Time's End: A Future Chron Novel (Future Chron Universe Book 34)

by D. W. Patterson

  And soon it became apparent that Alcor was using the same weapon as Minos had used. It was highly unlikely that two different settlements would develop the same weapon so they must have gotten it from a common source. And Pearce thought that source was the Dhalkans.

  Chapter 11

  From The PopSci Encyclic

  2700 A.D. Edition

  What became known as the Infinity Weapon started as a research tool in time manipulation. From QTD (Quantum Temporal Dynamics) it is known that if a bubble of negative-energy can be spun up then the bubble will hollow out into a spheroid with thin walls. The walls exclude the ordinary quantum fields including the QTD field.

  Without a QTD field (or with a greatly weakened field) internal to the sphere, time will speed up or slow down depending on the way the bubble is spun up.

  The Infinity Weapon takes the behavior of the sphere to an extreme. Unlike in the original experiments the bubble of negative-energy is formed with a denser core which causes the bubble to collapse into a small rapidly spinning (because of the small amount of spin a bubble has at creation) hollow sphere where time is sped up greatly (although somewhat less than infinity).

  Literally in a second almost all time will pass in the interior of the spinning sphere and any material object (or spacetime itself for that matter) will greatly age. The result is the destruction of any material within the Infinity Sphere and a greatly degraded spacetime (although this effect was not at first recognized).

  Now if it were possible to speed time up to infinity then time would end in a moment but the effects would be felt far beyond the bubble. This is because at the boundary of the bubble the time rate inside must match the time rate outside. But that's not possible unless time ends throughout the universe. This is known as the Time's End hypothesis and is not thought to be a physical possibility by most scientists. But some worry that the Infinity Weapon could accidentally trigger the hypothesis.

  The Infinity Weapon can be considered the other side of the coin from the original experimental tests of QTD which created a “frozen” time.

  Pearce and Reynolds pursued their research as more and more incidents occurred. It was not obvious where the weapon was being procured as the aggressor side in the incidents refused to say. The politics of the incidents was getting almost as hot as the power supplies Pearce and Reynolds were trying to use to drive their experiment.

  “Cut it Dave, quick!”

  Dave Reynolds touched the Emmie screen which threw the breaker on the power supply. A large whompf was heard as the experiment was disconnected from the isotopic reservoir. The sudden interruption of such large currents was not really good for the power source.

  “We can't keep it up Pearce. We're going to destroy the reservoir at this rate.”

  “Yeah I know but look.”

  Out in the experiment bay the bubble of negative-energy was dissipating but it was also shrinking and spinning up at the same time. It took another minute before it dissipated in a swirling haze.

  “We are getting close Dave. I think we are on the right track.”

  “What kind of power system must they be using? I mean they are doing this with the reserves built into a fusion ship.”

  “They may also be using the fusion engine.”

  “Yeah but even so it seems impossible.”

  “Well impossible takes just a little longer, right?”

  “Pearce you're getting downright upbeat even in the middle of all this failure.”

  “Dave after what I've gone through these past few months having food, a place to sleep and something to do pretty much defines happiness for me.”

  “Well I hope we both stay happy.”

  By now there were dozens of altercations between settlements and they all followed the same script. One settlement had what was now being called the Infinity Weapon and the other did not. The one that had the weapon took resources from the other and it usually ended. But there were a few reports of retaliation and counter-retaliation. And the counter-retaliation was becoming severe.

  Sully Hampton was sorting through what was left of his belongings. He couldn't believe the extent of the damage. Nothing was open to the atmosphere on New Adelaide because it was not breathable without preparation. So most dwellings and public buildings were underground though surface excursions could be made with a minimum of gear.

  Because of the protection afforded by the layers of soil Sully never expected to lose his home. But the Scillians had that new weapon he'd heard about and several feet of ground cover was no obstacle for it. Sully looked at the holes in his ceiling. Perfectly round.

  Whatever it was it broke through the ceiling and then seemed to disintegrate in a kind of sparkle and fizz. But Sully only noticed the first such sphere he was too busy trying to get his suit and breather on to notice the second and third breach.

  He was only now trying to find out what had happened to the rest of New Adelaide. The power was still on, the wallscreen was working. He had it tuned to a news channel.

  “The barrage of small-diameter spheres lasted over an hour as the attackers orbited the planet.”

  The video showed what looked like a shower of the spheres raining down on the center of New Adelaide where the government buildings were located.

  “The attackers seemed to focus on government installations although there was quite extensive collateral damage.”

  Sully looked at the holes in his ceiling.

  I'll say.

  “The military has been unable to contact its space fleet. Twenty-six fusion-powered ships, mostly cruiser-sized, fail to answer. They are assumed lost.

  “As far as the attacking force the government believes that it consisted of at least three ships. That's right, three Scillian ships may have caused this planet-wide damage and destroyed our space fleet.”

  “Unbelievable,” thought Sully.

  “I don't believe it,” said Dave Reynolds. “How could they get the spheres to hold together that long? The ones we heard about previously only lasted about a second.”

  “I would say it's a new improvement in the weapon's operational parameters,” said Pearce.

  “You mean it's more deadly.”

  “Yeah, that's what I said Dave.”

  “Well let's get started, we're already way behind.”

  The two had beefed up their power source. They were convinced it was only a lack of power that kept them from duplicating the results of the original weapon.

  Pearce moved to the spin-two console and started up the drive. In this instance instead of searching for a link-mouth to open he was trying to avoid that and just accumulate negative-energy in the center of the test bay. In an effort to reduce the power requirements, which would eventually be needed if the weapon were to be used on a fusion-powered ship, Pearce was attempting to cast the negative-energy into the test bay by building it in concentric spheres. It would take a while but if it worked it could all be automated for speed.

  He cast the first bubble of negative-energy, about a foot across. This would be the seed for the rest of the sphere. Bubble after bubble he cast to the same coordinates slightly enlarging the diameter of each successive sphere. After a minute he stopped.

  Reynolds was monitoring the sphere's energy level and density at another console turned slightly from the wallscreen which showed the test bay. He didn't notice the physical change in the bubble, Pearce did.

  The bubble started out looking like every other bubble of negative-energy Pearce had ever seen. But within a minute after he had quit casting the negative-energy it started to spin and darken. Not as sometimes happens where the surface has dark filaments that appear to move and writhe. This time the color changed uniformly, from a light gray to darker shades. Before it became completely dark Pearce could see an induced spin as the surface trailed wispy-like tendrils.

  “We are getting an increase in density Pearce. I think it is spinning up.”

  Pearce heard Dave but didn't respond as he could see wi
th his eyes what Dave was reading out from the sensors.

  A noticeable shrinking of the sphere became apparent. The spinning was only noticeable when a wisp of negative-energy seemed to leave the surface like a long stream of dissipating smoke. It was about half the size of the original bubble when Pearce noticed objects in the test bay beginning to shift as if blown by the wind. He assumed the spinning sphere was causing the air to swirl about it. From the size of the objects Pearce reckoned gusts of sixty miles per hour were being shed from the surface of the sphere.

  “This is incredible Pearce. We are now getting out more energy than we put in. It must be tapping the zero-point somehow.”

  The zero-point energy?

  “Dave we better get out of here. We can finish monitoring the experiment with our Emmies.”

  “Why Pearce?” said Reynolds as he looked away from his console for the first time to see a sphere no more than a meter across with a dark reddened surface in the test bay. Anything not secured was swirling around the object as if in a tornado.

  “Okay,” he said, “let's go.”

  Both men headed for the door each trying to unfold his Emmie and bring it online as they moved. Outside the room they hurried down the hall, only prevented from running by the need to setup their Emmies as they went.

  Behind them they heard the noise now. It was the wind, tornado-like, that was howling in the test bay.

  “We should evacuate the whole building Pearce.”

  Pearce stopped to enter the code string to set off the evacuation alarm. He fell several yards behind Reynolds in doing so.

  Reynolds had cleared the building along with the others and was still headed away at a trot when Pearce emerged from the door. Then they heard the crack like lighting striking almost on top of them and then an ear-shattering boom that rolled away from the site. Reynolds turned around to see Pearce in a full run disappear in the smoky debris of the collapsing three-story high building. He started to run back when he saw Pearce emerge from the debris cloud still running at full speed.

  When Pearce reached Reynolds they both continued running away from the developing disaster.

  “Pearce look at this,” said Reynolds, trying to show Pearce his Emmie while still running.

  They stopped when they reached the top of the hill about a quarter-mile from the building. Above them the mushroom shaped cloud, attesting to the power of the destruction, was dissipating. The site where the building had stood was still hidden in smoke and dust.

  “The spherical core formed, that was the explosion. It then started eating its way through the floor of the test bay. It was one hundred feet underground when sensors went dead. We did it. We recreated the latest version of the weapon the first time we tried.”

  Pearce looked at Reynolds, “Yeah and we almost died Dave.” Then he said, “I wonder how far that sphere is going to settle before it dissipates and what happens when it dissipates?”

  Just then there was a rumbling beneath their feet. The ground towards the building site started to lurch upward. It became like a rolling wave headed up the hill exploding with geysers of soil and other debris. Pearce and Reynolds and some of the others standing around them were hurled upward and then the ground was jerked out from under their feet. They fell twenty feet or more before impacting. Some who had survived the original explosion were injured.

  Pearce had turned his ankle, Dave had hit the back of his head hard but neither man was severely injured.

  “Do you believe the Time's End hypothesis Dave?”

  “No Pearce.”

  “I didn't think I did either.”

  They were both quiet a moment.

  Anyway, I think it's dissipated Pearce. Rather a rapid dissipation I would say.”

  “It seemed more explosive than our reports indicated Dave. Maybe we've improved it?”

  “Yeah, if you call that an improvement.”

  Chapter 12

  From The PopSci Encyclic

  2700 A.D. Edition

  In loop quantum gravity, links that make up the loops stitching together the quanta volumes of spacetime in effect create ordinary spacetime. They are usually local, that is they are causally related. But not always, some are non-local. That is separated by such a distance that there is no causal relationship.

  The Spin-Two drive makes use of these non-local links for almost instantaneous transport between widely separated regions of spacetime. However, it is possible to overuse these links which results in an effect similar to a sinkhole in the ground. The link network which under-girds spacetime becomes very haphazard instead of regular and can create areas where mass itself dissolves as if sinking into the abyss. Eventually these areas become a form of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) space which can spread and destroy all matter and life it encounters.

  Surprisingly instead of losing their jobs for destroying the company's resources Pearce and Reynolds were rewarded as Earth's governments, upon hearing the results of the experiment, were highly anxious for Galactic to develop a field version. They were concerned about facing an opponent with such a weapon, after all Earth had not gotten along well with many of the systems that had the weapon. But the development timeline they proposed was so accelerated that Pearce thought it impossible to meet.

  “I don't see how we can work out all the necessary details to turn this into the field unit the government wants Dave in the time they have given us.”

  “We'll have to bring in some help Pearce. You should contact Dr. Eiffel. She could come in and begin contributing almost immediately to our research program.”

  “I haven't talked to her since we had that meeting. But I'll ask.”

  It had been a hundred years since New Adowa, the de facto leader of the Core group of stars, and Earth had fought a battle for control of human space. The war had ended without a victor as both sides had become more involved in trying to stop the degradation of spacetime in their areas caused by the overuse of non-local links.

  Located anywhere from eighty to a hundred and eighty light-years from Earth the Core stars were within easy reach of the spin-two drive. The Earth had used this closeness to dominate the Core planets and extract a tax on their trade until the war. Since then there had been an uneasy truce between Earth and the Core and their allies.

  “Yes Mr. Ambassador you heard that right, we can give you the invention for that small amount.”

  Akilu Fentaw was the Core of Planets Ambassador to the Dhalkans and he was discussing the equipping of the Core's ships with the Infinity Weapon.

  “You will offer the weapon to those who would oppose us for that amount also?”

  “I am not aware of such but I will say this. We will not offer the weapon to anyone other than the ones the Core specifically names in the contract.”

  “You will refuse to sell the weapon to anyone we do not name?”

  “That is correct. It will be in the contract.”

  “Very well Dr. Lindemann, allow me to contact my government one more time and I believe I can get you an answer.”

  The Core governments were thrilled to hear the price and also the ability to veto sales to other systems, some of them former Core members that had fallen out of favor. The Earth and its Solar System allies were also a natural veto choice.

  Saturn and humanity's base on Titan had become very important to the Earth again because of the damage done to the helium-3 extraction infrastructure around the other gas giant planets by the time anomalies some fifty years earlier. The helium-3 mined from Saturn's upper atmosphere was crucial to keeping fusion power plants and fusion ships operating. Earth and the rest of the Solar System could not afford another loss of supply as the industry around the outer gas giants was being rebuilt.

  It happened so quickly that many on Earth hadn't heard the news before retiring for the evening. But by the following afternoon the whole planet as well as the rest of the Solar System knew.

  Dave and Pearce were among those who hadn't heard even by the following afternoon when
Dr. Eiffel arrived to talk about joining the research group. They had slept late after the excitement of the day before and had avoided contact during that time. They had reconvened at Reynolds' house temporarily while they dealt with the destruction of their former facilities.

  “Come in Dr. Eiffel good to see you again.”

  “Thank you Dr. Rawlings.”

  “Hello Dr. Eiffel.”

  “Hello Dr. Reynolds, good to see you again.”

  “Dr. Eiffel if you will have a seat I will tell you something about the research Dr. Reynolds and I have done so far.”

  “First Dr. Reynolds if you don't mind.”

  “Yes Dr. Eiffel?”

  “How will the news of yesterday's incident affect your research program?”

  “Yesterday's incident?”

  “Yes, what happened at Saturn and Titan?”

  Pearce looked at Dave who just shrugged.

  “I don't think we know anything about this incident Dr. Eiffel. Would you fill us in?”

  “Of course. I just thought that you would have been contacted by Galactic by now. Anyway, forces of the Core planets took over Titan and the helium-3 infrastructure around Saturn yesterday. It appears that a helium-3 shortage is in our future.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don't know all the details Dr. Rawlings but apparently the Core planet vessels had a version of the time weapon. Several Earth ships were destroyed even though reinforcements were sent.”