When I knew sleep was impossible, I took to wandering the streets, surly drunk and muttering to myself.
Some ungodly hour would find me under a bridge, in a park or on the beach, sprawled on freezing sand, much as I did in my university days, staring up at the stars wheeling sickeningly in my booze-blurred vision. Once bright, pregnant with promise of things I’d achieve, now cold and distant, their light crossing trillions of kilometres of space to beam their derision on me.
I thought seriously about giving up. Let the project, and my career, go to shit, slump into some dead-end teaching job, privately tweaking scientifically esoteric, largely-unread theses.
Then one day, in a typical hungover haze, squinting at the unforgiving sunlight blazing through the window (300,000ish km/second), I croaked aloud, “Why can’t we just make the fucking speed of light faster?”
The universe responded with customarily aloof and inscrutable silence.
I laughed, a self-pitying chortle at first. Then kept laughing, with giddy, cracked glee, rolling out of bed, collapsing on the floor, in such hysterics I could barely breathe.
I’d suddenly remembered an obscure paper about strains of exotic metaparticles (because I refuse to use the word ‘tachyons’) that supposedly crossed the light barrier . . . in a manner of speaking.
Originally theorised as a potential solution to the long-running ‘dark matter’ quandary, they exist in extradimensional phase spaces, twisted and folded in upon themselves, all around us, permeating everything, overlapping spacetime as we know it. Massless, invisible, impossible to detect, even with the most powerful and sophisticated colliders, because, in a sense, they aren’t in the same universe as us. If you can imagine . . .
You probably can’t (neither can I), but stay with me.
How this works is not so important as what it means: because they’re so knotted up, the distances are shorter. Extradimensional phase spaces are (in a manner of speaking) ‘smaller’. Though the speed of light is the same there, even massive particles, moving a fraction of that speed, in relation to our universe, are actually travelling faster. Many, many times faster.
I wasn’t yet sure how this facilitated feasible interstellar travel, but the implications alone excited me more than anything had in years.
A Grid search gave me the name of the author and the university where he briefly held tenure. The guy had died some years ago, so when I called, I was transferred from one department to the next until I finally got hold of someone who remembered the paper in question and could email it to me. After a few hours anxiously pacing the floor, my inbox chimed and I spent the next day or so poring over it.
It was rough, but the germ of a decent theory was there. It needed a lot of refinement, which is what I spent the next few weeks doing, scribbling train-length equations, until my fingers were blistered and cramped into aching claws. It was necessary before presenting it to Scitech. Given how most of my former colleagues still regarded me, they’d tear it to pieces if it wasn’t watertight.
I went back to them, hat in hand. Dubious, but intrigued, they humoured me. After subjecting my equations to even more rigorous mathematical and computer-simulation testing, some of them were willing to concede that I might be on to something.
We can’t perceive superdimensional phase spaces directly, we can only infer their existence through quantum parity. Regular particles can’t exist in SDPSs, just as metaparticles can’t exist in our spacetime. So, while it isn’t possible to transport physical objects (like astronauts) through that space, they could become quantum-entangled. In place of conventional fuel, exotic materials, stored in the spacecraft, would create a field around the ship composed of particles that become entangled with superdimensional metaparticles. Even propelled at a fraction of the speed of light in the SDPS, the ship would (hypothetically) zoom through our spacetime at several times the speed of light.
Even this convoluted explanation makes it sound simpler than it is. Most of the team remained sceptical, but they said, by all means, give it a try. At least we had something to show for months of sweating. It wasn’t as if we had anything to lose (or they had any better ideas, I thought, but kept to it myself).
The ones most sympathetic to my idea helped me draft a paper to submit.
Then we waited. Weeks went by; we heard nothing.
Every time I tried to reconnect with my contacts in the government, I was told they were busy but they would get back to me at the earliest available opportunity. They rarely did, and even then, only to apologise for not getting back to me sooner, regretfully informing me that they hadn’t had a chance to run it by all the relevant counsellors yet and blah blah.
I showed up at their offices only to be barred by security and kept waiting in spacious lobbies on vague promises that I would get some face time when there was a gap in their schedule, soon after which I usually left in frustration and disgust.
To an extent, this was understandable. The world’s situation had not improved in the time I’d been absorbed in the all-consuming superluminal space travel problem. The environment, the economy, the fabric of society itself hovered in a limbo of near-chaos. Not quite utter disaster, but a shambles nonetheless. My colleagues made a point of reminding me of this, to reassure me.
To no avail. I was convinced they’d never even read the thing.
Until weeks later, out of the blue, they called to schedule a meeting. They’d had a cancellation—could we meet tomorrow? We were hoping for more time to prepare a proper presentation, but there was no telling when another opportunity would be available, the world being in a near-constant protracted state of crisis and all.
Knowing we had no choice, we bit the bullet, went in with hastily scrawled palm cards and a few diagrams we could project on to the wall. As it was my theory, I did most of the talking, trying to summarise complex concepts into simple language with passion and gusto while a row of stony-faced government officials, dressed to the nines, just sat there, a copy of our paper before them on their glass table, which occasionally one of them would make a show of flicking through now and then with furrowed brows, before returning their attention to me babbling, dancing on the spot and waving my arms like an orang-utan.
After maybe an hour, I was stopped, mid-sentence with a hand held up, thanked for coming in on such short notice, promised that our proposal would be given to an independent review board who’d compile a report for a senior official to review who in turn . . . you get the idea.
Convinced I’d fucked the whole thing up, I took the rest of the day off to annihilate myself with whiskey, fling myself around my cluttered apartment, howling and punching holes in the walls.
Imagine our collective pleasant surprise when they agreed to extend our budget, the bare minimum to keep the department alive, and everyone off the already overcrowded unemployment lines.
We were placated for a while. They wouldn’t throw us this bone if they weren’t going to go through with it, right? The war wasn’t over, but I hoped beyond hope that we’d won a key, decisive battle.
I was champing at the bit to start supervising the development of the technology, which would be challenging and time-consuming. Space missions take years to plan, and this was the most ambitious space mission in human history.
As the weeks turned to months, and years, the nightly news spelled further doom for our project. More disasters at every corner of the globe, ever more frightening than before, whole pockets of civilisation decimated by freak natural phenomena that no one could satisfactorily explain, communities torn apart. Disease, starvation and all the worst aspects of wide-spread human desperation were rife.
We made plans, agonised over lists: the ideal engineers for the project (and who we’d settle for if we couldn’t get them), all the equipment and facilities we’d need, with necessary allowances for the safety and security. Even if it wasn’t quite All Systems Go, we could waste no time when the real funding came through.
Besides, it gave us somethin
g to do apart from sit idly by and watch the world fall apart.
We drew up what we considered to be a very conservative budget, submitted it through the proper channels to the appropriate authorities, and waited.
And waited.
The mood at Scitech slumped to pre-shutdown levels. I did my best to maintain morale, but was unable to deny that, after everything we’d been through, this damn project might not get off the ground after all.
I started drinking again, quit, restarted, on and off all through that terrible, drawn-out time.
Just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, our efforts were finally rewarded . . .
With a slap in the face.
The Peregrin Falcon, they called it, of all things.
And we had to find out about it on the news, along with the rest of the world. From all corners of the globe, people looked up from whatever crisis they were enduring to see our leaders announce that ‘they’ had solved the riddle of space. ‘Their’ faster-than-light spaceship heralded a bold, new era of intrepid exploration. Smug-looking people in suits with bad haircuts gestured nobly at the sky and proclaimed, “We are going to the stars!”
They already had a date for the maiden voyage: only six weeks from the day! They had a crew—faces and names none of us at Scitech recognised, but soon would, all too well, during the countdown to blast-off. Every arm of the media was saturated with interviews and biographic profiles. Where they came from, their childhood dreams, their favourite sci-fi programs growing up, the sports teams they supported, their favourite food, favourite music, favourite colour . . . until I was sick to fuck of the sight of their brave, smiling faces. All evenly gender and ethnically diverse—the Young Hopeful, the Old Veteran, the Serious One, the Goofy One, the Quiet One, the Cute Nerdy One, the Nerdy Nerdy One, the Gay One, and so on. Like they were a pop group or something.
Amid all this nonsense, they’d occasionally have the gall to thank the “brilliant and dedicated Space and Aeronautics team at Scitech for making all this possible.” On TV or the Grid, mind you. Never in writing, or heaven forbid, to our faces.
One of my colleagues murmured, “Well, that’s something, I suppose.”
I threw a chair across the room.
When we tried to talk to the authorities, they were apologetic and congratulatory, but gave us the usual runaround.
Odd nights of the week, I’d brood in dive bars, drinking whiskey with whiskey chasers to sodden my mind into unthinking numbness, to give myself a break from being angry at them and wondering what they were up to.
Some of us wanted to go to the media, but were stopped by the others, terrified of the shitstorm they—meaning I—would start. It’d give the authorities further excuse to shut us out, making a bad situation worse.
As if the media would’ve listened. Knowing the public was sick of crisis and catastrophe stories, they leapt on the hope and self-congratulation bandwagon (or were instructed to by government departments who probably had key media tycoons on their payroll).
We tried to boycott all news of the mission—it was too painful to watch—but, of course, couldn’t keep our eyes off it.
So picture us all on Launch Day, huddled around a screen, our faces blank, watching the live-stream of the ceremony.
The Falcon, the ship they wouldn’t let any of us near, was graceful and streamlined, not unlike a bird, as if such æsthetically pleasant aerodynamics mattered in space where there was no atmospheric resistance. But who cared, right?
Not our heroes who were all smiles, posing with fake humility, flags waving behind them.
They filed into that ridiculously avian-looking spaceship, the countdown dropped to double digits, the exhaust jets flared into life and steam clouds consumed the launch pad.
As it took off, I’m ashamed to admit, my scowl softened. Glancing sidelong at my colleagues, I saw the same conflicted tears standing in their eyes, unable to help, along with the rest of the world, to be caught up in the moment.
We watched it until it shrank to a white dot against the blue sky, the vapour trail holding its shape for a long time before starting to dissipate.
Once out of orbit, the satellite feed showed the Falcon zooming through space at supersonic speed, but looking glacial in the void. Commentators were no doubt giving the viewing public a blow-by-blow of the flight’s every stage, but, knowing damn well what was happening, we had the sound turned down. Somewhere around the halfway point between this planet and the next, the ‘warp drive’ (as the media insisted on calling it, to our collective chagrin) kicked in. The ship was enveloped with particle/metaparticle plasma, glowing brighter and brighter until, for a few seconds, it burned like a tiny sun, leaving an afterglow on all our retinas after it vanished.
Someone, one of the theoretical conservatives in the lab whom I couldn’t win over with my ‘wild and fanciful’ mathematics, said, “Well, they’re all dead” in dour, I-told-you-so tones, certain that the Falcon and its crew would be torn apart in the entanglement process, their atoms scattered through the universe.
“Fuck ’em,” I muttered, but secretly hoped for its success, admittedly, less for the safety of all on board than proof that I was right all along.
Days later, official spokespersons were all smiles and thumbs up in the glare of a hundred camera flashes, assuring us that the monitors on board confirmed that the Falcon was a-OK and zooming through ‘warp space’ many times faster than the speed of light, prompting great cheers. The media ate it up.
We were on anxious tenterhooks until our illustrious leaders finally saw fit to get in touch with a woman in our team.
“They want to bring us on board,” she said.
“What? What are you fucking kidding?” we exploded.
She held her hands up in silent, don’t-shoot-the-messenger appeal, and another debate ensued. Some of us, myself included, wanted to tell them to shove it where the stars didn’t shine. But after the others calmed us down, it was decided that we should speak to them, at least to hear what they wanted from us before we threw it back in their faces.
We elected a small group to meet and possibly negotiate. I wasn’t one of them. I wanted to be, but was unanimously voted out by the others.
“Fine,” I harrumphed, greatly incensed, though in hindsight, it was sound reasoning on their part.
The meeting went for three days.
They were full of excuses, insisting nothing was really their fault. Parliament pressured them; they were already in hot water for extending Scitech’s budget without it being properly ratified. If they’d poured any more cash into an already unpopular department, the opposition would’ve had them for lunch. So, (allegedly) under protest, they were forced to take the manufacturing offshore.
Only now, the project being such an astounding success, winning so much public support, rendering the opposition powerless, could they finally bring us back in.
I didn’t even need to be there. I knew the kind of deal they’d offer: now that the mission was already up and running, they wanted us on board to help them with it. Take this morsel we’re tossing you. Play ball, be a part of it (the part we want you play) and you’ll have your names in the history books. Be difficult and . . . well.
Of course we said yes, just like they knew we would. The opportunity was too good to pass up—both parties knew that.
When the vote went around, all hands, with varying degrees of begrudgingness, went up, even mine. As much as I wanted to tell them all to go fuck themselves, this was the kind of project I’d waited my whole life to be a part of.
So be it.
The next few years were a whirlwind. We worked day and night to keep up with the deluge of unprecedented data. Revolutionary discoveries, a mere one or two of which would have previously made and immortalised careers, now inundated us. In twelve months, our staff had tripled, our funding quadrupled. We were so busy, we often forgot how we’d been exploited.
They went to great lengths to help us forget. They win
ed and dined us, held conferences and lush ceremonies in our honour, publicly sang our praises, splashed our faces and names all over the media—the men and women who made this wonder all possible, the true geniuses of our age.
Public fascination in the sciences soared to unprecedented heights. Enrolment in physics, chemistry, engineering, aeronautics and astronomy (pardon the pun) skyrocketed. Universities cranked out wide-eyed young hopefuls itching to be a part of the great historic leap forward in record numbers. They looked up to me, claimed I was their ‘hero’ and ‘an inspiration’. I shook their hands, jokingly chastised them to study hard. I even signed autographs.
The press called me ‘Mr. Warp Drive’. At first I was ashamed of it, then I got used to it.
Now I am ashamed of it again.
I snap out of reverie. Shit, the time . . .
Twenty-four minutes. It feels like hours have gone by.
I’m suddenly aware of all the people around me again: young professionals, striding briskly, talking fast into cordless sets, puffy-eyed women struggling to herd trains of luggage and bickering children. Some catch my eye, smile sympathetically when they see my hearing aid.
I’m amazed at the number of old people, or perhaps I just notice them more. Shuffling, slow and stooped, in a quiet fluster, squinting at the televisual overload, looking lost . . .
Poor schmucks, rushing about, like it will matter in less than half-an-hour.
I did my fair share of rushing about when I was ‘famous’, meeting the governor of this, the president of that, squint-smiling behind podiums under a barrage of camera flashes. Breathless undergraduates introduced me with flowering praise and watched in enraptured silence as I pontificated, hinting at incoming data that, as I spoke, was making all their textbooks obsolete, with a fair dose of my own flowery bullshit about what this meant for the future for Scitech and for humanity, which was easier to do when I still sort of believed it.
9 Tales From Elsewhere 6 Page 4
