The Rift: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  “So, you didn’t listen to her?”

  “Of course I did. I always do. I offered not to fly, but she refused to let me turn it down. She knew how happy it’d make me to write this story.”

  “That’s very noble of her,” Maribel said. Just like Chen, she thought.

  “Yes, she’s great.”

  “Anything else you need me to tell you about?” Glen asked.

  “You could tell us how you were able to get all these instruments in here and still stay under the weight limit,” Maribel suggested.

  “To tell you the truth, that wasn’t easy. Three of the instruments had to be disassembled into multiple parts. And because of the weight, many of the metal parts had to be replaced by special constructions made from ceramic or plastic.”

  “And you did all that in two days?” Arthur asked.

  “The day before yesterday the capsule was still empty, sitting in the warehouse where the office is,” Maribel said.

  “That’s one of the advantages of being stationed on a functioning military base. With one call, the presiding commander can supply more manpower than we could ever put to work. And the workers here are all part of the Air Force’s Space Wing, so they’re more than competent in this type of work.”

  “I’m impressed,” Arthur said.

  “Me too,” Maribel agreed.

  A siren sounded outside.

  “Just as planned,” Glen said, “not that loud sounds are really helpful to everyone’s anxious mood.”

  “Is it telling us what I think it is?” Maribel asked.

  “Yes, we need to get away from here.”

  “Are all the instruments tied down securely?”

  “Don’t worry, Maribel. But I think you’re in for a little surprise.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see. Now come on.”

  They watched everything from the bed of a pickup truck. The platform with the space capsule was only 20 meters away.

  “Feels strange to be so close to a launch,” Maribel said.

  “You’re telling me. I’m just waiting for the deadly hot gases to come pouring out of the engine,” Glen said.

  The platform was cleared. The crane positioned next to the platform swung its arm to the side.

  “See? That arm had been keeping the cable in place. Now it’s free.”

  Maribel nodded. She found it unimaginable, what they were witnessing. In the concrete block hidden under the platform was one end of a cable, whose other end was somewhat far above them out in space. It was like that one fairy tale with the beanstalk reaching into the sky. And the gray capsule was about to start climbing that cable.

  The siren sounded again. A countdown began and then stopped. A man in protective clothing ran to the capsule, used his hands to perform a few actions whose purpose was not immediately clear, and then cleared the platform again. The countdown resumed. Maribel felt nervous feelings bubbling up inside her, even though the base was completely quiet. The process gave the impression of well-oiled clockwork. Every gear and cog engaged with the next in an almost frictionless movement.

  The countdown stopped again. Nothing happened. Probably people were debating what to do. Apparently nothing, because then the countdown started again. Soon they were at ten, nine, eight, and finally zero.

  Maribel heard a high-pitched groaning. That must be the cable suddenly coming under tension, she thought.

  “Did you hear that groaning sound?” Glen asked.

  Maribel nodded.

  “A lot of people think that’s the cable being tensioned. But that’s nonsense. Its own weight keeps it always under tension—that’s our biggest problem. The few tons from the capsule don’t make much of a difference.”

  “So, what was that sound then?”

  “The platform, the trampoline. The capsule’s weight was just taken off it.”

  “You mean the capsule is already suspended on the cable?” Maribel asked.

  “Exactly. Now we could even take the platform out from under it.”

  “And why this pause?”

  “Just for safety reasons.”

  “What could go wrong now?”

  “Nothing, Maribel. Sometimes we put safety pauses in even when nothing could go wrong, which is what’s going on here.”

  Maribel laughed. Then the capsule started moving.

  “Now the linear motor in the cable channel starts its work,” Glen explained. “It’s powered from the cable, but the capsule also has a backup battery if the power should fail.”

  “How long is the battery good for?” asked Maribel.

  “About ten minutes. Enough so the capsule can detach from the cable.”

  “And if the cable tears somewhere?” asked Arthur.

  “That’s an interesting question,” Glen said. “We worked on that for a long time.”

  “Wouldn’t it just fall back to the ground?” the journalist asked.

  “No. The cable is basically orbiting the Earth. The farther up we are, the more it behaves like a satellite. So, like a satellite, it also would only gradually fall back to Earth at first, as it’s braked by the atmosphere.”

  “So it’s not a problem?”

  “We can’t really say that, no. The lower part of the cable is constantly experiencing rather large deceleration forces, the upper part not so much. This produces forces that act in opposite directions, like in a vehicle that’s only braking with its rear wheels. As long as the cable is whole, these internal stresses are in a state of equilibrium, but if the cable breaks, this would no longer be true. The two individual parts would have to reach new states of equilibrium and would move away from each other.”

  “What does that mean for the capsule?”

  “Well, Arthur, in any event we’d detach ourselves from the cable as quickly as possible. If the cable starts falling, it’s going to have a lot of kinetic energy, so we don’t want to be in the way.”

  “And if it impacts the Earth?”

  “You’re going to use this in your article, aren’t you?” Glen said. “Well, if the cable tore way up high and then came crashing down onto land, things could get rather unpleasant. That’s one reason we’re so close to the ocean. But the stresses are greater down closer to the ground, so the cable is more likely, although still very, very unlikely, to tear down low. And we’ve developed a special safety mode. If the tension in the cable falls below a certain value, because the cable has torn, the nanofabricators, which otherwise keep the cable stable, will automatically introduce artificial fracture lines in the cable. Thus, it will break apart into several pieces, each of which is no longer too dangerous by itself.”

  “Thanks, Glen, that was a great explanation.”

  “Didn’t you just tell me yesterday that nanofabricators were illegal down here on Earth?” Maribel asked.

  Glen rubbed his chin. “Officially this is being handled as a space project, so we were able to convince our contractors that there were no legal problems in using them. We’ve agreed to forward all results from the tests directly to all interested parties.”

  “So, you had to make another deal,” Maribel said.

  “I guess you could say that, yes.”

  The capsule started moving faster. It was haunting how quietly everything moved. Even the people had all quieted down. Maribel sensed a feeling spreading around. Quite possibly they were witnessing the advent of space travel for the next century—as long as nothing went wrong, of course.

  Maribel thought about the cable. It was so inconspicuous. Even if it was as thick as an arm, would she dare cut through it if she had to? Would the nanofabricators be quicker than she would be at cutting the cable? The cable was a self-repairing object. Wouldn’t it be great if everything that people built on Earth could repair itself? Cars would just have to sit overnight in the garage at home to fix themselves after a crash. Broken washing machines and dishwashers would be things of the past. Eyeglasses could be automatically changed
to a new prescription.

  It would be a revolution. All that was needed was the legal release of the nanofabricators. There were people who claimed that the manufacturing industry itself was against that, because then there’d be no more need for new products. Maribel didn’t believe in such conspiracy theories. Were people overstating the dangers of the technology? Hadn’t people been worried about the unstoppable spread of machines for a long time? But no problems had ever come up on the moon or the asteroids.

  Somebody tapped her on the shoulder. It was Glen, who was holding out binoculars to her. The capsule had already climbed surprisingly high. It was a rather disconcerting sight, because at this distance the cable wasn’t visible anymore. There was only a heavy space capsule, which, instead of falling downward faster and faster as one might expect, was slowly rising higher and higher.

  Then Maribel saw the rift. She looked at it through the binoculars. It looked like it had the other times she viewed it—unfathomable blackness. Soon she would be close enough to practically reach out and touch it.

  “How high will it go today?” Arthur asked.

  “15,000 meters,” Glen answered. “We want to make sure that we can reach the rift the day after tomorrow.”

  “Why not all the way up?”

  “It’s not a good idea to push your luck too far the very first time.”

  They waited. The capsule was hard to see, even through the binoculars. Maribel gave up. After she had gotten used to the slow movement of the capsule, the whole test had lost its excitement. She had seen what she wanted to see, and now she just wanted to be with her family again, but she wouldn’t be able to see them until that evening at the earliest.

  There was activity, with noise growing around the platform. Apparently, the capsule had started its descent.

  “We’re letting it come down in free fall,” Glen explained.

  Maribel pointed the binoculars up toward the capsule. It was now moving considerably faster. Like before, however, she couldn’t see any sign of engines. How would it feel to be on board right now? she thought.

  “Don’t worry,” Glen said. “This is only a test. We’ll use the motor to slow us down during the descent when we’re onboard.”

  “Very reassuring,” Arthur said.

  Maribel held her breath. The capsule was moving faster and faster. And it looked as if it was coming down directly on them. The fact that the cable ended 20 meters away from them couldn’t be seen from her current perspective. Maribel wanted to run away and seek shelter. But she forced herself to stay sitting where she was. She laughed nervously and then saw beads of sweat on Glen’s forehead.

  She pointed up toward the capsule. “It’s completely safe, right?”

  He wiped the sweat off his forehead. “To be honest, this is a new test. But nothing will happen. Nothing can happen.”

  The capsule didn’t appear to be listening. It continued to race toward them. Thanks to the binoculars, Maribel could see smoke forming on the cable.

  “Could the cable be damaged by friction?” she asked.

  “No, that only looks like smoke,” Glen explained. “It’s water vapor that’s rapidly condensing out of the air at such a high altitude.”

  “So heat is being produced?” she asked.

  “Due to the air friction, of course. But that’s all been included in the calculations.”

  It continued coming down. Soon it would... There was a booming sound. The engines had activated. They brought the capsule to a stop almost instantly. The people near the platform started to applaud.

  “It worked,” Glen said.

  “I’m relieved. What would have happened if it hadn’t?” Maribel asked.

  “The capsule would’ve been catapulted toward the ocean. And our launch the day after tomorrow would probably have been delayed.”

  “What do you think, Arthur?”

  “Very impressive,” the Frenchman said. “I’m just hoping that our landing won’t be quite so abrupt.”

  Maribel nodded.

  “I can promise both of you that it won’t,” Glen said.

  May 31, 2085, Ceres

  The platform was waiting for him. M6 had already spotted the cleft from a distance. When he was finally standing at the top, he determined that there had been no changes at all. The cleft had not moved by even a nanometer. If it was made from some form of matter, even if it were some unknown type of dark energy, wouldn’t it have had to lose or gain at least some energy during the time that had passed? No physical system could remain completely constant over time. The constancy of change was ingrained and unavoidable in the course of time. But none of that seemed to apply to the cleft.

  Thus, only two conclusions were possible. Either the cleft was a purely spatial phenomenon lacking a time dimension, or it had to be viewed as independent of our space-time fabric. Neither case could be calculated or simulated with the physics available to M6. But there was at least one experiment that he could use to find out which of these two alternatives it was. In the first case, nothing would happen. In the second case, something would have to happen—the outcome could not be ‘nothing.’

  Or had he made an error in his thinking somewhere? He couldn’t change something invariable without a time dimension, no matter what he did. The first case appeared to be clear. But the second? What would happen if he stepped outside of time and space? Would he disappear from this universe? That could have terrible consequences, because it would mess with cause and effect. Or would a copy of himself remain, in order not to mess with history? That would be especially unlucky. Then he would believe that nothing had happened—that is, that the first case applied... but, in reality, it would be the second case.

  That was enough to make you want to tear your hair out! And which of his programmers had taught him that phrase? M6 felt like he was on the verge of slipping into the dangerous realm of quantum uncertainty. He wanted to perform, in the terminology of quantum physics, an experiment whose outcome depended on whether there was a neutral observer. Unfortunately, he did not have an observer at his disposal.

  Not yet, at least. M6 thought about his nanofabricators. He could use them to build a separate monitoring system, one that was not part of himself, from one of his optical cameras. He would then place it on the platform. He hoped it could absolutely tell him what had happened during his experiment.

  The test itself would have to wait a little while longer.

  June 1, 2085, Pomona, Kansas

  “Where am I?” asked Derek loudly. His head was lying on a white pillow that smelled strongly of starch. He saw a few uneven floorboards that must have once been painted dark red, even though now almost all the paint had been worn away. They seemed familiar to him. He remembered crouching over the floor and moving a paintbrush across the wood. But why? Had he decided that the bedroom needed a new coat of paint?

  No, that had been Mary, who had wanted this color that he still thought was rather ugly. If it had really just been him in this house alone, as reality kept trying to tell him, he would have sanded the floors and put a colorless varnish on them, so that the grain of the wood could be seen. Maybe he should just do it, because reality seemed to have a very strong argument—it had taken away his wife, and he would probably never get her back.

  Then he heard singing from downstairs. Derek sat up, startled. He was sitting in his own bed, in his own house, that he had lived in for many years by himself, but someone, it sounded like a woman, was singing downstairs. Probably in the kitchen, he decided. Had fate heard his appeals and returned Mary to him? He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His legs were bare. He couldn’t remember taking off his clothes yesterday. His pants hung neatly folded over the back of the chair in the corner. In front of the pants, on the cushion, was a T-shirt, crisply folded, like he was never able to accomplish, even though it had been drilled into him in the military.

  Only Mary ever folded his clothes that well, he thought. There were some rattling noises downstairs. He sat up
straight. The singing woman was doing his dishes.

  “Akif, can you take out the two trash cans, please?” she said.

  Derek slumped back onto the bed. Of course. It was Gita, the Indian receptionist and covert IT expert. But what was she doing in his house? The disappointment made him want to stay in bed, but his curiosity eventually grew strong enough that he pulled on his pants and T-shirt. Then he opened the bedroom door. He could hear footsteps down below. He went down the stairs, avoiding the creaking steps.

  He walked down the dark hallway and stopped in front of the door to the kitchen. He took a deep breath. There it was again, the penetrating smell of the wood preservative that had completely turned his life upside down the last several days. Derek closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. Please, let it be Mary, he prayed, contrary to the best of his knowledge. Then he opened the kitchen door. God had not answered his prayer. Or, the answer had been, “No.” Gita was standing in front of the sink, her sleeves pushed up over her elbows, and she was washing his dishes. She was singing a song that he thought he recognized from church. Isn’t she a Hindu like most Indians?

  “Ah, good morning, sleepy-head,” she greeted him.

  She had an infectiously joyful face. Wherever Gita might be in the morning, he was doubtful anyone could stay grumpy for long. He started to feel a little jealous of Akif, because it was very clear which man Gita had eyes for, even if the doctor was apparently clueless. Then he remembered Mary. He had no reason to be jealous.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Your dishes. It looked like it was about time.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. But it didn’t answer his question. “But why are you here? You two could have opened up the office again.”

  “Wouldn’t really have been worth it. Today’s Friday and we’re only open until one anyway. And officially, we’re not reopening until Monday.”

  “You could’ve cleaned your own place. Or gone to a park and enjoyed the sun.”