Atomic Alloys Amalgamated could always use a research technician. A man like Rosco Cawdor was sure of a job there. The security department hadn't been terribly keen. Cawdor had no living relatives. No one knew him. A few strands of circumstantial evidence were his only proof of identity. He was a brilliant scientist. His great reason d'etre was the new power sphere. It was his brain child, his creation. It looked like opening a whole new field of undreamt of nuclear research. The sphere could hold the secret of unlimited power. It could also hold unlimited danger.
The stranger arrived. He looked disconcertingly like Rosco. He said Rosco was not Rosco! He said a lot more . . . somebody disappeared!
They tested the power sphere. The all important cut-out fused together. The experiment went mad. The sphere was out of control.
Why could Rosco withstand fatal doses of radiation? Who was the stranger? Why did they look alike? What were they after? Could the power sphere be controlled before it destroyed the planet?
Release date:
June 30, 2014
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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THE man in front of the table looked at his interviewers with an expression not very far removed from a devoted heretic in front of the Inquisition. He was, in fact, applying for a research job with the Atomic Alloys Amalgamated. He had just entered the room. On the left of the table—on his left, that was—sat a gentleman, in front of whom was a small, neatly printed card, bearing the legend, ‘Personnel Officer, Vance de Vere’. Mr de Vere boasted thinning, curly hair on a forehead, the height of which seemed to increase every year. He had twinkling, dark eyes, a rather crimson complexion, which was partially due to over-indulgence in alcohol and nicotine, and an enormous handle-bar moustache. He was very much an ex-R.A.F. man. He belonged to a certain type, to a certain period. He belonged to an Air Force of an age that had moved into history. The ‘hero’ had degenerated somewhat, but there was still a lot to be said for Vance de Vere. He was still debonair, gay and devil-may-care, and being such a man himself, he fully justified his appointment as personnel officer because he could understand other men.
In the centre, as though symbolically occupying the position of greatest importance, sat Colonel Bellamy Carstairs-Tuttle. He described himself to those who didn’t know what he was as the ‘Security Sahib at Atomic Alloys—you know the place, big place!’ He liked to think of himself as the big man in the Big Place. He cracked the security whip and even the scientists and technicians jumped. He was peppery and choleric of disposition. His eyes were fierce and somewhat bloodshot. They stared from his head like two hard, glowing, blood-alley marbles, with which boys are so wont to play. He wore a mustard-and-cress tweed suit with long jacket and garish yellow bow tie that went with his mustardy character. He was a mixture of the ‘pukka sahib’ type, ‘horsey’ type, and iron, ‘top-security’ type. The blending was fairly equal. The third member of the Tribunal was a scientist.
His name was Dr. Percy Ponsonby and, even with a ‘handle’ like that, he could claim more letters after his name than in it. He was a Dr. of this-that-and-the-other; a Professor of this-that-and-the-other. He had written theses and published papers upon this-that-and-the-other. There was scarcely even the most remote society which had any connection with physics to whom he had not lectured and by whom he was not fully accredited. A man with a greater idea of his own self-esteem and importance it would be almost impossible to discover anywhere upon the face of the earth. Such were the group that now sat in judgment upon the application which had been handed to them by the man who called himself Rosco Cawdor.
Rosco was between five feet ten and five feet eleven in height. His shoulders were not slim, neither were they unduly broad. His chest measurements could have been anywhere between thirty-five, thirty-eight, perhaps, or even forty fully extended. He was neither fat nor slim, neither lightly built nor heavily built. He was a very average man, a very medium man, a very ordinary-looking man. He had no distinguishing features, no peculiarities. His hair was rather a nondescript colour, dressed in a rather nondescript way. His eyes were either grey or hazel, possibly brown, possibly a sort of mottled grey-black; it was almost as though they had the power to change colour as you looked at them. His arms, within the confines of his well fitting, obviously-off-the-peg suit, were well proportioned without being particularly muscular. The hands were inclined to the length and grace which one normally associates with the hands of a great musician or a master craftsman in any field, delicate and yet, at the same time, powerful hands.
His face was rather inclined to be flat and rounded, as though he had been produced in a mould. It had no sharply-defined contour anywhere. It was a very ordinary, very mundane, average face.
The three members of the employment tribunal were looking at him with something which could not have been very far removed from hostility.
Ponsonby was thinking, ‘he looks a nondescript type, not the sort of chap who would improve the tone of the place—Rosco Cawdor, can’t place him. Wasn’t one of my year, can’t have been notable anywhere, perhaps he went to one of the minor universities. I don’t think we shall want him, he’s not the type, he’d lower the tone of the place. Too ordinary.’
The Colonel was reading the form—there were a lot of things he didn’t like on the form. The man claimed no near relatives, at least there was no next-of-kin. There was only the flimsiest of evidence, and most of that circumstantial, as to where he’d said he’d come from. Of course, he had a birth certificate, but birth certificates could be ‘arranged’, entries could be altered or forged if enough money changed hands—a birth certificate alone is no proof of identity. One or two master forgers in the right offices can do wonders about providing a spy with a birth certificate. A dead man’s identity can always be taken over if that man dies abroad somewhere. The security Colonel knew that there are a hundred and one ways in which the paper evidence that testified to the identity of Rosco Cawdor could be, and possibly had been, in his opinion, faked.
The ex-R.A.F. man looked at him, and didn’t particularly like what he saw. There was nothing outstanding, nothing flashy about the man. He was quietly dressed. He stood in a quiet manner, he didn’t gesticulate when he spoke. He seemed somehow an emotionless cod-fish of a man, and yet—and yet—thought the mighty-moustached de Vere, there may be something about the fellow. Perhaps he’s one of these strong, silent types; maybe we ought to just give him a chance. Personnel Officers usually choose that line of country, because they have innate human sympathies. They can see potential good and evil where some other members of the Board do not. Wondering just how much weight he pulled, Vance de Vere hadn’t very much hope of getting Mr. Rosco Cawdor the position for which he applied.
But there was a streak of sympathy in de Vere, trying to swing the scale in the favour of the newcomer, swing it at least, insofar as to get him a fair hearing. If there was anything in him, give him a chance to bring it out. But how?
The Board had asked a number of pertinent questions, and now they were on the point of asking Cawdor to withdraw while they made a decision, and then he would be re-called and informed of that decision. It was now or never, thought de Vere, if he was going to do anything to assist Cawdor. He turned quickly past the security colonel and whispered behind his hand to Ponsonby.
“Why not ask him a few scientific questions, see if he’s really on his toes?”
“Don’t think he’s our man at all,” returned Ponsonby.
“Go on,” urged de Vere, “you never know. Appearances can be very deceptive, you know.”
“All right, than,” agreed Ponsonby.
De Vere knew exactly how to handle Ponsonby, “you’re one of the leading experts in your field in the country. If you can’t stump him he must be a pretty good chap.”
“Well—if you put it that way,” said Ponsonby; de Vere could almost see his head expanding! “All right, then.”
“I don’t like the fellow,” whispered the Colonel, “if he’s the best scientist in the country, I still don’t think we ought to employ him.”
“I’ve decided to give him a chance,” declared Ponsonby, “you can leave the security clearance till afterwards, if you don’t agree to our decision. I haven’t said we’re going to have him, we’re only going to test him.”
“You don’t think that,” protested the Colonel, “de Vere thinks that: de Vere’d give the devil himself a chance!”
“I do not blindly follow de Vere’s suggestions, unless they are in a line with what I myself am thinking,” snapped Ponsonby, tartly. “Be so kind, my dear Colonel, as to confine your interests to your field at this interview and allow me to manage mine!”
Tuttle ‘Hhrrmpph-ed’ under his breath, and glowered at the subject of the interview.
“I am going to ask you one or two questions, my good man,” said Ponsonby. “Would you be willing to undergo an oral scientific examination? At the moment we have not reached any kind of decision, of course. We are making notes as you answer, and these notes will be compared in a discussion about your application. But it would be most valuable, bot. . .
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