Analog SFF, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  But is that “should be” a risk? Well, let's say we build a machine to try the p-B11 reaction, and find out the estimate is off and it won't hit breakeven. Well, you've just built a machine that should burn D-T or D-D with ease. If it were my choice, with the cost of the demo boron-burning reactor only about 1/3 higher, I'd design for p-B11 without a second thought.

  * * * *

  Saving the World

  Energy touches almost every facet of civilized life. In the final analysis, energy, raw materials, and human talent are the foundations of prosperity. We receive frequent little reminders of this every time fuel prices spike, conflict breaks out in an oil-rich area, or new environmental news makes the headlines.

  Global warming is a hot topic these days, and it should be obvious that p-B11 fusion would be an elegant solution. This sort of power source would make hydrogen a practical fuel for transportation. Other issues are pollution from burning fossil fuels, oil as a catalyst for war, Iran enriching uranium for “peaceful” purposes, North Korea breeding plutonium for bombs, struggling economies around the world, and the whole question of what the heck do we do when oil gets scarce, not too far in the future? And how many of you Analog readers would like to see fusion-powered spacecraft?

  The world needs a technology that can be brought on line in the next few decades (preferably a lot sooner), compatible with existing power grids, affordable, compact, non-polluting, incapable of making nuclear weapons, and able to be used worldwide. If p-B11 fusion can be made to work, I cannot imagine a better overall solution to the world's energy problems.

  Unfortunately, Dr. Bussard is no spring chicken, and he has reached a point in his life where he really needs to turn this over to someone else. He is willing to help where he can, but this project needs young blood. Young, passionate blood.

  It is my hope that, by the time this article is in print, a deal will already be in effect to get the program back underway in earnest. For the interim, Dr. Bussard has set up a non-profit organization called EMC2 Fusion Development Corporation, under the New Mexico Community Foundation (NMCF), at 343 E. Alameda, Santa Fe, NM 87501.

  But who will pick up the full program? The United States government could easily fund it. But are they the most logical to run it? The Department of Energy is running a tokamak agenda, and has a vested interest in continued funding of that program over long careers. A number of people it that field would love nothing better than to be put in charge of electrodynamic fusion to prove it won't work.

  A company with the resources, knowledge, and desire to pull this off might be better than a government agency. Perhaps this would be with government funding, or perhaps just as a private investment. The sum of money involved is well within the capabilities of good old-fashioned private enterprise. For that matter, there are probably a few hundred individuals in the country who could fund it if they so chose, perhaps sacrificing an especially nice yacht.

  Do I expect somebody to read this article and just pull out their checkbook? That would be nice, but I don't think this should be undertaken by an idiot. After all the decades of fusion promises, skepticism is a sensible reaction. What I hope this article does is to make a few of the right people curious enough to really get down and look at the data. They'll want to know just why a handful of neutron counts from a few short tests are so significant. They'll need to see the math codes, and understand if that B4R3 scaling is really solid. They'll want to meet Dr. Bussard and find out for themselves if he's a scammer or the real deal. They'll need to do their homework.

  They'll want to consult some experts. There will be no shortage of experts who will tell them it can't be done. And there will be a few who will tell them why it can.

  And if they come and talk to me, I'd tell them if I had two hundred million bucks lying around, this project would be funded already.

  * * * *

  Readers are also referred to:

  “Should Google Go Nuclear?” Transcript of a talk by R. W. Bussard, by Mark Duncan, www.askmar.com/ ConferenceNotes/Should%20Google%20Go%20Nuclear.pdf

  “Should Google Go Nuclear? Clean, cheap nuclear power (no, really).” Google Tech Talks, November 9, 2006. Online video lecture by R. W. Bussard.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Tom Ligon

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Novelette: TANGIBLE LIGHT

  by J. TIMOTHY BAGWELL

  * * * *

  Illustration by John Allemand

  * * * *

  In really big populations, things can be very different from what we're used to...

  Prashan was running out of time.

  He had put off carrying out his father's dying wish for him to submit to a phenome analysis at the Hall of Records in the Great Library at Polity. He had put it off until only one day remained of the research carrel reservation procured at such enormous expense. Prashan's intention had been to put it off indefinitely.

  Then earlier that morning he had paid a visit to the library, partly out of nostalgia for the attachments of his old life and partly to celebrate the personal independence that the expiration signified. In the stair tower of the library's east portico he had seen the Taffonetta mosaics. And he had realized with a shock what it was his father had sent him there to learn. Now he had only about six hours to find it out. It was like looking for a needle's shadow in an entire field of haystacks. And apparently the only way to proceed was to get a degree in agriculture.

  “You have to bear in mind, Master Chakrapranesh, the scale of the task before you. Try to imagine a population so large that the number of individuals exceeds the number of possible genetic variations; a civilization so old that patterns and records of patterns have accumulated for age upon age, until the records themselves—and the algorithms for accessing them—have become a topography almost too vast to be navigated. I question whether one day will suffice for the purpose you intend.”

  In his distraction, Prashan felt more than heard the words of the old man, who had leaned very close to repeat his last sentence. His voice's deep cello tones seemed to resonate in Prashan's own vocal cords and its vapory warmth washed over Prashan's face with the vinegary-sweet savor of cashew-fruit chutney.

  “Master Chakrapranesh?”

  Prashan regarded the ancient Thurkmhen critically. The old man was so tall and thin, like all of his race, that in order to join Prashan in the research station, he had to sit on the floor and fold himself up like a ruler. His pale amethyst eyes were wells of steady patience. Prashan closed his own eyes, which were more the color of wet mahogany, and tried to concentrate on the things of which his companion spoke.

  “One day is all I have.”

  Prashan's father had died of the gutworm six months earlier. What had started three weeks before that as an invisible leech-like niblet attached to the wall of his upper esophagus resembled, near the end, a boa constrictor with its head deep in the man's throat and the blunt end of its tail protruding into his colon. It had started by siphoning off minute quantities of nourishment whenever Prashan's father ate or drank. As the proportion it coopted grew, Prashan's father began to lose weight, even though he consumed more and more. Eventually, the gutworm expanded until it filled and took over the function of the gastrointestinal tract. At that point it took all of the food and let Prashan's father's body survive by consuming itself. When Prashan was summoned for the last time to his father's bedside, the worm was releasing just enough refined nutriment through its glassy skin to keep the man alive until it matured.

  There was no cure. By the time Prashan's father had begun to lose weight rapidly, and a diagnosis had been made, it had already become impossible to remove the worm without killing him. He would continue to waste away as the gutworm dissolved and absorbed his bones, and when it no longer needed him, it would slough off his body like an old skin, head for the nearest large body of water, and found the first Earthen gutworm dynasty. Before that could happen—as Gayatri, his father's young consort calmly explained to
Prashan one fine day in the west garden—the authorities would intervene. His father would be declared legally dead, despite the fact that he would remain alert—the parasite would carefully protect the nervous system until the end because it played an important role in the process of restructuring the host's body—and “the worm,” as Prashan's father would then be in the eyes of the law, would be destroyed.

  Prashan had not known of the existence of either the parasite or the laws governing its control. Prashan had not known of the existence of very many things, as it turned out.

  “May I?” the old archivist asked softly. A long jelaba-sleeved arm snaked out slowly past Prashan's face and touched a small bead of rose-colored light that floated in the dark space before him. A virtual terminus took shape out of thin air, ghostly at first, then solid and substantial looking.

  In the faintly glowing cube of Prashan's terminus hovered the beginning of a poem. Prashan had written it more than a year ago, well before any of the craziness had begun, and then typed it earlier that morning on the ghostly keyboard just as a way to try out the virtual hardware. He had found the tactile sensation in the tips of his fingers as they danced on tangible light unsettling.

  If it is true that every night you dream

  A thousand lives and that whichever one

  You wake up in is the one you live that day...

  The old Thurkmhen jetted some air out of his nostrils and closed his finely veined nictitating membranes like stained glass over his eyes a couple of times. Prashan had gathered by now that this was a way of expressing being pleased.

  “Did you write this?”

  “Yes. It's not very good. It's only a beginning. I was just trying out the keyboard.”

  In point of fact, Prashan had never gotten beyond these first three lines, this dependent clause, this half a syllogism. But they held out a promise that he could not let go of.

  “May I?” The arm slithered past Prashan's face again. “This might be a good way to illustrate my point.” Long, graceful fingers did a tarantella over the ghost of a keyboard. The monitor faded and in its place hovered what looked like a series of vertical playing cards suspended in the air and extending forward impossibly far (given the wall Prashan knew to be there) toward a distant vanishing point. The old man pulled gently on a corner of the first card and it grew into a sheet of vellum. On the sheet was Prashan's poem. Underneath the poem was some more writing in a different language, one Prashan did not recognize.

  “What's this?”

  “It's your poem beginning.”

  “I realize that. So?”

  “But you did not write it.”

  “I just told you that I did. Don't you believe me?”

  “Yes. But you did not write this one.”

  “It's the same one.”

  “It is; it isn't.” Prashan recognized a Thurkmhen version of his least favorite Tamil proverb. “This one was written by Hamu Hamubhan Bhamjallah of the edgeworld Savannah approximately...” It took Prashan a moment to arrive at the correct figure from the degrees of galactic rotation given.

  8500 years ago?

  That got his attention.

  “But it's identical, word for word.”

  “Yes. In that sense, it's the same poem. There are many others, obviously, with only minor variations.”

  “These others lined up behind Hamu's, I take it.”

  “No.” The long fingers flicked the top sheet away and the next one came forward and grew larger. It seemed identical in every way to the one before, except that the writing underneath was in a different language from the first. “All of these are identical in every way to the one we just looked at—the one you wrote. That is, they are identical textually. Historically, of course, each has its own context.”

  “How can they all be in the same language?”

  “Shmentanha has been around for a long, long time. It's not limited to a few thousand years in the history of one small planet. Try to get over the notion that there is something unique about you and your culture, Master Chakrapranesh. The galaxy is very old.”

  Shmentanha, Prashan knew, was Proto-Indo-European. His father had taught it to him from birth, calling it “Old Sanskrit.”

  Prashan looked at the row of cards, each with his poem written on it.

  “How many are there?”

  “This search revealed a few over seven hundred. That is really quite remarkable, by the way. It must be a very original beginning for a poem.”

  “I had thought so.”

  “Of course, these beginnings lead to quite a number of different poems.”

  The long fingers danced again and another eleven lines appeared under Hamu's beginning. Prashan sucked in his breath quickly and held it. He had always intended the poem to be a sonnet. To see it completed was gratifying but filled him with a strange sense of loss. The direction Hamu had taken it both surprised Prashan and seemed to him exactly right, an echo of his own thoughts. The old man showed the rest of the next poem. And the one after that. And the one after that. Three played out ideas that Prashan had considered but not settled on. One went in a completely unforeseen direction.

  “Of course, this search focused on poetry. The same text may exist under different classifications. And, of course, many people may have written an identical text that never got published. Ah, how many thoughts have been lost to the fire of forgetting!”

  “What difference does it make, as long as at least one copy got saved?”

  The old Thurkmhen shook his head in the manner of Thurkmhna everywhere, rotating it on the axis of his nose, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, as he squinted at the boy next to him.

  “None, if all you care about is the existence of the poem. But what is that? If you care about the existence of the person, then it's everything.” The old man hesitated, seemingly aware that he had perhaps overstepped his role. “Would I be intruding if I asked you whether you have a specific research purpose in mind? It might help me to point you in the right direction, if you would like that help. Is there a particular thing you want to know?”

  Prashan considered that. Yes—why my father thought this would be helpful.

  * * * *

  On the morning of his last day on Earth, Gaya had come up behind him silently in the west garden, where he was luring carp to the surface of one of the hydroponics tanks with jacaranda flowers.

  “Very romantic, from your point of view. I'll bet the fish would prefer a juicy spider or two.” Her voice grew quieter, more intense. “He wants to say good-bye to you.”

  Good-bye? He had not been prepared for that. He had been waiting for days for his father to summon him for the conversation they must inevitably have in order for affairs to be put in order and Prashan to assume responsibility for his father's estate. Instead, it seemed everyone but Prashan had been in to visit his father, including people Prashan had never seen before.

  “Gaya, I'm sorry....”

  “Don't be a fool. Go to him.”

  Prashan's father lay on a mat on the roof verandah, where ribs of sunlight played over his limp body, falling through palm fronds waving in the light breeze like witch healers. There would be no healing for Prashan's father, however. His arms and legs lay flat and useless beside his trunk like stockings laid out to dry. Within the hollow rasp of his breath was another sound, ghostly echoing the first—a dry hiss. This is not my father, Prashan told himself with curious detachment, not my father, not my father, not my father. But it was. And for the first time, ever, Prashan was glad that his mother was no longer alive.

  “Prashan. My son.”

  “Father.” Prashan oddly felt nothing.

  “I had wanted to help you come to know who you are. That is the prime duty—and great joy—of fatherhood. Now that can never be.”

  The word never cut through Prashan's heart like a scythe swung low and fast, that for a moment leaves the wheat standing, balanced on nothing, before it topples over. He made small talk.

  “I
had wanted that, too, father. Now I will have to learn this on my own.”

  Prashan's words were cold, but on the other side of the dam, the waters of anguish were troubled and rising.

  “No! That way is too uncertain. I've made other arrangements.”

  Prashan would have felt dismayed, if he had not been so numb. His father had appointed a guardian for him, even though he was fourteen and could legally inherit or at least administer his father's estate.

  “Father, is that what you think of me?”

  “Listen. You don't understand. I want you to go to Polity. You leave this afternoon. If you agree, that is. I hereby grant you your majority. You witness?” Shifting slightly where he stood in the corner, his father's old manservant, whom Prashan had not noticed before, nodded solemnly.

  Too much was happening too fast. His father's impending death. His majority. These things he had had time to ponder. But did his father mean by “go to Polity” what he thought he meant?

  “I'm not going anywhere, before ... I'm not going to leave you, father.”

  “Prashan, my beloved and thick-headed son, hear me. Any hour now, Reticulum epidemiologists will show up with my death certificate and all the tools needed for a good old-fashioned drawing-and-quartering. Do you really want to witness that?”

  “No, of course not, but how can I leave you to face that alone?”

  This was ridiculous. It was as if they were discussing the weather.

  “Do you think it would make things easier for me to know my son was watching?”

  “But even if I could abandon you, go to Polity? What do you mean?” Prashan knew what the old man meant. He had known it all his life without actually hearing it or admitting it.

  “I would rather have you on your own in a strange world knowing who you are than in a familiar place where you are a stranger to yourself. I've liquidated the estate to pay for you to go to Polity and visit the Hall of Records at the Great Library. When you have done what I ask, you will truly be on your own. But you'll have yourself. You may also learn something that will help you to understand the situation of the Earth.”