“Sorry Sigmund, this is it.”
Sigmund looked about. How was he to drag Walker and the doctor? He had to find some way to tie Walker to the stretcher. The only things available were the makeshift restraints he and Walker had made from the airplane seats. One of them would have to do.
Sigmund took a restraint off the doctor's body and best as he could he looped it around Walker's torso and under his arms. He then tied it to the stretcher. When all was ready he picked up his end of the stretcher and started to drag the two behind him.
We can't be much farther from the border of this craziness. It has to end soon.
Sigmund walked as fast as he could pulling a load much greater than his own weight. He had no perception of strain except that revealed by his falling power levels. He had no choice he wouldn't leave either of them behind.
It wasn't long until Sigmund was in danger. His efforts were draining his reserves fast. He stopped and put down the stretcher. He sat down in the mud. He would power all his systems down except for the radio transmitter. He would allow it to repeat it's message over and over at full power until his reserves were gone. It wouldn't matter, in deep shutdown he wouldn't know when his reserves hit zero.
Sigmund opened his eyes to see Dag staring back.
“How are you Sigmund?”
“Everything seems normal. Where am I?”
“We're at a hotel near the airport we flew into Sigmund. You are in your room at the hotel.”
“Where is Walker?”
“He's in his room, I'm not sure he's powered up yet.”
“And Dr. Zenawi?”
“They have him at the hospital. You know humans require a lot more attention to get back online than we do.”
“How did I get here Dag?”
“You're decision to put all your power reserves into the emergency signal did it. You were close enough to the edge of that area that I was able to pick up your signal and drag all of you out of there. It wasn't long until a government detachment showed up because the pilots hadn't reported in. They brought us all here.”
“That region Dag. It's like the same mechanism that destroyed the habitat's back in the Centauri and Solar Systems years ago isn't it?”
“Yeah it is similar Sigmund. Except that the energy needed to finish the job here was cut off when the link broke. The nonlocal link the lab had with the system near the Crab Nebula terminated before the energy reached the necessary levels. Could be a clue to link management.
“But it definitely shows one thing.”
“What Dag?”
“The power of that distant object whatever it is must be tremendous. Far beyond anything we've ever encountered. I calculated that it must be something on the order of ten to the twenty-six megawatts.”
“Ten to the twenty-six megawatts? That's a million times the power given off by the Earth's sun Dag. How is that possible?”
“I can think of no other way than the object the lab found is harvesting energy from a black hole.”
5
The New Gallan government received the report from the three investigators in a closed-door session of its High Council. By the following afternoon, the faces of Dag, Sigmund and Walker and their secret testimony were all over the media.
“Intrepid Trio Discover Fantasy World” - The New Gallan Standard
“Block Universe Invasion, Are We All Doomed?” - Today's Headlines
“Government Denies Aliens Discovered” - The Truth Magazine
The day after the hearing Sigmund and Walker were waiting for Dag in the hotel lounge.
“Sigmund,” said Walker. “I've perused a dozen of this world's leading media outlets. None of them even come close to the truth of the hearings. Why is that?”
“The hearings are boring facts. The headlines are imaginative propaganda Walker. They're written to be more likely to draw attention and be more fun.”
“Yes, humans seem desperate sometimes for fun.”
“What are you two talking about?”
“Hello Dag. Walker and I were just discussing the seemingly human need to put a spin on every fact. I was just saying it is for attention and fun.”
“Could be Sigmund. I take it you mean the hearings?”
“That's right.”
“Well I just came from our government contact. They informed me that the government on Earth is dealing with something like the area we searched and that while my contact assures me they appreciate what we've discovered so far they insist that we investigate further to determine if we can expect future occurrences of a similar nature.”
“How do we do that Dag?”
“I don't know Walker.”
The three were silent for a moment.
Sigmund spoke up, “Does either of you have any conjecture as to the origin of those chunks of New Adowa we saw scattered around that area?”
“I do Sigmund,” said Walker. “And I don't think they were New Adowa.”
“No? Then what were they?”
“Those chunks as you called them are pieces of other worlds from other local and nonlocal links.”
“Why do you say that Walker?”
“Well Dag those puzzle pieces of planets we saw were all dry and orderly, except for being gouged out of their locality, weren't they?”
“Yes I believe they were.”
“Well then they couldn't have come from the area we were in because it was a complete mess. And they couldn't have come from anywhere else on New Adowa otherwise we would have heard about it.”
“So they came through their own links?”
“Yes Sigmund. Somehow they were blasted out of other planets and ended up on New Adowa by the same method the spin-two drive uses to open up links for traversal.”
“That's pretty fantastic Walker. The only way we could prove it is to go back into that crazy quilt world again and get samples. But if what you are saying is true, then the energy of that blast opened up some quite distant nonlocal links because there aren't that many planets close by.”
“Go back in there Dag? I'm not sure I'm that crazy.”
Sigmund nodded in agreement.
“Don't worry Walker I think we can get a government escort this time. Should make the trip a little bit more pleasant.”
Walker was horrified. Sigmund, knowing Dag much longer, was simply resigned.
The trip back into the area had gone smoothly. Dag using his entanglement detector was able to determine the general location of the disturbance. The government escorts fanned out and soon found signs of the area. They went in and took samples and got out quickly without incident.
The samples brought back proved that the specimens were not from New Adowa and indeed may not even have been related to each other. In other words, they could have originated on multiple worlds.
Upon hearing the results the three were in deep discussion.
“How Dag? How could the discharge or whatever it was have opened up all those links and then brought those very large portions of other planets back to this world.”
“Opening up the links wouldn't have been hard Sigmund if there were a good bit of negative energy in what you call the discharge. I'm sure Walker would agree.”
“Yes that's possible but the links opened would be random I would think.”
“So?”
“So we saw a lot of different terrains, it almost seems to me that the links all opened to other planets. Not random at all.”
“Well there could have been many links that opened only upon empty space. So with a large enough number of links the ones that opened to other worlds would be statistically insignificant although numerous.”
“That's possible Dag but even so, now we have to explain how the chunks were scooped out of those worlds.”
“They were carved out of those worlds deliberately,” said Sigmund.
“What makes you say that Sigmund?”
“You remember, don't you Dag, that we ran into that group of rogue AI when we were w
orking with Miss Emmy? You remember how they could carve out a section of spacetime and banish it to a baby universe?”
“Yes I remember Sigmund. Dr. Gibbs learned how to restore those sections to this universe.”
“So did Dag,” added Walker.
“Well maybe you use a similar idea to carve out those pieces of planets we saw, except this time they are brought here not banished to a baby universe. I believe a self-confined plasma was used to accomplish the task.”
“Maybe you're right Sigmund,” said Dag. “The rogue AIs could certainly use self-confined plasma and even we, that is Dr. Elias Mach and Dr. Gibbs learned how to manipulate it.”
“You two realize that if you are correct then this disaster wasn't an accident,” said Walker.
“Yeah,” said Dag. “And that means there is an intelligence behind it. Obviously malevolent.”
It was in the hotel lobby the next day where the three found themselves that Dag opened up the discussion.
“I've been thinking about what we should do next.”
“Yes Dag,” said Sigmund.
“I think we should try to come up with a way to reopen the same or a similar link into the Dhalka System.”
“Dhalka?” said Sigmund.
“Yes that's what the astronomers have named the system near the Crab Nebula. Anyway, the link should be opened in such a way that it can go unnoticed by any intelligence watching for such a link.”
“Yes Dag, we're listening.”
“Well obviously after working with Walker I think we should head up the project.”
“And me?” asked Sigmund.
“With your obvious gifts as a communicator, you will be the media and government liaison Sigmund.”
“I see,” said Sigmund, though he was suspicious of the complement.
To make sure they were on the same page Dag reviewed the operation of the spin-two drive with Walker beginning with Elias Mach's wormhole generator.
“What we've added to the wormhole drive follows from loop quantum gravity* Walker. To review. As you know although it may seem smooth and continuous, a liquid is just the collective motions of myriads of water molecules. At the atomic level it is discrete, it is only because of the huge numbers of molecules and their tiny size that we see a liquid as continuous.
“Similarly in LQG there is a quanta of volume which is extremely small, on the order of the Planck scale, and so numerous that spacetime appears smooth and continuous to our senses. Now because of our difficulties dealing with such a large collection of objects we must resort to statistics to describe their collective actions. Like the temperature of a body of water is a thermodynamic property derived from the statistical spread of molecular motion. Some molecules in the water are moving very fast while other molecules are moving very slow but the vast majority are moving at speeds around the mean which we call the temperature.
“Something similar holds for quanta of volume but that is not the most interesting feature. What is most interesting is that the same distribution holds for the links, or the loops in LQG, that connect the volume quanta. Most of the links are around the mean, most are local and this is why we have the illusion that everything must be in contact, whether physically or through an intermediate field, to have a cause and effect.
“But the links far from the mean, the ones we would consider nonlocal, are the real interesting ones. It is possible that a link between nodes of volume could have been established early in the history of the universe and then the nodes separated. Somewhere across the universe then could be an entangled quanta of volume corresponding to a local quanta of volume. These are the links we can use to send information and mass over vast distances, far greater than the wormhole drive by itself can.
“Now the problem is to find out how to locate these links in the quantum foam. The solution is that since the quanta of volume that anchors the links are relatively calm, that is they do not move about in the churning sea of quanta, a cancellation technique can be used to find them. Simply ignore any object in the quantum foam that moves or pops in and out of existence too fast.
“So in summary. The difficulty we face is a consequence of statistics. The distant nonlocal links simply are not as abundant as more local links so the drive usually finds and opens a local link.”
“Excellent summation Dag, it is a daunting task isn't it? And just remember it is estimated that there is one link per cubic nanometer of space. So in one meter of space, there is ten to the ninth times ten to the ninth times ten to the ninth or ten to the twenty-seventh links in a cubic meter.
“And somewhere in that billion billion billion links are a few nonlocal ones at the distance and direction we desire. Or those few are in the next meter of space we investigate or the next meter or . . .”
“I get what you are saying Walker.”
Dag shook his head.
“We should have taken Sigmund's job.”
6
The layered hemispheres, when assembled into a sphere, were about the size of a basketball. Supported by a rotating magnetic field which also caused the sphere to rotate, all was ready.
Dag turned on the power generator. He noticed the mass oscillations of the sphere on his Emmie*. The mass of the Mach layer oscillated in sympathy with the driving voltage of the actuator layer.
The necessary ramp up voltage was programmed in. Dag had only to tap the screen and the Mach layer would shield the inner layer of the sphere from the universal mass thereby creating a large exotic mass that would normally be used to pluck a wormhole mouth out of the quantum foam and enlarge it. Except that now it would be used to find and test nonlocal links.
Walker had come up with the idea. If he was right they would be able to find nonlocal links much faster and they would be able to organize them according to distance. He had taken Dag's idea about the relative stability of the links and expanded it. His theory was that the longer the link the more the local end would vibrate. By characterizing the length of the link and its relative stability Walker was hoping that he and Dag could make an atlas of links with their origin and destination coordinates.
When ready Dag would project the large exotic energy, essentially a bubble of self-attracting negative energy, above the machine, just as he had years earlier in his original experiment, where it would open the local end of a link. Once the link was enlarged Walker would use the telescopic camera to take pictures through the link of the far end. Ems would then study these images to place them and the link's far end in space.
“Ready Walker?”
“Ready Dag?”
Dag tapped the screen. The voltage ramped up almost immediately. The electric generator groaned. A wind whipped through the lab. The light from the sphere was blinding and then it blinked. The release of energy was palpable.
The air shimmered as the bubble of exotic energy formed and soon found a link's end. The link opened.
Dag saw the indicators on the Casimir device.
“You see anything yet Walker?”
“Not yet Dag, another minute.”
Walker maneuvered the telescope. He got an image.
After a few minutes, he said, “I've got it Dag. Several images in fact. Let's get them to the Ems and see what they come up with.”
The Ems were a group of AI's that hired out as data analysts. The image analysis returned a location for each telescopic capture and this was paired with a number which represented the amplitude and frequency of vibration of the near end of the link. Several days of almost continual link analysis and they had enough samples to prove Walker's conjecture.
“Congratulations Walker you were right.”
“Thank you Dag.”
“There is a definite relationship between distance and the vibrational energy of a links endpoint. So once we refine our data a bit more we should be able to pick out just a few links to open in the direction and at the distance we want.”
While Sigmund held meetings with government officials and generated posi
tive press for their efforts, Walker and Dag worked day and night to fill their atlas of nonlocal links. They were meeting one evening to discuss the work. Sigmund was pushing the other two for more openness with the results.
“Remember Dag it was you who gave me the job of publicizing this work.”
“I know Sigmund but I thought we would only be dealing with the government. Now you want to make it public and set up a money-making corporation? I just don't know.”
“I don't know Dag, Sigmund has a point. More funding would allow us to buy more hardware and employ more Ems to classify the links faster.”
“Yes Walker but I think both of you forget that the government is our first and foremost customer. We wouldn't be doing this without their interest and funding.”
“What does that have to do with what I am proposing? We can deliver what the government wants and make a little money. Didn't you just say that you were about to deliver the links they need to monitor the object in the Dhulka System?”
“Yes we have several candidate links that might provide the view needed to monitor that area but I'm not sure what the government will think about our money-making endeavor, which I think you will agree, is built on their funding.”
“But it won't be for long if you let me get some other customers for other links. After all we don't have to share the coordinates of the links we discovered for the government with anyone.”
“I think he's right Dag. It won't be long until we deliver what the government wants. They can monitor those links or we can do it for them while we move on to commercialize our discovery. We're going to need that money when the government job runs out.”
No matter their efforts at persuasion, Dag was still hesitant. They took a vote and commercialization won, two to one. The company Universal Links was born.
The fundamental product of the company would be supplying links to fulfill a customer's request for information. For instance, a commercial company might ask for links that would open up a path to an asteroid belt or comet cluster that the company might mine. Academics would want links to areas of interest in their research. Because of the nature of nonlocal links the view, unaffected by the intervening space, out to thousands of light-years was incomparable.
Empire of Stars Page 3
