Threads

by Ceres Wunderkind

Will, Lyra and Mary Malone join forces across the worlds to prevent the Subtle Knife from falling into the wrong hands. Old friends are there to help but there will be betrayal, death and destruction before the end...

18. Culham

Culham and Colombo, Sri Lanka

Giancarlo puts his hand to his waist and takes the Knife from its sheath.  He holds it, point upwards, in plain view of them all.

'I do not say that this Subtle Knife is evil, although I know that it has intentions of its own.  But it brings evil, wherever it goes.  In my world, it has robbed us of our self-respect and turned us into thieves and parasites.  It unleashed the Spectre that murdered Guili's mother.  In this world, it has caused… that―' he points towards the door behind which lies Mr Greaves' slowly cooling body, 'and the trade in things and people that you have told me about.

'It betrayed me and Guili in Siemione and Blackbird Leys, and all of us here in Culham.  We trusted it and it let us down.

'In all the worlds, it has allowed the Spectres to rape the minds of innocents.

'Will; you rejected the Knife once, and it shattered.  That should have been the end of it, only it was mended, so that the Exiles could be saved.  If I were to break it again now, it could be mended again.  This time, we must destroy it completely, so that it can never do any more injury to anybody.  Can we do that?'

Will thinks.  'The Knife broke twice.  Each time, it was because I put it up against something stronger than it.  My love for my mother… or Lyra.'

'I love Papa,' says Guilietta.

'Yes, Guili, that would probably work.  The Knife would shatter again if faced with your and Carlo's love for your Papa.  But it would not be enough.  Twice it has been broken, and twice it has been fixed.  If we break it a third time, it can be mended a third time.'

'I see.'

'When Iorek Byrnison and I reforged it, a charcoal fire was hot enough. When it was made, Henry Latrom told me, the philosophers of Ci'gazze used an atomic furnace. When it was re-made here, in our world, the combined powers of the Sky-fires and the Earth-Current were needed.  If we are to melt the Knife down so that it can never be repaired again, we will have to use a fire that is quite unimaginably hot.'

Mary speaks, via Judy's phone.  'Would five hundred million degrees Kelvin be hot enough, do you think?'

'I should think so.  What do you have in mind?'

'The alethiometer told us to look for the Ring.'

Will stands up, smacks his forehead with the flat of his hand and shouts out aloud.  'Stars above, I'm a fool!  I'm a bloody fool!  Of course!

'Can anyone find a floor plan of this place?'

'That's it!'  Will points at the bulky metal structure which looms above them in the semi-darkness.

'What is it?'  Giancarlo can only make out a confused impression of pipes and cables and something that might be a large boiler, copper-coloured.

'It's the thing this place is named after – the JET.  The Joint European Torus.'

'I still don't know what you're talking about.'

'OK.  Look.  Will squats down on the concrete floor and takes a pencil from his pocket.  'From here, it looks like a big hunk of metal.  But from above, it looks like this:' He draws two concentric circles on the floor.  'It's a torus – a ring, like a doughnut, only hollow inside.  "Look for the Ring", the alethiometer said.  Mary and I thought it meant that we should come here, to this building, to find out what was going on; with the buckythread and all.  But I think now that it meant more than that.  I think it means that we should use the JET to get rid of the Knife.'

'How will it do that?'

Mary speaks.  'It's a nuclear fusion reactor, Judy.  No, don't worry, I'm not going to try to explain how it all works.  Just this; it's a device of a class commonly known as a tokamak.  There were a number of them built in the last century – the idea was that you would use them instead of fission-powered nuclear power stations, the sort that run on uranium or plutonium.  They would be clean and safe.  There'd be no nasty nuclear waste to dispose of afterwards and you'd run them, basically, on seawater.

'The trouble was, nobody could get them to output more electrical power than you had to put in to make them work.  The reaction can't be kept going for long enough.

'So the dream died, but the tokamaks stayed, because the thing they do is to generate a substance called plasma inside them.  This plasma is very, very hot.'

'Hot enough to melt the Knife?'

'As hot as a star.'

'Where do we start?'

'Look for an access panel.  You'll need to put the Knife inside the torus.'

'But first―'

'Yes?'

'Carlo had better cut a window to take him and Guili home.'

'Oh yes.  Nearly forgot.  That would have been very silly!'

Giancarlo takes out the Knife and, for what he hopes is the last time, cuts a window to his sunlit home world.  It comes out a long way from Cittagazze or Siemione; he and his sister will have a lengthy journey home.  Maybe that is all to the good.

'Will, there's something else.  If I appear at home, or in Siemione, without the Knife, and tell everyone that the Knife has been destroyed, nobody will believe me.  They'll think I've hidden it somewhere and they'll carry on threatening me, or my father, or Guili, to make me use it.  I need proof that it has gone for ever.'

Will thinks. 'If we were to cut the handle away from the blade, would that do?  The handle is unique.  Everyone knows what it looks like.'

'Yes, that would probably work.  I could show them the handle and they might believe that the blade had been lost or destroyed.'

'Tell them the truth, Carlo.'  That's what Lyra would say.

They take the Subtle Knife over to a metalworker's bench and clamp the blade in the jaws of a vice.

'Can we snap it off?'

Giancarlo pulls as hard as he can on the hilt, with no effect.  Will hits the side of the handle with a sledgehammer.  The bench shakes, but the Knife remains untouched by the blow.

'Doesn't look like it.  We'll have to try to prise it off the blade.'

Giancarlo hands Will a screwdriver, and with both of them putting their full weight behind it, they manage to lever the hilt away from the blade.  The naked metal of the tang remains, gleaming wickedly, protruding from the vice.  Will looks at the Knife-handle, its wire-formed pattern of angels palely visible against the dark wood.  'Remiel, have you seen this?  Will you be our witness before the angels?'

There is a soft glow in the corner.  'Yes, Will Parry.  I will be your witness.'

The reactor hall is well-equipped.  Guided by Mary, Will and Giancarlo locate a maintenance hatch in the bottom of the torus, open it with a custom wrench, and place the Knife inside, replacing the cover after it.

'Now you've got to pump it out.  There has to be an effective vacuum inside the reactor, else the plasma can't form.  Those look like the pump controls over there.'

Judy and Guilietta sit together by the side of the door, watching Will and Giancarlo as they follow Mary's instructions.  'How does Mary know what to do?' asks Guilietta.

'Because she's very clever.  And because she used to work in a place called CERN, where they do this sort of thing all the time.'

Pumping out the reactor chamber takes time.  Judy and Guilietta doze together on their seats.  Will, Kirjava and Giancarlo sit and talk over old times and future concerns.

'Carlo, there's something you said back there, about Guili's mother and the Knife.  I think you're wrong.  I don't think it was the Knife that made the Spectre that killed her.  It happened at the wrong time.'

'Then what was it?'

'Our friends here.  They were cutting windows with the Thread.  Tiny windows the angels didn't know anything about.'

'You mean they were big enough to let Spectres through?'

'I don't think Spectres understand size the way we do.  I'm sure of it.  It wasn't you – or me – that made the cut that caused Guili's mother's death.  It was them; Greaves and Morley.'

It wasn't me!  Giancarlo feels as if a great weight has been lifted from him.

'Then,' he says, 'we must destroy the laboratory here, as well as the Knife.'

Will ponders.  'Yes, but I don't know how we can do that.  Not without bringing the police down on us like a ton of bricks.  A nasty accident; that's one thing.  A dead body and a wrecked lab; that's murder and sabotage.

'Anyway, it wouldn't help.  They'll be backed up―' seeing the look of incomprehension on Giancarlo's face, 'all their records, their knowledge, will be safe somewhere else.  We could destroy all their equipment but they'd rebuild it.'

'So that woman could start it all again?  The windows, and the Spectres?'

'We'll know if they do.  Remiel and the angels will be looking out for attempts to cut windows.  If this all works, and we destroy the Knife, any window that appears in the future can only have been made by them.  We'll stop them, somehow.'

They sit and listen to the steady whir of the vacuum pumps.

'I suppose this is the last time we'll see each other.'

'If Mary is right, yes.'

'If only…'

'If only we could keep the Knife and let the angels clean up the mess it leaves behind.  Visit each other from time to time.  No, you're right, Carlo.  You've got an enormous task ahead of you in your world.  You won't be able to do it – you won't even be able to start – if you don't know, in your heart, that the Knife has been destroyed.'

'I could leave it with you.'

'No you can't!'  Will's smile is grim.  'Isn't that where we came in?'

The pulse of the vacuum pumps changes its note as the air pressure in the reactor approaches zero.   Finally, after what seems an eternity, but has actually been only two hours, the meter readings are low enough.  'Next stage,' say Mary, 'is to run up the magnetic field.  It contains the plasma so that it can't touch the sides of the reactor vessel and burn it.

'If I'm right, the field will lift the Knife from the bottom of the torus and suspend it in the middle, along the axis.'

'How will we know?'

'There must be a viewing window, or a monitor.  Take a look.'

Will and Giancarlo find a number of TV monitors, but it is not clear which one they should use, so they turn them all on, with no result.

'Never mind,' says Mary.  'See that desk there, to your right, with the brass levers?'

'Yes.'

'Those will be the field controls.  Do exactly what I say.  We must run the coils up slowly, or we'll trip circuit-breakers all over Oxfordshire.'

A low hum fills the space of the reactor hall as Will turns on the containment field and monitors the current.  Good grief!  How many amps does this thing take?

Judy and Guilietta are woken by the sound and join Will, Kirjava and Giancarlo by the control desk.  The light of the Bellini's homeworld shines through the nearby window, ready and welcoming.  Will looks though it and remembers.  If I could only see Ci'gazze, just once more.  Where I first met her.  Where I showed her how to make omelettes.

Damn!  I thought I'd got over all that.

Mary is businesslike.  'OK, crew, we're nearly there.  We've got a vacuum and a containment field.  What we do now is inject the deuterium pellets.  They're the fuel the reactor runs on.  Will, look for a workstation.  The injection sequence is tricky.  It's bound to be controlled by a dedicated app.'

There are a number of PCs and workstations in the hall.  The right one is easy to find, as it is clearly labelled D Supply.  Will turns on the screen and is greeted by a login box.  He shows it to Mary.

'Windows!  How quaint!'

'How on earth am I going to log in to this thing, Mary?  I don't know the password.'

'Oh, that'll be easy.  Physicists hate passwords.  Look for a yellow sticky on the monitor or the base unit.'

The password that someone has scribbled on the Post-It is dioxide, copied from the label on a nearby fire extinguisher.

'Told you!'

The application they need is already running.

'Someone's been watching too many films!'  Some joker has written the app with a Big Red Button to click on to start the fuel injection sequence.  It is labelled Armageddon.

'This is it, then.'

Judy:  'This is Frodo, Samwise and Smeagol and the One Ring, at Mount Doom.'

Will:  'It's Sir Bedevere and Excalibur, at the Lake.'

Judy:  'Peter, High King of Narnia, closing the Door.'

Will:  'Arwen Evenstar claiming the Gift of the One to Men.'

Together, the Knife-bearers move the mouse pointer.

'Now!'

Together, they click on the red button.

For a few seconds it looks as if nothing has happened.  Then, on one of the monitors that they thought was dead, appears a vivid line of violet-white light, running around the circular axis of the toroid.

In the line of light, bathed in its radiance, floats the Knife-blade.  It hangs suspended by the magnetic field, with the ultra-hot plasma flowing over it in feathery streamers of light, flickering and wavering like the celestial flare of the Aurora Borealis.  The Sky-fires.  And, powering the coils, the Earth-Current.

As the seconds pass by, the Knife-blade begins to glow from within, first dark red, then orange, and finally blue-white.  The temperature is starting to build up now, as the eddy currents from the alternating magnetic fields which hold it in place continuously agitate the atoms of which it is made.   Meanwhile, the flowing star-stuff is beginning to strip the metal from its surface, broadening the plasma stream into a wide current, filling half the reactor chamber.  The image on the monitor is becoming intolerably bright, threatening to burn out the screen.

The Knife is already half its original size, as the particles of which it was made join the river of brilliant luminosity inside the torus.  The reaction is eerily quiet – there is no roaring or other sign of the destructive forces unleashed, star-bright, in the plasma current.

At last, with barely a flicker, the last vestiges of the Knife-blade disappear, merged into the current of fusing deuterium atoms.

'Time to go home, chaps.'  Mary says.  Will looks away from the monitor where he and Giancarlo have been watching the death of the Knife.  He suddenly realises that he is crying, tears streaming down his face and soaking into his collar.  He turns to Giancarlo.

'We have done a terrible thing.'

'We had to.  Remember that.'

'Close down the injector.'  Will clicks the shutdown button.

'Have you done it?'

'Yes, look.'  Will uses his phone to show Mary the dialogue box.

'Let's have a look at the monitor screen.'

The fusion reaction is still proceeding.  If anything its glow is growing brighter.

'I don't believe it!  Kill the containment field!'

Will returns the levers that control the magnetic field to the off position.

'Right!  That should do it!'

It does not.  The monitor screen is now brilliant white all over and Will is sure that he can see actinic light leaking through the reactor walls.  A sound is now starting to make itself apparent, a rumbling hissing noise.  Mary cries out in alarm.

'It's not working right!  It's not stopping.  It must be the Knife.  Get out of there, all of you!  Move!  MOVE!'

There is no time to say their farewells.  Giancarlo takes Guilietta's hand and pulls her through the window to their world.  They turn to close the window and wave goodbye, but it is too late.  Will and Judy have gone and there is a flood of unbearable radiance and heat pouring through the window.  Giancarlo rushes round to the other side of it and, for the last time, pinches a window shut, cutting off the blast of annihilating radiation from Will's world.  It is gone, and there is nothing but a patch of blackened grass in front of him, and, seen through the shimmering air, Guilietta, unharmed, still waving to her friends in the world beyond.

Will, Judy and Kirjava run through the doors of the JET complex.  All the windows behind them are lit up with a steadily increasing glare – a mixture of red and orange from the burning buildings and, at its core, the light of a new star come to earth.

They have to climb over the still-locked gates, losing valuable time.  The complex is starting to burn fiercely now and the flames are rising higher and higher behind them.  Reaching the pub car park, they throw themselves into the front seats of the Golf, Kirjava at their heels, and Will starts the engine, flooring the pedal and sending them racing out of the entrance.  They turn left and drive as fast as they can for two or three miles, chasing their own shadow as it flees ahead of them.  Just outside Abingdon, they stop and turn to look.

'Doing this sort of thing got Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt.'

'I'll chance it.'

Behind them a column of smoke and flame rises into the night sky.  They can hear the distant wail of sirens as emergency vehicles rush to the scene.

'You realise we've made history, don't you?'  Will's phone is still connected to Mary's.

'What?'

'This is the first successful continuous slow fusion reaction anyone's achieved.  You could get a Nobel Prize for this!'

'What do you mean – slow fusion?'

'Well, put it this way – a fast reaction would have vaporised the whole county.  You've been lucky.  I wonder what it was about the Knife…' Mary drifts off into her own thoughts.

Will has his thoughts, too.  'Carlo said we should destroy the lab.  Looks like he got his way.  There won't be any problems about the late Mr Greaves, either.'

'Ugh, no.  Will, there'll be people hurt in accidents because of all this – car crashes, burns, fractures.  We should go to the JR.  They'll be needing us there.'

'Yes, we should.'  Will is only half-listening, gazing at the outline of white fire that hovers over the village of Culham.

A mile or more high, a revelation of pure blazing energy, the Subtle Knife burns in the sky above them, pointing defiantly to the stars.