The Krone Experiment Read Online Free PDF Page A

of hope. A chance, still slim, that relatives in the
United States could take advantage of the burgeoning political ties
with China to free him from his slavery and to offer him a new life
in a new country. Yuan’s mind spun fantasies of escape as he
carefully folded the letter and tucked it safely in a pocket of his
tunic.
    He arrived at the mine too late — the crude
elevator had already begun its descent. As he expected, a member of
the revolutionary cadre noted his tardiness and began to shout
exhortations of devotion to the people and the party. Yuan suffered
the tirade in numb silence.
    As the elevator reached bottom, a small
tunnel bored upward through the rock. The tunnel arced over
smoothly and then headed downward once more into the depths of the
Earth. The plane of the arc paralleled the main horizontal shaft of
the copper mine. The apex lay about forty feet above the shaft and
twenty feet to one side. The small tunnel briefly existed intact.
The stress fractures grew outward from it, shooting rapidly down
and across in multiple fissures through the mine-shaft weakened
bedrock.
    No one noticed the first cracks widening in
the ceiling and wall of the shaft. Then small rocks crumbled down
along with sifting dust. Several miners cried in alarm and men
began to scatter in both directions from the weakened portion. The
ceiling of the shaft released with a roar and the whole section of
rock from the small recently bored tunnel to the mine shaft
collapsed in, sealing off the mine with tons of rubble. Those few
lucky enough to be on the upward side fled towards the elevator,
help, and freedom. Scores of men in the depths of the main felt the
cold clutch of darkness and fear settle about them.
    On the surface, a silent ominous shaking of
the Earth interrupted the diatribe from the party member. A faint
rumbling sound rolled from the elevator shaft followed by the
shouts of panicked men. After another moment the elevator creaked
into action, cranking upward. The mining camp burst into
turmoil.
    Amid wild shouts and men scurrying in every
direction, Yuan turned and walked slowly back to his tiny dormitory
room. There he sat on his mat, removed the letter from his tunic,
carefully spread it out, and began to read once again.
     
    *****
     
    God!
    He had exulted then, reveling in the feeling
of immense forces responding to his control, lifting him to a
soaring state of grace like a surfer in the curl of a perfect
wave.
    Now crashing waves, forlorn and bitter,
pounded bun. He cradled the smooth butt of the small pistol in his
palm and recalled with agony the feelings that had swept through
him then, now so completely foreign. He drifted into a dream, back
to that day of ecstasy...
    He stood before the penthouse window and
gazed at the sweep of the sleeping city of Vienna arrayed at his
feet, the Cathedral of Saint Stephen and the Hapsburg summer palace
lit with spotlights, suburban street lamps diffusing into the gloom
of the dark woods beyond. He played again in his mind the complex
themes, a fugue for the intellect only he could hear, now poised
for the final resolution: the long hours of meetings, the frenzied
stolen moments for his own work, the pills to keep it all going,
and passionate interludes with the woman.
    He knew that he had dominated the meeting of
the International Atomic Energy Agency both by his fresh ideas and
the force of his personality. He would help them in their pitiful
stumblings to control the dirty monster they had created. What they
did not suspect was that the true focus of his energies were the
moments stolen for his own work, a vision that had become a reality
in his mind only this evening, a reality that swept away as
irrelevant not only all that they did in the meeting, but the
concerns of a major piece of mankind.
    He thought of the steps he would have to take
to realize that which he now knew to be possible, the resources he
would have to muster, the personnel to be assembled and,