other things. For the past two years, he realized, he had tried to deny the truth. Yet daily he saw the truth, and it was inescapable. It was building up, sheet after written sheet, graph after graph, in the mass of notes lying between mildewed green covers on his workbench. He couldn’t afford to ignore it any longer.
Who would pay heed to a forgotten man? Theo wondered, holding the skimming net in one hand while he pulled himself up with the other. Especially the apocalyptic warning of a lone scientist, long vanished from civilization? A crank? Deranged? Old Theo? Thought he was dead.
He went up the beaten path to the house, knowing what had to be done. Like a fire-and-brimstone prophet of ancient times, he was about to preach death and destruction. His sermon concerned nothing less than the end of the world.
Nick Power lounged back in the canvas chair, his calf-length combat boots with the thick-ridged soles propped on the corner of the trestle table. “The guy’s off his rocker, Gav, we both know that.”
“No, we don’t. Feverish, yes, and in pain, probably drugged up to the eyeballs, but he was definitely trying to tell us something.”
“Okay,” Nick agreed charitably. “What, for instance?”
“I don’t know,” Chase said.
“Because it didn’t mean anything. An elementary equation that can be found in any third-year chemistry textbook. He was deluded, babbling nonsense. Something he’d learned as a peasant back in Vladivostok.”
Chase gazed thoughtfully across the small cluttered messroom with its half-dozen late diners idling over coffee. The others had retired to the rec room along the corridor to play cards or chess, or have a game of table tennis on the battered table supported by packing cases. Some would be straining to hear whatever English-language broadcast they could pick up on shortwave—if the ionospheric storms didn’t give total radio blackout, likely with the approaching winter.
It was the comfortable hour of the evening, the station battened down against the searing wind and cold and dark. Primeval man seeking the shelter of the cave, the warmth of companionship in a hostile environment.
“When are they transferring him to McMurdo?” asked Nick, hands behind his head.
“Tomorrow. The Hercules is due in at fourteen hundred hours.” Nick perked up. “Wowie! If Doug Thomas is flying her we could have a fresh supply of Red. That’s made my day,” he said happily.
“I won’t be around to smoke it with you,” Chase reminded him. “You can blast off into outer space all on your own.”
Nick laughed. “The next POGO in orbit will be me.”
Polar-Orbiting Geophysical satellites passed directly overhead every hour and a half, transmitting photographs of the weather situation and data on magnetic disturbances in the upper atmosphere. A satellite was being launched every three days, and at the present time there were more than three thousand spacecraft in orbit. Three quarters of all expenditure on space development was military—China, India, and, more recently, Chile adding to the clutter in outer space.
Chase sipped the last of his lukewarm coffee. “What section of the core are you working on?” he asked Nick.
“Oh, pretty recent. About five hundred B.C. ”
“It always amazes me how you can date it so accurately.”
“Well, it’s really an estimate, give or take two or three hundred years. But in the total span of fifty thousand years, what’s a couple of centuries between friends?”
“Any surprises?”
“No, not anymore. I came across a dark band the other day, which is probably the residue of volcanic ash. We dated it by carbon fourteen at about two and a half thousand years, so there must have been a huge eruption about that time.”
“And the ash got this far?” Chase said curiously.
“Most airborne pollution does,” Nick told him. “We can trace contamination of the atmosphere caused by the early Industrial Revolution. There’s a
Who would pay heed to a forgotten man? Theo wondered, holding the skimming net in one hand while he pulled himself up with the other. Especially the apocalyptic warning of a lone scientist, long vanished from civilization? A crank? Deranged? Old Theo? Thought he was dead.
He went up the beaten path to the house, knowing what had to be done. Like a fire-and-brimstone prophet of ancient times, he was about to preach death and destruction. His sermon concerned nothing less than the end of the world.
Nick Power lounged back in the canvas chair, his calf-length combat boots with the thick-ridged soles propped on the corner of the trestle table. “The guy’s off his rocker, Gav, we both know that.”
“No, we don’t. Feverish, yes, and in pain, probably drugged up to the eyeballs, but he was definitely trying to tell us something.”
“Okay,” Nick agreed charitably. “What, for instance?”
“I don’t know,” Chase said.
“Because it didn’t mean anything. An elementary equation that can be found in any third-year chemistry textbook. He was deluded, babbling nonsense. Something he’d learned as a peasant back in Vladivostok.”
Chase gazed thoughtfully across the small cluttered messroom with its half-dozen late diners idling over coffee. The others had retired to the rec room along the corridor to play cards or chess, or have a game of table tennis on the battered table supported by packing cases. Some would be straining to hear whatever English-language broadcast they could pick up on shortwave—if the ionospheric storms didn’t give total radio blackout, likely with the approaching winter.
It was the comfortable hour of the evening, the station battened down against the searing wind and cold and dark. Primeval man seeking the shelter of the cave, the warmth of companionship in a hostile environment.
“When are they transferring him to McMurdo?” asked Nick, hands behind his head.
“Tomorrow. The Hercules is due in at fourteen hundred hours.” Nick perked up. “Wowie! If Doug Thomas is flying her we could have a fresh supply of Red. That’s made my day,” he said happily.
“I won’t be around to smoke it with you,” Chase reminded him. “You can blast off into outer space all on your own.”
Nick laughed. “The next POGO in orbit will be me.”
Polar-Orbiting Geophysical satellites passed directly overhead every hour and a half, transmitting photographs of the weather situation and data on magnetic disturbances in the upper atmosphere. A satellite was being launched every three days, and at the present time there were more than three thousand spacecraft in orbit. Three quarters of all expenditure on space development was military—China, India, and, more recently, Chile adding to the clutter in outer space.
Chase sipped the last of his lukewarm coffee. “What section of the core are you working on?” he asked Nick.
“Oh, pretty recent. About five hundred B.C. ”
“It always amazes me how you can date it so accurately.”
“Well, it’s really an estimate, give or take two or three hundred years. But in the total span of fifty thousand years, what’s a couple of centuries between friends?”
“Any surprises?”
“No, not anymore. I came across a dark band the other day, which is probably the residue of volcanic ash. We dated it by carbon fourteen at about two and a half thousand years, so there must have been a huge eruption about that time.”
“And the ash got this far?” Chase said curiously.
“Most airborne pollution does,” Nick told him. “We can trace contamination of the atmosphere caused by the early Industrial Revolution. There’s a
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