desk and, looking her straight in the eye, said, “Yes. Of course.” His firm reply told her that he was not aware of any chicanery and really wanted to see her data.
“Perhaps we can find the problem,” he said, more in control now.
She had seen this pattern before. Surprise, shock then wanting to dig into it. The classic pattern of a man not trying to hide something. As much as she enjoyed nailing someone’s hide to the wall, she was fair about it. It was her immediate reading that he had not been aware of these discrepancies.
Coming around to her side of the desk, he took a seat on the sofa to one side and reached out his hand for the papers she held. Ten minutes later, the Chief Executive Officer was again turning pale.
“My God! Someone has been falsifying the logs!” he said.
“More than one person, I’d say,” she told him. “These smaller omissions are spread out across all projects. Could these be something done by the spooks who use your Machine?” she asked, referring to the secret use of the Machine by the CIA, NAS and perhaps some other super-secret agencies.
“No. All usage of the Machine for those purposes is included under Project D. Besides, why would they try to hide usage? Everything they do is totally classified, but totally within their rights. None of my staff knows what they are doing. I don’t know what they’re using it for. So why try to hide it? But I do know that our government, of which you are a representative, threatened to take over the project totally if I didn’t allow them unrestricted and unmonitored use of the Machine. Think of the loss that would mean to academic research! Oh, how I long for the day when our work here can be made public and available to all researchers!”
“So, if it’s not the spooks, then who? The biggest hidden use of the Machine was by Project J. Unless whoever is doing this is cleverer about hiding his tracks and just making it look like Project J. What is that project, Dr. Stryker?”
“General research. Trying to make the Machine more efficient, improving the search capabilities and exploring new directions.” He paused to look out the window. “The biggest single effort has been to see if we can use the Machine to explore other worlds.”
“Other worlds?”
“Oh, yes. We can use the Machine to find and duplicate most anything on Earth. All the way back to prehistoric times. Why not use it to duplicate objects from another planet? Why send an expensive probe to Mars to pick up and return a sample when we could just recreate it in the chamber? It would not be a Martian rock but it would be identical in every respect.
“And then there is the possibility of reaching out much farther than the planets in this solar system. How would you like to have a piece of rock from one of those planets they’ve found orbiting Alpha Centauri?”
Tamara shook her head slowly. The idea was staggering.
“Of course,” he continued, “there are many problems to overcome before this can be practical. New routines have to be written for Lightning. New hardware has to be developed. I believe the best Dr. Fielding has been able to do is copy a food packet from the International Space Station. A few attempts to retrieve a moon rock have failed. But we expect one day to do much more than explore the Earth’s past.”
“That’s incredible. Could it be that this Dr. Fielding has accomplished something along those lines but hidden it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Then he turned to her and smiled. “Why don’t we ask him?”
Chapter 9: Confrontation II
Dr. Conrad Fielding’s office was a mess. Papers and books and printouts were stacked everywhere, some atop filing cabinets reaching almost to the ceiling. Charts covered what little
“Perhaps we can find the problem,” he said, more in control now.
She had seen this pattern before. Surprise, shock then wanting to dig into it. The classic pattern of a man not trying to hide something. As much as she enjoyed nailing someone’s hide to the wall, she was fair about it. It was her immediate reading that he had not been aware of these discrepancies.
Coming around to her side of the desk, he took a seat on the sofa to one side and reached out his hand for the papers she held. Ten minutes later, the Chief Executive Officer was again turning pale.
“My God! Someone has been falsifying the logs!” he said.
“More than one person, I’d say,” she told him. “These smaller omissions are spread out across all projects. Could these be something done by the spooks who use your Machine?” she asked, referring to the secret use of the Machine by the CIA, NAS and perhaps some other super-secret agencies.
“No. All usage of the Machine for those purposes is included under Project D. Besides, why would they try to hide usage? Everything they do is totally classified, but totally within their rights. None of my staff knows what they are doing. I don’t know what they’re using it for. So why try to hide it? But I do know that our government, of which you are a representative, threatened to take over the project totally if I didn’t allow them unrestricted and unmonitored use of the Machine. Think of the loss that would mean to academic research! Oh, how I long for the day when our work here can be made public and available to all researchers!”
“So, if it’s not the spooks, then who? The biggest hidden use of the Machine was by Project J. Unless whoever is doing this is cleverer about hiding his tracks and just making it look like Project J. What is that project, Dr. Stryker?”
“General research. Trying to make the Machine more efficient, improving the search capabilities and exploring new directions.” He paused to look out the window. “The biggest single effort has been to see if we can use the Machine to explore other worlds.”
“Other worlds?”
“Oh, yes. We can use the Machine to find and duplicate most anything on Earth. All the way back to prehistoric times. Why not use it to duplicate objects from another planet? Why send an expensive probe to Mars to pick up and return a sample when we could just recreate it in the chamber? It would not be a Martian rock but it would be identical in every respect.
“And then there is the possibility of reaching out much farther than the planets in this solar system. How would you like to have a piece of rock from one of those planets they’ve found orbiting Alpha Centauri?”
Tamara shook her head slowly. The idea was staggering.
“Of course,” he continued, “there are many problems to overcome before this can be practical. New routines have to be written for Lightning. New hardware has to be developed. I believe the best Dr. Fielding has been able to do is copy a food packet from the International Space Station. A few attempts to retrieve a moon rock have failed. But we expect one day to do much more than explore the Earth’s past.”
“That’s incredible. Could it be that this Dr. Fielding has accomplished something along those lines but hidden it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Then he turned to her and smiled. “Why don’t we ask him?”
Chapter 9: Confrontation II
Dr. Conrad Fielding’s office was a mess. Papers and books and printouts were stacked everywhere, some atop filing cabinets reaching almost to the ceiling. Charts covered what little
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