By Thomas Canfield

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 553.

Comp ice

Sometimes, in hindsight, it's difficult to see how certain things get overlooked. Like when NASA sent one of its Martian probes hurtling into the planet's surface. Afterwards, when they analyzed what went wrong, they discovered that they had failed to convert feet and inches into their metric equivalents. And you wondered how they missed something so blindingly obvious, so elementary. Then there was the library built in the form of an inverted pyramid, a structurally flawless design except . . . they failed to take into account the weight of the books. Empty, the building was a masterpiece. But when they began to bring in the books, they realized that the structure was pushed beyond its capacity. The engineers had failed to factor in the additional weight. I mean, a library, books—who would have made the connection?

What I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that things are not always so simple or obvious as they seem. It's almost impossible to take into account every variable in an equation. Almost always something gets overlooked. You only hope that it's nothing too terribly important or critical.

That was what happened with Comp Ice. The idea had come to me one evening while driving along the city's side streets. I hit a particularly jarring pothole that threw the alignment out of whack and played hell with the steering and handling performance of my car. It was an event that happened altogether too often. Drive along any city street and it was the equivalent of picking your way through a war zone. The roads were a mess. And, just like that, the thought struck me—Comp Ice. You could throw all the money in the world at the problem, exhaust the entire city budget, and still you wouldn't be able to keep the roads free of potholes. So I thought: why not attack the problem at its root, why not confront it head on? Rather than just slapping a band-aid over it.

The difficulty, simply put, was water. Water could work its way into any crack or crevice in the pavement, could penetrate the most minute breach or fracture. When it froze, it expanded. Freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw and, in no time, you had a pothole. Asphalt, concrete; it made no difference. Water could reduce them both to rubble. The solution was to fundamentally alter the nature of water.

That just happens to lie right up my alley. I'm a nano-engineer. Specialists in my line of work look for ways to alter or enhance molecular structures. Such improvements benefit a wide range of applications, from industry to farming to healthcare. I started with the basic chemical formula for water, H2O, and looked for ways to ‘tweak' it. When water freezes, it expands. With most substances the reverse is true. Cold causes matter to contract. So I delved into the inner structure of the water molecule searching for ways to trick it, to force it to comply with a different set of standards.

What I discovered was a ‘compression window' in the existing hydrogen/oxygen bond. Properly treated, the bond could be compressed, just as a spring could be, and the resulting solid, the ice, proved more compact and dense. The ice was still ice; it acted fundamentally the same, but it no longer expanded when it froze. The freeze-thaw cycle was neutralized, and potholes, and all their attendant ills, were effectively rendered obsolete.

I secured a patent on the process. Comp Ice, as I named it, was my baby, and I was as proud as any father. Once the Federal Highway Administration signed off on it, it was greenlighted for testing on a few select projects. Add my formula to any asphalt or concrete mix and the finished product, the highway, would be virtually maintenance free. It may not have been the most glamorous accomplishment in the march of human progress, but I have to say I felt pretty good about it. It was a neat piece of science. Even though the recognition I received wasn't all that I expected, once the royalty checks started rolling in, it no longer mattered quite so much. I was going to be a very wealthy man.

Only later did anyone discover the flaw in my logic. By then, of course, it was too late.

***

Brent Whitbeck stood on the banks of the lake, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He had forgotten his gloves in the truck and did not want to walk back to retrieve them. He stamped his feet against the frozen earth, hunched his shoulders. An icy wind blew in over the lake. The water was dark and sullen, as bleak and uninviting as the grey December sky above. Whitbeck shivered. But it was not the cold that was the source of his misery. It was the lake.

Whitbeck watched as Deputy Commissioner J. Allan Collingsworth paced back and forth along the edge of the water. Collingsworth was the number two man with the Department, a high-ranking bureaucrat whose voice carried considerable authority and weight. Whitbeck was a lowly field engineer. He had had to pull every string he knew, had had to call in every favor, to get Collingsworth to come out to the site. Whitbeck had put his career on the line and could only pray that Collingsworth would recognize the problem for himself and acknowledge the urgent, compelling need for action.

“O.K. I've seen the lake,” Collingsworth said, scowling. “Now suppose you tell me why I'm here.”

Whitbeck wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He could feel the cold all the way through him, all the way to the bone. “It's open water.” Whitbeck gestured at the lake. “We've had a hard freeze going on two weeks now. The other lakes and ponds are all frozen over.” Whitbeck waited, hoping against hope.

“So?” Collingsworth demanded.

“There's ice here, all right,” Whitbeck explained. “I did a survey, covered the lake from one shore to the other. Even took samples.” Whitbeck paused. “But the ice is at the bottom of the lake.”

“The bottom?” Collingsworth looked bewildered. “What's it doing at the bottom of the lake?”

“That's what I wanted to know. I took the samples into the lab, did some tests.” Whitbeck chewed on his lower lip. “It's Comp Ice, C-ice.”

Collingsworth absorbed this revelation with his usual calm. “The road north to Buckland,” he commented, “they paved it over the summer. Some of the runoff must have made its way here to the lake.” Collingsworth's expression turned thoughtful. “That's unfortunate, now that I stop and consider it. Anything that impacts the environment is red meat for the Save the Whale crowd. This is not going to go over well. When the press gets hold of it, they'll have a field day. They'll use it like a stick to beat up on the Administration. Lax oversight, insufficient regulation: I can see the headlines now. We'll have to go into damage control mode.” Collingsworth shot a quick look at Whitbeck, a look of shrewd appraisal and cunning.

“You did the right thing in notifying me, Whitbeck. You did the smart thing.”

Whitbeck sighed. Collingsworth still did not see the problem. He imagined it was some sort of public relations issue, something they needed to contain and smooth over. He had no broader vision than that. Whitbeck looked at Collingsworth with an edge of malice. He gave it to him straight up.

“The Comp Ice is heavier and denser than regular ice. That's why it sinks to the bottom. That means the water at the surface is exposed to the cold and will freeze as well. There's no longer any insulating effect. The process will go on repeating itself until the lake is frozen solid through, top to bottom.” Collingsworth shifted on his feet uneasily. He turned up the collar of his jacket. He was trying not to see where Whitbeck was leading, trying not to recognize the magnitude of the catastrophe.

“Every living thing in this lake will be killed, Commissioner. The fish population will be wiped out. Up and down the food chain the entire ecosystem will be decimated. Everything is connected to, and dependent upon, everything else. And this is only one lake! We have to prevent the others from being infected as well.”

The color had drained out of Collingsworth's face. Only the tips of his ears were a bright pink. His eyes wore the distant look of a man who had just absorbed a punishing blow and was waiting to evaluate how badly hurt he was. He opened his mouth to say something—and there was only silence, only the thin, sharp punctuation of the wind.

***

I don't know how many times I've said that I was sorry. I've almost made a separate career of it, these past couple of weeks. Only no one seems to care. People want to believe that I set out deliberately to wreak havoc on the environment. It's not just the tree huggers who are up in arms, either. Ordinary people—you wouldn't believe how angry they are. I try and explain, but nobody's listening.

Well, I got news for these people. I'm a nano-engineer, and I know what's in the pipeline. I know what's about to hit the streets. You think Comp Ice is bad, wait'll you see what we've got in store for you next. I won't ruin the surprise, but hey, car owners, don't like paying top dollar for a gallon of gasoline? Try our substitute. We've got a lovely little supplement that will ease the strain on your budget. Only problem is, the ozone layer, that thing that protects you from the sun, you can about kiss it goodbye. Once we're up and running, I give it ten years at the outside. By then, hopefully, we'll have discovered a solution that will eliminate the side effects and everything will be just ducky. The way I see it, as long as we keep solving problems faster than we create them, things will work out just fine.

Trust me.