COMET HALLEY

  a novel in two parts by

  FRED HOYLE

  MICHAEL JOSEPH - LONDON

  To Geoffrey and Evelyn Jackson

  First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 44 Bedford Square, London WC1

  1985

  © 1985 by Fred Hoyle

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Copyright owner

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Hoyle, Fred Comet Halley. 1. Title 823'.914 [F] PR6058.098

  ISBN 0 7181 2538 X

  Typeset by Graphicraft, Hong Kong,

  Printed and bound in Great Brita;n by

  Billing & Sons Ltd, London and Worcester

  PART ONE

  First Contact

  Chapter 1

  Frances Margaret Haroldsen parked her bicycle in a rack outside the new Cavendish and walked with quick athletic steps towards the main door of the Laboratory. A physicist in her mid-twenties with a junior position as demonstrator, she was the sort of girl men look at once, twice, and then go on looking at.

  Her office was along one of the downstairs corridors, an interior corridor that was dark because it was Saturday afternoon and only a minimum of artificial lighting was switched on.

  Why was it, she wondered, that buildings which seem quite normal when they are fully occupied on weekdays seem all passages and spaces when they are empty at weekends?

  It was a Saturday afternoon in late October, one of those unforgettable Cambridge afternoons with a cloudless sky that make you feel there should be a smell of wood-smoke over the whole town. The undergraduates were 'up' for a brand new academic year, undergraduates young enough to feel the whole world opening out before them. It was an afternoon with sounds travelling in the crisp air, so that even as far away as the Cavendish Laboratory you could hear sporadic roars from the large crowd assembled at the University rugby ground in Grange Road.

  Frances Margaret had not quite reached her office when there was the bang of a violently slammed door from farther along the corridor. A slim man about six feet tall erupted from another of the offices. From the silhouette appearing darkly in the ill-lit corridor, Frances Margaret recognised the man, Mike Howarth, also a junior member of the Laboratory staff.

  'Hello, Mike, anything the matter?' the girl called as the figure approached.

  'This,' Howarth replied tersely, holding out an envelope which he pulled angrily from an inner pocket of a fur-lined jacket.

  Once they were inside Frances Margaret's office, it could be seen that the envelope bore the crest and initials of the large Government- operated research council CERC. Howarth put a case he had been carrying on a chair while the girl read the letter.

  'They've cancelled my contract,' Howarth burst out.

  'So I see. It's a pity,' Frances Margaret replied with a sympathetic nod.

  'It's more than a pity. It's a disaster.'

  'I'd say it's pretty appalling, Mike, but I wouldn't think of it as a

  disaster. CERC hasn't stuck you with a knife or bashed you over the head with a crowbar.'

  'Oh, haven't they though!' Howarth exclaimed.

  'We'll have to think what to do,' Frances Margaret offered, as helpfully as she could. 'The trouble is that people are likely to say you were on a risky course.'

  'How else could I have got the results?'

  'That's why it isn't a complete disaster,' Frances Margaret continued, again as encouragingly as she could. 'You have some results. CERC can't cancel what you've got already.'

  'I've enough to convince myself. Enough to convince you and perhaps a few others. But not enough to come out into the open about it. I had to get more signals from Comet Halley.

  Otherwise people will just laugh. You can hear them laughing, can't you?'

  'We can appeal against the decision.'

  'Some hope. You know that.'

  Frances Margaret sighed and then nodded.

  'It would help if we had a Professor who could throw his weight around a bit.'

  'They've been fiddling around with the job for a year now,' grunted Howarth as he retrieved the letter and slipped it back into his jacket pocket. 'Imagine it, fiddling around with the Cavendish Professorship. God knows what we're coming to. But I'm going to fight it.

  Somehow.'

  'The question we have to think about is how.'

  'God knows about that, too. The thing's moribund. Have you ever thought of getting out, Frances Margaret?'

  'I keep turning it over in my mind. I thought of applying for a job at CERN.'

  Howarth retrieved his case as he prepared to leave, saying, 'Particle physics. That's more your line than mine.'

  Signals from comets, Frances Margaret reflected as the office door closed. Preposterous.

  And yet there was something distinctly curious in Mike Howarth's data, sketchy as it might be. Besides which, there were one or two curious points she'd noticed herself. She'd intended to tell Mike about them, but he'd been so turned-in on himself that she'd thought it best to wait until after the weekend. Then, on a sudden impulse, Frances Margaret decided that letting Mike go off without telling him what she'd discovered wasn't right. Deciding she should call him back, Frances Margaret dashed out of the office into the corridor.

  There had been enough time for Mike Howarth almost to reach the

  outer doors of the Laboratory. As she hurried along the corridor Frances Margaret noticed a diffused light appearing from around the corner which led to the main lobby. With the thought that Mike might have switched on the lights in the lobby, she continued quickly. But the light wasn't right: it was too red in colour to be the fluorescent lighting used in the Laboratory. The light was brighter as she turned the corner, but by the time she reached the main lobby it was suddenly gone, and so was Mike Howarth. A quick check showed that the fluorescent circuit had not been switched on.

  Frances Margaret retrieved her bicycle and rode slowly along the lane which leads from the new Cavendish Laboratory to Madingley Road. She tried to persuade herself that the business of the light really hadn't been as scary as it had seemed. She'd forced herself to return along the corridor to her office. After collecting a file of papers, she'd then quit the deserted Laboratory in short order, if not literally at a run. As events unfolded, Frances Margaret came to believe that she understood what the light had been; for she was to see it again.

  Chapter 2

  Two days later, on the Monday morning, it was just on 10.00 a.m. when a car bearing diplomatic number plates drew up outside the main gate of CERN, the Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland. A man of Pickwickian appearance with an alarmingly high colour showed papers to a guard at the gate, and the car was then waved on into the CERN complex.

  An hour before, two men had met in an office in the administrative block of CERN. Both were in their middle thirties and both were physicists, the one from Hamburg, West Germany, the other from Cambridge, England - although from a slight accent it was clear that the Englishman, who was noticeably tall, must have had his origins not in East Anglia but in the south-west. He and the German were examining bubble-chamber photographs strewn across a long table.

  'Well, Kurt,' the Englishman remarked at last with a quizzical expression, 'it certainly looks like top quark. At last.'

  The German had a broad forehead and a quiff of hair that tended to

  JO

  COMETHALLEY

  stand up, causing him to push it back into place from time to time, which he did now.

  'Ja, it acts like top quark. Pettini wants to publish.'

  'Pettini is an impetuous Italian.' A slow smile appeared on the German's face.

  'It wouldn't be good to tell him that, I think.'

  'And it wouldn't be good to publish and then find we're wrong.'

  'There is pressure from the Italian Government.'

  'There's always pressure. In my thirteen years here at CERN I've never known a time when there wasn't pressure. I'm getting plenty myself. The British Government would love to save all the millions we're spending on top quark.'

  Once again the German brushed back the quiff of hair.

  'It won't seem so good if the Americans claim it first.'

  The Englishman nodded.

  'I'm aware of that. As much as Pettini is aware of it.'

  'So, Isaac, what do we do?'

  'We consult our conscience, Kurt.'

  'I'd be glad to learn how to do that.'

  'Are you convinced yourself? About this really being top quark. Are you really convinced?'

  Kurt Waldheim shuffled uneasily among the photographs. He picked up one of them and studied it for a while. At last he shook his head regretfully.

  'I think it is, but I am not certain.'

  'You'd like another run at it?'

  'Ja, I'd like another run. But you will have Pettini speaking very loudly down your neck, I'm afraid.'

  'It won't be the only thing I've got down my neck just now.'

  Kurt Waldheim moved away from the table, dismissing the photographs from his mind.

  Ja, I've thought for a little while that you have a worried look, Isaac. Is it anything I should know?'

  'Cambridge has asked me to take the Cavendish Professorship.'

  Kurt Waldheim pondered this

news and then shrugged expressively.

  'Well? It would be a very distinguished appointment - and a return home for you. Sometimes it is nice to return home.'

  'We always try to remember the Cavendish the way it was in Rutherford's day. Unfortunately this isn't Rutherford's day.'

  'You could make much of it, Isaac.'

  The Englishman shook his head doubtfully.

  'If big money hadn't ruined things, perhaps. You don't know the

  way it is with the British research councils, I'm afraid.'

  'I know it from Germany, I think.'

  'I doubt that Germany is quite as bad.'

  The slow smile appeared again on Waldheim's face.

  'It's like somebody else's canteen,' he said. "The food always seems better than in your own canteen.'

  'The problem is that if I refuse it certainly won't help the British grant to CERN.'

  'I see it is a problem. But I thought there might be something else.'

  'Something else?'

  Kurt Waldheim persisted.

  'Yes, I thought there might be.'

  There was a long pause before the Englishman replied.

  'We've known each other for a long time, Kurt. If I were to talk to anybody it would be to you.'

  'Can I help?'

  'It's a confidential thing, I'm afraid. Hopefully, it won't last. Then I'll be able to concentrate on top quark again.'

  'Which will be good for top quark, I think.'

  The Englishman returned somewhat wearily from the table with its bubble-chamber photographs to his desk, saying, 'Break the news gently to Pettini.'

  When Kurt Waldheim had left the office, the tall man walked to a window from which he could see snow-covered mountains across the Swiss-French border. He was lost in thought when a secretary came in with the announcement:

  'Your visitor has arrived, Dr Newton.' She pronounced his name Newton in the French manner.

  The man with the florid face and Pickwickian stature followed immediately behind the secretary. He came forward effusively with outstretched hand.

  'Dr Newton, I'm John Jamesborough - Foreign Office.'

  'I had your message.'

  'Yes, well, I thought we should make contact.'

  'Why, if I may ask?'

  'I'm under instructions to offer you any assistance you may need.'

  Isaac Newton had no liking for the direction in which he suspected the conversation was leading.

  'Frankly, I wasn't looking for any assistance. You see, Mr Jamesborough, I've lived for thirteen years in Geneva, so I know my way around the town reasonably well by now.'

  'We weren't thinking about that, of course.'

  'It might help if I knew what you were thinking about.'

  'Your report, Dr Newton. About conveying it to the Prime Minister.'

  'It isn't ready yet.'

  'When it is, the report should go through the diplomatic bag. From the moment you set words on paper, Dr Newton, those words will have a high security status. Obviously.'

  A wry expression flitted briefly across Isaac Newton's face.

  'Obviously,' he acknowledged.

  'Many people will be curious about them.'

  'Including the Foreign Office, no doubt.'

  'I would hope, Dr Newton, you will copy your report to us - as a matter of courtesy, obviously.'

  It was an advantage of Jamesborough's very high colour that you couldn't tell if he blushed as he made this request. The wry expression returned as Isaac Newton replied immediately:

  'I can set your mind firmly at rest there, Mr Jamesborough. My remit is to report directly to the Prime Minister. Whether the Prime Minister decides to copy the report to you is not for me to decide.'

  'The situation is very irregular.'

  The conversation was evidently leading nowhere, with Isaac Newton finding it increasingly difficult to hide his mounting irritation at being asked to divulge what, honourably, he could not divulge.

  'The trouble, Mr Jamesborough,' he began in some distaste, 'is that nuclear warheads are also very irregular. I'm sorry if this sounds inhospitable, but nuclear warheads aren't very hospitable either. My promise to the Prime Minister requires me to attend today's session for my sins.'

  'Is anything special expected?'

  'I trust not. If anything special ever happened at disarmament talks we'd have people in shock all over the place.'

  "That's rather cynical, isn't it?' Jamesborough asked with a disapproving frown, seeking to gain a small point. Disregarding the frown, Isaac Newton glanced at his watch to indicate that he was required elsewhere.

  'You may count yourself lucky, Mr Jamesborough, that you haven't had to listen to these superpower talks for weeks on end the way I have. Otherwise the worm of cynicism would long ago have hatched itself inside your bosom.'

  It had been on the tip of Isaac Newton's tongue to say 'ample bosom', but somehow he managed to bite back the temptation.

  'Can I give you a lift into town?' Jamesborough asked.

  "Thanks, but I go, I come back, as they say. I'd prefer my own car, if you don't mind.'

  Realising that nothing substantial could be won, Jamesborough moved towards the office door, saying as a last small manoeuvre, 'You will remember the security aspect? If anything came out it would be exceedingly embarrassing.'

  The wry expression flitted once more across Isaac Newton's face.

  'Yes,' he nodded. 'You have my solemn word. I'll remember security. I rarely forget it.'

  Isaac Newton parked his car, a large Mercedes, and walked into the Geneva disarmament centre, which had a record for nil results dating from the pre-1939 days of the League of Nations. After showing his badge and identification card he was conducted to the conference hall by a girl of more pleasant aspect than the place itself. As Isaac Newton took his seat in an area reserved for diplomatically-accredited observers, the delegates of the superpowers came to order, facing each other in rows - like two ancient armies of the classical age, except that each delegate had a name placard, which courtesy had not been accorded to ancient fighters in their long-since-forgotten causes.

  A senior Russian delegate began speaking and, as a formal gesture, the Americans put on headphones, ostensibly to hear an immediate translation of the Russian, but actually to daydream. Without enthusiasm Isaac Newton also put on headphones. His remit was to make a report, technical and otherwise, on how the British nuclear deterrent related to the talks. Although this was a matter on which the Russians made trouble whenever it suited their purpose to do so, it lay strictly outside the immediate proceedings, and this had permitted the Prime Minister to ask for a technical report rather than a diplomatic one. The Foreign Office had no liking for this procedure, especially with the report coming from an outsider like himself, instead of from an insider who could be relied upon not to disturb the status quo.

  After the Russian had been speaking for an hour and a quarter, Isaac Newton decided that enough was enough - he could always read the translation, which he would have to do anyway, just as the Americans did. By now he knew his way out of the building more or less like the proverbial back of his hand. He had moved quietly from the conference hall and was just on the point of punching a lift button when a man he half-recognised stepped into the cage beside him. The half-recognised man had not used headphones back there in the conference hall, so that it was apparent he belonged to the 'other side'.

  'Is a breakthrough near?' Isaac Newton asked as the lift moved.

  'A breakthrough is always near,' the man replied.

  'It must keep you busy.'

  'In Russia we are always busy.'

  'I imagine it makes for a happy life,' Isaac Newton continued, doing his best.

  'A very happy life,' was the gutteral response.

  The lift stopped and both men got out. Isaac Newton nodded, smiled, and said:

  'Well, I'm glad to have met you, sir. It's always nice to meet cheerful people.'

  Somehow this little conversation epitomised the situation. Whatever technicalities he decided to report to the Prime Minister, Isaac Newton was convinced of the broad proposition that little positive would happen on the superpower front without some drastically new approach being made. It would have astonished him to have learned how close such an approach might be, and how deeply he would be involved in it himself.

 

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