Gravity Rising (The Parallel Multiverse Book 2) Page 21

  “What’cha got there, Lonesome Larry?” asked one of the students.

  “Just some equipment for my work.”

  The other student walked closer. “Where did you get the Osiris Cells? And those look like they’re new.”

  Larry raised an eyebrow. “My benefactor pulled a rabbit out of the hat, so to speak.”

  “Looks to me like he pulled out a golden goose.”

  Fluffy Pournelle marched into the lab with his characteristic bonhomie. “Good morning, good morning, everyone. Always good to see everyone already hard at work.”

  He hesitated, looking over at Larry. “And what have we here?”

  He changed direction and maneuvered towards Larry’s workbench. “Been out scrounging, Lawrence?”

  Larry shook his head. “My benefactor had these delivered to me. They are for my experiments.”

  Pournell studied the desk with his hands on his hips. “Yes. Well, I suppose you no longer need the school’s Osiris Cell.”

  “Sir?”

  “Since you seem to have an ample supply, I would suggest you turn in the school’s cell. There are certainly other students who could make use of it.”

  “Uh, yes, Sir. I will get it disconnected from the apparatus and back to you.”

  “Thank you, Lawrence.”

  Pournelle turned and wandered over to another bench where a couple of the students worked. He began conversing loudly with them. Larry sighed and began unhooking the MIT Osiris Cell from the framework where it rested. He wasn’t sure if Fluffy was being purposely irritating, or there was something else in the mix.

  He placed the school’s Osiris Cell carefully in its cushioned box and returned it to the laboratory storeroom. When he returned to his bench, Pournelle was again standing next to it.

  “You are familiar with the Gerber Threshold, Mr. Berthold?”

  “Yes, Sir. The Osiris Cells cause a burst of protons and gamma radiation just before rolling over into sustained fusion.”

  “Correct. I believe we would be wise to move you to the high energy laboratory to continue your experiments.”

  “Sir, I don’t believe just four cells would trigger a Gerber event,” Larry said.

  “Have you looked at the math? Of course, you have.” The corner of his mouth twitched.

  “The math doesn’t make sense.”

  Pournelle nodded slowly. “None of the math surrounding this technology makes sense, including the Gerber Threshold. Clenèt almost killed himself during the process of developing the fusion reactor. If you happen to stumble across something like that in your work, we do not need to kill a bunch of people.”

  “Is the high energy lab even usable?” Larry asked.

  “Oh, yes. It needs to be cleaned up, but I have made sure the infrastructure remains fully functional.”

  “Why did you wait until now to suggest this, Dr. Pournelle?”

  The hirsute professor heaved a great sigh. “You’ve read the biographies of Clenèt, I assume. He was an accident waiting to happen. So are you, Lawrence. Clenèt got lucky. Your luck, thus far, has involved avoiding the disasters that seem to follow you around. My purpose is to isolate you in the high energy lab where you will hopefully put only yourself at risk.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Larry replied.

  “You don’t need to say anything. Here is the key to the lab. Please try to avoid blowing up the place.”

  He watched as Pournelle made his way out of the lab, and then shrugged. There was no time like the present to get started moving his equipment. It would probably be wise to take a look at the lab before moving in. He looked at the key in his hand and then walked to the door himself. He met Maggie in the hallway.

  “Where are you going, Mags?” he asked.

  “I was curious to see the reaction to your newfound wealth.”

  He held up the key to her and smiled.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a key, Maggie.”

  “I knew that… Dope. What does it unlock?”

  “Fluffy suggested that I move my operation to the high energy lab, so if I had an accident I wouldn’t kill everybody.”

  “I read somewhere an old saying about a gift horse,” she said. “Let’s go take a look at the lab.”

  “I think I’ve seen that, too. Let’s go.”

  They walked down a series of long hallways. Stains on the ceilings, walls, and floor in places indicated where the roof was leaking. Occasionally parts of the ceiling had fallen down, and their feet crunched in rubble on the floor.

  “What happens when the building falls down?” Maggie asked.

  “They will probably just go find another building, then.”

  “Sooner or later they will run out of buildings.”

  Larry snorted. “I hope we are long gone by then. You know what?”

  She looked over at him as they walked. “What?”

  “After our visit to Indianapolis, I have come to the conclusion that this town is dying. If somebody doesn’t do something about it, I think it’ll be just ruins in another hundred years.”

  “You may be right. And there’s no heat down here.”

  “It is getting cold,” he agreed. “I hope the lab has heat.”

  They stopped in front of a double door with a sign above it.

  MIT High Energy Physics Laboratory

  To the right of the door was a small plaque. It was corroded with age, and unreadable. Larry looked at it curiously. He stepped over and tried to rub some of the oxidation from it.

  “Can you make out the text?” he asked.

  She peered at the tarnished bronze and shook her head. “Nope. Is it important?”

  “Not for us, probably. Shall we take a look at my new home?”

  “Why not?”

  “Exactly.”

  He slipped the key into the lock, and it turned easily. “Glory be! A lock that works.”

  They stepped into a room lit only by ambient light seeping in around the doorway. Larry fumbled around the door frame and located a switch. A row of lights revealed office space with several rows of desks. A row of windows dominated one wall. Maggie followed him in and wrapped her arms about herself.

  “Cold in here, Larry.”

  “Indeed.”

  He walked over to the wall. “Here’s an enviro control. Let’s see if it still works.”

  He turned the dial, and they heard a thump overhead, and then the sound of fans. The air in the room began to stir, and the first tendrils of heat wafted in.

  “So far, so good,” he said. “Shall we continue our exploration?”

  “Sure,” she said. “This is interesting. It looks like there is about a hundred years’ worth of dust on the furniture.”

  Another set of double doors required the key and opened into an expanse of darkness. Light from the office area spilled through the windows but was swallowed by the darkness.

  “I wish I had a pocket light,” Larry muttered. “I have no idea where the light switches might be located.”

  Maggie peered around and then eased over to one side of the room. A single row of lights came on, and Larry looked over to where she was standing next to a bank of switches. He walked over to where she stood.

  “Ah, you’re remarkable, Mags.”

  “Naah. Merely practical.”

  Larry flipped the other switches until the entire space was bathed in light. The lab looked to be about fifty feet square with a twenty-foot ceiling. Looking up he could see the lights and ventilation ductwork hanging from the structural framework.

  “Do you see an enviro control anywhere?” he asked.

  She looked around and then pointed. “Yep. Over there.”

  He walked over and studied it. This control was more complex than the one in the office. He flipped a switch and turned the temperature control. They were rewarded with the sound of the heating system starting up.

  “I think we’re in business,” Maggie said. “There’s a lot of cleanup to d
o, though.”

  They gazed around the room. Various anonymous tarps covered large pieces of equipment. Bits and pieces of detritus littered the floor, and the place seemed very dirty.

  “It’s going to take me a week to get this cleaned up,” Larry groused.

  “I will help,” Maggie said. “Let’s get the office area taken care of first. I want to move down here to work. If we’re out of the way, we won’t have people sticking their heads in every whip-stitch.”

  They heard a tapping on the door and Seb Sylvester stuck his head in.

  “Hey, I heard Fluffy was moving you down here, Larry.”

  He looked around the room. “Ugh. And, you gotta clean all this up?”

  Larry raised both hands, palm up, and laughed. “Life is a never-ending source of surprises.”

  “Tell me about it,” Seb said sourly. “But, it appears I am out of durance vile. Daddy’s barrister leaned pretty hard on the constabulary and I am no longer a suspect.”

  “That’s great news,” Maggie said, walking quickly over to pat him on the shoulder.

  “Yes, but I still wonder who that poor man was in my car.”

  Larry couldn’t think of anything to say, so he said nothing.

  “We’re going to clean the office first,” Maggie said. “I want to move down here to work.”

  “Can I help?” Seb asked.

  “Be careful what you volunteer for,” Larry said with a laugh. “I am happy to accept your generous offer.”

  After scouting around, Seb found a janitor’s closet that hadn’t been disturbed in probably decades. He extracted a utility vacuum cleaner, and Larry began cleaning up the accumulated grime. He carefully opened each drawer in the desks and vacuumed the dust out. He moved the desks around, so he could thoroughly sweep the walls and the floor.

  When the filter clogged, he searched the janitor’s closet and found a stack of paper trash bags. He emptied the vacuum and brushed out the filter. He got dirty in the process but surprised himself by having fun. After finishing the offices, he moved into the lab proper. He cleaned as much of the floor as possible before disturbing the lab equipment. The first tarp scattered dust across the floor, forcing him to go over it again. He took the time to clean the tarp as well.

  The cleaning enabled him to gather a rough inventory of the lab equipment. The he moved pieces he thought would not be useful along one wall. He stepped back into the office when he heard noises. Maggie and Sebastian had returned armed with paint and its associated paraphernalia.

  “What’s this?” he demanded.

  “You can’t expect me to work in here with it in this kind of shape,” Maggie said.

  “It’s in good shape. I just finished getting rid of the dust.”

  “We’re going to improve things just a bit,” Seb commented.

  “That paint was probably expensive,” Larry said.

  “My stipend is more than I can reasonably spend,” Maggie said. “I didn’t think anybody around here would complain if I contributed some paint.”

  “Okay, okay,” Larry said. “I need to get back at it.”

  As he shoved equipment around and vacuumed, Larry tried to envision how to arrange his lab. While his research would not use but a part of this lab, he had been concerned about he would manage with a single lab bench in the other room. Whatever his motives, Fluffy had solved a lot of problems for him.

  By late afternoon, Maggie and Seb had finished the paintwork, and Larry had to admit it looked much improved. He was weary and ready to head back to his flat. Before leaving, he returned to the main lab and packed up his Osiris Cells. He lugged the suitcase back to the high-energy physics lab and parked the suitcase behind a piece of tarpaulin-covered equipment. He was terrified that it might be stolen.

  As the three friends walked towards the door outside, Seb spoke. “All of us are too tired to cook. Tell me you aren’t.”

  “You got that right,” Larry said. “And I really don’t want to make… encourage Maggie to cook.”

  “Finally, he says something sensible,” Maggie added.

  “How about if we hit a cafe?” Seb asked. “My treat.”

  “Fine with me,” Larry said.

  “I think I could be persuaded,” Maggie said. “This was a long day. Are you up to driving your car, Seb?”

  Sebastian’s face clouded up. “No, I am not ready to drive my car. I thought we would hike a block to a cafe I visited a while back.”

  Maggie looked over at Larry. “Up to a short hike, Buster?”

  Larry laughed. “I think I might make it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  “Where did you get approval to purchase paint?” Fluffy Pournelle demanded.

  Maggie looked up from the desk she had appropriated. In the two days since the impromptu paint job, she had made very satisfactory progress on her dissertation.

  “Oh, hi, Dr. Pournelle. I bought the paint myself. I didn’t think anyone would mind.” She gave him her most winsome smile.

  “Well, er, we really need approval before embarking on projects around the building Ms. Bosstic. If we allow people to remodel willy-nilly, we could have chaos.”

  She stood up and walked over to him. “Oh, come on, Sir. It’s the same color. It’s not like anybody else has spent money on the building in recent history. If they did, they should spend it on the roof.”

  Pournelle shrugged. “I guess it really doesn’t matter. Nobody ever comes down here anyway, now.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  He canted his head as he considered the question. “Lawrence’s project is the first one in memory that required the use of this lab. I thought I would drop by to see how he was doing.”

  “He’s working in the lab this morning. I guess you know the way in there.”

  “Um, yes. Thank you.”

  The professor pushed the double doors open and walked into the lab. He stopped and looked around. Larry had carefully arranged the needed equipment around his workspace and moved the rest along one wall. Pournelle raised his eyebrows.

  “You’ve got the place looking very good, Lawrence,” he called out.

  Larry looked up from his test equipment. “Oh, hi, Dr. Pournelle. Yes, it took a lot of work to get this place usable. I’m pretty happy with things right now.”

  The older man walked over to the test bench and studied it. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked around the room again.

  “You know, the other students will talk about how you have access to virtually any equipment you desire, and yet they are forced to work with discards and obsolete junk.”

  Larry set down the screwdriver he was using and turned to Pournelle. “You would be talking about the Osiris Cells?”

  “Precisely. It seems a little unfair to me that you have four of the things suddenly show up when the school has one, and it’s very old, as well.”

  Larry rolled his tongue around in his cheek as he considered the question. “Has somebody been complaining?”

  “Well, no. But, it’s kind of tough to run a research establishment with just one of the cells. We have quite a few students who would like to use it.”

  Larry stared at him for a moment, then turned and picked up the screwdriver. Pournelle watched as he worked another screw into the cover of the equipment cabinet he was working on.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  Larry put the screwdriver down and turned to him again. “If the Osiris Cells are in such demand, why was ours still in the storeroom? It was there this morning. I checked.”

  Pournelle sputtered. “I’m sure there will be a queue for the thing once the students discover it is again available.”

  “Really, Dr. Pournelle? When I pulled the cell out of the storeroom weeks ago, the inventory card indicated it hadn’t been checked out in three years. What does that tell you?”

  “There is no need to get disrespectful, Lawrence,” Fluffy said. “I was simply trying to point out that we have a lot of needs
here at MIT, and it is incumbent upon all of us to help each other along.”

  Larry turned and put his hands on the bench top. He began breathing deeply, as he tried to think of something to say. It seemed like anything he said was thrown back at him by the professor. He wasn’t used to being challenged like that. It was unnerving. He took a deep breath again and spoke.

  “What do Osiris Cells cost?”

  The question brought Pournelle to a halt. “They are nearly sixty-thousand Quebec Francs. I checked. You have access to some valuable equipment.”

  “I quite agree, Dr. Pournelle. In fact, when I complete my studies my benefactor has instructed me to leave the four new Osiris Cells as his gift to the school.”

  Pournelle’s mouth dropped open, and then he closed it. A deep blush crossed his face. He opened his mouth again, but then turned quickly and fled the lab.

  Larry raised his eyebrows as the professor walked quickly out of the lab. He then turned back to what he had been doing. He really didn’t understand people sometimes.

  “What was that all about?”

  He looked up to see Maggie standing beside him.

  “I don’t really know, Mags. It seems like nothing I can do pleases him. He was complaining about the Osiris Cells. I finally told him that we would be donating them to the school when we were done here. That shut him up.”

  “He’s a funny guy,” she said. “He seems to pick on people at random.”

  “I don’t think it’s random at all,” Larry said as he worked another screw into the equipment cover. “He spends most of his spare time picking on me. He’s everybody else’s favorite uncle.”

  Maggie continued watching him for a while before she spoke again. “He complained to me about the paint.”

  “You see what I mean?”

  Maggie folded her arms. “You know, I will be ever so happy when we can get our work done and be out of this place.”

  “You and me both, Baby.”

  “I am not your baby!” She turned and flounced back to the office.

  He shook his head as he picked up another screw and fitted it to the driver. Maggie was his best friend, and he still never knew when she would whip around and sink her teeth into him. As with his other problems, he placed this one on the back burner where he could check for progress from time to time. He did not understand why people reacted to him the way they did. He thought he was a nice guy. However, Pournelle seemed to go out of the way to make life difficult for him. Maggie generally required very little provocation to launch on him. On the other hand, he seemed to get along with the other students. Seb Sylvester was always cordial. Archie Larch was friendly. Even the Dean, Chester Rathgille was friendly, although that may have been due to Arthur’s donations to the school.