Entoverse

CHAPTER TEN

Earth’s physicists were having to do a lot of rethinking to accommodate the new facts brought by the Ganymeans. Some of the most far-reaching revelations had to do with the fundamental nature of matter itself.

As some Terran scientists had suspected and been investigating without conclusive result since the late twentieth century, the permanency of matter turned out to be just another illusion to be thrown overboard with such notions as classical predictability and absolute, universal time. For all forms of matter were continually decaying away to nothing, although at a rate immeasurably small by the techniques so far available on Earth-it would take ten billion years for a gram of water to vanish completely.

The fundamental particles of which matter was composed annihilated spontaneously, returning to a hyperrealm governed by laws different from those that operated in the familiar universe. It was the tiny proportion that was disappearing at any instant that gave rise to the gravitational effect of mass. Every annihilation event produced a minute gravity pulse, and the additive effect of large numbers of these pulses occurring every second gave the apparently steady field that was perceived macroscopically.

Hence, gravity ceased being a thing apart in physics, a static effect, passively associated with a mass, and fell instead into line along with other field phenomena as a vector quantity generated by the rate of change of something-in this case, the rate of change of mass. This principle, together with means of artificially inducing and controlling the process, formed the basis of early Ganymean gravitic engineering-the drive system used by the Shapieron was an example of its application.

Small though it sounded, such a rate of disappearance was not trivial on a cosmic time scale. The reason there was much of the universe left at all was that, throughout the entire volume of space, particles were constantly being created spontaneously, too. And in a converse way to that in which particle-annihilations induced gravity, particle-creations induced “negative gravity.” Since a particle could only disappear from where it already existed, extinctions predominated inside masses and induced an attractive curvature into the local vicinity of space-time; but in the vast regions of empty space between galaxies, creations far outnumbered extinctions, and the resultant effect was a cosmic repulsion. It all made a rather tidy and symmetric, satisfying kind of sense.

A fundamental particle, therefore, appeared, lived out its allotted span in the observable dimensions of the known universe, and then vanished. Where it came from and where it returned to were questions that the scientists of Earth had never had to face, and which even the Ganymeans on Minerva at the time of the Shapieron’s departure had only begun delving into. It was their subsequent work in this direction that had given the Thuriens the technologies that made possible their interstellar civilization.

The hyperrealm that particles temporarily emerged from was the same domain that matter-energy entered when it disappeared into a black hole. That an object no longer continued to exist where it had when it entered a black hole, Terran physicists had known theoretically for some time. Therefore, it had to be either somewhere else in the known universe; or in another universe; or, conceivably, in some other time. Logic admitted no other alternatives. Remarkably, it turned out, all three were possible. The Thuriens had realized and applied the first two; they were still looking into and puzzling over the third.

An electrically charged, rapidly spinning black hole flattened into a disk and eventually became a toroid with the mass concentrated at the rim. In this situation, the singularity existed not as an impenetrably screened point, but as the central aperture itself, which could be approached axially without catastrophic tidal effects. Through a symmetric effect, creating such an “entry port” also gave rise to a coupled projection elsewhere in normal space, at which an object entering the aperture would appear instantaneously by traversing what had come to be known as “i-space.” The location of the “exit port” depended on the dimensions, spin, orientation, and certain other parameters of the initial toroid and could be controlled up to distances of several tens of light-years. That was how the Thuriens moved their craft between stars.

The energy to create the toroids was directed through i-space by colossal generating systems located in space, consuming matter from the cores of burnt-out stars. However, to avoid causing orbital perturbations and all the attendant disruptions, the ports were never projected into planetary systems, but well away in the surrounding voids. To travel between planetary surfaces and the i-space ports, the Thurien ships used an advanced form of the more conventional gravitic drive pioneered by their ancestors on Minerva. Even so, a complete interstellar journey was typically measured in days.

Since the Thurien starships also drew power from the same i-space distribution grid that supplied the energy to create the transfer ports, they could be quite modest in size. Others were huge. The roughly globoid Vishnu, twenty miles across, was of intermediate size.

Three days after Hunt and Danchekker talked with Caldwell, they were part of a mixed group that boarded one of the Vishnu’s daughter craft at Andrews AFB, Maryland. Hunt’s deputy, Duncan Watt, had joined the group as hoped, and so had Sandy Holmes from Danchekker’s lab at Goddard.

It was all as simple and informal an affair as Hunt had expected. The Thurien crew offered them soft drinks or coffee and invited them to take a seat. Each of the arrivals was also issued with a communications device in the form of a small, flexible disk, about the size of a dime and looking like a Band-Aid, that self-attached behind the ear. It was a connection to VISAR, operating via relay from the mother ship orbiting twenty thousand miles overhead. By coupling directly into the wearer’s sensory neural areas, the communicator could, upon command, convey to VISAR what was seen, heard, or spoken; in the reverse direction it could inject information from VISAR, which the wearer would experience as hearing and vision. It thus afforded not only instant access to the ship’s system, but also person-to-person communications with other Terrans, as well as to Ganymeans through VISAR acting as interpreter.

“Welcome back,” the computer’s familiar voice said, seemingly speaking in Hunt’s ear. “I’ take it you’re getting restless again.”

“Hello, VISAR. Well, you seem to be offering a more stylish service these days.” The first vessel that the Thuriens had sent to make initial contact had landed at a disused Air Force base in Alaska and, to evade the Jevlenese-managed surveillance operation, had been built to resemble a conventional Terran aircraft.

“We like to keep the customers happy,” VISAR said.

The ferry craft took off shortly afterward. Barely ten minutes later, it entered the immense composition of soaring hull structures and sweeping metallic surfaces curving away for miles on every side that made up the outer vista of the Vishnu. It entered a brightly lit cavern of projecting docking structures that looked like the Manhattan skyline stood on its side, and berthed alongside another of a fleet of daughter vessels of every size, shape, and description.

Some of the Thurien crew conducted the party through the access ramps and antechambers into a high space with wide corridors leading away on either side and overlooked by several levels of railed walkways. More Thuriens were waiting, scattered about. It seemed to be a terminal area for transportation links to other parts of the vessel, but exactly what one was supposed to do to get there was far from immediately obvious.

The starship manufactured its own internal gravity, creating “up,” “down,” and transitions between in whatever direction suited the purpose from place to place. The result was an Escherian confusion of corridors, shafts, intersecting planes and spaces, and surfaces that served as walls here, floors there, and elsewhere curved to transform from one into another. What had previously been below could unexpectedly appear overhead without one’s experiencing any sense of having rotated, and through it all, streams of Ganymeans were being carried along in open conveyor shafts on directed g-field currents-rather like invisible elevators traversing the ship in all directions. Hunt and Danchekker had seen this kind of thing before, but the others around them were stopping and staring in bewilderment.

“Well, Chris, here we go again,” Hunt said, looking around. “But this will be a darn sight quicker than last time.”

“And a bit more comfortable when we get there, too,” Sandy Holmes murmured in a slightly dazed voice as she struggled to take it all in. She had been with them on the UNSA Jupiter Five mission. When they had joined that ship, before its lift out from lunar orbit, the voyage ahead of them had been six months, and the accommodation waiting at the other end of it had been cramped quarters in the subsurface part of a scientific base situated on Ganymede’s ice sheets, with the constant vibration of machinery and an ever-present odor of hot oil.

“Yes,” Danchekker agreed. “And I recollect being adamant at the termination of that escapade that I would never set foot inside one of these contraptions again.” He sighed. “However, the designers responsible for this accomplishment would appear to have been from a different school from their terrestrial counterparts, whose imaginative limits one must suppose to have been set by experiences with submarines and tanks.”

“And it will get you far, far away a lot faster,” Hunt reminded him.

“Hmm, there is that.”

Duncan Watt did a quick mental calculation. “Something like seventy million times faster, in fact,” he said. He was thirty-two, with a ruddy, vigorous complexion and thick, jet black hair. He had the rugged kind of looks that made Hunt think of him as belonging more on a football field or in a boxing ring than in a mathematical physics lab.

Near Duncan were a man and a woman accompanying a group of teenagers, who at that moment were standing motionless in awe. “This is a unique moment in the history of the universe,” the man muttered, moving a step closer and nodding his head to indicate his charges. “It’s the first time ever that this bunch have all been quiet at the same time.”

Duncan grinned. “Who are they?” he asked.

“A class of tenth-graders going on vacation. I’m still not really sure how it happened. Somebody at the school came up with the idea as a joke, and the Ganymeans said sure, no problem. Goddamnedest thing I ever heard of.”

Then VISAR said to Hunt, “You have a reception committee waiting for you.” From the change of expression on Danchekker’s face, Hunt knew that VISAR was talking to him, too.

“Where?” Hunt asked.

“The two officers standing a bit to your left.”

Hunt looked around and saw the Thuriens whom VISAR had indicated already moving forward. The millions of years that separated the Ganymeans of Minerva, as typified by the Shapieron’s complement, from the Thuriens had produced visible differences. Although of the same general pattern, the Thuriens were darker, almost black, more slender, and on average slightly shorter. The two who had been waiting were clad in loose-fitting green tunics, each with a halterlike embellishment of elaborately woven metallic threads hanging on either side from the neck to the waist.

“Dr. Hunt? Professor Danchekker?” one of them inquired.

“That’s us,” Hunt confirmed.

“My name is Kalor, and this is Merglis. We are here on behalf of Captain Fytom to welcome you aboard the Vishnu.”

“It seemed fitting that you should be given a personal greeting,” the other explained.

They shook hands-the Terran custom had come to be generally accepted. Hunt introduced Sandy and Duncan.

“The captain sends his compliments,” Kalor informed them. “He is aware that your visit to Jevlen is to study Ganymean science. If any of the Vishnu’s specialists can be of assistance during our brief voyage, consider them at your disposal.”

“Very considerate of him,” Danchekker replied. “Convey our thanks. We will certainly bear his offer in mind.”

“You are also invited to view the command center once we are under way,” Kalor said. “But just at the moment things there are a bit hectic, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate.”

“Whenever is convenient. Yes, we’d like that very much,” Hunt answered.

“Are we invited, too?” Sandy asked hopefully.

“But naturally,” Kalor told her.

“I think we pick the right people to go traveling with,” Duncan said.

“For now, we’ll take you to the section that has been reserved for Terran accommodation,” Kalor said. “Since it looks as if Terrans are going to become regular passengers on these trips, we’re making it a permanent feature of the ship.”

He led them over to a platform jutting out into a broad, elongated space, lower than the area they had just crossed, arched at intervals by sections of bulkhead that glowed with an internal amber light, and dividing to left, right, above, and below into smaller tunnels and shafts radiating away in all directions.

Sandy looked uncertainly at the platform as Kalor gestured. “What do I do?” she asked.

“To take a tube anywhere, just climb aboard,” Merglis said. “VISAR will take you to your chosen destination.” So saying, he stepped off the platform and hung suspended on an invisible cushion of force.

“It couldn’t be simpler,” Kalor said, gesturing again.

“Just what we need under New York,” Hunt told her.

Sandy drew a breath, then shrugged resignedly and followed after Merglis, who was floating a few feet from the platform, waiting for them. One by one the others did likewise, with Kalor bringing up the rear, and seconds later they found themselves being carried into the labyrinth as a group, close enough together to be able to talk easily. The field molded itself comfortably around their bodies. They entered a wide, vertical shaft walled by tiered galleries, which somehow transformed itself into an avenue of shining walls and huge windows of what seemed to be stores of every kind, amusement centers, offices, and eating places. It resembled an enclosed city street more than anything Hunt had ever pictured as a thoroughfare inside a spacecraft. Then they came out into a larger, open space like a plaza, but three-dimensional, with concourses and floors going off at all angles, and he completely lost what little sense of direction he had managed to retain. Like a bushman grappling with a modern-day city, he didn’t have the conceptual knack for interpreting the geometry.

But when the party arrived at the Terran section of the ship, they found that the layout there confined itself to one recognizable plane where “up” was up and stayed that way, and everybody walked. There were reassuringly familiar sleeping cabins, a cafeteria modeled on the facilities in UNSA’s mission ships, and a common mess area, complete with bar and white-jacketed bartender. And the chairs, tables, and other fittings were made to human proportions, not Ganymean.

Each of the passengers had a personal suite located along a corridor a short distance from the mess area and consisting of a bedroom, a sitting area with robot kitchen unit, and a bathroom, “I trust these will be comfortable enough for the two days,” Kalor said, showing Hunt his quarters.

“They’d be comfortable for months,” Hunt assured him.

“Very good. Then we’ll be in touch later for you to meet Captain Fytom and his staff. Is there anything else we can do in the meantime?”

“I don’t think so… is there, Chris?” Hunt looked at Danchekker.

“No-oh, there is some equipment that we’ll be taking with us. But then I suppose that if it hasn’t all arrived, there’s not much that can be done about it now.”

“If you think of anything, just let VISAR know,” Kalor said. He turned to Danchekker. “Your cabin is this way, Professor.”

The door closed, leaving Hunt alone to unpack his few items of carry-on baggage and inspect the surroundings. The suite was spacious and comfortable. A bathrobe and slippers were provided. There was a dish of fruit on the table, including some strange forms that Hunt did not recognize as terrestrial, some candylike concoctions, and a box of his regular brand of cigarettes.

“Nothing to drink, VISAR?” he murmured, selecting one of the cigarettes. “Tch, tch. The service is slipping. I’d have expected a six-pack of Coors and a bottle of Black Label at least.”

“In the cold compartment, below the autochef,” VISAR replied. Hunt sighed. As usual, the Ganymeans had thought of everything.