The Pathfinder Project (9 page)

“So you’ve finished up, have
you?” queried the Captain.

“
We certainly have, Captain
Kaufield
.” Thomas said. Despite the slight, electronic distortion in the
voice transmission Kaufield could clearly hear the glee in his voice. “
I am
most pleased to report to you that the
Pathfinder
’s CAS Drive is on-line
and ready for use
.”

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

It didn’t take Kaufield long to
find his way down to the Laboratory wing. He raced along one of the “moving
sidewalks” on the top passenger deck until he reached the rear of the ship and
then used a lift to descend to the lowest deck. From there he simply walked
toward the two armed Marines standing next to several large sealed doors. They
nodded curtly at the Captain and one of them politely opened the nearest
hatchway for him.

Although he had been through
this procedure before – at one time or another – on all of the
Pathfinder
’s
wings, he still found it very intriguing whenever he visited one of them. Each
had its own unique characteristics, but the overall technology that allowed all
of them to function properly was surprisingly similar. He moved through a short
corridor that angled approximately 45 degrees downhill at first but then
appeared to level out. Dennis paid very close attention as he progressed, but
again was unable to tell just when the artificial gravity shifted to make the
flat, inside surface of the Starboard wing the new ‘floor’ beneath him. The
transition was almost completely undetectable.

He emerged into a large
one-story room that was almost completely filled with computer equipment and
manufacturing hardware. Although the walkways were a bit cramped, all of the
space was actually very efficiently organized. Some of the larger machinery
that the Project Team requested had actually been re-designed by private
contractors so that it could fit in a room with only seven to eight meters from
floor to ceiling. He continued walking out into the center of the rectangular
room and couldn’t resist taking a quick glance at the far wall on the opposite
side. Most people unfamiliar with the
Pathfinder
wouldn’t even guess
that to his left and right were the walls forming the edges of the wing. Even
harder for newcomers to grasp was the realization that the distant wall in
front of him connected to one of the ship’s rear landing skids.

“Over here, Captain,” Glen
Fredericks called out to him. He and Thomas were standing next to a large
console with open laptops and other equipment covering its surface. On the
monitor in front of them the first sustained, controllable artificial
singularity ever created continued to flare brightly.

“What’s your status?” the
Captain asked cautiously as he moved next to Glen. “From what I’ve heard it
looks like you’ve made some pretty decent progress.”

“Affirmative, sir,” Thomas
responded. “Our backup batteries were down to 47 percent but I’ve already used
the singularity’s energy to fully recharge them.” He paused, a little
frustrated. “The Brotherhood attacked us too soon, Captain. If we had spent
just a couple of more years researching this technology, we’d have been able to
find a way to use this new, renewable energy source to power a weapon.”

“Are you planning to join the
military in the near future?”

“No, sir, but with the attack
on Earth and everything…”

“I know, Thomas. But we’re an
exploratory
vessel caught in the middle of an all-out war. I’m itching to take a shot at
this ‘Brotherhood’ myself, but for now we’ve got to worry about the health and
safety of everybody aboard the
Pathfinder
first.” The Captain paused
long enough to smile reassuringly. “Even so, we do have to prepare for our next
encounter. Did you read my E-Note?”

“Are you talking about that
really lengthy document you sent asking me if we could use the CAS Drive to
attack other ships?” Thomas again looked frustrated. “I read it and your plan
is doable, but it would take perfect timing and I really don’t think an unarmed
vessel like ours should venture into a battle zone without an escort.”

“I want you to set up a
practice model and begin running drills anyway,” ordered Kaufield. “Have one of
your teams start on it as soon as we’re finished here. The pilots from the
shuttle patrol that just came aboard said the Brotherhood has completely
captured our home solar system. They’re also sending out patrols of fighters to
search for and attack any survivors. They could locate us at any time now and I
want us ready to go. Call it Contingency Plan Delta.”

“What about our standard PTP
engine?” Glen asked. “How long do we continue using precious fuel for what will
shortly become our backup engine system?”

“Only until we’re certain the
CAS system is
totally
reliable,” Dennis responded. He glanced past Glen
to a pair of technicians cleaning up the remains of a smoking laptop.

“
That
was an accidental,
preventable overload and it won’t happen again, sir.” Thomas promised. “We’re
ready to go, and I’m going to prove it to you.”

“How are you going to do that?”
the Captain asked, extremely curious. “Describe for me how the CAS system is as
reliable as Point-to-Point transit.”

“Because it’s the
same
thing as PTP… except that it’s a thousand times more efficient,” Thomas
insisted, growing somewhat irritated at what he perceived to be criticism. “The
major difference is that we have gained access to a much more powerful energy
source. This allows us to use only electronics instead of the traditional
combination of electronics and fuel-driven mechanical hardware. We can now
quite literally extend the range of our transitional jumps as far as we want
to. It’s kind of like the computer revolution, or a better comparison would be the
difference between analog technology and digital.”

“Thank you Thomas, I’ve grasped
the basic concept. Now, if I were a skeptical politician from Washington D.C.,
how would you describe to me the details of the CAS Drive along with its
capabilities?” Kaufield wondered aloud, continuing to apply subtle pressure. He
needed to know just how dependable this new technology was in order to prepare
for the inevitable command decisions that would be needed.

“Well, I would ask you – the
politician – to take about a dozen years of college first and then prepare for
a six hour lecture,” replied Thomas. “Everyone always says we scientists should
talk in layman’s terms. Well,” he said firmly. “The basic model for generating
the singularity is saved – we can duplicate it at any time instantly.” He
pointed at his console. “So in layman’s terms all I have to do is press this
button to turn on
that
!” He glanced casually at the tiny orb of energy
still burning on the monitor’s visual.

“And the next step?” queried
Kaufield.

“I’d like permission to send
out and retrieve a Canary probe,” said Thomas confidently. “The only question I
need answered is – where do we send it?”

“Where do you
want
to
send it?” Kaufield prodded. He knew full well that he was dealing with a
scientist.

Thomas grinned with enthusiasm.
“Where I’ve wanted to send it since this project began,” he said
matter-of-factly. “Let’s send it to
Bravo
Point.”

“Agreed,” replied Kaufield. He
watched Thomas grin from ear-to-ear and promptly busy himself at his
workstation.

“We’ve got twenty-eight Canary
probes on our inventory sheet. Plus the schematics for their design are on
file, so we can manufacture more of them if needed.” Thomas activated a program
on his console and watched the status readouts carefully. “A Canary probe is
detaching from the bottom of the hangar bay and moving into position beneath
the ventral wings.”

Beside him Glen was watching
the status reports on his own work station. “The coordinates are set and the CAS
Drive is on-line and ready.” He reported. “Main projector is active and
responsive. I’m reducing the size of the PTP window to match the Canary’s
specifications. The probe has locked onto the transit portal.” There was a
brief pause and then both Glen and Thomas were smiling.

“Canary probe has transited
away, Captain.” Thomas said proudly. “And the PTP projector is holding steady.
Using the energy supplied by the singularity we can hold the window open at the
target point from here. The probe is programmed to fly forward a thousand
meters, taking pictures all the way, then return to its origin point. That will
bring it right back here.” He checked his console cautiously. “Probe should
return in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …” There was definite tension in the air as the Captain
watched the technicians concentrate fully while handling their new system.

“Well?” Kaufield said after a
pause. “What’s the word?”

“The Canary probe is back and
returning to the hangar bay,” said Thomas. “I’m downloading the images it took
and routing them to our monitor here.” Above his laptop a series of dark images
began flashing quickly by at high speed. Most were completely black while
others had a speck of light or two on them. It wasn’t until the final pictures
flashed by that Thomas stopped the replay and backed up a few pictures. Curiosity
getting the better of them, some of the other technicians had walked over to
join the group. Everyone gasped in awe.

On Thomas’ overhead monitor
they could see
three
Galaxy star clusters. Two were beautiful, complex
spiral helixes with lots of curving arms. The third was also spiral in shape,
but it was mostly a ball of
very
distant stars with only two major arms
visible – one on top and the other at its bottom. Both of the visible arms in
the third Galaxy curved clockwise on the image. Also scattered amongst the
three larger Galactic clusters were a series of tinier, dwarf galaxies.

“It
worked!
” Thomas
grinned euphorically. Glen smacked him proudly on the back and then shook his
hand. “It worked!” Thomas said again. “One of those is our home Galaxy, the
other two are in the
local
area.” He shook his fist in triumph and
turned to meet Kaufield’s gaze. “I’ll let that D.C. politician of yours take a
guess
as to which of those three is our home Galaxy,” he commented dryly.

“The Canary traveled that far instantaneously?”
gasped one of the lower-clearance technicians standing next to Glen. “That’s
unbelievable!”

“Yes it really is something!”
Glen admitted proudly. He glanced at the Captain. “That was a
medium
range PTP. The further we send the Probe the more risk is involved. That’s
because the longer transits emerge in completely unknown territory – we have no
idea whether objects are moving in the area, what the gravitational forces are
like, not to mention radiation levels…” He trailed off for a second. “It’s
almost incalculable how many risk factors are involved. We’ve even theorized
that if we send the Probe too far, the PTP ‘window’ we leave open could
conceivably drift away before the Canary is able to return.”

“So there is some danger
involved,” the Captain pointed out.

“Oh, always,” Thomas said in
reply. “But that’s why we designed the smaller PTP field for use beneath the
hangar bay. We’re using the Canary Probes to
look before we leap
and
completely minimize the risk to the
Pathfinder
. We simply pick a
reasonable size distance and send a Canary ahead first to make sure the
immediate area is safe.” He nodded firmly. “The Probe has radiological and
other warning systems on board. You can consider the site we just surveyed as
labeled safe for transport in our computer catalogue, sir. We could take the
ship there right freaking
now!
”

“Hold on a minute. Just
what
do you consider to be a reasonable, medium range transit?” Kaufield asked
inquisitively. Despite the fact that he was supposed to be unshakable and
maintain a Captain’s image he found himself getting more and more excited at
the prospect of using the CAS engine. “Just how far
was
that? If we’re
seeing whole galaxies in those pictures, it’s got to be pretty darned far…”

“The computer reports 7.12 million
light years.” Glen couldn’t conceal the astonishment in his voice as he spoke
the words.

“7.12…
million
?”
Kaufield almost fell over, but managed to maintain his composure.

“Confirmed,” Glen replied. “It
works just like in the playbook, Captain.”

“Bravo Point indeed,” Kaufield
noted, laughing nervously before nodding with satisfaction. “I’ve been reading
status reports and projections regarding the potential of this project for
years,” he said, “and sometimes we still can’t believe such a thing is possible
until we see it done – right before our very eyes.”

“What are your orders, sir?”
Thomas asked thoughtfully, his growing curiosity blatantly evident.

“Assign some of these
colleagues of yours to work on my Contingency Plan Delta,” he decided. “Then I want
you and Glen to run two dozen more Canary Probe tests to that
same
destination. If you score 100 percent success on that, pick a secondary, closer
destination and run two dozen more tests. Let’s see how reliable this new CAS
technology is.” He turned to leave. “I’ll be in the Command Center if you need me. We’ve still got a pair of shuttles on patrol out there, and I’m
very
interested to hear what they’ve found.”

“We’re on it!” Thomas replied,
walking over to Glen’s workstation. “I think we should send a copy of the data
we downloaded from the Canary over to the Observatory. They will be very
interested in this.”

“Oh, I’m certain of it,” Glen
said, still a little bit stunned by what they had just done. “Those scientist
ladies are going to want to kiss us… one can hope.”