Dark as Day

“Talk. I’ll listen — for five minutes.”

“Which will prove ample. Let me begin by saying that despite what others may think, I am not perfect. I have a personal weakness. For many years, I have been an avid seeker of relict weapons left over from the Great War. Those explorations have met with some success” — Bat raised his eyebrows toward Magrit Knudsen, who hesitated, then nodded — “but there have been occasional tantalizing hints of much more than we have found. One of these is the legendary Mother Lode, a complete listing of all weapons developed by Belt forces. No trace of the Mother Lode has ever been found. Many doubt its existence, though I have hopes. Another undiscovered country has been an ‘ultimate weapon,’ a scorched-earth device intended not to win the war, but to destroy every living creature in the whole solar system — wi

“The reality of such a weapon was doubted, by me among others, until very recently. But then, through an indirect route, I came across evidence that a woman named Nadeen Selassie had not, as was previously believed, died, before the end of the Great War. She was the genius weapons-maker of the Belt, the maker of the Seekers and the reputed designer of a doomsday device that would turn the solar system ‘dark as day.’ It became clear that Nadeen Selassie did indeed die, but not before she, and possibly her ultimate weapon, had escaped the Belt and gone to Mars and perhaps to Earth. She had with her a small girl and a small boy. The girl died, but the boy lived on. Perhaps Nadeen Selassie entrusted to him the nature of the weapon that she had devised. Perhaps she did not. At any rate, he grew up to become an unusual young man. His name was Sebastian Birch.”

Bat was interrupted by a snort of derision from Valnia Bloom. “That’s bullshit. I know — knew — Sebastian Birch. If your ridiculous accusations drove him to flee Ganymede and dive to his death on Jupiter, I’ll do my damnedest to make sure that you are charged with murder.”

“Dr. Bloom, I played no such role. All my actions last night were aimed at preventing Sebastian Birch from leaving Ganymede. I had, you see, become convinced that he bore with him the secret of Nadeen Selassie’s doomsday weapon. Sebastian Birch’s presence on Jupiter would, I was convinced, destroy all life throughout the solar system. I had in mind some kind of ignition mechanism, one that would turn the planet, which is largely hydrogen, into a vast bomb using hydrogen-to-helium fusion. Discussion with Dr. Suomi disabused me of that notion.”

Bat inclined his head to the Ligon Industries’ gangling scientist, who stooped over the workbench like an impatient stork. “Dr. Suomi pointed out, in the politest possible terms, that although I have my own areas of expertise, I am in some fields a scientific idiot. No method known to science could cause such a fusion reaction on Jupiter. My idea would have required that Nadeen Selassie, in the closing weeks of the Great War, develop not merely a new weapon, but a whole new physics. That was not merely improbable, it was impossible.

“Before I could relax, however, Bengt Suomi sent me the results of a later test, one which at first baffled both him and me. He is going to repeat that test now, for my benefit and yours, in a form where it is much easier to see what is happening. Dr. Suomi, if you would be so kind?”

“Indeed. Observe closely.” Suomi stepped forward and held up what appeared to be an empty glass cylinder with a metal plug at its upper end. He turned the big cylinder, half a meter long and almost as wide, with a showman’s flourish that did not at all match his mournful appearance. His arm was long and ski

“You will notice,” Suomi continued, “that the cylinder appears to be lacking in contents. That is, however, not the case. The cylinder contains two things: hydrogen, at low pressure. And, at the bottom of the cylinder, approximately a hundred small spherical nodules taken from the body of Sebastian Birch.”

“What! Let me look.” Valnia Bloom strode forward and tried to grab the cylinder from Suomi’s hands.

“Dr. Bloom, they are too small to see with the naked eye.”

“I know that, better than you — I’ve been working with Sebastian Birch for months. What I want to know is, where the hell did you get those samples?”

Bengt Suomi looked at Bat. Bat turned to Alex Ligon. Alex Ligon said — looking, Milly decided, about as guilty as a human being could look — “I’m not sure, but I think they came from a medical test lab in Earth orbit.”

“Did they now? Well, I suppose that’s remotely possible.” Valnia Bloom handed the cylinder back to Bengt Suomi. “I’ll have a few words with Christa Matloff about this.”

Alex Ligon did his best to fade into the background, as Suomi went on, “Here we have a perfectly stable situation. Hydrogen, and nodules composed of some inorganic materials, co-existing without undergoing any form of reaction.” He stepped over to the workbench. “Now I place the cylinder on the fixed stand, and allow the piston freedom to move.”

The bottom of the cylinder fitted neatly into a silver ring. The metal insert at its upper end mated exactly with a round-ended arm that protruded down from a bulky silver ovoid.

“I can control the movement of the piston up or down with this wheel, decreasing or increasing the pressure within the cylinder. The pressure itself is shown on the gauge. Note that the value holds steady, and we presently have much less than a kilogram per square centimeter. In fact, it is necessary to apply upward force to hold the piston in position. Now I propose to lower the piston. Keep your eyes on the pressure gauge.”

Suomi moved to the wheel at the side of the instrument and began to turn it. The piston visibly, and slowly, descended. The reading on the pressure gauge, just as slowly, increased.

Milly thought to herself, Well, big deal. Pressure inversely proportional to volume. It’s behaving just the way that a perfect gas is supposed to behave. I hurried all the way over here, sweaty and smelly, to watch a demonstration of Boyle’s Law?

The descent of the piston continued. The pressure within the cylinder went up in exact reciprocal proportion. It had reached a few kilograms per square centimeter, and Milly was ready to conclude that Bengt Suomi and the Great Bat were both nuts, when an abrupt change occurred.

The value shown on the pressure gauge dropped to zero. At the same time the piston moved swiftly downward until the free space at the bottom of cylinder had vanished completely.

“A visible anomaly, a definite anomaly,” said Bengt Suomi. “The volume drops to a vanishingly small value, but so does the pressure. What has happened to our perfect gas, with its pressure inversely proportional to volume?”

He paused. Milly decided that Suomi didn’t just sound like a showman, he was one. He was making a meal of this.

She said, “It’s very obvious. There’s been a phase change in the hydrogen. Gas to liquid, or to solid. The pressure/volume relation doesn’t apply anymore. You have a tiny volume of material, and no pressure.”

She knew she’d hit it right, because Suomi said glumly, “That is a correct conclusion. There has indeed been a phase transition. The contents of the cylinder have gone from the usual form of gaseous hydrogen to a far denser form. The phase change takes place through the whole body of the gas almost instantaneously, with the nodules apparently serving as a catalytic agent for the condensation. This is what our experiments revealed. But what was the significance of this? I could see no relationship to any ‘doomsday device,’ or a weapon of any kind. Nor could my staff. The subtle mind of Rustum Battachariya was needed to unravel the mystery.”