The Rift: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  “You’re right. I’m guilty,” Sparrow said. He sat, slouched over his desk, drawing figures on it with his index finger.

  “Well, I’m already here,” Maribel said, with a somewhat conciliatory tone in her voice. “You might as well show me your schedule.”

  Glen looked up. She noted that his expressions of remorse seemed only to have been an act, but she was over all of that now. She wanted to get up there and study the rift, and she didn’t care what the reasons were for getting her there.

  “Good,” Sparrow said. “Basically, everything’s in place and ready to go.”

  “Even the counterweight?”

  The heaviest possible counterweight was needed somewhere out in space to keep the cable, the most critical component of the elevator, under tension.

  “For years, the RB Group has had an asteroid in orbit around Earth. That’s where they test their mining equipment. We have a license with them to anchor the cable to that asteroid.”

  “How much did that cost?”

  “Only a couple favors. You don’t want to know the details.”

  Maribel considered asking for the details anyway but decided against it. The Russians were well connected, everyone knew that, and they always seemed to be involved somehow in anything you tried to do, wherever you went.

  “And when is the cable supposed to be installed?” she asked instead.

  “There’s a supply ship for the Tiangong-5 international module ready to launch at Vandenberg. It could roll out the cable. They’re just waiting for my okay.”

  “But that wouldn’t reach the whole way.”

  “Right. Then we’d have to get it from the space station to the Russian asteroid and anchor it there. If everything goes well, that could be two days after the launch of the supply ship.”

  “That’s three days, then,” Maribel counted.

  “Plus another two for repositioning the space station. We’d want the cable to pass as close as possible to the rift,” Glen said.

  “And the Chinese are working with us on all of this?”

  “Yes, they’re acting very friendly, at least in this project.”

  Glen laughed in a forced manner. He didn’t care what their motives were for helping him. One hand washes the other. That was how politics had always worked.

  “Okay, I won’t ask anymore,” Maribel said.

  “And they certainly have nothing against us sharing our findings with all the partners in this little project,” Glen said.

  Aha, maybe that’s it. Their Chinese friends feared being left behind in terms of the science. The rift was a phenomenon that definitely seemed promising in terms of new discoveries. If they studied the rift and didn’t find the long-sought-after new physics unifying gravity and quantum effects, then Maribel had no idea where else they should look.

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t we share our findings with the whole world?” she asked.

  And, of course, she thought, her IAC would be the primary authors of the many scientific articles that would surely come from their observations.

  “Good, then we’re agreed. What do you say we take a closer look at the elevator car? We’re calling it the ‘Lifter,’ by the way. But, it’s a two-hour drive from here.”

  “No problem, I don’t have any other plans for today.”

  Wistfully, Maribel thought of Chen and Luisa. Her husband and daughter had most certainly arrived at the science museum by now, their goal for this morning. She hoped she would have just as much fun with the Lifter.

  An alarm went off. Sparrow must have set it after they had agreed to use the travel time for some beauty sleep. Maribel looked out the window and saw a sign with the name ‘Lompoc.’ She knew the town name already. She had also seen it yesterday. They must be nearing Vandenberg.

  “Look in the compartment in front of you,” Sparrow said.

  She opened a plastic flap. Behind it was a folder. She took it out and opened it.

  “That’s your badge,” her companion said. “You’ll have to show it at the entrance. Even with that, though, you won’t be allowed to be anywhere on the base without me.”

  Maribel read her name on the card encased in transparent plastic. ‘Only valid if accompanied by authorized personnel,’ was written below her name.

  “What if they pick me up somewhere without you?”

  “Then you’ll be arrested, I’m sure. The military doesn’t put up with any funny stuff.”

  They were approaching a wide entrance with a barrier. A granite block told her where they were. Maribel could just barely make out ‘Space Command’ as they quickly sped by. The barrier opened. Nobody seemed to want to check their IDs.

  “They don’t appear to be very strict today.”

  “The officer at the gate already knows me,” Sparrow said. “But there are around 3,000 soldiers stationed here, and I only know a small fraction of them. Civilians really stand out here, especially anyone with a white badge, or no badge at all.”

  The base seemed enormous to her. There were only a few people on foot—most of the people were using vehicles. After their car had made a few turns, they approached a box-shaped, white-painted building with the blue NASA logo.

  “The Lifter’s in there,” Glen said.

  The car drove around the building.

  “Entrance 3C,” Glen said.

  “The auto-pilot will do the rest,” he explained. “It communicates with the building, obtains the necessary authorizations, and opens the gate. Watch.”

  The car drove toward the back wall of the building, without slowing down. Right before it was going to crash against the wall, a roll-up gate opened up, lightning-quick, right in front of them. The car passed through the gate and continued on just as fast as before. And, just as quickly, the gate closed behind them.

  “We can change the atmosphere in this building,” Sparrow explained. “That way we can simulate the conditions on other celestial bodies. And that’s also why we have such quick entrances and exits.”

  “And, why there aren’t any windows?” Maribel asked.

  “Yes. That would be inefficient.”

  The inside was illuminated by neutral, white light.

  “We can also simulate the lighting on Mars, for example, or on an asteroid.”

  Sparrow gave a command, and suddenly it looked like twilight. “Look over there, to the left.”

  Maribel’s gaze followed his arm. A lonesome, white sun illuminated the red-gray scenery. “Not bad,” she said.

  “The perfect testing grounds for our rover.”

  “There hasn’t been much to test recently, has there?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Venus was our last interplanetary destination, at the start of the 80s. The administration wants us to do more basic research.”

  “Then the rift fits very well with that objective. It’s pure physics.”

  “Yeah, that was one thing, among others, that I used to sell the space elevator to them.”

  “What else, Glen?”

  “Well, you, naturally.”

  “Don’t try to flatter me. I’m immune to that sort of thing.”

  “Okay. Well, the arguments that no company had a commercial interest in the rift, and that surveys have shown that the population is worried about it, probably helped a little too.”

  “People are worried, even though it poses no risk of danger?”

  “Imminent danger, no, but there’s this constant feeling of a threat lurking in the background. It’s causing a measurable economic slump. People don’t like to spend money in uncertain times.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “True enough. I’m sorry, Maribel. but we’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

  The car doors opened, and Sparrow climbed out. She followed him. He led her through a series of labyrinth-like halls. Suddenly they came to a clear wall that looked just like glass.

  “This is where we tested our Venus glider,” Glen said.

  “An aquarium? But there�
��s no water on Venus.”

  “We didn’t want the hot, aggressive Venus atmosphere in the whole building, so we built this glass box.”

  “Ah. I didn’t follow that project very closely—at the time, Luisa was still little.”

  They walked past the glass front. Then they entered a dark hallway that opened into a large space, the inside of a building within the bigger building.

  “Here we are,” Sparrow said.

  The space was about as large as a school gymnasium, but it didn’t smell like sweat. Instead, there was a strong smell of oil. Apart from them, there were no people in sight. Maribel had tried to imagine what the space elevator might look like. Naturally her ideas were based on known elevator cars. Maybe a bit more modern looking, she’d thought, and prettier... like those exterior elevators at expensive hotels. But those ideas were nowhere close to reality.

  In front of her was a space capsule. It was the typical, conical design. It even had a heat shield underneath.

  “You look a little disappointed,” her companion said.

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, but there are reasons we made it this way. First, it’s much cheaper to reuse known designs as guidelines, even for the prototype that you see here.”

  “Prototype?”

  “The elevator hasn’t done any real missions, yet. Surely you realized that!”

  Maribel nodded. Of course she had known that, but the reality of it was just settling in. She would be the guinea pig for a technology that had never previously been tested at a large scale.

  “You’ve done tests, though, right?” she asked.

  “Of course. With cables up to 500 meters long.”

  “Ah, then it’s all good. There’s not a big difference between 500 meters and 500 kilometers.”

  “That’s the right attitude,” Glen said, giving her a smile. He walked around the capsule and waved to her. “Come here,” he said.

  He had opened the hatch and now he was gesturing for her to climb on board. From the inside, the capsule was surprisingly roomy. It was, of course, round. There were six seats along the outside wall. In the center, running from top to bottom through the capsule, stood a cylindrical tube with a diameter of about 12 centimeters.

  Sparrow pointed at the tube. “Inside there are the drive system and the cable,” he explained.

  Maribel started to walk around the tube, trying to see everything at once. “Whoa!” She’d bumped into a transparent wall. “What’s this for? Additional stability?”

  “No. In an emergency, the capsule must be able to detach from the cable. The cable would be ejected to the outside through this slot.”

  “And then we’d crash land?”

  “Of course not. The capsule can be braked with parachutes and a chemical propulsion system. We’d land very gently on the ground.”

  “And if the cable tears?”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “But what if it did?”

  Sparrow hemmed and hawed.

  “Actually,” he said, “we had wanted to anchor it to a platform out in the ocean. If it tore, the cable would simply fall into the water. But we didn’t have time for that. The floating platform, a catamaran, exists only on the drawing board. So, we have to anchor the cable here in Vandenberg. If it falls, only the base will be in harm’s way. And maybe Lompoc—unfortunately, the town is very close.”

  “You’ve taken the risks into account?”

  “The military doesn’t have a problem with it. And the cable’s not going to tear. We’ve gone through all the calculations a hundred times.”

  “I wish I shared your optimism.”

  “But you do. After all, you’ve agreed to be onboard.”

  “If I’ve understood you correctly, a seat in the capsule would be one of the safest places within a certain radius, if the cable broke, right?”

  “That’s true too.”

  Maribel touched the transparent wall. It felt warm; it wasn’t glass, in any case. “This slot for the cable looks really narrow,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, the cable definitely fits through there.”

  “How were you able to make a cable so thin, and yet able to withstand such high tensile forces?”

  “Nanofabricators,” Glen explained. “They’re the whole secret. They basically ‘live’ inside and all throughout the cable. As soon as they find a weakness or a potential defect at any point, they fix it immediately.”

  “That technology is from Russia, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, the RB Group developed it.”

  “And you also have the license with them to anchor to the asteroid? You’re doing RB’s development work for them. With this system, they’ll be able to bring raw materials from orbit down to Earth much more easily.”

  “I’m sure that’s one motive for the Group. And why not? We’ll get our space elevator, and you’ll get your scientific findings. That’s a fair exchange.”

  “Sure,” Maribel said.

  In principle, she had to agree with Sparrow. For a long time, space exploration had been much too expensive for any one country to do alone. She just wished everyone would put their true motives up front for all to see. But she hadn’t been much more open herself. A family vacation? Not exactly! The whole time it had been all about getting as close to the rift as possible.

  “How about scientific equipment?” she asked.

  “I can get you whatever your heart desires. Probably best for me to give you a list. You can then pick out what you need, but it cannot total more than 300 kilograms.”

  “That should work. Why just 300?”

  “The elevator has a carrying capacity of 900 kilograms. That corresponds to six persons, 150 kilograms each. There are only four of us, so 300 is left over.”

  “150 kilos per passenger?”

  “Don’t forget the space suits. Every traveler will need one. We might need to fly into space, after all. Also, at an altitude of eight to ten kilometers, it will be rather cold up there if we want to step outside...”

  “Okay, got it, even if there are no plans for that at the moment. But why four persons? I thought there were only three?”

  “I’ve invited a journalist.”

  “Are you crazy? He’s only going to get in the way!”

  “We need some kind of PR. And what’s better than a journalist who is there first hand? At least he won’t write any made-up crap.”

  “Do you already have someone?”

  “A Frenchman. Maybe you’ve heard his name before. He became somewhat well-known when that structure was discovered around the sun.”

  “Oh, yes. The name is Eigen-something, like Eigenberg or Eigenton or ...?” Maribel said.

  “Eigenbrod, Arthur Eigenbrod. I did some extra background checks and he’s already been in space, so he’s not going to be getting sick all over us in the capsule.”

  They left the large building on foot.

  “It’s only about 800 meters,” Sparrow said.

  “No worries, I’m happy to take a little walk.”

  They seemed to be walking away from all civilization.

  “Anchoring the cable doesn’t require any special hardware,” Sparrow explained.

  When they arrived, Maribel saw what he meant. The grass had been mowed noticeably short inside an area of about ten by ten meters. In the middle, a square concrete block with sides of about three meters peeked out of the ground. There was a steel hook in the center of the block.

  “The block extends 30 meters underground. The hook that’s embedded in it is almost as long.”

  “Sounds impressive,” Maribel said.

  “It’s all been calculated thoroughly.”

  “And how do we raise the cable?”

  Sparrow walked a few meters to the side and pointed to several objects that resembled miniature military tanks, each with a metal ring instead of a turret. “These here are temporary cable guides. The cable runs through them over there to the rocket launch pad
in front of us.”

  Maribel looked where he was pointing and saw an elegant, white rocket. It was the same one that she and Luisa had marveled at yesterday.

  “When the rocket lifts off, the cable will be unwound at the same time.”

  “Like casting a fishing line?”

  “More or less. Actually, after anchoring the cable, the unwinding mechanism was the second most difficult problem. A rocket doesn’t start up smoothly and slowly, and the mechanism must not jam or fail under any circumstances.”

  “Because that might be dangerous for the rocket?”

  “No, but it’d waste a launch. Here at Vandenberg we have only two, maybe three launches a month that we could use to shoot the cable into space.”

  Maribel thought she had every reason for optimism. It all appeared to her to be very well thought-out. Work on the space elevator had been going on for decades—this wasn’t a hastily put-together project fraught with danger. Nevertheless, she still had a bad feeling about something. In the end, humans were always the weakest link, and errors were unavoidable. Maybe she was responsible for the bad feeling herself, since she had broken the promise she had made to her family. The fact that neither Chen nor Luisa had demanded that she keep her word didn’t make things any easier.

  May 29, 2085, Ceres

  Only one more step still separated him from nothingness. M6 stood at the uppermost edge of his platform. He had simulated entering the cleft, multiple times. There was a 99.96 percent likelihood that he would reach the other side undamaged—if there even was something like another side. And in his simulations, ‘undamaged’ merely meant that his body would pass into the cleft all together, in one piece. Whatever was waiting there in the cleft, M6 could not simulate. He couldn’t even make a prediction.

  Quantum physics had turned out to be much too complex to really understand it, and anyway, the cleft, as a macroscopic object, might not even follow those laws. Or maybe he just wasn’t able to find the right insight to bring him to the proper conclusions? What if the cleft was a kind of visible version of a quantum-physical process, the tunnel-part of the tunneling effect, in a manner of speaking, which can help tiny particles move through forbidden terrain? Human physicists had not yet been successful in transferring their quantum theories to the visible scale. Maybe the cleft held the missing piece to the puzzle?