The Lure

2 The Sign

Gibson was leaning over Shtyrkov’s shoulder, a wild expression on his face. The Russian was typing at such a speed that the individual clicks were almost lost and there was just a steady machine-gun rattle from the keyboard. Occasionally the fat scientist would mutter excitedly to himself in Russian.

Svetlana was trembling. A solitary question kept pounding in her head: What was that? What? But she was too excited to think. Vashislav will figure it out.

And then a less noble thought intruded: And he’ll grab all the credit if I’m not careful. I’ll be a glorified sparks.

She saw the paper in the prestigious pages of Nature or Science: Detection of a Swarm of Dark Matter Particles by Vashislav Shtyrkov. And, buried amongst the footnotes: With acknowledgements to Svetlana, faithful Tonto to my Lone Ranger.

And she saw Shtyrkov and Gibson in Stockholm, bowing to let the King of Sweden drape the coveted Nobel medal around their necks, while she dutifully applauded in the audience.

She tried to put the ugly vision aside, but it kept gnawing. And she thought: This will never happen to me again. Don’t let them grab all the credit. Don’t!

For something to do she moved to a shelf and pressed buttons on a DVD recorder. The security camera played back the sequence of Shtyrkov running up and down at the edge of the lake, arms waving and singing like a drunk man. Then it showed him lumbering around on a catwalk, lying down and splashing water. Then he was running back to land, and for some seconds the camera showed only the white-glowing lake, and the iron catwalks and the cavern walls. Then a rowing boat appeared on screen, the Russian heaving at the oar as he headed for the centre of the luminous water. And then, suddenly, there was darkness, with only the digital clock in the corner of the picture to show that the camera was still running.

Shtyrkov’s voice brought her back to the present. The Russian was looking at Gibson triumphantly. ‘Done. It filled the DVD.’

‘The whole disk? All ninety gigabytes?’

‘There was more, much much more. But the SCSI interface can only absorb forty megabytes a second. We’ve lost a mountain of stuff.’

Svetlana turned from the DVD recorder and her dark thoughts. ‘But you got something? You’re sure?’

Gibson’s eyes were shining and there was a light sweat on his brow. ‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘One stuffed disk and a Nobel Prize. No question.’

Shtyrkov clicked his tongue in irritation. ‘No doubt, but what was it, Charlee? What was it?’

Gibson looked as if the question hadn’t occurred to him. ‘Whatever it was, it’s not in the book.’

Svetlana appraised her colleagues: ‘Security. Until we’ve had a chance to look at this and make some sense of it, none of us breathes a word of this to anyone. Are we all agreed?’

‘Absolutely.’ Shtyrkov was still breathless from his lakeside exertions. ‘This stays under wraps, as the Americans say, until we have understood it. Then we announce it to the world, whatever it is.’

Svetlana said, ‘We analyse the data together and make a joint announcement. Nobody tries to steal a march on anyone else.’

Shtyrkov was still doing things at the computer. He swivelled to face them. ‘It’s no good down here. We don’t have the computing power and the Net access. We need some office where we can work in secret. We should disperse to our institutes, keep our mouths shut and agree to meet up at some location, when something has been set up.’

Svetlana stared at the fat Russian. ‘Disperse? Are you mad? One of us would let it slip. And who would hold the disk?’

Gibson bristled. ‘As principal investigator here I’d have thought that’s obvious.’

Shtyrkov managed to convey both surprise and injured innocence. ‘We can surely trust each other.’

Svetlana’s expression was bordering on the ferocious. She could hardly contain herself. She stabbed a finger at Shtyrkov as she spoke. ‘Vashislav, I’ve spent twelve years of my life down this hole gambling that one day we’ll pick up a dark matter particle. Well, we’ve done it. I’ve missed out on everything else including children to do it. This is our child — my child — and if you think I’m going to risk having it taken from me…’

‘That’s crazy talk. I don’t want to take a child from its mother,’ Shtyrkov complained.

‘Vashislav, how do I know you won’t make out I’m just the wiring technician and give yourself the lion’s share of the kudos? You might even—’

‘Be silent, woman!’ Svetlana opened her mouth incredulously, but Shtyrkov’s bass voice, when raised, had an arresting effect. He continued, ‘There is no need for this. We are in this together, you madwoman. Of course we will announce this jointly.’

Gibson said, ‘I’m the PI here. I make the decisions on that.’

Shtyrkov seemed not to have heard. ‘But I understand your maternal instincts and we must respect them. I have an idea.’

‘What?’ Svetlana demanded.

The Russian touched the side of his nose with his finger. ‘I have friends.’

Gibson said, ‘Vashislav, like I keep saying, I’m the chief investigator here. It’s my name on the application form.’

‘Charlee, you’re only the big chief because we needed your name up front for the British grant money.’

Gibson’s face was threatening to turn purple. ‘You have an idea, Vash? Tell me about it and I’ll let you know.’

‘Go to hell.’ Shtyrkov glanced at the wall clock. He muttered to himself: ‘On, vozmozhno, eschye spit.’ Then he picked up a telephone, turning his back to the others.

Svetlana translated Shtyrkov’s Russian to Gibson. Gradually, as the phone calls were made, Gibson’s worried expression gave way to a grudging satisfaction. By the time the fat scientist put the telephone down, Gibson was nodding agreement.

Svetlana and Shtyrkov picked their way along the narrow tunnels. The rope bridge was designed to take six normal people and in theory Shtyrkov could have joined her on it, but out of deference to human psychology he let her over first. The little bridge sagged and swayed dramatically as he waddled across, Svetlana lighting his way with shaky torchlight.

The elevator could take two individuals but the fat Russian counted as two. Svetlana disappeared from sight through the cavern ceiling, the cage sliding rapidly up on its metal poles. It always reminded Shtyrkov of an American movie he had seen once, with Batman sliding down a pole into his Batcave. He waited, alone in the big gloomy cavern, his mind racing.

Some minutes later the steel door opened and Gibson appeared, a woollen ski cap pulled down over his ears. He was holding a small plastic box protectively to his chest.

‘The disk?’ Shtyrkov looked greedily at the box.

‘Ye-es.’

‘I’m glad the rope bridge held,’ Shtyrkov said. ‘Imagine losing it.’

‘And me.’

‘A life is replaceable, Charlee.’

Gibson thought that was probably Russian humour. ‘I’ve cancelled our rooms at the Tatra. We’ll drive straight to the castle. If it’s where I think it is we’ll be there in four or five hours.’

‘And?’

‘You have influential friends, Vash, I’m impressed. We’ll have the castle to ourselves. The administrator’s setting things up as we speak. Three picohertz Alphas and a Sun workstation, though where they got these from in this neck of the woods I don’t know. We’ll be connected to the Net by the time we arrive, and they’re giving us a video conferencing facility in case of need.’

‘How long have we got?’ Shtyrkov wanted to know.

Gibson made a face. ‘Until next Sunday morning.’

‘But this is Sunday,’ Shtyrkov complained, his face showing dismay. ‘We need more than a week to get a grip on this.’

‘They have some linguists’ conference on the Monday after we leave. The staff will have to set things up for them the day before.’

‘Seven days.’ Shtyrkov’s eyes were still glancing slyly at Gibson’s little box. ‘The most valuable disk on the planet.’

Gibson held it closer to his chest in a mock-childish gesture. ‘I know, Vashislav, I know. And you’d like to take it up top with you, so that by the time I get there the van, the disk and the fat scientist have vanished into the Ukrainian steppes.’

‘Charlee!’ Shtyrkov had a hurt tone. ‘We are colleagues. How could you even think such a thought?’

The elevator suddenly whined into view, sinking briskly down from the cavern roof. They contemplated the yellow cage. Shtyrkov said, ‘I’ll be waiting up top.’

Shtyrkov drove, Gibson navigated and they hammered over remote mountain roads, utterly lost. It was pitch black and pouring rain. As they began to climb the Little Carpathians the rain turned first to sleet and then snow, the roads worsened, and the Dormobile began to bounce and slide over the potholed surfaces. Svetlana managed to sleep in the back, stretched out on a seat.

Their first sight of the castle came after seven hours of remitting grimness, and it took the form of a silhouette against a distant flash of sheet lightning. It was pure Gothic horror and Gibson, exhausted though he was, laughed with delight. Shtyrkov gave him a puzzled look.

A few lights were on and the administrator, a stooped, curly-haired man of about forty, was waiting just inside the door. He brushed aside their apologies and led them up endless stairs to a corridor with rooms off.

The scientists were now in a state of mental, nervous and physical exhaustion. With little more than mumbled goodnights they collapsed into their rooms. As she slipped between icy sheets, Svetlana could already hear Shtyrkov’s heavy snoring next door.

In the morning, while a bleak dawn light was still creeping into her room, Svetlana dressed quietly in black sweater and jeans. An early morning sun was trying to penetrate heavy snow-laden clouds. The landscape was white.

The corridors were gloomy in the half-dark, but in spite of the sub-Arctic environment outside the big empty castle was warm. She wandered randomly through it, her trainers sometimes squeaking on the marble floors. On the ground floor, an oak-panelled door labelled Administrator was ajar. She pushed it open and switched on the lights. An impressive array of computers was sitting on the polished oak tables. She sat down on a chair embroidered with some royal crest, fired a machine up, and was gratified to find that an internet connection had been established. Then she left the machine humming, climbed back up the stairs, and listened at Gibson’s door.

The door was unlocked and she slipped in. Gibson was still dead to the world, his mouth open and a hairy leg sticking out from under the covers. Clothes had been dropped on the floor. She noticed with amusement that he wore tartan boxer shorts.

On a table next to the bed were a wrist watch, spectacles, wallet and a little plastic box. She picked up the box and left, closing the door quietly behind her.