Dark Winter by William Dietrich Read Free Book Online

Aristotelian aura with his mane of white hair and beard, raw pink skin, and eyes both bright with intelligence and as dark as obsidian marbles. Lewis was sure the look had been cultivated: Moss was the kind of scientist who could command the lectern of an academic gathering on appearance alone.
    "I wasn't aware we'd misplaced the universe," Lewis said on cue, playing straight man to the lecture. Moss would get to the point of this visit in his own good time.
    "Exactly! Exactly the problem!" The scientist bounded out of his seat and theatrically pointed toward the ceiling. "People marvel at the sky. All those stars! And yet those trillions of suns represent only a tiny fraction of the matter that has to be out there, judging from the rotational speed and placement of galaxies. There should be ten times as much stuff. A hundred times, maybe. So- what else? Dim stars? Dark planets? Or something we don't even suspect? That's what we're looking for." He pointed at the floor. "Down there." He smiled as if posing a riddle.
    "Sparco told me you're building a telescope in the ice."
    Moss looked mildly disappointed at this shortcut in his lecture. "You're familiar with neutrinos?"
    "Never seen one."
    The astrophysicist nodded wryly. "Precisely. Far smaller than an atom. So small that billions are passing through our bodies right at this moment without effect. So small that a neutrino can pass through the entire planet without hitting anything. The most inconsequential objects imaginable. Chargeless. Massless. Yet what if they do have mass, however slight? There are so many of them they could represent a substantial fraction of our missing universe. If we could find and count them and tell where they come from, it would bring us a lot of information. It's the finding that's the problem."
    "Which you've done."
    "Which we're in the process of doing. Statistically, a very few neutrinos do collide with the particles of an atom as they streak through the earth. When this happens there's a tiny explosion of sorts, a spark, a kind of radiation- a point of light, if you will. We can't see these flashes in rock. But sensitive instruments can see them in transparent mediums such as tanks of water. Or, ice."
    "Ta-da," Lewis said.
    "Drill holes deep enough and the ice becomes so compressed that all the bubbles and color are squeezed out of it. Ice becomes clearer than glass. Clear as diamond. Instruments can detect these flashes for a thousand feet in all directions. We've drilled holes a mile deep to spot neutrino light. It's the best place in the world, really. If it works. If it works."
    "There's been problems."
    "No! Not problems. Scientific realities. Impatience by funding agencies. Because they have no idea of the conditions down here. No idea! I'm staying this winter to try to keep things on schedule. Because we might find something so unexpected that it changes all our understanding of gravity, matter, energy…"
    "You did find something unexpected."
    "Yes." Again, Moss resented the prompting. "As a by-product of a lifelong search. A search here, at the harshest place on earth."
    "The Pole is pretty awesome."
    "You're privileged to be here. Men have been trying to decipher the heavens since Babylonian priests climbed their ziggurats. Like pilgrims and holy men, they've gone to the mountaintops. Now they've come to the farthest mountaintop, the South Pole. The farthest place! After this, the next ziggurat is space!"
    "And you have something from space." Lewis was trying to be polite but he was growing impatient to see what he'd been sent for.
    "Yes." Moss gave up on his preamble. "You have some expertise?"
    "A little from college. I'm not kidding myself about why Jim Sparco picked me. I wasn't the best, I was convenient and unemployed. I was interested in his research. And he thought I was principled, which meant he thought I could keep my mouth shut."
    "Yes, I'm interested in your principles." Moss studied him. "You've signed on to look for