Cycle of Stars

by D. W. Patterson

  “The cosmological constant has obviously changed enough that even the gravitational field here close to the star Kaffa is being affected. We can expect further disruptions and eventually we will not be able to maintain this orbit.”

  Dag took a chair against the wall.

  “Dr. Mach?” said Dr. Payne.

  “Yes, here sir,” said Dag as he rose.

  “Dr. Mach do you concur?”

  “I support Dr. Mekur's conclusions.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “It will happen fast Dr. Payne. We should make plans to evacuate this orbit.”

  “Evacuate to where? This wheel is slow to move and is so large that it is being affected. We might getaway in the fusion ships but where do we go?”

  “We go as far away from this area of spacetime, as fast as we can,” said Dag. “It's our only hope sir. If that constant keeps changing, everything, at least massive things, will break up and disperse as a fine mist.”

  A couple of days later the shudders of the manufacturing wheel were getting worse. Ally and Dag had opted to take the JS1 again. Dr. Payne had decided to stay with his creation and try to ride it out. Though most of the people left on fusion ships, many of the robots stayed aboard the manufacturing wheel to assist Dr. Payne. The few that were going with the fusion ships included Walker, who would be aboard the JS1 with Dag as they were fast becoming friends.

  “Good luck Dr. Mach,” said Dr. Payne.

  “You too sir,” said Dag shaking Payne's hand and turning away. He feared he was looking into the eyes of a man that would soon be dead. Of course the same might be said about Dag. His choice to leave was not a sure flight to safety.

  Ally and Dag were making their way to the docking area.

  “I don't know Miss. We might make it. It's impossible to pinpoint how far this space is affected.”

  “Well we can average about seventeen AU a day so it better not be too wide. This fusion engine is only rated for maybe one-hundred days continuous running. After that who knows.”

  Dag shook his head knowing that their chances were small.

  “Miss when we get to the ship I want to go to the Captain first. Will you see that my things get stored away?”

  “Sure Dag.”

  Aboard the ship, Dag made his way to the control and asked the Captain if they could speak privately.

  “So Dr. Mach you don't think we have a chance to get out of this miserable spacetime?”

  “That's right sir. The extent of this spacetime is probably tens of light-years and spreading. Without the wormhole drive, we simply can't exit the area.”

  “So do you have an alternate suggestion?”

  “I suggest we head back to Adowa and put the ship down.”

  “Land a fusion ship on a planet's surface! Are you crazy Dr. Mach?”

  “I have a plan sir.”

  The Captain looked at Dag to see any signs of insanity but he could never tell with a robot.

  “Okay Dr. Mach let me hear your plan and if it's not as crazy as it sounds I might go along.”

  Ally knew what was going on. She had taken some readings from the observation room to plot the ship's course. She had also taken some readings of Dag and knew he wasn't telling her everything he knew. She had invited him to meet with her.

  “Thanks Miss for the invite. I'm afraid I've been busy with the Captain and haven't had much time for anything.”

  “I understand Dag. I just thought we could meet quietly one last time. The situation just seems so hopeless,” Ally said it with a catch in her throat.

  Dag was alarmed. He had seen such behavior from Burgess. It meant she was in distress.

  “Oh I wouldn't say hopeless Miss.”

  Dag was trying to soothe her worries.

  “It certainly is serious but not hopeless.”

  “You know as well as I do Dag that we will never make it out of this spacetime. It's just too far for a fusion ship to cross. We will go until the engine fails and then we will die.”

  “Miss I . . .”

  Dag decided to tell her even though the Captain wanted to keep it secret until the last moment. She was suffering so much.

  “Miss I've got something to tell you. The Captain made me promise not to tell anyone. But I feel you have a right to know. You've been very instrumental in getting us this far.

  “We are not going to try and cross this spacetime we are going back to Adowa,” said Dag.

  “Back to Adowa, why? We can't maintain the ship in orbit. That choppy space is worse than here.”

  Dag saw that he had done nothing but cause her further anguish. He hurried to reassure her that he had a plan.

  “No Miss we are not going to orbit. We are going to land the ship on Adowa and set up a base camp until I can refine my spin-two drive.”

  “Land a fusion ship on a planet. Are you crazy Dag?”

  “Everyone seems to think so but I know how we can do it. You see we have an exotic mass-energy generator aboard. And while we can't use it as it was intended, which is to keep a wormhole mouth open, we can use it to cushion, so to speak, a landing on Adowa.”

  “You mean you are going to generate enough negative energy to land on Adowa?”

  “Like a feather,” he said.

  “Dag I know that theoretically, negative mass repels all other masses including the mass of Adowa but I'm not sure it will be as easy to use for what you are planning.”

  Dag was hurt.

  “I've thought about it and did some calculations Miss, it should work. It's just a question of getting the right amount of negative energy generated so as to slow the fusion ships approach but not cause a reaction from the planet. I've calculated it.”

  Ally looked at Dag. Either he was a complete fool or he was some kind of hero. She couldn't imagine anyone else trying such an impossible maneuver.

  “You've calculated it? So it's possible. But Dag, something being possible and something being doable are two different things. You are going to have all these lives in your hands when you operate that wormhole drive. Have you thought what would happen if you mess up?”

  Dag was perplexed, he didn't intend to “mess up”.

  20

  The situation on Adowa was getting desperate. The planet had become increasingly active.

  “Father what will we do now?” asked Jomo's oldest son. “The food is running out and clean water is getting harder to find.”

  “I know son. The underground reservoirs are all becoming polluted by metals from the ground. But we have no choice, we must continue trying as long as we can.”

  Jomo was in despair. He couldn't find a way out for him and his family. The village had been reduced to rubble because of the earthquakes. And now even the solid ground they had found by heading into the hills was beginning to shake. It seemed hopeless.

  They soon abandoned their encampment hoping to find a better area to find food and water.

  Dag was not feeling as confident after talking to Ally. He thought about how he could make his plan even more foolproof. He thought about Walker.

  “Hello Dag,” said Walker.

  “Hello Walker I want to talk to you about my proposal to put the JS1 down on Adowa. And I want your help.”

  “Of course Dag, anything I can do.”

  “Well you understand the mechanics of what I want to do I think?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Okay, I see no reason it won't work, however the management of the negative mass-energy bubble I want to create could be tricky to maintain. I'm afraid it may take more processing power and dexterity than I possess alone.

  “But I think between the two of us we could pull it off. So I'm asking you to run the wormhole drive during the landing while I run the calculations to guide the drives use.”

  “I see Dag,” said Walker somewhat vaguely.

  Dag waited a moment.

  “Well what do you say Walker?”

  “I will try Dag if you will train me
.”

  “It's a deal,” said Dag.

  The JS1 was almost motionless above Adowa. The shuttles had long since left for the surface with most of the crew and passengers aboard. The Captain and a skeleton crew along with Dag and Walker were in the forward control room behind the front mass plate.

  Walker had been able to create the bubble of negative energy which had enveloped the ship and forward momentum had been shed. The crew wheel had been spun down and a strange sense of floating on a cushion had affected all aboard. Walker and Dag were able to ignore the sensation.

  All they needed to do now was set down on the planet. Dag had chosen a landing site in a valley among the hills of northern Galla. According to sub-surface mapping, the ground below this valley was a giant metallic bubble. Much denser than the surrounding land. Dag thought it would be less susceptible to the effects of the disintegrating spacetime than other areas.

  Although negative mass repels other negative masses and positive masses a dense bubble of such will resist dissipation for some time. Negative mass itself is actually attracted to a positive mass like Adowa and the positive mass is repelled. But so large was Adowa's mass compared to the ship that it wouldn't move during the descent.

  Walker was working quickly and silently creating bubble after bubble of negative mass and then casting them in the direction of Adowa. Dag was calling out parameters for Walker to use with the drive. Although each bubble was attracted to the planet the column of bubbles themselves repelled each other. With careful application, Walker and Dag used this column of repulsion to lower the ship toward the planet. No human or two humans could have done the same.

  It was working! They were dropping towards Adowa. At first, the column of bubbles and the ship fell towards Adowa with increasing speed. Walker had to compensate by timing bubble creation and separation precisely. While the column as a whole, including the ship, was attracted to Adowa the individual bubbles repelled each other. As the column built the bubbles began to provide a restraining force on the descent. It was like landing on many layers of foam miles thick and being cushioned as the layers compressed.

  They were close enough to see the landing area. The last few bubbles were either dissipating or being pushed out of the way by the bubbles above. Walker was in constant motion now. Adjusting the ship's bubble to compensate for the shortening column of negative energy bubbles. Dag was now radioing directly to Walker long strings of numbers and parameters continuously.

  Just above the ground, no more than a few feet the last of the bubbles slid aside and Dag called for Walker to cut the ship's generator. The ship fell the last few feet under the ordinary acceleration of gravity and came to a landing with a thud. Though much was thrown about the ship landed in one piece including the long girders that connected the wheel to the fusion engines. Never meant to be set down on the surface of a planet it was remarkably well-positioned and seemed stable.

  Dag unstrapped from his chair and pumped Walker's hand in congratulations.

  Jomo and his family were astounded to see a fusion ship descending at the far end of the valley they were traveling up. They stood in wonder as it seemed to float down from the sky. Jomo standing in front of the others felt a prickle as if he were being enveloped by something. Then he felt himself being thrown from his feet as something rolled over him with a strange hissing sound like air leaking from a tire.

  He looked back and yelled for the family to fall to the ground before they were knocked down. Everyone lay down and soon felt the same strange prickling that Jomo had felt. The children began to cry as the negative energy bubble passed over them dissipating all the while.

  Jomo had sat up after the strange sensation passed but was knocked on his back again when another bubble passed over him. He yelled for everyone to stay down. It was several minutes before the prickling of his skin passed and he sat up again. Nothing knocked him down. He rushed back to help with the children.

  After a brief silence, everyone on the ship began talking at the same time.

  Captain Reynolds immediately assigned his First Officer to inspect the ship from the outside. Meanwhile, he asked for a report by his Chief Engineer on the ship's systems.

  “Sir the isotopics are almost completely drained after the descent. So it will be some time before I can actually start the fusion engine for electric power but there is nothing indicating a problem. All other systems are nominal. As far as ship integrity we will know more after Doug's inspection but so far the stress indicators along the girder backbone show nothing serious. The most serious damage is to the crew wheel where it settled into the ground there is a hull breach. We will have to jack the ship to repair it but for right now we can just seal off that area.”

  “I agree Chief. The wheel is not going to be much use to us except maybe for a few rooms at the lowest point. I want you to focus on getting enough charge in the isotopics to kick off the fusion engines. Then we'll have all the electricity we need.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Dag, Walker and some other crewmen were making their way back from the forward command room along the central girder.

  “The ship and the negative energy bubbles reacted just as you said Dag.”

  “I'm glad Walker but there is a world of difference between theory and practice. Seeing you in action was one of the most memorable sights I believe I've ever seen.”

  “You're most kind Dag.”

  “And you are a hero Walker whether you admit it or not.”

  “So are you Dag.”

  “Look,” said one of the crew.

  There in the distance they could see Jomo and his family approaching the ship. The First Officer appeared to be going out to meet them.

  “Hello there,” said First Officer Sands.

  “Hello, I am Jomo Astatke and this is my family including my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.”

  “And I am First Officer Douglas Sands of the Jump Ship One.”

  “You've landed a fusion ship on a planet. How is that possible?”

  “I'm not sure myself Mr. Astatke. You'll have to ask the physicist Dr. Mach. He was responsible for doing the impossible.”

  “I would like to talk to your physicist about the strange effect we encountered walking up here.”

  “Well come with me Mr. Astatke and I will introduce you to him and the Captain.”

  It had taken a few days to get the energy reserves built up to start the fusion engines. Ally was helping with the startup.

  It's a strange experience for a fusion engineer to run an engine made for the zero-g of space in a gravitational field. It makes a different sound when running under gravity and in an atmosphere as the strong magnetic field that maintains the plasma causes a multimodal vibration in the coils that generate that magnetic field, something that cannot be heard in space. Something that most fusion engineers haven't heard since they trained on a scaled-down version of such an engine during their studies.

  As an electrical generator, the direct drive fusion rocket wasn't too efficient since it was the waste heat from the fusion plasma that powered a Brighton heat engine which in turn powered an electrical generator. The plasma chamber in which fusion took place was run at minimum power with the magnetic nozzle pinched off. Several hundred kilowatts could be extracted from a fusion rocket run in this manner.

  To Ally, the engine sounded like an old washing machine she had heard running at her grandmother's house when she was a child.

  Once the fusion power plant was running there was plenty of electricity to provide heating and lighting to what was becoming an encampment. The six shuttles had settled close to the ship and engineers were busy running power cables to them so that they wouldn't have to use their own engines and fuel supplies for such purpose. Five of the shuttles provided shelter for the crew since most of the crew wheel could no longer be used while the sixth was kept available for scouting the surrounding countryside.

  Dag had been correct in choosing the landing spot. It was n
ot subject to as much disruption as were other areas. He was discussing this and other matters with Jomo.

  “Dr. Mach, I would like to know why you set down on this planet with all its disturbances?”

  “Jomo, although the planet is reacting to the cosmological constant I was telling you about, it is changing more slowly than the space above the planet. The mass of the planet dampens the reaction somewhat. So while it was no longer possible to maintain a fusion ship in the space above we will have more time here on the surface.”

  “But eventually the constant you told me about will come here too?”

  “Eventually Jomo. But I hope to have a solution to that problem before it gets that bad.”

  “How can you solve such a problem?”

  “I need to find out the cause of this change.”

  “I can tell you that.”

  “You can?”

  “Sure back in our village I ran into a refugee from the Union. It turned out to be old President Menelik. He was president when all this started. And he admitted making a deal with the rogue AIs to protect the Union and Adowa. Obviously if they had the power to offer such a deal they must have been the ones behind the damage in the first place.”

  “Sounds logical Jomo. And the change in the local cosmological constant is proceeding much faster than what I would have thought if it were natural. We called it a constant for a reason. If it changes at all it should be slowly over time. Not in a human lifetime anyway.”

  Dag hesitated as he was trying to absorb all this information. Could Jomo be right? But before he could reach a conclusion Jomo spoke up.

  “Dr. Mach did the First Officer tell you about our experience approaching the ship?”

  “A bit, but I wish you would tell me more.”

  “It was strange. I was knocked down by an invisible force but it was soft, almost like a cushion rolling over me. And my skin prickled.”

  “That was the negative energy bubble. It was being repelled by the other bubbles above it and set out down the valley. The prickly skin was probably a result of its dissipation. You see it eventually evaporates away as there are no lines of force to keep it together.”