Wormhole - 03

by Richard Phillips

  Dr. Louis Dubois didn’t like the way his colleague Dr. Donald Stephenson was looking at the engineers gathered around the conference table. He looked like an apex predator evaluating prey—a falcon, perhaps, or a jaguar. The same bloodless, hungry look. He wondered, not for the first time, if Stephenson might be a high-functioning psychopath who, if he hadn’t turned to science, would be engaged in less savory pursuits.

  Luckily, the engineers were studying the blueprints with fierce intensity and ignoring Dr. Stephenson. Side conversations shifted into French, German, and Spanish, then back to English for general discussion.

  Finally, though, as Dubois had known would happen, Dr. Stephenson lost patience.

  “Can you build it?” Dr. Stephenson snapped out his question to Gerhardt Werner, the lead engineer for Kohl Engineering, the company responsible for building many of the largest and most demanding projects in the world, including the massive Francis turbine generators at China’s Three Gorges Dam.

  The burly blond engineer turned to face him. “Hell, I don’t even understand how it’s supposed to work.”

  “That’s not important. Can you build it?”

  “Not important? For an engineer to build something that’s supposed to work?”

  “Can you build the thing according to these specifications?”

  The German’s steel-gray eyes met those of the physicist. “Das ist klar. Sure I can build the damned things to spec. But if they don’t work, it’s your mistake.”

  “I don’t make mistakes. Make sure you do the same and we’ll get along just fine.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Dubois watched the American physicist eye the German for several seconds. Then Stephenson turned on his heel and strode from the room.

  As the engineers turned back to the blueprints, Dr. Dubois’s eyes swept back over the table. Those engineering specifications represented the two most intricate construction projects ever attempted by man. Team One would enlarge the ATLAS cavern and then build the Rho Device around the anomaly, while maintaining the stability of the current electromagnetic containment field. Team Two would build the Matter to Energy Conversion Facility, the device that some young physicist had nicknamed the MINGSTER, short for matter ingester. It was the power generation station that would produce the awesome energy required to generate a wormhole.

  The theory behind both devices was so far from the physics Louis had come to know that it bordered on quantum blasphemy. Stephenson had essentially reintroduced a variation of the old ether theory with a little quantum foam rolled in for good measure. At its core, his model held that light was more than particles guided by waves of probability, that it waved an underlying ether substance that forms the fabric of our universe.

  Stephenson’s model was all about the ether medium. All matter and energy were formed from variations in ether density. Where the ether was relatively compressed, a positive energy gradient existed. Where it was stretched, there was a corresponding negative energy gradient. It allowed for ether granularity, with subspace occupying the rift between ether grains. Stephenson’s ether model embraced the dual tenets that the speed of light is not constant and that energy within our universe is not conserved, but leaks in and out of subspace.

  Stephenson proposed a simple test to illustrate that the speed of light was a function of ether density. The Stephenson version of the famous Michelson-Morley experiment used the classic mirror-and-interferometer arrangement. But across one of the light paths he applied an intense repulsive magnetic field, changing the ether density along that path. The resulting shift in the interference pattern demonstrated his predicted change in the speed of light.

  Where the Stephenson ether model got really interesting was in the analysis of the wave packets that formed matter. It predicted that certain rare frequency combinations produced stable standing wave packets in the ether and that these special harmonic sets formed the particles and elements we observe in nature. Through understanding the frequencies that form a stable packet, it became possible to apply another set of frequencies, an antipacket, that canceled out the original packet, releasing the energy bound within it.

  Moreover, it wasn’t necessary to produce a perfect antipacket to destabilize a particle. It merely required a sufficient subset of disrupting or canceling frequencies and the packet would tear itself apart. Theoretically, this process was as reliable as clockwork.

  Analyze the packet.

  Add disrupting frequencies.

  Harvest the expelled energy.

  Rinse and repeat.

  Stephenson had produced an algorithm and a design for doing precisely that. The MINGSTER’s job would be to ingest matter and disrupt its wave packets, producing energy on a scale the Earth hadn’t experienced since it was flung out of the cosmic explosion that created it. That energy would then be fed to the Rho Device so it could generate the wormhole that would transport the November Anomaly several light years out in space.

  But if it was so cut-and-dried, why did the thing worry Louis so badly? Like the big German engineer, he didn’t like not knowing exactly how and why something worked. And nobody, including Louis, could understand all of Stephenson’s equations, a significant part of them constructed in an alien branch of mathematics for which he had no context and upon which Stephenson refused to elaborate.

  “My dear Dr. Dubois,” Stephenson had said upon being pressed on the topic. “We are already desperately short on time. Why do you imagine I can afford to inject the additional delay of playing college professor for a semester, assuming you and your colleagues are even capable of grasping the topic?”

  Anger had so engulfed Louis that only his professional pride kept his clenched and shaking hands at his sides instead of reaching out and tossing Stephenson through the adjacent plate-glass window. And thus the opportunity had passed.

  With one last glance at the engineers shuffling through blueprints, Louis sighed, turned, and began the long walk from Building 33 back to his office.

  It seemed a small miracle, but it wasn’t. Parting the Red Sea was a small miracle. Walking on water was a small miracle. What Raul had accomplished made those feats pale in comparison. Legless, stranded alone in the dark, he had brought the Rho Ship back from the dead.

  What had started with the lightning bolt from the capacitor into the power cell had progressed to the point that Raul had acquired complete control of the starship’s maintenance system. Then, taking great care to prevent the emission of any signal that would tip off the scientists who thought the Rho Ship dead, Raul had brought a total of thirteen power cells back online. More importantly he’d restored the matter disrupter to full function, feeding it the bags of human waste for the initial fuel to power up those cells.

  Today would mark the next major milestone in the restoration of his power. Today he would reassume control over the ship’s neural net. Raul felt a quiver pass through his body at the thought. But this time there would be nobody who could wrest its control from him, no hidden daemon processes running beneath his awareness. He’d taken extreme care to ensure that all systems were restored to default settings, having run a maintenance-level wipe that guaranteed no trace of a Stephenson infection remained in any of the starship’s systems.

  Raul initiated one final diagnostic, anxiously awaiting the result. Around him the maintenance lighting seemed to emanate from the air itself, the soft glow revealing the jumble of alien equipment that covered the bulk of the room’s floor, a floor that, if all went well, he’d no longer be required to slither across on his arms and ass. He’d once again feel the awesome mind meld to the central computer, and that would enable his command of the ship’s stasis field.

  The alien maintenance computer piped the diagnostic results directly into his brain. No anomalies detected. Primary system access ready.

  Raul hesitated the merest fraction of a second before giving the command. Primary system engage.

  The suddenness of the transition momentarily disoriented him. T
here was no gradual boot-up process. It was as if he’d never been cut off from the main neural net. One moment he was only Raul, the next he was one with the Rho Ship, able to feel every aspect of its physical state, experiencing the small percentage of the ship that was currently functional, while feeling the pain of its damaged subsystems.

  With a thought, Raul accessed the stasis field generator, rising into the air as he dimmed the light until the room was no brighter than a moonlit night. The exultation that rippled through the Raul part of himself felt good, really good. Looking out over the inner chamber, Raul smiled. Pulling thousands of strands from the stasis field, Raul shifted his attention to restoring the Rho ship to full health.

  Just outside the Rho Ship, Jill McMartin, a UC graduate student, glanced up to the spot where the Rho Ship lay cradled on the huge U-shaped steel supports. She could have sworn she’d seen something. A glance at the monitors told her she’d just imagined it. As sad as it was, all her wishing couldn’t bring the alien starship back to life. It remained just as dead as it had been since that late November night. And with Dr. Stephenson off in Europe, dead was exactly how it was going to stay.

  Ketaan-Ra studied the data streaming in through his cortical implants, four-dimensional imagery supplemented with thousands of channels of audio and multispectral data. Pulling forth a galactic hologram, he allowed the signal to pull him into a tight zoom toward a yellow star in one of the galaxy’s outer spiral arms.

  The view tightened, centered on the third planet from this sun, a watery world that had been deemed of sufficient interest to warrant the sending of a world ship. Scanning through the background data, Ketaan-Ra pulled up the specs he already knew by heart.

  Planet K3VX789ZL10-X, the X indicating lost or abandoned world ship. After pinging steady progress reports for the last 2.319E19 cesium cycles, the world ship had gone silent, remaining so for long enough that the High Council had deemed it lost. That designation had resulted in the standing down of the invasion cohort assigned to its attuned gateway, which had been placed at a low-grade monitoring status.

  Of the tens of thousands of soldiers assigned to his command for all those cycles, only Ketaan-Ra remained, even that commitment a testament to the council’s reluctance to accept defeat. Leaving him assigned to an empty command, tethered to his dead world ship, was merely a repudiation of his mission’s failure, one failure wiping away a lifetime of heroic deeds in the service of the Kasari Collective.

  Now, as he immersed himself in the sea of data cascading through his external sensory feeds, Ketaan-Ra allowed his cybernetic augments to release a slow flow of chemicals into his adrenal system, an indulgence this discovery justified. Removing the trailing X from the planetary designation, he rerouted the data stream to Zaalex-Ka, the High Council’s data minder.

  As another surge of chemical warmth coursed through his system, he leaned back in his data couch. Out there on that distant and primitive planet, someone had managed to bring his world ship back from the dead, resurrecting, along with it, the career of one Cohort Commander Ketaan-Ra.

  Heroin.

  The word wormed its way into Jennifer’s clouded mind. She tugged at the strings of her memory, pulling up the drug’s symptoms, running a systematic cross-check against her own bodily functions. She channeled the haze away, searching for clarity, achieving just enough focus to remember Mark’s trick. She turned her thoughts to a memory of how it felt to be bright and alert, wrapping herself in the perfect recollection of that chosen moment.

  All the comfortable fuzziness was gone, shunted off into a space with which she no longer had a connection. Jennifer felt her old self click into place. As unbelievable as it was, the US government was funneling high-grade heroin into her veins and it didn’t take a hell of a lot of imagination to figure out why. They wanted her physically addicted.

  “Well that does it, Mr. President. You can forget about my vote.”

  Feeling the fuzziness filter back into her thoughts, Jennifer recentered. Suddenly she found herself really, really pissed off. The goddamned US government had decided it was OK to treat her worse than Don Espeñosa had. And they justified it how? Probably the same way they’d justified the hatchet job on Jack’s team.

  It was time to figure out where she was, how she’d gotten here, and how she was going to get herself, Mark, and Heather out. A coldness, like ice on an arctic trawler, crept over Jennifer Smythe.

  Jennifer clenched her jaw. One thing was certain. These people had no idea whom the hell they were screwing with.

  She opened her eyes, her gaze coming to rest on Eric Frost, the NSA employee whose twisting fingers controlled the heroin drip line.

  Frost found his latest duty boring at best, slightly disturbing at worst. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t done his share of black ops, but hooking a teenage girl on drugs didn’t seem like something he would be spotlighting on his résumé.

  Then she moved unexpectedly, her head turning toward him. His eyes widened in surprise as he felt his body tense. As he stared down at the suddenly smiling girl, he felt a sense of gentle peace envelop his soul.

  “That’s right, Eric. No use fighting it. Now you’re mine,” she said.

  And she was right.

  Heather felt the nudge in her mind, light as a feather, distant as Andromeda. Jennifer.

  As startling as the idea was, Jennifer was attempting to initiate a direct mind link. Heather knew they’d achieved versions of that link before, but those occurrences had been random or at times of intense stress, and, as far as she knew, always initiated by her own subconscious mind. But this was different. Jennifer was attempting something they’d never been able to manage without the alien headsets: a consciously directed mind link.

  “Heather, are you listening to me?”

  Dr. Jacobs scooted his chair closer to her bed. True to his word, she was no longer restrained. And in return she had feigned grudging cooperation with Jacobs’s probes of her sanity. The man had access to her medical records, had discussed her case with Dr. Sigmund. He thought her deeply psychotic and Heather had done nothing to disabuse him of that notion.

  “Heather?”

  Since he was expecting to induce a psychotic episode, Heather found this a convenient moment to oblige him. Directing the full power of her mind at helping Jennifer complete the mind link, Heather went deep, leaving only the whites of her eyes staring sightlessly, right through Dr. Jacobs.

  Jennifer’s nearby mind groped for hers like a mole, unable to see her, but having caught her scent. And now Heather had hers: not a true smell, but like a smell, difficult to follow.

  Heather had often thought about how their minds telepathically linked through the alien headsets. If it hadn’t been for those rare occurrences when she’d somehow managed to share her thoughts with Mark and Jennifer without the headsets, she could have convinced herself such contact was only possible via their common connection to the Bandolier Ship’s computer.

  So how had her mind managed to achieve those direct links?

  Jennifer’s abilities to achieve empathic links to other people were impressive. But that was child’s play compared to the complexity of a complete mind link. Now Jen was close to figuring it out. As with a fuzzy radio station that she hadn’t tuned to quite the right frequency, Heather knew Jen was there, but that was about it.

  Sudden insight flashed through her. Frequency! Heather reviewed what she knew about the changes the Bandolier Ship had wrought in their brains. The human brain held over a hundred billion neurons, each with thousands of synaptic connections to other neurons, hundreds of trillions of synapses involved in the massively parallel chemical and electrical operations that gave the human mind its power.

  The difference between the way Heather’s, Mark’s, and Jennifer’s brains functioned and the way the average person’s did had little to do with the number of synapses in use. It was the way their functions were timed and coordinated into one synchronized whole. That tightly coordinated signal timing
allowed their brains to function as a phased array.

  Heather had first heard of phased array radars in middle school while studying the first Gulf War. The US had deployed Patriot missile batteries to protect key assets in Saudi Arabia and Israel; at the heart of each missile battery was a flat phased array radar that painted the sky in front of it with a powerful pencil beam of radar energy, steering the beam back and forth across the sky many times per second. She’d been fascinated by the fact the beam could be directed at so many different spots so quickly without any moving parts in the radar.

  It all worked by timing the energy output from thousands of radar emitters spread across the radar surface. If you turned on all the emitters at once, the energy went straight out. By precisely controlling the pattern and timing of each emitter, the radar created a focused beam that could be rapidly and precisely directed. The principle worked for directed communications signals or for any application in which directed energy was required.

  What kind of signal processing efficiency could be achieved with a phased array formed from hundreds of trillions of emitters and receivers? Good enough to relay signals to other parts of the same brain without the delay of traversing the intervening neural pathways. And if it could do that, it should be able to accomplish similar signal communication to another’s brain.

  A surge of adrenaline flooded Heather as she zoomed in on the answer. There were still a number of problems associated with establishing that sort of communication link. First, every brain was different. That implied that targeting of the brain’s phased array was just part of the problem. You would also have to identify the frequency and pattern of the other person’s receptor array.

  How had that happened automatically when she’d been under heavy stress? When the Rag Man had grabbed her, she hadn’t been aware of exactly where Mark and Jennifer were. With the tiny signal strengths generated by the human brain, the signal would have to be tightly focused and precisely directed to avoid the inverse-radius-squared loss associated with spherical waves.