Cycle of Stars

by D. W. Patterson

  Since the shuttle wouldn't be flying again Jomo robbed parts that he could use. A landing strut suitably modified, served as a plow, which one of the wheeled robots could pull through the third of an acre garden. Solar panels were deployed to charge the isotopics. Even though they weren't in space they still worked well enough when exposed to Adowa's sun day after day. The robots could then recharge.

  Everything was going well. Jomo was tired every day but happy. The seeds were in the field and had been watered by the first of the rains. He was very optimistic about the results. Even Adowa seemed to be cooperating as there hadn't been any major quakes for three months. But that wouldn't last.

  One morning on his way to the fields he found himself flat on his back. The ground had literally fallen out from under him. The shaking was rapid and moving a sizable amount back and forth. Jomo just had to stay where he had fallen until it was over which took several minutes.

  While lying on his back trying to ride the slip and slide of the quake Jomo could hear a great hissing and booming coming from the direction of the fields. But he couldn't get up enough to see what was happening.

  It was only after the shaking subsided somewhat that Jomo was able to get up and run to the field. He was shocked and dispirited at what he saw. The field was a mass of fissures with lava oozing from the long scars. The entire site and far beyond was destroyed and rendered unfit. Jomo was devastated.

  Walking back toward the village he was unable to answer when someone passing would ask him what had happened. He could only point and tell them to see for themselves.

  His father was picking up pieces of broken glass and tableware when Jomo entered the room.

  “It's gone father. All gone.”

  “The field Jomo?”

  “Yes the field was destroyed by the quake. It is unusable now.”

  “We'll have to find another field.”

  “Father we don't have enough seeds left. I was depending on this crop to replenish the supply. What is left is not enough to plant a plot the size of the original test plot. We are finished.”

  “No Jomo we must try again with what we have. It is our only hope.”

  But Jomo didn't answer. He went into the other room and closed the door. His father heard the muted sobbing.

  The buffeting of JS1 was getting worse, not better. Space was disintegrating around the ship at a faster and faster pace. Dag was talking to Ally about his discussion with the Captain and the physics of the situation.

  “It sounds like the Captain made a good point Dag. Since we have incomplete knowledge of the situation it seems erring on the side of humanity may be our best course of action.”

  “I know Miss but for the first time in my life science seems so inadequate in helping me make this decision.”

  “Science is just a tool Dag. We have to apply our judgment in its use.”

  “I guess so Miss. I just wish there was some logic to deciding. If what I believe is correct I could be changing the future. It's not a responsibility I want.”

  Ally suddenly found herself irritated with Dag's self-centered viewpoint.

  “Dag, I honestly don't understand your selfishness. We are talking about the end of all intelligent life in the near future if these anomalies continue cropping up.”

  As if for emphasis the ship shook violently. Fortunately, they were both sitting in chairs secured to the room's floor. Dag looked at Ally as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  “How did you arrange that?”

  Ally just shrugged.

  “You think I'm being selfish Miss?”

  “Dag you keep saying that you don't want to make the decision. But the fact is that you are the only one that is qualified to make the decision. Although you may not know everything you have more knowledge about the situation than anyone else. You have studied and trained for this decision. Now weigh the probabilities and decide.”

  Taken aback Dag was about to respond but as he thought about it he realized she was right. He probably was the most qualified physicist and he was in a position to make a decision that no one else could make. No one else even knew the necessity of the decision.

  “Miss I'm a little surprised by what you said but in thinking it over I realize that you are right. I've decided we should do everything we can to save lives. We'll start with Adowa. I'll tell the Captain.”

  But as Dag was rising from his chair the ship shook violently again. He was thrown to the floor. Ally jumped from her chair to see if Dag was all right. Then the lights went out. They could hear the crew wheel powering down. The ship was dark except for the glow of personal Emmies. Dag and Ally used theirs to see the handholds in the hallway by which they pulled themselves partway around the crew wheel to the control room. Every minute or two the ship would shake violently.

  “Dr. Mach, Dr. Mekur I was hoping you would find your way here,” said Captain Reynolds. “We seem to have lost the isotopics now. I wonder if it has something to do with this space we are in. As I'm sure you've noticed it seems to be getting worse.”

  “Captain as this space gets accelerated more and more by the anomaly it is probably getting further and further from an equilibrium condition,” said Dag. “That means that at the lowest level space is actually breaking up into clumps with voids of nothingness between.

  “It's like a boat traveling on the surface of a shallow lake encountering underwater sandbars that cause it to shake and roll when it strikes one. Eventually the boat will slow enough to either be stranded on a sandbar or if not it may be wrecked.”

  “Well that would explain something. We've been losing velocity even though the engines were still thrusting up until a short time ago. And there's nothing in empty space that should do that.”

  “That's true Captain and unless this spacetime is also changing the rules of physics, which I'm not ruling out, then something must be applying a force to slow down the ship.”

  “Sandbars.”

  “Yes Captain.”

  The Captain had asked them to look at the isotopics and see if there was anything they could do.

  The isotopics were located one floor down, that is when the crew wheel was rotating, in other words, they were located on the outer floor of the wheel. Arranged in six separate rooms equally spaced around the wheel so as to keep the wheel in balance and not affect its rotation, the isotopics looked in fact like old-fashioned battery banks.

  Dag and Ally floated their way to one of the isotopic rooms and entered. They spent thirty minutes checking for any apparent problems but turned up nothing. Diagnostics run on his Emmie led Dag to believe there was nothing fundamentally wrong. The isotopics still held enough energy to run the ship but something was stopping this energy from being transferred.

  With the light of their Emmies highlighting there forms Dag and Ally were discussing the problem.

  “Dag it won't be too much longer until the air will be unbreathable as there is no CO2 scrubbing without power.”

  “I know Miss. You can use your spacesuit for a few more days but you are in serious trouble if we can't get the power flowing by then. Even I will cease if I can't renew my isotopics.”

  “Are you sure nothing is wrong Dag?”

  “Nothing that my diagnostics can find Miss. Of course without power I have limited diagnostic capability. But there still seems to be power in the isotopic cells the voltage is still up.”

  “Then why can't we get it out?”

  “Something to do with transmitting in this space I suspect.”

  “What Dag, what? I know you, you have a theory, you always have a theory.”

  “Well it's crazy as usual but do you remember the old pilot-wave theory in which particles were guided by a wavefunction?”

  “Sort of. I don't think it was ever proven.”

  “Nor disproven. Anyway as you know in the usual quantum mechanics a particle acts as either a wave or particle depending on the experiment being performed. That's the famous wave-particle duality which
Einstein at the time called two contradictory pictures of reality.

  “But in pilot wave theory the particle is both wave and particle at the same time. The theory is deterministic in that the wave function 'guides' a real particle. And it is realistic in that the particle always has a location in space, not a probability of being at some location as in the usual quantum mechanics.

  “The theory has been 'proven' and 'unproven' over the years but never completely discarded. For our purposes it has several appealing aspects. One is that it requires nonlocality which is a real feature of the quantum world and which we have again shown to be real with our development of the spin-two drive.

  “The other feature is that it predicts non-equilibrium quantum mechanical effects. Remember in the case of a system in equilibrium the old quantum mechanics and pilot-wave theory give the same predictions. But when a quantum system is out of equilibrium the pilot-wave theory predicts new effects such as faster than light communications and a violation of the uncertainty principle.

  “I believe it's these out of equilibrium effects that are causing our problem, specifically the way they interfere with nuclear chemistry at the quantum level. As you know energy is stored in an excited state of the nucleus in an isotopic system. To release that energy it is necessary for a free electron to fall into an atomic shell of the isotopic atom. When that happens just the right amount of energy is transferred to the nucleus and causes a fast but controlled release of its energy. Without that electron the energy is trapped in the nucleus.

  “I believe that this space is forcing quantum mechanical systems out of equilibrium. In such a state the electron cannot be properly located as it can when the system is in quantum equilibrium. Essentially the electron switch cannot be flipped and the energy in the nucleus can not be released.”

  “And we get no power from the reservoirs even though they are not depleted.”

  “That's right Miss.”

  “But if it's affecting the isotopics at the atomic level won't it affect us too?”

  “Eventually all chemical processes and electronic devices will be affected including those in our bodies.”

  “What can we do?”

  “I don't know Miss, get out of this spacetime is all I can think of.”

  29

  The JS1 was in crisis mode. Everyone was wearing their spacesuits for the warmth and its built-in rebreather. Some of the food supply was disappearing which worried the Captain. Fortunately, the aeroponics garden was still operating with manual intervention. Misting of the roots had to be done by hand now instead of being automated. Several crew members had been transferred to maintain the garden. But it would only be enough for half rations once the other supplies ran out.

  The Captain never liked disciplining his crew but it had come to that and he had drafted several of his men to form a kind of sheriff's deputies to catch and incarcerate anyone not following his orders to the letter. Dag and Ally were stumped as to what to do.

  “I have tried Miss I simply cannot come up with a way around the problem. When the space you are in is changing it's like a fish trying to swim in ice.”

  “I know Dag you've worked hard the past week to find an answer. Maybe you should take a day off. Some downtime. It might help you think to relax.”

  “That's true but I would feel terrible if I wasn't trying. So many lives on the line Miss.”

  “Dag, you will be doing what you need to. Now how about getting some downtime? I don't want to see you again until dinner time tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Okay Miss.”

  It was four hours after going into sleep mode that Dag woke.

  Art. The art piece like Miss Ally and I investigated. I wonder?

  Dag got up and headed to control. The Captain wasn't there but the First Officer was on watch.

  “First Officer Sands I need to talk to you.”

  “Yes Dr. Mach?”

  “I think we can get out of this space if we have a certain piece of art on board.”

  “I don't understand Dr. Mach.”

  Dag then explained what had happened with the Star Hopper and other ships many years ago. He also explained that Ally and he had never discovered the mechanism that caused the change in space but that didn't mean that the crew's stories were a fabrication. Dag and Ally he added, both believed the stories.

  “Well I don't know Dr. Mach. What do you propose?”

  “To question the crew sir and see if any of them have an art piece like I mentioned in their possession.”

  “Very well. Most of the crew are asleep now. We will make an announcement in the morning at crew change. Then everyone will hear it.”

  Dag couldn't relax, again he stayed in control the rest of the night just waiting for the opportunity to make the announcement.

  The following morning when the Captain showed up the First Officer and Dag described what they wanted to do. The Captain thought it a long shot but it might be all they had so he approved. Dag made the announcement and they waited.

  Finally one of the crew showed up in control. It was Kim Atkins the crew psychologist among other things.

  “Yes Ms. Atkins,” said the Captain.

  “Sir I might have the art piece that Dr. Mach is talking about in my quarters.”

  “Very well. Doug will you accompany Ms. Atkins and Dr. Mach and Dr. Mekur to Ms. Atkins quarters.”

  “Yes sir.”

  They all pulled themselves with the handholds to Atkins' quarters.

  “There it is in the corner,” said Atkins shining her Emmie in that direction. Dag turned on a beam light. In the bright light sat a large spheroid which appeared to be made from polished wood.

  “Looks like it doesn't it Miss?”

  “Yes it resembles the one we encountered.”

  Dag pushed off in the direction of the large spherical shape and bent down and shook it slowly. Nothing happened.

  “Miss do you remember what the Star Hopper Captain said about triggering the sphere?”

  “He said that they were trying to extract it from its packing crate. They dislodged it with some force and it hit the ceiling. That is when it seemed to activate.”

  “That's right.”

  So Dag took some magne-straps from his pouch and put them on his feet. The straps magnetically anchored him to the metallic sub-floor. Next, he bent down and picked up the sphere and launched it toward the ceiling. It hit with a thud and rebounded barely missing Dag's head as he ducked. It looked like a comedy routine to the others and they chuckled.

  “Be careful Dr. Mach,” said First Officer Sands with a grin. “The mass of that thing could hurt you.”

  “I hope you didn't damage it,” said Atkins as she pushed over to where the sphere had settled. After bouncing off the ceiling, the floor and hitting a wall it came to rest on a chair in the corner.

  Dag loosened the magne-straps and peeled them from the floor and placed them back in the pouch.

  “I hope I didn't damage it either Miss. But I think it was worth a try.”

  Turning to the First Officer he said, “Well let's get back to control and tell the Captain.”

  “I know this was a disappointment Captain but I believe we should keep looking. The potential for getting us out of this mess is too great to give up yet.”

  “And now you want to search all the storage rooms Dr. Mach?”

  “Yes Sir. It could be that someone placed it aboard without your knowledge. I think that might be true of almost every ship in space.”

  “Who and how Dr. Dag?”

  “Not sure Captain. But what have we to lose?”

  Apparently the Captain wasn't as convinced as Dag had hoped. He only assigned a couple of teams to assist in the search. Dag described to everyone what they were looking for and they started.

  The three teams (Dag and Ally were the third) had a dozen storage areas to search. The other two teams finished several hours before Dag and Ally and reported they had seen nothing. Dag and Ally also found nothing
and were disappointed to hear the news from the Captain.

  “I'm sorry Dr. Mach. Your hunch didn't pay off. I hope you'll keep trying to find a way out of our predicament.”

  “Of course Captain. It's just that I have thought on this problem longer than most and nothing comes to mind as a solution except the Star Hopper incident.”

  Jomo's father was discussing their situation with his son. He had an idea.

  “We are going to be hard-pressed to keep everyone alive Jomo. We need some relief.”

  “I know father but what can I do. I've planted the few seeds left. It will take several harvest times before I have anywhere near the number of seeds we need for planting a garden that can feed everyone.”

  “Yes I know Jomo. You are doing what you can and I'm proud of you. But we need more time and this world is determined not to give it to us. That's why I was thinking of something last night.

  “You remember your great grandfather and his military service?”

  “Most of it father.”

  “Do you also remember what he did after the military?”

  “I remember that he went back to no-man's land looking for some kind of treasure.”

  “I was his grandson Jomo. We were quite close. He went back to secure a strange sphere that he had found in a cave. He thought it was valuable and he could sale it and help other veterans of that incursion. He was sure the sphere was worth something.

  “Anyway after hearing his story I searched for the sphere which had been taken away from him. I discovered a little. It was actually a work of art by some artist named Mulvaney of Earth. Apparently their art was shipped throughout the universe.

  “Now here is the interesting part. The sphere your great grandfather described to me looked very much like a sphere found aboard a fusion ship years later. And that sphere supposedly was somehow activated by the captain and the result was that the space in which that ship found itself in was healed and its wormhole drive began to work again. It saved their lives. If we have one and it does the same it could save our lives also.