by Bob Blanton
“That would be consistent with my expectations,” Dr. Metra said. “The guilds wouldn’t let anyone leave Paraxea who had a deep understanding of the sciences.”
“The guilds?” Marc asked.
“Yes, I’m surprised we’ve not talked about them. All the scientists on Paraxea are organized into guilds. It is the guilds that complete their final education, going from what you would call a master’s degree to a PhD. They’re very protective of their core knowledge and are careful never to let it leave the control of the guild,” Dr. Metra said.
“What about the mediocracy you told me about?” Marc asked.
“That applies to politics and business,” Dr. Metra said. “The guilds lose power during the mediocracy cycles, and their members don’t earn as much money, but they still manage to control the knowledge.”
“What she says would also be true for the colonists,” Governor Paratar said. “The guilds would never let a member with core knowledge join a colony expedition.”
“What about the crew aboard the ships?” Marc asked.
“The military would be focused on engineers who can repair and maintain their systems. They would never make room for a scientist,” Governor Paratar said.
“But how have we managed to do so much?” Blake asked.
“You’ve had access to the technical documents and designs controlled by ADI,” Dr. Metra said. “Then, Marc brought scientists in to re-invent the technology. ADI was able to steer them by comparing what they were doing to the designs in her system.”
“I think we need to ask Governor Paratar what he thinks the colonists will want?” Samantha said.
“My people signed up to transform a new world,” Governor Paratar said. “I don’t think they would want to become second-class citizens on your world.”
“What about the members of the fleet?” Marc asked.
“For the most part, they are just normal Paraxeans,” the governor said. “We would be happy to accept anyone except the top officer corp.”
“Why not them?”
“Because they’re undoubtedly the ones behind this mess, and we would not be able to trust them not to create issues later,” the governor said. “We need to start out with a united, peaceful civilization.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a colonizable world at hand,” Marc said.
“What about Mars?” Samantha asked.
“They would need extensive support from us,” Marc said.
“Isn’t that a bit close to Earth?” Blake suggested. “There are plans to send men to Mars; it might be viewed as an affront if we usurped it for the Paraxeans.”
“I agree,” Marc said.
“What about Ganymede?” Catie asked. “They would be able to mine Jupiter and the asteroid belt.”
“That is a good possibility,” Marc said. “We need to start mining for some of the rare elements we’re running short of, so that would be a reasonable tradeoff.”
“Ganymede is a moon?” the governor asked.
“Yes, of our largest gas giant,” Catie said. “It’s on the outside of the asteroid belt.”
“That could be an acceptable compromise,” the governor said. “Of course, we would prefer our own planet.”
“Would you be willing to wait another one hundred years?” Marc asked.
“If necessary,” the governor said. “When do we need to decide?”
“We need to do a lot more research and planning first,” Marc said.
“How can we help?” the governor asked.
“Captain, we should bring the Paraxean doctors and scientists out of stasis. They can help with the planning, and they can also help you promote your other objectives,” Dr. Metra said.
“How many are we talking about?” Marc asked.
“There are thirty-five hundred doctors and eight thousand nurses,” ADI informed everyone. “There are four thousand two hundred sixteen scientists.”
“We could accommodate that,” Marc said.
“They would need support,” Governor Paratar said.
“I’ll authorize two thousand additional personnel plus immediate family,” Marc said.
“That will be approximately twelve thousand Paraxeans,” ADI said.
“We’ll start there and see what plans we can come up with,” Marc said.
“We thank you,” Governor Paratar said.
Chapter 4
What’s a Light-year?
“Hi Uncle Blake,” Catie said as she entered her uncle’s office on the Enterprise.
“Hey Squirt,” Blake replied.
“Uncle Blake!” Catie whined.
“Oh sorry, I meant Lieutenant Squirt.”
Catie slugged Blake in the shoulder. “What did you want to see me for?”
“First, I want to invite you to dinner tonight,” Blake said. “Then, I want to ask about the status of the experiments your guy is running.”
“He’s not my guy!”
“Never gets old,” Blake grinned. “Now, what about the experiments? When will you be finished?”
“We have the new test vehicle ready, so we’re going out today. Until we figure out what happened to the last one, we won’t know what we have to do; but I would say at least two days.”
“Okay, we’ve got at least two days of work to clean up things and get the Paraxean fleet into mothballs,” Blake said. “We’re already starting to send people back. It’s going to take over one month to get everybody back to Earth.”
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Catie said.
“Not according to Sam,” Blake said. “She’s given us a timetable.”
“What’s she up to?” Catie asked.
“You mean besides missing you?”
“Yeah.”
“I think she wants to be able to declare an official end to the mission,” Blake said.
“I guess,” Catie said. “I’ll see you for dinner. Bye.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Okay, Dr. McDowell, I’ve got the probe in the same position as the last one was when it disappeared,” Catie said. “Are you going to use the same power setting?”
“I’m still conflicted about that,” Dr. McDowell said. “If I use the same settings and the last probe was destroyed, we lose everything, but if I use lower power settings, then something else might happen, and we lose it anyway.”
“They say only change one variable at a time,” Catie said. “We’ve already had so many changes that we can’t control.”
“You’re right, we’ll start with the last setting, learn what we can, then start varying things when we know more.”
“Alright, it’s ready when you are. We’re recording, our quantum relay is up and communicating,” Catie said.
“Powering it up,” Dr. McDowell said.
“And it’s gone,” Catie said. “I still have contact with it via the quantum relay. Now let’s see where it is.”
“Okay, start mapping the stars around it.”
As they mapped the stars, Catie added them to a three-D image so they could reorient them, hoping to recognize familiar star clusters.
“Hey, I think that’s Orion,” Catie said. “See, if we rotate the orientation forty-five degrees on this axis and thirty degrees on that one it matches up.”
“I think you’re right,” Dr. McDowell said. “Then we should see Gemini over here.”
Catie adjusted the telescope on the probe, “Is that it?”
“Yes, it is. So now we know where it is, how far away is that?”
“Cer McDowell, it is 10.5 light-years from your location,” ADI said. “It is close to the star that your scientists label Epsilon Eridani.”
“Wow!” Catie said. “That will make getting around the universe a lot easier.”
“If we can control it,” Dr. McDowell said. “Now, do we see our first probe?”
“Yes, it’s about twenty thousand kilometers from this one,” Catie said.
“So, what moved, it or us?”
“I thin
k we did. We’re in the same orbital position relative to Jupiter as before, so we’ve moved quite a bit,” Catie said.
“And we were dead stop before, right?”
“Relative to the sun, yes.”
“Right, right, no such thing as not moving. Can we control the probe?”
“Yes,” Catie said. “Just select it on the control board, and it will be just like it’s here, at least until you send it someplace else.”
“Okay, I’m going to reverse its alignment and try to send it back here.”
“I’ve got everything recording, ready when you are,” Catie said.
“Okay, . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . engage,” Dr. McDowell called off. “Did it come back?”
“I’m looking for it . . . there’s its ping,” Catie said. “That means it’s ten light-seconds away; it’s going to take forever to get here.”
“Strange, I used the same power settings as I did with our first probe.”
“Why don’t you send it back, then we’ll see if we can adjust the power?”
“Okay, reorienting it, and three . . . two . . . one . . . engage.”
“Looking,” Catie said. “It’s now fifteen light-seconds from the probe.”
“Okay, bringing it back, I’ll use one percent more power,” Dr. McDowell said. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . engage!”
“There it is, it’s now twelve light-seconds from us.”
They spent another six round trips before they got the power setting correct, and the probe arrived within ten thousand kilometers of their position. It only took one try to get the second probe to the same general area.
“Okay, so why does it take more power to get back?” Dr. McDowell asked.
“Hey, it took more power to go, too,” Catie said. “Maybe it’s related to the distance from the gravity well.”
“That’s likely; it does use gravity for the power, so I think I just have to calibrate the power setting based on the gravitational strength at its location. I’ll spend some time modeling it later. I wonder how close to the sun it can work?”
“I don’t know, but would you mind testing that premise using another sun besides ours?” Catie suggested.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Dr. McDowell said. “Let’s head back; I think I have enough data to make a model.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“How did the test go?” Blake asked Catie as they sat down to dinner.
“It looks like we have the ability to travel faster than light,” Catie said.
“You’re kidding, right?” Blake asked.
“Would I kid about a thing like that!” Catie said. “We were able to send the probe to where the other one was. It was 10.5 light-years away. Fortunately, it was at the boundary of another solar system, so its gravity drives would work. We managed to get them both back.”
“Have you told your father yet?” Blake asked.
“No, we just got back.”
“We need to keep this a secret,” Blake said. “Will your guy stay quiet?”
“He’s not my guy! And yes, he’ll keep it quiet,” Catie said. “First, we don’t know enough about it yet; second, he knows how big a deal it is; third, he hardly talks to anyone anyway.”
“ADI, connect us with Marc,” Blake said.
“Yes, Cer Blake,” ADI said.
“What’s up?” Marc asked.
“Your daughter has some news,” Blake said.
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Hi, Sweetie, did your guy come up with something?”
“He’s not my guy!” Catie said as Blake pantomimed the words.
“Well, what’s the news?” Marc asked.
“Dr. McDowell’s experiment sent the probe 10.5 light-years away. We’ve managed to get them both back, and he’s analyzing the data now.”
Marc whistled. “That is big news. I assume he knows to keep quiet about it.”
“Yes, he does. He still needs to do a lot of characterization. We don’t know how big an object we can send, and whether anything living can survive. The probes were undamaged, so that’s a good sign,” Catie explained.
“When will he finish his characterization?”
“He has a few days, maybe weeks, of analysis to do on the data he has,” Catie said. “We’ll need to come back out here later to finish it up.”
“Okay, so does that mean you’re heading home tomorrow?” Marc asked.
“That’s our plan,” Blake said. “Unless you have a reason for us to stay.”
“No that’s good; what about the carriers and that battleship?”
“We’re putting skeleton crews on them and leaving them in orbit here,” Blake said. “It will take months to get them back to Earth once you decide you want to bring them back.”
“I’ll let you get back to your dinner, thanks for letting me know right away,” Marc said.
“Bye, Daddy.”
“Bye, you two, see you in a week or so,” Marc said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“I am not looking forward to that flight back,” Blake said.
“I think I have a way to make it faster,” Catie replied.
“How?”
“Higher acceleration,” Catie said.
“Duh! That works with an unmanned spaceplane, but how’s it going to work with an Oryx? We can push it and do 2.5Gs, but that’s about the limit.”
“I know. But I was researching that when I was designing the scout ship. I asked ADI if the Paraxeans did anything to go faster.”
“Did they?”
“No. So ADI and I started looking at the problem. It’s really just about your heart’s ability to pump blood to your brain. When you’re sitting down, and the acceleration is perpendicular to your spine, then it doesn’t have to pump that hard. That’s why with a pressure suit, the guys can push it to 3Gs.”
“Okay, but that’s now a long and uncomfortable trip.”
“I haven’t gotten to the solution,” Catie said. “Now, if you were to accelerate at 4Gs, but stop the acceleration every two seconds for half a second, then you would average 3Gs, and your heart would sync up to thirty-beats per minute and have half a second to get the blood where it needs to go each beat.”
“Were still back to the long and uncomfortable ride.”
“Yes, but if that works, what’s to stop us from increasing the acceleration to 6Gs, or even 10Gs?”
“The crew passing out,” Blake said.
“I don’t think they will. ADI and Dr. Metra think it will work up to 15Gs.”
“They do?”
“So, we should go out in a Fox and test it,” Catie said.
“Hmm, it might work. I guess ADI would detect if the pilot passes out and cut the acceleration and bring the Fox back in.”
“Sure, it should be relatively safe to test. And think of how much better it will be to make the trip in six days or so instead of fifteen. You can have the pilot cut the accel for a longer period of time every few hours to let everyone get up and stretch, and when we eat.”
“I’ll arrange a test,” Blake said. “We’ll see how well it works.”
“I was going to fly the test.”
“You just take care of your guy; I’ll take care of this.”
“He’s . . . Not . . . My . . . Guy!”
“He is until some else claims him,” Blake said. He gave Catie a big grin, just daring her to keep arguing.
Chapter 5
Homecoming
It was a boring trip back to Earth. The acceleration trick worked like a charm. Everyone was happy to put up with the restrictions on their movements to cut the travel time in half. Catie spent the time on her studies and reviewing the scout ship designs. She sat in on the various meetings talking about how to settle the Paraxeans on Ganymede, but got tired of all the wrangling about minor details. She gave up on flying the Oryx they were in; it was pretty boring after all. Mainly everyone let ADI fly it and just focused on getting through the trip. There were over a hundred people on t
he Oryx; Catie did manage to make a few friends among the crewmen and pilots who were returning to Earth.
It took almost two hours for everyone to grab a quick two-minute shower aboard the Oryx before they landed in Delphi city.
“Okay, heads up, we’ll be taxiing for about a minute. Lieutenant Clark, Lieutenant Beaulieu, Lieutenant Owens, and Lieutenant McCormack, meet me up front after we land; we’ll be exiting through the front hatch. The rest of you can exit through the rear cargo door.”
“What’s up?” Catie asked Blake.
“Sam has a little welcome committee waiting for you guys,” Blake said.
“No!”
“Hey, suck it up. We need to do some PR work, and you four are the heroes of the hour,” Blake scolded.
Once the plane finished taxiing, the four Lieutenants met at the front of the plane. “Leave your gear here, someone will bring it to your place later,” Blake instructed.
When the front hatch opened, Catie could see her father; mother; Samantha; Jason’s father, Captain Clark; Jason’s girlfriend, Annie Halloway; and a few other friends waiting for them at the foot of the boarding stairs. “Not too bad,” she thought; she didn’t even mind the cameramen standing just outside the group.
The plane had stopped right in front of one of the hangars, and there were security guards in front of the partially open hangar doors.
“Hey, Sweetie,” Marc said as he hugged Catie and then sent her on down the receiving line.
“Hi, Daddy,” Catie said over her shoulder. She was quickly embraced by her mother. “Hi, Mommy.”
“Hi, Sweetie,” Linda said. “You have to keep moving.”
“Sure,” Catie said. She got a quick hug from Samantha before moving on down and shaking hands with the others in the line. She reached the end and turned around and watched the other three proceed down the line. They quickly gathered at the end, wondering what the big deal was.