Habitats (an Ell Donsaii story #7)

by Dahners, Laurence

  “Ringworld?”

  “Constructed habitat. A ring that’s about 20,000 kilometers in diameter. About 5,000 kilometers wide. The rocket isn’t very close yet, but the ring is easier to see than the presumed home planet! Allan thinks the ring is rotating about one revolution every three and a half hours.”

  “Wait, what! 20,000 kilometers! Why so freaking big?”

  “So a lot of people can live there.”

  “What? Why a ring… world?

  “You really don’t read much sci-fi do you? The idea is that they live on the inner surface of the ring. At that rotation rate, the centripetal force would provide a simulated 0.34 gravities on the inner surface, pretty much what we estimate the gravity of the home planet to be. High edges along the sides of the ring keep the atmosphere in. In sci-fi stories the rings are even bigger than this so that the rotation matches the day-night cycle of the planet the inhabitants come from, but it seems unlikely that materials with enough tensile strength for that kind of structure are possible. Even one this size is pushing high up into the strength limits of graphene, which is the strongest material we’re aware of.”

  Emma blinked, “How much surface area would one of these have?”

  “310 million square kilometers. That’s about sixty percent of the surface area of the Earth. Close to three times the area of their presumed home planet.”

  Emma sat down, looking a little pale, “My God!”

  “Yeah. The rings are astonishing feats of engineering. I’m worried because Allan hasn’t detected any rocket exhausts travelling from world to world. Hopefully that’s because we’re still too far away. But if they’re travelling everywhere using ports or some other technology… then they’re even more frightening… I’m not using the rocket’s engine. I don’t want them noticing it, tracking it down and tracing it back to us.”

  “But, traveling on a ballistic trajectory, will it get close enough for you to actually see what’s going on?”

  “Well… no. When I first saw the Sigma Draconis ringworld on the video returning from the explorer I resolved not to activate the actual rocket engine on the explorer in an effort to keep it from being detected. But, then I realized that we had just the problem you brought up, it wouldn’t get close enough to be able to see much. So I really wanted to correct its course. Using low levels of thrust far enough away from the destination is going to allow t3emg to alhat to be done. I wanted an exhaust that consisted of something present in deep space that would be cold because hot exhaust would show up on infrared imaging. Liquid hydrogen seemed to be the best choice. It would exhaust at a fairly high velocity, imparting significant delta V, yet the hydrogen would be pretty cold and normally found in deep space, even if in lower quantities.

  “So I started porting hydrogen under pressure to both the oxygen and the LNG supplies to the main rocket nozzle. Allan controls the thrust by simply flicking the port open and shut at various cycle frequencies.

  “Then it was just a matter of orienting the nozzle and opening up. The delta V, being fairly low, required long periods of thrust, far, far from the ringworld. But Allan’s calculations show that it’ll be able to match the rim velocity of the side of the ring that’s travelling away along the explorer’s trajectory. It should be able to land on the rim without any major burns, especially since I’ve got Allan watching and adjusting almost constantly.

  “I’ve trailed a wire through the port on the rocket to serve as an antenna and hooked it up to a broad spectrum radio receiver, checking to see if the Draconis might be using radio rather than quantum messaging through the 5th dimension. I couldn’t find any carrier waves or other evidence of non-natural radio sources but I worry that I just don’t know enough about radio comm to recognize their transmissions.” She shrugged, “However, I think the best bet would be that they are using something more advanced.”

  Emma left Ell’s office, head spinning with the ramifications. She wanted desperately to talk to someone about it, but Ell had made her promise.

  Back in her office Ell wondered again if the Draconis would be using ports. Ell found it hard to imagine that they could build their ringworld using rockets that carried all their fuel with them. You just wouldn’t be able to move such enormous quantities of mass around.

  In fact... she leaned back, eyes unfocused, you couldn’t move that much mass with chemical rockets. You’d run out of chemical. Sure a gas giant would have plenty of hydrogen, but you wouldn’t be able to find enough oxidizer. What if you ported liquid hydrogen into your rocket engine and heated the engine’s chamber with a port near the star...?

  ***

  Avral contacted Menahim. “I’ve tried several times and ways under different aliases to reach Donsaii. I haven’t even been successful in setting up a meeting to talk to her. I’ve offered to pay substantial sums just to make a proposal to her. ‘Not interested,’ is all I get back. I’ve tried to find a way to accost her in public but she rarely goes out in public. Probably gets too much unwanted attention from creeps in public.”

  “Creeps like you?”

  “Not funny.”

  Avral said in a flat tone.

  “So, what’s your next step?”

  “I’ve checked out where she lives. It’s on a semi-isolated small farm, lives there with a girl. A fair number of people come and go. I think that some of them might be guards of some kind because they come and go on a semi regular schedule that leaves them there about eight hours at a time. But it seems like only about three at any one time. I’m pretty sure we could get her out of there.”

  Menahim snorted, “You’re back to kidnapping her!”

  Avral said, “We need her. Or what she knows anyway. There isn’t any other way. Get us approval. I’ll work on a more detailed plan.”

  “I’ll ask, but I don’t think that’s going to get approved.”

  ***

  Presidential Science Adviser Kant Fladwami spoke to his AI. “Let’s return that call from Donsaii.”

  A moment later he heard her voice, “Hello Dr. Fladwami. Thank you for calling me back. I contacted you per your request to be kept up to date about events here at D5R.”

  “Oh, no,” he chuckled. “Are you about to throw another monkey wrench into the economy?”

  “Uh, no sir… Well I don’t think so anyway. But we are going to be publishing our observations of another intelligent race in the near future.”

  Fladwami felt goosebumps run up his neck, “Aliens?” he breathed, “Where?” The first thing that ran through his mind was that somehow aliens had detected her ports or PGR communications and embarked an invasion fleet or something horrific.

  “Tau Ceti sir. We’ve managed to send a small observation rocket to the third planet and it has been sending back video of primitive but intelligent beings.”

  The word “primitive” washed soothingly over Fladwami. “So, I assume they aren’t about to attack us then?”

  “Oh, no sir. Far from it. And so far we haven’t been successful in sending higher level animals through ports without serious neurological consequences, so it doesn’t look like we’re going to go there anytime soon either.”

  “Oh… Yeah, how did you get a rocket to Tau Ceti across light years of space without years of travel time?”

  “Uh, well, I’ve found a way to open what we call a ‘single ended’ port which doesn’t have to have a device on the other end like the ‘two ended’ ports you’re familiar with.”

  Fladwami blinked, “So are they going to supplant the two ended ports then?”

  “Oh no sir. The location of the other end of the port is unstable and inaccurate.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “By unstable I mean that about three to five seconds is as long as you can keep a one ended port open, then it spontaneously closes and reopens in another location, closer or farther away. ‘Inaccurate’ refers to the fact that they open plus or minus 5-10% of their intended distance away. So to send a rocket to Tau Ceti we opened
many, many ports, waiting for one to randomly open relatively close to the destination. Even when we did get one fairly close it still took four months for the rocket to fly the rest of the way to Tau Ceti.”

  “And you found intelligent beings on this first planet? Could they live on Earth? Could we live on their planet?”

  “Well, no. The atmosphere of TC3, as we call their planet, is very dense and has a very high oxygen content. The air would be toxic to us. For that matter, I’m sure our atmosphere is far too thin for them.

  “I was thinking I could use our secure PGR link to send you some video and other materials to bring you up to speed? Then you could call me with questions.”

  “And when are you going to be publishing these results?”

  “Well, we’ll submit the papers in the next month or two. Depends on how fast the group gets their papers written to their satisfaction; they want to publish them all together, one on the Tau Ceti system and planet, one on the biota and one on the language of the Teecees, as we’ve been calling them. But then it will take more time for the journal to accept and publish them.”

  “OK,” Fladwami said, feeling completely flummoxed as he leaned back in his chair staring sightlessly at the ceiling. “Please send me that summary.” After they’d disconnected he remained motionless a long time, leaning back, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to tell his President.

  ***

  Mack pulled up to Shelly’s apartment complex. The month Shelly’d given him to quit drinking was up. He felt pretty proud because he’d really cut back. Never more than a six pack in an evening and many nights with only one beer, which wasn’t actually drinking in his mind. Hell, he couldn’t even feel the effect of a single beer. Not that he intended to tell Shelly that he’d only cut back. He’d claim complete abstinence and if she came back home, well then he’d truly stop drinking completely… Except for an occasional one with his friends… and maybe if he got too stressed.

  He saw Shelly walking out to her car. She looked great in a skirt and a turtleneck. His eyes narrowed, a short skirt! He’d been about to get out of his truck and tell her the good news about his drinking. He’d been looking forward to inviting her back to their house but now he felt unsure.

  While he dithered, she got in her car and drove away.

  After a minute Man>r a minack pulled out onto the street to follow.

  Two hours later Mack pulled into Jed’s Bar. Shelly’d gone to a Mexican food restaurant where she’d met a Hispanic looking guy. The guy was shorter than she was for God’s sake! Mack had sat fuming while his wife had dinner with another man. Eventually he’d gone into the convenience mart across the street and bought a six pack to calm his nerves. In his mind the beer was a necessary medication to keep him from going in and beating the crap out of that guy.

  He chuckled to himself to think that the guy’s life had just been saved by a six pack of beer. Poor guy might not even know Shelly’s married.

  But she knew she was married.

  Mack’s thoughts turned darker. The woman was ruining his life! Life’s mistakes had consequences…

  ***

  Basir shook his head. He’d been told to work with this Farshid and Abbas team. They were long on passion and Abbas had some good ideas, but their attention to detail, or perhaps you could call it their level of ‘professionalism,’ was low. He couldn’t believe that they’d duct taped a port to a propane tank, opened the valve and then left the room! They’d done nothing to even confirm that the port had actually opened! Then they had decided that the explosion at their safe house was due to enemy action rather than their own idiocy.

  Basir had considered pointing out that the death of Reza was likely due to their own stupidity. But, telling them that wouldn’t make them smarter. And it might dampen their fanatical enthusiasm for the war against the Christians. The cause could always use a few fanatics willing to sacrifice themselves in the battle. Basir was more pragmatic. He intended to survive this war.

  Still he felt unsure about the best way to find someone who worked at the infidels’ Portal Technologies plant. Someone who would know how to make ports, or at least how to disable any safeguards on the ones that could be purchased. Someone who could easily be controlled.

  Basir had found it damnably difficult to get good information about the ports. Somehow, the internet had much less information on the ports than on other technologies. Where he saw the lack of information addressed, websites blamed it on “proprietary secret keeping” by Portal Technologies, the company that made the ports.

  Basir and the team had been hanging around the exit from the plant parking lot for a week now, following people as they left, trying to find a likely candidate to bribe or terrorize. So far they’d only followed people who went directly to their homes. He’d been expecting to follow someone to a bar by now. A bar where he could ply them with drink and find out whether they knew anything useful or not. Otherwise capturing or negotiating with them would be a waste.

  Farshid had been the only one of them so far to follow hadr to fosomeone to a bar. Rather than call in Basir like he’d been told to, Farshid had gone into the bar himself and tried to strike up a conversation with the man. The man, of a type known as a ‘red neck’ and in a bad mood to boot, had not taken kindly to being approached by Farshid who spoke poor English. He had exhibited his intolerance and narrow mindedness by giving Farshid a black eye. Basir had had to spend hours talking Farshid out of setting the man’s house on fire. He worried that Farshid’s focus had not come back on their mission even now.

  Now it looked like the vehicle Basir had followed out of the Portal Technologies parking lot after the 3-11 shift was approaching an apartment complex and worse, he thought it had a woman at the wheel. He ground his teeth together, more wasted time.

  Just as Basir pulled into another lane to head back to their motel, he saw her little car turn into a strip mall. He changed back to the other lane and then turned into the strip mall at the next entrance. The car he’d followed parked in front of a small bar named “Benny’s Beer and Billiards.” The car’s door opened and, as he had feared, a woman got out. She went into the bar though, so he parked and followed her in. He worried that he wouldn’t know which one she was but saw to his relief that there was only one woman with shoulder length blond hair in the bar. Only a scattering of other people populated the place but there were enough people standing at the bar that Basir didn’t think anyone would remark on his taking a position near her. He left a seat between himself and his target.

  When the bartender brought her a beer he ordered one of his own, choosing Budweiser because it was the only brand he could remember at the moment. He’d never had any alcohol but would drink some this night as part of maintaining his cover.

  Allah would forgive.

  The woman immediately struck up a conversation with the bartender so Basir didn’t have to speak, he could just listen.

  “Benny, how they hangin’?”

  “On the left, Hun’, on the left. How’s second shift treating you?”

  She snorted, “One good thing, I don’t feel guilty stopping by here for a beer right after work.”

  He shrugged, “You’re a grown woman. You want to stop by at 3:30 after day shift, that’s your business.”

  “Damn right.”

  “Say do they let you buy ports at a discount? You know for your own use?” He waggled an eyebrow. “Maybe a discount that you could pass on to your friends here?”

  Basir’s heart skipped a beat. He successfully resisted glancing at them, but did let his eyes roam over to study them in the mirror behind the bar. She was attractive in a rough, tired looking kind of way. He tsked to himself, she should cover herself though.

  “Naw,” the woman said, “I have to buy them somewhere else, just like you do. I wouldn’t even be able to make off with the parts to assemble one myself, they’re all microtagged.”

  “You’d be able to build a port if you had the parts?” the bartend
er asked, impressed or doubtful, Basir wasn’t sure which.

  “Sure, no problem. What do you want one for?”

  “Scuba diving.”

  She frowned, “Scuba?”

  He shrugged, “Yeah, install one end of a port on a cut off snorkel, leave the other end up on shore. Then I could go on an endless dive without carrying tanks or worrying about running out of air.”

  Basir saw a way to join their conversation. “But it wouldn’t work very deep. The pressure of the water would push the air in your lungs out the port and you wouldn’t be able to pull any air back down to you against the pressure.”

  They both looked at him like he was crazy. Benny said, “You’re nuts man, they send divers using air hoses down to do work deep underwater all the time.”

  Basir resisted the temptation to laugh at the man’s stupidity. Instead he said, “They pump air under pressure down through those hoses though.”

  The bartender shrugged uncertainly and said, “Well, then I’d have to get myself a pump.” He turned back to the blond woman, “Anyway, I’d like to get myself a port.”

  She winked at him, “Well, buy me a beer on the house and maybe next time I see one lyin’ around, I’ll snag it for you.”

  Basir said, “I’ll buy you a beer if you’ll just tell me how they work.”

  She eyed him a moment, then tapped the bar and said, “Let’s see that beer.”

  Basir noticed with surprise that her first one was nearly empty. Turning to Benny, he said, “Bring the lady another beer on me.” He turned back to her and extended his hand, “I’m Bart.”

  “Stacy,” she replied, tossing back the last of her beer. “Are you gonna get around that beer of yours?” she asked, eyeing it.

  Basir picked up his beer, saluted her with it and took his first sip of alcohol. To his surprise it tasted bitter and unpleasant. Somehow he had always pictured beer as having a smoky, smooth taste. He managed to avoid raising his eyebrows in startlement, instead smacking his lips as he set it down, “Ahh, that hit the spot.”