Free Twistor by Gene; John; Wolfe Cramer Page A

organize his thoughts. 'Sit down, and I'll tell what happened. Maybe you can tell me what's going on.'
    She sat in the other chair and glared at him.
    David carefully described what he had done after she had left the previous night. 'While I was looking straight at it,' he said finally, 'the whole bloody chamber just disappeared! There was a sort of
pop
sound, and then there was nothing there.'
    She blinked but said nothing.
    'I guess I was in shock for a while after that. I remember shutting off the water, the power, and the cryogenic fillers, and then I spent a long time just writing down everything I could think of in the logbook, trying to arrive at some rational explanation. But I was just going over the same ground again and again, and it was getting late. Finally I decided that the best thing to do was to go home, so I went. I made myself a stiff drink and went to bed. It's strange,' he added lamely, 'I slept like a baby. When I woke up this morning I barely had time to scribble out a few transparencies and get to the lecture.' He paused, waiting for Vickie to say something, but she sat silently staring at him. David felt a compulsion to continue talking, to fill the silence with words.
    ' Vickie, the goddamned thing just disappeared! I know that sounds crazy, but that's what happened. The chamber we spent the last six months designing and building is gone, and I don't know where it went or how to get it back.'
    He felt rather desperate for a moment. Why didn't she say something? But then something triggered an old memory, and he felt himself growing more calm and thoughtful. 'You know,' he began, 'once when I was a kid we found a huge light bulb in a garbage bin near the football stadium. I guess it was for the stadium lights. Anyhow, I threw a rock and hit it, and it broke with a loud funny
pop
and smashed all to pieces. The
pop
was an implosion, the air rushing in to fill the vacuum that had been in the bulb. Last night when the chamber disappeared, the
pop
sound it made was exactly like that. I think the damned chamber imploded!'
    'God, David, that's weird!' said Victoria, frowning. Then she added, 'How could a hunk of stainless steel implode without leaving a trace?' Without waiting for an answer, she blurted 'Have you
told
anyone yet?'
    'What am I supposed to tell them? That our chamber imploded and disappeared? I might as well say a billy goat broke into the lab and ate our equipment.' He walked over to the concrete slab still holding the four upthrust chamber supports, their brackets truncated. He kicked at a scrap of metal lying on the floor. Then he stopped, bent down, and picked it up. It was a stainless-steel flange that had been welded to the chamber. He examined its inner surface, then touched its edge very carefully with his finger.
    'David, what about Allan? You've got to call and tell him what happened. And wow, he's going to be mad! I can hear him now. It's his NSF grant, and his laboratory, and his equipment, and his professional reputation. David, he's going to take this as a personal insult. It would be best to tell him by phone. That would give him a chance to cool off a bit while we're out of shotgun range.'
    ' Yes, that should be done soon,' David agreed, but his thoughts were elsewhere. 'Hmmm, this is interesting. Come here and look at this, Vickie!' He held out the piece of metal. He had noticed that the surface where it had been attached to the chamber was strangely shiny, like a polished mirror. She took it in her hand and examined it. She touched the edge carefully. 'It's so smooth and the edges are so sharp! It would be hard to get a finish this smooth even with the precision surface grinder in the main shop.' She bent down and examined some of the other pieces of metal, ceramic, glass, and plastic that littered the floor. They're all the same way, David. How could that be?'
    David picked up one of the larger metal pieces, the stub of a brace, and examined his reflection in its shiny inner