Forbidden the Stars Part 20

On the other side of the table, Walter Johnson, Peter Cloud, and Gary McNally sat with folders arranged on the surface, pens at the ready, making notes as George Markowitz made his presentation to the Director.

He brought up a display Michael recognized as the preliminary geological survey of Macklin's Rock performed by the Manez's.

To begin, George came right to the point, "I'm not really scientifically literate, but I can check and compare facts. At first glance, this survey in and of itself says nothing. Until now, we had been staring at it for months before we realized that instead of looking at it, we had to look through through it." it."

Michael silently applauded the man's use of "we," even though George had just come on board. It showed he was willing to be a team player. His personal problems with his previous supervisor obviously did not interfere with his professionalism or his pa.s.sion for his work.

George and his wife, Elizabeth, had joined Michael at the Calbert's for cards over the weekend. Michael was instantly taken by the couple, who was open and fun loving. George was not at all shy about explaining to Michael that Elizabeth had been pursuing a teaching career in university before they got married, and gave up her schooling in favor of having children. She showed no regrets, though Michael could imagine Elizabeth's brother being upset at the situation.

George brought up a display on the DMR.

Mineral Content: Aluminum, Calcium, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Helium, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, Sodium, Sulfur, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown*

"What's important is the Mineral Content. At a casual glance, there is nothing out of the ordinary. All of these elements have been discovered on other asteroids; some rocks have additional elements, and some are not as inclusive as this one. We decided to go element by element, and compare it with other asteroids in the SMD mine catalog, checking against anomalies, but although we were on the right track, we were on the wrong train, if you take my meaning."

He brought up another display.

Site 1: Aluminum, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*Site 6: Aluminum, Calcium, Copper, Helium, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, Sodium, Sulfur, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*Site 14: Aluminum, Calcium, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Helium, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*

"This is representative of all thirty-eight sites conducted by the Manez's on Macklin's Rock. The differences between the different sites showed us nothing. There was nothing at site 14 that was not found at any other site.

"We were left with nothing, until Paul noticed an anomaly in site 14 itself. Not a variance between it and another site, but between its own reports. I want to show you the following three time-sensitive reports."

Site 14: 13:12:23 GMTAluminum, Calcium, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*Site 14: 13:12:24 GMTAluminum, Calcium, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Helium, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*Site 14: 13:12:25 GMTAluminum, Calcium, Carbon, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Nickel, Silicon, t.i.tanium - Percentages Unknown - Percentages Unknown*

"Each of these reports was generated one second after the other. The final report was generated an instant before detonation. Do you notice a difference between the three?"

Michael blinked. "Helium, of course. But-"

"Helium is not an uncommon element in all celestial bodies, although not as readily found in asteroidal forms. The sun itself is composed of 25% helium. The thermonuclear reactions in the sun that provide us with light and energy turn the 75% hydrogen content into helium. Now, helium has the atomic number of '2', and a weight of about '4.' That means there are four protons and/or neutrons in the nucleus-in this case, two of each-and two electrons in the K-sh.e.l.l. Specific gravity of 0.00018-"

"Yes, yes," Michael said impatiently. "I know it's been a few years since high school chemistry, but I do recall my periodic table."

"Actually, this is all new to me. Peter was kind enough to give me a crash course late last night." He nodded to his colleague. "But you'll soon realize that the second report was, in fact, in error in determining helium as one of the elements found in the drill site."

"What?"

"Even I know that elements are usually identified by ma.s.s spectrometer, the instruments are so common that every geologist and physicist here has a small pocket spectrometer alongside their calculators. Going back over the reports, the large spectrometer at the Nelson II site initially identified the substance as helium not because it detected a color that indicated helium, but because it identified two electrons in a questionable element, and temporarily a.s.sumed it to be helium rather than an isotope of hydrogen or lithium. The spectrometers we employ on surveys use a free electron count to bolster our identification process to help determine isotopes as well as basic elements.

"Then, in the third sampling, the spectrometer did not find a color to match helium, or any isotope of hydrogen or lithium, discounted the electron count, and dismissed the element as unidentifiable."

"Unidentifiable? Hydrogen usually is found in pairs-" Michael suggested.

"No, the spectrometer showed nothing even remotely in that spectrum."

"What about two lithium atoms sharing an L-sh.e.l.l electron?" "No." George smiled knowingly. "The spectrometer reading is completely out of that range."

"Then what good is this information?" Michael demanded.

"First of all, we know that whatever this element is, it has two electrons, so obviously we thought it is an isotope of helium, say, a heavy helium to some degree. At first, we dismissed these findings because of the impossibilities of it. First, with a ma.s.s of .002 per cent of 10,000 teratons, give or take, would mean about 200 billion tons of helium. At a specific gravity of .000018, that would mean a volume of about 360,000 cubic meters. Initial drill samples indicate the pocket to be no more than 10 cubic meters."

"What does all that mean?"

"Well, a rough estimate would be an isotope of helium with a nucleus, or atomic weight, of about 271, a specific gravity of about 210 grams per cubic centimeter."

There was a stunned silence in the room, until Michael said, "Impossible!"

"Certainly...but then, so is luminous or super-luminous speeds."

Michael rubbed the palm of his hand across his mouth and chin. "All right, for the sake of argument, say this is possible. Either this is a super-heavy helium-"

"Which is beyond the laws of physics," added Paul, "even more than the impossibilities that we're discussing now."

"This, in turn, would mean that we had a super-radioactive helium isotope on our hands. About a thousand times more radioactive than uranium."

"-Or," the director prompted.

George nodded. "Or, we have an element that is supposed to have upwards of 271 electrons floating around it. Something with anywhere from 110 to 271 protons in the nucleus, missing its electrons. A super-positively-charged ion."

"That would be..."

"Anti-radioactive. Although not so far-fetched. It could be compared to solid-state technology that currently exists; like semiconductors and superconductors; though this would be the most pure form found naturally; a supraconductor, if you will. The core temperature of the asteroid is probably what keeps this super-superconducting material so pure. The elemental atoms would want to absorb as many electrons as it could from any source."

"Or neutrinos, or even photons from gamma rays," Paul added. "Any available particle. We won't know until we have a sample."

"Right, and, Newton's Law of Physics states, every action has an equal and opposite reaction."

"Absolutely. So if this new Element absorbs the photon, the energy of that traveling photon is translated as..."

Michael finished for him. "Electricity, heat, light...or...motion."

"In those amounts, translated at just under the speed of light. There would be a time delay, such as the thirteen seconds between detonation and launch of Macklin's Rock, while the atoms fill to capacity. Once that has been achieved, the only thing left is, as in any radioactive reaction, for the ma.s.sive energy to be released. Perhaps through the natural valve created by the Nelson II site drill, or, we think more likely instead of the propellant theory, these photon-charged atoms travel on an anti-magnetic propulsion basis, perhaps even in relation to the sun. A kind of super quantum reaction. We won't know for certain until we have some of this element for tests."

"But that kind of sudden acceleration! Wouldn't that have crushed Alex?" Michael supposed.

Paul spoke up. "Normally, yes. The most-pressure a person could sustain for any length of time is about 8 G's of force. At 8 G's, it would take a thousand hours-five weeks or so-to achieve luminous speeds. There is an old theory about light: that it, in and of itself, has no weight. We've played with the physics of the Macklin's Rock phenomenon, and all we can surmise is that, in some way, Element X operates in such a way that everything that piggybacks on it a.s.sumes a kind of superluminosity. It would, therefore, feel no effects of the acceleration, even at the supposed five million G's of force the asteroid would have had to sustain over the course of the first minute. That would have pulverized even diamonds into fine dust.

"The Rock, the TAHU, even Alex, would have taken on an accelerated molecular condition, which could have left the cells of his body in a semi-charged state. This would prove the unofficial theory you presented last week that he is somehow able to manipulate electrical pulses in his immediate area-this phenomenon is not uncommon to people who have been struck by lightning. They, themselves, have become living ions."

"This all sounds impossible."

"Rationally, it seems so, but we've half a dozen theories that prove it on paper."

Rocking back and forth in his chair, Michael thought about it. "For the time being, forgetting about the theories... How do we go about finding more samples, and if so, how to we keep it from reacting? What you're saying is that this thing was in a pocket of minerals, surrounded by..." He looked to Gary, who held up a sheet of paper.

"It was a t.i.tanium pocket, if the Nelson II depth indicators were accurate. Our present Nelson II's allow a small gap of open s.p.a.ce between the core of the drill hole and the surface of the asteroid...more than enough room for photons to breach."

"Then, when the drill pierced through, photons from the sun entered, and-"

"Reaction-or, should I say, anti-reaction."

"Like the hypothetical tachyon, on this side of the speed of light."

Michael raised an eyebrow at the possibilities.

"Right. We've discussed this with the engineers at CSE, and they think they could easily rig a Nelson II with a vacuum drill. We use a similar drill in the clean rooms when we don't want samples contaminated."

Michael knew that, but his mind was buzzing with the new information and theories. "How do we go about determining the location of this...what shall we call it besides Element X? That sounds so mysterious, and we're already on the road to solving this particular mystery."

George Markowitz cleared his throat, already prepared for the question.

"Well, unofficially, we've been calling it the light-heavy element, as a kind of joke, but I've discussed this with a few of the others on the team, and when the time was right, we were going to put forward either the name, Manezum-" He waited for Michael's reaction. "-or 'Kinemet.' "

"Kinemet?"

"Kinetic metal."

"Appropriate." For a few moments, Michael considered. "Well, traditionally, the discoverer of an element has the honor of naming it. Since those discoverers are not with us, then I think the task would have to fall to the theorists who first identified and cla.s.sified the element. In honor of the Manez's, we could call the anti-reaction 'the Manez Effect.' For the element itself, 'Kinemet' it is, and I will make a memo of it."

"Thank you, sir."

Michael waved his hand at him. "How do we find more of this Kinemet?"

"Well, the most obvious, though hardly the most reliable, method, is to look for anomalies in the ma.s.ses of charted asteroids when compared to their volumes. Anything that throws the specific gravity of an asteroid to above, say, ten or fifteen-depending on how stringent we want to get-then we give it a closer look. A specific gravity of seven is what we have found as the median of the asteroids in our catalog, with fluctuations between about four and twelve with those rich in heavy metals. But with Macklin's Rock, we've calculated, based on composition and size, and preliminary ma.s.s readings without the s.p.a.ce tugs, that it had an overall specific gravity of forty-eight."

"Forty-eight?" Michael could not believe that.

"Yeah. That throws the estimated ma.s.s of Macklin's Rock up to over sixty-eight thousand teratons. Based on that, there must be a number of pockets extant. Only problem with Macklin's Rock is that it's about six billion kilometers away."

"Have you told anybody about this? About the theory?"

"No. When we contacted NASA and went through the SMD mine catalog, we found a number of asteroids with similar anomalies, summarily dismissed as faulty data. We'd like you to propose a follow-up survey to these asteroids."

"Of course. As soon as you give me the mine numbers and the vacuum drill, I'll have a survey team there ready to dig. We'll postpone informing NASA until we have some evidence; then they can go through their catalog and try mining their asteroids."

The director took in a deep breath.

"So, then, if this is all true, we have to ask ourselves one question...and while we're discussing impossible theories and new rules of the Laws of Physics, I think I know the answer to my own question."

"What's the question?" Calbert urged.

"Why did Macklin's Rock stop? stop? What acted as a dampening rod to stop the luminous reactions?" What acted as a dampening rod to stop the luminous reactions?"

The men gathered in the room were, by nature, the best physics theorists Quantum Resources could hire. They did not waste time in stunned silence pondering a question that had not yet occurred to them.

Immediately, Peter suggested, "Dis Pater?" "Dis Pater?"

Michael shook his head. "I don't think so. I think Dis Pater Dis Pater is nothing more than an indicator, a gauge to measure estimated times of arrival, put there by another s.p.a.ce-faring race-whether for our benefit or theirs, that is yet to be determined... is nothing more than an indicator, a gauge to measure estimated times of arrival, put there by another s.p.a.ce-faring race-whether for our benefit or theirs, that is yet to be determined...

"No, something else stopped the Rock from hurtling out into interstellar s.p.a.ce, and I want you to include this possibility in your report."

The scientists in the room pondered for a few moments before Michael supplied his supposition.

"I think, somehow, Alex stopped it."

Luna Station : Luna :

Once the pirate s.h.i.+p reached docking port at Luna Station, Alex was summoned to the bridge, escorted by First Mate Chung. reached docking port at Luna Station, Alex was summoned to the bridge, escorted by First Mate Chung.

He had been keeping his mental eye on the s.h.i.+p's approach, reveling in the sites that seemed so much more exhilarating than pictures on a holovid; there were not many people who could claim first-hand eyewitness to the docking of a s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p.

At first, he wondered how they had managed to negotiate their landing without the docking governor informing the authorities of the nature of the s.h.i.+p, but then, Alex realized the governor was just a computer that carried out instructions. Whoever programmed the governor was probably in the pay of the pirates, or the pirates' masters.

On the bridge, Alex faced Captain Gruber for the first time since being brought on board. The bridge, although Alex had surveyed it with his clairvoyance, seemed more ominous and foreboding in person, mostly because the command crew were consciously ignoring him, and the captain was glaring at him as if deciding whether to chew him up, or skin him alive.

Trying to avoid making eye contact under the captain's glare, Alex flicked his gaze over the DMRs and stat monitors.

As far as he could tell, most of the controls and stations were identical in function and presence as...o...b..ard the Orcus 1 Orcus 1.

On the Orcus 1 Orcus 1, Alex had studied each station and its purpose, and was confident that he could identify them on the pirate s.h.i.+p's bridge-or any other s.p.a.ce vessel, for that matter.

"Alex," Captain Gruber's voice grated in dire warning.

Alex snapped his attention back to the command chair, though did not lift his eyes to the occupant.

"Yes, sir?"

"We are going to depart the s.h.i.+p now, you and I. I'm going to be taking you through the port where there will undoubtedly be other people. You might think about running, or shouting for help, or something equally stupid."

"Yes, sir."

Gruber shook his head. "I advise you against it. I could threaten to kill you, but our client has expressly forbidden that kind of action. However, he said nothing about killing civilians." He pulled out a lasrod; it looked lethal. "If you run from me, I will shoot one person at random until you return. If you shout at someone to help you, I will shoot that someone. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

Alex's eyes narrowed. He knew now that these were true pirates, callous and mean. The Doc might be something of an anomaly, but that might have something to do with the fact that he was a doctor, trained to save lives; he had still thrown in with these brigands. Alex suddenly hated every one of them.

He would go along complacently, and not try to escape. He would not, however, fully cooperate if he could help it. He had been on the verge of spilling his secrets to the Doc, explaining about the clairvoyance, and about the other thing.