[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Instead of turning right on Madingley Road towards the Colleges, he went through Coton to
the Mil intersection with Barton Road. Entering the motorway in a northerly direction, he took
the exit east towards Milton, driving the Mercedes at a speed he would normally have
regarded as unwise, just to be sure that nobody behind him did likewise. Satisfied he wasn't
being followed, at Milton he turned north again onto the Stretham-Ely road. It was just 6.15
p.m. as he parked in Ely at the Lamb Hotel, where he booked a room for the night.
Over his dinner at a small table in the corner of the dining-room of the hotel, he hoped he
hadn't scared Featherstone half as much as he'd scared himself. But the urge to confide in
someone had been strong, and no better suggestion than the Professor of Vet Science had
presented itself. A man who could deal with lions and tigers at the point of a tranquillizer rifle
could surely manage to cope with the Bulgarians, or whatever.
Isaac Newton's thoughts turned back to lunch with Frances
Haroldsen and to the last part of it, to his own mention of the OKLO reactor in Gabon. The
initial discovery by French nuclear scientists of large concentrations of fission products in
rocks two thousand million years old had been greeted with scepticism by experienced
scientists the world over, experienced scientists like himself and Kurt Waldheim, for the
reason that under natural conditions you would expect all manner of neutron poisons to
prevent a critical fission situation from ever being reached, even in a rich uranium ore, and
even at the U-235 concentration of two thousand million years ago. Yet the French had
eventually proved their point and won the day, leaving the problem of neutron poisons
unresolved.
The resolution had come when an American paleontologist had visited the site of the OKLO
reactor. He noticed that particularly high concentrations of uranium were associated with
fossilised bacterial colonies. Hitherto unknown to nuclear scientists, there are species of
bacteria which precipitate uranium from solution in water, so as to build a shell of uranium
around themselves, rather as other bacteria precipitate calcium carbonate to form the
structures known as stromatolites.The two processes are similar, except that when a
bacterial colony is large enough to form a big enough concentration of uranium, the thing
becomes a biologically generated nuclear reactor, with the carbon content of the bacteria
acting as the moderator of the reactor. A particularly striking example, discovered by the
Americans, was a colony that would have needed only a change in shape to have gone
critical. This discovery suggested that a bacterial reactor controls its stability simply by
adjustments of its shape. Inevitably, therefore, the bacteria had to be capable of
withstanding enormous doses of radiation, a prediction that was triumphantly vindicated
when bacteria were found alive and well inside man-made reactors. The OKLO problem
had thus been solved.
A similar solution, Isaac Newton had instantly seen at the end of his lunchtime conversation
with Frances Haroldsen, would also dispose of the heating problem inside comets. Comets
kept themselves warm with bacterial nuclear reactors, proving that there must be life inside
comets. This, Isaac Newton had argued to himself, was a long step towards the idea that
comets might even harbour intelligent life. So, in his opinion, the odds had shortened
dramatically since his first pessimistic estimate of Howarth's theory.
Before he collapsed exhausted into bed that night, Isaac Newton telephoned the Waldheim
apartment in Geneva. A minute later he was talking to Frances Margaret. His head swam as
he listened to her enthusiastic rush of words, and his last thought before sleep brought
the day to its appointed close was to wonder why he was where he was. Why wasn't he in
Geneva himself, off skiing for a week-end, without a care in his head, off skiing with Frances
Margaret? Instead, he'd deliberately exposed himself in the track of an impending
avalanche, which any sensible person could see must come roaring down the mountainside
within only a matter of hours or days, to carry him to likely disaster.
Chapter 17
After sleeping well at the Lamb Hotel and not getting down to breakfast until close on 9.00
a.m., Isaac Newton was late at the Lab. Boulton, the Professor of Geostrophics, was already
waiting for him. As soon as they were in Isaac Newton's office, Boulton came instantly to the
point.
'Do you think you could move into the house today?'
'I thought you said the end of the week.'
'That was before my spies told me that Scuby is on the march in my direction. I'm getting out,
of course. This morning. If you were installed in the house today it would make it look
plausible, you see something I could point to if questions were asked.'
'Well, actually, I'd be glad to start moving my things over. This afternoon, perhaps?'
'I've told the woman who cleans for me to send everything to the laundry, so it'll be a bit bare
until the sheets and towels come back. Do you think you could bring some from College? I
don't suppose they'd mind. By the way, I notice you've got moles. I'd get onto the University
about that, otherwise the district will be swamped with them.'
'I'll make a note of it.'
'Another thing. D'you think you could let me have your petty cash? Until Scuby has departed
on his way. I'll give you an IOU, of course.'
'What's the trouble?'
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]