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Slateman was livid and worried; another ship was missing, another Space Force ship. And this time the ship had been on a high-priority mission that involved the highest levels of government. Something had to be done, so the general had called a meeting, including some of the leading experts on the physics of the bulk, since it appeared to be the common thread in all the disappearances.
The meeting was taking place on a military base in north-central California in a situation room which was just a conference room with extra wallscreens and communication lines. It had gone on long enough that the general was getting irritated. Too many people were trying to cover their back ends instead of proposing a way to discover what was happening and finding a solution. Except for that physics professor from Pacific Tech. Finally, tired of listening to excuses, the general called an end to the meeting. As Dr.
Dreyer was getting ready to leave, the general asked him to stay behind. The general even dismissed his adjutant.
Alone in the large room across the big conference table, the general began.
“Dr. Dreyer, I asked you to stay because I wanted to discuss your ideas about the bulk.”
“How can I help, general?”
“Doctor, is there anything in your theories that could account for these missing ships?”
“Sir, as far as we know, the bulk has its own physics which we still do not understand.”
“Why is that?” asked the general.
“A complete characterization of the bulk would require a pretty intensive investigation which would require quite an investment,” said Dreyer.
“And no one has made that investment yet?” asked the general.
“No sir, not an integral investigation. We all have pursued different avenues and reached some conclusions,” said Dreyer.
“Okay doctor, with what we know now, do you have any guess as to what could have happened?”
Mark explained his theory using the flat world analogy.
“So, you are saying that these missing ships could experience unprecedented stresses and be destroyed?” asked the general.
“I'm saying it is possible that a ship, if it uncovers, could find itself under mechanical stresses in the bulk and that could disable it. But I must make it clear that this is just a theory that has no physical proof behind it,” said Mark.
“Could something cause it to uncover?”
“Possible, but unknown general.”
“If you had the support, could you find out?” asked the general.
“I could set up a research program and let the experiments lead me to a conclusion, whether that would prove my theory, answer your question or not, I can't say.”
“Okay, I want you to put together a research program that you think will find an answer to my question and send a write-up, along with estimated costs, to my office,” said the general.
Leonard Post was in his editor's office discussing the story he had just written.
“Leo, are you sure your source said this?” asked the editor.
“Yeah, Frank, I didn't make it up,” said Leonard.
“But the conclusion you've drawn is going to cause a backlash from the boundary drive transport companies.”
“My conclusion follows from Dr. Dreyer's explanations,” said Post.
“That's one interpretation of what he said, but it is the most extreme,” said the editor.
“But it's a valid conclusion,” said Post.
“Okay, I'm putting it in; I've taken the heat before for freedom of the press, and I'm sure I will again,” said the editor.
After Sher had gotten a report on the ship's status, she called for an immediate conference in the wardroom. The small room was just off her quarters and was only big enough for eight to sit comfortably; there were twelve in the meeting, some floating but holding to a wall rail since the crew wheel had spun down and the artificial gravity was lost.
“Lieutenant Beigan, what have you found about the ship?” asked Sher of her helmsman.
“Captain, we've found that the ship is relatively undamaged but seems “stuck” in this space,” he said.
“What do you mean stuck?” she asked.
“We are unable to move; the fusion engine and the spin-two and boundary drives are offline. While investigating for damage, the front control room was found to be unavailable,” he said.
“Lieutenant, I expect a more precise report than unavailable,” she said.
“Sorry ma'am, but Ensign Liu and his team were unable to access the area and could not explain precisely why,” he said.
“Okay, this is getting us nowhere. Lieutenant, I want you to get whatever resources you need and figure out exactly what is holding us here. You have three hours to get me a report, dismissed.”
Since Chief Engineer Jennings was in sick bay, Lieutenant Beigan got the assistant engineer to accompany him and the others to the front of the long fusion ship. The Liberator was a typical Space Force fusion ship with the fusion engines in the far back, and a secondary control room in front behind a massive particle shield which protected the ship from dust and meteorite strikes when it was underway.
The crew wheel, which was spun up to create artificial gravity but had stopped once the ship stopped, was three-hundred-fifty feet from the front.
To get to the front, the group would pull themselves along the central girder-like structure. It was enclosed from the vacuum but in zero gravity and reduced air pressure. With the lieutenant leading the way and the assistant engineer, Joseph, directly behind, they made their way using the overhead hand straps to the front. All were wearing their flight suits and using extra oxygen against the reduced pressure. Within twenty feet of the control room, the lieutenant stopped.
“Joseph, look at that,” said the lieutenant, pointing ahead.
“It looks like there is a ripple effect in the air,” said Joseph.
“Yeah, but what is causing it?” asked the lieutenant.
“Let me get a little closer and use my Emmie with its field detector,” said the engineer.
He moved closer, almost to the shimmering surface of the anomaly. He stuck the detector even closer to the surface and busied himself with his device.
“I'm reading a few particles,” he said, looking back at the lieutenant.
“What kind?” asked the lieutenant.
“Just a minute,” said Joseph.
He was quiet a minute.
“I don't believe it,” said Joseph.
“What? What don't you believe?” asked the lieutenant.
Joseph turned more towards the lieutenant, and as he did, his right hand drifted toward the surface and touched; he screamed and jerked his arm back, causing himself to lose his balance in the zero gravity and tumble toward the lieutenant. The lieutenant braced himself by putting one hand in a strap and grabbing the spinning engineer with the other. By the time he had him secured, he noticed that Joseph had passed out. He also noticed his right hand was missing, but there wasn't much blood; it had been cleanly cauterized.
Looking back at the shimmering mass guarding the control room, he could see Joseph's hand suspended there.
“Yes ma'am, the doc says he will be okay,” said the lieutenant; he was advising the captain on what had been discovered.
“What do you think happened?” she asked.
“Well, of course, the assistant engineer wasn't able to tell me, so I took his Emmie to Lieutenant Spinrad.
He reviewed its data, so I'll let him tell you what he found.”
“Yes sir,” said Spinrad, an engine specialist, “I've looked over the data on the Emmie, and I've used the ship's AIs to analyze the results, and what they found was a spheroid of spacetime, frozen spacetime.”
“Really, I've heard of that before,” said the captain.
“Yes ma'am, several hundred years ago it was figured out how to use the theory of Quantum Temporal Dynamics to control the passage of time. But not stop it as in this case, that came a little later when they figured out that if they used a spin-two drive to cast two link-mouths to the same location that the infinitesimal difference in the spheroid's sizes creates an area where the zero-point energy of space becomes dominant and supports the spheroids so that they dissipate very slowly and with the passage of time within affected,” said Spinrad.
“But we weren't even using the spin-two drive to open a wormhole link,” she said.
“No ma'am, that is a difference; it is similar to what can be created by a spin-two drive but not exact.
Somehow, the bulk space created this spheroid of frozen time,” he said.
“Can you figure it out, Lieutenant, and break us free?” she asked.
“Well, even though a spin-two drive didn't create it, we may be able to use a spin-two drive to disrupt it,” he said.
“Except that we have to get the spin-two drive online,” said the helmsman, Lieutenant Beigan.
“That's true,” said Spinrad.
“Okay, you both get busy on getting the drive online. We've got to break free from this frozen spacetime sphere; I doubt anyone is coming to save us,” she said.
“We've got a problem,” said Lainey Johnson, head attorney for Universal Space Lines.
She had called this meeting of the board of directors and was standing in front of the long table with the CEO at the opposite end.
“The news media is running with this story.”
She then read the story that Leonard Post had written.
“He can't say that,” said the CEO. “He's basically saying that we are responsible for the destruction of the bulk space and that could lead to a dangerous situation in our spacetime.”
“Who is that physicist that gave him these ideas?” asked one of the board members.
“I researched that,” said Johnson. “It's a Dr. Dreyer at Pacific Tech; he's a young physics professor there.”
“Well, what can we do to stop this talk?” asked the CEO.
“We could sue for defamation, but that would take some time to prove,” said Johnson.
“Do it anyway,” said the CEO. “And I want a lot of publicity about it. I want everyone to know that this is some egghead's theory and not reality.”
The meeting ended with the CEO staring out the floor to ceiling windows of the huge corner room.