* * * * *
Despite George Herrmann's admonitions re long distance calls, I
immediately visifoned every AGS installation in the States.
The last call did it. I raised Al Benson in Phoenix, Arizona. He'd seen
Elaine briefly. He'd been first in the control room at the Phoenix
synchrotron and had just activated same when, bingo! she was there.
He had in fact been just about to call me. She'd been wearing the
parka which had stayed when she "left". He'd found my name stencilled
on the parka's left breast. Said she'd said the "nicest" man had lent
it to her.
Which was nice to hear.
"We've just _got_ to find her," I said earnestly.
He looked at me quizzically. "Bob, my boy, is the old perennial
bachelor's veneer cracking?"
I thought that one over. "I guess it is," I admitted. "Now, Al, any
suggestions?"
"I'm essentially a computerman," he said. "Give me some data and I
might come up with something."
I knew what HOAGS had been intended to do: guide streams of particles
in a chainlike pattern through the influence of magnetic fields of
alternating direction so that head-on collisions of particles would
result. Theoretically this should yield energies as enormous as the
satellites reported present in cosmic radiation in space. But what side
effects might result from HOAGS' activation was difficult for even
computers to conclude.
There were other data: times of vanishment; durations of presence here
and at Phoenix; the fact that the parka had gone with Elaine from here
to Phoenix but had remained at Phoenix upon her vanishment there--
"She's drawn to an AGS unit upon its activation," Benson said. That was
already obvious to me but I didn't say so; Al Benson keeps his computer
pretty high up on a throne. He went on, "Your parka came here with
Elaine because it had picked up some manner of static charge from her.
For some reason it was discharged--degaussed, maybe--while she was here
and so it stayed when she--er--didn't."
I had looked at the wall clock as he was talking. "Look, Al," I cried,
"cut for now. Hanford AGS should have been activated a few minutes ago.
I'm going to call Ted Sosnowski there. Out, boy!"