Twenty-OneAn hour later, blogs being posted on the four corners of the Earth but no sign of Dragonmaster, Machuzak headed to the pentagon, hoping that if the damned physicists couldn’t keep a level head, his chief engineer could.
Nathaniel found Abbuhl in the test cell, where now two balloons of Edvard Munch’s Scream face guarded the entrance. Technicians had sealed up the torus a few days ago and had been pumping hard on it since. Leak checks were proceeding. Machuzak stood at Fred’s side watching the techs climb in and out of the cryostat as they sprayed helium gas over every surface of the inner vessel. Meters below, diagnosticians checked whether the helium showed up in the vacuum-pump exhaust.
“Looks good,” Andy Lipman reported. “Seals are tight.”
Machuzak audibly expelled a quantu
