The Inferno

Book 0: Fred Hoyle's World of Science Fiction

by Fred Hoyle, Geoffrey Hoyle

Genres: Science Fiction; Hard Science Fiction; Space Opera

Synopsis

Cameron, a tall, testy, whisky-drinking, nationalist-minded, Scottish physicist, may not have been an astronomer, but he knew the off things in the sky when he saw them. From an Australian mountaintop where he was advising on the location of a radiotelescope he saw what looked like Mars, in the wrong spot in the sky. But it wasn't Mars at all, it was a supernova ... no, not a supernova but a quasar. Knowing what would happen, Cameron dashed home to Scotland and found himself at a crossroads of his life. In the face of total catastrophe, and of intense heat, darkness and rain, he took over as natural leader with both the north and south of the United Kingdom turning to him for help. Sir Fred Hoyle, world-renowned astrophysicist, and his son, Geoffrey Hoyle, have set their newest science fiction thriller not only in London and Scotland, but also at the University of Charlottesville, and in Australia as well. The result is an intriguing, fast-paced novel written with a wry humour and offering some fascinating glimpses of and gibes at astronomy.

Release date: June 24, 2015

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 148

Sample

Cameron kissed his wife Madeleine goodbye. She leaned out of the train window towards him.

‘Phone me and I’ll meet you,’ she said.

‘It’s hardly worth it.’

The train was moving out, slowly at first, no more than walking pace, and then picking up speed. Cameron hoped he’d be doing the same thing himself the following day, or the day after, or…. He hated waiting around in London especially for indefinite Whitehall situations. But he’d have to stick it out. He glanced at his watch, 7.35 p.m., and wondered why the government wasn’t making time decimal.

Now what to do about dinner? According to the form book he ought to be dining out with some influential person. But who was influential? He decided on Wheeler’l in Old Compton Street, took the tube to Leicester Square, and walked from there.

An hour and a half later, dinner over, he set off walking again, out along Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street, into Carlton House Terrace. At No. 6 he pressed the ‘night porter’ button, announced himself into a small microphone and opened the door as soon as the electrically operated lock came free.

He could sleep like a log in the countryside, especially out of doors, but sleep never came easily in big cities and he wondered how he would fare tonight. The Royal Society, here in Carlton House Terrace, was commendably far from the heavy traffic. Even so he could hear a general outside hum.

But he woke only once during the night. The hum outside was almost gone. Ridiculously, he found himself listening for it. Then somehow he was asleep again, until the housekeeper brought his breakfast at 8 a.m. sharp. He ate the roll and croissant slowly, dabbing bits of marmalade on the pieces as he broke them with his hands. He wondered what the day would bring. More delay—that was a safe enough bet. He had until 11 a.m. to kill. After packing his bag, he paid the housekeeper, and walked the few yards to the Athenaeum Club. Here he filled in the time by reading the morning papers. Someone in the U.S. had discovered an X-ray pulsar. Few readers of The Times he decided would share his view that this was the only significant news.

A little after 10.30 a.m. he set off down the long flight of stone steps into the Mall, turning left to Trafalgar Square and into Whitehall, arriving at his destination in Richmond Terrace a few minutes before eleven. As always, walking into the Department of Education and Science, he was depressed by its dismal shabbiness—which could only be a matter of deliberate policy. He was shown into the office of Sir Henry Mallinson, First Secretary.

Mallinson and Cameron had both been at Pembroke, Cambridge. Mallinson had been one year senior. They had known each other reasonably well as students, playing rugby together in the College first fifteen. After their student days they had seen nothing of each other for many years, until Mallinson was moved from Mintech. to DES and Cameron was appointed to head the new accelerator project at CERN, Geneva, the European Centre for Nuclear Research. As the British subscription to CERN was channelled through DES the connection was now quite close. It is an odd aspect of middle age, the tie which binds men—or women—who have been students together, the unspoken tie, superficially fragile, yet with a curious strength which others can never share.

‘Coffee,’ said Mallinson, ‘it’s white, isn’t it?’

‘Please.’

‘Did you have a good trip over?’

‘Yes. Madeleine came with me.’

‘Shopping trip?’

‘No, I’m hoping to take a few days’ leave before going back. Up in the Highlands.’

‘You’ve got a place up there, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, Kintail.’

‘Road to Skye?’

‘Thank goodness, no. On the lochside—to the south. You branch off the Glenelg road.’

‘I know it. Fine spot.’

‘Yes, the loch comes to the bottom of the garden.’

‘Lucky. I’m stuck in London I’m afraid.’

‘Isn’t it time for some departments to move out?’

‘Everybody keeps on saying so. By the way, we’re lunching with the Minister.’

‘Glad you told me.’

‘It was last minute.’

‘Crisis?’

‘Not really.’

Mallinson grinned across his desk. ‘I’d guess it depended on how things have been going. In the Cabinet.’

‘Has the mountain laboured?’

‘If by that you mean: has a decision been reached? the answer is, yes.’

Cameron finished his coffee with restrained slowness. By rights he should have been nervy, but he’d known from the first moment he’d seen Mallinson’s face. He’d known the decision had to be favourable. Over the past couple of months the scientific world had expected the British government to come down at last in favour of proceeding with plans for the vast new 1000-Gev machine at Geneva. It would be a five to ten years’ job, which meant it would probably be the last big one that Cameron himself would ever tackle. But this was the way he wanted it. When he’d started after the war as a junior member of the team that built the first British Gev machine he’d thought it a great thing. He’d progressed in thirty years from 1 Gev to 1000 Gev. This was a fair enough achievement for a lifetime’s work. After that he’d be content to leave physics to younger men, especially as the bigger half of the problem nowadays was political and financial rather than scientific.

‘And the answer is …?’

‘A bit of a relief for you. We’ve got the green light—or at least we’re going to get it. It’s confidential still.’

‘Which means it’s not for Nature, I suppose.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why keep a decision confidential if it’s already been taken?’

‘Possible complications. There’s a condition to it.’

‘Condition?’

‘That all the present adherents join.’

Cameron felt the pressure building up now. By all the adherents Mallinson obviously meant all the countries at present contributing to CERN. But Cameron knew there were genuine doubts about one or two of the smaller ones.

‘So, if Denmark says no, we say no?’ he burst out.

‘Officially that’s the position.’

‘But it’s ridiculous!’ Cameron was angry now.

‘No, it’s not. It’s a nuisance but it’s not ridiculous.’

‘What the devil does it matter what one or two of the smaller countries wish to do?’

‘It doesn’t matter. But it does matter what the Germans and the French do.’

‘We know what they want to do. They want to go ahead. They’ve been saying so for more than a year.’

‘Unofficially.’

‘At ministerial level, if you call that unofficial.’

Mallinson smiled with mock weariness.

‘My dear chap, what is said is one thing—even if it is said at ministerial level—what is signed is another thing. Once the Germans and the French come in officially we come in officially.’

‘Irrespective of Denmark?’

‘Irrespective of any of the smaller contributors.’

‘Then why the devil not say so?’

‘Because it isn’t on politically to start drawing categories. We cannot say openly that France is important but that Switzerland isn’t. Obviously. But we can always change our conditions once the big fish commit themselves.’

Cameron was red with anger now. He found it impossible to contain himself. Jumping from his chair he took the centre of the room, exclaiming in an anguished voice, ‘But it means delay. More delay. We’ve been delaying now for three years.’

‘I wouldn’t have said it was at all bad. Three years isn’t long for a fifty-million project. Fielding waited the best part of ten years for his radiotelescope.’

‘Which is nothing to boast about. If Fielding had got the telescope ten years ago he’d have had ten years’ work done with it by now.’

‘And been asking for another one.’

‘In any case this isn’t a national affair, it’s international.’

‘If it wasn’t international you wouldn’t be getting fifty million.’

Cameron subsided back into the chair.

‘I suppose not,’ he conceded.

Mallinson was still smiling.

‘In any case it will give you time for going up to Scotland, won’t it?’

‘It’s not a joking matter, Henry. Keeping a team together with everybody keen and raring to go becomes impossible with all these delays and uncertainties. One long delay to begin with—everybody can understand that. It’s all the subsidiary delays—three months here, three months there—that knock the devil out of people. What you fellows in the Civil Service never seem to understand is that projects aren’t finished once the light goes green. They may be finished for you but they’re only just beginning for us. We still have to summon up the energy to drive them through.’

‘When you get involved on a big scale things do go slowly. You’ve got to accept it. Even on a national scale things move slowly. For stability they’ve got to move slowly. Internationally, it’s worse. It isn’t our fault in government that physics has got so big. It’s just your bad luck.’

‘I can’t help feeling the country would be a lot better off if it made up its mind what it wanted to do and simply did it. Instead of this endless shilly-shallying. I’m not talking about physics now.’

‘I gather not, which makes what you say less to the point—if I may say so.’

Mallinson stood up. ‘We should be on our way,’ he went on. ‘Lunch is 12.45 for one o’clock.’

Cameron glanced at his watch. It was only a minute or two after twelve.

‘We’re lunching at Kenyons. It means getting across town.’

‘Can I ask your secretary to make a call for me?’

‘Certainly. But if it’s not urgent you could wait till we get back.’

‘Back?’

‘I rather fancy we’ll have other things to talk about.’

The two men walked from Richmond Terrace to Trafalgar Square, Mallinson dressed in familiar Whitehall style—differing from the men of the City a mile or so to the east in that he carried no tell-tale umbrella and his hat breathed a suggestion of originality—Cameron, a full six inches the taller, darker in countenance from the hotter sun of Geneva and from days spent on alpine snowfields, without hat and carrying his raincoat. They hailed a taxi, reaching the restaurant just before 12.30.

‘Trouble with this damn city,’ grunted Cameron, ‘is that if you don’t want to be late you have to be early.’

Mallinson, as usual, refused to rise to the bait. ‘There’s no demerit in that. We can have an early drink,’ he remarked with satisfaction.

Cameron was surprised to see the lunch table laid for about twelve. He’d rather expected this would be an intimate affair, just three or four of them. Then it struck him that no conversation with your neighbour can be considered private when as many as four or even six people sit down together. Yet when the number rises to ten or more the conversation fragments, the sound level rises, and you find yourself talking to your immediate neighbour—whether to the right or left—essentially as if the rest of the world did not exist. In fact the safest place for a private conversation was between neighbours at a large formal dinner, since the exceedingly high general noise level makes eavesdropping impossible.

Mallinson tapped him on the shoulder, to inform him that the Secretary of State had arrived. They were introduced, shook hands, and after a short interchange of conventionalities were seated, with Cameron on the Minister’s right.

‘Henry Mallinson will have told you the news,’ the Minister began.

‘Yes, I’m very pleased.’

Cameron doubted if there was any point in bringing up the question of delay. He had enough understanding of politics to know it is useless to lose time and energy fighting issues that cannot possibly be won. Lost causes do not change the world.

‘You don’t sound as enthusiastic as I expected,’ went on the Minister.

‘I’m thinking of all the work that has to be done now. Spending money on a big scale isn’t easy.’

‘You know it would make my job easier—talking to the Cabinet—if I could really understand what you physics people are up to. Why d’you want this thing? I know you keep talking about the laws of physics but the laws of physics don’t mean much to the man in the street.’

‘There’s a basic contradiction, isn’t there, Minister?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well, we’re all being carried along in the river of life. It’s the same for the Cabinet, for the man in the street, for the physicist. As a politician you spend yourself navigating around rocks in the river bed. But the scientist says to himself: Why am I in this river? What is it anyway? Where has it come from? Where is it going to?’

‘But what’s the use of asking questions like that if you’re heading slap-bang for rapids ahead?’

‘No use at all. But then I might say: What’s the use of everybody trying to pilot the boat? That’s just about the quickest way to disaster.’

‘So you’re telling me it takes all sorts to make a world?’

‘Yes.’

‘But if I try to look at things from your point of view I ask myself: Why is it so important to carry out these experiments? I’ve read as best I can about this thing—what is it, magnetic something or other?’

‘Magnetic moment.’

‘That’s right—magnetic moment—and about time asymmetry. I accept that it’s hard to see the importance of this kind of thing from my position. What I’m trying to understand is why it’s important from your position.’

Cameron thought for a moment before replying.

‘Each item of discovery is not crucially important in itself,’ he began. ‘If you seek something specially critical in any discovery—like the magnetic moment of the muon being the same as the electron—well, you’re looking in the wrong place.’

‘How d’you mean looking in the wrong place?’

‘I mean it isn’t so much the item of discovery that is important in itself as the process of discovery. Some things about the world we see clearly. Other things we see indistinctly through a veil. Still other things lie in shadow, completely hidden. It is the process of wrenching the veil apart which is of true importance to the scientist. The thrill—if you like to call it that—lies in seeing something for the first time.’

‘Like walking on the Moon for the first time.’

‘Yes, or like climbing a mountain for the first time. It is the irresistible urge to find out what lies beyond.’

‘Yet you wouldn’t set as great a store by walking on the Moon as you would by discovering some new physical law?’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because a new law would mean a big area of new territory still to be explored. To use a mundane analogy it would be like the difference between a vast oil strike and a comparatively small one.’

Cameron was suddenly aware that somehow he had contrived to eat his lunch without noticing it. Henry Mallinson was there standing behind his chair.

‘Ah, Henry is reminding me that we have work to do,’ the Minister remarked. ‘I think he has some other things to talk to you about.’

‘Other things?’

‘Yes, the world isn’t all made up of nuclear accelerators.’

Cameron remembered Mallinson saying something along the same lines. He bid goodbye to the Minister wondering what might be afoot, and indeed wondering just what the point of the lunch had been.

‘You made a great impression on the Minister,’ Mallinson remarked as he and Cameron walked back along Whitehall.

‘Is that good?’

‘Can’t do any harm. What was the topic if I may ask?’

‘Philosophy and the physicist, I suppose.’

‘You found him genuinely interested?’

‘Yes, I think so. But what was all this about other things?’

‘Let’s wait till we get back to the office.’

‘W. . .