Genesis

by Lawrence P White

  Those simple words stunned Douglas. “You mean we might be able to navigate during a jump?”

  “Aren’t you navigating now?” Smythe asked in surprise. “Surely you are, or we would be lost.”

  “Right now, we have to calculate our course ahead of time, then hope for the best,” Douglas answered. “We certainly can’t change anything during the jump. It’s why we stay so far from stars. If we get too close, they suck us in.”

  “Hmm,” Smythe mumbled thoughtfully. “I hadn’t considered navigation. That implies changing our course to avoid things. I only thought as far as seeing. I’ll give it more consideration. You realize, don’t you, that Gertie will need a ship?”

  “I was afraid you’d say that. They’re in short supply. Should I send you back to Ariall where you’ll have more resources to work on this project?”

  “Please, no! I like it here. Being out here seems to focus my mind.”

  “That’s probably just a consequence of the LifeVirus.”

  “It’s more than that,” Smythe said, shaking his head. “I feel quite in tune with creation out here. We are right in the midst of it, you know.”

  “Well, let’s see what they come up with. I might be able to spare one scout, but under no circumstances will I risk the baseship.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Any ship will do. I suspect they can automate the ship during its trials.”

  “They? Aren’t you going to help them?”

  “My expertise is limited when it comes to experimental processes.”

  “You’ve got a couple of hundred years ahead of you, William. Maybe it’s time to broaden your repertoire.”

  Smythe brightened. “Indeed! Maybe I will!”

  But he didn’t right away. He went back to school on the StarDrive, this time focusing on the physics behind the equipment that made it work. It seemed like a good place to spend a few more months . . . or years.

  Gertie and Nessaka had a list of sensors by the next day, sensors of every imaginable kind, all of them passive. Sound, gravity, magnetism, video covering the spectrum from infrared to ultrasonic, and other forms of electromagnetic emanations such as radio and radar. They took their requirements to the engineering group and went to work with them. At Douglas’ insistence, the work was relegated to the lowest priority, but the group was enthusiastic and in agreement that they could pursue it during free hours.

  A surprising amount of engineering went into the equipment. Any modifications to ships had to be carefully thought out, and interfering with the StarDrive was pioneering work. Several months elapsed before the engineers presented their final drawings to craftsmen who built the actual sensors and the equipment related to them.

  Douglas had brought two extra scouts, planning to use them as replacements for the scouts that were constantly in use, but An’Atee ships just did not wear out. The two spare ships had only been used for training and sentry duty. He assigned one scout to the experiment.

  The actual installation of the sensors went quickly since they had been thoroughly engineered. Each probe was designed to extend a micron at a time, no more. The probes could be withdrawn at the slightest indication of problems. They programmed several long jumps into the scout’s navigation computer to enable the probes to reach a reasonable extension before the ship returned.

  Six months after the project began, the unmanned ship was ready to go. It went out, and it returned a week later. The fact that it returned at all caused a lot of excitement. That excitement quickly turned to disappointment when recordings from the probes only showed information that was inside the shield boundary. The probes had not extended far enough.

  They made adjustments and sent the ship out the following day. Another week elapsed before the ship returned, but the scientists had to scratch their heads over the test results this time. The probes had recorded something, but they had no idea what it was. It was just noise that had no real meaning.

  This kind of testing could go on forever. They needed someone onboard who could make value judgments that would move results along. They had to see Douglas again.

  He met them in one of the computer labs. To him, the concept of navigating while under StarDrive was so far out there that the concept had not even been hinted at during his training. He was reluctant to risk a crew, but at the same time, he knew that positive results might speed up his mission.

  He kept everyone standing rather than retreating into a conference room for a long, drawn-out discussion. “Do you need a full crew?” he asked.

  “We don’t need gunners,” Gertie answered thoughtfully. “Having two pilots would be more productive—one could sleep while the other flies, and they should have a mechanic in case something breaks and has to be fixed or adjusted.”

  Douglas rubbed a hand along his chin as his eyes looked into the distance, thinking about his own time aboard An’Atee fighters. When his thoughts came back into the lab, he said, “You’re messing with the StarDrive field. If it breaks, it won’t likely be repairable.”

  Gertie’s eyes lost focus as she considered, then she turned away and sought out another scientist, an An’Atee scientist. When she returned, she was frowning, but she nodded and said, “Agreed.”

  “Sleep breaks wouldn’t add all that much time,” he suggested.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded. “I see where you’re going with this. You want to limit the risk to one person.”

  “If I can.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t have a clue, but I’ll find someone if you agree that it’s feasible.”

  “He or she needs to be a pilot, obviously, but also a scientist or an engineer.”

  He tilted his head to the side with a grin. “You’re talking about the An’Atee, dear. They’re all PhD’s.”

  * * * * *

  Lieutenant Cass Ayker reported to Admiral Spencer’s boardroom. He was not prone to nervousness, but it wasn’t every day that he got called to the admiral’s office. When he entered, Douglas stood up, as did Cass’ old mentor, Dr. Foest Jamyl.

  Cass felt Douglas studying him. He knew that Douglas would see a big man with an athletic build, brown hair, and brown, widely-spaced eyes. Everything else Douglas needed to know about him would be in his personnel records. Douglas motioned for him to take a seat, which he did, though he sat at attention on the very edge of the chair.

  “I’m looking for a volunteer, and your name came up,” Douglas said. “Dr. Jamyl tells me he was on an exploration voyage with you when the Harbok delivered their ultimatum. You transferred to a fighter group when exploration stopped.”

  The comment surprised Cass. His brow furrowed as he answered, “Yes, sir. I’d been thinking about switching for a while. The ultimatum made the decision easier.”

  “It’s not germane to this conversation, but I’m curious. You’re a fighter pilot. Can you pull the trigger?”

  Cass squirmed in his seat, hesitant to answer the question, but since the question came from the admiral, he had no choice. “I don’t know, sir,” he answered. “I’m horrified by what the Oort do to people, but I won’t know the answer to your question until I fight them.”

  Douglas nodded. “Fair enough. I understand you’re an engineer as well as captain of a scout?”

  “I am, sir. I don’t have a lot of practical engineering experience yet.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven, sir.”

  “And you’re single.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We’re conducting an experiment with the StarDrive. We need a pilot with an engineering background who can understand the issues, but it could be dangerous. Because of the danger, I want to send out a fighter with just one person aboard. You’re Dr. Jamyl’s first choice. Are you interested?”

  Cass sat back in his chair with a frown, but inside he felt a surge of excitement. This was exactly the kind of thing he wanted to do with his life. He locked gazes briefly with Douglas, then he shifted his gaze to Dr. Jamy
l. “I’m interested. Can we get a little more specific?” he asked.

  Dr. Jamyl nodded. “We can. We’re trying to extend sensors through the boundary of the StarDrive. We sent an unmanned scout out twice, but we’re not happy with the results. We think we need human intervention. You’re welcome to speak with the project leaders before you give us your answer. I can tell you this: we’re in uncharted territory, and no one has good answers. This is pure research.”

  Cass stared at Dr. Jamyl for a time, then he shifted his gaze back to Douglas and asked, “This relates to our mission?”

  “Your question impresses me, Lieutenant,” Douglas said with lifted eyebrows. “I like the thought that you’re keeping the big picture in focus.” He paused, then added, “It might. It’s a long shot, but if the project succeeds, we might gain the ability to navigate while under StarDrive. I suspect you can appreciate the applicability to our mission.”

  Cass stared at Douglas as his mind considered the ramifications. Then he remembered that Douglas was from Earth. He might not fully understand the implications. “Sir?” he answered with a hint of caution and a furrowed brow. “If I understand your meaning, it’s far more than that. It’s, potentially, a civilization-changing thing. Reducing transit times is huge, and think what it would mean to the Alliance. The potential exists for real-time reinforcements to other star systems.”

  “Possibly,” Douglas admitted, “but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Let’s see if we can make it work before we start changing civilizations.”

  Nodding his agreement with the admiral’s appraisal, Cass replied, “Yes, sir. I’m in.”

  * * * * *

  Cass was a quick study, so it did not take long to bring him up to speed. “I don’t need to know the math and science,” he kept reminding Gertie. “I just need to know how to manipulate the sensors while flying the ship.”

  He closed up the ship and departed the baseship through a port launch tube, something he had done many times. He headed away from the baseship and got down to business right away, moving from the forward pilot seat to the starboard, aft seat where the StarDrive controls were located. He set up a modestly long jump of half an hour that would take him one light-year or so, a jump that would give him time to manipulate the sensors.

  When he activated the StarDrive, the stars disappeared as usual. He moved directly across the bridge to the engineer’s station and sat down. After a moment’s thought, he activated the rarely used harness that would hold him in the seat.

  He had four individual controls for sensors that would extend into the StarDrive field boundary, but at his request, engineers had programmed all of them to respond to a single controller unless he reconfigured them. He studied several screens, assured himself that things looked normal, and extended the sensors to the farthest position they had reached on the previous, automated flight. Motors drove the sensors at a snail’s pace.

  His gaze shifted between the main screen and his computer screens, looking for any slightest changes. As the sensors neared their previous extended position, small flashes of light began appearing on the main screen. On his computer monitors, graphical displays began shifting to the right, then peaks and valleys began fluctuating.

  The sensors reached their programmed position and stopped. Peaks and valleys on the graphs settled down well above the flat-line level and quivered. The bridge had lit up from a main screen that was filled with flashes of light that reminded him of snow.

  He glanced over to the StarDrive panel and saw that he was about half way through the jump. His hand moved to the keypad that controlled the sensor positions. Curiosity tempted him to move the sensors way out, but his engineer’s discipline came into play. He reverted to the program established by the scientists back aboard the baseship that had him extending the sensors in tiny increments. By the time the jump neared its end, nothing more had changed. He retracted the sensors just before the scout dropped from hyperspace.

  Cass extended the probes incrementally during each of the next several jumps, but nothing changed significantly. He took a break and sat back in the engineer’s seat to consider. He had so far followed the program established by scientists aboard the baseship, a program that could have been followed equally well by an automated program. The reason for sending a human being was because he could use judgment, something that challenged computers. His judgment was telling him that there was something out there, and that extending probes farther would produce better results. Time was not critical to his mission, but it did matter.

  Still feeling fresh enough, he decided to extend just one probe farther into the field, hopefully all the way through the field boundary. By extending one probe, if something bad was going to happen, it might not be as bad. He set up another jump, activated the jump, and held his finger down on the extension control for just the video probe. Shifting glances between the main screen and the screen at the engineer’s panel directly in front of him, he saw only snow on the main screen. Suddenly, the graph on the engineer’s panel jumped and stayed elevated. When he looked forward, he gasped. Gaseous, diaphanous balls of various colors completely filled the screen, wavering and overlapping each other. They made him think of wadded-up, silk scarves that had been crushed into more or less round shapes. He lifted his finger from the video probe and stared, mesmerized. Beautiful colors from all parts of the spectrum—red, yellow, green, blue, violet, even some pinks and oranges—filled the screen in every direction that he looked.

  So . . . yes, the scientists were right. Something was out here, probably in another dimension, and the StarDrive boundary did, indeed, do something to the sensor that let it send back data that was corrected for this dimension.

  His jump was nearly over. Cass retracted the probe before the scout dropped from hyperspace. He scanned his board and saw nothing alarming, so he sat back to think. He wanted to try another probe, but he had been jumping for hours. As excited as he was, he knew fatigue might become a factor, and he did not want to make bad decisions that might get him marooned forever. He took a break, ate a quick meal, and went to his quarters for a nap.

  When he awoke, he stayed in his bunk and just thought. In the end, he decided he was on the right track, but the test program needed changes. The probes extended so slowly that he had had very little time to study what the sensor presented before having to retract the probe because the jump was ending. And, he wondered, what would happen if he left the probe extended into the other dimension after the jump ended?

  He had no idea. He decided to query the experts before trying anything stupid. He would just have to live with the limitation imposed on him by the slow extension mechanism.

  When he returned to the bridge, he set up a jump, activated the jump, then he extended the video probe and another probe that looked for electromagnetic radiation, essentially radio waves at multiple frequencies. At least that’s what the probe looked for in this dimension. Who knew what it would look for outside the StarDrive boundary?

  As with the earlier test with the video probe, the first indication he received was a higher peak on the graph in front of him. Looking forward, he continued extending the probes until the gaseous forms showed, but with the addition of the second probe, their appearance changed. Colors appeared to have shifted up the spectrum. They still resembled diaphanous, gaseous balls, but they seemed better defined, more solid. He couldn’t be certain, but he felt like he was seeing more balls than he had with only the video sensor.

  He retracted the probes, waited for the jump to end, then he repeated the process, this time adding a third probe during the next jump, a probe that measured pure magnetism. This time, the view did not change, nor did the monitor show new peaks on the graph. He retracted the probes and repeated the process with his last probe, a probe that looked at various energy levels. When the probe broke through and added its values to what he was seeing on the main screen, the hearts of each ball appeared to have shifted further up the spectrum, and they had further solid
ified, making them stand out more clearly.

  He retracted the probes just before the jump ended, though he left all the probes slightly extended from the hull in case the changes they had gone through had changed their shapes. He did not want them to get jammed.

  He had a long list of more tests to run, including evaluating the results of each individual probe separately, but he decided he wanted someone to check the probes for damage first. He could always come back and complete the tests, and the scientists on the baseship deserved to know their theory had substance.

  His early return was unexpected. He called ahead, and a crowd was waiting for him when he stepped from the fighter.

  “Does your grin tell us something?” Gertie asked.

  “It tells you a lot,” he answered. “I’ll show you the recordings, but first I want to examine the probes for damage. They might be the first artifacts from this dimension to ever transition to somewhere else.”

  The crowd moved with him as he visually inspected each probe. There was no apparent damage to any of them. “Someone should remove them for analysis,” he said, “but I personally would not touch them until they’ve been inspected for radiation and anything else you can think of.”

  * * * * *

  The recordings were just as spectacular as the real thing. Nessaka wondered aloud if they were looking at stars. If they were, had the sensors measured energy levels that changed as a function of distance from the stars, or was it more a function of each star’s energy output? The densest gasses might be closest to the star, with the gas thinning with distance, but it was equally possible that they were seeing the natural dispersal of energy from whatever its source.

  “That would imply a dimension with distance,” Smythe said thoughtfully. “You might be right. This dimension might just be lacking time. That might explain how we move through it at what we see as supra-light speeds. Without time, there’s no speed of light, and possibly no limiting value.”

  Nessaka nodded. “It’s like we’re changing position without speed. Said another way, if there’s no time there, it might just always be the present no matter where or when you are. You would have no past or future—ever.”