to the same conclusion. If it did, then the next thing, probably the only thing, we had to worry about was the initial conditions themselves. There were no experimental data about conditions close to the “accelerated universe” regime. We could check some aspects of the Problem by instructing the Jupiter accelerator to crank up energies closer and closer to the critical point. But how close to the edge of a cliff do you want to push a robot when it might be forty-eight minutes between command and response? Not too close.
The next two days were a sleepless marathon of mathematics. We took a half hour off when we heard explosions outside and went up to the roof to watch the Fourth of July fireworks over the Washington Monument.
Watching the crash-bang of it, smelling the powder, I realized it was kind of a dilute preview of coming attractions. We had a little more than nine weeks. The Jupiter Project, if it went on schedule, would produce the critical energy level on September 14.
I think we all made the connection. We watched the finale silently and went back to work.
Peter knew a little about pseudo-operator analysis, and I knew a little about microcosmology; we spent a lot of time making sure I was understanding the questions and he was understanding the answers. But at the end of two days, I was as convinced as he and Blaze were. The Jupiter Project had to die.
Or we all had to die. A terrible thought occurred to me while I was twanging on speedies and black coffee: I could kill both of them with two blows. Then I could destroy all the records and kill myself.
I would become Shiva, Destroyer of Worlds, to paraphrase a nuclear pioneer. With a simple act of violence, I could destroy the universe.
A good thing I was sane.
It wouldn’t be difficult for the Project engineers to prevent the disaster; any random change of the position of a few elements of the ring would do it. The system had to line up just so in order to work: a circular collimation over a million kilometers in circumference that would last for less than a minute before gravity from Jupiter’s moons pulled it apart forever. Of course that minute would be eons long compared to the tiny interval that was being simulated. And plenty of time for the accelerating surge to make one orbit and produce the supercharged speck that would end it all.
* * *
i was growing to like Peter, in spite of himself. He was a slave driver, but he drove himself harder than he did me or Amelia. He was temperamental and sarcastic and blew up about as regularly as Old Faithful. But I’ve never met anyone so absolutely dedicated to science. He was like a mad monk lost in his love of the divine.
Or so I thought.
Speedies or no, I’m still blessed and cursed with a soldier’s body. In the soldierboy I was exercised constantly, to keep from cramping up; at the university I worked out every day, alternating an hour of running with an hour on the gym machines. So I could get along without sleep, but not without exercise. Every morning at dawn I’d excuse myself from the proceedings and go off to run.
I was systematically exploring downtown Washington during my morning jogs, taking the Metro down and going in a different direction each day. I’d seen most of the monuments (which might be more moving to someone who’d actually chosen to be a soldier) and ranged as far afield as the Washington Zoo and Alexandria, when I felt like doing a few extra miles.
Peter accepted the fact that I had to have the exercise to keep from cramping up. I also contended that it cleared my head, but he pointed out that his head was clear enough, and the only exercise he got was wrestling with cosmology.
That was not entirely true. On the fifth day I got almost all the way to the Metro station and realized I’d left my card behind. I jogged on back to the apartment and let myself in.
My street clothes were in the living room, by the fold-out bed that Amelia and I shared. I took the card out of my wallet and started back to the front door, but then heard a noise from the study. The door was partly open; I looked in.
Amelia was sitting on the edge of the table, naked from the waist down, her legs