30 Nov 2010

Jack Falcon and His Quantum Singularity, Chapter 3

Posted by joncooper

THREE HOURS LATER JACK found himself standing in the mayor’s office. Since Patrick Gamino was the colony’s official leader he had been given a luxurious office in Star City’s administrative sector. As the entire city was located underground there were no buildings; instead, Jack Falcon’s atomic earth blaster had been used to excavate the network of tunnels and rooms that comprised the colony’s various sectors. The administrative sector was actually quite small, being composed of just a handful of rooms, but the mayor had gone out of his way to get the largest one assigned to him.

The administrative sector had been placed on the level that was just below the surface. The colony was home to more than 6,000 people and went as deep as 12 layers underground, but Gamino wanted his administration to be located as close to the surface as possible. He would never say why he asked for this, but Irene suspected he wanted to be as close to the surface as possible so he could escape if something went wrong.

Jack had arranged an emergency meeting with the mayor as soon as he returned to the colony. The mayor was reluctant to meet with the Falcons, but he eventually agreed to hear them out as long as Fenton Reynolds, the station’s chief science officer, was there to evaluate their claims. As soon as Reynolds joined them Jack and his wife presented the information that Eliza had given them. They were careful to not reveal the source of their data.

“This is why we’ve been unable to predict the solar flares,” Jack finished. “They’re not caused by the sun’s normal cycle! These black holes are the source of the problem.”

“A likely story,” the mayor scoffed. “I think it’s much more likely that you just don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Your findings are very unusual,” Reynolds said. “I was not aware of any black holes in this vicinity. Is there a way to independently confirm your findings?”

Jack thought for a moment. “I could configure the sensors on board the Behemoth to scan for these types of anomalies. In fact, that’s probably not a bad idea.”

“It’s a waste of time,” the mayor snapped.

The science officer ignored him. “Let’s suppose that we were able to reproduce your findings, and let’s further suppose that all of your conclusions are correct. What do you suggest we do about it?”

“There’s nothing we can do,” Jack replied regretfully. “These black holes pose an imminent danger to the entire planet. We’ve been lucky so far but our luck is starting to give out. A single rogue wormhole could easily fracture this planet and cause it to disintegrate! I’m afraid we have to abandon the colony.”

Reynolds’ eyes grew wide. “Abandon the colony! We can’t do that. Do you realize what you’re saying? We’ve spent years building Star City and have invested countless millions of dollars! Evacuation is just not an option. The board of directors would never approve of that. The Barclay Group demands a return on their investment into this colony.”

“Didn’t you hear anything Jack said?” Irene asked. “If a wormhole hits this planet we’re done for! How do you plan on keeping the colony together when Myra is broken into tiny little pieces?”

“I just find this impossible to believe,” Reynolds said. “After all, if these black holes really do exist then both Myra and the black holes have coexisted for countless ages! If the situation is that unstable then why wasn’t Myra destroyed a long time ago? Its continued existence argues that there is no threat.”

“I don’t have all the answers,” Jack confessed. “Maybe something about the situation has changed recently. Maybe something’s happened to the black holes, or maybe there’s some other factor we don’t know about. What I do know is that the situation is no longer stable. This planet is in incredible danger, and if we don’t do something soon–”

“Preposterous,” the mayor said. “Simply preposterous! Where did you get this pack of lies, anyway?”

“You’re missing the point,” Irene said. “We’ve got to do something while there’s still time!”

“Your solution is too extreme,” Reynolds replied. “After all, the only actual danger we’ve seen so far are a few solar flares. Even the last one was unable to penetrate the ground and reach Star City. As long as we remain underground I believe we will be fine. I would certainly not support evacuation until more compelling evidence presented itself.”

“You don’t understand,” Jack said sharply. “By the time ‘more compelling evidence’ presents itself we’ll all be dead. You can’t wait until after the planet is destroyed to evacuate!”

Reynolds shook his head. “I’m sorry, Jack, but I just can’t support such an extreme action, especially based on such flimsy evidence. It just does not make sense.”

“Enough!” the mayor shouted. “This meeting is adjourned. Now get out of here!”

Dejected, Jack and Irene returned to their small one-room apartment. When they got inside Jack sat down on the couch. His wife sat down beside him and put her arm around him.

“I just don’t know what to do,” he sighed.

“Ignore them,” Irene suggested. “You knew before you set foot in that room that they weren’t going to listen to you. The mayor was never going to agree to evacuate the colony no matter what you told him.”

“But this is a terrible place for a colony! I wish I’d thought to run subspace scans of the area before we built Star City but this whole situation just never occurred to me. I mean, I understand Reynolds’ point. The Barclay Group really has invested a lot of money into this colony – and for that matter, so has Falcon Technologies. I know evacuating it would be a huge loss and I really hate to abandon it, but it’s a lot better than staying here and getting killed.”

“I agree with you, honey, but Pat has a different perspective. He probably thinks you’re still out to get the Gamino family and that this is just some plot to destroy his life the way you destroyed his brother’s. I doubt he would say that in front of Reynolds but he does tend to think that way.”

“I guess,” Jack sighed. “But what do we do now?”

“We do what we always do – we find a way to save the day. You know what the problem is and you know that the colony isn’t going to be evacuated. The real question is, how do we protect the colony from these rogue black holes?”

Jack was silent for a few minutes. He stared off into space. Irene could tell that he was deep in thought so she said nothing. Minutes ticked by. After a while Jack grabbed a pen and a notebook and began rapidly jotting down equations. Irene glanced at them but they didn’t make any sense to her.

“Do you have an idea?” she asked.

“Just a minute,” Jack replied. He picked up his slide rule and began running some numbers.

Irene realized her husband was engulfed in the problem, so she stood up. “I’m going to fix dinner. Is there anything you’d like?”

“That’s fine – thanks,” Jack said absently.

Irene smiled and shook her head. Some things never change, she thought.

After dinner Jack continued making pages upon pages of notes, and worked far into the night. He then slept for a few hours and got back to work. Just before noon he tossed his pen and notebook onto the table.

“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I have an idea but I’m not sure we can do it. There are a few problems that we may not be able to overcome.”

“Tell me about it,” Irene said. “How are you going to save the colony?”

Jack paused as he tried to find a way to put his thoughts into words. “Let’s say that you live in an area that has a lot of thunderstorms, and you don’t want lightning to strike your house. What are you going to do?”

“Put up a lightning rod,” Irene replied. She gasped. “Jack! You want to put up a lightning rod for wormholes?”

“Exactly. The whole problem is that these unstable wormholes are being spawned at random, just like lightning. What I want to do is give them something solid to connect to – something that is much more attractive than a random location in this star system. I can’t stop the black holes from doing what they’re doing, but if I can focus their attention on a location far away from Myra then that will be just as good as shutting them down.”

“So how are you going to do it?” Irene asked.

“I’m going to create my own singularity,” Jack replied. “Only, unlike a black hole, this one will be tuned specifically for the purpose of creating stable wormholes. I’m hoping that, like a lightning rod, it will attract all the activity in the area.”

“How are you going to do that?” Irene asked. “I mean, after all, the core of a singularity is hidden behind an event horizon. You can’t really ‘tune’ something that you can’t get to.”

Jack nodded. “I know. But there may be a way around that. You see, if a singularity spins rapidly it can, in theory, become a ring-shaped object. This will create two event horizons – an outer one and an inner one. As the object spins faster the two event horizons will merge and shrink toward the singularity itself. Eventually they will be drawn inside it and expose the singularity to space.”

“Does that actually happen?” Irene asked dubiously.

Jack shrugged. “Well, the math works out, and if loop quantum gravity is true then they could even exist in nature. I’ll admit it’s all pretty theoretical right now but it’s our best shot at fixing this problem. If I can build a series of ring-shaped quantum singularities and tune them to create stable connections to our local black holes, that should, in theory, stabilize the area – provided this invention of mine is located far outside Epsilon Eridani. I don’t dare try to build this on Myra.”

“Ok,” Irene said. “I’m following you so far. But how do you plan on building this singularity generator?”

“That’s the hard part,” Jack sighed. “If we were back at Falcon Technologies on Earth I could just call up Dad and have him machine the parts for me. However, we’re on Myra, and laboratory equipment is extremely limited.”

“It wouldn’t be if Daniel could get here,” Irene pointed out.

“But Daniel can’t get here until we fix the wormhole problem. No, we’re going to have to do this on our own, using whatever parts we can scrounge.”

Irene frowned. “This machine you’re proposing requires a lot of energy, right?”

Jack nodded. “An incredible amount of energy. In fact, it requires an order of magnitude more energy than this colony can even generate, or will be likely to generate in the future.”

“And doesn’t it need to be built out there in space?”

“It does,” Jack admitted.

“Well, you know, we only have one spaceship on Myra. And, as it turns out, that spaceship has a really huge fusion reactor, and it’s got all kinds of equipment on board that you could repurpose.”

“I know,” Jack said. “The Behemoth. Yes, it would do the job. But there’s absolutely no way I could get approval to do that!”

“Maybe you could,” Irene argued. “Look. All you need is a temporary solution until you can get the Liberty here. Then you can build something more permanent, using supplies from Earth. Once the permanent solution is in place you can bring the Behemoth back to Myra. You’d only be using the colony’s ship temporarily – probably for just a few months – and when you’re done with it you can put it back in working order. No harm done!”

Jack nodded. “That could work. But I’d still need to get approval first. I just don’t believe the mayor would ever approve of this. I’d probably be laughed right out of his office.”

“You could always present your case to the colony,” Irene suggested. “The mayor may not trust you, but most of the colonists do. If you could get their support then maybe you could pressure the mayor into–”

At that moment the couple felt the ground start to rumble. Moments later the room started to shake.

“An earthquake!” Irene shouted.

Jack shook his head. “That’s impossible! Myra is a geologically dead world. It doesn’t have a layer of magma under the crust – that’s why it has no magnetic field. Plate tectonics aren’t active here and there are no fault zones.”

The room started to shake even more violently. Dishes fell to the floor and books fell off of a bookshelf – and still the shaking increased. Jack realized that they were in serious danger.

“We’ve got to get out of here immediately,” Jack shouted over the noise. “This colony wasn’t designed to withstand earthquakes! If these rooms collapse–”

In the distance the couple heard an explosion, followed by a loud siren. Then the power went out and the room became completely black. But the quaking did not stop.

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2 Responses to “Jack Falcon and His Quantum Singularity, Chapter 3”

  1. loop quantum gravity – I wikipedia’d this, pretty intense theorys here, but it is cool to have some actual thought behind it.

     

    thayneharmon

  2. Favorite quote so far:

    “Just a minute,” Jack replied. He picked up his slide rule and began running some numbers.

    I love it! Still using slide rules but traveling faster than light. My kind of scientist!

     

    dethell