So much had changed. Was it truly only a few months? Our original goal is finally assured; it’s just a matter of time and hard work. I used to question my very sanity for undertaking this broad gamble. No more! No longer a matter of “if” or “how” but rather “what is the best and quickest way?” Perchance, “How Far?”
A great fearful leap into the unknown followed by a few initial tests had immediately drawn credence into our theory. A few more measurements, perhaps a small redesign or two and we will have truly practical interstellar flight capable of realistic colonization goals. Yet, who would have thought this key to our species future to be tied so strongly to our distant past?
In spite of our success, a deep fear lurks in the dark shadows of my mind. Do I reveal it to them or hide it? My concern about the fragility of our hold here amplifies my inner turmoil and questions my every decision. I can’t seem to push Matt’s earlier words from my mind, “There are only eighty-seven scientists in the expedition. One small accident and the knowledge is lost. Accidents happen all too often around here, too many unknowns, too many hurt or killed. We are too isolated from our home, our earth. We came to softly glean the needed knowledge from the cosmos but instead found its keys lying amid a path of perils wickedly taunting humankind to follow intrusively and participate deeply in what is, we now realize, an alien ecology.”
Will they see the irony and risk if I don’t reveal it? How do I convince them to commit to the vast changes in our plans and embrace the perils of this new path, this ironic leap into an even greater unknown? With success in sight, our original mission near satisfied, I now ask them to risk all and take on this greater challenge.
He lifted his eyes to the clear, far horizon. Mark Nolen, founder of GraviDynamics Corporation, gazed out over the morning glow of a softly undulating, turquoise blue ocean. A cooling ocean breeze drifted over from the cliffs below him. The faint smell of salt-air rose from the waves as they rolled in to break lazily against the rocks. The air is salty but filled with the sweet aroma of the flowers that look like wild roses and seemed to thrive on this high plateau.
Life fills the skies around him. White sea birds rise from the cliffs and mix with small but equally graceful flying reptiles. They take wing, cartwheel about the cliffs and then over the food giving waters. Each with the grace of a nymph, they rise in groups to swirl and then dive into the ocean, filling the air with the cries of their early morning feeding.
His eyes scan out to a clear horizon nearly devoid of clouds. Life fills the ocean as it fills the sky. Pods of long necked, grey backed creatures swim in the distance. Tight circles of rough water betray the presence of schools of small creatures feeding near the surface, attracting the attention of the hungry birds and flying reptiles.
After seven months here, Mark found his sight greatly improved over these long distances even without the Hive Tab enhancements. The ship’s doctor, Ian Graeme, insisted that it was because of the higher oxygen content of the atmosphere. The human body just seems to function better in a 26% oxygen environment, a benign level about 5% higher than earth-normal.
Mark turns from the virtual, real-time landscape, provided by his office here on board the Argos, to tussle and dry his hair with the towel draped over his shoulders. The daily workouts were critical and he preferred to practice his ritual in the high, ninety degree temperatures normally found outside at the Station. He also preferred to work out in the 1.2G gravity well provided by the gym. They could adjust the gravity in the workout room here on the ship and next week there would be a larger area in the Station’s new gym. Gravity outside at Cretaceous Station was only 0.8 G, that is, 0.8 the normal earth gravity that the humans were accustomed to in their own timeframe. Human muscles and bone frames are denser than most of the Cretaceous Era creatures because of the human’s higher gravity evolution. Ian constantly stresses how important it is to keep muscle tone.
Mark dressed lightly as one does in a balmy tropical environment. Unconsciously his eyes turned as a giant mosasaur leapt from the far ocean into the air. Unbidden thoughts race through his mind, ‘It’s uncanny how they can be so graceful and still look so strange.’ Then he realizes just how much his thought patterns had changed with this expedition. He thought of the animal as a mosasaur now rather than the textbook description he had first learned, ‘The mosasaur was a massive reptile with a tooth-filled, crocodile like head that can swallow a man whole. It pushed through the ocean using four huge flippers and a long tail that ended in a splayed end rather like that of a large shark. The creature appears as a cross between a crocodile, a four-flippered dolphin and a shark.’
A small applet next to the reptile appeared, seeming to float in the air. It reported the animal to be 28 feet in length as it gracefully slid back under the waves. A second unconscious thought comes forward, ‘Ah, a small one time. Wonder if its parents are nearby.’
Reluctantly his thoughts turned back to the hated task that he could delay no longer. It has to be more than a dry report on mission status to the GraviDynamics board. This report contains a new plan incorporating radical changes in overall scope. In spite of his call for drastic change, he had chosen not to return with the Argos and a skeleton crew. Instead, they would simply send an automated probe with the data, the message and a hope that the board did not rebel. Unfortunately, direct communications across the cosmic string and back to their headquarters on Jupiter’s sixth moon Europa were not possible. Not even their Gravitonic Communications System, that used the faster than light speed communications of quantum gravity, could transverse the strange physics induced by the rapidly spinning cosmic string.
Seven months ago the Argos had entered the Red Spot of Jupiter, using it to travel back in time almost 66 million years to a point a thousand years before the great extinction event that killed off more than 50% of the species on the Earth and almost all of the dinosaurs. GraviDynamics probes had discovered that the strangely stable Red Spot on Jupiter was actually a rapidly spinning cosmic string, folded and anchored in a small black hole at the center of the object they had thought was a planet. The cosmic string spins so rapidly that its intense gravity warps both time and space. The theory was not new, for the behavior of the spinning string was in fact theorized as an artifact called a Tippler Cylinder. However, the Red Spot was the first such observed phenomenon since the theory was proposed over a hundred years ago. The first probe GraviDynamics had sent into the anomaly revealed that travelling along the string carried the voyager back in time. Strangely enough, forward movement for them terminated in their own era located at the apparent end of the string.
Going downtime, the string has kinks along its length that form the only exit portals. They discovered that each of the kinks formed a nodal port into a timeframe corresponding to each of the past extinction events that have occurred periodically throughout the long history of the earth. While the traveler could not move forward in time, it was possible to force an exit point slightly before or after each of the actual extinction events. For Mark and his research team here in the Cretaceous, the great extinction would still be a safe thousand years in the future. However, this strange joining between cosmic string and a black hole provides their only path forward in time to their home.
At this point in the construction of Cretaceous Station, the Argos sits comfortably docked on a pad located near the center of the settlement. This was to have been a five-year research project and many of the ship’s systems are still needed by the 320 scientists, support personnel, soldiers and children who now live and work here.
The automated probe that they are now sending forward to their original timeframe will report on their progress. More importantly, it will inform the board of directors of the company of the drastic change in plan and the expansion in project scope that Mark has decided are to take place.
Mark’s thoughts wrestled with the organization of the data. Beginning the message was always hard. How much should I tell them? How much should I assume they already
know considering the major changes we will be making in our plans? Mark’s mind dredged through memories of their first arrival. The momentous discoveries that now seemed to originate so long ago. So much had occurred to change their visions of the universe in these short seven months.
Their original mission was relatively simple. It encompassed a clearly defined set of measurements to deny or confirm their theoretical models for their Gravitonics Interstellar Drive. The simplicity of the task belied just how critical the measurements were for both GraviDynamics Corporation and the entire human race. Mankind had finally broken the bonds of Earth and established stations on the Moon, Mars and the inner moons of Jupiter. They built Europa Station, now the development headquarters of GraviDynamics, to mine the frozen and liquid waters of that small moon of Jupiter. The water provided critical oxygen and fuel to other mining operations in the asteroid belt. It was profitable and these profits spurred their stardrive research.
The basic research of Levy, Sanders and Hsu of nearly a century ago in gravitational interactions revolutionized physics with their postulation of Quantum Gravitonics. Mark Nolen and Doctor Matthew Zoeller transformed this theory into a practical communications network that used gravity itself to provide almost instantaneous communications between any points in the Solar System. Gravitonic theory had revealed that gravity is not the weak mass-centric phenomenon of classic Einsteinian Physics, but rather a powerful energy source inherent in the sub-particles of the humble electron; just as atomic energy is inherent in the subatomic particles of an atom.
Normally shielded electrons reveal only a small fraction of their energy but, when subjected to the proper electromagnetic excitation, they expose subelectron particles that emit and react to gravitonic waves. Waves that travel at hundreds of times the speed of light. The gravitonic wave theory embraced wave-particle duality concepts of quantum physics with physical particles that could fly across galaxies and through the mass of stars and planets as though they were vapor. GraviDynamics Corporation’s first success came in the form of wave modulating transmitters and receivers for faster than light-speed communications.
The company’s early success in communications products soon led to the realization that sub-electron particle reactions were the true sources of gravity. With their ability to modulate the electron-particle shield soon came the ability to control the local force of gravity exerted on the larger atoms of the object. Rather than an “antigravity” field, they marketed gravity control equipment. The development of short range gravity control fields then led corporate research to the Gravitonic Drive, mankind’s first stardrive. Mankind’s first interstellar adventure, in the form of an expedition to Alpha Centauri, was already underway.
However, their Gravitonic Drives were strangely limited to speeds just under light-speed. Theory said that the drives should be capable of much higher velocities. As a result, that first stellar expedition would require four years travel time to reach to this nearest star system when the trip should only require days.
This expedition’s trip downtime, and the recent discoveries made so close to this extinction event, convinced Mark and his research group that meaningful colonization of other earth-like planets is critical to the survival of the human race. Life in one solar system is too fragile, too easily wiped clean from the violent universe.
The benefits weren’t all altruistic. Control of interstellar trade will be a very profitable position for any company early into and perhaps dominating the market. A major problem remained in that the nearest stellar systems containing potentially earth-similar planets are over a hundred light years away. Unless they could correct their drive models, colonization at the speed of light would still be too costly and take too much time.
Research led by Mark and Matt concluded that something was wrong in their model of quantum gravitonics. The solution had to reside in their formulation of the drive models. Most likely, they theorized, some of the universal constants of these equations, derived originally from old quantum mechanics theory, were in fact slowly changing variables. The problem remained; which variables continued to masquerade as constants? Then, even if we can identify them, how can we characterize their behavior in the model where they change so slowly?
The strange Red Spot of Jupiter presented a unique opportunity. The lure of controlling interstellar travel and trade provided the financial incentive for the company to risk travel back in time to measure the constants of the universe and perhaps correct their drive equations. It was a gamble but success would bring travel times to stars, with earth-like planets, from hundreds of years to transits of only a few short months or years.
The first slow expedition to Alpha Centauri was already underway when the Argos left Europa. Argos however, is a starship with a mission that would not take it to another star. Its mission is less exotic, more humble than interstellar discovery. They used the time gravitonics warping mechanism provided by the cosmic string to simply go back to a time long past. A time when the universe was younger and they could again measure the earlier constants of the universe. Hopefully to discover their errors in the theory and change the models to unleash the true potential of the Gravitonic Drive.
This is the mission of the research team, soldiers and families of the Argos. To travel where no man has gone before into the distant past of the Cretaceous Era and, in turn, unlock the secrets of future interstellar travel.
Using the Hive-Tab link sitting on the mastoid bone behind his ear, Mark opened a mental document in a portion of his mind now linked to the resources of the ship’s hive-computer. These files formed the document packet that will be carried back to Europa Headquarters. In precise mathematical detail, it described the very significant changes they had discovered so far. Here is a file created by Doctor Matthew Zoeller, his chief engineer, for transmission with the probe.
Let’s see, ah yes, the summary. The first few months here had shown that their mission was justified. At least two of the so called universal constants were in fact variables. They would be able to update their Gravitonics Theory but they still needed to characterize the variable’s response patterns before they could properly include them in a functional drive model. The team is now beginning experiments to obtain a fine analysis that will eventually incorporate these variables into a working model for the engines. Matt Zoeller’s file laid out the experimental plan for the tests to be performed and the facilities needed to perform the measurements. Easy success is in sight.
The expedition constructed a secure research base that they named Cretaceous Station. A second site, up in the mountain chain to the north at a valley named Blackbird, provides the limited raw materials needed to fabricate their test beds. Blackbird Valley has also become a popular vacation spot where the station personnel can briefly refresh themselves with a cooler, beautiful valley of waterfalls and high mountain peaks.
The unexpected major discovery of the mission did not directly involve the interstellar drive. It presented itself to the researchers in data brought back from their telescopes orbiting this young world. Mark opened another file and a portion of the ocean scene before him transformed into a slowly rotating, four armed pinwheel of stars that was our galaxy, the Milky Way. One point glowed in the display to highlight the location of the Earth in their original timeframe. The Earth of mankind’s time is located in the rather sparsely populated, back-edge of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. In this timeframe the solar system, so well known to mankind, is now on a path that would take it, in the next several million years, into the star-sparse area between the arms bringing warmth and climate uniformity across the globe.
After the expedition arrived here at the end of the Cretaceous Era, their orbiting telescopes discovered that the solar system is currently entering an entirely different section of the Milky Way galaxy, the Sagittarius Arm. Their observations show that at this point in the orbit, the dinosaurs have been evolving under ideal, stable climatic conditions for more than a hundred million years. A second
star-point flashed on the white-hot edge of the Sagittarius Arm. The solar system, of the dinosaur’s era, is heading directly into a tightly packed traffic jam of star systems that form the leading edge of this galactic arm. At this entry point, the solar system has already entered a densely populated section of space that exhibits strong concentrations of cosmic radiation and debris.
The crossing of the solar system into this violent region presents a physical wavefront in space that already has begun to change the climate of the earth. The uniform warmth and clear skies are changing to cooler temperatures with more clouds. As the interactions continue in the next thousand years, the high cosmic ray intensity of this galactic arm will excite the earth’s troposphere to thicken the cloud cover and eventually end the uniformly warm environment enjoyed by the dinosaurs for the past millennium.
This tightly packed region of the stellar arm is rampant with star building activity. Nova reactions have strewn thick concentrations of debris into the areas between the stars. Mark and his team know that in the next thousand years the climatic change will be accelerated by a major cometary impact with the Earth throwing residue high into the atmosphere and compounding the cloud cover cooling initiated by cosmic radiation. This collision will be the famous K-T extinction event, ending a hundred million years of uniformly mild temperatures and the reign of the dinosaur and bringing on a strong cycle of ice ages.
For the expedition, the K-T event is a thousand years in the future. More to the immediate interest of the humans, the location of the Solar System relative to the other stars of the Milky Way has changed significantly. The Cretaceous Era existed in a completely different stellar neighborhood. Key to Mark’s decision, several Earth-like planetary systems, that were formerly hundreds of light years away, are now a scant few light-years distant. Two systems, potentially very friendly for human habitation, are even closer than the nearest star Alpha Centauri had been in the human’s original timeframe.
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 2