“I love you too, and I think a double wedding would be terrific,” he replied. He kissed her again, got out of bed, and then started to dress.
“Harry, please be careful and come back to me! You hear?”
“Don’t worry; this trip’s a walk in the park. I love you, Pepper. You’ve made me the happiest man on Earth.”
Pepper rose from the bed, letting him see her beautiful body. “I love you, too. Please stay safe.” They kissed several times, fell back into bed and made love again.
When the afterglow of their lovemaking subsided, Pepper said, “You’ve made me very happy. Mrs. Pepper Stevenson. I like the sound of that.” She kissed him again.
“Last night was the most special of my life. I’m so happy you accepted my proposal. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d said no.”
Leaving her was so hard. He wanted to be with her. He couldn’t help thinking this might be the last time he ever saw Pepper, Wanda or his folks, and it pained him greatly.
Entering the wormhole was only one of the risks his team would face. He was convinced the design was sound. They had successfully completed two fly-through tests with robotic ships without incident. Viruses still nagged him despite the extensive new scanner algorithms and safeguards they incorporated. Would the mole strike again? He wasn’t sure, and that made him all the more anxious.
Chapter 31
Starship Orion
Captain Starling had always been able to count on his experience, intuition and intelligence to guide him through any situation. This mission was different … beyond anything he had ever experienced. He couldn’t control the wormhole, and the sling shot maneuver was risky.
I hope that the new model Stevenson designed will take some of the risk out of the slingshot. Of course, if the wormhole design is flawed, this will be a short trip. Oh, well, that’s why they pay us Space Command guys the big bucks. Starling chuckled to himself then activated the main display screen.
“Mission Control, this is the Starship Orion. All systems are GO, and we’re ready for lift off at your command.”
Marc was the Mission Control flight director. His excitement peaked as the time to lift off approached. He was perspiring profusely and it left him wet and uncomfortable. The stakes were high and he knew his career hinged on its success or failure. “Orion, this is Mission Control. We are initiating wormhole synthesis. Standby for liftoff.”
“Roger, Mission Control.”
“Computer, initiate the wormhole.” Marc commanded. “End coordinates are at Alpha Centauri intercept point beta.” I wish I was in that ship with them. This has to be one of the most historic flights in man’s history. I think we’re getting ready to unlock the exploration of the galaxy for mankind. I’ll never forget this moment as long as I live.
“Working. Wormhole synthesis initiated. Accessing time and spatial coordinates for the bridge. Startup sequence is complete. Design simulation validated. System field and matter synthesizers on-line and data transfer is in process. All systems go.”
Harry studied the star map on his science monitor display as it began to twist and contort to create the Einstein-Rosen Bridge between Earth and AC5. The star map showed Orion at the throat of the wormhole. Harry’s stomach was churning. He took several deep breaths to try to calm down. Everyone else on the bridge seemed to be at ease, busy checking systems status and other important details. If they were nervous, it sure didn’t show. A small blinking message on his console caught his attention. It was Wanda.
‘Good luck, Harry. We’re here if you need us. Validated both models. By the way, I added an additional component. WnP.’
‘Thank you. Got anything for acute butterflies? Ha! H.’
Harry studied Wanda’s new input. What an interesting concept. Wanda’s idea was straight out of basic magnetic theory. Run a current through the hull of the ship, then by adjusting the orientation of the vessel; use the magnetic field of the star to create an outward expulsion force against the hull. She also included a method to couple the power system through the hull and verified that the electronics systems isolators were adequate. The final part of her calculations checked the structural capability of the hull to withstand all of the forces acting on it as part of the overall escape model. Very cleaver, he thought. I’ll send this to the Captain so he can have the Engineers prepare for it.
Awaiting lift off, he thought back on the journey they had been through to get to this point. Since that night on the tower with his dad, this was his lifelong dream. He was scared, excited, nervous and thrilled, all at the same time. He had never had such an adrenalin rush. I’ve never been this excited. I wish Wanda could be on board with me.
The computer broke his thoughts as it announced:
“The Einstein-Rosen Bridge is in place connecting earth with Proxima Centauri five. End-point coordinates have been verified. The wormhole is stable. All systems are ready for launch.”
Tarnak was at his console, making final checks on ship sensor status and wormhole metrics. He turned to look at Harry.
“You know, wormhole travel isn’t new to me, but this is quite different. It’s one thing going through a wormhole using technology proven for over five hundred years — quite another using it for the first time. I’m thrilled to be experiencing such a phenomenal event of Earth history.”
“So am I, and I don’t mind admitting I’m a bit nervous,” Harry said.
“I think I know how our ancestors must have felt when they ventured through the wormhole for the first time. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous or excited. I’ll always treasure this experience. My boys will delight in hearing this story when I get home.”
Marc appeared on the main display. “Captain, we’ve synchronized all navigation, and request downlink of your main display and ship systems data. The star map has been validated and uplinked to you. It should be displayed now.”
“Roger, flight.” Starling replied. “We see the map and have initiated downlink of all display screens. Ship status info will be transmitted real-time.”
“Thank you, Orion. You are now cleared for launch.”
“Roger, flight.” Captain Starling gave the final launch order. “Knuckles … take us in. Give me antigravity level three; activate the inertial dampers, and quarter thrusters. I want to go in dead center. Switch the forward and rear views on the main screens, and the MCC to the utility screen.”
“Aye, Captain. AGL three, dampers on and a quarter thrusters,” he said in a slightly gravelly voice. “Good to be back in the saddle, Captain.” Knuckles experience piloting starships was evident by the ease and precision he employed to gently lift the ship out of the launch port and steer it towards the wormhole’s throat structure.
Harry sat there thinking, I’m positive the design’s on the money. We tested the stability exhaustively; the robotic ships went through without incident, so we should be okay. I think … I hope, we’re ready. It’s a good thing I don’t bite my nails. I wouldn’t have any left.
As the Orion approached the throat of the wormhole, the ship began to bounce around and vibrate as though it were trying to punch through something that didn’t want to be disturbed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Harry, the Orion entered the wormhole. The ship buffeted violently and vibrated, like a small plane flying through a bad storm. Harry tightened his restraining straps. Electrostatic emissions, similar to lightning bolts, occurred between the hull and the wormhole structure, and it worried him. He had not expected that. I hope this quits pretty quick. I’ve never modeled those phenomena. I hope it doesn’t affect the ship or the wormhole. I hate this kind of uncertainty.
The buffeting grew worse as they transited through the throat. Harry’s anxiety built with each jolt he felt. The space-time contortions tossed the big ship around like a toy. The model had not predicted this type of response. Finally, the ship steadied, and its flight path slowly smoothed out. Harry took a deep breath. They had survived the entry!
; Think I know how we can smooth out the entry. I’ll take care of that when we get back. Just need to tweak the math a bit.
“Mission Control, this is Orion, we’ve entered the wormhole and we’re proceeding towards the Oort cloud.”
“Roger, Captain. Good luck,” Marc replied.
“Knuckles, turn off the antigravity system, set internal gravity level one and give me half reaction power. Set main screen to forward view.”
“Aye, Captain. AG off, gravity level one set and half reaction power coming up.”
“Orion, we’re tracking you. Are we in sync on the star maps?”
“Roger, MCC. Everything looks GO here,” the captain, reported.
The starship displays provided a 360-degree view of the space surrounding them. The Earth, in the rear scene was getting smaller and smaller. Pictures were one thing, but seeing it unfold from space, even through the wormholes distortion effects, were special. They quickly entered the Oort cloud, the cloud-like formation of icy debris and gasses surrounding the outer fringes of the solar system.
Once they cleared the Oort cloud, the captain keyed the intercom. “Stand by for full reaction power.”
Starling did a final check of the status boards and then studied the star map.
“Knuckles, take us to full reaction power.”
“Aye, Captain.” Knuckles pushed the throttle of the starship slowly forward.
The main display began to have a strange appearance. As Knuckles increased power, the stars clustered around the middle of the screen and streaks of light moved in a semi- circular pattern towards the sides of the display as the ship accelerated. The interior wormhole structure was weird and irregular shaped. As he looked ahead through the deformed and compressed time-space continuum, the external view showed things rounded, and curving. As their speed stabilized, the star map leveled out and once again, Harry saw the stars whose positions were strangely compressed and oriented in a weird semi-circular pattern around the geometric structure created by the wormhole.
Harry finished his data run and looked over at Knuckles. An interesting and very friendly person, he was about five feet eleven, muscular, with short brown hair and brown eyes. A big scar over the left eyebrow, with stitch marks, accentuated his face. His jaw was square and rugged with a cleft in the middle. The nose was rather flat, and it looked like it had been broken several times.
Harry heard Knuckles had paid his way through the space academy as a bare-knuckle prizefighter. He looks like a Knuckles, Harry thought. He liked the guy. The man’s service record was excellent, with years devoted to space exploration. Decorations for bravery and commendations were definitely not his short suit. It was only a matter of time before he got his own starship command.
Harry finished his first pass of data collection when Tarnak arose from his station and approached the Science Console.
“Well, Harry, are you ready to start the time dilation experiment?”
“I think so. I’ve already synced up the atomic clock with Earth, and I’m running a time analysis through the computer. Since this is our first trip through a wormhole, it’ll be interesting to check the time dilation phenomena.”
Tarnak smiled politely. “Yes, it will be. By the way, are you ready for some lunch? It’s been awhile since we ate. Let’s invite Ivan. We’ve had a few chats, but it would be nice to visit a bit more.”
“Give me a few minutes. I want to discuss that escape model I sent to the captain.”
A few minutes later Harry returned. “Okay let’s go eat.”
“So what did the Captain say about our model?” Tarnak asked.
“He was dubious we would need it, but he agreed to go ahead and implement it.”
The three men filled their trays from the buffet, and sat at a table by a window with a view of the stars.
“Congratulations, Harry,” Ivan said. “We made it through the throat and survived. I don’t mind saying, I was nervous for a while. The way the ship was being tossed around, I wasn’t sure if we were about to get toasted or what.”
“It was a rough ride, that’s for sure. To be honest, my models didn’t predict that or the electrostatic discharges. The good thing is we made it.”
“I second that,” Tarnak said. “Do you have a fix?”
“Yeah. Now that I understand how the system’s reacting, I’m pretty sure I can modify the design equations and correct the problem.”
“Tarnak, I understand you’re from Kandar. Where’s that relative to Earth?” Ivan asked.
“Do you know the location of the star you call Polaris?”
“I do.”
“If you point your telescope on that star, and then train it 0.15 minutes of angle to the right along a horizontal plane cut through the center of Polaris, you’ll find our star. We’re about twenty light-years from Earth. I can give you exact coordinates. Our sun is not quite as bright as Polaris, but you won’t have any problem finding it. Kandar’s approximately the same size as Earth, and we our orbit our sun at about the same distance as you.”
“What do you do on Kandar?” Ivan asked.
“I teach physics at the Kandar International Institute of Technology. Mostly graduate work. What have you been doing?”
“I taught astrophysics and astronomy at the University of Moscow, but for the last five years I’ve been working for the International Astronomy Agency designing Outpost … my lifetime dream.”
“Looks like you’re going to make it happen,” Tarnak said.
“I hope so. It’s been a long time coming. As an astronomer, I’d be very interested in comparing notes on the cosmos,” Ivan said. “One can’t explore it for hundreds of years without amassing a lot of knowledge.”
“When Outpost goes operational you’ll learn many new things as we did when we launched our first deep space telescope three hundred years ago. They’ve really added to our knowledge base. We have ten of them deployed around the galaxy. They’re really a force multiplier when it comes to knowledge accumulation.”
“I understand you’ve had wormhole technology for five hundred years. Have you explored much of the Milky Way?” Harry asked.
“No. It’s over 100,000 light-years across, and our estimates indicate it has over 210 billion stars. We’ve explored the galaxy for hundreds of years and barely scratched the surface. I personally believe it would take several thousand years to just complete a cursory survey of it.”
“Even with wormhole technology?” Ivan asked.
“We get around a lot faster, but the scale of things is almost overwhelming.”
“It’s hard to believe the Milky Way, one of the largest galaxies in the universe, is a mere spot in space when you think of size of the universe itself,” Ivan commented, reflecting on the awe of it all.
“That’s for sure. We’ve measured Quasars out to 14 billion light-years, and we believe there are more than 170 billion galaxies within the known universe,” Tarnak said. He paused, took a bite of his desert and a drink of his coffee. “The scope of it is almost incomprehensible.”
“Well, considering light travels about six trillion miles per year, it blows one’s mind to think about such huge numbers,” Harry said as he shook his head. “Without wormhole technology, we wouldn’t even be able to explore the Milky Way. It’s amazing when you think that using the technologies of early rocketry, even traveling at speeds of over 100,000 miles per hour; it would have taken about thirty thousand years to just to get to Alpha Centauri … a distance of only 4.4 light-years from Earth. Even if you traveled at the speed of light, it would still be a long trip. I doubt anyone would commit to such a journey. Compare that with the fact that our trip through the wormhole will take about one earth day.”
The computer then announced:
“Alert, alert. Black hole detected on bearing 200.45.32. Range is 0.5 light-years. No corrective action required.”
“I’m glad we don’t have to deal with that,” Harry said. “If we didn’t have the ability to detect those th
ings, space travel would be a lot more dangerous than it already is. Black holes are scattered all over the universe. I can only imagine the concern early space travelers had before sensors were available to detect those monsters.”
“Well, Harry, every galaxy has a black hole at its center, so as a minimum there are at least 170 billion of them,” Ivan said, as he took another drink of his coffee. “Some are the big ones … at least a million times the mass of our suns. Heaven only knows how many of the smaller ones are roaming around out there unattached,” Ivan said.
“You know, Tarnak, I find it amazing that in hundreds of years of exploration, Earth is the only other planetary system where you’ve found intelligent life,” Ivan said.
“With at least six billion planetary systems scattered throughout the Milky Way, one would think there would be more than Kandar and Earth. And, perhaps there are. We’ve discovered life on many planets … most of it extremely primitive and very hostile with minimal intellectual capability. We’ve done little more than survey such worlds. We wouldn’t dare risk our people in such a landing.”
“I understand you routinely use dark matter and dark energy — not only for spaceship propulsion, but for a host of other things,” Ivan said.
“We converted to it about two hundred years ago. Dark energy has some very interesting implications. I understand some young Earth doctorate student, Carmen Anne Stevens, from MIT addressed that subject recently in her thesis. It was a brilliant piece of work. Have either of you seen it?”
“No. I’ve seen abstracts. I want to access the complete paper as soon as we get back,” Ivan replied.
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