Earth Cult (20 page)

‘Come on now,' Lee Merriam protested. ‘All this stuff about the Earth coming alive – you can't seriously believe that a signal from outer space is going to awaken it after five billion years.'

‘Professor Friedmann obviously believes it to be true.'

‘And do you?' Helen said.

‘I don't know. It's a fact that the Earth is being bombarded by a vastly increased flood of antineutrinos from the galactic centre. The latest theory suggests that these are interacting with other particles and producing large amounts of radiation. In that sense the mountain is coming alive. The thing I can't understand is what Professor Friedmann has to do to prepare the way – why is he down there at all, sealed in the detection chamber?'

‘You mean being protected by the mountain, don't you?' Helen said, raising her eyebrows sardonically.

‘We shouldn't just dismiss what we can't understand,' Frank told her. ‘I agree that Leach's story sounds incredible but you have to admit that it answers a lot of the questions about what's been happening in this area lately. How else can you explain the freak weather conditions, the earth tremors, the strange way people have been behaving?'

‘And the babies,' Helen said. ‘Don't forget them.'

‘I hadn't forgotten,' Frank said. ‘If you want to know, that's the one thing that bothers me most of all. Because if
it's happening here in Gypsum it's likely to be happening elsewhere at the same time.'

‘You mean elsewhere in the States?' Cal Renfield said.

‘And throughout the world. Wherever the geophysical strata are similar to what we have here in the mountain – tellurous ore – then it's possible that the same phenomena are taking place.'

Lee Merriam said bluntly, ‘What concerns me is the here and now.' He looked searchingly at Frank. ‘If there's no way past the black rock we'll have to try and reach him via the upper level, and you're the only one who knows how to get through.'

‘That's what I like about you, Lee. You're so subtle.'

‘Are you prepared to make the attempt?'

‘Do I have a choice?'

Cal Renfield said, ‘Listen, I don't understand any of this scientific stuff about particles and interactions; what I'd like to know is what damage can Friedmann do down there? If the guy really is nutty could he do something to the equipment in the detection chamber, maybe cause an explosion?' His soft round features were moulded into an expression that was both inquiring and concerned.

Frank shook his head, an admission that he wasn't sure. He said, ‘There's radiation equipment down there for detecting the presence of argon-37. Ordinarily there's no danger because it's shielded, and in any case the amount of radiation is quite small. But if the particle interactions have been building up in the tanks and the radiation level is high…'

‘Then what could Friedmann do?' Cal Renfield asked.

‘Basically, one of two things. He could either allow the radiation level to escalate to a point where it became unstable – and then you would indeed get an explosion. Or he could release it.'

‘You mean let the radiation leak out?'

‘That's right. Possibly it wouldn't do much damage because it's a mile underground – it would be dissipated through the tunnels. Anybody down there, of course, wouldn't stand much of a chance.'

‘Including Friedmann?' Cal Renfield said.

Frank nodded.

‘And anybody who went down to get him out of there,' Helen said, not looking at anyone. She gazed towards the winding gear in its steel framework.

Lee Merriam glanced at his watch. He was impatient for action. ‘We can be kitted out and ready to go in ten minutes. If it's a major fall we'll need pick-axes and shoring material. Ideally we could use two parties, the first to clear away the rubble, the second to follow on afterwards. The first party could act as a back-up if the main rescue team runs into trouble. Say eight men in two teams of four. I'll get the first team off right away and they can be making a start on the clearing operation. We'll give them thirty minutes to make some kind of headway and then follow them down.'

Lee Merriam was happy to be planning and organizing and getting ready to move; this was positive action, not abstract scientific speculation. He couldn't get a grip on theories, they were too diffuse, too elusive.

While he went to get things started Frank told Cal Renfield and Helen about the cable, explaining in more detail Fred Lockyer's hypothesis of antineutrino-
antitrimuon
interactions. They listened blankly, hardly understanding a word, though he took pains to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

When he had finished, Cal Renfield said incredulously, ‘You mean to say that the Telluric Faith might really be on to something? That Cabel isn't just spouting a load of religious bullshit?'

‘In an odd way he could be right. Cabel's beliefs, Professor Friedmann's research data and Fred Lockyer's theory all seem to point to the same kind of phenomenon – yet they each approach it in a different way and describe it in their own terms. It isn't the first time that religion, cosmology and high energy physics have found themselves to be bedfellows. Though pretty uneasy ones, I grant you.'

‘But surely Karl Leach was raving when he talked about the Earth being formed out of – what did he call it? –
conscious plasma? The Earth is inanimate, it isn't alive.'

‘Not in the sense that we understand it,' Frank agreed. ‘But our knowledge of life-forms in the Universe is limited to those on this planet. It'd be rather arrogant of the human race to claim to be the only type of life-form extant in all of Creation. Maybe there is such a thing as “conscious plasma” which lives in space. We simply don't know. I doubt whether Fred Lockyer would dismiss the idea out of hand. He'd keep an open mind until he came up with evidence which either proved or denied its existence.'

‘And I thought physics was all to do with rubbing fur on an ebonite rod,' Helen said, looking as bemused as a child on its first day at school.

‘In your case that has more to do with Freudian symbolism,' Frank said, grinning. ‘What you choose to do in your leisure time is your own affair.'

She pouted and gave him a smouldering look. ‘You'd better make sure you come back out of that mine, Frank Kersh. We still have an account to settle.'

They watched the first team of four men heading for the cage. Lee Merriam saw them away and then came across the compound. He glanced up at the sky, which was darkening as the late afternoon ebbed into evening. The sky was clear, with just a few wisps of nimbus to the east, and already the first faint stars were winking on overhead. It looked as though it was going to be a calm peaceful night.

‘We follow them down in one hour,' said Lee Merriam crisply. He almost seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘This time I'm coming with you.'

‘That sounds like you don't trust me.'

‘If there's a way through into the detection chamber I want to know about it. And I want to be there when we reach Professor Friedmann.'

‘If we reach him,' Frank said, sounding a note of caution. ‘I told you, Lee, I'm not at all sure I can find my way through like I did last time. It was pretty confusing after the tremor, you know.'

Why didn't he tell them? Why not come right out with it
and say that something had happened in the depths of the Telluride Mine which defied rational explanation and flouted all the rules of normal physical behaviour? Why was he so reluctant to admit to anyone that he had witnessed – had actually been part of – a strange occurrence which had someone recounted it to him he would have scoffed at and probably laughed in their face? Was he too afraid of their scepticism and pitying glances?

The truth was (and he was only just beginning to realize and accept it) that it had shaken the very foundation of his absolute certitude in scientific method and procedure. The experience had been subjective, inexplicable, and utterly mystifying – none of which were satisfactory criteria in the strict scientific sense – and yet he believed in the validity of it, knew without any doubt that it had actually taken place. How was he to reconcile his rational, objective outlook with the emotional and intuitive part of his nature which accepted the experience for no other reason than that it had happened? His normal response would have been to reject it out of hand.

The difference, of course, was that this time it had happened to him.

Helen was in the act of lighting a cigarette when they felt it; the lighter flame hovered an inch from the cigarette and her eyes came up to meet Frank's.

A deep and distant and unmistakable tremor.

‘That's all we need,' said Lee Merriam, almost angrily.

‘Might have been an explosion,' Cal Renfield suggested.

Helen rolled her eyes melodramatically and said, ‘No, it was the Earth waking up. You know, early alarm call?'

‘I like your sense of humour,' Frank said. ‘You should have been an undertaker.'

But the vibration had been so faint that a moment later they all wondered if they had imagined it. The evening was gentle and unruffled, the dusk gradually encroaching like a soft blue mist, quite unperturbed by the events happening deep in the Earth's core. The stars were coming on one by one.

Even as a child he had never been afraid of the dark. He had never slept with the light on and the threat of bogie-men coming to get him during the night had always seemed, even then, to lack menace and credibility. But the darkness within the mountain was a palpable thing, dense and claustrophobic; it filled the tunnels with black air that pressed against his face with a chilly dampness and entered his mouth like the taste of old rusty iron.

The foul stagnant smell reminded him of animal matter slowly decomposing, and it was with an effort that he tried to dismiss from his mind the image of the four of them as tiny microbes in the intestines of a large cold-blooded creature: the endless labyrinth of tunnels forming an enclosed system, leading nowhere, without entrances and exits.

The first team had partially cleared away the debris and had done the best they could to shore up the tunnel with odd pieces of timber which littered the workings. In the light of the lamps it looked none too safe and Frank voiced the opinion that a decent sneeze would bring the whole assembly down on top of them.

‘How much more do you reckon there is to move?' Lee Merriam asked one of his engineers.

‘It's not as bad as it looks,' the man answered, annoyed by Frank's comment and letting him see it. ‘The tunnel narrows beyond this point and the roof seems to have held. If we clear the entrance you should be able to get through without any problems.'

‘Famous last words,' Frank said dryly.

‘You try digging it out with your bare hands,' the engineer
came back at him hotly. ‘We've no powered equipment, no proper lighting—'

‘Okay, okay, boys,' Lee Merriam said placatingly. ‘This is difficult enough without squabbling; let's all just do the best we can and leave it at that.'

He went forward to inspect how the work was progressing, his large beefy face grim and determined in the light from the heavy-duty lamps. It suddenly occurred to Frank that Lee Merriam was so desperately keen to find a way through into the detection chamber that he wondered whether it was from a sense of duty or if there was an ulterior motive. Of course he was only doing his job, yet even so his anxiety seemed to be verging on the obsessional.

He came back and reported that it was almost clear, except for one or two boulders that were too big to be moved. ‘We'll have to squeeze past those,' he said, sucking in his stomach. ‘This is when I could do to be carrying thirty pounds less weight. The tunnel looks in reasonable condition from there on in – as far as we can see, anyway. Can you remember what it's like farther on? Do we keep to this tunnel or cut off into another?'

‘We keep to this one. It gets pretty narrow farther on.'

‘You do remember some of it,' Lee Merriam said. He watched Frank's face intently in the dim light.

‘Some,' Frank conceded.

‘There must be one helluva gradient if it drops to the level of the chamber.'

‘That's the part I can't recall. We'll come to some old workings and there's a large main tunnel leading off it the other side. From there we'll have to take it as it comes.'

‘That tremor must have really shook you up.'

Frank didn't reply. He looked to where the men were clearing the last of the rubble, partly obscured by dust which swirled in the beams of the lamps.

‘We're about set to go,' Lee Merriam said. ‘Do you want me to lead the way?'

‘No, I'll go first. There's a chance it'll come back to me if I recognize any of the features.' He smiled inwardly,
thinking that he would recognize the mirror-like black rock soon enough if he ever set eyes on it again. But he didn't expect the rock to be at the end of the tunnel as before: it had moved to the lower level, hadn't it? Assuming there was only one mysterious black rock in the Telluride Mine.

The engineer in charge of the clearing operation called out that it was now clear enough to proceed and added caustically that he hoped no one would sneeze as they went through.

The tunnel was as familiar to Frank as the recurrence of a bad dream. Without thinking about it he started counting the number of paces in his head, knowing that by the hundredth the four of them should have reached the small cavern with its shallow workings … and beyond that the tunnel where he had seen the reflection of his lamp signalling to him.

Lee Merriam was close behind, his breathing magnified by the confined space, and by an odd trick of the acoustics it seemed to be coming from some distance ahead – preceding them into the depths of the mountain.