV set, a great heavy box spinning away from its spindly stand, looming, filling his world, too big for him ever to avoid.

  In the clean room, there was blood on the wall and floor. Sprayed there, as if with a fine hose, already drying to brown. An incongruous splash of human weakness, here in the damaged heart of this place of science.

  The glove box which had held Moon rock 86047 was the centre of it. The stainless steel frame was still intact, but the thick glass had been shattered and blown outwards. Jane saw the remnants of one of the long-sleeved gloves the workers had used to manipulate the sample in its box, blown out and shredded, hurled into a corner. There was nothing left of the tools and trays the box had contained.

  There were glass fragments on the floor, and punctures in the wall tiles which spoke of the ferocity of the box’s bursting. A couple of the fluorescent ceiling light strips had been blown out, making the light here an even more dead grey than usual.

  Henry was talking to the lab workers here, and to a young policewoman who was taking notes. The policewoman looked tired and harassed, Jane thought; it was surprising there weren’t more police here, firemen.

  Or maybe not. It was turning out to be a strange day.

  Elsewhere, she saw that this lab had been turned into some kind of geologists” war room. Big Sun workstations had been commandeered; one was displaying weather satellite information, and another was scrolling what looked like infra-red images of thermal activity in the area, more satellite images, multicoloured and full of detail. There were big geological maps of the area taped hastily to the walls, and equipment, most of it unrecognizable to her, was being set up on the benches or floor, some items still in their foam-lined metal cases.

  Now Henry came to Jane. He was followed by a young woman in a scorched lab coat, who seemed excited.

  Henry said, “Nobody was badly hurt. We were lucky. Some lacerations and burns.”

  “Burns? What happened here?”

  He grinned, his fascinated expression starting to match that of the girl researcher. “The sample blew up.”

  “What sample?”

  “86047. The Moon rock. It was just sitting in its box, and then—” He opened his hands in a popping motion. “Like a puffball fungus.”

  “It was incredible,” the girl said. “We were monitoring the changes. Tee, pee, rho, all went off the scale—”

  “Temperature, pressure, density,” Henry said drily. “Jane, meet Marge Case.”

  Marge Case just kept talking. “ — and when we replayed the bang we detected gamma rays, X-rays—”

  “Like Venus,” Jane said.

  “Maybe,” Henry said. “More like fusion products, from the layers around the very centre.”

  Jane looked back at the case; there was no sign of the Moon rock. “Where is it now? Converted to energy?”

  “Oh, no.” The girl laughed, and Jane could have happily struck her. “Only a fraction of the mass was destroyed, we think. Maybe one part in ten to power eleven.”

  Henry thought about that. “If it was all hydrogen, that would be a sp
here maybe forty microns across. At fusion temperatures and pressures.”

  Jane said, “And the rest of the Moon rock—”

  “Is gone,” Henry said grimly. “Converted.”

  “To Moonseed?”

  “Some of it. We’ll find it if we scrape the walls, no doubt.”

  “It’s just incredible,” said Marge Case. Think of it. We probably had higher-order string modes, here, in this lab.”

  “For a squillionth of a second,” Henry said.

  “But why?” Jane asked. “Why does it do this?”

  Henry shrugged. “To propagate. The Moonseed will go on to infect normal matter, create more puffball-fungus explosions, and propagate further still.”

  “Like what’s happening outside.”

  “We think so,” Henry said. “Although the growth isn’t even. Olivine-rich basalt is the raw material of choice…”

  Jane looked from one to the other. “I don’t understand you. You seem — excited.”

  “Exhilarated,” Marge Case said.

  “Really?”

  “Of course.” Her eyes were moist, shining in the imperfect light. “Don’t you see? It’s not just the high-energy physics. This is the discovery of the century. This may be life from another world. An utterly different mode of biology.” She looked, to Jane, as if she hadn’t slept for days, as if she’d been living on adrenaline.

  “What I mostly feel is frustrated,” Henry said. “We have no time to do the science. A study like this should take years. Teams all around the world. We’re doing little more than guesswork, here. And—”

  “What else?”

  “…Awe, I guess,” he said. “Geologists get used to thinking big. Big timescales, huge energies, gigantic events. But I’m not used to seeing all that intrude into my own life.”

  “But we’re talking about a threat to the city,” Jane said. “Screw this guff about biology and science.”

  “Jane—”

  “You think I’m being hysterical. But somebody needs to express what we’re really saying, here. This isn’t just some intellectual puzzle.”

  Marge smiled sadly. “Isn’t it?”

  Jane watched Henry. “I need to get out of here. I have to find my family.” And, here was the unspoken thought, I could use your help.