Twisted Spaces: 1 / Destination Mars

by E. N. Abel

  Like every important experiment the whole presentation had been monitored CERN style, meaning extensively - consequently there was a mountain of data at hand, waiting to be analysed. That would take weeks, of course, but it was reasonable to expect a preliminary report in a few hours - considering the massive scientific expertise of the task force's members.

  And so they had met at 11pm for a late night review of the gathered information and - perhaps - a first finding.

  Besides the director and his assistant, the researchers and their leader, another person was present: the Board's Dr Maria Palmer, the Lone Wolf. She had insisted on staying to follow the proceedings. If anyone had a bad feeling about her attendance, nobody dared to object. Late as it was, a few plates with canapés and two bottles of Martell XO sat on the table.

  Kaiser spoke first, summarising the event from personal memory, pointing out the highlights and the emotional reactions. He then handed over the floor to his friend Whitewater.

  The old professor helped himself to a generously filled snifter of Cognac, then began his report.

  ''Let's start with what is usually the weakest link of any process chain: pilot error. Well, the presentation team's preparations have been reviewed and found flawless. They have followed a test path that had one hundred and forty three priors, meaning that in one hundred and forty three exactly equal test set-ups not a single abnormality has shown up. Based on that data the team could proceed on the assumption with the probability of 143:1 that the gravitational generator's functioning was entirely predictable.''

  Whitewater looked around the table, waiting for a comment, but when nobody bothered he went on. ''The power shut-down had run exactly according to plan, until it reached one point three megawatt, forty seconds into the shutdown process - then things changed. Dr Kaiser has given us a very precise subjective view of the incident and I think we can all agree that everybody saw and felt something similar to the director.''

  This statement was met with a murmur of general acknowledgement.

  ''The objective view towards the incident leaves us far less sure. Obviously the generator switched to a different operating mode. Instead of initiating a flat gravity field over the test pad, it concentrated its output forces on a single dot over the pad's center. Then it started to pull huge amounts of energy from its input stream, our valued new fusion reactor. Under the sudden peak our reactor's fusion process started to swing into under-load, threatening the fusion process and pressing it towards flameout. The reactors control software immediately counteracted this threat. It ripped the injector valves open and dumped masses of deuterium into the fusion pit, with one eye on the max load. Exactly as we programmed it to do.''

  Whitewater paused a moment, then picked up the narration: ''In less than two milliseconds the fusion process bloomed, producing a spike of over five hundred Gigawatt in thermal energy and dumped that into the converter banks. These miraculously survived this tidal flood, transformed it into electricity and pushed that into the output channel.'' Again he paused. ''Believe it or not, our reactor worked just fine, right to the book. Although we have never dreamed of such a power spike, everything stayed within the critical limits, the reactor was under full control of the computers at all times.'' He scratched his head: ''After we have cleaned up this mess, we'll have to do a serious review on the technical specs of our fusion plant.''

  The professor looked at his friend, received an agreeing nod, and continued. ''OK, now to the next part. A five hundred Gigawatt wave hit the grav generator - or whatever it really is - in a time window of a few microseconds; the exact number is still being evaluated. Not that it matters. Until today I would have expected any material on this world to evaporate upon being hit by such an energy wave. Not so that forsaken brick - it just inhaled that furious stream, converted it somehow and dumped it into that dot. For an interval of a few nanoseconds the gravity level inside the dot must have superseded a million Gs. Actually one of us,'' he nodded towards the team's astrophysicist, Professor Dr Radjiv Kahn, ''thinks more of a billion Gs - and I'm in no position to disprove that, as our own gravitational measuring equipment maxed out at one thousand.''

  There was a moment of speechless silence, then the professor said: ''To our best knowledge a black hole was created, well, I should say some kind of a black hole. It produced a massive swinging gravimetric wave front - that was the weird tidal effect we felt - then it simply collapsed. We do know quite a lot about singularities and gravity wells - at least on a theoretical level, but we've never heard of any such behaviour. Anyway, Dr Kahn estimates the force of the first wave hitting us at a maximum of fifty Gs and its duration below a dozen milliseconds. After that, the following waves were far weaker and the ripple just faded out. And that, my dear colleagues, was our luck. Any exposure for a longer period of time would have ripped us apart.''

  Whitewater took a sip of the excellent cognac, then turned to Dr Palmer. ''You know that our first arrival, the smaller device, detonated when we X-rayed it. The destruction it caused was absolutely atypical: the surrounding machinery wasn't destroyed by a pressure wave but through an implosion force. At first we couldn't come up with an explanation for that; now it seems that the little machine has self-destructed using the same method as the bigger one - a micro black hole with a slightly longer life span.''

  Again there was some murmuring, and this time Dr Palmer spoke up: ''To imagine that we have a device in our hands that can rip open the space-time continuum and create a singularity ...''

  ''Yes, a very frightening thought,'' Kaiser agreed.

  ''Anyway, our unknown friends seem to have caused this incident on purpose, with calculated brutality.'' Whitewater resumed, considering. ''The overall impression is that this was just a simple warning, although a drastic one, not to fool around with their equipment and to take them a bit more seriously.''

  Dr Palmer wanted to hear a solution: ''What do you suggest?''

  ''Well,'' Whitewater answered, ''we should do exactly that - take them seriously, I mean. They have demonstrated their ability and will to use their supreme technological knowledge for destruction, but actually without harming anyone. I mean, when does a black hole appear in the middle of a group of watchers - and nobody gets hurt?''

  That caused some stir among the listeners.

  Dr Palmer followed up: ''Again, what do you suggest?''

  ''Let's enter negotiations with them - in utter secrecy,'' was the professor's answer. ''If they are what I suspect, we can only win. And big-time.''

  That got Kaiser interested: ''So who do you think they are?''

  ''My opinion?''

  'Yes.''

  ''Space cowboys.''

  ''What?'' - a collective gasp. ''Crazy!'' - ''Nonsense!'' - ''Are you nuts?''

  Whitewater seemed unruffled. He attended to his brandy snifter again. ''I see no need for such gigantic energy levels outside one single class of experiments ... and those concern space-time research. I mean, squeezing two atoms magnetically together, so they can fuse, takes only about, what? Twenty Tesla? A few dozen megawatts ... any small nuclear power plant can handle that with ease. And for our own particle research - simple exercises compared to ripping a hole into the fabric of space - we use a fusion reactor, which, as we now know, can create five hundred Gigawatt peaks. That's a lot of energy, sure, but nothing compared to what a fully-fledged antimatter reactor can produce. Such a machine can easily deliver a thousand-fold of what a fusion process is able to generate.''

  Whitewater scratched his head a moment, then continued: ''I believe these people are out for some very advanced space-time experiments, and are using their gravitational technology as a lever. With it, they are approaching the topic from a completely different angle - massive gravity forces instead of high-density electro-magnetic fields - and thereby produce far better results than we do. As they have demonstrated to us so vigorously. They just need a little start-up-juice in the form of some antimatter fuel so they can wind up their own power plant
- a home grown antimatter reactor, I presume - and they hit us up for that.''

  Dr Palmer, still unsatisfied with this statement, wanted to hear some simple advice: ''So, what do you suggest we do?''

  ''Strike a deal with them.''

  ''You think that's possible?'' Palmer sounded disbelieving.

  ''Sure. Anyone who can build an anti-gravity device and teach us a lesson on antimatter production should know that thebalance of interests is the heart of any negotiation and the compromise it's life juice. So let's indicate to them that we are interested, but that we need assurances they don't do anything stupid with our material. Maybe ask them for permission to review their experiment, maybe to put one of us on their team, just to make sure. Then, with their production technology, generate the Anti-Tritium they have asked for and - under utmost security measures - hand it over. And never, ever cross them.''

  Palmer mocked: ''Are you afraid we couldn't cope with them?''

  ''Actually,'' Whitewater replied dryly, ''what I'm afraid of is a fucking black hole in my office, delivered by UPS Same Day Express.''

  Chapter 18

  Spangdahlem

  Monday, 31.10.2016

  Ellie looked over Mike's shoulder while he added the last touch to the email. During the last hours they had prepared the website, crafted the letter and sent it to Intelligence for evaluation. A few minutes ago it had come back with a modification only the paranoia of full-grown intelligence pukes could come up with. But dealing with humans, paranoia also has its place. It can be very annoying, but also life prolonging. After some discussion of the addition, they decided to go with it.

  Mike hit send, leaned back and looked at a wall clock. ''Mitternacht,'' he said in German, ''Feierabend.''

  Ellie yawned. ''Christ, long day. How about a beer?''

  ''You sure do know how to conquer a man's heart, darling,'' Mike replied. ''I'm buying.''

  Chapter 19

  Geneva/CERN

  Tuesday, 01.11.2016

  The group was still engaged in a controversial discussion when Dr Kaiser's iPhone produced a loud, shrill sound, surprising everyone. The room fell quiet as the director looked at his phone, read. ''An email. From Walt D. Isney.'' He looked up, and then opened the mail, read again. ''Hmm ... it's rather lengthy. Let me project it on the screen for you.'' He tapped a few times on his iPhone and the text appeared on the big wall TFT.

  Dear Dr Kaiser,

  A good day to you.

  You have received our gifts as well as our warnings, and you have chosen to ignore one of the latter. That made it necessary to send another message to make things clear. Please let us express our regret that this warning was a bit severe, but we felt it essential to impress on you what these devices are really capable of and what forces you are dealing with.

  Besides the demonstration, we've taken the liberty to re-program your remaining generator. It will now max-out at five Gigawatt, which will leave you with ample leeway for your tests and protect you - as well as us - against accidental space-time breaches. You simply don't have the knowledge to handle such experiments safely, and we are not ready to hand it over - yet.

  One good thing about the event of this morning: it will keep your steering board off your back, at least for a while. But there are other dangers to be aware of. Our intelligence department for example predicts that some nations will now point their foreign intelligence services towards you - and us - to gain access to the new technology. That would have happened sooner or later anyway, but our little show today will draw their attention to us a bit earlier. Well, such is life.

  Our Intelligence chaps furthermore estimate that the nations will try to get hold of the anti-grav device at all costs, so we took another precaution. Your generator cannot leave the CERN compound. It knows exactly where it is and will self-destruct if taken more than three kilometers from its current position. So if it gets stolen, lean back and watch the show ... it will be quite spectacular - the destruction radius is over half a kilometer. Anyhow, we suggest you do take proper precautions to keep the device secure.

  Furthermore we suggest that you leak the mentioned facts discreetly, so maybe the responsible directors of operations will reconsider before taking action. It's not in our interest for any of them to succeed and start their own exploration of the graviton technology; we want all mankind to profit from it. This is the main reason for choosing your institute as the recipient.

  But back to our original proposal. You know we need an amount of antimatter. As you might have guessed by now, our goals lie elsewhere, beyond Earth's boundaries. Let me make this absolutely clear: our only, single desire is to produce a functional space drive which allows super-light speed, so interstellar journeys become possible and feasible. And we are close.

  Our technology is based on the work of Burkhard Heim, some of you might know him. Starting with his theories we have developed the graviton technology - you've already received an impression of it - and a star drive based on it. With it we can create Einstein-Rosen-bridges - wormholes - in a way today's science has never even considered.

  The machine to do this is built and waiting to be tested. All we now need is power: to open a wormhole feasible for space travel takes more than a hundred terawatt, and we only know of two sources for such a mountain of energy: singularities and antimatter reactions. For obvious reasons we would prefer the latter.

  We understand you will have reservations towards our proposal and so we offer - beside the mentioned trading goods - to have our project reviewed by some of your people, so feel free to send a competent inspection team. You can even place one person - a woman no older than thirty five and trained either in medicine or space-related sciences - on our test vehicle, to go out into space with our test crew and monitor the experiment beyond the Moon's orbit.

  We'll be ready to go in eight weeks time. This leaves you with fourteen days for your decision. After that we'll publish our offer on the Internet and cut the deal with whoever is willing to trade with us - there are a number of countrys that would be able to provide us with the needed start-up energy. This approach would not be our first choice - CERN is, but if we can reach our goal only that way, we'll cut a deal with the devil.

  You will find a wealth of data about our project on our website. It contains information concerning our goals, intentions, Heim's theory and the derived technology, but keeps the essential knowledge secret - for obvious reasons. Access to it is restricted, and the password generator will arrive in the form of a Java program by courier tomorrow. We are also ready for a first meeting - unconditionally on our terms, with a guarantee of safe conduct from the Swiss government on your terms. Maybe a videoconference first, just to get to know each other. As you can imagine, at this stage we do have an extended need for privacy. We hope you understand.

  The ball is in your court now, Dr Kaiser. Decide wisely.

  Twisted Spaces.

  It took the assembled group nearly half an hour and all the cognac to bring order to their thoughts. Their advice to Dr Kaiser was as enthusiastic as it was unanimous: start the contact process. Set up the inspection team. Choose someone to go with them. Try to cut a deal. Even the Lone Wolf agreed to that.

  Chapter 20

  Beijing

  Tuesday, 01.11.2016

  In another part of the world a man in his early sixties read a text off a pad computer and frowned. The weekly report from his station chief in Switzerland was lying in front of him. That country was the home of a carefully observed organisation, Europe's central nuclear research facility, the CERN.

  Four star General Lian Xao, youngest head of China's almighty foreign intelligence service in current history and member of the communist party's central committee, was perceived by his environment as an exceedingly clever man who had dedicated his life to the protection of his country. Being of a short, stocky build, greying black hair and otherwise in possession of average, nondescript features, he did not provoke a second glance from passer-bys. Instead of
wearing a uniform he preferred off-the-shelf suits, re-tailored to fit, and all these facts in sum provided a highly effective natural cover. It was just too easy to underestimate this man: on first sight, with his thick-rimmed glasses, he appeared to be one of the countless middle-level bureaucrats hurrying to work.

  Very few people knew him personally and nobody knew where he came from - it seemed that his life had started with him joining the Red Army. Where he was living nowadays, whether his parents were still alive, if he had siblings or a wife and children, all this was a complete mystery. Research into his private life virtually didn't exist - the stories around his ascent effectively discouraged that: they spoke of unexplained accidents, mysterious disappearances and sudden fatalities that happened to his rivals.

  Such rumours, kept happily alive by the inner-office chatter that moves through all bigger organisations, had awarded him a sturdy reputation of absolute ruthlessness - if push came to shove - and carried the suggestion to better stay out of his sights.

  On the other hand Xao could demonstrate an unchallenged record of successes: his career in the Army and within the Party was steep and flawless. He had planned at least three top secret special forces operations in other countries and led them to a triumphant end - thereby directing the attention of the Chief of Intelligence, a General Nangong, to himself. A closer evaluation made it quickly clear to Nangong, that Xao had a gift for the intelligence business. After a series of tests and a final eye-to-eye with the General he was taken in, meaning: simply transferred from the People's Army to the Intelligence Service.

  Ten years of work in several positions had followed, being closely monitored and guided by Nangong himself - who was in need of a worthwhile successor. In the end the old man had personally offered the prestigious position to his chosen one.