I turned around and nodded. I looked straight at Hewlett's eyes. They had a curious mixture of grievance and happiness he didn't even care to conceal.
"Where is your friend?" said Hewlett. "Is he coming?"
"He's on his way."
"Good. Somehow I feel safer in his presence."
I suspected mocking in his words but dismissed the suspicion right away. He was cynical ok, but to such an extent... Had he seen the bodies of his wife and his lover for identification?
I went out after Hewlett.
In the lobby downstairs there was already yesterday's man – his name was Sidorov, if I wasn't mistaken - seated on an arm-chair. Jesus, was it only yesterday? Time became suddenly extraordinary condensed. Yesterday morning I couldn't imagine there would be so stunning events in the next twenty-four hours.
I came up to the man, he noticed me, rose to his feet, extended his hand to shake mine.
"You're still alive", I observed.
"Oh, I'm glad you've noticed that," Sidorov smiled. He introduced to me another man who appeared at his side from nowhere, a tall gloomy guy with large shoulders, cropped grey hair and lean figure:
"Nikolay, my assistant."
I thought that perhaps 'assistant' was not an appropriate word, as I experienced the guy's mighty, almost painful grip on my palm.
In the guy's left hand I noticed a silver briefcase very similar to the one that had done wonderful and dangerous peregrinations on the previous night.
As we went upstairs, I couldn't help giving a careful look at the briefcase. It seemed to him that it had a visible scratch on its side, like the previous one, but it could be only my impression.
Hewlett and Mary were seated at the round table in the lounge room. They rose to their feet as we entered the room. I saw the bewildered expression on Hewlett' face as his glance fell on the briefcase.
"Yes", said Sidorov who had intercepted Hewlett's glance. "I'm glad to tell you, mister Hewlett, that our intentions are as strong as ever and we are happy to confirm it with another advance payment."
With those words Nikolay put the briefcase on the table and opened it with a click of the locks. It opened its metal jaws revealing rolls of one-hundred dollar bills. I could bet they were the same that we had seen in the morning the day before.
The puzzled expression on Hewlett's face could be comic if it hadn't been tragically bewildered.
He mumbled:
"Well, we haven't yet discussed..., eh, the conditions of our..."
"That's what we're are going to do now," Sidorov didn't let him finish. "We can offer you something staggering, that you can't refuse." He took a file that appeared in the right hand of his assistant and opened it on the table.
"Look", he said, sitting down. "What we have here is a missile of an absolutely new concept. It can strike from anywhere without a special starting site. Look here."
Hewlett hadn't still recovered from the show of the briefcase and gave the paper in front of him only a casual glance.
Sidorov was in the meantime explaining the new missile. It was really something fabulously small and relatively simple. Hewlett was looking at the design with a more interested glance.
"What's the fuel?"
"Ah, it's the most interesting thing!", cried Sidorov. "It has no fuel. It uses the power of the magnetic field of the Earth."
Hewlett exchanged a quick glance with Mary, who slightly shook her head with a sceptical look.
She said:
"What phase are your works now? Is it only a brilliant idea or..."
Sidorov grinned:
"They have already been tested. One such missile flew around
the globe and landed at the site it had started from."
Hewlett said:
"Ok, then what's your problem? Go ahead by yourself, why do you want to involve us?"
Sidorov sighed:
"The problem is, that we can't land it at will where we would like. We can't follow it and govern it. If it were so, we could use it for military purposes. Imagine, such a missile starts from anywhere, even from the court of your house and hits the White House or Buckingham Palace. And, by the way, it can carry a nuclear charge."
"What?" said Hewlett incredulously. "How can that be?"
"That's the point, I'm telling you, I'm talking business." He cast Hewlett a sharp glance and said:
"That's our another know-how. We can produce small nuclear charges. Up to one kiloton. Our only problem is how to lead and land the rocket at will."
Hewlett gave an eloquent eye to Mary as if saying 'what rubbish I have to listen to!'.
"Ok," he said staring blankly at the design on the table before him. "Though I personally can't believe all this stuff as highly antiscientific – until proof to the contrary -, I can submit your proposal to our experts for evaluation. I wish it were something more than another perpetuum mobile."
'Ok," said Sidorov. "I have brought a film on the test of the missile."
"I have seen a lot of sci-fi films of high quality, I like this genre", said Hewlett without hiding his despise. "but in all the stuff you're going to show me I only can evaluate the degree of graphic perfection, nothing more. You could try to convince me only showing me a live test."
Sidorov sat silent a little with a thoughtful expression, then said:
"I think we could arrange for that. Only it would be a rather long voyage in Siberia."
"Look", said Hewlett impatiently. "I could make such a voyage, if it's worth while, but first convince me of its necessity."
Sidorov took what looked like a laptop from the hands of his assistant (I didn't notice where Sidorov had taken it from; those hands began to seem to me a kind of magic table cloth from the Russian fairy tales), put it on the table before Hewlett and opened it. Perhaps it wasn't a laptop but something like a film projector. Its screen lit up as Sidorov clicked a switch at its side.
What they saw in the film wasn't particularly impressive: a group of people on a desert field and a small rocket apart. The film was of poor quality, in black and white, one would expect a launch of a primitive powder rocket in the thirties. Instead, after a while, the camera focused on a man who made a signal with his hand and then on the rocket that moved very slowly upward and froze at a height of two or three meters, then it moved again inclining to the right, then to the left, as obeying to an invisible command. A second after it was clear that the rocket obeyed to the command from a remote in the hand of one of the men. The impression was that of a metal disc that was guided by a strong magnet separated by a sheet of paper.
Then something unexpected happened. The rocket placed itself in a horizontal position and whizzed away like it was drawn by an invisible rope. The camera followed it as it was carried away at a growing speed until it passed out of sight. That was the end of the film.
Hewlett was not impressed.
"Well," he said with a somewhat wry smile. "It seems well done, even the stylistics is good, but it can't replace a live experiment."
"Ok," said Sidorov. "I can show you something of the kind, on a small scale, of course."
He turned to his assistant, who put his enormous hand into his pocket and produced a small black case with buttons on it, and a small metal ball.
Sidorov took the ball and handed it to Hewlett:
"You can evaluate its weight and other material qualities," he said with a grin.
Hewlett took it with his fingers, squeezed it, then tossed it and grasped.
"It seems made of steel," he said still bearing a skeptical smile on his lips.
"Now", said Sidorov trying to conceal with affected indifference the expectation of triumph. "Put it on your flat palm and let lie so."
Hewlett did as he was told, his mistrustful smile becoming more noticeable.
Sidorov took the black box from Nikolai's hand and pressed a button on it.
"You may experience a little itching in your palm, it's not dangerous, don't let it bother you."
Then he pressed another button on the box, pointed it at the ball, and before the bewildered eyes of the public the ball rose in the air and stayed several seconds some twenty centimeters above Hewlett's palm. Then it shifted a meter to the left, obeying the command from the remote in Sidorov's hand. Then, with an ever more daring it moved to Mary's face and set itself on her nose tip. Mary's eyes were unnaturally wide open, fascinated and a bit scared. Then, after staying there a few seconds it was called back and returned to Hewlett's palm.
Hewlett's was impressed that time, however hard he tried to conceal it.
He said:
"Well, seems to be a circus trick, though I don't know how you do it."
Sidorov clicked on his black box and said:
"All serious technology is a trick, you know. The secret is to know how, you're right."
Hewlett's thought speed grew to a dizzy level. One could see flicking lights in his eyes. He said after a pause:
"But where do you want us to come in? What devices do you want from us? As I can see you guide the system by yourself."
"Only for short distances," quickly answered Sidorov who saw the effect his demonstration had produced and now was visibly enjoying it. "If we could build in your guidance device into our rocket and ensure a complete cycle of its monitoring during the flight till its landing in any point, that would be it."
Hewlett started giving in:
"Well, at this point I'd agree to make a voyage to your testing ground, but not before having a good look into your explanatory documents."
"Sure!", cried Sidorov. "Tell me when you want to come, we'll arrange for everything."
"Well, let me see," Hewlett said slowly, looking at Mary. "Say, in a few months, - eh, weeks, - after we've looked into your conception and designs. It's a serious matter."
Mary slightly shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
"But of course!" cried enthusiastically Sidorov. He took from Nikolay's hand a thin file and handed it to Hewlett:
"Here are all the necessary documents you need to get acquainted with the basic conception and elementary designs. I think it will do to begin with. The rest will be delivered on the spot and in the process of our collaboration of which I'm sure."
"I wouldn't be so damn sure of it", Hewlett mumbled, as he took the file and cast me a glance as if telling me not to translate that last remark. I didn't.
"Anyhow, I'll let you know our remarks. "And I don't think there's need for that generous advance before we come to terms." He waved to the silver briefcase.
"Oh, no, no, no!" said Sidorov. "As I have told you, this is a guarantee of the seriousness of our intentions. Keep it and use it to pay your experts or anyhow." And he slyly smiled and winked.
He rose to his feet, so did Hewlett, followed by me and Mary.
When I returned after seeing off Sidorov and his giant gloomy assistant with magic hands, I found Hewlett and Mary hotly arguing. Obviously Hewlett asked Mary about her impression on their talks and the demonstration. She was obviously very sceptical:
"...you know. I'm telling you it's a trick and rather a cheap one. I have read a lot about various circus tricks and I remember something of the kind. Copperfield can do it."
Hewlett shook his head:
"Copperfield never does it at such a close distance. Did you feel the ball on your nose? It flew in the air, it's a fact, you can't deny it."
Mary said stubbornly:
"You can't trust your perceptions when you go into the depth of things, that's the lesson science have learned from Kant."
"Jesus Christ, what's this got to do with Kant? Who cares about him?"
"Robert, you shouldn't..."
"I'm not going to do anything without a good evaluation, ok?"
"Sure". Mary turned to me:
"What do you make of all this, Serge?"
I sighed and said:
"Frankly speaking, I heard something about this technology during one my visit to Siberia time ago. They ran there a research center, with some weird achievements, but nobody knew exactly what was it."
"Who were you with?" said Hewlett.
"Ehm... I didn't go there, it was only a vague allusion from a man on the Soviet part, it was deeply secret, as I understood, he was hushed at once. So..."
"I see," said Hewlett. "But what's your personal impression on this stuff they showed us here?"
"Ah, it seems a session of hypnosis, though I didn't feel like being under hypnosis. It was so weird, but so real too. You can try the briefcase, if it's real". I thought I was being only funny. But Hewlett immediately jumped to his feet, grabbed the briefcase and put it on the table. Then he clicked the lock and flung open the cover.
The dollars were there.
"It doesn't prove that the rest was real too," said Mary.
"If they are as powerful hypnotists as you think they are," said Hewlett visibly relieved by the view of the briefcase's content, "they could use their power to do the trick with the money too."
Mary said:
"And then what? They are interested in our technology. This money proves only they have got access to an easy financial source. Like racket."
"Ok," said Hewlett, closing the briefcase. "I'm going to my room and have a close look at this file. Perhaps, I will have a chat with some experts if I happen to find them."
"Will you need me?" said Mary.
"I don't think so. Anyhow, I'll call you."
"Ok. Serge, will you stay with me for a while? I have some things to discuss with you."
Hewlett left with the briefcase in his hand and a vague incredulous smile on his face.