Read Online The Voices of Heaven by Frederik Pohl - Free Book Online
Authors: Frederik Pohl
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antimatter was being formed outside the target area. That wasn't a frighteningly big emergency, even if it had been real instead of something the computer made up to keep us on our toes. But it did mean that every operation everywhere in the complex had to be safed until it was dealt with.
Of course, the real fear we all had to live with is that sometime—anytime, maybe within the next second—there would be a big emergency—say, the magnetic field failing to hold an actual lump of antimatter in position, so that it somehow contacted real matter and blew . . . and thus compromised the containment shells of all the other little nuggets of antimatter, so they all blew at once.
Once in a while the computer decided to give us a really serious problem of that kind, but I never could see the point. If that happened there was no way we could cope with it. That was why all the workings of the factory were on the surface of the Moon, instead of deep down in old lava tubes like the residential sectors—and why the Lederman factory had been sited within the walls of a crater on the Moon's limb in the first place. The hope of the planners was that if the factory ever did blow, the walls would force most of the explosion to go straight up and out into space. "Up" from the factory crater was well away from Earth itself. Thus, a maximum accident would certainly destroy everything inside the walls. That would put a terrible crimp in space travel for lack of fuel for a long time to come, and any people who happened to be inside the crater wall at that moment would become instant plasma. So, I was pretty sure, would most of what was outside the walls, too, no matter what they said. But the accident would be only a frightful catastrophe instead of, well, the Millenarists' yearning dream of the end of the world.
Although just about everything that goes on inside the crater walls is critical, some parts are more critical than others. That makes a difference in people's working conditions. It's only the teams that do the actual insertion of antimatter into the pods that can't afford to have any distraction at all; those rooms are as sterile and concentrated as any surgical operating theater. Most of the other workers at least are allowed to play music, and some of them—in the assembly rooms for the pods themselves, for instance, or the coil-winding rooms for the magnetic containment—even are allowed to have news screens. Not that what they do isn't critical; but after they've finished their work it gets very thoroughly tested before it moves on to the next step, so mistakes can be caught. Where actual antimatter is present, there's no test. It either behaves quietly as it should. Or it doesn't, and that's all she wrote.
Since this time the "emergency" was only a practice alert the check was over in ten minutes, and the beepers were replaced with the gentle drone of the "all clear." By then Warren was already at his last stop, in the launch room. Naturally there was no antimatter there—we don't keep the stuff around; as soon as a pod is filled and ready, it's launched to one of the orbital catchers to wait for its customer—and Warren turned and grinned into the camera. "False alarm, fellows," he told us silent overseers, and blanked off.
By then Alma had been cleared, too. I suppose that I could have gone back to the subject we'd been talking about. But I didn't; and another opportunity to change my life went down the drain.
5
YOU have frequently referred to this "Lederman antimatter factory," but its exact nature and purpose are not understood, nor is it known why such an apparently dangerous establishment is tolerated. Please explain.
Well, all right, but where do I start?
Let's see. You already know that no one lives in the factory itself; when you need to get there—and you really have to need to, because nobody can get inside without a damn good reason—you take the subway through the crater rim from Lederman
Of course, the real fear we all had to live with is that sometime—anytime, maybe within the next second—there would be a big emergency—say, the magnetic field failing to hold an actual lump of antimatter in position, so that it somehow contacted real matter and blew . . . and thus compromised the containment shells of all the other little nuggets of antimatter, so they all blew at once.
Once in a while the computer decided to give us a really serious problem of that kind, but I never could see the point. If that happened there was no way we could cope with it. That was why all the workings of the factory were on the surface of the Moon, instead of deep down in old lava tubes like the residential sectors—and why the Lederman factory had been sited within the walls of a crater on the Moon's limb in the first place. The hope of the planners was that if the factory ever did blow, the walls would force most of the explosion to go straight up and out into space. "Up" from the factory crater was well away from Earth itself. Thus, a maximum accident would certainly destroy everything inside the walls. That would put a terrible crimp in space travel for lack of fuel for a long time to come, and any people who happened to be inside the crater wall at that moment would become instant plasma. So, I was pretty sure, would most of what was outside the walls, too, no matter what they said. But the accident would be only a frightful catastrophe instead of, well, the Millenarists' yearning dream of the end of the world.
Although just about everything that goes on inside the crater walls is critical, some parts are more critical than others. That makes a difference in people's working conditions. It's only the teams that do the actual insertion of antimatter into the pods that can't afford to have any distraction at all; those rooms are as sterile and concentrated as any surgical operating theater. Most of the other workers at least are allowed to play music, and some of them—in the assembly rooms for the pods themselves, for instance, or the coil-winding rooms for the magnetic containment—even are allowed to have news screens. Not that what they do isn't critical; but after they've finished their work it gets very thoroughly tested before it moves on to the next step, so mistakes can be caught. Where actual antimatter is present, there's no test. It either behaves quietly as it should. Or it doesn't, and that's all she wrote.
Since this time the "emergency" was only a practice alert the check was over in ten minutes, and the beepers were replaced with the gentle drone of the "all clear." By then Warren was already at his last stop, in the launch room. Naturally there was no antimatter there—we don't keep the stuff around; as soon as a pod is filled and ready, it's launched to one of the orbital catchers to wait for its customer—and Warren turned and grinned into the camera. "False alarm, fellows," he told us silent overseers, and blanked off.
By then Alma had been cleared, too. I suppose that I could have gone back to the subject we'd been talking about. But I didn't; and another opportunity to change my life went down the drain.
5
YOU have frequently referred to this "Lederman antimatter factory," but its exact nature and purpose are not understood, nor is it known why such an apparently dangerous establishment is tolerated. Please explain.
Well, all right, but where do I start?
Let's see. You already know that no one lives in the factory itself; when you need to get there—and you really have to need to, because nobody can get inside without a damn good reason—you take the subway through the crater rim from Lederman
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