Stephen Baxter: Project Hades

“Marsh gas, probably.”

Jones snorted. “You’ve been well coached in the official denials!”

Winston said, “You say you saw it before, Doctor Jones. When, exactly?”

“Soon after we arrived.” He glanced at his watch; midnight was approaching. “Ninety minutes ago, give or take?”

“I knew it.”

“You did? Don’t tell me. You’ve been monitoring these things too.”

“Lots of local legends about them. People call them Grendels.”

“Ah. Beowulf’s monster.”

“But the name’s older than the poem. These things have been seen for centuries. And when they show, there’s a definite period to them.”

“Is there, by Jove? And you found it. But why ninety minutes?”

Phillips said unexpectedly, “Spaceships.”

“What was that, Captain Bob?”

Phillips was no more than thirty, tall, languid, with an unwise handlebar moustache. Now he seemed to regret speaking at all. “It’s just that I’m something of a space buff. Sputnik and so forth. We used to eat up Dan Dare and Quatermass after lights-out at Cambridge—”

“Oh, good grief.”

“Anyway it’s the first thing that popped into my head when you said ninety minutes. Isn’t that how long it takes to orbit the Earth?”

“Quite right. That could be quite an insight.”

Winston said, “But what does it mean?”

“I don’t know—yet. But in the meantime I think you’re right, Winston Stubbins. Whatever’s going on here, this is a very foolish place to set off a thermonuclear weapon.”

Phillips said, “And talk like that will get you into trouble, Doctor Jones. I rather think it would be best if you went back the way you came, don’t you?”

But Jones could hear voices. He turned to see a crowd approaching, torch beams piercing the misty air.

Winston grinned. “Too late for that, Captain.”

The shouts of the protesters were tinny in the command centre’s speakers.

Godwin asked, “How’s the countdown proceeding, Tremayne?”

“Perfectly well, Commodore Godwin. But I do find myself somewhat distracted by what’s going on outside.”

“I’m sure the British authorities will be able to contain any incidents.”

“But that’s not the point, is it? It’s all very well for us. If anything were to go wrong with the test, we’d be fine. Whereas they—”

Godwin said, “They are not going to stand in the way of the test. After all—let me remind you, Tremayne, that our whole purpose here is to protect this rabble.”

“Rabble? Even if it means killing a few of them to do it?” Tremayne stood, pushing back his chair.

“What are you doing?”

“Maybe if I can make them see the value of the project, they’ll disperse peacefully.” He walked away. “Do what you have to do.”

“Kind of wilful, your prof,” he heard Crowne say.

“Boffins! Utopian fools, all of them. The sooner they’re all replaced by computers the better off we’ll be. Oh, let him out. But continue the countdown.”

“All right. But I think I’d better go after him…”

Out on the moor things seemed to be coming to a head, Jones thought. In the dark the shifting lights were confusing, but over the crowd’s murmur he heard the flap of a helicopter somewhere overhead—and, he thought, that distant tannoy voice counting down: “Ten minutes.”

Thelma found him, trailed by Clare Baines and Buck Grady. “Ah, Thelma. Run out of Babycham, did they?”

“Jones. I should have known I’d find you under arrest.”

“Not yet, Thelma, not yet. But the night is young.”

Clare said, “And you, Winston. I hope he hasn’t been giving you any trouble, Captain Phillips.”

Winston said, “So you all know each other. How cosy.”

“We just work together to keep the peace, that’s all,” Clare said. “And, cosy or not, this is as far as your boy’s-brigade protest march goes.”

Thelma asked, “Jones? What now?”

“Winston here has done a cracking job, but we need to know what’s really going on here—aboveground and below. And we certainly need to stop that wretched bomb going off, if we can.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“By going into that base and throwing my weight around.”

Phillips said, “Sir, I must warn you that if you step over the perimeter you’d be liable for arrest for trespassing on MOD property.”

“Trespassing! With an immense thermonuclear egg about to crack under our feet? Oh, isn’t that wonderfully British? And besides, I am the MOD.”

Buck said, “Yeah, well, if you get as far as that fence over there you’ll come up against the US army and you’ll get your ass shot off. And that won’t be so British, will it?”

Winston grinned. “Never mind him, Doctor Jones. You’re not alone. Haway the lads!” His rabble-rousing was rewarded by a ragged cheer, and the crowd behind him began to march towards the lights of the base.

Phillips said, “Well, that’s torn it. Oh, do put that automatic away, Sergeant, you wave it around like a magic wand. Look—tell the men to fall back to fifty yards from the fence and establish a perimeter. And you, PC Baines, I suggest you call for a bit of back-up. Right, you lot. Move!”

Crowne stood with Tremayne just outside the base fence. The crowd noise competed with the helicopter passes, and the tinny bellow of the tannoy. “Professor Tremayne, are you sure about this?”

“Major, a civilised society can only organise its affairs through reason and dialogue.”

“Okay, Professor, if you say so. Look, I want to leave all this to the British authorities if I can. But the first sign of trouble and my boys wade in. Is that clear, sir?”

“Perfectly, Major Crowne.”

“Here they come. And who the heck is this?”

Jones marched up to the fence boldly; he had never believed in timidity. “Who’s in charge here?”

An older man in civilian clothes stepped forward. “That’s an interesting question, philosophically.”

“Philosophically, eh? I’m Doctor Chapman Jones. And you are?”

“Professor John Tremayne. Attached to Advanced Concepts, Ministry of Defence.”

Thelma walked up. “Professor, we’re Ministry of Defence too—from Defence Secretariat 8.”

Tremayne stared. “DS8? Not the saucer-chasers!”

Jones, irritated, tried to be stern. “Is this your project, Tremayne, this great bomb in the Earth?”

“Project Hades was my conception, yes.”

“Then you have to stop it, man, if you still can.”

“May I ask why?”

“Because the geology here may be unstable in some way. There’s a focus of seismic activity right under our feet.”

“You have evidence for this, I suppose.”

“Winston! Come here.”

Winston trotted up, grinning, excited.

Tremayne asked, “And you are?”

“Winston Stubbins, sir.”

“Oh, I don’t care about your name, boy. What’s your affiliation? Cambridge, London, the Geophysical Survey?”

Jones said, “His affiliation is with me. He’s an independent scientist, and potentially a fine one, if I’m any judge. And he has strong evidence that—”

“Show me this evidence,” Tremayne snapped.

Winston said, “It’s at home. I have this trunk where I keep the toilet rolls.”

“Toilet rolls? Is this some kind of joke?

A wavering wail cut the air, and a shifting light fled overhead.

Thelma cried, “Another one! What are those things?”

Jones said, “Professor—look up at what’s buzzing your base! Have you any idea what that is?”

“Do you?”

“Well, no. Not yet. But I’m not the one about to let off a bomb, am I?”

“Oh, this is stuff and nonsense. Jabbering about seismic foci from a boy who’s probably been reading too much science fiction. And visions in the sky from you!”