The unending night, p.1
The Unending Night, page 1
A Science Fiction Novel
The Unending Night
George H. Smith
Author of DOOMSDAY WING
MONARCH BOOKS, INC.
Derby, Connecticut
Copyright
A Monarch Books Science Fiction Novel
Published in November 1964
Copyright © 1964 by George H. Smith
Cover Painting by Ralph Brillhart
Monarch Books are published by MONARCH BOOKS, INC.,
Capital Building, Derby, Connecticut, and represent the works
of outstanding novelists and writers of non-fiction especially
chosen for their literary merit and reading entertainment.
Printed in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
Chapter one
THE THREE-HUNDRED-FOOT-HIGH grids reached for the sky like groping fingers. For thirty miles they were outlined against the dull autumn sky in one direction, and in the other, they marched for twenty miles like solemn sentries across the Dakota badlands
Lee Rilke, a tall, lean man with high cheekbones and a shock of sandy hair, stood looking up at the towering steelwork with mixed feelings. Both awe and apprehension gripped him as he thought of the billions of kilowatts of power the reaching fingers would soon “broadcast” by laser beams to relay stations and power companies all around the world.
Power Unlimited was ready to go to work after seven long years of unremitting labor and struggle. Lee and his brother, Lance, would see at last the culmination of their dream, which far surpassed any other in the history of mankind. Power would flow, unlimited thermonuclear power, for the use of two worlds: Earth and Mars. Derived from two gigantic, revolutionary new fusion plants located at Marsport, and Little Falls, South Dakota, unheard of amounts of power would soon be broadcast for use wherever needed.
And nowadays, that was everywhere. Earth needed it desperately to meet the constantly increasing demands of a fantastically expanding population, and to replace the rapidly diminishing reserves of coal and oil. With a strong new source of power, factories and manufacturing plants could be kept going, farms operated more productively, and the protein-gathering fleet maintained at sea to harvest the plankton.
Mars, too, needed power. With enough of it readily available, domed cities could be built to house some of Earth’s excess millions.
This was the dream which had been born in Lee and Lance Rilke’s minds. It was a good dream, even a great one, and they had worked hard to make it come true, but now Lee was having doubts about the consequences of its application.
He sighed as he remembered how they had tried to interest the United States and then the United Nations in it, and when that had failed, how they had searched for private financing. Finally, they had succeeded in gaining the ear and confidence of a group of international financiers who had, in turn, arranged with the utility companies of a dozen nations to pool their resources into a giant cartel.
So Power Unlimited had been formed and the money obtained to turn the dream into reality. Lee sighed again as he moved slowly toward the elevator that would take him down into the vast underground complex. Yes, today was the day the dream should come true, but maybe it would have to be blasted before it was even fully operational, and maybe he would have to be the one to do it.
The elevator dropped swiftly, and in a few moments he stepped out into a lighted corridor two hundred feet down, and rode a glidewalk to the auditorium where his brother was holding a press conference.
There were approximately five hundred people in the room when Lee entered quietly and took a seat in the back row next to Stan Freeman, a nuclear chemist who had been with Power Unlimited since its inception.
“You’re late,” Lee said, settling back to watch Lance handle the reporters.
“Dr. Rilke, we’ve been told that as scientific director of Power Unlimited, you’ll answer some of the questions that have been bothering the public concerning the Rilke reactors,” said a UPI man in the first row.
Lance chuckled and ran a hand through his wavy blond hair. “That’s what I’m here for, gentlemen,” he said. “Fire away!”
“Exactly how much power will it produce?” another man asked.
“The name of the company should give you a good idea, Mr. Persons.”
“Unlimited, you mean? But we’re not getting that much now, are we?”
“No, not yet. We haven’t pushed the reactor to its full potential, but when we do, it will supply even more power than poor power-starved Earth can use.”
“Dr. Rilke, is it true the reactor is entirely your design?” asked a British correspondent.
Lance looked sincere. “The Rilke reactor is the achievement of nearly a thousand scientists and five thousand technicians. The original idea is based on research and development done by men all through the twentieth century, plus the fifteen years of your own century. Every atomic scientist who has ever worked on nuclear or thermonuclear reactors has contributed to this project. We have more talent gathered here than any private company has ever had before. More, in fact, than any government project, except perhaps for the Manhattan Project which produced the first atomic bomb, and Project Apollo which placed the first American on the moon. No, I can’t honestly say the Rilke reactor is entirely my own design.”
“Isn’t he modest?” Lee said. “Giving all science credit for an assist on The Monster.”
Freeman grinned. “All of science except a certain nuclear physicist named Lee Rilke.”
“That’s all right,” Lee said, “I’m not sure I want any credit.”
“What’s the matter with you and The Monster? You’ve been working on it even longer than Lance.”
“That’s right, and I was one hundred percent for the original concept: the idea of building two thermonuclear reactors of a revolutionary design, and placing one on Earth and the other on Mars. I am as aware as everyone else that we have to have a new source of power, but—”
“But what?”
“But when I think of the actual thing down there below us, and its big brother up on Mars—well, sometimes I shudder and wish I’d never heard of it.”
Freeman’s smile faded and his brow furrowed into a frown. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it again as Lee turned back to listen to Lance.
“Of course, without Dr. Trevor Young of Cambridge and his brilliant work on laser-beam broadcast power, thermonuclear reactor located in such an out-of-the-way place as this would have been impractical. No matter how much power we produced, we would have been unable to transmit it to the places that needed it. Thanks to him, however, we can now broadcast it to orbiting relay stations which, in turn, beam it to power plants all over the world. And when the Marsport reactor is activated, it will be able to do the same.”
Another reporter stood up. “Since there are only a hundred thousand or so people on Mars, why build such a tremendous reactor there?”
“Mr. Jackson,” Lance said, taking his usual care to remember the names of all the more important reporters, “do you have any idea how the pioneers up there are living? They’re huddled in small underground bunkers with gasoline generators supplying their heat, light even the air they breathe. There are no major coal deposits on Mars, nor any hydroelectric power. There is only one fuel available in sufficiently large amounts, and that fuel is deuterium. There are enormous deposits of it on the bottom of what once were the seas of Mars. Deuterium is the fuel reactors use, and the Rilke reactor will change the whole face of Mars. By using it as a power source, domed cities can be built and then more of Earth’s surplus population will be more willing to emigrate there.”
“Can we discuss further the number of scientists you employ here, and the even larger number at Marsport?” someone else asked.
“Certainly,” Lance said with a slight trance of impatience. “What about it?”
“Considering the shortage of such talent, and the ever expanding need for more, do you feel justified in tying up so much of it?”
“May I ask your name, sir?” Lance asked.
“I’m Jeff Edgers, Science Editor of the New York Times.”
“Ah, yes, Mr. Edgers, I’ve read some of your articles on the shortage of scientists and our alleged responsibility for it.” Lance glanced out over the assemblage and paused dramatically before continuing. “And I take great pleasure in answering those charges now, right here, before the press of the world!”
“Omigod, he’s going to make a speech,” Lee muttered. “Can’t he ever pass up the chance?”
Freeman glanced at him. “Sometimes I wonder whether you admire your famous brother as much as everyone else does,” he said.
“You can quit wondering,” Lee said. “I don’t.”
“My answer is a very simple one, gentlemen,” Lance said. “The same kind of charges were leveled at the moon-flight program, but when it was all over, they learned that the scientific fallout—the tremendous fund of new knowledge which was a by-product of the program—was more than worth what we had paid for it in time, money and men.
“Now, our project here is a privately owned one, and the men who work for us are attracted by two things. One, of course, it the extraordinarily high salaries we pay.” Lance paused for the laughter which swept the room. “And the other is their very real desire to aid us in bringing about our primary aim: to bring power to the world, ladies and gentlemen, power to light our cities, to run our factories and even, if you’ll pardon the expression, to keep our presses rolling.”
“What I’m questioning is the order of importance,” the Times man said. “When too many high-caliber brains are tied up in one project, others, although equally important, suffer.”
“Perhaps,” Lance said, “but it is precisely on this issue of order of importance that I base my contention that we are justified in using all the talented men we can get. In all seriousness, I ask you, what is the most pressing problem in the world today?”
A young woman in the front row spoke up. “The population explosion.”
“Thank you, Miss Konrad,” Lance said, beaming. “You gentlemen all know Kristy Konrad, don’t you? Unlike the rest of you, who only dream of writing The Great American Novel, Kristy has already done so. She’s written two, as a matter of fact, and is a damn fine reporter as well.”
Lee let his eyes linger on the back of Kristy’s blond head, feeling the same warm, familiar tingle he always did.
“Miss Konrad has put her finger exactly on the problem I had in mind,” Lance went on, smiling down into Kristy’s eyes. “The population explosion is the single reason for the existence of Power Unlimited. Do any of you know how many people there are living on Earth today?” He paused, but not long enough for anyone to answer. “Well, I won’t ask you to count them the next time you emerge from your favorite bistro. I’ll tell you. There are eight billion people on this crowded globe of ours! And that, my friends, is approximately four billion too many for our present power sources, or rather, it was before Power Unlimited went to work.
“Let me ask you something else. What are the most important projects currently under way to help solve our overpopulation problem? To my mind, they are the worldwide effort to drastically increase the amount of protein being taken from the seas, and the accelerated colonization of Mars. And remember, the success of both of these depend entirely on Power Unlimited.”
Lee nodded his head in silent agreement. Lance was right about that. Without thermonuclear power, neither of these gigantic undertakings would have a chance.
“The Times man still wasn’t satisfied. “If that’s your argument, then why put the larger reactor on Mars? I understand its capability is much greater than this one, and that placing it on Mars increased the cost two or three times. And even with all that power there, it will be years before it becomes possible to move large enough numbers of people to lessen the overcrowding here.”
Lance fitted on another smile. “That’s a lot more than one question, Mr. Edgers, but I’ll try to answer. First of all, the larger Rilke reactor was built at Marsport for several very good reasons. Number one is that it’s located directly on top of the most extensive deuterium deposits ever found anyplace in the solar system. This means it can be taken directly to the refining plant and from there to the thermonuclear reactor. All we have to transport to Mars are the miners and technicians—plus food and liquor to keep them happy.
Again the audience laughed dutifully.
“Reason number two is that our studies show it would be incredibly expensive to ship the deuterium back to Earth for conversion into the tritium-deuterium mixture used on the Rilke reactors.”
Lance’s eyes rested briefly on his brother. “The third reason is that of danger. You must keep in mind that these reactors are based on entirely new concepts. They are not only fantastically larger than any previous ones, but they also produce proportionately more power for the amount of deuterium used. Naturally, as in any new concept, there is some danger. It has been exaggerated, of course, but since it does exist, we have minimized it by placing the larger and slightly more unstable of the two on Mars.”
Lee’ lips tightened. Yes, he thought, we’ve minimized the danger for everyone except the thousands of technicians and miners at the plant and in Marsport itself.
“If there are no more questions,” Lance said briskly “I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce to you the men of vision whose support has made this feat possible—our Board of Directors!”
With a bright smile, he brought them forward one by one and presented them to the reporters. He was dependent on these men for his position and the money to run his project, so Lee knew he would go out of his way to flatter and charm them.
And he could be so very charming, Lee thought wryly. Somehow it had never seemed fair that one person should be endowed with a brilliant mind, stunning blond good looks and a winning personality, but Lance was. Lee tried to shake off his feeling of envy. It was stupid to feel that way. He and Lance were just different, that was all. He knew, without particular vanity, that he was as brilliant in his own way as Lance was in his, but his hair was sandy rather than blond, and he was more shy and introverted than Lance. He was the theoretical type of mind that preferred the ivory tower of his laboratory, while Lance was of a more practical turn, the doer as well as thinker. Without both of them, the physicist and the engineer, there would have been no Rilke reactor. It was natural that Lance should be the one to receive the accolades and public credit because it was his engineering genius that had turned Lee’s theories into reality.
No, there was no reason for him to envy Lance. There might be cause to distrust scientific judgment, but not to envy him—unless perhaps because of Kristy.
Ah, yes, there was Kristy. And no matter how hard he tried not to, it wasn’t any use—he had to think about Kristy.
Chapter two
KRISTY HAD COME into Lee’s life three years before when he was vacationing on Cape Cod after a particularly arduous year at the Little Falls plant. He had been staying with friends who were active in literary circles, and they had gone to a great deal of trouble to invite for a weekend the young newspaperwoman who was the latest sensation.
Lee would have preferred to leave before she was scheduled to arrive, but the Bacons had insisted he stay and meet Kristy Konrad. And from the first moment he laid eyes on her, he had been entranced.
She was a tall, honey-gold blonde with long, race-horse legs and a slender athlete’s body. She looked more like a debutante than a veteran newspaper reporter.
Staring at the flawless perfection of her face, Lee had found it difficult to believe she was the one who had written A Man for Our Times and Grasp Tomorrow. He had read them both and disliked them, not for any lack of literary merit, but because of their subject matter. Her larger-than-life heroes with their arrogance and contempt for ordinary mortals were abhorrent to Lee.
But Kristy herself he didn’t find abhorrent in the lest. On the contrary, he was so enthralled that he just stood and stared like a country bumpkin might at a royal princess.
“So you’re an atomic scientist,” she said graciously. “Rilke? It seems to me I’ve heard of you.”
“It’s probably my brother, Lance, you’ve heard of,” Lee said. “He’s the one whose name is in the papers all the time.”
“Lance Rilke. Of course, the Rilke reactor. He must be a remarkable man—you’ll have to tell me all about him.”
Lee wasn’t the least bit interested in telling her about Lance, but anything that would win him the undivided attention of his gorgeous creature was fine with him. So he talked and talked about his brother, and Kristy hung onto every word. He had even gone into some of the details of the project and she had listened attentively.
“I don’t understand what’s so revolutionary about your reactors,” she said at one point. “How do they differ from the atomic reactors we’ve had for the last fifty or sixty years?”
“The Rilke reactors are fusion reactors,” Lee explained, “the others are fission reactors. Science followed two different paths with fission and fusion. Fermi and his colleagues created a controlled-fission reaction on December 2, 1942, two years before the A-bomb. In fusion, we got the H-bomb first in 1954, and only now are we learning to control its power.”
“What makes the fusion reactors so much more important?”
“Well, first their enormous power productivity, and second—” Lee waved his hand at the Atlantic which lay before them. “—in the oceans of the earth are stored deuterium of something like 2 + 1016 kilograms.”
