end handling the raw metal with your bare hands. The amount of aposiderium in a banknote was absolutely tiny. Even so, it had been thought sensible not to publicise the findings, just in case the public got scared and started refusing to have anything to do with money. Yes, the woman agreed, it was a pretty small risk, but you couldn’t be too careful.
Delusions? Hallucinations? Well, now she came to mention it— Lucy held her breath. “Yes?”
“Absolutely none at all,” the woman said. “Or at least,” she added, “I guess some of the memory-loss victims could’ve had hallucinations and then forgotten all about them. But there wasn’t anything about it in the paper I read.” She paused, then added, “Just out of interest, why are you asking?”
Lucy hesitated. She didn’t want to come across as yet another rich hypochondriac, one of those people who treat medical dictionaries as though they’re mail order catalogues, and keep the golf courses of the world amply supplied with affluent doctors. I’m enquiring on behalf of a friend probably wouldn’t cut it, either. “Just some research I’m doing,” she said airily. “This stuff you mentioned. Apo…?”
“Aposiderium.”
Catchy name. Of course, the boys would want it snappier, Memory-Go, perhaps, or Forget-Me-Lots. “You’re sure there’s no other source for it anywhere, apart from the meteorite strike.”
The woman had the rare knack of being able to imply a shrug by the quality of her short pauses. “I’m not a chemist or an astrophysicist,” she said. “I suppose there could’ve been other meteorites with it in, small ones that never got reported. But it’d be a multi-billion-to-one chance, I’d have thought.”
Lucy thanked her and rang off. Aposiderium, she thought. Stuff from outer space that eats your brain. She’d read about stuff like that, but only when unwrapping things that came heavily packaged in the mail. And a top-secret repository somewhere on the ocean bed. On balance, she decided, she’d prefer hallucinations.
But she made some more calls: to a general she’d met at a party and a brace of US senators (the best that money could buy, her people had assured her, though in the context of politicians, the statement had struck her as self-contradictory) and a nice scientist she’d smiled at once at a reception, causing him to walk through a plate-glass door without noticing. Eventually she got a name and a number, and made the call.
The commandant of the top-secret ocean-bed repository sounded like he’d just been woken up from a thousand-year-long sleep under a mountain somewhere. But he’d heard of her. In fact, he had a picture of her taped to the inside of his locker door, so that was all right, sort of.
“No chance,” he said firmly. “We weigh the deposit every hour, on the hour, and I can promise you, not a milligram’s gone missing, not ever. We’re quite” — short, mildly disturbing laugh —”obsessive about it, you might say. Ha.”
The final syllable was spoken, not laughed; never a good sign. Lucy persevered. What about when the bank people came to collect a batch to make into banknotes? Could any of the stuff get lost or mislaid? Absolutely not, no way. They presented him with a release form, which had to be signed by the bank CEO, the presidents of six of the ten countries who jointly ran the facility, three Nobel laureates and either the chairman of the World Bank or the Dalai Lama. Then, if the release said 0.87442 grams, then 0.87442 grams was what they got; and they weighed it again after the required amount had been chipped off and sealed up, and again after that, and after that of course there’d be the next scheduled hourly check— That’s very impressive, Lucy said, grateful that there wasn’t a video link and she couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see her, but how about once it’s left your hands? Could someone at the printing works, or the bank—? No, I see. Quite.
Delusions? Hallucinations? Well, now she came to mention it— Lucy held her breath. “Yes?”
“Absolutely none at all,” the woman said. “Or at least,” she added, “I guess some of the memory-loss victims could’ve had hallucinations and then forgotten all about them. But there wasn’t anything about it in the paper I read.” She paused, then added, “Just out of interest, why are you asking?”
Lucy hesitated. She didn’t want to come across as yet another rich hypochondriac, one of those people who treat medical dictionaries as though they’re mail order catalogues, and keep the golf courses of the world amply supplied with affluent doctors. I’m enquiring on behalf of a friend probably wouldn’t cut it, either. “Just some research I’m doing,” she said airily. “This stuff you mentioned. Apo…?”
“Aposiderium.”
Catchy name. Of course, the boys would want it snappier, Memory-Go, perhaps, or Forget-Me-Lots. “You’re sure there’s no other source for it anywhere, apart from the meteorite strike.”
The woman had the rare knack of being able to imply a shrug by the quality of her short pauses. “I’m not a chemist or an astrophysicist,” she said. “I suppose there could’ve been other meteorites with it in, small ones that never got reported. But it’d be a multi-billion-to-one chance, I’d have thought.”
Lucy thanked her and rang off. Aposiderium, she thought. Stuff from outer space that eats your brain. She’d read about stuff like that, but only when unwrapping things that came heavily packaged in the mail. And a top-secret repository somewhere on the ocean bed. On balance, she decided, she’d prefer hallucinations.
But she made some more calls: to a general she’d met at a party and a brace of US senators (the best that money could buy, her people had assured her, though in the context of politicians, the statement had struck her as self-contradictory) and a nice scientist she’d smiled at once at a reception, causing him to walk through a plate-glass door without noticing. Eventually she got a name and a number, and made the call.
The commandant of the top-secret ocean-bed repository sounded like he’d just been woken up from a thousand-year-long sleep under a mountain somewhere. But he’d heard of her. In fact, he had a picture of her taped to the inside of his locker door, so that was all right, sort of.
“No chance,” he said firmly. “We weigh the deposit every hour, on the hour, and I can promise you, not a milligram’s gone missing, not ever. We’re quite” — short, mildly disturbing laugh —”obsessive about it, you might say. Ha.”
The final syllable was spoken, not laughed; never a good sign. Lucy persevered. What about when the bank people came to collect a batch to make into banknotes? Could any of the stuff get lost or mislaid? Absolutely not, no way. They presented him with a release form, which had to be signed by the bank CEO, the presidents of six of the ten countries who jointly ran the facility, three Nobel laureates and either the chairman of the World Bank or the Dalai Lama. Then, if the release said 0.87442 grams, then 0.87442 grams was what they got; and they weighed it again after the required amount had been chipped off and sealed up, and again after that, and after that of course there’d be the next scheduled hourly check— That’s very impressive, Lucy said, grateful that there wasn’t a video link and she couldn’t see him and he couldn’t see her, but how about once it’s left your hands? Could someone at the printing works, or the bank—? No, I see. Quite.
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