New Title 1 (39 page)

“All right,” Dr. Silver said when everyone had reached the constructs and the workstation. “You all remember when Dr. Rios explained that it was discovered that applying energy to quantum particles served to change their quantum vibration? That’s essentially what we do here… this is the core of the entire process. We start with this laser, here,” she said, patting the rectangular construct next to her.

“Not just… a
laser
, laser… right?” Reya asked.

“Correct,” Dr. Silver nodded. “That’s just the colloquial name for it. It’s full name is ‘compound energized particle amplifier and emitter,’ or CEPAE… not the most elegant of acronyms, unfortunately. Without going into the technical details, it’s a compound beam system that starts out with a laser beam at its base. Then it injects energized particles, tuned to a specific frequency and orientation, into the beam to create a compound beam of charged particles focused along the laser. It is those particles that impart the change in quantum frequency to the target.”

Everyone’s eyes focused on the spherical construct, and Dr. Silver gestured towards it. “Yes, the target is a crystal in the chamber, there, formed and doped in such a way as to provide subatomic conduits for the tuned particles from the beam. This is actually the most significant part of the process.”

“How so?” Julian asked.

“Without mastering this part of the process,” Silver explained, “all we’d manage to do with the CEPAE would be to translate the target point—the center of the crystal—to a new location. So we have to apply a carefully-tuned field to the doped crystal, at the same moment that the CEPAE imparts the change in frequency and orientation, both of which cause the crystal to broadcast that frequency change outward, instantaneously, in a reflected wave. It is that signal that triggers the simultaneous change of frequency and orientation to every particle in Verdant, and causes the entire satellite to translate to another location at once.”

“How does everything know to stay together?” Dr. Silver turned to Reya, who had asked the question. “I mean, what keeps us from arriving at a new location as just a big atomic cloud, instead of ourselves?”

“Apparently,” Dr. Silver replied, “quantum entanglement deals with the issue of holding every particle in place, remembering what it is connected to and how, and maintaining that connection through translation.”

“
Apparently
?” Julian and Reya simultaneously repeated.

Dr. Silver’s eyes stirred at their emphasis of the word, and perhaps for the first time, she looked as though there were things in this world that she, too, still had to learn. “I’m afraid there are a lot of the details of quantum mechanics that we have to take on evidence, though we don’t know the exact mechanism of their function. Maintenance of the original state through quantum entanglement is one of those things.” After a pregnant pause, during which everyone silently stared back at her, she added in defense of the process, “The test-bed demonstrated proof of concept…”

“I’m feeling distinctly sterile again,” Reya complained, and threw a testy glance at Silver, then at Julian.

Julian, catching the glance, decided to steer the conversation away from the barely-understandable mechanics of the process. “I take it that this system can be…” He paused, and looked at Dr. Silver. “I suppose ‘steered’ would be the literally incorrect word to use, but just for the sake of understanding.”

Dr. Silver nodded. “Yes, we can control the direction of translation, as well as the distance, by making alterations in the field. Verdant itself does not have to be ‘aimed’ or oriented in any particular direction.”

“How many times can you use this system before something needs to be replaced?” Julian asked. “I’m assuming something in here must burn out eventually.”

“Well, the CEPAE is rated to be fired approximately 400 times at this level of output before needing service,” Dr. Silver told him. “We haven’t yet worked out the failure rate for the crystal, but presently we estimate about a dozen firings before we need to replace it. The good news is, we can grow new crystals on Verdant… we grew this one here. But it does take upwards of a month to grow one crystal this size, so we’ll need to keep one stored at all times for its eventual replacement. Then the spent crystal can be used as a seed for a new crystal.”

“How far can we go?” Julian asked.

“We don’t know, yet,” Dr. Silver replied. “We determined we could go this far, by sending the test-bed here and back. We suspect that we can travel literally to the ends of the universe with this system… the amount of energy used during translation doesn’t seem to be a limiting factor.”

“You can go any distance, with the same amount of energy?” Reya goggled. “Now, even if everything else you’ve said
didn’t
sound impossible, that part does.”

“It’s one of the more interesting aspects of quantum physics,” Dr. Silver shrugged. “Distance isn’t the factor that it is in Einsteinian space. But there are other factors that may be involved.”

“Like what?” Julian asked.

“You’ll be sorry,” Reya sing-songed.

Dr. Silver allowed Reya’s comment to roll off, before she replied. “Remember, Dr. Rios mentioned that the quantum vibration is different at different distances from the Origin Event.” Julian nodded. “When we translate from one place to another, it changes our quantum frequency, or internal vibration, to that of the new location. Well, there is speculation among scientists that a significant change in quantum vibration will cause fundamental changes in the way particles interact. How they share and use energy… how they influence other particles… how much energy is needed to do certain jobs. Some scientists believe that, after a particular frequency is reached, objects and processes formed by quantum particles lose all coherence. Objects break down. Physics breaks down. Reality itself breaks down. If that’s true, then there is a natural limit to how far we can travel, before we end up as Eo Luis’ atomic cloud.”

“That sounds bad,” Reya said sarcastically. “How do we know how far we can go?”

“Sending out test-beds ahead of us, as probes, will always answer that question,” Dr. Silver replied easily. “It would be a sensible thing to do before we translate Verdant, at any rate, to make sure there was no mistake in calculations, or to identify any physical obstacles or other unexpected anomalies that would be dangerous to us. And we can always send out test-beds as far as we can, set to take readings and come back. Any that don’t come back are obviously in an area that may not be conducive to our survival.”

“Here there be dragons,” Reya intoned. Then she paused, looking at Julian, and the unusual glint in his eyes. “Hey, you’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking…”

“He is,” Dr. Silver said, eyeing Julian. “And he’s
right
. Yes, we can use this system to take Verdant almost anywhere within a significant portion of the known universe. Our quantum translation system essentially turns Verdant into a giant starship!”

“Oh, God, here we go,” Reya moaned, turning on Julian. “I think we’ve had enough of this
Brane-Boy
stuff, don’t you? We need to get
home
, Jules! We are not a self-sufficient space ship! We’re a living, research and manufacturing facility designed to
stay in Earth orbit
!”

“Reya, I
know
what Verdant is,” Julian told her, holding back his impatience. He looked at Dr. Silver. “However, I also know that we may not be welcome in Earth orbit right now, and it may be beneficial to us to be able to present a… moving target. Also, this technology may be a resource we can sell to Earth.”

“How?” Reya asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” Julian replied. “Maybe if we can construct starships for Earth… or at least the quantum system as a drive that they can install in their ships… we’ll have a new product, possibly important and popular enough to guarantee our sovereignty and protection by the U.N. In turn, Earth will get ships they can use to explore the galaxy.” He looked to each of them in turn. “Think of that.”

“If it’s exploration you want to offer,” Dr. Silver suggested, “why stop at ships? We can take Verdant itself to other planets, mount full-scale exploratory expeditions, and return with—”

“You’re doing it again,” Reya protested. “Julian, we have to go
home. Period.
”

Julian considered Reya’s words, and Dr. Silver wisely stopped speaking. After a moment, Julian turned and asked, “Are you sure you can adapt your test-bed system to a ship?”

“I don’t foresee a problem,” Silver replied smartly.

“All right, I’ve seen enough here. Get your staff to work on retrofitting a freighter with your system. Reya, you pick out the freighter, something medium-sized that can be fitted with temporary passenger accommodations for the trip to Earth.”

“But Verdant—”

“We have to crawl before we can walk,” Julian cut off Reya’s protest. “We’ll get the Earth residents back, and make sure it’s safe for us to return.” He eyed Reya, and she declined to argue his point. Dr. Silver also seemed satisfied. He nodded. “Get busy, you two. Aaron, whatever resources they need are authorized.”

“Of course,” Aaron replied. Julian turned to climb down the scaffolding, leaving Aaron, Reya and Dr. Silver regarding each other. One look at Reya and Dr. Silver told Aaron that he did not want to be caught between them. “You two just let me know what you need, okay?” he said, and quickly headed for the ladder.

Reya finally started after him. Then she turned and regarded Dr. Silver. After a few moments, she said, “Tell me right now:
Is this safe
?”

“Yes,” Dr. Silver said without hesitation.

“Good,” Reya said after a pause. “Because you know what’ll happen to us if we put a bunch of Earth citizens on board a freighter, and turn them into cosmic soup.
Don’t
you?” Without waiting for Dr. Silver’s reply, she mounted the ladder and climbed out of the scaffolding.

Dr. Silver silently watched them go. Once they were out of the room, she called to the technicians standing on the floor level. “We have work to do.”

~

When Julian returned to CnC, he was immediately greeted by one of the technicians that had been assigned to monitor their hastily-assembled long-range com system. “Ceo,” the girl stepped forward, “we have up-to-date data on Earth and the satellites’ present state. We’ve repurposed some long-range antennas, and now we’re pulling in faint, but readable, standard com traffic.”

“Thank you,” Julian replied, taking the datapad from the girl and proceeding into his office. He was sure he didn’t want to review the information in front of the rest of the staff, but he wanted to know what was happening on Earth before they blithely jumped… moved… translated…
whatever
… back into orbit. Fortunately, he reflected, they were not so far away that com signals could not be picked up with sensitive-enough equipment, even from Mars orbit. Most Earth transmissions were not intended to carry much beyond the atmosphere, but the proper antenna configuration could pull in even the weakest of signals.

He waited until he had sat down, before scrolling through the reports gleaned from the com transmissions. As he’d expected, the news was not good. To begin with, Tranquil and Fertile were apparently wrecked, both due to internal fighting between occupation groups and the satellites’ residents and security forces. Tranquil had suffered even more extensive collateral damage from fighters in orbit, and when all the damage was totaled, Tranquil engineers were saying the satellite would be largely uninhabitable within two months. Qing was now embroiled in internal riots, despite the fact that the satellite was considered a Chinese state… apparently, Chang or someone else had finally decided that simply wasn’t good enough. But Chang hadn’t been seen in over a day… there were rumors that he had been assassinated.

All ground-based freight companies had indefinitely suspended supplies deliveries to the satellites, using the still-significant Yellowstone Caldera’s ash cloud as a convenient excuse to avoid even sending ballistics into orbit. At the same time, small and personal ships were constantly jockeying for opportunities to break through the ash layer and try to board any of the satellites. A number of craft had already suffered catastrophic damage trying to ply the ashy atmosphere, and most of those had crash-landed, killing all occupants.

Regarding Verdant, the reports were even more lively and inventive, but no less threatening-sounding. To begin with, very few people on Earth apparently believed Verdant wasn’t still in orbit over Earth. Apparently the “advanced cloaking technology” rumor had taken root, and most of Earth was sure Verdant was playing some elaborate hoax. A lot of effort was being expended trying to locate them, primarily concentrated in the vicinity of Earth where their orbit had originally placed them. And the long-range telescope videos of Verdant, plainly seen to be orbiting Mars? The majority of the public believed it was also a hoax, a “special effect” created by Verdant to hide their true location. And some believed the United States was creating the effect, in order to hide their true agenda, that of clandestinely taking over the satellite and allowing America’s elite to live in cloaked seclusion.

And what did the United States government believe? No one outside of Denver could say, and Vice President, now acting-President Carruthers in the High House wasn’t talking, either. Yet the government was spending a lot of time accusing Verdant of kidnapping American citizens, including the President of the United States, and holding them for some as-yet-unstated ransom. A few extremists speculated that the Americans on Verdant were already dead, executed as war criminals. Officials and civilians alike went out of their way to describe the things that would be done to those on Verdant, if their suspicions were verified.

Julian personally had his doubts that they would wait for verification.

There were some official fires he had to deal with: Requests and demands by various departments for resources beyond the standard level three restrictions, a common occurrence, and very often granted within reason. This time, Julian turned them all down. Some of them were as simple as a word in an e-mail. Others demanded face-to-face com time, and Julian had to play the stern father or leader to his charges. A few of them, he simply ignored, or referred the request to the GLIS… they would get the hint. In fact, soon the word would go out that nothing was getting slipped through this time… things were
that
serious.