when the console chimed its phone signal. It was Marty.
He was weary but smiling. “They called me out of surgery,” he said. “Good news, for a change, from Washington. They did a segment on your theory on the Harold Burley Hour tonight.”
“Supporting it?” Amelia said.
“Evidently. I just saw a minute of it; back to work. It should be linked to your data queue by now. Take a look.” He punched off and we found the program immediately.
It started out with an optical of a galaxy exploding dramatically, sound effects and all. Then the profile of Burley, serious as usual, faded in, looking down on the cataclysm.
“Could this be us, only a month from now? Controversy rages in the highest scientific circles. And not only scientists have questions. The police do, too.”
A still picture of Peter, bedraggled and forlorn, naked from the waist up, holding up a number for the police camera. “This is Peter Blankenship, who for two decades has been one of the most highly regarded cosmologists in the world.
“Today he doesn’t even know the right number of planets in the Solar System. He thinks he’s living in the year 2004—and is confused to be a twenty-year-old man in a sixty-four-year-old body.
“Someone jacked him and extracted all his past, back to that year. Why? What did he know? Here is Simone Mallot, head of the FBI’s Forensic Neuropathology Unit.” A woman in a white coat, with a jumble of gleaming equipment behind her. “Dr. Mallot, what can you tell us about the level of surgical technique used on this man?”
“The person who did this belongs in jail,” she said. “Subtle equipment was used, or misused; microscopic AI-directed investigation shows that they initially tried to erase specific, fairly recent, memories. But they failed repeatedly, and finally erased one huge block with a surge of power. It was the murder of a personality and, we know now, the destruction of a great mind.”
Beside me, Amelia sighed, almost a sob, but leaned forward, studying the console intently.
Burley peered directly out of the screen. “Peter Blankenship did know something—or at least believed something, that profoundly affects you and me. He believed that unless we take action to stop it, the world will come to an end on September fourteenth.”
There was a picture of the Multiple Mirror Array on the far side of the Moon, irrelevant to anything, tracking ponderously. Then a time-lapse shot of Jupiter rotating. “The Jupiter Project, the largest, most complex scientific experiment ever conducted. Peter Blankenship had calculations that showed it had to be stopped. But then he disappeared, and came back in no shape to testify about anything scientific.
“But his assistant, Professor Blaze Harding”—an inset of Amelia lecturing—“suspected foul play and herself disappeared. From a hiding place in Mexico she sent dozens of copies of Blankenship’s theory, and the high hard mathematics behind it, to scientists all over the world. Opinions are divided.”
Back in his studio, Burley faced two men, one of them familiar.
“God, not Macro!” Amelia said.
“I have with me tonight Professors Lloyd Doherty and Mac Roman. Dr. Doherty’s a longtime associate of Peter Blankenship. Dr. Roman is the dean of sciences at the University of Texas, where Professor Harding works and teaches.”
“Teaching isn’t work?” I said, and she shushed me.
Macro settled back with a familiar self-satisfied expression. “Professor Harding has been under a great deal of strain recently, including a love affair with one of her students as well as one with Peter Blankenship.”
“Stick to the science, Macro,” Doherty said. “You’ve read the paper. What do you think of it?”
“Why, it’s . . . it’s utterly fantastic. Ridiculous.”
“Tell me why.”
“Lloyd, the audience could never understand the mathematics involved. But the idea is absurd on the face of it. That the physical conditions that obtain inside something smaller than a BB could bring about the end of the universe.”
“People once said it was absurd to think that a tiny germ could bring about the death of a human being.”
“That’s a false analogy.” His ruddy face got darker.
“No, it’s precise. But I agree with you about it not destroying the universe.”
Macro gestured at Burley and the camera. “Well, then.”
Doherty continued. “It would only destroy the Solar System, perhaps the Galaxy. A relatively small corner of the universe.”
“But it would destroy the Earth,” Burley said.
“In less than an hour, yes.” The camera came in close on him. “There’s no doubt about that.”
“But there is!” Macro said, off camera.
Doherty gave him a weary look. “Even if the doubt were reasonable, and