Chapter 20
The Assembly of the Centauri System had given the military an unlimited budget to get the plasma globe outbreak under control. Fortunately since first appearing the globes had seemed to not be bent on destruction. The number of incidents had dropped significantly and no one had been killed in quite some time. There was the new mystery of the disappearing Kuiper station and the Telescopii star but that wasn't the Assembly's business.
The military recreated several of Emmy's skyrmion cradles and stationed a detachment in every habitat to try and capture one of the globes.
Lieutenant Marks and his men were stationed in a heavy industry habitat in an orbit much closer to Alpha Centauri A than other habitats so that the light collectors could work to their highest efficiency to provide a power source for the habitat's manufacturers. It was a small habitat cylinder at only two miles in diameter and ten miles long and there wasn't much to do even in the main town of Pittsville.
“Well they got one thing right.”
“What's that Sergeant?” asked Lieutenant Marks.
“The name.”
“Now Sergeant the townspeople have been very good to us.”
“Yeah, hicks with nothing else to do.”
“They provide quite a bit of the manufacturing for the entire Centauri System, I'd say that is something to do.”
“Yeah they work, sleep, eat and go to church. Whoopee.”
“Sergeant Morgan, you are a philistine with only one thing in mind.”
“So?”
“Well we'll be rotated out soon and then you can have all the fun you can stand. Think of the money you're saving.”
“You're right about that. Nothing to spend it on here.”
The Captain's Emmie announced.
“Captain this is Pearson. We have a sighting.”
“Roger, Pearson. Get ready to move. Let's go Sergeant.”
The detachment headed for the appearance of the globe across town.
“There it is Captain,” shouted one of the men as the military electrics screamed along.
In the park on the edge of town stood a plasma globe acting as if it were waiting on them. The vehicles skidded to a stop. The men unfurled the covering of the skyrmion cradle. The hook-ups were made in less than a minute and the generator started.
The soldier operating the generator created a skyrmion in the cradle and then sent it off in the direction of the globe. The skyrmion approached the globe which was much larger. The soldier slowed its approach. Slowly the two plasma spheres began to merge. A blinding brightness cast into sharp relief the surroundings. The men had there eclipse glasses ready and put them on. The merger was complete the sizzling sound had stopped and the brightness had diminished.
The soldier operating the controls began to steer the globe towards another cradle, much larger than the original. Nothing happened.
“What's wrong Pearson?” asked the Captain.
“I don't know sir. No response.”
“Keep trying.”
“A sound like a crack of thunder was heard and then the globe began moving. Slowly, slowly toward the large cradle.”
“Keep it up Pearson,” yelled the Captain.
“Slowly in what seemed like hours but was no more than a few minutes the globe approached the cradle. As it was about centered Pearson dumped the current into the superconducting rings. The globe almost snapped in place.
“I think we've got it Captain,” he said.
The men cheered and clapped.
“Okay, let's transport that thing to the demarcation area.”
The globe and its cradle would be ejected into space on a trajectory that would take them into the central star. Solar arrays would provide the power to keep the globe of plasma cradled until the star destroyed it.
Soon many of the plasma globes were cradled and being sent to their destruction. The technology spread to Earth and other places where globes had appeared. The public begin to forget about the danger.
Georgetta had brought back several datacube's worth of the Beleni's plans for Awannti to analyze. So far Awannti had figured out that the simulations they were doing that looked like a game to the metizens were actually wormhole casts to very distant places. He wasn't sure why yet but there was a lot more to analyze.
Between his work and Georgetta's deliveries of new material which only happened every few days it took some time for him to gain a better understanding. He soon realized that the wormhole casts had a purpose. And that purpose was to deliver a globe of self confining plasma to a particular location. But why? Was somebody paying to have it delivered? Who would need that many globes of plasma anyway?
It would be awhile until the last clue fell in place and Awannti and Georgetta would face the frightening truth about the work they had been doing for the Shining Ones.
Not far away in the Hall Of The Shining Ones Belenus was putting the finishing touches on his plan.
“Polenus you are sure we will have the supplies of plasma we need?”
“Yes Belenus, more than enough.”
“Have we approximated all the targets? Are we ready for final simulations?”
“Yes Belenus.”
“When we start this final part of my plan there will be no stopping until all humans everywhere are neutralized. Is that understood by you and the others?”
“Yes Belenus I have informed the others of this.”
“Very well Polenus. I give you permission to begin the final attack.”
After a brief moment when Polenus seemed preoccupied, he then said, “It has begun.”
Jack was sitting in his office when a graduate student came rushing in.
“We've got another one!”
“Another what?” asked Jack distractedly without looking up from his work.
“Another missing star system. The supply ship to the research station orbiting Gliese 833B couldn't find the star. Reported only a gravitational anomaly in its place.”
“Another one,” said Jack. “This is getting serious.”
The graduate student shook his head in agreement although the smile on his face belied the fact.
It was the start of just another day monitoring Gliese 833B for Aidan, a graduate student from New Hope University aboard the research station circling the star. Aidan hoped to have enough for his dissertation soon. Studying the dwarf binary star became too routine after a couple of months. Aidan didn't regret his choice but after two months on a small research station at the edge of nowhere he longed to get back to the big habitat.
As Aidan viewed the latest filtered video from the star he didn't notice the change in the surrounding space. It wasn't until his mid-morning break that he decided to star gaze. This was a time each day that he let his mind wander as he took in the star fields from the remote outpost. Usually he would spend some time trying to find the Centauri System and home.
But this morning when he took his coffee over to the wallscreen and switched to external view he couldn't find Centauri. Eventually it dawned on him that he couldn't find anything on the screen. No Centauri, no constellations, no stars, no nothing. Just thick blackness. Aidan started to swoon but caught himself.
Before he called the others he decided to review the security loop. This was video from the external cameras that recorded everything in all four directions and up and down surrounding the station. He backed the recording up hour by hour until sometime a couple of hours before he started his monitoring he saw stars again. Playing the video forward from there he watched until fifteen minutes in he saw the rapid approach from the direction of the star Gliese 833B of what looked like bright globes. His mind immediately thought of the reports of plasma globes he had read in the news from Centauri.
A group of eight of the globes appeared, circled the station, and then sped off towards Gliese 833B again. It wasn't long until the stars “blinked” out replaced by the thick blackness.
Aidan suddenly felt confined, as if the room was collapsing in on
him. He had to sit down and hold his head. He didn't know how but he thought he knew what had happened. The station had been cut off from the rest of the universe, they were alone.
Emmy had to go back to the drawing board after the failed experiment. She was sure the answer to the problem was in the physics not the computer design. Reviewing the literature on black holes and information theory she ran across many articles from the early twenty-first century. Physicists then were arguing either that black holes could or could not destroy information. The preservation of information was a cornerstone in quantum physics at the time.
Physicists never found a definitive answer to the puzzle and as with many things in quantum physics they moved on to problems they could solve. But one conjecture from that period caught Emmy's eye. Though Hawking radiation couldn't recover the information that fell into a black hole, if the black hole were actually a baby universe the information should be preserved.
If there was no black hole then there would be no information destroying singularity. But no one had ever detected a baby universe or created one although there was a recipe.
First, concentrate a large amount of exotic mass-energy at a point in spacetime creating a state of false vacuum. The quantum fields of this configuration are in a metastable state because of the raised energy level.
Next, allow quantum tunneling to resolve the metastability by tunneling to a state of lower energy.
This tunneling can result in one of two configurations. Either it tunnels into the same original region or into a region different from the original region, a baby universe. The first can be avoided if the energy involved is carefully controlled.
The baby universe is at first connected to the original region through a wormhole but as it expands the wormhole “pinches off” and the baby universe becomes a universe unto itself, a universe that would preserve any information produced in it.
This would be like creating a black hole to begin with and the pressures involved should shrink the computer sphere sufficiently.
Okay, I have plenty of exotic mass-energy and I know how to create a wormhole.
As Emmy turned her theory into testable experiments someone leaked the details. The press seized upon the fact that the experiment could create a region of phase-changed expanding spacetime in ordinary spacetime. Essentially an extinction threat.
Chapter 21
“Scientist Responsible for Corralling Plasma Globes Now Threatening Extinction of Humans” - The New Hope Sentinel, 3.25.2644.
“This Baby Kills!” - The Centauri Journal, 3.25.2644.
“Human Extinction? Perhaps It's For The Best” - The Hadar Union, 3.25.2644.
Emmy couldn't believe the headlines. She thought that she could show them wrong by getting someone else to work through the calculation of the chances of the baby universe expanding into ordinary spacetime. She asked Jack. He put some of his graduate students to work. The results showed that the chances were less than the universe forming in the first place. In other words they were almost non existent. Emmy then released these results to the press.
“Scientist Responsible for Extinction Threat Calculates Chance is NOT Zero” - The New Hope Sentinel, 3.27.2644.
“The Baby Lives!” - The Centauri Journal, 3.27.2644.
“Still a Chance of Human Extinction. It's For The Best” - The Hadar Union, 3.27.2644.
Emmy received the call from the Assembly Chairman. He said he was very sorry but he would have to ask her to terminate her research.
“But Chairman Moor you can't be serious. The chances of the outcome the press are pushing is almost zero. You have a greater chance of getting hit by lightning in the habitat and you know how likely that is.”
“I understand Miss Gibbs but right now we are receiving a great deal of pressure from all sides. I ask you to temporarily suspend your research until we can educate the public.”
“But Chairman Moor this research would reduce the energy costs of the whole wormhole network. It would be a benefit to the public.”
The Assembly Chairman's voice became more strident.
“Miss Gibbs I am not here to debate the merits of your research but to tell you to suspend it for the present. I can assure you the support you are receiving currently will not continue.”
“I see Assembly Chairman,” said Emmy who terminated the connection without the usual pleasantries.
So it's over grandfather.
Simon had been working in the small habitat circling Wolf 1016b for almost a year. The planet below him at 0.21 AU from the central star had not missed the habitable zone by much. At just slightly larger than Earth with a gravity 1.2 times that of Earth it was still possible for a man to work down there in a habsuit with exoskeleton support. Simon had done so although he enjoyed the freedom of movement the small habitat provided.
With over five hundred personnel the habitat was almost self sufficient. Food was grown on one floor of the four floor crew wheel. Water and air recycling was almost a completely closed loop. Any small resupplying could be brought aboard a fusion ship using the wormhole network as Wolf 1016 was a destination and as such the habitat even hosted a small complement of star tourists occasionally.
The M class red dwarf star was itself a source of investigation. With probes released regularly and satellites circling it constantly. Simon's job was to monitor those satellites and probes.
Simon always enjoyed beginning his day with a little pastry. Food was supplied to the habitat by a contractor that ran a couple of restaurants which operated another half dozen coffee shops on the different floors. Everyone complained of the food except Simon who always went out of his way to complement the service on their excellent food.
It worked. Even though food service was automated through the kiosks in each shop there was an attendant and Simon was always served personally.
“Good morning Jenny.”
“Good morning Simon.”
“My it smells good around here doesn't it?”
“Thank you Simon I've got your pastry right here.”
Jenny handed Simon a small bag containing a cream filled, chocolate frosted pastry.
“Oh my favorite and it smells wonderful. Thank you Jenny.”
“You're welcome Simon and here is your coffee.”
“You're too kind. You'll charge my account?”
“Sure.”
“And put a little something in there for you're hard work. Bye now.”
“Bye Simon see you tomorrow.”
With the artificial gravity slightly less than his home habitat Simon hadn't noticed his weight gain yet. Although he had complained his suit was getting constricting.
He made it to his monitoring station. He worked alone in a small room near main control. He began by sitting his coffee down on the console and eyeing his pastry.
It's not really as good as I make out but they do try.
He brought up the monitoring screen. Everything looked nominal. Finishing the data download would take a few seconds then he would set the Em to analyzing the latest readings. All in all old Wolf 1016 had been pretty boring. Even the graduate students from the university came now only to research the planet below not the star.
Simon sighed and took a bite of his pastry. As he expected, not excellent but okay. He switched his wallscreen to a filtered view of Wolf 1016 from one of the satellites. It was a soothing sight as he ate his morning pastry. Simon was almost finished with his pastry when he noticed something bright and moving rapidly across a corner of the wallscreen.
He panned to that area and magnified. He dropped his coffee in fear, what was left in the cup spilled across the floor. Eight fast moving pinpoints of light which upon magnification looked definitely like globes. He had seen that before back on Earth before he signed up for this job. Plasma globes. He was sure of it.
He didn't know what they were doing here but he lost no time in sending a message through the wormhole communication office to his employer, The United Universities o
f Centauri (UUC). It was a short message and said only: “Plasma globes here.”
It was also the last message from Wolf 1016 UUC Research Station.
Simon stopped the Em working on the analysis and had it try to find the plasma globes. The Em used all the satellites and probes to piece together the globes current position as well as their projected trajectory. Simon reviewed the results.
Okay they are on some kind of elliptical orbit that includes the star, the station, the planet and . . .
“All the planets,” he said aloud. “The whole system.”
Simon had a background in general relativity although he had never finished his doctorate, it was something of a hobby with him now. He also had followed the news of the plasma globes. The incident with the Gibbs woman and her experiment was fresh in his mind.
That's it.
He changed the wallscreen to a view of the stars away from the glare of Wolf 1016.
There you are.
Simon relaxed a bit, realizing for the first time how tense he had become. But only for a moment because the stars on his screen “blinked” in that moment and the screen went dark.
Simon gasped. He was right. But no one outside of star system Wolf 1016 could be told.
The disappearance of Wolf 1016, a node on the WTN, and the five hundred people working there reignited the public's demand that the government do something. The somewhat cryptic message from the research station before the system disappeared was all they had to go on. So the Assembly began adapting the plasma globe cradle for fusion ships. The ships would attempt to capture any plasma globes appearing near a habitat or research station. A notice was sent to all habitats and all nodes on the WTN to maintain a twenty-four hour vigil for plasma globes and report immediately so that a “cradle” ship could be dispatched.
It wasn't long until a call came.
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