Needless to say, he took some time about this, but I managed to distill the essence of it for my understanding.

I had already learned from Nebogipfel that there is a substructure within the atom — and that Thomson would take one of the first steps to this understanding. Now I learned that this substructure can be changed. This may happen through a coalescing of one atomic core with another, or perhaps spontaneously, through the breaking-up of a massive atom; and this disintegration is called atomic fission.

And, since the sub-structure determines the identity of the atom, the result of such changes is nothing less, of course, than the transmutation of one element into another — the ancient dream of the Alchemists!

“Now,” said Wallis, “you won’t be surprised to learn that on each atomic disintegration, some energy is released — for the atoms are always seeking a more stable, lower energy state. Do you follow?”

“Of course.”

“So, in this pile, we have six tons of Carolinum, fifty tons of uranium oxide, and four hundred tons of graphite blocks… and it is producing a flood of invisible energy, even as we look at it.”

“Carolinum? I have not heard of that.”

“It is a new, artificial element, produced by bombardment. Its half period is seventeen days — that is, it loses half its store of energy in that period.”

I looked again at that nondescript heap of bricks: it looked so plain, so unprepossessing! — and yet, I thought, if what Wallis said about the energy of the atomic core was true…

“What are the applications of this energy?”

He popped his glasses back onto his nose. “We see three broad areas. First, the provision of energy from a compact source: with such a pile aboard, we can envisage submarine Juggernauts which could spend months below the ocean, without the need to refuel; or we could build high-altitude Bombers which could circle the earth dozens of times before having to land — and so forth.

“Second, we’re using the pile to irradiate materials. We can use the byproducts of uranium fission to transmute other materials — in fact, a number of samples are being run in there for Professor Gödel just now, to support some obscure experiment of his. You can’t see them, of course — the sample bottles are within the pile itself…”

“And the third application?”

“Ah,” he said, and once more his eyes took on that remote, calculating look.

“I see it already,” I said grimly. “This atomic energy would make a fine Bomb.”

“Of course there are severe practical problems to solve,” he said. “The production of the right isotopes in sufficient quantities… the timing of preliminary explosions… but, yes; it looks as if one could make a Bomb powerful enough to flatten a city — Dome and all — a Bomb small enough to fit into a suitcase.”

We set off through more of the narrow concrete corridors, emerging at last in the College’s main office block. We came to a corridor carpeted in plush pile, with portraits of eminent men of the past on the walls — you know the sort of place: a Mausoleum for Dead Scientists! There were soldiers about, but they were discreet in their presence.

It was here that Kurt Gödel had been awarded an office.

With quick, efficient strokes, Wallis sketched out Gödel’s life for me. He was born in Austria, and took his degree, in mathematics, in Vienna. Influenced by the gaggle of Logical Positivist Thinkers he found there (I have never had much time for Philosophizing myself), Gödel’s interests drifted towards logic and the foundations of mathematics.

By 1931 — he was just twenty-five — Gödel had published his startling thesis on the eternal Incompleteness of Mathematics.

Later, he showed interest in the physicists’ newly emerging studies of Space and Time, and he produced speculative papers on the possibility of time travel. (These must have been the published studies to which Nebogipfel had referred, I thought.) Soon, under pressure from the Reich, he was moved to Berlin, where he began work on the military applications of time traveling.

We reached a door on which a brass plate bearing Gödel’s name had been fixed — so recently, in fact, that I spotted spindles of wood from the drilling on the carpet below.

Wallis warned me that I could have only a few minutes on this visit. He knocked on the door.

A thin, high, voice within called: “Come!”

We entered a roomy office with a high ceiling, fine carpet and rich wallpaper, and a desk inlaid with green leather. Once this room must have been sunny, I realized, for the wide windows — now curtained — faced westwards: in fact, in the direction of the Terrace where I was lodged.

The man at the desk continued to write as we entered; he kept his arm tucked around the page, evidently lest we see. He was a short, thin, sickly-looking man, with a high, fragile forehead; his suit was of wool and quite crumpled. He was in his thirties, I judged.

Wallis cocked an eyebrow at me. “He’s a rum cove,” he whispered, “but a remarkable mind.”

There were book-shelves all around the room, though currently bare; the carpet was piled high with crates, and books and journals — mostly in German — had spilled out in uneven piles. In one crate I caught a glimpse of scientific equipment, and various sample bottles — and in one such, I saw something which made my heart pound with excitement!

I turned resolutely from the crate, and tried to conceal my agitation.

At last, with a gasp of exasperation, the man at the desk hurled his pen from him — it clattered against a wall — and he crumpled the written pages within his fists, before discarding the whole lot — everything he had written — in a wastebin!

Now he glanced up, as if noticing we were there for the first time. “Ah,” he said. “Wallis.” He tucked his hands behind his desk and seemed to shrink inside himself.

“Professor Gödel, it’s good of you to let us visit you. This is—” He introduced me.

“Ah,” Gödel said again, and he grinned, showing uneven teeth. “Of course.” Now he stood, in angular jerks, and stepped around the desk and proffered his hand. I took it; it was thin, bony and cold. He said, “The pleasure is mine. I anticipate we will have many engrossing discussions.” His English was good, lightly accented.

Wallis took the initiative and waved us to a set of arm-chairs close to the window.

“I hope you find a place for yourself in this New Age,” Gödel said to me sincerely. “It may be a little more savage than the world you remember. But perhaps, like me, you will be tolerated as a useful Eccentric. Yes?”

Wallis blustered, “Oh, come now, Professor—”

“Eccentric,” he snapped. “Ekkentros — out of the center.” His eyes swiveled to me. “That’s what we both are, I suspect — a little out of the center of things. Come, Wallis, I know you steady British think I’m a little odd.”

“Well—”

“Poor Wallis can’t get used to my habit of my drafting and redrafting my correspondence,” Gödel said to me. “Sometimes I will go through a dozen drafts or more — and still finish by abandoning the piece altogether — as you saw! Is that strange? Well. So be it!”

I said, “You must have some regrets at leaving your home, Professor.”

“None. None. I had to get away from Europe,” he said to me, and his voice was low, like a conspirator’s.

“Why?”

“Because of the Kaiser, of course.”

Barnes Wallis shot me warning glares.

“I have evidence, you know,” Gödel said intently. “Take two photographs — one from 1915, say, and one from this year, of the man purporting to be Kaiser Wilhelm. If you measure the length of the nose, and take its ratio with the distance from the tip of the nose to the point of the chin — you’ll find it different!”