Close Up the Sky by James L. Ferrell Page A

our work; finding out exactly how it
happened."
    "My
God," Leahy muttered, dumbfounded.
    Durant continued,
"Since the energy released by the stellarite was of such short duration,
we constructed a special test chamber to use for future testing instead of the
reactor. After the new equipment was in place, we updated our computer program
and performed a second test. Once again the tremendous power surge occurred,
accompanied by brilliant green light. This time the seawater failed to appear. Instead,
the floor of the chamber was covered by marshy earth and decaying vegetation. Analysis
of the material revealed microscopic organisms that our biologists were unable
to identify. Because of the disparity between the first and second tests, we
repeated the experiment using the same parameters. The results were identical: more
marsh and vegetation materialized. It even had the same smell as the first
batch; a kind of wet, musty odor indicative of a swamp that receives too little
sunlight due to constant overcast.”
    The scientist rose
and began to pace back and forth behind his desk. "We were almost afraid
to speculate on what was actually happening, but if our assumptions were
correct, the marsh was actually part of an ancient sea turned to swamp by the
passage of eons. Accepting that as true, we were looking at a piece of ground
that existed before man was ever conceived by the mind of God."
    He stopped pacing,
put his hands on his desk, and leaned toward Leahy. "You can imagine the
implications of such a thing! But the question remained: how, or why, did the
stellarite materialize water on the first test, but marsh on the second and
third? The computers gave us the answer.
    "You see,
each time the stellarite underwent neutron bombardment, it responded by
releasing a new kind of energy. The energy surge was instantaneous, and a
miniscule portion of the stellarite was changed into the new isotope. During
the transformation process, it interacted with Earth's magnetic field,
interrupting it in some way we don't yet fully understand. When the interruption
occurred, the energy forced a separation of the space-time continuum and opened
a kind of window into the past. During the instant the window was open, the
immediate area surrounding the stellarite became part of a past era. But
everything that stayed outside the
stellarite's sphere of influence remained in the present. In other words, if
you were outside the forty-foot circle of influence, you stayed in the present;
if not, you went into the past.
    “We later found
that the different kinds of things that materialized during the tests were due
to the varying strengths of the electrical fields generated by the test
equipment. During the first test, when we were using the reactor, the type of
support machinery was different from that used in the special test chamber for
the following tests, so two different amounts of electrical flux were produced.
That’s why the second and third tests opened a window on a later era. In other
words, the amount of energy used was equal to a specific place along the time
continuum. Once we understood these basics, we were able to explore the
possibilities in greater detail."
    Matt was
completely absorbed in the story. In fact, he was mentally racing ahead of
Durant, torn between excitement and fear about what its conclusion might
reveal.
    "Of course,
there were still many unanswered questions about how to harness this new power
and how to use it for constructive purposes. That's when Apache Point came into
being. Over the next few years, the combined talents of hundreds of scientists,
engineers, and technicians from every related field were utilized to resolve
most of the problems. The result of their efforts has been the creation of
something man has imagined since the beginning of scientific thinking.”
    Durant sat down
and leaned back in his chair. "H. G. Wells was more of a prophet than he
knew. We now have a fully operational instrument capable