Mark and Matt are presenting the board with the realization that a colonization spaceport located in the Cretaceous Era will shorten transit times to those friendly stars that have the best potential to be successful earth colonies. From this ancient point in time, some very habitable planets were now within easy reach of colonists. But first, the colonists would have to travel back in time sixty-five or so million years prior to beginning their journey to the stars.
The report continued to detail the technical successes of the research and vividly portrayed the beauty of the resort-like nature of the world around them that would be the home of the spaceport. It sang the benefits of the low gravity, high oxygen content of the planet. The warm, clear skies and tropical lands filled with familiar palms and flowering trees. The unexpected variety and beauty of the life once thought to be simple-minded reptilian beasts. Most of all, it concludes with the modest claim that the venture would set GraviDynamics up as the most lucrative company in the human universe.
The K-T extinction is still a thousand years off into the future. There will be more than enough time for man’s first expansion to the stars. Human colonies spreading throughout the galaxy would guarantee the continuation of the human race. GraviDynamics would bring more people and supplies back in time. They would expand humanity’s foothold here, changing a small research outpost into a major interstellar spaceport.
The Milky Way graphic faded and his walldisplay returned to the beautiful but ancient world around him. His gaze turned toward the mainland, his walldisplay filtering out the human noises of the growing settlement around his office. The Station is located on a high plateau that sticks out into the shallow sea now covering an area that will someday be most of the central United States. The plateau’s hundred foot high cliffs face white sand beaches to the north and east. South of them, the cliffs meet the calm ocean in rocky surf that marks the mouth of a large river. A thin neck of land, now secured with a fortified gate, separates them from the mainland.
Mark turns his gaze landward toward the high mountains in the west when his view is interrupted as a leg and hand, holding a hive compactor, pushes through the picture before him. The hand quickly grows into a tall but somewhat stocky man with light, almost blond hair surrounding a sun tanned and smiling face.
‘Hi Mark. Hope you don’t mind. Your office wasn’t set for privacy and I wanted to dump the compressed reports that Matt and I put together into the probe. We need your stamp of approval for this data and then Seth can take it up and start it on its journey back home.’
‘You didn’t interrupt me Paul. I was just reviewing the material. I believe we told them enough to get them going. We should have a build-up schedule back from the home office in two weeks.’
Paul Wenford is one of the four people who really understand the new drive models. He was a lucky bonus that came along with his wife Sara, their paleontologist turned naturalist. Having a quick mind and education in physics, Paul and Matt Zoeller had hit it off early. They worked well together. The project had benefited from their collaboration. Mark watched Paul as he laid out the signature file for his approval.
Mark’s thoughts wondered about the influence of luck, fortunes and fate every time he considered the Wenford family, ‘Actually I felt bad about enforcing that contract clause on Sara. What other choice did I have?’
It was a last minute decision. Their naturalist, Doctor David Pope, decided he would need help with the local wildlife. Good thing Dave insisted on bringing Sara and her knowledge of the animals because these dinosaurs were a lot more than any of them expected. They were faster and more agile than anyone had ever anticipated. They were graceful and beautifully covered, to varying degrees, with feathers. Most of all they were surprisingly intelligent.
Marks thoughts continued as Paul set up the files. ‘Surprisingly everyone in her family has become a major contributor. Paul’s original interest in robotics seemed to carry over into a familial natural inclination in his teenage son John. John’s Hive-Bot programs, using nanobot swarms to create a single robotic entity, could form a profit center of their own for the company when they returned. That is if we decide to market them. Hmmm, there might be some advantage to keeping them a trade secret.’
‘John’s twin teenage sister Brittany follows her mother’s interests. She’s taken to the local wildlife with a research quality that goes far beyond her years. Her studies on the interactions of the Hypsilophodont colony here, or “Hypes” as they are called by the residents, would be enough to earn her degree. Brittany was the first to discover their level of reasoning. Oral mimicry on their part soon gave way to full independent thought and speech for some of the Hypes. Where is that in the report? Ok, she included some of her work in the report, let’s see ….’
‘The Hypes have become guides, friends and companions. They seem to fill a niche that is something more than the close relationship formed between canine and man. Hypes are highly intelligent omnivores yet they are not man-like. They have an intelligence that is different in fundamental ways. They possess a high intellect less prone to using tools, although they do use them in crude ways. Rather than modify their environment to their needs, they would try to adapt to it. Perhaps that is why their race will not survive the drastic changes of the coming extinction event.’
‘The Troondons occupy the headlands of the plateau as a family group or tribe. They also exhibit intelligence but, since they are Theropods, they are hunters. Our fossil record studies predicted the high intelligence of the Troondons. We only underestimated it. They hunt in coordinated parties and form a matriarchal society dominated by the oldest female. Their ancestors will evolve into birds and many of their current habits portend this evolution. Troondons haven’t exhibited the strong vocal language talents enjoyed by the Hypes.’
Mark stopped and looked up. ‘Paul, take the rest of the Brittany’s report after the Troondon out of the transmittal package. There’s no need to detail the intelligence and hunting tactics of the T-Rex and other theropods. We need to keep the board focused and I don’t want to scare them off the project. This will also be better for Brittany when she does publish her work. We don’t want people speculating and taking credit for her groundwork.’
‘Ok, that’s enough for now. Let her rip when you’re done.’ Mark said as he handed the compactor back to Paul.
The expedition brought three Hunter Recon vehicles along. These were the smallest GraviDynamics drive-capable vehicles that the company produced. Seth Sassaman, one of their three pilots, would take the probe back to Jupiter orbit and release it. Then they needed to wait for the return schedule but in the mean time, there was more than enough work to occupy their minds.
Mark got up and followed Paul down and outside of the Argos into the warm sunlight. ‘While we are waiting, we can begin pouring the test bed for the neutron interferometer. Gee, I wonder if there’s any of that duck-billed dinosaur meat left from last night’s dinner?’
Paul smiled and looked at him. ‘I’ll join you as soon as I drop this off. Seth is waiting at the pad. By the way, that’s Hadrosaurid meat. If you go and tell Mary Li you want a duck-bill sandwich you just might get something you don’t expect. In any case, I guess we need to come up with shorter names for these guys. Save me some white meat and some filling.’
‘OK, come on Paul, I’ll walk with you part of the way. I need to go and see how the test bed construction is going along. We’ll then meet at the Station cafeteria in a half hour.’
Mark and Paul walked from his office and down a well-lit hallway to the central lift of the Argos. They took the lift to the bottom of the extended base of the saucer shaped starship. The passenger exit’s air-lock system was disengaged because the entire ship was currently using the planet’s atmosphere, although Matt had told him that the air still actively filtered for biologic and other potential contaminants.
The yellow Sun shone brightly from a point just above the eastern horizon across a blue cloudless sky. Most of
the time skies were cloudless and the winds soft and gentle. The air carried a tropical warmth with the smell of clean, fresh sea salt rising from this shallow inland sea. They were located in an area that would someday be southwest Texas. The low waves of the shallow sea, that extended from the Gulf of Mexico and up through Canada, rolled in lazily toward the peninsula.
Mark walked down a sand and pebble strewn pathway. This was the commercial center of the station and it contained the common meeting area as well as storage buildings, workshops, labs and offices of the station. The structures were made of fused silicon and their designs blended with the surrounding plateau. The whole station looked more like a park than an industrial research site.
They dredged the raw silicon for the buildings from the abundant supply of sand in the surrounding ocean. Modern building techniques created smooth and flowing designs that blend effortlessly into the local environment. The next area of structures outward held a group of pads, one of which held the currently docked Argos. This area also housed the dormitories preferred by many of the unmarried support personnel for the base as well as most of the Blackwave security people.
A growing number of family homes were on the edge of the plateau. These one and two story structures blended into the surrounding environment and enjoyed the vistas provided by the ocean on three sides of the plateau.
Mark noticed Anton Dotschkal up ahead directing the excavation for the interferometer bed. Anton is a civil engineer. He specializes in the exacting construction that projects like the complex ice-station on Europa and now the interferometer required. Anton had aligned and setup the pit for the gravimetric accelerators to a precision that, up to a few years ago, was practiced only by toolmakers or nanomolecular engineers.
The toroidal accelerator that Anton is working on will push the neutron transports along the warped acceleration path while imploding the carriers with high gravity pulses. This implosion will distort the neutron particle shells allowing them to function in the interferometer. The results will provide the details for a major step forward in our drive model development by yielding an insight into very subtle gravitic wave changes in this part of the universe.
Mark walked over to the edge of the pit and noticed that Anton was a very agitated, red-faced engineer. Mark has to raise his voice to shout over the noise created by the bulldozer at the bottom even though Anton is right in front of him. ‘What’s the problem Anton. You look like you’re ready to jump down there and dig the thing out with your hands.’
‘Jeez, what are you trying to do? You scared the peanuts out of me. Don’t sneak up on a guy like that.’ Anton shouted back then waved his arm down towards the pit. ‘Oh, that idiot down there didn’t remember the Hype tunnel complex. He broke through and almost tipped the dozer over. Now our test bed is going to balance at almost three mills out of alignment unless I SilFuse the entire eastern edge to shape monolayer by monolayer.’
The Blackwave construction engineer, Alex Grissom, couldn’t hear the conversation from his position down on the tractor but he picked it up on his Hive Tab. ‘Anton, I don’t think this is part of the Hype Tunnel complex. It’s another void in the plateau. We’ll need to float the whole area with a SilFuse concrete bed anyway.’
Alex is a broad shouldered combat engineer who is part of the Blackwave Security group. He’d been a critical participant in setting up the Station and Mark couldn’t believe he would be so careless as to overcut into a known tunnel location. ‘Anton, why don’t you take a break and join me for a quick bite? I want to talk with you about expansion possibilities for the station. I’m sure Alex and his team can handle this cut.’
‘We’re never going to meet schedule if we keep hitting these unexpected obstacles. This plateau is honeycombed with natural and Hype dug tunnels.’ Anton complained as he called up a Gantt Chart for the project from his Hive-Tab link and directed it over toward Mark. ‘See this, we’re already in the red zone for the enhanced security gate. We lost two days as soon as you went in for an automated defense-in-depth security design as opposed to that simple block gate. That block gate should have been enough for the five years we’re going to be here.’
Mark hesitated a bit and then looked into Anton’s eyes, ‘Well, that’s one of the things I need to talk with you about. We’re not going to be here five years. Looks like it might be a bit longer.’
Mark valued every chance to get out of his office, walk among the workers and refresh his thoughts. Walking along the shores of this ancient ocean is always a pleasure and he often detours his path to walk by the high cliffs. Directing Anton away from the site he motioned ahead, ‘Let Alex take care of it. I sure he’ll do just fine. Come on, I know it takes a little longer going this way but I like to watch the wildlife. This path takes us over the cliff edge where we first encountered the Hypes. You’ll see the spot, it’s just over this rise.’
‘Anton, you’ve seen the stellar plot briefings that Matt put online? Good. Well, what you haven’t seen is their correlation to the our potential interstellar colony sites. Here, I’ve linked the document to your Hive-Tab. The point is we are closer to more human friendly stars in this universe than in our own. We can use this to greatly simplify and reduce the cost of interstellar colonization.’
‘We will be expanding operations at the Station to include a colonization hub. If you’re interested, our financial justification is in this section of the business plan. I want to set up a full starport with the intent that we will be launching colonists from this base rather than somewhere in our own timeframe. However, I want to keep our research station relatively isolated on this small plateau.’
‘Until we find a few friendly planets and setup our initial colony sites, we will need to provide cash flow to fund our work. I know researchers like Sara would like to come here but their work won’t draw the deep pocket funding we need. However, there are others who would pay very well for a chance to visit here. We’ll need to set up something quite unique and attractive for a more lucrative market. So we’ve come to the decision that this site will provide not only a staging point in our colonization business but potentially a very profitable site for an adventure resort.’
Anton stopped in his tracks and looked at Mark, ‘Resort? Are you out of your mind? What are you going to do when your tourists get eaten? You know we had problems here in spite of the fact that this place is like a fortress.’
‘Oh yes, you’re going to say we have had our share of problems but we’ve compensated for that. After all, we didn’t expect a pack of thirty-foot Albertosaurus meat eaters pushing their attack in a coordinated game drive across our peninsula. How can we …’
‘Whoa Anton! Hold it a minute. We all know that an attack cannot happen after our changes in the perimeter defenses. We aren’t in their normal food chain anyway. The Albertosaurus were hunting the Hypes. They don’t even recognize our scent so they didn’t specifically target us. We just happened to get in the way last time.’
‘Here’s my plan. I want to set up a fortified extension along the cliff edge at the mouth of the river over there on the other side of the ravine. It will be far enough from the research station to isolate our work here and still be close enough to allow easy support. See that cliff section over there to the southwest? That’s the point. There’s even a pure freshwater stream that we can divert for our use into a system of lakes and water supply for fountains.’
‘I’m going to let you plan and lay out the specifics for this but I suggest we start by clearing out a large section of the plateau. One very important thing, you have to design it so that it doesn’t look like a fortified base. Plan to include a defensive barrier that can be hidden or disguised to the point that it isn’t a major feature for the colonists and tourists. We’ll also need a paved road between this side and the new spaceport so we don’t have to fly everything over there. This means something like a suspension bridge across the chasm somewhere over in that area. Look, you’re a real creative guy and I know you’d
like to make something on the order of a “Frank Lloyd Wright” architecture. This is your chance! Make something safe, easy to maintain and eye-popping in it’s beauty. Most of all, make it fit right into the Cretaceous star-port theme, whatever that may be.
‘You’ll leave the details to me? Well, ok. This might be fun.’
‘Look Mark, I’ll need to have some basic stats first. You know, traffic volume and what kind of traffic, how much for supplies storage, where do we get the supplies. Also, how about a rough time frame?’
‘OK Anton. I’ll have a thumbnail specification linked to you tonight. Think first of safety and then we can upgrade into the resort and travel center. I want everything built to company standards and use as much of the local raw materials as you can. I’ll also assign two of our three bulldozers to you.’
I’ll expect to review a first set of plans for the expansion in three days. They don’t have to be complete but let’s make sure we are going in the same direction.
References
1. Spartak Poliakov, Oleg Poliakov, “Gravitonics is Electronics of the XXI Century”, New Energy technologies, Issue #4, July – August 2002. http://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/Research/Poliakov.PDF
2. Richard F. Gauthier, “FTL Quantum Models of the Photon and the Electron”, STAIF Conference 2007
3. F.J.Tipler, “Rotating cylinders and the possibility of global causality violation”, Physical Review D, vol 9, issue 8 pp. 2203-2206 (1974) (cosmic string time travel)
4. Cretaceous atmospherics and climate: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/845563/posts
5. “Blue skies, red-hot temps in Cretaceous”, GeoTimes Earth, Energy and Environmental News, April 2008 http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/apr08/article.html?id=WebExtra041008.html
Hunter's Moon (Cretaceous Station Book 2) Page 3