Page 109 - Psychoceramics and the Test of Fire
P. 109
Secrets of the Endosphere
invalidated, several real producers bid each other up to an offer
several times greater than mine. Technologists had their own grails,
one being a substance with a crystalline structure rendering it
impervious in very thin layers to extreme applications of heat and
electricity. Cade’s subterranean geologist, encountering a mineral with
which he was unfamiliar, sent a sample up for assay. The United
States thus had a corner on the world market, with the obnoxious
Mr. Cade calling the shots. For months after the discovery he refused
to allow any mining engineers access to the chamber in which the ore
had been located, despite entreaties from officials in the military and
corporate upper echelons. He had a point to prove, and he didn’t
want the scene destroyed for crass commercial gain. Not yet, at least.
While the world waited, the experts he sent down to examine the
place where the vein of precious mineral abruptly terminated
carefully went over the shaft and all its galleries, searching for the
telltale remnants of prior mining. Their reports were inconclusive,
thus unsupportive of Cade’s hypothesis. Yes, natural forces could
have hollowed out that area; no, the walls did not exhibit gouges
typical of machinery now in use. The new owner of this vast treasure
held out, grasping at straws, sending for yet more experts to
contradict the first batch, all to no avail; he was, in effect, dependent
upon the very people most hostile to his theory. And then his money
ran out. Loans at extremely favorable rates were his for the asking—
but his only collateral was antimorphium.
Convinced he was right, Cade fired the scientists and went down
into the depths himself. He was in no condition for the rigors of
caving, but he dismissed all objections in his usual abrasive fashion.
Weighed down with magnifying glasses, photographic equipment and
surveying gear, he descended alone one day, leaving an anxious
ground crew behind. He died during the ascent: a massive coronary
infarction. In the notes he’d taken was the cryptic line, “but I
couldn’t have found it if they hadn’t shown me where to look.”
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