Ball Lightning(20)
Then, perhaps to break the awkward silence, she asked me, “Are you interested in weapons?”
“I was when I was a kid. My eyes would light up when I saw a weapon. Most boys are like that...?but let’s not talk so much about weapons. Do you know what it feels like for a man to seek information about weapons from a woman?”
“Don’t you think they have a transcendent beauty?” She pointed at the mine. “What an exquisite piece of art.”
“I’ll admit that weapons do possess an indescribable allure, but it’s built on top of murder. If this bamboo were just bamboo, that beauty would no longer exist.”
“Have you ever thought about why such a brutal thing as murder can bring with it such beauty?”
“A profound question indeed. I’m not much for that kind of thinking.”
The car turned onto a narrow road. Lin Yun continued: “The beauty of an object can be completely separated from its practical function. Like a stamp: its actual function is irrelevant in a collector’s eyes.”
“So then, to you, is weapons research motivated by beauty, or by functionality?”
As soon as the words left my mouth I felt the question too impertinent. But again, she smiled in place of an answer. So many things about her were a mystery.
“You’re the sort of person whose entire life is occupied by one thing,” she said.
“And you’re not?”
“Hmm. Yes, I am.”
Then we were both silent.
*
The car stopped just beyond an orchard, where the mountains that had seemed so distant now appeared right in front of us. A fenced-off area at the foot of the mountains contained mostly weed-covered ground, with a small cluster of buildings in one corner comprising a wide-slung warehouse-like structure and three other four-story buildings. Two military helicopters were parked out front. I realized that this was where the video of the ball lightning eyewitness had been shot. This must be the weapons testing grounds. In stark contrast to the New Concept center, it was heavily guarded. Inside one of the buildings we met the man in charge of the base, an air force colonel named Xu Wencheng, who had an honest face. When Lin Yun introduced him, I realized he was one of the country’s specialists in lightning research. I had often seen his papers in domestic and international academic journals, so his name was familiar, but I had never met him in the flesh, much less been aware he was a soldier.
The colonel said, “Xiao* Lin, they’re leaning on us to close up shop. Can you work the higher-ups a little more?” I noticed that his attitude toward Lin Yun was not one of a superior to a subordinate, but something more cautious and deferential.
She shook her head. “I can’t speak up in our situation. We must have resolve.” Nor was her tone one of a subordinate to a superior.
“It’s not a matter of resolve. The General Armaments Department is standing firm, but can’t last for much longer.”
“New Concepts wants to come up with something as fast as possible—some theory, at least. This is Dr. Chen from the Lightning Institute.”
As the colonel shook my hand with enthusiasm, he said, “If our two institutions were already cooperating, things might not have gotten to this point. What we’re going to show you today would be eye-opening for anyone in lightning research.”
Just then, there was a marked increase in the brightness of the lights in the room, as if some piece of high-energy equipment had just stopped. The colonel obviously noticed this too, and said, “Looks like it’s charged. Xiao Lin, take Dr. Chen to have a look. I won’t go with you, since, as you put it, I’ve got to have resolve here. You should get in touch with the Lightning Institute in person afterward, to establish a relationship between our two sides. I know former director Xue. He’s retired now, but, just like us, he couldn’t turn his experimental results into anything practical.”
On the way in, I noticed the fully equipped laboratories and engineering shops. That was another clear difference from New Concepts—this was obviously a place for real work.
Lin Yun explained, “Our lightning research is divided into two parts. What we’ll be looking at first is part one: an air-to-ground attack system.”
When we exited the large building we saw a pilot and another operator walking toward a helicopter, and two other people gathering up the thick cable that had just been detached from it. The cable ran straight into one of the buildings where several soldiers were loading a bunch of old oil drums into a truck. It was clear that there had been nothing for anyone to do for quite some time, so they all looked excited now.
Lin Yun led me to a sandbag bunker behind an open space the size of a soccer field, where the soldiers were now unloading the oil drums and stacking them into a cabin-like shape inside a red square. Engines roared in the distance, and then, through the dust whipped up by its propellers, the helicopter rose up slowly, angled its rotor slightly, and flew toward the space above the drums. It hovered over the target for a few seconds, and then a glittering shaft of lightning emerged from its belly and struck the drums. The practically simultaneous clap of thunder caught me off guard and startled me, and right on the heels of the thunder were several more dull noises, the explosions and fire from the residual oil in the drums. I stared in shock for a while at the black smoke wrapped around dark flames, and then asked, “What are you using for energy to produce the lightning?”