Transmat World: Chapter 23
Circumpolar orbit about the Harbinger of Light and Justice, sixty-five degrees above the equator, 10:27 A.M., Monday, December 6, 2145 A.D.
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Every three minutes See Lurchin’ left the universe and came back another 15 degrees further along in its winking dance with Harbinger. The artifact held them in a magical thrall of immensity and mystery. No one yawned. They hardly blinked.
As they approached the aft pole, Vince cut the jumps to five-degree increments until the readings from the drone told him what he expected to happen. The drone was accelerating toward Harbinger.
“Interrupt the jump sequence, Enrique. We have found another source of artificial gravity. This time pulling things toward Fat Boy, namely those stars that Porfirio pointed out weren’t in the right place,” said Vince.
“What do you want to do?” asked Enrique.
“At the rate the drone is falling, the artificial gravity is two times that of Earth.”
Vince ran figures on his hedset visor calculator. “Which means we must fall for six hours to match Fat Boy’s belt speed of one million miles per hour. Once we obtain that velocity, we will transmat out of the gravity beam and use thrusters to angle toward the equator.”
Enrique punched the over-sized buttons with pudgy exoskeleton fingers. Within minutes they were falling toward Fat Boy, collecting free velocity at the expense of an alien star drive meant to move solar system-sized space ships.
“Think it will notice something the size of See Lurchin’ approaching and do something about it?” asked Maria.
“Since Fat Boy has already swept through this space, protection of its backside is less of a priority,” said Vince. “I am confident the drone will warn us of such actions. In the meantime, let’s take a suit break and rest up for a couple of hours.”
Hedbots fluttered, and the suits made hermetic de-sealing noises as they docked against the wall for recharging.
“Ah, fresh air,” said Julie.
“It’s the same air as in the ship,” pointed out Enrique.
“I know; it’s a mental thing,” said Julie.
“Uh huh,” deadpanned Enrique.
“I like the suit,” said Ernesto. “Although I’m in good shape for my age, I notice habits change to accommodate the frailties of my body. With the suit on, I don’t worry about it.”
“So get an exoskeleton when we get back,” said Julie.
“It’s tempting, but I think that would accelerate the basic problem of bone and muscle degeneration — something you won’t have to worry about for some time. I never had a PDNF treatment until I was fifty, but it worked wonders. It wasn’t for lack of funds. It just hadn’t been discovered. But I’m spry for eighty-nine. I have about a 60 percent chance at living to120.”
All but the poorest started protein-derived, neurotrophic factor injections as a young adult. Harvested from a lowly parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, its anti-cell-death properties did not reverse aging but slowed it to a crawl. About one tenth of one percent of the population was allergic and had to live out a normal life span. Vince, Julie, Maria, and Enrique were looking at life spans of several hundred years, according to the projections.
The return of tactile sensations after wearing the suits broke the spell of Fat Boy. Enrique was already raiding the Transmat chef, leaving Rousseau to mind the helm, a logical choice since Rousseau went through the training sessions with Enrique. A finger twitch spun the 3D drink menu and the touch of a hot chocolate icon filled the air around the small Transmat with the smell of roasted, ground cacao beans.
Maria reclined on one of the acceleration couches reading the latest American Journal of Archaeology projected from her hedset. Vince pointed out to Maria that he was calling his mom. He headed for the restroom so images of Fat Boy in the background would not be recorded by a public utility. Or disturb his mother.
“No, you’re not,” said Maria.
“Yes, I am. I’m going to … crap, I forgot.”
“You subconsciously choose a time to call your mom when you know it can’t happen. At the same time you try to get approval credits from me for making the attempt. You’re pathetic,” Maria pointed out as she ogles an ad for a new line of hand-held, ground-penetrating radar/terahertz imager. She barely controled an impulse to try to order it right then and there.
“Approval credits?” asked Vince.
Ernesto stretched out in his couch to take a nap. Julie went to give grief to Enrique for leaving a giant, fake grasshopper in control of the most sophisticated space ship known to man.
“How are the ‘trashbacks’?” asked Maria, “Any more since the one at the Hawk?”
Vince had settled into his acceleration couch. “No.”
“Did you tell Mark about the last one?” asked Maria.
“No.”
“I couldn’t help but overhear,” interjected Ernesto. “I heard intriguing research being done on ‘trashbacks’ and ‘post-trashbacks’ at a seminar last week. They say the memory experience could, theoretically, be intentionally altered.”
“Is that so?” said Vince. “Tell me more, my dear Ernesto,”
“These guys posit a theory that ‘trashbacks’ are associated with the use of hedsets while using a Transmat. They have some statistics to back that up. They say that trashbacks can be a crude form of communication attempt from another dimension — somebody or something searching for the right conduit to convey some message. Of course, all that talk about inter-dimensional entanglement allowing control from another dimension is pretty wild.”
“I didn’t realize these things were widespread enough to have papers presented at seminars. Mark told me the public considered them urban legend type stuff. And just who are these wackos?” asked Vince.
“Oh, just some young, punk postdocs from MIT trying to make a name for themselves. It’s almost as wacky as coming up with a machine to traverse the galaxy in a couple of weeks.”
“So you think there might be something to it?” asked Vince.
“If what they say is true, the odds are that by now there would be someone somewhere who experienced something other than a lucid memory, some kind of communication. But there is no such recorded incident, so it’s probably just a bunch of bullshit,” said Ernesto.
Maria’s long, knowing stare at Vince was broken by a heated conversation between Enrique and Julie from the Transmat chef area of the second deck. The open grate decking afforded no privacy aboard the See Lurchin’.
“So you think I should not have left a fake grasshopper in charge of the ship, huh? Would you have preferred a real grasshopper?” asked Enrique.
“A human with intuitive processing of informational nuances may have been a better choice,” said Julie.
“Say, um, a red-headed human with green eyes and freckles?”
“It would have been better than a big, tattooed robot insect.”
“I can heeeear you,” said Rousseau, “and it is a Class Three High Definition Hologram, not a tattooooo.”
“No offense, Rousseau, I’m trying to win an argument here,” said Julie.
Maria whispered to Vince, “Thank God she doesn’t have her suit on.”
Ernesto overheard and the three have a good laugh. They all joke and carry on, but the outside image was too compelling, too intrusive. They spent more time looking at the screen and less time talking until they were all in their couches staring in wonder, not saying a word, as if hypnotized.
“All hands on deck!” announced Rousseau.
A chorus of “What the hells?” preceded, “Sorry, guys. I asked Rousseau to wake everyone up and he came up with that,” said Enrique.
“I’ve always wanted to say that,” said Rousseau. “Enrique has an announcement.”
“We’re at velocity. See Lurchin’ and the drone are about to jump out of this sucking gravity pit in tandem. I wanted you all alert,” said Enrique.
“Okay, gang, suit up,” said Vince.
A rustle of feet on the grating segued into pneumatic soughing noises.
Enrique had already activated thrusters putting See Lurchin’ on a course away from Harbinger when they come out of the Transmat X-Drive jump. He now punched the button to transmat both the drone and See Lurchin’ five million miles perpendicular to the gravity beam. Twenty times the distance between the Earth and Moon and, when they reappeared, their point of view hardly seems to have changed. That’s how big Harbinger was.
“How long is it going to take to get to this thing’s equator using just the thrusters?” asked Vince.
“At this initial velocity, without Transmat, about two days, Boss,” said Enrique.
“That’s just a ridiculous amount of time. How soon we get spoiled.”
“If we stay far enough away and take short jumps we can keep the big end of the cone of probability away from this thing and have a safe margin of error,” said Ernesto. “We won’t shed any of the velocity we’ve already gained. If we started jumping directly down the curvature of this thing toward the equator, we should be there in a matter of minutes.”
“I like the cut of your space jib, Ernesto,” said Vince.
“But when we get there we still have an unwanted downward directional component to our velocity,” said Enrique.
“There should be an equable compromise,” said Maria. “Let’s figure out how long we need to use our thrusters at full power to convert that direction ninety degrees to a circular orbit just outside that chrome belt. We’ll divide that by our standard three-minute jump increment and that’s how many jumps it will take.”
“That should make transit time two hours and eight minutes,” said Vince, looking at his visor readouts.
“First jump … now,” said Enrique.
