They outfitted the lab with Elias's old equipment which Roger double-checked and bought new equipment with a grant from the university and a little of Elias' own money. Soon they were ready for a trial run.
The layered sphere was in a water bath, for cooling and radiation protection, and was buoyed and set spinning by a ring of superconducting magnets under it. With everyone in the control room and watching on the monitors Elias turned on the power supplies.
Elias was watching the strain gauge sensors for the signal that would indicate the large change in mass had begun, that exotic or negative mass was being produced. Then the Mach layer, the outermost layer of the spherical sandwich would shield the inner layer, at least partially, from the universal mass and just the exotic mass needed to open and keep open the throat of a wormhole would be available.
Elias noticed the oscillation of the strain gauge's output indicating that a change in mass was being produced as it followed the sine wave of the driving voltage. He pressed the button to ramp up the voltage to the necessary level to see the full effect of the Mach metric.
The voltage ramped up, Elias was watching the readout of the strain gauges. They were increasing uniformly and steadily.
He looked up from the bank of instrument Emmies to the monitor which showed the lab room, Elias shielded his eyes. The light around the sphere was bright but not blinding. Then he saw it crystallize into something that resembled glass but was still spherical. Next he saw the double flash of light as the near wormhole shimmered and the far wormhole mouth formed down the long hall attached to the lab. He looked at the instrument readouts. Every instrument read steady and within acceptable limits.
Then just as he turned to talk to Emmy, he heard the water in the tank starting to slosh about. Looking at the gauge sensors on his Emmie he saw the mass readouts of the sphere starting to rapidly move up and down.
He heard Dag say, “Sir I believe we have seen this before.”
Elias then heard the sound of a strong wind coming from the lab. He looked at the near wormhole mouth on the monitor. It was no longer like a crystal sphere but opaque and milky. In the tank there was no water bath but a mist. Out of the mist came a blinding glare where the sphere was mounted.
He delayed only a moment before he hit the switch to dump the charge of the sphere to ground. A loud crack was heard through the safety wall as the sphere discharged with lightning bolt like electrical arcs. The vibration stopped. The instruments read zero.
A moment of silence, then everyone was talking at once.
Chapter 9
Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science - Wormhole Weapons
The wormhole generator while being a boon to transport, industry and the economy in general also has a darker side. When reconfigured the generator can be turned into a weapon. In the creation of a wormhole mouth there is a moment when the ruling equations “blow up.” This division by zero problem is avoided in the generator by driving the system through this point quickly. But in a weapon's configuration the system is driven to this point and halted. A very small black hole forms and quickly evaporates according to a quantum effect first noted by the physicist Stephen Hawking.
The wormhole weapon directs the evaporation products, essentially a plasma, towards a target. There is no known material that can withstand its destructive power . . .
Dr. Jackson had been back in star system HR 383 for some time. He was continuing his research when he was informed through the Wormhole Communications Office that Emmy Gibbs had sent him a message which said that the red line in space he had discovered had recently disappeared. It would be a few more years for that dimming light to reach the moon he was on as he was a few light years further from 88 Pegasi than the Centauri System. In fact, he could look in his scope and still see the red line. But Emmy said it was gone.
So be it, he thought. There goes my fifteen minutes of fame.
Still Jack wondered if he might be able to see something else from 88 Pegasi. It was worth a few hours of telescope time anyway. So he borrowed some time on a scope on Earth's Moon for observations as before. A few hours a day for a few days should be enough to satisfy his curiosity. His viewing sessions would be sent by wormhole to his observation Em.
After a few days Dr. Jackson consulted the Em for any phenomena it might have marked outside the ordinary. Of course outside the ordinary to Dr. Jackson might not be the same as to the Em. But he had come to trust that the Em would flag anything unusual.
Now normally opening a wormhole wouldn't be noticeable from light-years away. But it might be if an intensely bright plasma in the shape of a sphere or globe were being injected into it. Like the flash of a gun muzzle the plasma would give away the wormhole mouth's location.
But Jack had no reason to suspect such a thing when he reviewed the images that the Em had flagged. All he knew was that something in 88 Pegasi had flared up to over magnitude seven and then gone dark. It was certainly worth continued monitoring. Maybe it would turn out to be a flare star or variable. So he kept the scope trained on the system for a while longer.
“Man I could use a real meal,” said Chief Engineer Harris aboard the Centauri One.
“You mean something not grown in a vat?” asked the fusion engineer.
“Yeah exactly.”
Up on the command deck the Captain was watching the pilot bring the ship into the end dock of the Centauri Two habitat. He was watching with a great sense of relief.
“Congratulations Captain,” said pilot Simpson.
“For what?”
“For getting us home in one piece.”
“Congratulate everyone pilot. All of us did our duty and made the necessary sacrifices. I wasn't any more important than the rest of you”
Simpson just smiled and nodded.
The truth is, thought Captain Bledsoe, I had my doubts. But here we are.
It wasn't long until the story of the Centauri One hit the media. The captain and crew became overnight heroes. Their sacrifice and hardship became well known. The only part of the story that raised an eyebrow was the plasma globe that chased the ship, it couldn't be explained.
“It's like the phenomena of ball lightning,” said Elias.
“Does that really occur?” asked Emmy somewhat skeptical.
“It does Miss,” said Dag. “I have access to thousands of reports of the phenomena over many centuries.”
“An early incident occurred at a church in Devon, England. There during a violent storm a ball of lightning entered knocking stones out of the wall and smashing pews and windows. Sixty people were injured and four died.
“In 1753 a ball lightning killed professor Georg Richmann of Saint Petersburg, Russia, while he was flying a kite similar to Benjamin Franklin's. The ball lightning traveled down the string, struck Richmann in the forehead and killed him. The ball left a red spot on his forehead and blew open his shoes and singed his clothing. The observer with him was knocked unconscious.
“In 1809 a storm with three "balls of fire" appeared to attack the British ship HMS Warren Hastings. One ball killed a man on deck while setting the main mast on fire. Another crewman trying to retrieve the fallen sailor was struck by a second ball which knocked him down and left him with mild burns. Another sailor was killed by the third ball.
“In 1954, Domokos Tar, a physicist, observed a lightning strike. A bush was flattened. Some seconds later a speedy rotating ring appeared in the shape of a wreath. The ring was about sixteen feet away from the lightning impact. The ring's plane was perpendicular to the ground and in full view of Domokos. He estimated that the outer/inner diameters were about twenty-four and twelve inches respectively. The ring rotated quickly about thirty inches above the ground. After a few seconds the ring became self-illuminating and turned increasingly red, then orange, then yellow and finally white. The outside of the ring was similar to a sparkler. After some seconds the ring suddenly disappeared and a ball lightning appeared. Initially the ball had only one tail and it rotat
ed in the same direction as the ring. It was homogeneous and showed no transparency. At first the ball hovered motionless, then it began to move forward at a constant speed of about three feet per second. It was stable and traveled at the same height in spite of the rain and wind. After moving about thirty feet it suddenly disappeared without any noise.
“Again in the twentieth century R.C. Jennison, of the Electronics Laboratory at the University of Kent, described his encounter with ball lightning this way:
I was seated near the front of the passenger cabin of an all-metal airliner on a late night flight from New York to Washington on March 19, 1963. The aircraft encountered an electrical storm which enveloped it in a bright and loud electrical discharge. Some seconds later a glowing sphere about twenty centimeters in diameter emerged from the pilot's cabin and passed down the aisle of the aircraft approximately fifty centimeters from me, it maintained the same height and course for the whole distance I observed it.
“In 2011, during a powerful thunderstorm, a ball of light with a six foot tail went through a window of the control room of the local emergency services in Liberec, Czech Republic. The ball bounced from the window to the ceiling, then to the floor and back to the ceiling, where it rolled along it for two or three meters. Then it dropped to the floor and disappeared. The staff present in the control room were frightened, smelled electricity and burned cables and thought something was burning. The computers froze and all communications equipment was knocked out. One computer monitor was destroyed.
“In 2193 while harvesting helium-3 in Saturn's atmosphere skimmer pilot Willa Bracken encountered a ball of what she called “sizzling plasma” enter her control room and exit the other side with a loud noise. Immediately her Em went down and Bracken had to do a complete restore of the skimmer's systems from cube memory.”
“Fascinating,” said Emmy.
“Yes it definitely occurs,” said Elias. “Some of those reports you are speaking of Dag were made by trained observers, scientists. The problem is it has never been explained. I think we need to explain it.”
“So you think this episode with the Centauri One happened just the way the crew described?” asked Emmy.
“I do,” said Elias.
“But how? I mean is it natural?”
“I have my suspicions but why don't we see if we can reproduce it first.”
Dr. Jackson began his day by boarding the shuttle from the crew wheel orbiting the moon to take the short trip down to the surface. Though he spent most of his time monitoring the equipment from orbit today he wanted to do an on-site calibration. Jack thought that hands on maintenance always worked better than guessing at the problem from a distance.
As he settled into his seat in the shuttle he opened his Emmie and called for the morning headlines. There he saw the headline and the story about the Centauri One and its crew's encounter with the plasma globe. The connection came to him. Could it be? Had the “flare” he saw from 88 Pegasi been artificial? The rebellious AI were on 88 Pegasi.
He couldn't get it out of his mind and resolved to send a message to Emmy Gibbs when he returned to the crew wheel.
Emmy began searching the literature for any references to ball lightning. The best theoretical description she found involved a quasi-particle called a skyrmion after the twentieth century physicist Tony Skyrme.
A quantum particle, the skyrmion consisted of a knotted field group of circular magnetic fields. The knotted group of magnetic fields was likened to hooking one ring around another ring and then adding more and more rings with each new ring hooked through all the others. Such a configuration, a skyrmion, would be impossible to pull apart without breaking one of the rings. The researchers had created the quantum skyrmion with just two counter-circulating electric currents. It was conjectured that ball lightning might be a giant naturally occurring skyrmion.
She would take the results of her research and discuss them with her grandfather. Just then her Emmie alerted with a message. The message was from Dr. Jackson. He told her about the flare he had seen at 88 Pegasi and how he wondered if it weren't somehow connected with the rebellious AIs. Emmy folded her Emmie, she would have to discuss that with her grandfather also.
Chapter 10
1/13/2095
Whitney had returned to her university after a month exploring the remarkable Eureka mine. As an archaeologist she would organize the find into some kind of system. But to discover the meaning of the find she would need to bring in other researchers.
Perhaps physicists and engineers together would be able to discover the engineering that kept the holographs working. And the globes discovered in the walls of each room would need their own investigator. They were probably the key to understanding why the massive fourteen story, seven thousand room site was built.
She had already asked the head of the Physics department for a recommendation. He had given her the name of a physicist at Caltech. After a brief spat of exchanged emails he had agreed to meet her in Redcliffe after spring semester and visit the mine for a preliminary investigation.
May in Redcliffe was almost the complete opposite of December. Daylight was from sunrise at four in the morning until eleven in the evening. Nineteen hours instead of the five of December. And after sunset, twilight remained until the next morning.
Whitney had researched and found that her previous wardrobe would be almost completely useless in the fifty degree weather and long days. So she had packed accordingly. Flying in the day before had allowed her to get organized and ready and now she was waiting at the airport for Dr. Jefferson, the Caltech physicist.
The flight was on time and with the few passengers debarking it was easy to pick out a California native. He was dressed in full blown winter gear including snow boots.
“Dr. Jefferson?” asked Whitney coming up to him and holding her hand out.
“Yes, you are Dr. Howe?” he said, taking her hand.
“Yes, let's get your luggage.”
“I seem to be a bit overdressed for the climate. We may have to pop into one of the local stores and let me get a few things.”
He began unzipping and taking off his outerwear only to reveal more layers underneath.
“Sure we have all afternoon to get you settled.”
After a downtown shopping trip Whitney drove back to the motel and left Dr. Jefferson to relax until dinner time.
Dinner was at the familiar Goldmine restaurant in downtown Redcliffe where Whitney had eaten many times during her last stay in the town. The waitress recognized her and welcomed her back. She and Dr. Jefferson both ordered the special of the day, whitefish and a small salad.
“What do you think of Redcliffe Dr. Jefferson?”
“A nice little village. Almost feels like a fishing village.”
“Well fishing is a major activity around here with all the lakes,” she said taking a bite of her whitefish.
“And now Dr. Howe.”
“Whitney please.”
“Yes Whitney and I'm Amos.”
Whitney nodded.
“Anyway Whitney, can you tell me anything about the globes that you haven't told me in your emails?”
“Just that when Dr. Cole, that is the geologist from the Northwest Territories Geological Agency, removed one of the globes he found that it was much heavier than he expected and that it slightly burned his hand.”
“Interesting. Either infrared or ultraviolet. We should wear eye protection just in case until I can figure out which.”
“Of course,” said Whitney not really following.
“If it was infrared, heat you know.”
“Of course,” said Whitney.
“Then that would tend to indicate a lower base frequency of light than ultraviolet which is the light that tans you in sunlight.”
Whitney was nodding yes.
“Anyway I'll tell you what I think from what you have told me so far.”
“Yes?”
“I think we are looking at a holographic st
orage unit.”
“Holographic storage?”
“Yes a giant library.”
The following morning the NTG helicopter picked up the two researchers and flew them to Eureka. NTG, along with the Canadian military, was now maintaining a small base at the site. The commanding officer welcomed the two and they were soon on their way to the mine.
At nine in the morning the day was already four hours old and the air had warmed from below freezing into the mid thirties. The sun was brilliant and already climbing in the sky. Patches of snow could still be seen in the shade of the trees which grew in clusters. The ground was like crushed granite. The ATVs driven by Canadian military soldiers dropped the pair of scientists off at the mine.
Military and NTG personnel were on scene. After presenting credentials Whitney and Dr. Jefferson were allowed to pass. Inside Whitney showed Amos one of the rooms full of the globes.
“Okay,” said Dr. Jefferson dropping his bags and the wheeled trunk he had been dragging.
“What I am going to do is take one of the globes and hook it up to my equipment to see if I can learn anything about the interior. Once I have an understanding of what I'm dealing with, and if it is a data storage device, I will try to coax out some of that information.”
“How much information do you think could be in such a globe?”
“Well if it is holographic and the information is recorded throughout the entire volume with light of different wavelengths and angles, I'd say about a million terabits. That would be an exabyte or say the total amount of printed material in the world today. Of course a lot of our data isn't printed anymore.”
“Wow, that's incredible and each of these rooms have hundreds of these globes. It's unbelievable.”
Mach's Legacy Page 6
