The Lure Part 3

'No.

'What do you do?

'Im a mathematician. n.o.body understands me, I work on ferociously specialised stuff.

'What sort of ferociously specialised stuff?

'I suppose youd call it pattern recognition. At the moment Im doing knots.

'You mean like in string?

'Yes, only I do them in four-dimensional s.p.a.ce.

'I cant visualise that. No wonder n.o.body understands you. Anyway, it sounds useless.

'Dont you believe it. Ive found links with quantum theory and cryptography. He patted his canvas bag as if it contained the secrets of the Universe. 'And you?

'Im a planetary scientist. Again a specialised area: extrasolar planetary systems.

The car was warm and Petrie unb.u.t.toned his jacket. 'Planets and patterns. I wonder how they connect? He gazed out of the window at the dark mid-European streets and the unfamiliar skyline. Then: 'This is the car they collected me in from Vienna.

'I had a Mercedes. But we were on the same flight. We could have shared a car, and even had the same hotel.

'Exactly. Someone didnt want us seen together.

The car had now taken them clear of Bratislava on to a broad four-laned highway. The dark sky was lightening to grey. After ten swift minutes, the driver slowed and turned on to a quiet side road, lined with snow-covered fields. Here the headlights lit up a wall of fog, limiting visibility to a couple of hundred yards.

'Do you think he speaks English? Miss Lonely Planet whispered.

Petrie said, 'Youve exposed a breast, while looking at the mans eyes in the mirror. They didnt flicker.

'No, he doesnt. Sorry about that.

She laughed.

'Im Petrie. Tom, Tommy or Thomas depending on how you feel. From Dublin. So which part of Scandinavia are you from?

'Freya Strmer, she said, and they finally shook hands. 'From north of the Arctic Circle. Troms, to be exact.

Petrie looked out uneasily at the fields and woods. In his imagination, he saw black bears roaming the forests. He wondered again what was bringing him out to these hinterlands. The trees looked black against the white snow and he had a brief, unsettling illusion of living inside a photographic negative.

Patterns and planets. Planets and prime ministers. Dont speak to strange women. A strange woman at his side. Beware of devouring lions.

How do they connect? How?

His new companion was smiling at some private joke. 'You do planets. What exactly? Petrie asked.

'At the moment? Im part of ESAs Darwin team.

'Darwin?

'A s.p.a.ce-based interferometer. The European s.p.a.ce Agency are due to launch it next year. Theyre big mirrors with a long baseline which should be able to make out gross features like continents on Earth-sized planets round the nearest stars.

'Thats still not quite exact.

'They want me to predict biological signatures for Darwin to search for. They were into a village and running a gauntlet of neat, small houses, each one managing to be different from the others.

'Like what?

'Like spectrum lines belonging to ozone or oxygen. Best seen in the ultraviolet. Oxygen is so reactive that if we see any at all on a planet there has to be biology at work producing it. Another...

Suddenly, heavy metal blasted their ears from eight speakers. Startled, Freya shook her head and shrugged, and by mutual consent they attempted no further conversation. The driver switched off the big cars halogen beams.

Presently the road, now covered with compacted snow, began to climb steeply through a forest. The driver switched the heavy rock off and concentrated on a series of hairpin bends. Petrie found that his ears were ringing. He was now shaking slightly, whether due to nervous antic.i.p.ation, or the driving, or the aftermath of the ACDC explosion, he couldnt say. On the next bend, the driver turned to the couple and said, 'Male Karpaty, in a cigarette-hoa.r.s.e voice.

The Little Carpathians. Dracula country. Petrie had a brief, movie-driven fantasy about isolated villages, Frankenstein monsters and grim, isolated castles.

The road levelled, there was a little lodge house and cables stretching up into the mist, and then the mountain pa.s.s was plunging steeply and Petries ears were popping with the swift change in alt.i.tude. At the foot of the pa.s.s the driver turned left on to a narrow lane.

Petrie sensed that they were reaching journeys end, realised that his fists were clenched with tension. By contrast, the young woman at his side seemed relaxed.

Past a tiny ochre church with a thin green spire. Something ma.s.sive, dimly glimpsed through the mist and then lost behind trees. Another climb, and then a long, gently curving road through open parkland. A final turn, and through the mist there emerged a castle with conical turrets and low battlements. To Petries distraught imagination it looked like something out of a Bela Lugosi movie. The Dracula fantasies began to harden up.

Petrie and Freya stood with their baggage while the driver did a swift U-turn and took his car back down the hill. They watched it until it had disappeared through the trees, and then turned their attention to the castle.

Petrie knew nothing about castles or history but this one looked like some of the Austrian ones he had glimpsed in the distance on his drive from Vienna. He had a vague memory about the Hapsburg Dynasty and a.s.sumed that this had once been Austrian territory and that the castle dated from the eighteenth century. Two warriors, resting their hands on shields, sat on either side of a dark archway. To the right a circular tower was topped by a conical roof looking like a witchs black hat. Narrow, vertical windows were s.p.a.ced around the tower giving, Petrie supposed, a clear field of fire in the event of rioting peasantry.

They walked through the archway, which was about twenty feet long, and emerged into an acre of snow-covered garden lightly sprinkled with shrubs and conifer trees. To the left was a parapet looking over open, wooded countryside. To the right, and facing them, were tall grey walls surmounted by steeply sloping roofs, showing red where the snow hadnt covered them. Between the right and facing walls was a ma.s.sive rectangular tower, jutting slightly out from the surrounding buildings and half as high again as them. Widely s.p.a.ced pillars supported a steep roof atop the tower. The roof itself was covered with green diamond-shaped tiles and had tall thin chimneys and a lightning conductor. This tower, Petrie a.s.sumed, was intended as a look-out, and a small face was looking down between the pillars. It vanished quickly when Petrie looked up.

Someone had shovelled snow off the pathway and they walked along it, conscious of being overlooked by arched windows which, he noted, were double-glazed. Petrie inferred from this that the interior probably contained modern plumbing and central heating. Just past the tower, and hidden by it from the path, was a ma.s.sive wooden door, covered with an iron grid and studs, and guarded by nothing more threatening than shrubs in huge stone pots. The door was in three parts and the centre one was an inch ajar. Petrie pushed this door open for Freya and followed her inside. By this simple act, he left behind his old world and entered a new one, more bizarre than anything his imagination could have devised.

His first impression was that of s.p.a.ciousness. There was a high vaulted ceiling and a gleaming marble floor. A half-circle of velvet-covered sofa faced them. Potted palms and plants occupied odd corners. Broad corridors led off to left and right. There was n.o.body to be seen.

'What now? Freya wondered.

They took to the right at random, and walked into another s.p.a.cious area with another high vaulted ceiling, this one supported by tall pillars and with gold-coloured chandeliers suspended from it. Here their footsteps were softened by carpets and long strips of rug scattered around the marble floor. At the far end of this enormous s.p.a.ce was a curved stone stairway, and trotting briskly down this stairway was a small, moon-faced man with large round spectacles and a grin.

Charlie Gibson. Last seen, half-drunk and upside down in Uppsala Botanic Gardens, trying to scale the tall gates after closing time with his fly caught on a spike and half a dozen equally merry colleagues offering ribald advice about his future s.e.x life.

Gibsons handshake was firm and warm. 'Very glad to see you both. Very glad indeed. First let me take you to your rooms, and then Ill tell you what exactly is going on.

Gibson led the way up the stairway, continuing past the first floor to an upper floor, ending up on a long broad corridor with a curved ceiling. Along the left of this corridor were recesses with potted plants and gla.s.s cabinets displaying stuffed animals and fossils.

He stopped at the fifth door on the right. 'This is yours, Tom. Freya, yours is the next one on. There are three of us, five now youre here, and we have the run of the castle for a week.

The room was large, well-furnished with a double bed and a bright, substantial adjoining bathroom. Petrie dumped his holdall and jacket on the bed and crossed over to the window. Below him was a terrace with metal tables and chairs, all swept clear of snow. The terrace was bordered by a low parapet and more potted shrubs. The fog was lifting and he could see a village a couple of miles away. Then he went back out to the corridor where Gibson was waiting impatiently. Freya had replaced her boots with light loafers and was wearing gypsy earrings.

Gibson took them back down to the entrance area and they spread themselves around the semi-circular settee. He clasped his hands together and forced a brief smile. 'First things first. I apologise for the clandestine stuff.

'I rather enjoyed it, Freya said.

Petrie said, 'Especially the warning.

Gibson looked blank. 'The warning?

Petrie said, 'It told me to watch my back. Didnt you send it?

Gibson stood up, and paced up and down, looking at the marble floor. Finally he turned to them, a worried look on his face. 'Christ.

'I suggest that you start at the beginning, Petrie said gently.

'What? Oh yes, Tom, yes of course. Gibson sat down again. 'But before we go any further I need one thing more from both of you.

'And if you dont get it? Petrie wanted to know.

'Your air tickets are open returns.

Freya gave an apprehensive little laugh. 'I cant wait to hear this.

'For the next four days I want you to remain within the grounds of the castle. You are to have no communication with the outside world without my authorisation. After that, we review the situation.

Freya and Petrie exchanged glances. Petrie said, 'Tell us more.

Gibson looked worried. 'I cant. Not without your promise of confidentiality. If you knew what this was about youd understand.

Petrie turned to Freya. 'What do you think?

She looked doubtful. 'It sounds military. Maybe a Star Wars thing that I wouldnt want to touch.

Gibsons eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled with alarm. 'I need you. Theres no time to get anyone else.

Freya smiled happily. 'You need us. We dont need you. It looks as if were in a strong bargaining position.

Gibson sat down across from Freya, and sighed. 'I hate all women.

6.

Patterns Having just sat down, Gibson jumped up again. 'Follow me.

He led the way round the bend of the left-hand corridor. At its end was an ornate door. He waved them dramatically through it.

The room was about fifty metres long. On its high barrelled roof was a fresco of cherubim. The little creatures were on a hillside, reading maps or turning hour-gla.s.ses. One, its wings an aerodynamic impossibility, was flying through a star-spangled sky, holding a pennant bearing the words Sapientissimi Opus. The room was lined with books on either side and antique globes were scattered around.

'This is the theological library, folks. Take a look at this. A single strip of perforated paper was laid along the full length of its polished floor and back up the other side. The numbers were upside down and the scientists bent double over them, walking slowly backwards.

'Theres this big cave complex a few hours north of here, see? It has a deep lake half a mile across and weve built an aluminium scaffolding under it to hold light detectors. We have fifty thousand photocells, laid out in a cubic lattice. The numbers in the left column go from one to fifty thousand. Theyre just labels. The next column records light intensity picked up from each detector. As you see, theres nothing but zeros.

'Im not surprised, Petrie said, moving backwards. 'How can you expect to record underwater light in a pitch black cave?

Freya said, 'GUTS decay has been ruled out for ten years now. You have to be talking erenkov.

Gibson gave her a look of open admiration. 'Ten out of ten. Funny things happen when you go faster than light. erenkov radiation is one of them.

'I thought you couldnt travel faster than light, Petrie said.

'Only schoolboys think that, Gibson said smugly.

Petrie bristled, then decided the man was too absurd to be taken seriously. 'Thank you, Charlie, for treating me like an idiot.

'Light moves slower in water, Freya explained. 'In principle you could swim through water faster than the local light speed. If you did, youd leave a trail like a sonic boom, only with light rather than sound. Thats erenkov radiation.

Gibson said, 'Fortunately youre not here for your physics.

Petrie resisted the urge to punch the arrogant toad on the nose. 'Why am I here?

'Patience.

'Ive always thought of erenkov radiation as faint, Freya said, scanning the numbers.

'To the eye, yes. The retina needs sustained light for about a fiftieth of a second before it records anything. But our detectors have quantum efficiencies pushing a hundred per cent; they can track a single photon. Which is one good reason, incidentally, for being deep under the ground.

'Okay. Petrie was scanning the figures impatiently. 'So a particle tracks through the water and you pick up its trajectory from the trail of light.

'We time it to a ten-millionth of a second about the time it takes a particle to cross the lake top to bottom. Thats the numbers in the third column. Now come over here. A table, which in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had presumably hosted dinners for thirty or forty, was now covered by more computer printout, three inches deep, laid out along its forty feet. Petrie saw an incomprehensible ma.s.s of numbers. He moved along the table, flicking through the lists. 'Hey!

Gibson nodded. 'Yes. No more lists of zeros. This is a single particle track, a cosmic ray. Its moving through the water at superluminal speed, so it leaves a erenkov trail.

'It penetrated how far? Freyas voice registered incredulity.

'One point seven kilometres of limestone karst.

'Hold on. Youre under a mountain.

'Yes. Most cosmic rays are stopped by a metre or two of ground. Watch that chair.

'Thats awesome, she said lamely.

'And it had the kinetic energy of a fast cricket ball. What sort of h.e.l.ls kitchen it must have escaped from I cant begin to imagine. But thats not why youre here. No, folks, thats not even remotely why youre here. We can backtrack the trajectory, sort of. This particular particle seems to have come in a straight line from a galaxy called M104, about fifty million light years away.

'The Sombrero, I know it, Freya said, as if shed vacationed there.

Petrie was still scanning the columns. 'So this particle had been travelling for fifty million years before it zipped through your lake?