A Hole in Texas, page 2
“‘Anything can be done, given the budget,’” she broke in. “Suppose it’s true? Suppose the Chinese have brought off an underground Sputnik? You weren’t here when I had to go before Congress on the Space Telescope because the mirror failed —”
“You did? But the astronauts fixed it, it’s a glorious success, it’s opening up the universe —”
“Fixing it took two years, Guy. The media staged a circus over the fuzzy mirror, and Congress had fits. You can’t predict what Congress will do when something like this surfaces and the media get hold of it. There’s only so much money for science every year, and —”
“Here you are, Ottoline.” Rafe strode in with a thick sheaf of paper. “The whole article. There’s a letter coming through too.” He darted out again.
She peered at the top page. “Evidence of Higgs Field Particle Detection —”
“Authors?” Guy asked.
She held the sheaf up to her eyes, removed her glasses, and squinted. “Wen Mei Li—aha, there’s your Wendy, gentlemen, leading off—Wu Kwang, Zhao Dapeng, Liu Layu —”
“Liu Layu also!” exclaimed Peter Braunstein.
Ottoline said, “This is a very poor fax. Blotchy. V. Abramovitch, I. Gorin. Goodness me, two Russians. That’s the lot.”
“How about it, Guy?” said Braunstein. “Wendy and Layu, plus a couple of Russkis. Interesting, would you say?”
Carpenter cleared his throat and spoke hoarsely. “Okay, the Russians have been ahead on titanium and niobium, we know that —”
The Englishman came back, waving a paper. “Well, it’s a cliff-hanger. They’re holding up the first August issue, and the editorial board is in special session right now, six in the evening in London. My lass will ring me when she hears something —”
“Whatever they decide,” Ottoline said, “I can see we’re already in trouble. This article”—she rattled the papers—“must have substance, and let’s even say they reject it. Nature once rejected an article by Fermi, you know. Someone here will grab it. American Scientist, Physics Today —”
“That’s for sure,” said Braunstein, “or Science —”
Ottoline’s voice went higher. “Someone! A stampede could start in Congress to revive the Super Collider, and that could gulp half of all science funding. In which case —”
“You’ve lost me, Ottoline,” interrupted the Englishman. “If the Chinese have already done it, where’s the sense?”
“I’m not talking sense, Rafe, I’m talking American politicians, press, and above all television,” said the Project Scientist. “And I’m talking budget. We’re not high on NASA’s mission chart, and —”
“As far as that goes,” interposed Braunstein, “we’re sucking hind tit.”
Ottoline gave him an arid smile. “Thank you, Peter, for defining the parameters —”
“Whatever happens,” said Guy, “we must have the orbiting telescopes, Ottoline, or the whole thing folds up —”
“No argument,” said Ottoline. “Therefore I’d like a memo from each of you on a possible long stretch-out of funding —”
The telephone rang. Rafe reached to snatch it. “Right, puss, what’s the word?” He nodded several times, glancing around somberly at the others, and hung up. “Nature is pulling two articles from the first August issue and featuring the Chinese bombshell on the cover.”
“Fat’s in the fire,” said Braunstein.
“This meeting is over,” said the Project Scientist. “Let me have those stretch-out memos, gentlemen, pronto.”
“One thing, Ottoline, about that fax,” said Guy, using his arms to push himself out of his chair. “Fax a copy right away to Rocovsky.”
“Rocovsky? His eyes aren’t that good. It’s hardly legible.”
“He’ll decipher it.”
Braunstein and Carpenter walked back to the camper in a light drizzle. “So, you’re really limping,” the astrophysicist said. “No tennis again for a while.”
“Guess not, Peter, and no volleyball tonight, that’s for sure.”
“Bummer. Caltech will cream us, then.” A team of faculty members played Jet Propulsion scientists once a year, at the birthday barbecue of a Caltech trustee on the lawn of his mansion. “Climb in, I’ll take you home.”
“Just to the mall, Saks entrance, Peter. I’ll get a cab from there.”
Braunstein glanced at him. “Saks?”
“Bit of shopping.”
When Braunstein’s camper left the mall, Guy Carpenter walked straight through Saks to a small dark post-office branch at the other entrance. There he filled out a form for relinquishing a PO box, and checked the box one last time. To his great surprise there was a letter, the first in half a year or more. Flimsy bluish paper, Chinese stamps. He took the letter to a window, read it slowly over and over, then tore it up into a trash basket. At a wooden stand-up desk he scrawled a long reply, mailed it, and turned in the form with the key.
When he got into the taxi, his back gave him a nasty twinge. Bad day. Bad, bad day. And far from over.
3. THE GAME
Bellows of laughter, shouted insults, and sporadic cheers rose from the guests crowding around the raucous moonlight volleyball game. Guy Carpenter looked on a bit apart, sidelined and silent amid drifting smells of fresh-cut grass and barbecued meat. In other years he had starred among these aging academics, a newcomer taller and faster than the rest, bounding around with white hair flying, making kills even from the baseline. Whacking at a ball—handball, tennis ball, volleyball, any ball, even a shuttlecock—did him good. He was an outstanding physicist, and he knew it; he also knew that physics was a game as well as a science, a blood sport played for the Nobel, in which he rated himself a clear cut or two below a Gell-Mann or a Rubbia. He blew off a fierce unreconciled head of competitive steam by slamming balls.
Piano music was starting up in the house. Penny already? Things must be dull in there. He went through open patio doors to the living room, where some guests chattered over plates of food and others clustered at the piano. Penny rippled a finish to “I Got Rhythm,” and with a private little grin at him began to play and sing in a husky contralto.
Busted flat in Baton Rouge
Waiting for a train —
She seldom played nowadays, since Dinah had erupted into their lives. For a woman of her age with a grown son, a new baby was a harassing handful. The older guests at the piano sang along, and Guy joined in, smiling back at her.
But I’d trade all my tomorrows, Lord, for just one yesterday
Of holding Bobby’s body close to mine. . . .
Da da da da da da da
Me and Bobby McGee . . .
Small summertime party at somebody’s house in a fancy part of Ithaca . . .
Collegiate crowd. Girl in a blue-and-white halter dress at the piano, singing and playing “Bobbie McGee” with more than a touch of Janis Joplin. Afterward Guy approaches her at the punch bowl. An undergraduate, by the look of her, and he is prematurely gray, but what the hell . . .
“That was nice, that ‘Bobbie McGee.’”
“Thanks.”
“You’re a student?”
Mischievous bright look. “Going for my master’s in microbiology. You?”
“Physics department.”
“Professor?”
Ouch. The gray hair. “Associate. Mainly I do research.”
Pause.
“My name is Guy.”
“I’m Penny.”
They sip punch, looking into each other’s eyes. On impulse he says, “Penny for the Guy.”
Her eyes boldly flash. “Mistah Kurtz, he dead.”
“Wow,” he says. “You read Eliot?”
“I read anything, randomly. Butterfly reader.” Off she goes into the party, leaving him surprised and impressed. Only weeks later does she confess that “The Hollow Men” is the only Eliot poem she’s ever read. Came on it in an anthology. Sharp cookie.
Was it cradle snatching? She was so much younger . . . eleven years . . . still, going for a master’s already—“Mistah Kurtz, he dead”— Lord, Lord, of all the vain musings! These thoughts recur whenever Penny sings “Bobbie McGee.” These thoughts, and others too . . .
Party breaking up. There she stands, looking around.
“Hi, can I take you home?”
“You sure can, thanks!” The tart smile that still enchants him. “My date ran into a girl he broke up with. They talked it over and left together. I guess he forgot me.”
“You’re not forgettable. He’s an idiot. Where do you live?”
And that was it . . .
A hand on his shoulder. “We miss you out there, Guy. It’s close.” Peter Braunstein held a large stein of beer in the other hand.
“I miss the game.”
“Go, Penny, go!” Peter bawled. Peter stayed out of the annual game to tank up on beer. “Say, Guy, wasn’t Ottoline a tad paranoid this morning about that Nature article?”
“Just responsible, Pete.”
“Well, maybe. And how about Wendy surfacing? Surprise, surprise.”
Penny was now pounding out a deafening “Pine Top’s Boogie.” Guy shook his head slightly at Braunstein, who rolled his eyes and barely muttered, “Oops.” At loose ends, Guy wandered back outside, feeling low, low, out of the game, his back giving him the devil, his livelihood once more hanging in the balance, if Ottoline was right. He fixed himself a boilermaker at the dim-lit movable bar, having learned in his worst Texas days that booze could be a friend in need, albeit a risky one. The game was tied at 12-12, when a Jet Lab player went down on the grass, groaning over a sprained ankle.
“Hey, look, there’s Guy!” someone yelled as the injured man was helped away.
“Guy, come on!”
“Guy, Guy!”
Chasing down the bourbon with a last swallow of beer, he plunged into the game, making one fast point and another, disregarding the electric stings in his spine. “Guy! Guy! Do it, Guy!” With a leaping net shot he clinched a win, shrugged off the cheers, backslaps, and handshakes, and limped back to the bar to swallow two Aleves with more bourbon. Unwise, but it worked. His agonized back calmed down, he ate another hamburger sizzling off the grill, and his mood turned quite rosy.
As they drove home Penny too was in cheery spirits, rattling on about the people at the party, and about the letter that had come in that day from their son in Australia. John was pursuing a PhD in anthropology, studying the art of the aborigines. Now he wrote that he might take a year off in Samoa, to dig into the quiescent controversy over Margaret Mead’s stuff on sex among the adolescents. Guy said that John’s way of hopping from area to area of research was worrisome. It reminded him uncomfortably of himself.
“If he does as well in his field as you’ve in yours,” Penny remarked, “I won’t mind.”
The repaired garage door was working smoothly again. As she drove in and it closed behind them, she inquired, “Where and how did Wendy surface?”
Penny, all over! Sixth sense, eyes in back of her head, ears like a wildcat. He explained baldly about the Nature article. She nodded and said nothing more.
“Hi, everything’s okay,” the babysitter said over her shoulder, watching television. “Not a peep out of Dinah, she’s a little angel.” On the screen, corpses were rising out of a graveyard to ghastly music.
“What about Sweeney?” Penny opened her purse.
“Oh, you can still hear him.” She gestured toward the bathroom. “He’s never stopped.”
Their regular sitter was down with a virus, and this girl, on seeing Sweeney, had squealed that she wasn’t staying. “I loathe cats, and they all love me!” Penny had doubled her fee and locked Sweeney in the bathroom. Four hours later, he was still scrabbling and yowling. When Penny released him he stalked out, tail up, swearing at her in blue cat language.
On Guy’s answering machine in the den, a tense high-pitched voice: “Hi, Professor Carpenter. Quentin Rossiter here, Washington Post. Please ring me at this number, my home, no matter what time you come in. It’s urgent.”
Now what? Could the news be out already? Guy pulled up the Nature website on the computer. Nothing about the Chinese. This Rossiter was a young investigative journalist, Guy recalled, who had gained early laurels by exposing a Bible-thumping Senator as a transvestite . . . Guy telephoned the reporter.
“Oh, hi, Professor. Thanks a lot for returning my call. It’s about this forthcoming article in Nature.”
“What about it?”
“These Chinese scientists, what can you tell me about them?”
“Sorry, I haven’t read the article, just heard talk about it.”
“Why do you suppose the Russians are involved?”
“I can’t say.”
“In your opinion, should America revive the Super Collider?”
“I can’t speculate on that. It’s pretty late here, Mr. Quentin, and —”
“That’s Rossiter, Professor. Quentin Rossiter. It’s nearly 4 A.M. here, sir. You woke me up, but I’m much obliged. This is a breaking story. That woman scientist, Wen Mei Li, did you know her at Cornell?”
This was a stupid mistake, thought Guy. Why on earth did I call the man? “Mr. Rossiter, I’m bone tired. Try me at the Jet Propulsion Lab in the morning. Good night.”
“I’ll call you there, absolutely. Sleep well.”
In a housecoat and minus makeup, a pallid Penny looked into the den. “Hi. Sweeney unrolled the toilet paper down to the cardboard, yards and yards of it, and ripped it up all over the bathroom. Annoyed about something. Who was that? Not John?”
“Hardly. Someone from the Washington Post, about the Chinese boson.”
“Good Lord. So soon? Why did he call you?”
“Those fellows know how to dig.”
Penny pursed her lips. “Stay as far from this thing as you can.”
“No fear.”
“Now tell me again. You’re going to Boston when, and for how long?”
“Sunday, back Wednesday.”
“Long way for a short trip.”
“That’s where our telescope designers are.”
“Take a hot bath for that back. I’ve cleaned up Sweeney’s revenge.”
“Thanks.”
Guy stopped by the maid’s room fixed up as a nursery to peek at Dinah, asleep in an orange night-light glow under a pink blanket. All Penny had ever said was, “I want a little girl to dress up.” After their trying and trying for years, here was this small demanding beauty of high voltage and contrary willpower.
In water hot as he could stand it, he soaked for half an hour, his thoughts roaming idly over the day, the sound track of the evening running on and on in his mind —
Da da da da da
Me and Bobby McGee
— shifting now and again to the rowdy bachelor party at Cornell, the night before his wedding, and Peter Braunstein drunkenly twitting him by leading the others with a splashing beer mug,
Da da da da da
Me and Wen Mei Li . . .
Penny and Dinah were still asleep when he hobbled to the front door the next morning, picked up the Los Angeles Times, and took it to his den with a cup of coffee. Nothing much on the front page, real lull in the news for weeks—no, here was something, a small piece low on the page:
CHINESE DISCOVER ELUSIVE HIGGS BOSON
He called up on the computer the front page of the Washington Post . . . holy cow! Quentin Rossiter’s byline story below the fold spanned two columns:
CHINESE SCIENTISTS FIND HIGGS BOSON “ULTIMATE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE”
The science in the article was an ignorant mishmash, but Rossiter had the newsy points right: the female Chinese physicist, the Russians, the debate inside the Nature staff. At the end, a note: See Sharon McAllister, p. 2. Sharon McAllister was the dragon lady of the Washington Post, terror of Congressmen and Presidents. Anxiously Guy clicked the link to her column.
SUNSET OF A SUPERPOWER?
BY SHARON MCALLISTER
In 1993, when the House of Representatives in its collective wisdom killed the Superconducting Super Collider, Senator Bennett Johnston spoke its epitaph, saying that the decision to abandon the SSC marked the sunset of American world leadership. A mere ten years later, a global thunderclap bursts on a shamed America. The United States Congress stands convicted of lacking the moral fibre to cross a scientific threshold, the final step to understanding the universe, or to quote Stephen Hawking, to “knowing the mind of God.” Instead China, the one coming world power on the horizon, supposedly far behind us in technology, has crossed that threshold! This fateful turn in human affairs raises questions of the highest national urgency. Who was responsible for killing the SSC? What were the motives? Was it mere blind penny-pinching folly? Was it purposeful political backstabbing? And has Chinese espionage been at work? Most important, is a belated effort to regain our rudely shattered world preeminence—in Chinese parlance, our face—still conceivable?
The telephone rang on the desk and Guy grabbed it. “Ottoline? For crying out loud, it’s the crack of dawn —”
“It’s almost ten o’clock in Washington, D.C. You know who Myra Kadane is?”
“Myra Kadane?” He thought for a moment. “Congresswoman. Her husband got drowned scuba diving in the Virgin Islands.”
“That’s another one. Kadane fell off a horse in Rock Creek Park. She’s on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.”
“What about her?”
“You’re going to see her.”
“The hell I am. When? How? Why?”
4. THE CONGRESSWOMAN
Congresswoman Kadane, a small figure in a baggy gray sweat suit, was jogging along the towpath through hot sun and leafy shade, amid a straggle of morning runners. At the two-mile marker she turned, trotted back to the footbridge over the canal, and ran through Georgetown traffic all the way to her rented side-street house. Her Guatemalan maid met her at the door with a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Sitting in the living room, a briefcase on his lap, a lean dark bespectacled man said, “Morning, Myra.”
