Analog SFF, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “For that month, I would also deny them recreational use of the cube and VR, and no exploring on the surface. Double that for the instigator, Ms. Dula"—and she turned back to face us—"and her brother as well, if he insists on sharing the responsibility.”

  “I do!" he snapped.

  “Very well. Two months for both of you.”

  “It seems harsh,” Kaimei's father said. “Kaimei told me that the girls did take the precaution of showering before entering the water.”

  “Intent means nothing. The bacteria are there.”

  “Harmless to plants,” Dr. Westling repeated. “Probably to people.”

  She looked at him for a long second. “Your dissent is noted. Are there any other objections to this punishment?”

  “Not the punishment,” my mother said, “but Dr. Dula and I both object to the means of acquiring evidence.”

  “I am perfectly willing to stand on review for that.” The old-timers would probably go along with her. The new ones might still be infected by the Bill of Rights, or the laws of Russia and France.

  There were no other objections, so she reminded the parents that they would be responsible for monitoring our VR and cube use, but even more, she would rely on our sense of honor.

  What were we supposed to be “honoring,” though? The now old-fashioned sanctity of water? Her right to spy on us? In fact, her unlimited authority?

  I would find a way to get back at her.

  * * * *

  20. Nightwalk

  After one day of steaming over it, I'd had enough. I don't know when I made the decision, or whether it even was a decision, rather than a kind of sleepwalking. It was sometime before three in the morning. I was still feeling so angry and embarrassed I couldn't get to sleep.

  So I got up and started down the corridor to the mess hall, nibble on something. But I walked on past.

  It looked like no one else was up. Just dim safety lights. I wound up in the dressing room and realized what I was doing.

  The airlock had a WARNING OVERRIDE button that you could press so the buzzer wouldn't go on and on if you had to keep the inner door open. Card had shown me how you could keep the button stuck down with the point of a pencil or a pen.

  With the airlock buzzer disabled, a person could actually go outside alone, undetected. Card had done it with Barry for a few minutes early one morning, just to prove it could be done. So I could just be by myself for an hour or two, then sneak back in.

  And did I ever want to be by myself.

  I went through the dress-up procedure as quietly as possible. Then before I took a step toward the airlock, I visualized myself doing a safety check on another person and did it methodically on myself. It would be so pathetic to die out there, breaking the rules.

  I went up the stairs silently as a thief. Well, I was a thief. What could they do, deport me?

  For safety's sake, I decided to take a dog, even though it would slow me down a bit. I actually hesitated, and tested carrying two extra oxygen bottles by themselves, but that was awkward. Better safe than sorry, I said to myself in Mother's voice, and ground my teeth while saying it. But going out without a dog and dying would be pathetic. Arch-criminals are evil, not pathetic. I clicked the OVERRIDE button down and jammed it with the point of a penstick.

  The evacuating pump sounded loud, though I knew you could hardly hear it in the changing room. It rattled off into silence, then the red light glowed green and the door swung open into darkness.

  I stepped out, pulling the dog, and the door slid shut behind it.

  I decided not to turn on the suit light, and stood there for several minutes while my eyes adjusted. Walking at night just by starlight—you couldn't do that any other place I've lived. It wouldn't be dangerous if I was careful. Besides, if I turned on a light, someone could see me from the mess hall window.

  The nearby rocks gave me my bearings, and I started out toward Telegraph Hill. On the other side of the hill I'd be invisible from the base, and vice versa—alone for the first time in almost a year. Earth year.

  Seeing the familiar rock field in this ghostly half-light brought back some of the mystery and excitement of the first couple of days. The landing and my first excursion with Paul.

  If he knew I was doing this—well, he might approve, secretly. He wasn't much of a rule guy, except for safety.

  Thinking that, my foot turned on a small rock and I staggered, getting my balance back. Keep your eyes on the ground while you're walking. It would be, what is the word I'm looking for, pathetic to trip and break your helmet out here.

  It took me less than a half hour to get to the base of Telegraph Hill. It wasn't all that steep, but the dog's traction wasn't really up to it. A truly adventurous person would leave the dog behind and climb to the top with her suit air alone, and although I do like adventure, I'm also afflicted with pathetico-phobia. The dog and I could go around the mountain rather than over it. I decided to walk in a straight line for one hour, see how far I could get, and walk back, following the dog's track in the dust.

  That was my big mistake. One of them, anyhow. If I'd just gone to the top, taken a picture, and headed straight back, I might have gotten away with the whole thing.

  I wasn't totally stupid. I didn't go into the hill's “radio shadow,” and I cranked the dog's radio antenna up all the way, since I was headed for the horizon, and knew that any small depression in the ground could hide me from the colony's radio transceiver.

  The wind picked up a little. I couldn't feel or hear it, of course, but the sky showed it. Jupiter was just rising, and its bright pale yellow light had a halo and was slightly dimmed by the dust in the air. I remembered Dad pointing out Jupiter and then Mars the morning we left Florida, and had a delicious shiver at the thought that I was standing on that little point of light now.

  The area immediately around the colony was as well explored as any place on Mars, but I knew from rock-hounding with Paul that you could find new stuff just a couple hundred meters from the airlock door. I went four or five kilometers, and found something really new.

  I had been going for fifty-seven minutes, about to turn back, and was looking for a soft rock that I could mark with an X or something—maybe scratch “SURRENDER PUNY EARTHLINGS” on it, though I suspected people would figure out who had done it.

  There was no noise. Just a suddenly weightless feeling, and I was falling through a hole in the ground—I'd broken through something like a thin sheet of ice. But there was nothing underneath it!

  I was able to turn on the suit light as I tumbled down, but all I saw was a glimpse of the dog spinning around beside and then above me.

  It seemed like a long time, but I guess I didn't fall for more than a few seconds. I hit hard on my left foot and heard the sickening sound of a bone cracking, just an instant before the pain hit me.

  I lay still, bright red sparks fading from my vision while the pain amped up and up. Trying to think, not scream.

  My ankle was probably broken, and at least one rib on the left side. I breathed deeply, listening—Paul told me about how he had broken a rib in a car wreck, and he could tell by the sound that it had punctured his lung. This did hurt, but didn't sound different—and then I realized I was lucky to be breathing at all. The helmet and suit were intact.

  But would I be able to keep breathing long enough to be rescued?

  The suit light was out. I clicked the switch over and over, and nothing happened. If I could find the dog, and if it was intact, I'd have an extra sixteen hours of oxygen. Otherwise, I probably had two, two and a half hours.

  I didn't suppose the radio would do any good, underground, but I tried it anyway. Yelled into it for a minute and then listened. Nothing.

  These suits ought to have some sort of beeper to trace people with. But then I guess nobody was supposed to wander off and disappear.

  It was about four. How long before someone woke up and noticed I was gone? How long before someone got worried enough to check,
and see that the suit and dog were missing?

  I tried to stand and it wasn't possible. The pain was intolerable and the bone made an ominous sound. I couldn't help crying but stopped after a minute. Pathetic.

  Had to find the dog, with its oxygen and power. I stretched out and patted the ground back and forth, and scrabbled around in a circle, feeling for it.

  It wasn't anywhere nearby. But how far could it have rolled after it hit?

  I had to be careful, not just crawl off in some random direction and get lost. I remembered feeling a large, kind of pointy, rock off to my left—good thing I hadn't landed on it—and could use it as a reference point.

  I found it and moved up so my foot was touching it. Visualizing an old-fashioned clock with me as the hour hand, I went off in the 12:00 direction, measuring four body lengths inchworm style. Then crawled back to the pointy rock and did the same thing in the opposite, 6:00, direction. Nothing there, nor at 9:00 or 3:00, and I tried not to panic.

  In my mind's eye I could see the areas where I hadn't been able to reach, the angles midway between 12:00 and 3:00, 3:00 and 6:00, and so on. I went back to the pointy rock and started over. On the second try, my hand touched one of the dog's wheels, and I smiled in spite of my situation.

  It was lying on its side. I uprighted it and felt for the switch that would turn on its light. When it came on, I was looking straight into it and it dazzled me blind.

  Facing away from it, after a couple of minutes I could see some of where I was. I'd fallen into a large underground cavern, maybe shaped like a dome, though I couldn't see as far as the top. I guessed it was part of a lava tube that was almost open to the surface, worn so thin that it couldn't support my weight.

  Maybe it joined up with the lava tube that we lived in! But even if it did, and even if I knew which direction to go, I couldn't crawl the four kilometers back. I tried to ignore the pain and do the math, anyhow—sixteen hours of oxygen, four kilometers, that means creeping 250 meters per hour, dragging the dog along behind me ... no way. Better to hope they would track me down here.

  What were the chances of that? Maybe the dog's tracks, or my boot prints? Only in dusty places, if the wind didn't cover them up before dawn.

  If they searched at night, the dog's light might help. How close would a person have to come to the hole to see it? Close enough to crash through and join me?

  And would the dog's power supply last long enough to shine all night and again tomorrow night? It wouldn't have to last any longer than that.

  The ankle was hurting less, but that was because of numbness. My hands and feet were getting cold. Was that a suit malfunction, or just because I was stretched out on this cold cave floor? Where the sun had never shined.

  With a start, I realized the coldness could mean that my suit was losing power—it should automatically warm up the gloves and boots. I opened my mouth wide and with my chin pressed the switch that ought to project a technical readout in front of my eyes, with “power remaining,” and nothing came up.

  Well, the dog obviously had power to spare. I unreeled the recharge cable and plugged its jack into my LSU.

  Nothing happened.

  I chinned the switch over and over. Nothing.

  Maybe it was just the readout display that was broken; I was getting power but it wasn't registering. Trying not to panic, I wiggled the jack, unplugged and replugged it. Still nothing.

  I was breathing, though; that part worked. I unrolled the umbilical hose from the dog and pushed the fitting into the bottom of the LSU. It made a loud pop and a sudden breeze of cold oxygen blew around my neck and chin.

  So at least I wouldn't die of that. I would be frozen solid before I ran out of air; how comforting. Acid rush of panic in my throat; I choked it back and sucked on the water tube until the nausea was gone.

  Which made me think about the other end, and I clamped up. I was not going to fill the suit's emergency diaper with shit and piss before I died. Though the people who deal with dead people probably have seen that before. And it would be frozen solid, so what's the difference. Inside the body or outside.

  I stopped crying long enough to turn on the radio and say goodbye to people, and apologize for my stupidity. Though it's unlikely that anyone would ever hear it. Unless there was some kind of secret recorder in the suit, and someone stumbled on it years from now. If the Dragon had anything to say about it, there would be.

  I wished I had Dad's zen. If Dad were in this situation he would just accept it, and wait to leave his body.

  I tipped the dog up on end, so its light shone directly up toward the hole I'd fallen through, still too high up to see.

  I couldn't feel my feet or hands anymore and was growing heavy-lidded. I'd read that freezing to death was the least painful way to go, and one of my last coherent thoughts was “Who came back to tell them?”

  Then I hallucinated an angel, wearing red, surrounded by an ethereal bubble. He was incredibly ugly.n

  To be continued.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Jim Haldeman

  * * * *

  “The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves."—E. M. Forster

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Science Fact: THE WORLD'S SIMPLEST FUSION REACTOR REVISITED

  by TOM LIGON

  Analog published my fact article “The World's Simplest Fusion Reactor, and How to Make It Work” in the December 1998 issue[1]. Those of you who read it probably wonder if anything became of the technology and project I described. Alas, for many years, requirements for confidentiality prevented me from saying any more about it. But things have changed, and I can now tell you the good news.

  [Footnote 1: Tom Ligon, “The World's Simplest Fusion Reactor,” Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 1998. Updated copy available online at: fusor.net/newbie/Ligon-QED-IE.pdf]

  I'll save the best news for later, and just start you out with the very good news.

  To bring you newer readers up to speed, the article described a method for making hot fusion that was championed by Philo T. Farnsworth, one of the inventors of television, back in the 1950s and ‘60s. The device, the fusor, which he invented and Dr. Robert Hirsch improved upon, was an electrostatic particle accelerator that converged fusion fuel ions at the center of a spherical vacuum chamber, where they tended to collide head-on. While this little reactor had shortcomings that prevented it from ever reaching breakeven, it nonetheless showed how easy fusion is once you stop thinking thermonuclear and realize that it is particle velocity, not heat, that triggers fusion. The article went on to describe how easy these things are to build, and suggested they might even make good high school science projects.

  Finally, I described the new and improved version of this scheme that Dr. Robert W. Bussard was attempting to build, one that might lead to working power reactors, including power plants suitable for spacecraft. One of the most intriguing things about Dr. Bussard's device is that it would be able to burn a much more desirable fuel, p-B11.

  A few months before the article was submitted, I built a crude version of a Hirsch-Farnsworth fusor, which I took to a Tesla Coil Builders of Richmond party put on at the home of noted coil builder Richard Hull. I also carried copies of a draft of the article. While I was standing there in awe of Richard's mighty Tesla coil, the other attendees were falling madly in love with the idea of building their own tabletop hot fusion reactors.

  Richard had his first model up and running in a matter of weeks, and several other members of the group were close behind. By the time the article was in print, there was already a small corps of amateur fusor builders chatting away on the internet. They were soon joined by a cadre of new blood inspired by the Analog article. And that included some high school students.

  One of those students, Michael Li, helped by Richard and his friends, won second prize (and a $75,000 scholarship) in the Intel Scie
nce Talent Search in 2003 for his work on the fusor. It is the big U.S. science fair. As this is written, at least eight high school students have made measurable fusion using fusors, and two more are getting close.

  The amateur effort has now evolved into a powerhouse of talent, centered on a website called fusor.net. And Analog can take a lot of the credit for getting the ball rolling. That article reached tens of thousands of science-minded subscribers. And some of you picked up the ball and ran with it. I'm mighty proud of you! And enough of you thought highly enough of the article that you voted for it in AnLab, and it won fact article of the year in the 1999 poll.

  * * * *

  The Great News, the Bad News, and the Good News

  But that is old news. You want to know where Dr. Bussard's project has led. And that's the great news. In the fall of 2005, he finally worked the bugs out of the little proof-of-concept devices we had been working on, and got one to do some serious fusion[2]. And then there's the bad news. He did that on the last of his research funds, and then had to close the lab. He is presently seeking funds to get the program started again. But the good news in that is, without the previous sources of funds telling us to stay quiet, we can now tell the world.

  [Footnote 2: “The Advent of Clean Nuclear Fusion: Superperformance Space Power and Propulsion,” Robert W. Bussard, Ph.D., 57th International Astronautical Congress, Valencia, Spain, October 2-6, 2006. www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf]

  * * * *

  How Was it Done?

  Ah, you notice I'm using the pronoun “we?” Yes, yours truly was right in the thick of it. So let me take you back to 1995, and how I met Dr. Robert W. Bussard. Imagine you're a science fiction author, discouraged with your old job and about to quit and start a consulting business. You get wind of the fact that there's someone in the area working with high vacuum equipment, whose last name is Bussard. So you think, Bussard, vacuum, space, fusion, interstellar ramjets? The inventor of the gizmo behind science fiction classics like Tau Zero, the Ringworld stories, and many others? Could it be that Bussard? So I found the address, dropped by with my newsletter, résumé, and an introductory letter, and knocked on the door of the little office two miles from my home. Nobody was there, but the sign by the door declared that it was the Energy/Matter Conversion Corporation. I slipped my propaganda under the door, smiling as I got the connection to Einstein's famous formula.