dead by the time Howard got his Ph.D., and Mom was one shove down the stairs away from leaving Howard six hundred and twenty-two million dollars.
Shame about those steps, that loose bit of carpeting.
All things considered, though, Howard would have preferred to blow her up.
But … you can’t have everything.
On Thursday evening, Howard Shelton sat on an exercise bike in his personal gym, pedaling and sweating and watching the TV news coverage of the massacre at his laboratory in Wolf Trap, Virginia. There was different coverage on each of the four big screens mounted on the wall. Howard watched the news for two solid hours.
“Perfect,” he said aloud.
He never stopped smiling once.
Interlude One
New Technologies Development Site #18
One Mile Below Tangshan, Hebei
People’s Republic of China
July 28, 1976, 3:38 a.m. local time
General Lo peered through the foot-thick glass, his lips pursed, eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
“What guarantees do we have this time?” he asked. “I would be disappointed with another failure.”
Lo deliberately pitched his voice to be cold and uncompromising. That made these scientists jump. It reminded them that they worked for him and he was the face of the Party here. Just because they were afforded more personal freedom and greater comforts because of this project did not mean that they were untethered from the chain of command. If they were as smart as they were supposed to be, then they would realize and accept that their comforts were the equivalent of clean straw and fresh water in a pet rabbit’s cage.
The scientists straightened respectfully even though Lo was not looking at them. But he saw it in the reflective surface of the window.
Good, he thought.
The chief scientist, an ugly fat man named Zhao, said, “Everything is working normally, General Lo.”
“You said that last time,” said Lo, continuing to study the machine that squatted in the stone chamber on the other side of the glass. It was a bulky device, awkward in appearance, looking more like a haphazard collection of disparate pieces rather than one integrated machine. And, to a great degree this was true. Only six of the machine’s ten components were original. The others were copies made from pieces or from schematics bought from the Russians or stolen from the Americans. The last of the ten pieces, which was one of the very best recovered components, was held suspended over the device by chains. It was the master circuit, a metal slab eight inches long and four inches wide; slender as a wafer but improbably heavy. Once that piece was fully inserted the machine would become active. It would growl to life.
The Dragon Engine.
Lo privately scoffed at the name. Dragons were part of the old China mentality. Hard to shake from the more practical and far less romantic communist way of thinking. But his superiors had liked the name. Ah well.
Ice crystals glittered like diamond dust on the Dragon Engine’s metal skin. Lo glanced at the thermometer mounted on the inside of the glass. Minus 160 degrees.
“Yesterday’s pretest was a—” began Zhao, but Lo cut him off.
“Yesterday was very nearly a disaster.” Lo turned to face Zhao and the other members of the science team. They flinched under his stare. “During each of the three calibration tests the well water in the local villages visibly rose and fell.”
“Yes, General Lo,” agreed Zhao nervously, “but it was not at all like what happened before.”
That was true enough, and even Lo had to admit it to himself. On the twelfth of last month superheated gasses suddenly shot from wells in two other villages. On the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth gas erupted from another dozen wells during tests of the power couplings connecting the device to the gigantic batteries built to store the discharge. Five civilians had been seriously burned and one killed.
That was when the dragonflies fled into the forest. Although Lo would never admit
Shame about those steps, that loose bit of carpeting.
All things considered, though, Howard would have preferred to blow her up.
But … you can’t have everything.
On Thursday evening, Howard Shelton sat on an exercise bike in his personal gym, pedaling and sweating and watching the TV news coverage of the massacre at his laboratory in Wolf Trap, Virginia. There was different coverage on each of the four big screens mounted on the wall. Howard watched the news for two solid hours.
“Perfect,” he said aloud.
He never stopped smiling once.
Interlude One
New Technologies Development Site #18
One Mile Below Tangshan, Hebei
People’s Republic of China
July 28, 1976, 3:38 a.m. local time
General Lo peered through the foot-thick glass, his lips pursed, eyes narrowed to suspicious slits.
“What guarantees do we have this time?” he asked. “I would be disappointed with another failure.”
Lo deliberately pitched his voice to be cold and uncompromising. That made these scientists jump. It reminded them that they worked for him and he was the face of the Party here. Just because they were afforded more personal freedom and greater comforts because of this project did not mean that they were untethered from the chain of command. If they were as smart as they were supposed to be, then they would realize and accept that their comforts were the equivalent of clean straw and fresh water in a pet rabbit’s cage.
The scientists straightened respectfully even though Lo was not looking at them. But he saw it in the reflective surface of the window.
Good, he thought.
The chief scientist, an ugly fat man named Zhao, said, “Everything is working normally, General Lo.”
“You said that last time,” said Lo, continuing to study the machine that squatted in the stone chamber on the other side of the glass. It was a bulky device, awkward in appearance, looking more like a haphazard collection of disparate pieces rather than one integrated machine. And, to a great degree this was true. Only six of the machine’s ten components were original. The others were copies made from pieces or from schematics bought from the Russians or stolen from the Americans. The last of the ten pieces, which was one of the very best recovered components, was held suspended over the device by chains. It was the master circuit, a metal slab eight inches long and four inches wide; slender as a wafer but improbably heavy. Once that piece was fully inserted the machine would become active. It would growl to life.
The Dragon Engine.
Lo privately scoffed at the name. Dragons were part of the old China mentality. Hard to shake from the more practical and far less romantic communist way of thinking. But his superiors had liked the name. Ah well.
Ice crystals glittered like diamond dust on the Dragon Engine’s metal skin. Lo glanced at the thermometer mounted on the inside of the glass. Minus 160 degrees.
“Yesterday’s pretest was a—” began Zhao, but Lo cut him off.
“Yesterday was very nearly a disaster.” Lo turned to face Zhao and the other members of the science team. They flinched under his stare. “During each of the three calibration tests the well water in the local villages visibly rose and fell.”
“Yes, General Lo,” agreed Zhao nervously, “but it was not at all like what happened before.”
That was true enough, and even Lo had to admit it to himself. On the twelfth of last month superheated gasses suddenly shot from wells in two other villages. On the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth gas erupted from another dozen wells during tests of the power couplings connecting the device to the gigantic batteries built to store the discharge. Five civilians had been seriously burned and one killed.
That was when the dragonflies fled into the forest. Although Lo would never admit
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