“Okay Sims,” said Pearce, “be prepared to bring online the magnetic generator when I tell you. The particle stream will be intense once the spheroid starts dissipating.”
Pearce brought his device up and allowed it to build a supply of antichron- particles.
“Starting now,” he said.
Everyone tensed but nothing seemed to happen for a few minutes. Five minutes went by, then ten. Even Pearce started to wonder. Then on the wallscreen in the distance where the wheel should have been there were a few flashes of light. Then more and more as the spheroid was outlined in light. Finally as if a fire was catching the whole spheroid became ablaze in a pure, white intense glow. Alarms went off, radiation alarms. Even behind several feet of the dense Mach-metal that made up the particle shield high levels of radiation were being detected.
“Start the magnetic generator Sims.”
The generator came online with a loud thump and howling like sounds.
“Field established,” said Sims, “but under intense bombardment. That's why the generator noise.”
“Dr. Rawlings if the radiation is this intense this far away from the wheel how can any living being survive inside.”
“Well theory says that this is all a surface phenomenon Jenkins. The radiation can't travel inside because of the frozen time. As the spheroid begins to dissipate they will get a little radiation but probably no more than we will.”
The generator now sounded like a dying animal under a great strain as the stream of particles slammed into its magnetic field and warped and contorted it. The wallscreen was off to protect it from damage. Pearce expected it to be over soon. Then one last great howl from the generator and there was silence.
“How's the generator Sims?”
“Still working Dr. Rawlings but no longer under strain.”
“Okay bring the wallscreen online.”
The screen showed a dark space.
“Can you magnify?”
Upon magnification the crew wheel could be seen, hazy at first but eventually clearly. The spheroid had dissipated but there was no sign of life. Pearce gave the signal for other support vessels to move in and start linking personnel aboard the crew wheel to investigate.
It was some time before Pearce and the others received any news about the status of the crew aboard the wheel. Before then he and the others had returned from the front control room to the crew wheel which had been spun up. They had also been checked by the doctor. Each had received a radiation dose equivalent to a year on Earth at an altitude of two miles. A large but not life-threatening amount. Eventually Pearce and the others were briefed by one of the rescue ships.
“The rescuers went aboard the crew wheel at approximately nineteen hundred hours,” said Captain Perez of the rescue ship New Starford. They found that the power to the wheel had not restored. We won't know until autopsies are performed but it appears that all the crew revived. All but two were then asphyxiated by a lack of oxygen. The two crew members that initially survived were able to obtain an emergency supply of oxygen before succumbing. They are being checked by doctors. That is all we know as of now.”
Pearce shook his head.
So it worked but failed.
Then as if on cue a ship with a Galactic Time Saver experienced the same fate as the Cosmic Traveler.
Chapter 8
From The PopSci Encyclic
2700 A.D. Edition
A tower complex is the twenty-eight century's term for a megacity. Tower complexes developed in the twenty-second century from the old city metroplexes. Housing hundreds of millions of people in an area smaller than the cities from which they sprang the tower complexes led to many areas of the Earth returning to their natural state.
Few people lived outside the tower complexes and those that lived inside them were mostly supported by the government. Only because artificial intelligence improved the efficiency of the economy and managed the complexes effectively were they able to grow to such huge dimensions.
The majority of Earth became empty of people.
Dr. Eiffel had arrived on Dhalka after taking a sabbatical from her university position. She had been urgently recruited by the Dhalkans, almost kidnapped.
Dhalka was a planet sixteen-hundred light-years from Earth in the direction of the Crab Nebula. The Dhalkans were the only human/AI hybrid in the galaxy. They had existed on the outskirts of human society for hundreds of years, sometimes more, sometimes less involved with humans. They had withdrawn from contact with humanity for almost a century now.
Their society had suffered many schisms in its history. There were only a few left but they were determined to continue their independent existence. Only now with fewer workers they needed trade with humans especially for the high-tech resources that required complex manufacturing processes.
Dr. Eiffel was talking with the head of temporal research. He had told her the background of the Dhalkan race.
“Dr. Eiffel I am sorry for the way we have interfered with your freedom. But we have a desperate need of your expertise and we haven't the time to develop it on our own.”
“And why is that?”
“We are facing the end of our species without your help.”
“Is it as bad as that?”
“Yes Dr. Eiffel. We would not commit the heinous act of bringing you here without your pre-approval unless we were desperate.”
“Very well but I still do not understand why you need my help?”
“To save our species we need time. We will use the time technology that you have created to preserve most of those remaining while a small team of researchers studies a solution to our problem. When that team grows too old to continue they will pass on their knowledge to a new team preserved by your device.”
“I'm sorry Dr. Solvay but I need more information. What is this problem you are trying to solve?”
“Dr. Eiffel you have not been here long enough to notice but there are no children on Dhalka. We are a sterile race. We have always been a sterile race. This was not a problem at the beginning because we thought we could discover a way to prolong our lives indefinitely. But while we have some success with life extension it is not enough. And so we either reproduce or we die.”
“I will need some time to think.”
“Of course.”
“It doesn't matter Pearce.”
“What do you mean Dave?”
“The corporation is probably going with another company. There will be a decision soon. They say that we've taken too long to figure it out.”
“But it's only been a few months Dave.”
“Sorry Pearce there's nothing more I can do.”
“What company are they going with?”
“It's a startup.”
“Well that's not good Dave. Startups in this area haven't exactly a stellar record. Do you think the corporation should get involved with a company like that?”
“All I know is they say they have perfected the temporal mechanism we need. They don't have the same problem of frozen time as our technology does. The corporation is going to license their technology. I am to adapt it to our customer's ships.”
“Not we?”
“Sorry Pearce your contract is up. There will be a severance package but that's all.”
“It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change. Only those animals partake of intelligence that have a huge variety of needs and dangers.”
And so Pearce found himself in his Atlanta tower complex apartment with no job, Sundar's company was on hard times too. He was unpacking and reading as he went. He put down his Emmie.
Change, danger and trouble. That pretty much sums up my career.
Last time I work for Galactic. Maybe I should ju
st work for myself. If Sundar can start a company I know I can. Of course, he's not doing too good right now.
He looked at his credit balance on his Emmie, his severance check had cleared.
This should hold me for a while.
The check would cover his living expenses for maybe six months if he was careful.
It had taken several months but Dr. Eiffel had helped the Dhalkans develop her time technology. They then started a parallel research program, without her knowledge, that had gone beyond Dr. Eiffel to work out the remaining problems. Dr. Eiffel believed she was still helping them work out those problems but they were really just stalling for time.
Since Dhalkans can pass for human because they are human (with AI capability) they can fool most other humans. Using misdirection, some Dhalkans linked to Earth through the New Adowa system to cover their identities. They then set up a startup to sell their solution to the frozen time problem. It was the solution that Galactic was thinking about using.
A board meeting was proceeding at Galactic.
“That's an awful expensive licensing,” said a member.
“Yes but we never have to lose a wheel to frozen time again.”
“That makes it worth it,” said another.
“If you say so.”
The Dhalkan's solution to the problem was to modulate the action of the spheroid as it slowed time. Essentially by using the crew wheel's own drive the spheroid was set into oscillation at high frequency. The result was that the rate of time oscillated between a very slow rate and high rate. By adjustment of how long each rate was held the time that passed for the passengers could be slowed to a minimum. Not as slow as the original solution but close. It was an acceptable solution for most transport companies.
To kick off the new system Galactic offered its existing customers a fifty percent trade-in for the old system. That incentive coupled with the fact that none of the transportation companies wanted to be associated with the old system was enough to install Dhalkan's version on every ship. Soon the refitted ships were making hundreds of journeys a day to humanity's hundreds of worlds and habitats.
The Akinda, a fusion ship of the Akinda Corporation of the Alcor System, was bound for one of the system's planets with a load. The freighter was not much faster than a second-generation fusion ship and would take eighteen days to make a journey that would take a modern fusion ship a few hours. But it was cheap and stayed busy transporting bulky items that didn't have to arrive quickly.
Six fusion engine operators, a captain, a helmsman, a navigator and comm operator, a cook and helper who doubled as medics made up the crew. The company spent money on the cuisine since psychologists had pointed out that on a long voyage a well-fed crew was more efficient, as well as more loyal. The hold was filled with the huge, massive components that were required to build a power plant on the latest settled world.
Three of the crew were in the front control room preparing to start Galactic's latest version of the Time Saver. Eight hours in control and sixteen hours in the crew wheel with the Time Saver activated would cut the equivalent time the crew spent getting the Akinda 1 to the planet Dubhe by about two-thirds.
The Time Saver was activated and then the Akinda 1 disappeared.
Soon hundreds of other ships had also disappeared.
An immediate injunction against the use of the drive went out from all governments. That seemed to stop the disappearances.
At Galactic Transport there was a desperate meeting being conducted in the CEO's office which included the Chairman.
“Dave you are the head of our research. We need you to find out what has happened to all these missing ships immediately. The company will not survive all the negative publicity and the storm of lawsuits.”
“I know Mr. Chairman. But the fact is the system was not ours. The company we contracted with has disappeared. I don't know enough about their system to even make a guess at what might have gone wrong.”
“Well reverse engineer it. Isn't that something you guys do? Use whatever resources you need.”
Dave Reynolds was almost out the door when he heard the CEO chime in, “At the rate we're going there won't be any resources a week from now.”
“No.”
“But Pearce I need you.”
“No Dave I'm not interested. I'd have to be a fool to work with you and Galactic again.”
“I'll pay you upfront.”
Pearce hesitated.
“It's that bad?”
“Pearce I probably have a week to save this company.”
“Okay a year's payment. Just like last time with a ten percent raise.”
“Done.”
“I'll check my bank account. When it's deposited I'm on my way.”
Pearce got ready for the trip out to Galactic in the
Pacific Territories. When he checked his bank account the money was there. He started to leave when the front door alarmed. Viewing through his Emmie he could see what looked like a chauffeur in a driving hat. Pearce opened the door.
“Dr. Rawlings?”
“Yes.”
“I'm Dennis. I have an electric here to drive you to the airport”
Well that's more like it.
Chapter 9
From The PopSci Encyclic
2700 A.D. Edition
In Quantum Temporal Dynamics a stable time spheroid becomes an iso-bubble from which all other link-mouths are excluded but those that terminate at the wall of the bubble either inside or outside. But if the external excluded link-mouths surrounding the iso-bubble are packed densely and quite close to the surface of the bubble they can pick up leakage from those inside. In that case the external link-mouths can transport information from inside the iso-bubble to the far reaches of spacetime by way of the far mouth even though the inside is isolated from local phenomena. Eventually this leads to the dissipation of the iso-bubble unless it is deliberately maintained.
It had been days since the last report of a missing ship, then there was another one.
“They swear they had taken it out of service.”
“So, if that is true then what you are saying Dave is just having a unit aboard a ship, unpowered, can cause the ship to disappear.”
“I'm not saying anything Pearce, just reporting the facts as I heard them.”
Relations between Pearce and Dave Reynolds were strained after a week of work with no results.
“Okay, alright, this isn't getting us anywhere Dave. So what do we know? We know that the new system is modulating the spheroid. That's what we should focus on. Let's go through the QTD again.”
They both stood at the whiteboard developing equations and pursuing conjectures for almost two hours.
Then Pearce said, “I don't see what modulating the spheroid does to prevent the problem. It seems to me it could still oscillate down to zero and you would have frozen . . .”
Pearce stood staring at the board a moment.
“What is it Pearce?”
“Maybe it doesn't make sense because it's not solving that problem.”
“You mean it's actually for something else? What?”
“Dave you've read Haile Paulus' original publications on QTD haven't you?”
“Yeah, most of them.”
“You remember the one about the iso-bubble and how it could leak information?”
“Yeah. The bubble walls sever the links that cross it but there are still links inside carrying information to the walls and there are links outside impinging on the walls of the bubble. If the links outside are dense enough then there could be leakage between the inside and outside.”
“Right, the outside links could carry that information almost anywhere.”
“So what are you saying Pearce?”
“I'm saying that there could be a very different reason for the modulation of the spheroid. It could be for signaling.”
“Signaling who?”
“That's the real question.”
“We're suppose to
believe this Dr. Reynolds?” said one of the board members.
Dave Reynolds was in a board meeting discussing the results of the investigations.
“No you don't have to believe our speculation about why or for whom the new system was designed. But you should listen to me when I tell you that the system we bought does nothing to solve the problem of frozen spacetime. We were tricked.”
The room exploded in an outburst of indignant cries.
“Gentlemen please,” said the Chairman. “I'm as outraged as you are but let us not kill the messenger.”
“Mendel can we get our money back? Can we sue?”
Mendel was the Comptroller.
“Well Mr. Chairman to my knowledge the company we bought the system from is no longer viable.”
“They took the money and ran,” shouted a board member.
“Please gentlemen,” said the Chairman.
Dr. Eiffel wasn't sure why she was still on Dhalka. She had finished with the work, the Dhalkans could have linked her back to Earth at any time. She was entirely out of the loop and as far as she could tell confined to her room.
Sitting in the apartment they had assigned to her she heard the door alarm. Unfolding her Emmie she saw it was Dr. Solvay. Maybe she could get some answers now. She recessed the door.
“Come in Dr. Solvay. I was hoping to see you soon.”
“No doubt Dr. Eiffel, I'm sorry I've been too busy to visit. First, I want to apologize for keeping you cooped up here but we are finishing up on our own. Second, I and all Dhalkans want to thank you. You have jump-started the work of saving our society and we will always appreciate that.”
“Thank you Dr. Solvay but I must ask. If my expertise is no longer needed when can I leave for Earth?”
“Very soon Dr. Eiffel, have no doubt. In fact you should make sure you are ready to go. But there is one thing I want to discuss with you.”
Time's End: A Future Chron Novel (Future Chron Universe Book 34) Page 6