Vorpal Blade (ARC)

by John Ringo

  * * *

  ". . . A gravitational standing wave," Berg said.

  Most of the Marines in the compartment were either sticking their heads out of their racks or were out of them listening, since the Nugget seemed to know what he was talking about.

  "What in the grapp is a grav . . ." Lujan asked.

  "It's . . ." Berg paused and shrugged. "It's what you felt. It's sort of like a wave that stays in one place. If it's gravity, you get pulled this way and that. I'm glad it wasn't any stronger than what we hit. I mean, the shearing stress could have torn the ship apart."

  "That's great to hear," Crowley said sarcastically. "But what was that thing that happened with . . . Did anybody else think the air tasted . . . yellow?"

  "I thought it tasted red," Clay from Third Platoon said. The lance corporal shook his head. "I can't believe I just said that."

  "I don't know what that was," Berg admitted. "I've heard of the effect; it's called synesthesia. I've heard of it before but I never thought I'd experience it. I think I puked up a soprano note."

  "I got the smell like green," Tanner from Third said.

  "It was a dimensional jump," Top said from the hatchway. "But good job on the rest of it, Berg. I was dreading explaining gravitational standing waves. As for the dimensional jump, nobody and I do mean nobody, from the lowest engine tech up to Commander Weaver knows why it happened for sure."

  He stepped into the compartment and made his way down to the center.

  "For your general information, we're about ten light-years off course. For Crowley's benefit, that's a long way. And we made that jump in about a minute and a half if we can trust the clocks. The good news is that we're still in the same universe. The command group is trying to figure out what to do about both problems, being off course and the grav waves at system edge, right now. And we're going to leave it up to them because we are Marines not ship commanders or astrogators. Second Platoon, you're on rest cycle. First and Third, you're up. You've got training schedules, get with them. Anybody who is not supposed to be in their rack had better be out of that rack by the time I leave the compartment."

  Berg pulled his head back in as First and Third started throwing themselves out of their bunks, sucking up to the walls to let Top past.

  "Synesthesia, huh?" Hattelstad said. "You know, I'm reconsidering this whole Space Marine thing. This maulk never happened to those guys in Aliens. All they had to worry about was being impregnated by an alien monster."

  "Hey, day's young," Jaenisch said. "I think that's on the training schedule for tomorrow."

  "All hands! Stand by for chill!"

  "Ah, hell . . ."

  * * *

  "All hands, all hands, stand by for chill," the 1-MC announced. "Microgravity in five seconds. We Be Chilling!"

  "They're chilling," Dr. Aaron Ratliff said, closing the connections on his suit gloves. "We have to work."

  He grasped a stanchion as the gravity faded to nothing, then cautiously donned his last glove.

  "Apparently Dr. Becker's theories on the interstellar gravity aren't just the ravings of a deluded madman," Beach said, pulling the astrophysicist over to check his connections. "You're good."

  "Stand by for door opening sequence," Ratliff said, pushing himself gently to the far wall. The air lock had two door controls, one on either side of the compartment. Both required a keycode and both had to be activated within a fraction of a second of each other for the door to open.

  On submarines, outer hatches were set up so that they could only open outward. One reason for this was that the pressure was better managed that way; the pressure seated the hatch instead of trying to push it open. The other reason, though, was a tad more subtle. Sometimes people cracked under "pressure" as it were. And sometimes they very much wanted out, to the point of attempting to open the hatches.

  One of the biggest refits on the SSBN Nebraska had been installing remote controls on all the hatches. It was impossible to refit them all so that they opened inwards, thus preventing such "accidental" openings when in vacuum. But the three true air locks on the boat had to have two people open them. And the inner doors could not be opened simultaneously, the only exception being during a declared emergency.

  The last thing anyone wanted was an "accidental" venting of the spaceship.

  "Venting to death pressure," Beach said, entering his code. "Pressure check."

  "Nominal," the astrophysicist replied.

  "Keycode entered," Beach said.

  "Same same," Becker said.

  "And three, two, one . . ."

  Both twisted the hatch controls as close to simultaneously as human reactions and quantum theory allowed, and the air lock door opened outwards.

  Everette pulled himself out the door one-handed, then spun to face outwards. When he was aligned he punched the controls on the air-pack and was puffed gently away from the boat.

  "How far?" Beach asked. "I'd say that a thousand meters should do it."

  "Until we don't pick up gravitational effects from the boat," Becker replied. "Which I'm still picking up."

  "Sure it's not from you?" Everette asked.

  All bodies exert gravity. Just as the Earth "pulls" a person down, the person's body exerts gravitational effect on the Earth, pulling it ever so slightly "upwards." Newton had demonstrated this with a couple of balls of lead and springs back in the 1800s.

  The device Dr. Becker carried was essentially the same thing, a device for measuring gravity, if much much more accurate. But the very presence of the scientists was going to affect the measurements, much less the much larger mass of the boat.

  "Quite," Becker replied. "We'll go out to a thousand meters, then check. If there's still noticeable effect from the boat we may need to use a probe."

  * * *

  "Okay, I'm going to admit to ignorance," Miller said.

  With the boat in "chill" mode, activity was discouraged. Most systems were shut down, the engines were shut down and people were encouraged to find a quiet place to sit and generate the minimum heat possible. In the meantime the silica heat sinks were extended from their tubes and folding heat vanes popped up, dissipating the maximum heat possible.

  And it was very possible. The area that the boat currently rested in was at a temperature very close to absolute zero. Between the minor air and liquid leakage that was unavoidable with the Blade and the vanes on the heat sinks, the built-up waste heat was sucked out like a kid going at a milk shake.

  In the meantime, it was a great time to talk. The crew and mission specialists took it as "off duty" time and Miller was dressed appropriately in one of his Hawaiian shirts and cargo shorts. He also was floating in midair and the shirt tended to ride up, showing a stomach that was roped with scars.

  "Go," Weaver said, taking a sip from his bulb of cola. He'd much prefer beer but the "Alliance" ships still had a regulation against it. He'd stayed in uniform precisely because it was a better outfit for microgravity.

  "What's the deal with gravity being different between the stars?" Miller asked.

  "Bent space," the Adar said, taking a sip of cola. Which in Weaver's opinion was just unfair. Caffeine had an effect similar to alcohol on the Adar so Tchar was, for all practical purposes, having a beer.

  "Which tells me exactly . . ." Miller said.

  "Well, we've sort of gotten beyond Einstein's theories at this point," Bill said, "but they still sort of work to explain. First of all imagine a rubber sheet stretched off to infinity. Flexible and thin, like latex."

  "Got it," Miller said.

  "Big sheet of latex and more or less perfectly flat," Bill continued. "Now, take a metal ball and set it on the sheet. What happens?"

  "If it's heavy enough it sinks in," Miller said.

  "Right," Bill said. "But what happens to the sheet?"

  "It gets sort of bulged down," Miller said, frowning. "So?"

  "That's a planet," Bill said. "Or a star or a galaxy if it's a big enough sheet. And anything that g
ets close?"

  "It sort of rolls down to the ball," Miller said, nodding. "Okay, gravity makes sense. But what's the thing with between stars . . . ?"

  "What if the sheet isn't actually flat?" Bill asked. "Say if there's like air being blown up under it?"

  "I don't get that one," Miller admitted.

  "Near planets and even suns, the sheet acts as if it is flat," Tchar said, taking another sip of cola. "But as you get away from that influence, it acts more as if it is . . . bulging up. There is inertial resistance throughout the interstellar space. This may be due to reduced interference with Lilarmaurg particle generation. Theoretically."

  "Lilar—What?"

  "One of their scientists," Bill replied. "Lilarmaurg particles are similar to what we refer to as zero point energy, but Lilarmaurg proved the existence of his particles while ZPEs are still debated. However, just because you know that a particle exists doesn't mean you can do anything with it or even produce it. And even after five years we're still trying to get some merging in our two physics approaches. Anyway, there's some indications that as you leave the solar regions there is sort of a hill you have to climb to get to the next solar region. And we've more or less proven that there's a disturbed zone between the two regions."

  "Ten casualties proven," Miller said. "So how'd we get so far off course?"

  "Ain't got a clue," Bill admitted. "You're going to have to ask Mimi that one."

  "Dimensional shift," Mimi said. "Are you sure you want to talk about this now?"

  "When you're talking I can concentrate on something besides my stomach," Miriam said.

  "There are things you can take . . ." Mimi told her.

  "I've got really bad reactions to most drugs," Miriam said. "Dimensional shift."

  "There are multiple dimensions . . ."

  "Ten according to the last thing I read on it," Miriam said.

  "Well, that depends on whose model you use. Dr. Weaver, Tuffy, and I could explain things better from eleven, but that is another story. I didn't know you knew that much about topology and mathematical physics." Mimi's brow furrowed. "Do you have a doctorate in it?"

  "I don't even have a doctorate in linguistics," Miriam said, chuckling. "But that's because I can't stand school. I just hate sitting in class. But I read all the time and can do tensor calculus in my head."

  "How many languages can you speak?" Mimi asked curiously.

  "Thirty-seven fluently," Miriam said. "About ten more enough to get around. I generally take about thirty minutes to get to that point. Admiral Avery said that I was the first person he'd ever met better at languages than he was. I picked up Adar in about two hours. I was working with a scientific translation team when I got asked to go on this mission. They were willing to take me even though I have . . . issues because if we do run into an alien species . . . Well, the Adar were trying hard to get translation going when we first met them but we still have translation problems both ways. A totally alien species, especially one that's not as interested in communicating as the Adar . . . Dimensional shift."

  "There are ten known dimensions plus one for time and something like infinite universes," Mimi continued. "Theoretically, it takes infinite power to enter either. But . . . Well, I've been in another universe and so has Dr. Weaver."

  "I don't know him," Miriam said.

  "He's the boat's navigator," Mimi said. "But he's a doctor, too. Physics and some other stuff. We've both spent time out of, well, this universe. I don't remember much about it but I recognized the effect. You have to shift dimensions to do that according to the theory. So we got pulled out of this universe into another dimension, maybe into another universe, then back in. Really, we could have ended up anywhere in the universe. Every point on the edge of a universe, theoretically, connects to every other point in an adjoining universe."

  "Knew that one, modified Higgs field, right? I have read one of your papers. I must have missed the eleventh dimension one." Miriam said, nodding.

  "So that's the deal." Mimi shrugged. She pushed herself gently across the compartment and pulled out a bulb of juice. "Want something to drink?"

  "Don't," Miriam said, holding up her hand and looking away. "Just . . . don't. You can have it, but try to keep the sucking sound down."

  Tuffy launched himself off the girl's shoulder and landed expertly on the woman's. Crawling up under her long hair he began rubbing at her neck.

  "That's helping," Miriam said, blinking her eyes in surprise. "Thank you, Tuffy."

  "Sure you don't want something to drink?" Mimi asked.

  "I will when the gravity comes back on," Miriam said, closing her eyes. "Right now I'm just going to let Tuffy give me a neck rub. . . ."

  * * *

  "Dr. Becker?" Beach asked.

  "Yes, Dr. Beach?" Becker said.

  "Well?"

  "Simply put, I don't believe the readings," Becker said. "I would suggest we go back to the boat. I would like to ask if we could move somewhat farther away, then come back and get a reading. We needn't recover the gravitometer. In fact, I'd like to leave it here if we could find it again."

  "We can do that," Beach said. "Blade, EVA," he said, changing channels.

  "Go EVA."

  "Returning to the boat. Please inform the captain, with his permission, that we'd like to move the boat somewhat away and then come back to get more readings."

  "Will do, EVA."

  10

  Interesting is a Word

  with So Many Connotations

  "Well, that is interesting," Weaver said, looking at the readings.

  "Amazing," Becker replied. "It explains so much and yet . . ."

  "And yet," Weaver said. "If we could publish this it would have half the astrophysics community screaming in horror. I'm trying to figure out how many theories you just turned into confetti, Dr. Becker."

  "Could someone explain in words of no more than one syllable?" the captain said. "And possibly tell me how it affects our mission?"

  "Well, getting in and out of star systems is going to be hard," Bill said. "That wasn't just an effect we're going to find near the bow shock. The up side is that now that we have these readings, I think I can figure out how to pilot through . . ."

  "Mass," Dr. Becker said. "I can see where you're going with that, but the mass of planets is going to affect the turbulence zone."

  "Surfing," Bill said.

  "Tough," Becker replied.

  "Would someone please . . ." the captain said.

  "It was assumed that space was flat," Dr. Beach said, holding up a hand placatingly. "These readings indicate that beyond the gravitational effect of a star, more or less around the heliopause although that will be different for different suns, space bends sharply upwards. Oh, not compared to a planet's well, but quite noticeably. Gravity and momentum take on completely different forms. At the juncture of those two zones there is a disturbance zone. We already experienced the effects."

  "And that's around all suns?" the XO said, horrified. "All the way around?"

  "Uh, huh," Bill replied, forgetting for a second that he was an officer in the military and enjoying the intellectual puzzle. "A sphere around them. Around some of them it's going to be spectacular. The really massive ones are going to have one hell of a transition zone. It's almost like a big defense barrier around planets. I think we're going to lose the Voyagers in about twenty more years. But I have to respectfully disagree with Dr. Becker. The main mass we have to think about is the star of each system. If we know the star's mass, we can compute the gravity effect. Do we have any records from the transition zone around the sun?"

  "Lots," Becker said, nodding. "I'll do a comparison and see if you are on target, Doctor."

  "These waves are broad," Bill continued. "On the order of a half light-year for the really strong ones. If we can determine the period, well . . . Then it's just a matter of surfing."

  "Catch the wave?" the captain asked.

  "Probably approach the zone and drop to normal
space," Bill said, nodding. "Right when we hit the first wave. Then time the period and hit the warp. Depending on the star, we set the warp to match the periods. We'll be skipping through a series of waves, then hitting the next one in period. The waves are probably going to give us a smidgeon of extra speed. I'll have to compute that. But if it works it will only be about ten minutes that we're in most transition zones. It may be rough, but not as rough as the last trip."

  "If it works," the XO said. "And if it doesn't?"

  "Then we drop to normal space and limp home," Bill said. "Warp to Sol's transition zone and drive through slow."

  "How many hours?" the CO asked.

  "Take us about a month to make it through," Bill said. "How we fixed for food?"

  * * *

  "Permission to . . ." Mimi said, then paused, looking in the hatch to the conn.

  "Enter the conn," the CO said, looking over his shoulder. "Is this a social call, miss?"

  "I . . . You're going to try to enter the Eridani transition zone, sir," Mimi said shyly. "I was wondering if I could . . . sit in. Sir."

  The captain regarded her calmly for a moment, then nodded.

  "Take my seat," the captain said, gesturing with his head. "I'll just hold on."

  "Thank you, sir," Mimi said, walking over and sitting in the chair.

  "Where's Tuffy?" Bill asked, not looking up from his screens.

  "With Miriam," Mimi said.

  "So he's not giving any hints about this?" Bill said. "Damn."

  "No, it's just me, Dr. Weaver." Mimi grinned. "Does that bother you?"

  "A lot," Bill admitted. "I would love for Tuffy to tell me I know what the hell I'm doing."

  "Can I look?" Mimi asked.

  "Go ahead," Bill said.

  Mimi walked over and looked at the equations on the screen.

  "The problem as I see it is that the boundary of the warped spacetime around the boat is a smooth transition while the spacetime in the disturbed region is sharply fluctuating. Is it a continuous function?"

  "As far as our instruments can tell, the fluctuations are continuous but with random functionality. Perhaps it's a period three superposition on a Henon map." Weaver scratched his head.