Fundamental Force Episode One (4 page)

“As I said
earlier, the maximum speed of transmission of a signal in our
space-time is the speed of light in a vacuum. However cunning you
are, whatever clever tricks you think up, you cannot overcome this
barrier. At least as far as accelerating any object whose mass at a
state of rest is greater than zero.

“And suddenly
we are visited by aliens who have travelled from a neighboring star
system at a distance of hundreds of light years from us in a matter
of minutes. Does this not mean that by doing so, they have refuted
the Theory of Relativity, which postulates that speed is finite?
Does this fact not contradict what I said earlier?

“Not in the
least. Not at any moment in time did the aliens travel faster than
light. They simply shortened their route by going into hyperspace.
An analogy with a labyrinth is probably appropriate here: if you
travel along the corridors from entry to exit, you will travel a
long way. A kilometer, say. But if you climb into a bulldozer and
smash your way through the walls, your route will be drastically
shortened.

“And then you
reach the exit from the labyrinth. What was the average speed of
the bulldozer? To answer that question, you need to know the
distance travelled. So what distance do you take in this case as a
point of reference? If you take the length of the labyrinth
corridor, your bulldozer will prove to have travelled at the speed
of a sports car, which is impossible. This means that your speed
from point A to point B depends not only on the speed of your
vehicle, but also on the method selected to cover that
distance.

“It’s the same
with the aliens. With the aid of their portals, they found a way to
shorten the route, but their ships never at any time exceeded the
speed of light.

“To our great
regret, after the event known as ‘the Andromeda incident’, the
existence of such portals is no longer possible.”

“And apart from
their portals, is there no other possibility?”

“In theory
there are many possibilities, but until they are built and tested,
it is not clear which of them are practical and which are not.”

“Could you give
examples?”

Clive hesitated
slightly, fiddling with a pencil.

“I’m not a fan
of science fantasies, I don’t like listening to them or telling
them...”

“But all the
same?”

“The outcome of
the Andromeda incident was the reconfiguration of the fundamental
constants of our Universe. Whether it affects the entire Universe
or only part of it, we do not know. But the fact is that the
parameters have been changed in such a way that the portals used by
the aliens to jump from our galaxy to another have become
impossible.

“Today, now
that a few years have passed, we have been able to look at the
reconfiguration more thoroughly, and we have come to the conclusion
that these changes were not spontaneous, but were specifically
targeted at the destruction of the portals. Portals of a particular
type, those the aliens used. This enables us to hope that not all
the possibilities are now closed off, but only the one used by the
aliens.”

“So there is
the possibility of faster-than-light travel?”

“In science,
anything remains possible until proven otherwise. So such travel
remains theoretically possible. From the point of view of our
present-day knowledge in the field of physics, it cannot be ruled
out, though we don’t actually know a method of doing it.”

“Has our study
of the aliens’ technology advanced us in any way, as regards
creating such methods?”

“We haven’t
actually had much chance to study their transport technology. We
never flew right up to their ship, so we had no opportunity of
looking inside, of studying the materials, the engines... So the
aliens’ technology has not given us any knowledge new in principle.
But at least they have pointed to a lot of interesting ideas, which
I hope will bear fruit in the future.

“Furthermore,
let us not forget the sphere, which is now supplying us with
virtually unlimited energy. This broadens our opportunities
considerably, because it reduces costs in fields of high energy
consumption and gives us far more energy for research needs.

“I understand
your interest in questions connected with our visitors from another
planet, but I would like to return to astrophysics.”

“So do we now
know that there is life in other galaxies?”

“Other
galaxies? We know for certain that in our galaxy alone, a minimum
of two intelligent races exist. Our own, and that of those who
visited us. And from what the aliens told us, though unfortunately
we have no way of checking it yet, there are many others too.

“In scientific
circles, after the appearance of the aliens, we were almost sure
that life exists in other galaxies even before the Andromeda
incident. The incident simply showed that we were right in our
assessment.”

Clive glanced
at his watch.

“Ladies and
gentlemen, thank you for finding the time to visit this event and I
hope that most of you decide to become astrophysicists. I wish you
a very good evening.”

The silence was
instantly broken by a roar. The crowd split up as it rushed to
different exits and Steve waited patiently until the hall was
empty. When the aisles were free again, he went up to Clive.

“Shelby hasn’t
asked you in for a chat, has he?” asked Steve, sitting on the edge
of a nearby table.

“No, why?”

“I’ve just come
from him. He was asking if I had any desire to join the
expedition.”

“You? But the
team hasn’t been chosen yet, has it? There are more than enough
people who want to get as far away from our Solar System as they
can, without you! What did you say?”

“I refused to
fly on a one-way ticket, naturally.”

“A wise
decision.”

“But is wasn’t
exactly a direct offer. Shelby was talking in riddles. It seems to
me he knows something that others don’t.”

“Anything is
possible. Since the incident, he seems to have remained an advisor
to the military on matters of interaction with other races.”

“And he hasn’t
discussed anything of the sort with you?”

Clive thought
it over for a second or two, then shook his head.

“No. Not
directly, at least. Maybe he hinted, but I’ve never been much good
at understanding hints. If he wants something, let him say so
straight out. But anyway, what did he hint to you?”

“That the
expedition might possibly not be one-way.”

Clive finished
putting his things in his briefcase, locked it, and stared at Steve
in surprise.

“You mean to
say they’ve found a way?”

“How else would
it be possible to return?”

Clive paused
for thought again. He always took all questions literally. Steve
clapped him on the shoulder.

“Relax, it was
a rhetorical question.”

“Hang on a
minute. Do you remember the Denebola photos?”

“What about
them?”

“It was lined
up with the Moon at the time and its light was strangely distorted
somehow...”

“The static? I
remember... What about it?”

“But was it? We
were the ones who decided it was static. What if it was from the
Moon where they are conducting the remote manipulation
experiments?”

“They warn us
when they play with gravity.”

“Exactly. But
that static was very like what happens when they ‘play with
gravity’, as you put it. They don’t tell us about
everything...”

The main
advantage of being president was that you never had to wait for
anyone. The participants in the show had already taken their seats
to wait for him. Beaming with a practiced smile, the president
entered the hall, greeting the public and his opponents with a
modest gesture.

As LeRoy had
suggested, they looked the way he wanted them to. Although Gates
was still trying to appear in a good mood, continuously sipping
cold soda water, McAllister was in quite a bad way. The buttoned
collar of his shirt pressed tightly on his swollen neck and large
beads of perspiration glistened on his broad forehead. His green
shirt and tie emphasized his unhealthy appearance, creating the
impression that his face had a greenish tint to it too. Yes, LeRoy
knew his way around cunning plans...

“Their brains
will still be splashing about in the left-overs of their evening
cocktails,” he had explained. “They’ll have trouble thinking
straight. You’ll easily fool them. All you have to do is talk a lot
and the cleverer you make it sound, the better. Drown them in
floods of information. Their little grey cells won’t be able to
cope with it all so quickly. Talk them to death!” he insisted.

If there was
one thing the president could do better than anyone else, it was to
talk without stopping. And he was in the mood for chattering today.
The disheveled appearance of his long-standing critics gave him
added energy. Just wait, you jerks. You’ll get your comeuppance for
all the crap you’ve thrown at me in the last few months and years.
It was shaping up to be an enjoyable evening.

“Where should I
start with my criticisms?” said Gates, when he finally managed to
get a word in edgeways. “Let’s assume that over the whole voyage,
not one serious technical problem arises. So our flotilla steadily
approaches the Gliese system and – surprise, surprise! There’s
nobody there! Empty planets, not a living soul on them. No-one!
Though maybe we’ll get lucky and find something there that will
recoup costs equal to thirty-five percent of the world gross annual
product! How can you be sure the game will be worth the candle? So
far we don’t have a single scrap of scientific proof that life
exists on the Gliese planets...”

“Why shouldn’t
it? The aliens themselves told us they’d colonized the Gliese
system. What more proof do you need?”

Gates laughed
theatrically.

“Mr. President,
from a man of your level of intelligence, I would have expected a
less naïve attitude to general statements. As a politician, you
must know how little words are worth.”

“The best
criterion for assessing my capacity for accurately evaluating what
has been said is the result. And if we look at the whole history of
our dealings with the aliens – their first appearance and more
particularly their second one, when they offered us this splendid
project – I have always been right.

“Believe me, I
was surrounded by many very clever people who made some very solid
arguments against the project of terraforming and building the
sphere. I was faced with a great river of arguments for and against
and my task was to weigh all these appropriately and take the right
decision. I took it, and it was the correct one.

“Thanks to my
shrewdness – I’m not afraid of calling it that – we now possess the
energy resources of a whole star! Five years ago we entered a new
era. We became a different civilization, we reached a new level!
The events of recent years will go down in history alongside the
first space flight, the Moon landings and the colonization of
Mars.”

After a pause
to catch his breath and wet his whistle with a mouthful of water,
the president threw a glance at Gates, whose face showed he was
thinking intently. He had clearly lost the thread of the
conversation and was trying to find a reason to butt in with some
scathing comment. But just as he had breathed in enough air to say
something, the president put his glass back on the table in front
of him and continued.

“Returning to
your objection... Up to the present moment, they have not deceived
us in anything. Yes, they prefer to leave some things unsaid, as is
more or less customary in politics, but they don’t lie.”

“But why the
great hurry, Mr. President? Perhaps it would be more sensible to
wait for confirmation from the scientists that life exists in the
Gliese system before rushing headlong into a venture with an
unknown outcome?”

“Excuse me, Mr.
Gates, but your inexperience in ruling a state is blatantly
obvious. The outcome of projects on a strategic scale are never
known in advance. That’s life, Mr. Gates. Even after confirmation
from the scientists, the project will still be one with an unknown
result.

“But let us
imagine for a moment that you are right and the Gliese system is
uninhabited. Would that really be such a problem? Our scientists
know for sure that it has at least one planet in the Goldilocks
zone. If it is empty, we shall simply colonize it!”

“That idea is
likely to create a million new problems...”

“What problems
do you have in mind, Mr. Gates?”

“I don’t
believe we are capable of colonizing a whole planet twenty light
years away. For the spacecraft we have today, that distance would
mean a voyage taking a century. Even if we could, technically,
colonize such a star system, it would never belong to us. It would
be an autonomous colony, created at the expense of our taxpayers,
which would never be linked to Earth. It’s all costs and no income.
Why, they could even declare war on us eventually!”

“Perhaps you
are not fully informed of our plans?”

“Mr. President,
you are always insinuating that only you have a broad enough view
to assess the project properly, but this is not the case. Any
right-minded person is quite capable of realizing that this is an
extremely risky plan. It is a reckless venture, a crazy idea!

“You have no
right to finance such a venture from general taxation. I know quite
enough about the project to tell you unhesitatingly that we are on
the way to a fiasco... The project has already cost us 20% of gross
world product and by the time it is completed, we can add another
15% to that. Mr. President, stop this madness before it is too
late!”

“Well, in that
case, let me inform you, and Mr. McAllister, and all those watching
us, that we have found a very elegant solution to the problem of
the great distance. We have a technical means by which the
travelling time between our systems will be reduced to just a few
weeks.”