Chapter 8. Calamity
Donald Harris had had a bad night, worse even than usual, and the morning was not much better. After tossing and turning for hours, he must have slept right through his alarm and eventually awakened over two hours late with a thumping headache, a nasty taste in his mouth and a very much nastier feeling of having done something the previous night that he could not remember but was very much worse than just getting drunk. Try as he might to recall, the nature of it eluded him. What he did remember was a nightmare of finding himself chained in a dark, narrow space with a roof seeming to bear down on him. Perhaps it was a vestige of his horror, many years earlier, on reading a story in which the unfaithful wife of a mediaeval magnate awoke from a swoon to find herself buried alive in a sealed coffin.
Nothing more recent offered a clue to the dream. True, he had been chained at times, when there were particular reasons for it, but on the whole he had been treated well throughout his years of captivity. The pressure had been mental, not physical. The worst moment had been the last, when the hideout was stormed and one stray bullet creased his forehead while another smashed a bone in his leg. He neither knew nor cared which side either of them had come from. He had been lucky; all but one of his captors had been killed and so had two of the rescue party.
Heaving himself out of bed, he had second thoughts about the luck. The throbbing in his head deepened to such a pounding that he was forced to freeze until it subsided. Then he gingerly moved to the bathroom, splashed some water in his face and rinsed out his mouth. After that he felt strong enough to face some sort of breakfast. Real solids were out of the question, but he might manage a soft-boiled egg, and he hoped Josie would have some coffee ready for him; they had ceased to share a room when his thrashing about had made sleep impossible for her as well. However, she was not in the kitchen, so he filled the kettle and set it to boil while he tried to remember where the coffee was kept.
Then he found the note, a single sheet in an erratic hand with a smear of what looked like blood on it. "Dearest Don, I'm sorry, but I can't take any more. Last night you really terrified me. Please, for your own sake as much as mine, get help before you do something completely unforgivable. I desperately want to come back to you, but I daren't until you've recovered your real self. I hate doing this, but I don't see any choice for both our sakes. Please, please remember that you still have all my love, Josie."
So that was that. He'd really done it this time. What he had actually done he still could not remember, but the trace of blood was ominous. The worst of it was that he could hardly feel surprised, except that she had put up for so long with his treatment of her. Whether he could brace himself to seek help was another matter. The shame of his degradation was too great to confess, and knowing that countless others were in exactly the same position was no help at all. What he suddenly realised he could do, and did immediately, was to search out every drop of alcohol remaining in the apartment and pour it down the drain before he could change his mind. It was quickly done as most of the bottles and cans were already empty.
He could not remember what day it was and to find out had to switch on the radio, very low. It turned out to be Sunday the tenth of March, so to his immense relief he was not expected at work.
How had he got into this disgusting state? He had never been an habitual drunkard. Of course in the early weeks after his release he had been in hospital and a binge would not have been possible even if he had fancied it. Afterwards there were other constraints. Josie had had to give up their earlier marital home six years before, when it became obvious that the kidnappers were not going to let him go in a hurry. Her apartment in West Yellowstone, merely a couple of rooms rented from a friend, was unsuitable for his convalescence, so they had stayed for a while with the Hamiltons in Ashton. There he might have had the odd drink with Bill, but Sal would have made quite sure that it stayed within reasonable bounds. The trouble started when despite lingering pain from his injuries, he was at last medically cleared fit to go back to work at the Idaho National Laboratory and they found a place to live in Idaho Falls. Josie felt obliged to continue with her job in the tour company but stayed with him when she could. Even so, he was alone for much of the time.
He was unaware of a conversation that had previously taken place between his superior, Jim Monaghan, and the head of department when Donald's convalescence had progressed far enough for the matter of his return to be given serious consideration. The section in which he had worked had been disbanded, and no work of a similar kind was being contemplated elsewhere. Monaghan had visited him, not so much to discuss the possibilities as to assess the likelihood of his fitting in anywhere, and his report was not very encouraging. "He certainly expects to come back, and he finds it hard to come to terms with his project's having been axed. It isn't easy to see where he might usefully be redeployed, though. Apart from anything else, after six years away he'll be pretty rusty professionally. On the other hand, after all the fuss about his rescue and return home, leaving him on the scrap-heap would be bound to get out, and it could easily be a PR disaster."
"Quite. It looks as though he may have to join the NF brigade." NF was officially New Facilities, colloquially No Future, and no one could now remember which came first. It was the Limbo for people like the senator's niece who were never likely to earn their keep but for political reasons could not simply be fired.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. Luckily, as it happens, there's one idea of a scheme for that where he might have a contribution to make."
Reporting to Monaghan on the first day back after the enforced absence consequently seemed very strange, although it was friendly enough. "Welcome back, Don. We've missed you. How do you feel now?"
"Pretty well, Jim, thank you, considering. I still get a fair amount of trouble from the smashed leg, but it's generally controllable with pain-killers. And how's everyone here?"
"Well, as you've probably heard, there've been quite a lot of changes while you were away. The whole focus of the lab has altered. There's a lot more about renewable energy, clean-up and waste management now. Your old project was chopped the year before last, I'm afraid."
"Yes, I heard about that. So where do I fit in now?"
Jim scratched his head. "That's the problem. There's nothing that really follows on from what you were doing before."
There was a pause, and Donald began to fear a suggestion of early retirement on medical grounds. He realised that they were unlikely simply to sack him, not while his ordeal was still fairly fresh in the public mind, but that mind tends to change like the wind and in the longer term his position looked none too secure. However, Monaghan's problem was not one of breaking the news that there was no place for Donald, but how to present the one positive idea he did have in a manner that would seem tolerably attractive.
"Well, the big anxieties are still about waste management and weapon proliferation. To some extent they come together in the issue of plutonium-contaminated waste. Of course no terrorist in his right mind would consider it as a source of weapon material, but you can't tell that to some of the Greens, and in any case it's an embarrassment in its own right. So there's a project to collect the stuff from the various sites, separate out the combustible part - paper tissues, protective clothing and so on - incinerate it and extract the plute from the residue. That's a chemical job, of course, but there's a good deal of engineering involved as well."
"In what way?"
"Firstly in containing the dust from the incinerator, but that's a specialised field in its own right. Where you might fit in is improving the remote-handling equipment. Of course we're long past the stage when simply shoving stuff in and out of glove boxes was acceptable, though I'm pretty sure that some of our people still hanker after it. In any case some of it needs shielding. That makes maintenance difficult, and of course if equipment breaks down, it becomes waste itself and adds to the problem, so for that reason alone apart from any others, extreme reliability is essential. It's
quite a challenge. How do you fancy helping to tackle it?"
"What's the alternative?"
"Frankly, I haven't thought of one."
"So it's that or nothing, then."
"I wouldn't say that. There's bound to be some engineering work to be done in almost any area, but it's liable to be bits and pieces, and most of the projects are fully staffed already. I doubt if you'd find them much more appealing, anyway."
Donald was not in the mood to start looking for another job, so he accepted what seemed to be inevitable with the best grace he could, and asked who was running the project. "Chris Bradshaw - I think you know him."
"Yes, but didn't you say it was a chemical job? Surely, he's a physicist."
"That's right, or he was to start with, but we all pick up bits of expertise in other fields as we go through life. Anyway, he's always said that chemistry is really only a branch of physics, and he was quite happy to take it on."
This struck Donald as a rather cavalier attitude, and indeed suggested a lack of professionalism that was distinctly worrying. His anxieties increased over the following weeks as he got to know the rest of the team better. They seemed a generally discontented lot, none of them showing any enthusiasm; all seemed to be going mechanically through the motions of their jobs with a good deal of grumbling and no commitment or thought. They were clearly the has-beens of the department, simply working out their time to earn their pensions, and he deeply resented the implication that he fell into the same category. In fact the whole project looked to him suspiciously like a cosmetic exercise to avoid the need for compulsory redundancies. The more he thought about it, the more he found himself falling into the same kind of attitude as his colleagues, becoming increasingly depressed and disagreeable, snapping at any contretemps. Once, in Josie's absence, he had an extra shot of whisky to cheer himself up. It didn't work, so he had another, and so it went on.
That was the start of his drink problem. He still managed to stay fairly sober during the week, but more and more often, Josie coming south when her days off fell at the weekend found him already truly drunk. Her attempts to persuade him away from the booze only angered him, the more so since a part of him knew she was right but could not govern his actions, and anger led to violence. It was mild at first, just thrusting her away from him too forcefully as she tried to coax him back to sanity, but it gradually became more serious until the night when he finally drove her away. He had no recollection of how exactly he had done it, and perhaps that was merciful.
The shock of her leaving and forcing him to recognise the gravity of his condition sobered him up, and he seriously thought of joining Alcoholics Anonymous. However, that was an acknowledgement of personal inadequacy that he was not yet quite ready to make. He did not believe that he had become fully addicted, rather that his drinking was a habit of seeking forgetfulness rather than a necessity, and a habit that could be broken. He would at least make the effort. It proved immensely difficult at first, but he persisted. It became a little easier with time, and to take his mind off his loss he took a more active interest in his work. It might have begun as a non-job, but with a clearer head than he had had for many a week, he began to see that he could make it into something substantial.
The down-side was that he became increasingly impatient with the generally lackadaisical attitude to work in the section, and gained a reputation for snapping people's heads off for lapses and misdemeanours that others would have corrected with a civil rebuke. It reached a point where Monaghan advised him to go easy on it, and try giving a bit of praise as well as criticism. The crew wasn't particularly good, he knew, but a couple of competent fitters would be assigned to translate Don's ideas into functional equipment.
That meant the ideas had to be tightened up, and he spent extra time on particular details. Over the next few weeks a further reason for working late became apparent, although it took time to develop and at first seemed quite the opposite. The apartment across the landing had a new tenant, a slim redhead a little below medium height, always neatly dressed and pleasantly endowed in every visible respect. He put her at about forty, older than himself but not unduly so. The first few times they passed each other they merely smiled and exchanged conventional greetings, but his appreciation apparently registered since on about the fourth occasion she introduced herself as Vanessa and asked his name. Soon she started bringing him portions of pies or cakes "because I'm sure you don't look after yourself properly," and a month or so later invited him to a meal, which was excellent. He felt he had to make some return and since he could never hope to match her cooking, suggested she might watch a film with him.
Afterwards he offered coffee, which she accepted, but wondered if he had anything stronger to follow. "I'm sorry, no. You see I wrecked my marriage through drink a while back, and very nearly my life too, so I promised myself never to touch it again."
"Oh, I see. You're right, of course, but would it bother you too much if I fetched some of my own?"
"It should be all right. I don't get the craving now." She was gone for about five minutes and returned with a bottle of vodka, but said she seemed to be out of orange juice and could he oblige?
"There's some in the kitchen, I think, but it may take a few minutes to find."
"No problem."
He had been right about the difficulty, and rummaged through all the possible cupboards before returning to the start and finding a carton hidden behind a packet of cereal. He poured it into a jug, and on returning with it was sharply taken aback to find her half-undressed and reclining Cleopatra-like on the sofa.
Torn between completing her partial strip and throwing her out as she was, he resisted the first with a struggle while rejecting the second as ungentlemanly, and moreover too embarrassing in the need to deal with her discarded clothing. Seeing his hesitation, she gave him a few seconds to appreciate the tableau, then held out her glass with its quota of spirit. He pulled himself together, filled it up with orange juice as nonchalantly as he could, put the jug to one side, and then sat primly in the armchair, wondering what was to come. She slowly half-emptied the glass, eyeing him all the time with a quizzical smile (he thought of a cat watching a mouse-hole, and of a few other things besides), then carefully put it down, paused briefly and launched herself on to his knee, tearing fiercely at his shirt buttons. It was too much; once he had recovered from the shock, he picked her up, to the peril of his injured leg, and carried her back towards the sofa.
Misreading the situation, she hooked an arm found his neck, whispering that surely he had somewhere more comfortable for what must follow. He felt unable to reply without betraying his agitation, but his intention became obvious as he dumped her on the sofa, disentangled himself from her arms, covered as much as he could with her dress and went back to his chair.
"Aw, come on," she protested incredulously with a touch of southern drawl that he had never noticed before. "You're not a fifteen-year-old school kid any more. You know very well you want me, and why ever not? It's quite safe."
To add further persuasion she threw off the dress, sat up, and was evidently about to continue disrobing. He did not trust himself to argue or to delay in any other way. "Maybe, but it won't do. I'm sorry, but you'll have to go."
"Well, that's a let-down and a half," she grumbled, and again he apologised. She seemed disappointed but not at all abashed. "Ah well, win some, lose some," she added with a shrug, taking her time to finish her drink, and only then putting on her clothes as casually as if in her own bedroom. He reminded her to take the vodka. Leaving, she quietly warned him "I don't give up easily, you know."
"Phew," he said to himself when something approaching normal equanimity returned. "That was a damn close thing" He considered what he ought to do. Vanessa had been right about his lust for her and clearly pleased with herself for having aroused it. However, although it would no doubt be incomprehensible to her, he was determined not to add adultery to his existing offences against Josie:
remembering the parting note left for him after his disastrous assault, he still had faint hopes of getting her back. The best thing would be as far as possible to avoid seeing Vanessa, and from then on he timed his movements accordingly. Nevertheless, despite his frequent late working, their paths still crossed occasionally and she would greet him with a sly grin and a wink, if no one else was about sometimes sidling up and murmuring "Remember!" in an artificially deep contralto.
He resented the attempted seduction all the more because part of him had welcomed it so much. The longer he thought of it the angrier he became, and he tended to take it out on other people, especially when the residue of his injuries was giving him more trouble than usual. Delivering a routine report to Monaghan's PA, a motherly type, he barked at her in response to some conventional remark and instantly regretted it as she was one of the few people in the department he really respected. "What's the matter, Don? You've been like a bear with a sore head the past few days."
"I'm sorry, Monica; it's just that someone's put me in a very difficult situation."
"I won't ask what, but does being mad about it make it any easier?"
"I suppose not, but I can't help it."
"Right. I can understand that, but you should be able to. It's worth the effort. Think, now: was it deliberate malice, an accident, or simple thoughtlessness?"
That needed some pondering. "It was certainly deliberate, but I couldn't honestly call it malice. In fact plenty of people would have been delighted with it - and probably wondered if they were dreaming."
"A misjudgement, then. We've all made those. Why not assume that it was kindly meant? You're only hurting yourself by nursing a grievance."
It was plain common sense, but reason has little force in such matters: had it been anyone else he would have told her in fairly brusque terms to mind her own business, but from her it deserved serious consideration. Thinking a little more carefully about his acquaintance with Vanessa, he realised that he must have given the impression of being divorced, and there had been no occasion to mention his Puritanical upbringing, so he could not fairly accuse her of consciously tempting him against principles that in much of society had become unfashionable. Again, her surprisingly calm reaction to his refusal suggested that there might perhaps have been more generosity than raw desire in her approach.
The idea did not actually inspire him with gratitude, but it did lift the burden of resentment and he felt a good deal better. He was almost pleased when some weeks later he happened to see her in the street arm in arm with a distinguished-looking, rather older escort; they seemed very happy together. She really was a good-hearted soul, he thought afterwards, with a lot to offer any man free from his impediments, and with great relief he sincerely wished her luck. He pushed a card to that effect under her door and she responded with a simple "Thanks!" A month later her apartment was vacant again; another fortnight, and a package delivered by post proved to be a carefully-packed portion of wedding cake. He genuinely regretted knowing no address for a letter of congratulation and good wishes, but did wonder how long the marriage would last after such a precipitate start.
These developments removed a constraint on his movements, but by then he had reached a critical point in his project and for his own satisfaction needed to put the extra time in. Monaghan noticed and asked how it was going. "Rather well, Jim. I think we could have a preliminary design ready in a month or two."
"That's good, because in the autumn there's an IAEA seminar with a section on the subject, and it would boost the section's profile if you presented a paper there. We could sure do with it."
"Yes, but shouldn't it be Chris doing that?"
Monaghan agreed in principle. "Strictly, you're quite right. Between the two of us, though, I'm pretty certain you'd make a better job of it. Of course Chris will be nominally the senior author, and in any case he'll have to write up the chemical side of the process, which after all is the core of the project. I'll make it my own business to smooth any ruffled feathers."
In the event, Chris's technical contribution turned out to be quite small, since the chemistry as he described it was perfectly straightforward. The account of the mechanical arrangements was much more involved so it was obvious that Donald should present it, and the budget would not run to sending both of them to Vienna. Monaghan's placatory offices were therefore not needed.
However, an unfortunate incident with a couple of his staff looked like seriously upsetting the apple cart. Through failing to follow instructions, they ruined a piece of equipment that had taken a fortnight to build, and worse, they seemed to regard it as a joke. His injuries still gave him trouble, and although pain-killers generally kept it under control, their effectiveness varied from time to time; that happened to be one of the bad days, and he seriously lost his temper with them. After allowing a day for cooling down, he asked to see Monaghan on a disciplinary matter.
"Come in, Don," he said, with less than usual friendliness. "I was going to send for you anyway. What's your problem, first?"
"It's a case of serious misconduct."
"Not Smith and Welinski, by any chance?"
"Yes, it is, as it happens."
"Then it's the same incident. They have lodged an official complaint of verbal abuse and a threat of physical violence. A very grave accusation, of course."
"Oh, have they indeed. Well, I was furious with their attitude, and it's true I did blow my top that day - my tablets didn't seem to be working and I admit being unusually edgy - but I don't remember anything about violence."
"Perhaps there's a certain amount of exaggeration, then. But leaving that aside, 'Polish bastard' is no way for a man in your position to address a subordinate - especially when his forebears are Ukrainian."
"No, I can see that now."
"Too late. You ought to have seen it at the time. Losing your rag is bad for discipline, and we have quite enough trouble without it. I'd been hoping for months to get rid of that pair, and when I heard about their wrecking your kit it looked the perfect opportunity, but the way you behaved has screwed it up thoroughly."
"I'm sorry; I didn't realise."
"That's no excuse. We all know you've been through a rough time, and we make allowances, but it doesn't justify taking your frustrations out on other people. It wasn't their fault that you were mistaken for someone else a damn sight more important."
"What do you mean?"
"So the nickel hasn't dropped, then. And I shouldn't really have mentioned it now, so keep it to yourself - that's official. But you don't seriously suppose, do you, that you were a big enough fish in your own right to warrant all the trouble that was taken over you, on both sides?"
The question shook him, as he had supposed just that, but it needed no answer. However, he had one of his own. "What actually happened, then?"
"The real target, who looks very much like you, was able to go on quietly with his vastly more significant work without any of the publicity that had been getting in his way before."
"So I was set up, was I?"
"That's how it looks to me, I'm afraid."
Monaghan sighed and leaned back in his chair. "See here, let's be sensible. You've reasonable grounds to be mad over that, but it won't help. We have our own job to do, and quite enough problems without a major upset that won't do anyone any good. So I suggest you withdraw your complaint against these two miscreants, and I'll get them to withdraw theirs in return for my taking no action this time on their negligence; otherwise the charge is liable to be upped to gross misconduct. I think they'll know which side their bread's buttered. Now for goodness' sake get on with your job and don't cause any more trouble - keep that blasted temper of yours under control."
The realisation of having been used merely as a dummy rankled. His increasing bitterness about it showed, and eventually Monaghan called him in again. "Don, I'm worried about you. You've been going around with a face like thunder for the past fortnight, and it's affecting
your teams' morale, what there is of it. I don't know what's behind it and I don't particularly want to, but for goodness' sake pull yourself together, stop looking as though you're searching for grounds to murder someone, and concentrate on the job - which includes running a section. Apart from that you've got the paper for Vienna to prepare, and I want to see a draft of it by Monday week. OK?"
"I'm not sure ..."
"Never mind the excuses. That's what I expect. Now get on with it."
The shock treatment worked. There was no time to waste if he was to meet that deadline, and although he should in theory write it at work, the practical work still had to be directed and he had to do most of the writing at home. If nothing else it gave him a convincing reason for declining invitations to several convivial occasions that despite the confidence expressed to Vanessa, might have triggered a relapse into his former trouble.
The draft was finished just in time, Monaghan offered some suggestions that after a spasm of annoyance Donald recognised as improvements, and two weeks later the paper was submitted for clearance, which would probably be little more than a formality.
Since Donald had never visited the IAEA headquarters he asked advice of those who had, and got a great deal more than he had bargained for. The airport was at Schwecat, fourteen miles from Vienna itself, but with a good bus service into the city, so there was no need to take a cab. Everyone he consulted had different ideas about hotels, but Chris recommended a place on the Stubenring, comfortable, friendly and within easy walking distance of both City Air Terminal and the Schwedenplatz Metro station on the line to the United Nations building. All this he marked on a street plan. One point of caution was to buy Metro tickets at the kiosk outside the station as none were available inside or on the train. Another was that the UN area was extra-territorial so he must be sure to have his passport and invitation ready. To reach it he should alight at Kaiserműhlen, just beyond the divided channel of the Danube, and if in doubt, follow the crowd to passport control.
There was a great deal more in similar vein. Donald felt overwhelmed and doubted whether he could remember a quarter of it, so he asked Chris to write out the main points for him.
As the time approached, it suddenly occurred to him to wonder if Josie might return and possibly even accompany him to Vienna, so he tried to call her, only to find the number unobtainable. Frustrated, he called Sal Hamilton to ask if she knew what was happening. "Yes, I've told her to break off all contact."
"What? She is still my wife, you know - let no man put asunder, and no woman either."
"Don't take that line with me, young man. If anyone did any putting asunder, it was you. The way you treated her was abominable, and she was close to a breakdown when she came to us. She still loves what you seemed to be - there's no accounting for tastes - but she's terrified of the reality you became, and I'm mot taking any chance of your getting at her until I'm quite convinced that you aren't going to start beating her up again."
The fierceness of the onslaught shook him badly. "Honestly, Sal, I'm a reformed character. It was the booze that did that, and I haven't touched a drop since she left me."
"So you say, but booze can't bring out what isn't there already, and in any case I've only your word for having given it up."
"What else can I give you? Won't you at least forward a letter to her?"
"No, I'm not going to risk weakening her resolve. I tell you what, though. You sound sober enough at the moment, I'll grant you that. If I call you some evening, say in about three months' time, and you still sound sober, I'll think again." That was clearly all he was going to get, and he had to make the best of it.
A couple of weeks later, his travel documents arrived, and the arrangements were a rather unpleasant surprise. He had expected a hop over to Denver and then a direct flight, but although Vienna was much better served by air than it had been a decade or so earlier, two or more changes would still be needed. Even setting off at the crack of dawn and with good connections, he would not arrive until well into the following morning, allowing for the difference in time zones.
After the first shock he was inclined to make light of this, but in the event found himself more weary on arrival than he had expected. His luggage was heavier than he had really intended, and his leg had started playing up enough to justify taking a cab to the hotel. Through an oversight his tablets were in the hold baggage, and the pain had made sleep practically impossible during the flights, so once installed, he took the maximum dose and spent the afternoon in bed.
To avoid further aggravating the troublesome leg he used the lift rather than the stairs to the ground floor, oriented himself on the street plan and worked out a route. One of the restaurants recommended to him was near the Gutenberg memorial, so he found his way to it, was a little disconcerted to be directed down a rather steep staircase to the dining area but had no particular trouble with it. He felt that in the circumstances he had to order Wiener Schnitzel but cautiously declined the suggestion of wine with it, making up for it with a portion of gateau, and in fact quite enjoyed the meal.
He still felt rather tired afterwards so returned to the hotel and booked a wake-up call as well as setting his alarm. Typically for the situation, he awoke naturally and more than an hour early the next morning, then was kept awake by annoyance at being unable to sleep again. After a simple but adequate breakfast he walked the few yards to the road beside the Danube Canal and the two hundred to the Schwedenplatz, where he bought the half-dozen Metro tickets he expected to need. There was no queue at the kiosk, and in view of the limited opportunities for purchase he wondered how many among the crowd of locals entering the station had actually bothered.
Even without the on-board announcement he would have known the Kaiserműhlen station from the directions given to him. At Passport Control his invitation was quickly checked and he was given a security badge, then he followed the crowd. The main building struck him as impressive and less hideously designed than many a modern structure, with tall extensions radiating from a drum-shaped core, but inside, the atrium was consequently circular and he realised that orientation could be tricky. Although the queue at the reception desk was quite long, as he had been warned was likely, he therefore thought it worth waiting for directions and noted the appropriate radial corridor in relation to the array of UNICEF display stands. The lifts were a few yards along it and given the number of floors passed, he sincerely hoped he would never have to use the stairs.
He emerged into a small hall off the peripheral corridor, made his way round it to the required seminar room, and was a little surprised by its shape until he remembered that it had to fit into a sector. Seats were arranged at desks each with a microphone and push-button that he realised must be for the sake of simultaneous translators in a gallery along the outer wall. The chairman's desk was at the inner edge.
Donald's paper was scheduled for the second day, as was fortunate since he was still considerably jet-lagged and at the end of the first could remember little of the proceedings except the Brazilian delegate's arriving late and apologising for appearing in track suit and trainers because his main luggage had been sent in error to Venice. The next day it had been sent on from there to Vientiane, and Donald wondered where next; Vilnius, perhaps? Marcel Duparc, sitting next to him, was reminded of a very aggressive passenger in front of him once at Heathrow check-in. The man had been giving hell to the clerk, moving Duparc to commiserate with her when his turn came and ask where the unpleasant character was going: "Washington - but his luggage is going to Tokyo." He wondered what Senhor Dias could have done to deserve a double misdirection.
Donald had slept much better this time and felt reasonably refreshed, so that to his great relief he was able to put in what he afterwards thought to have been a tolerably professional performance. It aroused a good deal of interest, so much that discussion had to be cut short for the sake of the following speaker. However, at lunch time while he was collecting cutlery, one of the deleg
ates whose question had not been accommodated approached, introduced himself as Neil Ainsworth and asked if he might join Donald for the meal.
Eating hampers serious conversation, so it was purely casual until they had finished. Ainsworth then explained that he was interested in the INL scheme but puzzled by one aspect of it: what was the form of plutonium in the residues they were to treat? "Mostly oxide, I expect."
"And you're planning to leach it out just with nitric acid?"
"That's right."
"But plute oxide's practically insoluble in nitric acid."
Donald was affronted. "What do you mean, insoluble? Plutonium solutions are common enough."
"Not thermodynamically insoluble, no, but the kinetics of dissolution are impossible. You can stew it for hours and nothing happens worth mentioning. In my ignorance I tried it once."
Donald still persisted. "Look here, I know I'm no chemist, but I'm familiar enough with the Periodic Table. Plutonium is an actinide, right?"
"Certainly."
"And actinides behave like lanthanides, and their oxides dissolve easily enough, don't they"
"I believe they do, though I've never had anything to do with them myself, but if you'll pardon the anthropomorphism, the early actinides don't seem to know about all that. They behave chemically just as though they were continuing an ordinary long series - uranium very much like tungsten, for instance. Lanthanide behaviour doesn't kick in until you get to americium, half-way along the row, and plute oxide behaves more like silica. I'm afraid you might as well try getting nitric acid to dissolve beach sand."
Donald was not going to give in too easily. "Just a minute, though. There are other plants where the oxide is dissolved in nitric acid. There must be some way of doing it."
"Yes, of course there is, but it involves adding fluoride as a catalyst. And to stop the fluoride from dissolving your equipment you have to add aluminium. If you do that, by the time you've finished you're almost back where you started, except that the plute's mixed up with a mass of aluminium instead of the general muck, which I suppose is some improvement but not much."
"Hmm. That's a bit of a poser. Thanks for pointing it out. I'll have to discuss it with my colleagues when I get back."
"Good luck with it; I'd like to hear how you get on in due course. Here's my card. Bit now we'd better be getting back to the seminar."
So much for Chris's "chemistry only a branch of physics," Donald thought. He must have a serious talk with him about getting a real chemist in on the project. At least he'd been spared the humiliation of being challenged on so basic a point within the meeting, but thinking with horror of how that might so easily have happened he got more and more irritated as the afternoon session wore on; how could such a basic oversight have been permitted? Adding to his distraction, his leg was hurting rather badly again and he realised he had better have it checked thoroughly when he got back home in case something was seriously wrong.
Waiting on the Kaiserműhlen station platform, he was still thinking on these lines when he was startled by a tap on the shoulder. It was Ainsworth again. "Excuse me, Dr. Harris, but I've been thinking a bit more about your problem."
"Oh, yes?"
"I believe there may be a way round it, although it means adding another process to your scheme with quite a lot more kit. If you - oh, here comes the train. We can talk about it on board, if you like."
"Fine."
At that point two last-minute passengers arrived, arguing vehemently in Italian. One of them was gesticulating wildly, not looking where he was going; he tripped over some obstacle and stumbled into Donald, catching him not only with his shoulder but with a heavy briefcase behind the knee. The impact threw him forward, the injured leg refused to take his weight and he tottered over the edge of the platform. The train was too close for him to get out of its way.
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