Time Crystal

I’m really not happy with my voice. I don’t feel it’s engaging or colourful. It’s stilted, dry, terse, functional, monochrome, flat, toneless, dull, boring. I wish I could write about TC as well as I can criticise myself. It would be a masterpiece.

Reading Frank & Wall’s ‘Finding Your Writer’s Voice’ (St Martin’s Griffin1994) I stumble across the words ‘by following the voice and surrendering to it…’

Following? Surrendering! First you have to hear it. I can’t hear it, this voice that’s supposed to be inside me.

I hear John Lennon telling me to ‘turn off your mind, relax, float down stream’ and ’surrender to the voice’. It’s been a long time since I was in that sort of state, way back in the sixties. I gradually realise that I need to be father to myself. I have to believe that there is a child inside my, a real voice, a person capable of expressing himself with passion and conviction, with spontaneity and ‘urgency’ (Frank & Wall’s term). I have to give birth to this child, the communicator inside me who was never allowed to grow and develop when I was a physical child. Emotionally I’m still a child, and I need to give that child space to express and learn how to speak. I need to listen to the voice. I need to stop trying to tell the story, but to wait and give the story time to tell itself. I need to give the characters space, time, love. They are my children, and they need love and care, not constant demands to perform.

So much for what I need. What I actually DO is a different question.

I’m thinking about changing what Sam sees when he looks through a crystal.

So far he’s had to look hard to see out of the other end (crystals on time-frozen Earth). He had to look into the very centre of the crystal faces in his cave, and even then the view was very small and far away.

I’m re-writing Chapter 6 where Alex looks into the crystal Maria has just given him and I’m seeing Alex’ eye as huge, looking into the little crystal. So now I’m thinking that Sam sees each object as huge. This would make it obvious that Sam is much smaller than they are.

But then I would have to go back and re-write the earlier chapters. How can Sam see out of the cave? Maybe he would only see through the gaps as Michael shakes the network. Once the walls have closed, Sam cannot see out. That would make sense.

How many more times do I have to re-write this thing before I get it right?

In this, the very first Time Crystal Podcast, a weary Phil Brown plays part of an interview conducted by SuperSonicFM Radio during National Science and Engineering Week in March 2008, and he reads the first page of Time Crystal.

In order to create this he had to re-write page one, since reading it revealed the poor quality of the existing version. He also had to find the right music. It’s Time (Keeps Slipping Away) by Ian James, NeNe, Angela Pirrotta from the album ‘World Funk Rhythm & Blues Vol.1′ on Blue FX Records.

SuperSonicFM was a week-long project run by teacher Paul Wilby and produced using the talents of English Martyrs’ School students in Leicester.

Download the podcast here or use the link on the right to subscribe via iTunes, WinAmp etc.

I’m tempted to create a graphic novel version of Time Crystal and publish it here, at least the first chapter, to see if I can get more readers.

At present (16 April 2008) this web site gets most of its readers from the history of the universe web site. In the past 7 days it received an average of 14 visitors a day who viewed on average 1.5 pages each.

I produced a graphic version of the novel in 2007, but it rapidly got out of date as the story was re-written.

I wonder how long it would take to produce some more images? I’ll spend an hour on it.

This is what I produced after an hour’s work.

The long fragments of blue crystal were all moving and shaking. Yawning gaps opened between them, then slammed closed with thuds that rang like the beating of hammers. The crystal on which Sam Fitzpatrick lay rose like a bucking bronco and he was airborne. A million constellations of pink planets orbited overhead. A distant pink ocean swam beneath him as he hurtled across the cave towards one wall. Oh God, he thought, this is going to hurt.

Not sure whether it’s worth an hour, for each paragraph, and whether it would make anyone read it.

Got stuck producing the image of Michael bending for the second paragraph, so gave up.

I decide to put that as the front page as a trial.

Also added this and a picture of Michael into Chapter 1.

Warning: this post reveals parts of the story that will appeal to geeks, but it reveals things that some readers might regard as story spoilers.

I’m writing this post as an aid to my thinking as much as for reader’s information. I’ve just started editing Chapter 6, rewriting the work I wrote in spring 2007.

I’m trying to finalise the laws of time-crystallography. Physicists use ‘crystallography’ to mean the science of how crystals form and what structures they take. I use time-crystallography to mean what Sam and other characters can see when they look down a Time Crystal, how Time Crystals in the Macroverse communicate with Crystals on Earth, how the whole thing works.

One of the problems (or you might say the benefits) of writing this story is that I get to decide these rules. It’s a bit like creating the laws of physics for a new universe, only not so difficult. Part of the problem is that I want the scenario to be physically credible and internally consistent. If I’ve understood the folks in the Coventry Writer’s Group, they think you don’t need to be credible or consistent when writing children’s fiction. They say that children will just accept anything. Fill_Up_With_Silence says much the same thing. I guess this means I’m aiming at the adult audience.

This is the spoiler. Essentially Time Crystals are linked to each other, and to Crystals in the Macroverse, by anti-energy strings. That is what holds open the Time Tunnel and allows people to see and hear through Crystals. Each fragment that makes up his cave wall is linked to one of the Time Crystals.

I’m grappling with the problem of how much Sam can see while looking through a Crystal. Flo Swann said that she first understood the time bubble idea when she saw an image of the inside of the bubble as being in colour and the outside as being in black and white. I’m thinking of using this idea and letting Sam see things outside the bubble. (You see how useful it is to have readers comment on your work? Thank you, Flo!)

So my problem is, how can Sam see outside a time bubble if the character holding crystal fragment cannot? It’s not consistent. From the author’s point of view, it would be handy in the early stages of the story if he could see outside, since it would give him greater knowledge than people on Earth, so adding to their sense of him as an angel.

I thought that he might be able to see outside by looking slightly off-centre as he looks into the crystals in his cave wall. Essentially looking down a crystal for Sam is like looking down the wrong end of a telescope. He can see and hear things on Earth. They look small and sound faint, as if they are very far away. He has to look straight down the centre of is crystals to see them. If he looks off-centre he sees and hears nothing.

Or maybe looking into a crystal is a bit like looking into a kaleidoscope? As he tilts his head he sees out of different faces of the crystal? (Twisting his head instead of twisting the collar of the kaleidoscope. Just thought of that. How useful it is to write this blog!)

But the time bubble would still get in the way.

More spoilers. The visual opacity of the bubble is caused by ionisation of the air, at the surface where time stops. Francesco Romani will explain this later in Volume 1. But the real problem is that time is frozen outside a time bubble, so radiation cannot travel outside, so Sam cannot see things outside. How to get round that? I think I (and the reader) must accept that he can, even though it’s physically inconsistent. The same thing applies when he looks into historical crystals. They have frozen time instead of creating it, for example the frozen cow, but he can see through them all right. So I will ignore the issue of how photons travel without time. Or perhaps I can actually find a plausible explanation, since time works differently for photons.

So the only remaining problem is how he can see beyond the time bubble barrier. I doodled using Flash to produce this image:

Each of the crystal shards that make up Sam’s cave (bottom) is linked to a different fragment on the frozen Earth and in history (top). Also each of these is linked to two others (except the End Fragment).

Note that originally there was only one crystal that Sam could look down, and he could see all the other fragments by looking into it from different angles. (This whole scenario has been through MANY iterations!) That was simpler, but the idea of Sam being inside a cave made of many shards has complicated the picture. At present I imagine the whole bundle of red strings being bundled together with the black strings and lying inside the Time Tunnel like some sort of fibre-optic. That’s consistent with how the crystal machine worked before Michael broke it.

Now I need to work out

1. how to communicate this model visually to the reader
2. how Sam can see out of the time bubble that surrounds each fragment (top in diagram)

And so my problems get worse instead of better.

Well problem 1 is a matter of writing skills.

I solved problem 2 while cleaning my teeth after breakfast. I stood up and swayed about a bit, and realised that Sam might see different things as his head moved closer to the crystal, like moving in and out of different focal planes. When he leans forward towards a crystal he sees more.

Maria awoke screaming with pain spreading slowly round into her back. It’s another contraction, she thought and began the breathing exercise they had taught her in the antenatal classes. As she relaxed she felt another pain, sharper and more worrying, stabbing into her abdomen. Something’s wrong. Very wrong.

She tried to feel her bump but her right arm would not move. Nor would her left. She opened her eyes and peeped out through the orange stretcher cover. Her arms were still held down by the enfolding plastic flaps. The firefighter, Robert, was still hanging beside her. She could see his grey uniform and the tangle of straps surrounding his chest. We must still be in the cavern.

The contraction tightened, the stabbing pain bit deeper and suddenly she remembered the blue thing hitting her. She remembered it very vividly. First there was a blue flash, then something pinged as it bounced off the huge beam pipe shield overhead. It came flying down and just missed Robert’s helmet. It hit me. Hit my bump. There was an unbelievable pain. I must have passed out.

We don’t seem to be moving. ‘What’s happening, Robert?’ she gasped, hardly able to speak from the pain.

He did not answer. She could not even see his face. His head and shoulders were hidden by a shifting green, red and black pattern. It glowed so brightly it made her squint. I must be having some kind of migraine. After the stress of this morning it’s not surprising.

She closed her eyes. Won’t be able to see anything clearly until it’s gone off. By then I should be in the hospital. My real problem is the pain. Robert can’t do anything about that. She sighed and realised how exhausted she was. Didn’t sleep much last night. That’s your fault, Liebling, she told the baby. Pity Daddy couldn’t come with us to the antenatal clinic this morning. I know he really wanted to, but he felt he just had to lead the ATLAS start-up shift. And then he had to come down and fix the fault.

I told him to go home. ‘You need some sleep,’ I said. The visitors had gone into the Electronics Room to see Michael. ‘You can’t work all night and all day.’

‘I can’t go home, Maria. I’ve got to help Michael Zhang.’ He looked so tired. Mind you, those white lights in the southern cavern would make anyone look ill.

‘Can’t somebody else do it?’

‘What, somebody like José Rodriguez, you mean? This problem started on my shift. It won’t look good if I just go home. The interview’s next week, remember?’

That’s your Daddy all over. He has to prove he’s the best. She breathed more slowly as the pain of the contraction died away. Thinking about Danny was helping her relax. I hope you’re not going to be born a worrier like him. Be more like me, Liebling. I didn’t want to tell him about it at first, but when Daddy asked me what happened at the clinic I just said ‘Please don’t worry about that now, Danny.’ Stupid girl! That set him off straight away.

‘Worry? What about?’

‘Everything’s okay, Schatz, except–’

‘Except? Except what?’

‘He’s breech, that’s all.’ I took his hand. ‘Now please don’t let’s talk about it now, Schatzling.’

‘But what does that mean, Maria? What is breech?’ It was obviously one of the English words Daddy didn’t know.

‘It just means his head is pointing up,’ I said. ‘It should be down by now, that’s all. He’s sort of sitting cross-legged.’

‘But isn’t that serious?’ he said.

‘No darling, it’s not at all serious. Come here. You haven’t given me a kiss yet.’

But even that didn’t relax him. When I told him the doctor wanted us to encourage you to turn, Daddy looked puzzled.

‘Encourage him?’

‘Hmmm.’

‘How are we going to do that?’

‘Well that’s where you come in, mein Schatz.’

‘Me? What have I got to do with it?’

Maria stopped talking to the baby as she remembered what happened next.

‘What you have to do…’ I began to giggle, pulled his hand down and rubbed it gently over the crotch of my trousers. ‘What the doctor wants you to do is to shine a light down here and, well, sing…’

‘You are joking, I hope?’ he said, glancing nervously at the Electronics Room door.

‘Oh come on, Danny. It’ll be fun. Give me a cuddle.’ She pressed his fingers into her groin. ‘Hmm, I wish we could start right now. I’m beginning to throb.’

Danny withdrew his hand. ‘Look, Maria, we’ll have to talk about this. Meet me in the–’ He broke off as a low-pitched warning hum began to tremble along the corridor. That was the start of it. The start of the disaster.

She glanced up out of the stretcher. The strange, coloured pattern was still there. It didn’t look like any migraine she had ever had before, but today was unlike any day she had ever lived through.

‘Robert,’ she called, louder than before. ‘What’s happening?’

The long enormous fragments of blue crystal were all moving and shaking. Yawning gaps opened between them, then slammed closed with thuds that rang like the beating of hammers. The crystal on which Sam Fitzpatrick lay rose like a bucking bronco and he was airborne. A million constellations of pink planets orbited overhead. A distant pink ocean swam beneath him as he hurtled across the cave towards one wall. Oh God, he thought, this is going to hurt.

He caught a distant glimpse of the object that was causing this chaos. A gigantic white body, oval as an airship, was bending and thrashing from side to side, was like a monstrous fly in a spiders web. Its futile efforts to escape were shaking the whole vast crystal network. The monumental face carved on one end was distorted by a furious scowl. The gondola that hung below the other end in the shape of a man’s private parts was swinging about violently. The little arms and legs which stuck out the sides where grabbing and kicking the crystals which enclosed and trapped it.

Mercifully, the jacket of Sam’s new Marks and Spencer suit flapped across his face, hiding the horrible sight, just before his head crashed into the wall, followed by the crumpled mass of his bruise-covered body. He began to slide down, then the wall hammered sideways and he was thrown into the air once more. He landed heavily, bounced twice across the flat shiny floor and slithered rapidly towards a gap that was opening between floor and wall, like a mouth ready to swallow him. In a moment of horrible anticipation, Sam imagined himself being cut in half as the gap snapped closed. The two parts of himself would go falling and tumbling into that ocean far below. There was no way he could save himself.

Then he heard a voice, deep as an ocean, call ‘Samuel!’ and a moment later the cave stopped shaking. Just in time the wall came crashing down to join the floor and Sam slid up its sloping surface before turning and heading back down. He glided gently across the floor, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.

‘Get up, Samuel,’ Michael said, his voice rolling across the sky like thunder.

Sam ignored him. He lay on his back waiting for his heart to stop pounding, knowing that at any moment the shaking could start again. Above him, layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. Over them arched the black dome of the sky dotted with millions of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, Sam thought, it’s certainly not the Earth.

‘I know you can hear me, Samuel,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up! We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’

Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.

He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness Sam could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a gigantic insect. Their feet rested on a horizontal mesh of crystal tubes which encircled the planet like a web woven by a swarm of drunken spiders.

The whole network was several miles thick and Sam was in the middle of it. It was suspended between hundreds of huge blue crystal cylinders, like the canopy of a rain forest. These pipes dwindled away into the pink ocean far below.

From this height the ocean looked as smooth as a billiard ball. Its only visible feature was a long oval shadow, bending with the curvature of the planet. Sam looked down and shivered again, imagining what would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap. He remembered vividly how that jelly had felt on his face: cold, slimy and suffocating. If he fell from this height–

‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say.

Sam turned to see Michael’s gigantic oval body hanging, white and bloated, enclosed by the blue web. He was surrounded by a mass of crystal shards. They joined together to form a strong mesh, a delicate net trapping a whale. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him, the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’

‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang, after everything you’ve done–’

‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’

‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’

Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’

Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a monster?

‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then I will shake this tree until you fall out of your little nest.’

It took Sam a moment to work out what he meant. ‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a mercy.’

‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about your wife and family?’

Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his step-daughter’s face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’

‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to help me or not?’

‘Is Catriona still alive?’

‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’

Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could, terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.

‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.

Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens of blue crystal shards.

‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.

As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing. He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head, where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was the one that Michael had smashed.

‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’

Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard. What was it?

Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they had been hit several times.

It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth. At the sight of it Sam’s heart stopped beating for a second, then started again with a such a thump he almost fell over. This was beyond his wildest hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.

A dozen thoughts crowded into Sam’s mind as he stared at it. How could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he clearly was not on the Earth? Was he having a heart attack? If Michael knew everything, why was he asking Sam to look down these crystals? Sam could not solve any of these puzzles. He began looking quickly into the other crystals.

In one he saw a yellow metal girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished. How was it possible–

‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was palpable.

‘I think I can see the cavern.’

‘Call me Lord.’

‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’

‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’

Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.

‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.

‘No.’

‘Have you looked through every crystal?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You must look into all of them.’

Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet, wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically. It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he heard a woman scream.

The jacket of Sam Fitzpatrick’s new Marks and Spencer suit flapped around his ears as he flew, head over heels, across the crystal cave. Oh God, Sam thought, this is going to hurt. Through the transparent walls he could see the black sky above and pink ocean below spinning rapidly around him. Sam felt nauseous. Between the black and the pink lay the thick layer of blue crystal he was trapped inside. It curved around the planet, fading into the horizon.

Then his head smashed painfully into the cave and the rest of his limp body crumpled itself against the hard, polished surface. Then the wall moved away from him and for a moment he hung in space. Every crystal that made up this cavity was moving and shaking violently. Yawning gaps opened between them, then slammed closed with thuds that rang like the beating of hammers.

He caught a distant glimpse of the object that was causing this disturbance. A gigantic shape, oval as an airship, large as an ocean liner, trapped by a mass of blue crystal shards, like a monstrous fly in a spiders web. It shook the whole vast crystal network as it thrashed about in its futile effort to escape.

Then the wall thumped him in the back and he was airborne once more. He landed heavily, bounced twice across the flat shiny floor and slithered rapidly towards a gap that was opening between floor and wall, like a mouth ready to swallow him. Far below he saw the pink ocean. In a moment of horrible anticipation, Sam could imagine himself being cut in half as the gap snapped closed. He saw the two parts of himself falling and tumbling into that ocean far below. There was no way he could save himself.

Then he heard somebody shout ‘Samuel!’ and at the same moment the shaking of the web suddenly ceased. Just in time the wall came crashing down to join the floor and Sam slid up its sloping surface before turning and heading back down. He glided gently across the floor, trembling and breathless, battered and bruised, but still alive.

‘Get up, Samuel,’ he heard Michael say.

Sam ignored him. He lay on his back waiting for his heart to stop pounding, knowing that at any moment the shaking could start again. Above him, layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. Over them arched the black dome of the sky dotted with millions of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, Sam thought, it’s certainly not the Earth.

‘I know you can hear me, Samuel,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up! We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’

Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.

He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness Sam could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a gigantic insect. Their feet rested on a horizontal mesh of crystal tubes which encircled the planet like a web woven by a swarm of drunken spiders.

The whole network was several miles thick and Sam was in the middle of it. It was suspended between hundreds of huge blue crystal cylinders, like the canopy of a rain forest. These pipes dwindled away into the pink ocean far below.

From this height the ocean looked as smooth as a billiard ball. Its only visible feature was a long oval shadow, bending with the curvature of the planet. Sam looked down and shivered again, imagining what would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap. He remembered vividly how that jelly had felt on his face: cold, slimy and suffocating. If he fell from this height–

‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say.

Sam turned to see Michael’s gigantic oval body hanging, white and bloated, enclosed by the blue web. Sam could see two tiny arms and legs sticking out of his smooth curving flanks like fins. A gondola hung down near the back in the shape of a man’s private parts. A monumental face was carved on the front like a ship’s figure-head. It belonged unmistakably to Michael Zhang.

He was surrounded by a mass of crystal shards. They joined together to form a strong mesh, a delicate strong net trapping a whale. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him, the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’

‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang, after everything you’ve done–’

‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’

‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought, but now you’ve gone totally insane.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick. You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding. Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’

Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out, including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you know all this?’

‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’

Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body trapped in the crystal network, helpless, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a monster?

‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then when I get free from these crystals I will destroy you.’

‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a mercy.’

‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about your wife and family?’

Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his step-daughter’s face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’

‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to help me or not?’

‘Is Catriona still alive?’

‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’

Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could, terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.

‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.

Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens of blue crystal shards.

‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.

As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing. He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head, where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was the one that Michael had smashed.

‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’

Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard. What was it?

Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they had been hit several times.

It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth. At the sight of it Sam’s heart leaped. This was beyond his wildest hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.

Sam felt a strong mixture of apprehension and excitement. How could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he clearly was not on the Earth? He longed to see more. He began to glance quickly into the other crystals. In one he saw a yellow metal girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished. How was it possible–

‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was palpable.

‘I think I can see the cavern.’

‘Call me Lord.’

‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’

‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’

Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.

‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.

‘No.’

‘Have you looked through every crystal?’

‘Not yet.’

‘You must look into all of them.’

Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet, wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically. It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he heard a woman scream.

Maria awoke with pain throbbing in her abdomen. Instinctively
she tried to feel the baby but her right arm wouldn’t move. Then she
remembered. There was a blue flash. Something had flown up from
below, very fast. It had hit the beam pipe shield overhead, making a
pinging sound. It had bounced off and come flying down, missing
Robert’s helmet, and hit her bump, where the baby was. There had
been an unbelievable pain. I must have passed out, she thought.
She tried to move her left arm but that was stuck too. She guessed
they were being held by the enfolding plastic flaps of the orange
stretcher cover. Was she still in the cavern, or had they reached the
helicopter while she was unconscious? She didn’t seem to be
moving. She opened her eyes.

The firefighter, Robert, was still hanging beside her. She could see
his grey uniform and the tangle of straps and ropes surrounding his
chest. They must still be in the cavern, but all she could see was a
faint green, red and black pattern. It was shifting about, the green
and black areas growing and shrinking, the red bands moving
sideways. I must be having a migraine, she thought. After all the
stress of this morning it was not surprising to get one. This didn’t
look like the normal flickering migraine pattern, but then it was very
dark in this cavern.

She closed her eyes, her anxiety growing, and waited for the
migraine to go away. She would not be able to see anything clearly
until it had gone off. They usually lasted an hour or so. By then she
should be in the hospital. Her real problem was the pain in her
abdomen, where the baby was. Robert couldn’t help with that.
She began breathing deeply, trying to relax. She was exhausted.
She hadn’t slept much last night, worrying about what the doctor
would say this morning at the antenatal clinic. Danny couldn’t go
with her; he had been working all night on the ATLAS start-up shift.
She had known there was something wrong with the baby even
before she went to the clinic. She hadn’t said anything to Danny
about it of course. He had enough to worry about with his job.
As she thought about the morning’s events, Maria felt herself relax.
She began to think about them in detail, trying to forget about the
delay in getting to the hospital. And it will be good to remember
what happened today, she thought. I want to tell you all about it
when you grow into a big boy. She breathed deeply and sank into a
reverie.

What the doctor told her had not been as bad as she had feared, but
he kept her talking and she was late getting to work. All she wanted
now was to go and see Danny and tell him the news, but the Director
General, Francesco Romani, was waiting to go into the Globe of
Innovation, so she had to park in the visitor’s car park and hurry
across the road to unlock the gate. Normally she would have worried
about being late, but this morning she had too many other things on
her mind.

Romani had introduced her to a VIP, the Irish Ambassador Brigit
Fitzpatrick and her husband and daughter. Maria had known there
was something wrong with the Ambassador’s daughter as soon as
she saw Catriona. Her wild ginger hair, the surly expression on her
pretty face and her whole demeanour showed she was full of teenage
angst.

The girl’s worries became manifest while Maria was giving her
welcoming speech in the centre of the circular wooden hall, with
everyone gathered to listen.

‘On behalf of the European Organization for Nuclear Research I
would like to welcome you all to the Globe of Innovation. This
exhibition shows you how the discoveries made here at CERN are
bringing benefits to the lives of people all over the world.’

She had just begun to repeat herself in French when Maria heard
Catriona say ‘Oh how lovely,’ in a stage-whisper.

Sam hissed ‘Shh’.

‘So you think everything they do here is good, do you Sam?’ the
girl said, speaking even louder. ‘No dangers or risks to anyone, eh?’

‘No, I mean yes, I do.’ Sam glanced at Maria, obviously
embarrassed.

She ignored them and began speaking in English again. ‘From the
invention of the World Wide Web, to improvements in medical
devices such as PET scanners, a wide range of discoveries made here
have improved the quality of all of our lives.’

‘But what about the risks?’ Catriona said so loudly that Maria
stopped speaking and everyone turned to look at her. Francesco
Romani was staring at her with a surprised expression, and the look
her mother gave her could have set her hair on fire.

Catriona made no more comments during the rest of the speech and
afterward Maria went over to speak to her.

She heard Sam say ‘What on Earth do you think you’re doing? No,
don’t tell me. I get it. You’re trying to embarrass your Mum and
make her send you home in–’

Maria hadn’t time to wait. She wanted to go and talk to Danny as
soon as possible. ‘Excuse me, she said. ‘I understand you have
some strong opinions about what we do here at CERN?’

‘I’m so sorry about this,’ Sam said, blushing slightly. ‘She’s very
upset about something else and is just using–’

‘Please don’t apologise,’ Maria said. ‘She is perfectly entitled to
her opinions.’ She turned to Catriona. ‘I’d just like the chance to talk
to you about them, if you don’t mind?’

‘No, no, I’d…I’d be glad to talk,’ Catriona stammered. She looked
embarrassed, but also defiant. ‘Is it true that you might create a black
hole here?’

‘Yes,’ Maria said. ‘We might create a micro black hole, if we’re
very lucky.’

‘But isn’t that dangerous? I saw a black hole in a movie once and
it swallowed this man. I think it’s really scary.’ There was a little
tremor of fear in her voice, but Maria couldn’t decide whether it was
real or just added for dramatic effect. The girl looked like a bit of an
actress, with that bright green blouse and the ring in her nose.

‘Now calm down Catty,’ Sam said.

‘Well of course we don’t know exactly what is going to happen,’
Maria said. ‘If we did there’d be no point in doing the experiment.
But I can assure you, there’s no danger. The risks involved have
been very carefully assessed.’

‘But how?’ Catriona said. ‘How can you assess something when
you don’t know what’s going to happen?’

‘I’m not a scientist so I can’t go into detail,’ Maria said, as she
always did when people asked this question, ‘but the idea is that we
use evidence from cosmic rays.’

‘Oh really?’ Sam sounded fascinated.

‘Cosmic what?’ Catriona looked confused.

‘Cosmic rays. Look, I’ll show you.’ Maria led them to a poster that
showed dots and squiggles coming down through the Earth’s
atmosphere. ‘Cosmic rays come from outer space. Millions of them
are hitting the Earth every second. In fact they’re passing through
your body right now, and the point is that some of them have far, far
greater energy than any of the particles we use here.’

Catriona shivered. ‘I’ve never heard about this before.’ She
sounded genuinely worried now.

‘And are those cosmic rays exactly the same as the particles you’re
using?’ Sam asked.

‘Yes, most of them are protons, the same as in the LHC. Actually
there are other things in cosmic rays beside protons but nevertheless–’

‘But what I want to know is,’ Catriona butted in, ‘if you create a
black hole then surely it could absorb stuff? Like even the whole
planet?’

Maria turned to her calmly and smiled. ‘But if that was going to
happen it would have happened already, with these cosmic rays.
They’ve been hitting the Earth for thousands of millions of years,
with far more energy than any we can make, without creating any
black holes, so I don’t think we’ll create one today. And do you
really think I would bring my baby here if there were any danger?’
Catriona glanced at the bulge hanging out of her gaping navy
jacket, stared straight into Maria’s eyes for a long moment, then
shrugged. ‘I guess not.’
Maria glanced up out of the stretcher. The strange, coloured
pattern was still there. She sighed, closed her eyes and tried to relax.
How ironic that the little Irish girl had been right about the black
hole while the world’s best scientists had been completely wrong.
She wondered why nobody had ever predicted that ATLAS might
capture a cosmic monopole, but then perhaps it wasn’t so surprising
since she had never even heard of a monopole before this morning.
Even now she knew very little about it. She breathed deeply, trying
to remember when she first heard about it.
She had escorted Sam and Catriona from the Globe to the ATLAS
Control Building. When she got there Alex told her that Francesco
and Madame Fitzpatrick had already gone into the Control Room.
She had left the two visitors with him while she went through to see
Danny, but wasn’t in the Control Room.

The went to ask the shift leader, the dark-haired French woman
Seline Soubise, where he was. Soubise must have taken over when
Danny’s shift ended. With her usual sour expression, Soubise told
her that there was a fault with the Muon Spectrometer and that
Danny and Michael Zhang had gone down into the USA15 cavern.
Then Francesco Romani came over. ‘I am taking Madame
Fitzpatrick down to see Michael Zhang,’ he said, his fat red face
beaming. ‘Please collect her famiglia and bring them to the lift.’
Maria got the impression from the twinkle in his eye that Romani
was up to something, probably trying to get money out of Ireland,
but Maria was happy since it meant she would soon see her husband.
She hurried back to collect Sam and Catriona. They were sitting
before a computer screen beside a young man in a bright yellow shirt
with designer sun-glasses perched on his thick black hair. Typical
Alex Karolyi, Maria thought. Dressed for the beach on a cold April
day in Switzerland. The two guests were staring at his computer
screen and laughing. Curious, Maria walked closer and saw a
simulated aeroplane fly through the middle of ATLAS.

‘So that shows you how big ATLAS is,’ Alex was saying.
Catriona seemed to be enjoying herself now. Maria watched her.
Had she fallen under Alex’s spell too? Maria had never met a
woman who didn’t have strong feelings about him, one way or the
other, so why not this teenage girl? ‘I’m sorry to spoil the party,’
Maria said, ‘but there’s a fault with the Muon Spectrometer.
Danny’s gone–’

‘Are you sure it’s a fault?’ Alex had said. ‘I know there are a lot of
missing energy events but I thought the cosmic ray had kicked off
something big.’

‘Cosmic ray?’ Maria said in surprise. ‘What cosmic ray?’

‘You haven’t seen it?’ Alex clicked the Mercator menu, entered a
number he had scribbled on a bit of paper and the record of an event
appeared on the screen, blue lines curving and spiralling inside
ATLAS. ‘This happened just after half-past nine.’ He zoomed out to
reveal a thick curved track with lots of short tracks coming off it.
Maria wasn’t a Mercator expert but even she could see how odd the
track looked, like a wide tapering strand of hairy wool.

‘I’ve never seen an event with this much energy,’ Alex said. ‘It
was only after this that all these missing energy events started. The
only explanation I can think of is that some sort of cosmic particle
was trapped by ATLAS.’

‘Seline didn’t mention it,’ Maria said. ‘I wonder if Danny knows
about this?’

Alex clicked the menu again. ‘I don’t think so. The only person
who has ever accessed this StoreGate record apart from me is
Michael Zhang.’

‘Hmm. I suppose he would have told Danny.’

‘Might have, might not. Michael’s in a world of his own most of
the time.’

‘True. I think you should let Danny know about it,’ Maria said.

‘Have you finished here?’

‘Yes, Mercator’s working fine now,’ he said, picking up the paper
then standing and stretching. His refined, musky smell reached her,
taking her back to that night on his boat late last summer. She felt
herself blushing at the memory of it but Alex did not seem to notice.

‘I’ll send you the bill when I get back to Budapest,’ he yawned and
waved the piece of paper. ‘I’ll just take this through to the Control
Room.’

‘No, Danny’s gone underground with Michael Zhang to check
ATLAS, and Professor Romani is taking Madame Fitzpatrick down
to see him.’

Alex gave her the paper. ‘Better give him this then. Tell him
that’s the StoreGate key.’

‘Actually that’s why I’ve come back,’ Maria said. ‘He’s invited
Catriona and Mr. Fitzpatrick to go down as well.’

Catriona went pale. ‘Is that…Will it be safe?’

‘Oh come on, Catty,’ Sam said quickly. ‘Don’t start that again.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Alex frowned.

‘Catriona’s afraid we’re going to all get sucked into a black hole,’
Maria said.

Catriona looked embarrassed. ‘Well I was sort-of worried when
we first got here and I found out you were trying to create a black
hole.’ She was talking very quickly, facing Alex but looking down at
the desk. ‘But then Maria explained that it was safe because of these
cosmic rays and everything.’

‘Cosmic rays?’ Alex looked mystified.

‘I explained that our protons have far less energy than many
cosmic rays. Come on, folks. Time to go.’

Sam and Catriona stood up.

Alex was looking at the screen. ‘You’re right, of course, but by the
look of that track I’d say we’ve somehow captured an ultra-highenergy
cosmic particle. But nothing bad’s happened, has it, Kata?
We haven’t created a black hole, have we? I think you’ll find you’re
safe enough.’

‘So, just a minute,’ Sam said to Alex. ‘You’re saying that ATLAS
captured a high energy cosmic ray?’

‘That’s what I think, Mr. Fitzpatrick.’

‘And you’re saying,’ Sam turned to Maria, ‘that afterwards ATLAS
developed some sort of hardware fault?’

‘Apparently,’ Maria said.

‘So has the cosmic ray damaged ATLAS?’ He was looking from
one to the other.

‘I’d say that’s possible,’ Alex said. ‘What do you think, Maria?’

‘All I know is that Danny and Michael have gone down to check a
fault. Nobody said anything about any damage. Come on now,
please.’

She led the guests towards the door. Alex stood and followed.

‘I’d quite like to go down and see what they’ve found,’ Alex said.

‘Would you mind if I come with you, Maria?’

Maria shook her head. ‘No, I don’t mind, but we’ve got to go now.
Professor Romani and Madam Fitzpatrick are waiting for us in SDX.
Here, you want to look after this?’ She gave him back the piece of
paper.

‘Come on then, little Kata, let’s you and I stick together.’ Alex
looped his arm through Catriona’s. ‘Then if the scientists do create a
black hole, it will have to absorb both of us.’

She turned pink with pleasure and Maria heard Mr. Fitzpatrick give
a sort of snort as he followed them through the door.

‘Get up, Samuel,’ Michael said.
Sam ignored him. He lay on his back trying to work out where he
was. Layer upon layer of transparent blue polygons overlapped
above him, crossed and twisted at crazy angles. They must be solid
objects, Sam thought, but their transparency made it impossible to
work out their shape.
Over them all arched the black dome of the sky. It was dotted with
thousands of pink planets. Most were tiny but one was so close he
felt he could reach out and touch its little blue clouds, could dip his
fingers into its pink ocean. Wherever this is, it’s certainly not the
Earth, Sam thought.
‘I know you can hear me, Sam,’ Michael said. ‘Come on, get up!
We don’t have much time. Don’t you want to save the world?’
Sam’s rage boiled over. ‘That’s rich, coming from you!’ he
screamed. ‘It was you put the Earth in danger in the first place!’ Sam
lifted his head and looked round. He did not see Michael, but what
he saw sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
He was balanced precariously on the tops of several long thin
slivers of crystal. Looking down through their transparent blueness
he could see them tapering away below him, like the legs of a
gigantic insect. Their feet rested on an irregular scaffold of long blue
threads which, Sam assumed, were more crystals. They formed an
enormous crystal network, like a web woven by a drunken spider. It
faded into the distance, too transparent to see, but he guessed it
probably surrounded the whole planet.
Far below he could see the pink ocean. From up here it looked as
smooth as a billiard ball. Sam wondered whether this planet might
be the same as the ones above him. This one had no blue clouds, and
those others had no framework like this; or perhaps they did, but too
faint to see.
Looking down at the ocean he saw a long oval shadow, bending
with the curvature of the planet. It was the only feature visible from
this height. Sam remembered vividly how it felt on his face, cold,
slimy and suffocating. He shivered again as he imagined what
would happen if the crystals moved and he fell through the gap.
‘I’m over here, Sam,’ he heard Michael say. Sam looked the other
way. A gigantic oval body hung, white and bloated against the black
sky. Hundreds of blue crystals enclosed it, trapping it like a fish in a
net. Sam could see two tiny arms and legs sticking out of the smooth
curving flanks like fins. A gondola hung down near the back in the
shape of a man’s private parts. A monumental face was carved on
the front like a ship’s figure-head. It still belonged unmistakably to
Michael Zhang. Then the heavy, oriental eyes turned towards him,
the thin cruel lips opened and Sam heard Michael’s voice say ‘Now
stand up. I need your help and there’s not much time.’
‘My help?’ Sam said in disbelief. ‘I’m not helping you, Zhang,
after everything you’ve done–’
‘Do not use that name!’ A darkness suffused Michael’s gigantic
face. ‘I used to be Michael Zhang, but now you will call me Lord.’
‘You? I certainly will not!’ You were odd before, Sam thought,
but now you’ve gone totally insane.
Michael’s eyes narrowed. ‘I am as wise as what you would call a
god. You don’t believe me? I can easily prove it. For example, I
know everything about you. You are Samuel James Fitzpatrick.
You were born at 23 Old Blackrock Road, Cork, at 2:54 in the
afternoon of 7th of July 1959. You were the second child of James
Rossiman Fitzpatrick and Irene Juliet Fitzpatrick, nee Blanding.
Your family lived there for the first six years of your life. Then on
August 9th, 1965 they moved to Limerick and you went…’
Sam couldn’t believe it as every detail of his past was reeled out,
including many facts he didn’t even know himself but which all had
the ring of truth. And when Michael described his father’s infidelity
with a neighbour, a close family secret, and correctly stated the
woman’s name, Sam was convinced. ‘Stop!’ he cried. ‘How do you
know all this?’
‘I know everything, Samuel. Everything! The things I have told
you so far are trivial. I know the deepest secrets of what man calls
the Universe. Every secret that science struggled to understand has
been revealed to me. Now call me Lord.’
Sam stared at Michael’s bloated body, oval as an airship, large as a
planet, naked and obscene. How could he use such a word for such a
monster?
‘If you do not acknowledge me as your Lord then when I get free
from this mesh I will destroy you.’
‘Please do! I don’t care. I’ve lost everything. Death would be a
mercy.’
‘So you do not want to save the world? You do not care about
your wife and family?’
Michael’s words cut into Sam’s heart. He suddenly saw his stepdaughter’s
face, her ginger hair sticking out in wild disarray, her eyes
lost and confused. ‘You mean the world hasn’t been destroyed?’
‘Not yet, but it will be if we do not act fast. Now are you going to
help me or not?’
‘Is Catriona still alive?’
‘That’s one of the things I want you to find out. Stand up!’
Sam had no choice. If the world could still be saved, if Catriona
was still alive, then he had to help her, no matter how much he hated
Michael. He pushed against the smooth crystal faces and tried to get
to his feet. Immediately he slipped and fell heavily back into the
little valley between the huge crystals. He lay as still as he could,
terrified they would separate and he would fall through the gap.
‘Take your shoes and socks off,’ Michael said softly.
Sam removed his footwear and managed to stand with one foot on
each crystal face, afraid his weight would push them apart and much
relieved when they did not move. He was at the junction of dozens
of blue crystal shards.
‘Look down the middle of each crystal,’ Michael told him.
As Sam looked around he began to understand what he was seeing.
He was inside a hollow crystal ball with flat faces, like a large
football but with many more sides. It was formed by the flat ends of
dozens of crystal shards which pointed inwards towards him. Their
edges fitted neatly together except for a gap just above his head,
where one crystal appeared to be missing. He could see the black
sky through the triangular hole. He guessed the absent crystal was
the one that Michael had smashed.
‘Look into the centres of the crystals, Sam. What can you see?’
Sam’s eyes moved across the crystal faces, uncertain what he was
supposed to see. To his astonishment he caught a glimpse of a small
rectangular shape floating like a ghost far down inside one of the
crystals surrounding him. He leaned sideways to get a better view
and lost sight of it. It was only visible when his head was in exactly
the right position, looking straight down the centre of the shard.
Was it flat or solid? Carefully, trying not to overbalance, he felt
inside his jacket. He was surprised and somehow comforted, to feel
his spectacles still safely tucked away in his shirt pocket. He put
them on and saw a blue metal cabinet with two doors, the sort you
might see in a smart garage workshop, either very small or very far
away. He could just make out that its doors were dented, as if they
had been hit several times.
It was obvious he was seeing something that belonged on the Earth.
At the sight of it Sam’s heart leaped. This was beyond his wildest
hopes. Eagerly he turned and looked into another crystal. At first he
saw nothing but by moving his head and closing one eye he found a
red metal box with a cone sticking out of one end and some pipes out
of the other. It was fixed to a white concrete wall.
Sam felt a strong mixture of apprehension and excitement. How
could he see things which seemed so earthly, so human, when he
clearly was not on the Earth? He longed to see more. He began to
glance quickly into the other crystals. In one he saw a yellow metal
girder, in another some tapering flat brown plates. Other crystals
showed thick cables and a blue metal balcony. The more he saw, the
more he had a feeling these were parts of the ATLAS cavern. It was
not a place he was familiar with. He had only spent a half-hour or so
in there, it had been dark and a lot had been going on, but when he
saw a red cabinet with the word ‘Savox’ on the door he was sure it
must be the cavern. They had passed a cabinet like this when they
had first come into the cavern and walked along the balcony. These
were almost certainly images of the same place. He was astonished.
How was it possible–
‘What can you see, Sam?’ The anxiety in Michael’s voice was
palpable.
‘I think I can see the cavern.’
‘Call me Lord.’
‘I think I can see the cavern, Lord.’
‘I knew it!’ Michael’s voice was triumphant. ‘Which parts?’
Sam was beginning to tire, his legs spread between the sloping
crystal faces, his arms outstretched to balance, but he managed to
find again the blue cabinet with the dented doors, the red box
hanging from the wall, the yellow girder, and described each one in
turn. He was still looking for the Savox cabinet when his legs gave
way and he fell, trembling with exhaustion, to the crystal floor.
‘Did you see any people?’ Michael asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you looked through every crystal?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You must look into all of them.’
Sam longed to see Catriona. If only she was alive, it would give
him something to live for. Once again he struggled to his feet,
wondering why there was this urgency, and began to peer into the
crystals, moving around and trying to check them all methodically.
It was after about ten or a dozen crystals that he saw Maria Kissov.