The Titicaca Effect

by Richard N. Tooker

  “Yes.”

  Freeman laughed. “That’s absurd. Have you seen the effect in person? Nobody steps into that thing without getting killed. I can speak from personal experience about that.”

  “The Inca have other legends, Mr. Freeman, that you have not heard. They are not recounted to outsiders. They support my claim.”

  “Ah, there it is,” Freeman answered. “I knew it was coming. The ‘secrets’ that support the agenda. With all due respect, Mr. Capac, you people remind me of UFO nuts. Look, I think I understand how you feel, but the fact is, the Titicaca Effect is an event, not a thing. I don’t see how you can claim ownership of it. It would be like claiming you owned a volcano eruption.”

  “Yes,” Capac replied. “But if I owned the volcano and the eruption took place on my property, wouldn’t it be logical to assume ownership of the event as well?”

  Freeman paused, thinking it over. “Yes, I guess it would. But you people don’t own the lake.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “The Bolivian government doesn’t think so, Mr. Capac. You’ve carved out a completely untenable position. You’ll never get Maldonado to agree that the lake belongs to the New Empire of the Incas. Even if you somehow won him over to your position, which I can guarantee you absolutely won’t happen, he couldn’t make that kind of decision by himself.”

  He stood up. “Look, this is all very interesting, and I’d really like to continue the discussion sometime. But I’m late for an appointment, and if I get delayed any longer the Bolivian military will come looking for me. Surely you don’t want that to happen. If I’m really just a guest here, let me go. Then phone for an appointment. I’ll see you.”

  Capac stood and motioned to the door. “As promised, Mr. Freeman, you are free to go. Carlos will take you to your destination. But first, I want you to promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “Tell President Maldonado that we intend to reclaim what is rightfully ours. We must share equally in the benefits to come from the Titicaca Spaceport.”

  “Sharing might be a better approach than just asking him to give you the lake. I’ll talk to him, but if I were you I wouldn’t run up my credit cards just yet. I don’t think he’ll take this seriously.”

  “Perhaps. But if not, he will surely regret it.” He opened the door that led back to the main room and followed Freeman across the expanse of concrete to the door he had originally entered, where the limousine driver was waiting for them.

  After a long moment of silence as they walked, Freeman finally asked, “Was that a threat?”

  “Yes, it was,” Capac answered as they reached the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Freeman. We will meet again.”

  The ride back to the downtown area of La Paz was as convoluted as before, but otherwise uneventful. The driver dropped Freeman on the curb outside his hotel, more than an hour late for his date with Alicia.

  His cell phone rang before he reached the entrance to the embassy. “What now?” he muttered as he stopped on the sidewalk and snapped the phone open. “Hello?”

  “Daddy? It’s Janey.”

  “Janey? Is something wrong?” he said.

  “You haven’t called me in weeks,” she said, sounding like she was about to cry. “You promised me last year that you’d be here for my birthday, and you weren’t. Mom says you’re too busy to even talk to me.”

  Shit! he thought, the bitch is trying to turn my own daughter against me.

  “Janey, honey, I’m sorry I missed your birthday. I tried to call you. Didn’t you get my messages?”

  “No.”

  “I guess your Mom must have erased them and forgot to tell you,” he said, exasperated. “The thing is, I’m all the way down here in Bolivia and I just couldn’t get away.”

  “Mom’s right,” Janey said. “You don’t even care.”

  “That’s not true, honey, you know I love you.” Freeman was groping for the right words to deal with his distraught daughter.

  “I love you too, Daddy,” she said, “I want you to come see me! Please? Can you come?”

  “Honey, I’m really sorry, but I can’t come right now. Hasn’t your Mom told you I’m building a spaceport?”

  “Yeah, and I saw it on TV. But why can’t somebody else build it?”

  “Well, because it’s my responsibility. When you’re older you’ll understand,” he said. He immediately regretted the choice of words. He knew just enough about ten-year-olds to know that the last thing they want is to be reminded that they’re still children.

  Her response surprised him. “I know that, Daddy. I just want to see you, that’s all.”

  “Tell you what, Janey, You’ve got spring break coming up. Why don’t you come to Bolivia for a visit?” he said, wincing. He really didn’t need to have his daughter underfoot right now, but he always felt guilty when he talked to her.

  “Really? I could go to Bolivia?”

  “If it’s all right with your Mom you can. Let me talk to her.”

  “She went shopping.”

  “She left you there by yourself?” Freeman asked. It didn’t seem right to leave a ten-year-old alone.

  “Daddy, I’m ten! I don’t need a babysitter anymore.”

  “I know you are, Janey. Look, I have to go. I want you to talk to your Mom about a visit and have her give me a call, OK? Tell her to use the cell phone number.”

  The girl’s voice brightened. “OK,” she said. “I love you Daddy.”

  “I love you, too, honey. I’ll give you a call this weekend.”

  Great, he thought as he clicked off. Now I’ll have to keep track of a ten-year old. His strength had always been his ability to focus, and he knew that as much as he should enjoy it, having Janey around would be a major distraction.

  But that didn’t trouble him nearly as much as the prospect of dealing with Manco Capac and his band of impeccably-dressed throwbacks. He sensed trouble ahead.

  Big trouble.

  Chapter 16: Testing

  20 days later, Freeman was on the Island of the Moon, standing next to Thaddeus Stout about 100 feet from the shoreline where the Titicaca Effect erupted daily. It was a little after 7:00 AM, and it was, as usual, a clear and cold morning on the windswept island.

  “Less than three hours to launch,” Freeman said. “I feel like a fifth wheel, Thad. Isn’t there anything you want me to do? Something I can help with?”

  “Nope,” Stout replied. “We have it under control. They’re closing the gate now.”

  The expanse of water that made up the circular area where the eruption occurred daily was now completely enclosed by a dam, constructed by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. There was a single gate completing the circle which was being lowered into place by a barge-mounted crane as the two men watched.

  “The dam is watertight?” Freeman asked.

  “The engineers assure me that it is, and they’re usually right. Of course, we really won’t know until all the water is emptied out of the launch area. If there are any leaks, we can take care of them then. As soon as they have the gate in place, we’ll float the test module to the center of the effect, and we’ll be ready to go.”

  “How will that work?”

  “See that floating platform near the shore?” He pointed to a location slightly off to the left. The platform was about 20 feet to a side and painted bright orange to make it easy to spot as the test was being videotaped. There were four coils of heavy rope on the flat surface of the platform.

  “The ropes are attached to the platform. The other ends will be tied to the dam. When gravity reverses, anything we place on the platform and don’t tie down will simply fall up. But the ropes will tether the platform and keep it from falling with the payload.”

  “Pretty simple,” Freeman said.

  “I prefer to use the word ‘elegant’,” Stout replied, smiling. “Makes it sound like it was harder to think up.”

  “Are you satisfied with the design of the test module?”

  “I
am now. McDonnell-Douglas’ original specs didn’t provide nearly enough side thrust to counteract the wind speed we could encounter when the module goes through the stratosphere. I wanted the module to have way more thrust than it will probably need. You know how I am.”

  “Anal.”

  “Well, I guess if you want to be abusive you could call it that. I prefer to think of myself as careful. Looks like they’re finished.” He held up a two-way radio and thumbed the switch. “Roger? We’re ready.”

  Roger Malloy’s voice crackled a response. “Okay, Dr. Stout. We’re moving the module into place now.”

  A Caterpillar front-end loader trundled down the road that had been cut into the terraced hillside, toward the floating platform anchored just a few feet from the shoreline. Lashed to the bucket on the loader was a large wooden crate which in turn held the launch module secure. As soon as the heavy equipment reached the shoreline, six workmen unfastened the straps that had secured the crate to the bucket and placed it gingerly on the rocky shore. Roger Malloy himself began to pry away the sides of the crate with a crowbar, letting each side fall away in sequence until the module was exposed.

  It wasn’t much to look at, just a simple metal ovoid about six feet long, with stubby wings that would allow it to maneuver while it was still in the earth’s atmosphere. The small jet nozzles that would be used to keep it centered in the anti-gravity field were the only other visible features breaking the smooth surface of the craft.

  “Are we taping this?” Freeman asked.

  “Sure. Why? See something interesting?”

  Freeman laughed. “I don’t know, I just think it’s funny watching the payload of the most important space launch in the history of mankind being hauled around by a front-end loader and unpacked with a crowbar. This is sure gonna look low-tech to the guys back at Cape Canaveral.”

  “Well, I saw no reason to invest the Bolivian government’s money in complex systems until we can prove this thing will work,” Stout said. “I guess it does look crude, but I’ve always believed that the secret to success in science is to use technology appropriate to the task at hand. No more, no less. And this is really all we need to test it.”

  After Malloy had carefully inspected the module and satisfied himself that everything looked right, he nodded to the workmen, who carefully lifted the module from the crate and waded into the icy, clear waters of lake Titicaca to the waiting launch platform.

  “What if they drop it?” Freeman asked.

  “It won’t hurt it,” Stout replied. “it’s waterproof – it had to be, since it could wind up in the lake after the launch – and shockproof, to withstand any turbulence it might encounter. Just like a Swiss watch.”

  As the test module was being placed in the center of the platform by the workmen, three more men took the ends of three of the ropes that were secured to the floating platform and headed across the dam to three equidistant stanchions sunk into the concrete surface of the structure. One of the workmen pitched the end of the fourth rope to Malloy, who fastened it loosely to a protruding stanchion that had been anchored securely to the bedrock under the stone beach, leaving the length of the rope free to play out so the workmen could pull the platform to the center of the launch area from their three anchor points on the dam. Once the platform was centered in place, they would tighten and tie the ropes to anchor it securely in place, leaving just enough slack so the platform could rise with the surface of the water as it bulged upward immediately prior to the eruption.

  Stout looked at the sky. “Not a cloud in sight, no wind, perfect day for the launch. Once they get those ropes tied properly, we’ll be ready to go. The module has three days’ power on board. It should already be powered up and transmitting now. Let’s go to the tent and check it out.” He turned and headed up the hill to the large tent that now served as their temporary launch facility. Freeman could see multiple radio antennas, some of them quite tall, on the crest of the hill beyond the tent. These would receive the telemetry from the test module that would serve as their eyes and ears to learn what was happening during the launch.

  As they walked, Freeman asked, “Will it be hard to control the module? Seems like all that water would surround it as it falls up. Maybe we should have drained the launch area first.”

  “Not a problem,” Stout said. “Just before the water starts to fall, we’re going to use the maneuvering thrusters to give the module a head start. It will use its own power to fly straight up until the gravity reversal takes full effect. The module should be a good quarter-mile ahead of the water. And once it gets past about five miles, the water column will have broken up, anyway. We could have delayed the launch until tomorrow so we could launch it dry, but there didn’t seem to be any compelling reason to wait.”

  “Who’s going to fly it? I mean, control it from the ground?”

  “Well, there will be two McDonnell-Douglas engineers in the tent with us ready to take control if we have to, but there shouldn’t be any need. The onboard computers are programmed to use the thrusters to keep the flight path absolutely vertical for as long as there’s an antigravity field making it fall upwards. When the field becomes too weak to keep the module falling up, the system will deploy a parachute to bring it back down safely. If it returns, the telemetry transmissions will allow us to track it so we can retrieve it.”

  “Did you say ‘if” it returns?”

  “Yes. I think there’s a better-than-even chance we may never see it again. Everything I know about the pipe tells me that the effect will diminish at the same rate it increases in normal gravity. The field will get weaker as it gets higher, but then so does the pull of normal gravity, which is the only thing that could counteract it. I think it’s going to fall straight up for 128 minutes, the duration of the eruption. By that time, it might be free of the earth’s gravity altogether.

  “How can that be? I’ve always heard that there’s an escape velocity required to get free of the pull of gravity, something on the order of 17,000 miles per hour. There’s no way it’s going to get to that speed.”

  You’re right and you’re wrong,” Stout replied. “There is an escape velocity, alright, and it’s about 17,000 miles per hour like you said. But the only reason that speed is required is to escape the pull of the earth’s gravity well. Keep in mind that there’s no such thing within the antigravity field created here. In fact, gravity will be pushing it into space, rather than trying to pull it back down. The only velocity we have to think about in this situation is terminal velocity. If the module’s terminal velocity as it falls up is fast enough to allow it to get high enough to escape the earth’s gravity before the pipe shuts off, we’ll have a full-scale launch into outer space.”

  “Wait a minute. You’re talking about terminal velocity as if it’s a variable. Isn’t terminal velocity a specific speed?”

  “Not really. As a practical matter, terminal velocity varies depending on circumstance. The common definition is about 120 miles per hour, the typical terminal velocity of a skydiver, which can change depending on weight, body mass, and how effectively the orientation of the body creates wind resistance. When divers adopt a spread-eagle position to maximize their surface area and stay parallel to the earth’s surface, that reduces their terminal velocity to a much slower speed, one at which they won’t go splat. That’s why parachutes work.”

  “I get it,” Freeman said. “Since terminal velocity has everything to do with wind resistance, it should increase as the module goes higher, because the effect of the air’s friction is continually being reduced. And once it leaves the earth’s atmosphere there won’t be any resistance of any kind, so it will just keep accelerating. The whole concept of terminal velocity goes out the window, because there won’t really be a limit once it’s in space. So if the module can get far enough in 128 minutes, it may be long gone.”

  “And that’s an extraordinarily good thing, Tyler. If I’m right, the Titicaca Effect might be much more significant than we first tho
ught. Getting into earth orbit is certainly to be desired, but deep space launches open up entirely new applications with profound scientific implications.”

  The two men reached the tent and Stout busied himself checking with the two McDonnell-Douglas engineers and the half-dozen other men already in the tent, manning various pieces of equipment and testing the telemetry coming from the module, which was now in place floating on the orange platform in the middle of the launch area. Malloy and the workmen were measuring the slack in the ropes and preparing to tie them down securely.

  Freeman, with nothing else to do for a couple of hours, walked the entire perimeter of the encampment, double-checking security and talking to the guards. He then went back to the tent and called to check in with the office in La Paz, talking to various department heads and making minor decisions, including a brief argument with the head of his communications office about his refusal to allow the press on site for the test, reasoning that if something went wrong he did not want to see it repeated endlessly on CNN and MSNBC. He was also very concerned about security because of his encounter with Manco Capac. Stout stayed busy calibrating his instruments, and the time passed quickly.