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Half an hour later, Conrad and Money, Chang and themine s vice-director, a
woman named Mariella Fourleaf, were standing on the surface of the black
hole s confinement tube like pins stuck into a cushion, pointing every which
way. It was like the world s smallest, weirdest planette, and Conrad filed for
future reference the notion that planettes could be made cylindrical as well
as spherical. All you would need was a hollow diamond tube, much thinner than
this one, holding the neubles in a straight line, so they couldn t roll over
each other and slump into the spherical shape they would otherwise naturally
seek. Tube worlds? Hell, you could twist them into pretzels if you wanted to!
 The thing is, Conrad answered,  I can actuallysee it. You re telling me
it s smaller than a proton, and I know a proton s much smaller than an atom,
and an atom is much too small to see, and yet looking down between my feet I
can see a little black dot.
 Those are air molecules, Chang answered.  When the accident first occurred,
that thing sucked all the air out of this chamber. And there it still is,
clinging to the hole in a film. We came back in here with space suits and
grapples and magnetic bottles, catching the thing before it could hit the
wall, which would have been bad. If we really wanted to we could pry those
molecules off of there, but then they d want to expand again. It would cause
an explosion.
 It would cause worse than that, Money said, looking down warily between his
feet.  Those aren t air molecules anymore, my friend. Up against the hole, the
pressure is more than sufficient to collapse the molecules, collapse the
atoms, squeeze the electrons and protons together into single, electrically
neutral particles. What you ve got there, I m going to guess, is fifty
megatons of liquid neutronium. And if you let it out of jail, the outrush of
neutrons would be lethal for several kilometers in any direction. It s a good
thing you haven t tried this.
A decidedly unofficial, nongovernmental laugh escaped Conrad.  So you ve
succeeded after all, Mr. Chang. Wrap a diamond around it and you ve got the
very neuble you were trying to press. A little undersized, but what the
heck. 3
 Even if it s the right size, you still need to sheath the thing, sir, Money
said.  Wrap it in layers of monocrystalline diamond and woven nanotube. And
brickmail, which is an allotrope of carbon, basically a chain mail of
interlocked rings.
 I know what brickmail is, Conrad said.
From his funny vantage point on the other side of the tube, Money looked
almost like he was lying down. Flashing an apologetic look and a horizontal
shrug, he said,  Of course you do, sir. I forget your double life, sometimes.
Anyway, brickmail is strong shit, and layered with the other stuff it s
stronger still, and holds your neuble together.
Conrad nodded absently, thinking that he understood at least the gist of that
explanation. He wanted to crouch down, to lean over for a closer look at the
hypermass beneath him, but the gravity up next to the tube was a lot stronger
than it was a meter or two away, and he was reluctant to bring his center of
mass too close to it. Funny gravity fields like this were common causes of
injury and death. What he said was,  So, if we shoveled a gigaton of mine
tailings on top of that thing, would we crush it into an atom of the
appropriate size? A full neuble?
At this point, probably bored with the sound of voices other than his own,
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Leonard Chang piped up.  We can negotiate terms for the sale of this thing,
sir. Or you can accept it from me as a gift. . . .
Chang was on the other side of the tube from Money the two of them probably
couldn t see each other at all, just as Conrad couldn t see any more of
Mariella than the crazy image refracted around the rim of the tube, like a
heat mirage. But Money made a mocking face at the question, and apparently
Mariella could see it, because she laughed. Conrad fought down a smile of his
own and said,  Mr. Chang, whether you re brought up on charges has nothing to
do with whether I m interested in the results of your accident. You understand
this? Even if you hadn tmurdered me twice , you would still be in a lot of
potential trouble. What you really want to be is quiet, all right? Help me
forget that you exist.
 Er, I ll try, sir.
 There s a good fellow.
When Money had stopped sniggering, he resumed his lecture by saying,  To
compress that gigaton of matter into neutronium, sir, you d have to get it
very, very close to the hole. I m thinking you d need an antimatter explosion
anyway, though admittedly a smaller one.
 Hmm, Conrad said, considering that. Now he did crouch down, with little
effort but considerable care, to examine the dark speck down inside the tube.
It was a difficult object to see, because the light waves coming off it were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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