Mach's Legacy

by D. W. Patterson

Immediately the Four Centauri, an Assembly ship captained by Lucas Jones, was dispatched to Gliese 563 and its bevy of planets. This star system was larger than any of the others that had disappeared. The physical size would make a difference in its outcome.

  The Four Centauri came out of the network wormhole ten AU from the research station honoring the normal quarantine limits. The Captain immediately called for a sweep of the system to find any plasma globes. He also had a message sent to the research station to ask them if they had a location on the globes. But that would take several minutes because of the distance involved. The Captain made a decision to head in system towards the central star and the orbiting research station.

  “You found anything yet Jim?”

  “No contact Captain.”

  “Okay keep looking.”

  Several minutes later a message came in from the research station giving the coordinates of the last sighting of the plasma globes and the direction they were moving.

  “Hanson can you plot an intercept?”

  “Yes sir, the Em will have it momentarily.”

  “Very well, Havlock be ready to intercept as soon as navigation gives you a course.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Less than a minute later they were in full acceleration to intercept, hopefully.

  “Sir I see them,” said Jim at the tracking station.

  “Okay let the pilot Em see them and close the distance.”

  The eight glowing globes were traveling close to a tenth the speed of light and in a row. The Four Centauri matched speed and closed up behind the trailing globe.

  “Get the cradle ready,” said Captain Jones.

  “Communications open a wormhole channel to base and feed all audio-video and telemetry.”

  “Okay launch the pilot skyrmion.”

  Out the modified cargo door came a cradle and skyrmion. The crewman manning the plasma sphere's controls slowly brought the skyrmion into contact with the trailing plasma globe. The merger effected, the crewman carefully tried to alter the course of the plasma globe. It seemed to be working. The plasma globe was soon close enough to the cradle that upon activation the globe was latched firmly. Approach and capture had only taken about fifteen minutes. Another cradle and skyrmion were sent out.

  The Captain watched the first capture with relief. At this rate they would be finished in a little over two hours.

  “Navigation do you have the trajectory of this group should they have continued their present course?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Show me.”

  In a corner of the wallscreen it showed a path around the central star. An elliptical path that from one extreme to the other took in many of the orbiting bodies of the system. As the Em plotted the path over the near future it formed a kind of egg shaped surface encompassing the star system.

  “That's interesting,” said the Captain.

  Just then tracking spoke up and warned that the globes were changing their course.

  “What's the new course?”

  “Sir they are taking a hard turn towards the Four Centauri.”

  “Bring us ninety degrees starboard and accelerate away from them pilot.”

  The Four Centauri started a sharp turn and acceleration which could be felt in the rotating crew wheel. The alarm had gone off warning the crew of the maneuver. Only a couple were caught off guard and thrown from their feet.

  “Sir the globes have encircled us and are keeping pace.”

  “Can we get a shot away with our wormhole weapon?” asked the Captain.

  “Sir,” responded gunnery, “I believe so. But Captain we would be firing plasma at plasma. Would it do any good?”

  “I don't know crewman but it would make me feel better.”

  “Ready sir.”

  “Fire!”

  The wormhole weapon was online and tracking. The gunner fired. A stream of plasma at nearly a million degrees struck the last globe in line. The globe spiraled out of line. Some crew shouted and shook their fist at the wallscreen.

  “Fire again gunner when ready.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The wormhole weapon fired again. Again a globe spiraled out of control. Again the gunner fired and a globe went spiraling away. Then the weapon was silent.

  “Sir the weapon is overheating. I will have to shut down the system for a few minutes.”

  “Very well gunner.”

  Jones hoped that the weapon could be brought back online before it was too late. He knew what the four remaining globes were trying to do.

  Minutes passed. Captain Jones noticed sweat on his forehead. He ignored it even though it was a maddening irritant.

  “Gunner are you ready yet?”

  “Almost Captain, temps are approaching green.”

  Then the wallscreen “blinked” and the globes were gone. Upon closer inspection so were the stars.

  “Stand down gunner. The situation has changed.”

  The wormhole enabled transmissions from the Four Centauri had stopped. The Centauri System knew almost immediately that the ship was lost.

  Chapter 22

  The reaction to the fate of the Four Centauri was both hopeful and despairing. The fact that the globe catcher worked and the improvised firing of the wormhole weapon worked gave hope but that the final result, the loss of Four Centauri in the same manner as before, was discouraging. The government of course called another meeting of the Assembly.

  “In reviewing the encounter,” said Assembly Chairman Moor, “it seemed to me that the Four Centauri had the advantage until the wormhole weapon had to be taken off line due to heating. Is that correct Admiral?”

  Admiral Mayer was the commander of all fusion ship forces.

  “I would say that the wormhole weapon does have a basic flaw as to the number of times it can be fired nonstop. But this had not been a problem heretofore because the power of the weapon is so great as to render one use sufficient.”

  “But Admiral even if that was true before it is no longer true. Wouldn't you agree?”

  “We have looked into this limitation of the weapon system before, unfortunately we have been without budget to address it.”

  “I see Admiral,” said New Hope Council Chairman Richter. “It is the fault of the Assembly then?”

  “The Assembly has many demands on its resources Council Chairman, I wouldn't necessarily try to assign blame to it.”

  “I agree, who is at fault is unimportant at the moment,” said Moor interrupting the exchange. “There will be time to investigate later. What we need right now Admiral is an estimate as to what is needed to upgrade the weapon and the time it will take.”

  “Assembly Chairman I may have to get back to you with that estimate. But I would think it should take some time, maybe months to reconfigure the weapon.”

  “That is too long Admiral.”

  “Yes, you may be right Assembly Chairman. But we can modify our tactics to meet the immediate danger. We should immediately start sending two fusion ships to each encounter with the globes. The wormhole weapons on the two ships combined should be enough to engage the globes. Of course we will need the budget to maintain such a force.”

  “Of course Admiral. You develop the tactics we will get you the budget you need.”

  “Thank you Assembly Chairman.”

  As the meeting broke up Assembly Chairman Moor was relieved. He thought the Assembly would be viewed as decisive and serious about confronting the danger. It was the best result he could hope for considering the challenge the danger presented to his leadership.

  The one question that was not asked at the long Assembly meeting was what had happened to the disappeared. Emmy thought she knew and it involved the experiment the government would not let her perform.

  “What I think is happening Jack is that the Beleni have discovered a new way to invoke the creation of a baby universe. One that expands into its own region with the wormhole pinching off and becoming isolated in the bulk. We can see their ef
fect on starlight until the pinching off.”

  “You mean the objects we've been observing and their gravitational lensing effect?”

  “That's right. We can see the lensing until the wormhole pinches off and then we can only detect them through their gravitational effects from the bulk.”

  “You know more about this than I Emmy. The bulk would be the higher-dimensional space containing all these baby universes and ours?”

  “Essentially that is correct. These baby universes are right next door to ours in the bulk. But they are unreachable by any physical means we know. However their gravitational influence is still felt in our space. That's how I know they have not drifted very far from this universe.”

  “So how to we reattach these baby universes and recover the lost systems and especially the people?”

  “I don't know. There is no physics that tells us. The best we could do would be to keep them close through gravitational attraction until we can figure it out.”

  “So what should we do?”

  “We should be creating a large mass at the point where the baby universes' gravitation can be detected. That would keep them attracted to our universe.”

  “Are you going to the Assembly with this?”

  “I have asked for a meeting with Assembly Chairman Moor, but I haven't heard anything yet.”

  “If they wait too long could these baby universes drift too far away.”

  “That is a possibility. I tried to express the urgent nature of my request.”

  “It's only urgent to the government if it reflects poorly on them.”

  Emmy shrugged.

  The Admiral's new tactics had worked at Kapteyn's Star. The dispatched ships had been able to cradle or destroy all but two of the globes. The two globes dissipated on their own accord, apparently it took more than two to create the conditions for “blinkering”, as the press had started calling the disappearances. The system was safe and the ships were safe.

  Moor had called for a service to honor the crews of the two ships and to incidentally reflect favorably on government efforts to stabilize the situation. It was during this ceremony that the next attack was initiated.

  Ross 117 was a red dwarf star in the constellation Virgo. The system had four planets and an asteroid belt. Around the third planet was a research habitat full of some three hundred people. The system alert went off not long after breakfast aboard the habitat. Plasma globes had been spotted. A call to Centauri for protection was placed.

  Fusion ships Ten Centauri, commanded by Captain Joe Mandel and Three Centauri, commanded by Captain Jean Upton were dispatched. Captain Upton was in overall charge.

  It wasn't long until the ships located the plasma globes, eight as usual, and were using the wormhole weapon to dispatch them. The Ten Centauri, was working on the seventh globe when the research station called and said it had located eight more globes entering the system.

  Captain Upton immediately messaged base. The reply was that two more ships were on their way.

  Ten Centauri's wormhole weapon quit working after destroying the eighth plasma globe of the group. Three Centauri still had a working weapon. Both ships vectored to meet the new intruders.

  Three Centauri immediately went to work destroying globes. Or trying. The globes immediately became evasive and began the pattern which the military had come to call “cocooning” when only ships were involved. If they completed the invisible surface of the cocoon both ships would be in danger.

  Captain Upton maneuvered Three Centauri to blast the last globe in line while ordering Ten Centauri out of the area. Captain Mandel acknowledged reluctantly as his wormhole weapon was still not online.

  The Three Centauri continued the pursuit of the last globe in line, turning continuously as the globes tried to encircle the ship. Captain Mandel watched the maneuver on the wallscreen while prodding his gunner to bring the wormhole weapon back online. Then after a few minutes of the space ballet the Three Centauri blinked and was gone. The globes now corrected course and headed for the Ten Centauri.

  Captain Mandel ordered an immediate withdrawal. The globes pursued. The wormhole weapon was still offline with the temps showing yellow. Mandel cursed the thing out loud. Then just ahead a wormhole mouth appeared and a fusion ship emerged. The ship quickly corrected its course and headed for the Ten Centauri.

  Captain Mandel had a comm-link opened.

  “Ten Centauri calling, please identify.”

  A familiar voice came across the link.

  “It's Monty, Joe. I've come to rescue you.”

  “Mont you broke quarantine to wormhole in this close.”

  “Quarantine is for peacetime Joe. We're at war, even if the bigwigs don't want to call it that.”

  “Acknowledge. But I doubt you'll be able to do enough to clean up these pests.”

  “Even if I get a few it will be worth it.”

  Monty's ship Six Centauri began maneuvering to close on the last globe chasing the Ten Centauri.

  “Keep leading 'em right to me Joe.”

  “Roger.”

  “Gunner,” said Captain Montgomery, “try half power first and see what happens.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Six Centauri maneuvered and fired on the last globe, it fell out of line. The ship maneuvered again and fired on the next one which also went dark and fell out of line.

  As long as they stay in line and the wormhole weapon keeps cool this is easy, thought Montgomery.

  A call came through comm. The research station had detected another group of eight globes entering the system.

  Crap.

  “Joe, your weapon back online yet?” asked Montgomery.

  “Still in the yellow but temp falling faster now, should be a couple more minutes.”

  “Okay when it goes green we'll finish these and go after the new ones. Limit your power levels to half, it works and it keeps the weapon cooler.”

  “Roger, Mont thanks.”

  Six Centauri was just finishing up it's fourth plasma globe when Ten Centauri maneuvered and opened fire on the first.

  “Way to go Joe. Let's finish them and get on to the others.”

  But something was wrong. The ships were listing to one side as if a wave were rolling them.

  “Pilot what is happening,” asked Captain Mandel.

  “I'm not certain sir. I've never seen anything like it. The controls don't seem to be responding in the usual way.”

  “Mont have you got anything?”

  “Joe the Chief Engineer says that the space outside the ships is changing.”

  “What do we do now?”

  It was the last wormhole enabled transmission from the system. The follow on ship coming out of it's wormhole mouth some several AU above the system's orbital plane described it as an enveloping blackness. It was more like the star, the system and the ships were snuffed out instead of blinkered.

  The fallout from the incident at Ross 117 was great. The government couldn't answer the questions being thrown at it. No one knew if the system and the three fusion ships had been blinkered or if it was a new menace.

  At a closed door Assembly meeting the government was trying to come up with a strategy to address this new situation and to cover their own failures of losing four fusion ships and two star systems among others.

  Admiral Mayer was speaking.

  “We have to go on the offensive gentlemen. This defensive posture is well and good but the enemy seems to be able to concentrate its forces to our disadvantage.”

  “How Admiral, how do we go on the offensive?” asked the Assembly Chairman.

  “We have to take the fight to the Beleni.”

  “There almost ninety light years away. It would take weeks or months to get there. And any ship would be a sitting duck frame dragging into the system.”

  “I'm well aware of that Assembly Chairman. But my technical people tell me we wouldn't have to frame drag into the system if Ms. Gibbs research works.”

  �
��Ms. Gibbs?”

  “Yes her latest experiments if successful would allow us to use a wormhole directly without danger to the crew. And I've also been told she has ideas for extending the wormhole's reach.”

  “But that experiment was too dangerous to allow,” said Council Chairman Richter with others agreeing.

  “With all due respect sirs. It may be dangerous, although according to my sources most physicists think not, but the enemy we are facing is certainly dangerous and we are at their mercy.”

  Chapter 23

  After several days of ignoring them Assembly Chairman Moor was more than happy to entertain Emmy and Jack. Especially as he hoped they could provide him with solutions.

  “Thank you for coming Ms. Gibbs, Dr. Jackson, I'm happy to see you again. I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond before, things have been very busy around here as you can imagine.”

  “Good to see you again Assembly Chairman Moor,” said Emmy.

  Moor leaned back in his high-back, overstuffed leather chair.

  “Ms. Gibbs, Dr. Jackson I asked you here today because the government and the citizens of the Centauri System need your help. It has been determined that unless we can stop these attacks none of us will be safe. Furthermore it has been decided that defending against the attacks is not enough. We need to go to the source and end their ability to launch these attacks against us.

  “As you know the source of attacks is the Beleni, some ninety light-years away in 88 Pegasi. I believe you astronomers call it?”

  Jack nodded his head.

  “The problem is how do we get there in time to stop these incidents? At ninety light-years the distance is too far. The method of frame-dragging would leave our ships too exposed.

  “The point is Ms. Gibbs that we need you to not only restart your experiments so that we can use a wormhole more directly. We also need you to expand your research and find out how we can extend the reach of a wormhole. Though I don't want to put any undue stress upon you I dare say our civilization depends on it.

  “I do not think it's an exaggeration to say that we are facing extinction.”