The Whirlwind's Ride. Tom Boone's Anderson

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СКАЧАТЬ I believe the nature of light and dark matter is necessary to any understanding of Hyperlink Travel. I also assumed that they hadn’t resolved the nature of light and dark matter because most species make that discovery very shortly before they discover Hyperlink Travel. I felt that a species that had yet to send a manned vehicle even beyond their planets own gravity dent had not resolved the nature of light and dark matter.”

      My Uncle used that one magic word that he so seldom used to answer my attempts to defend myself against one of his criticisms. “Justified,” he said.

      “The vast majority of matter in our universe is dark matter. The dark matter is a giant ball filling most of our universe.”

      At this point the pinpricks of light went out leaving only the black ball.

      “And the light matter is nothing more than scum floating along on the surface of that ball.”

      The black ball was again covered in tiny floating pinpricks of light.

      “I must question your use of the term scum, Nephew.”

      “I wanted to convey the distain with which the dark matter must view the light matter,” I said while carefully watching my Uncle’s face.

      “You are giving emotions to the dark matter as though it were a sentient being?” he asked.

      “How do we know it is not? Besides I wanted to make my talk interesting. I don’t want everyone in the class to fall asleep.”

      My Uncle smiled. “Go on.” he said.

      “Every piece of light matter makes a dent in the dark matter ball on which it floats. The only difference is when a piece of light matter ignites into a star. The nuclear fire of a star forms a gravity well which creates a wormhole that extends all the way to the center of the dark matter ball.”

      Half the black ball fell away leaving a circle which showed the center of the ball and the tiny glowing lines extending from the pinpricks of light at the edge of the surface of the ball down to the center of the ball.

      “A propulsion coil fitted into a spaceship allows that spaceship to ride the gravity well wormhole deep into the dark matter ball. This makes for practical travel between the stars because gravity well wormholes are so much closer together than the stars are at the surface. The glowing lines are the wormholes. The closer the wormholes are to the center of the ball the closer they are to each other.

      “This is the way Hyperlink Travel works. The propulsion coil pulls the spaceship down the gravity well wormhole deep into the dark matter ball. Travel in a wormhole is without the passage of time. The problem is that the propulsion coil is limited to how deep it can pull a spaceship into the wormhole. When the propulsion coil reaches the limit of its ability to pull the spaceship into the dark matter ball, this is the Hyperlink. At this point the propulsion coil uses the spaceship’s momentum to push out from the gravity well wormhole it is in as the propulsion coil pulls against the gravity well wormhole it wants to travel to.

      “Travel at the surface of the dark matter ball would be measured in years to eons. Travel between the stars using the interior of the dark matter ball is measured in ship’s time of hours to weeks depending on how far apart the stars are and how deep the propulsion coil can pull the spaceship down the wormhole into the dark matter ball. Also the passage of time inside the dark matter ball is different from the passage of time on the surface of the dark matter ball.

      “There are two basic types of propulsion coils. Transport Propulsion Coils and Courier Propulsion Coils.

      “Civilian Transport Propulsion Coils are the easiest and cheapest to build. There are variations on design to increase speed slightly. Military Transport Propulsion Coils are vastly more expensive and massive to supply the bursts of speed necessary for combat and the durability to withstand the trauma of battle. Transport Propulsion Coils take you to a level within the ball where ship’s time is about half the time at the surface of the ball.

      “Courier Propulsion Coils are the most delicate, the most difficult to build, and by far the most expensive to produce. It is the classic tradeoff between time and utility.

      “Courier Propulsion Coils take a spaceship much deeper into the dark matter ball. The sacrifice made for this is that the spaceship’s engines must be exactly fitted to the needs of the Courier Propulsion Coil. There cannot be so much as a drop of energy produced for any other need. The energy needed for life support and communications and any other ship’s need must be supplied by battery power. Effective shielding or weaponry is totally out of the question. Fortunately, Courier Propulsion Coils pull a spaceship so deep into the ball via the wormhole that trips are almost always measured in hours to perhaps a day, ship’s time. Courier craft ship’s time within the dark matter ball is only about a tenth of the passage of time on the surface of the dark matter ball where the light matter universe exists.

      “What was my trip from the gravity well of my home planet to the gravity well of your planet like?”

      At this point the ball became whole again.

      “Traveling in the wormhole is without passage of time so there is no way to perceive anything while traveling in the wormhole. When your spaceship reaches the Hyperlink point of the wormhole and your spaceship enters the dark matter ball, nothing changes accept the stars begin to travel past your spaceship much faster.”

      At this point the ball becomes the huge shapeless black mass with the countless pinpricks of light floating randomly inside it.

      “There is no dark matter ball hanging in space. The ball is a mathematical concept to explain how the dark matter behaves. We cannot perceive the dark matter at all.

      “You may well ask if your species will be welcomed when it achieves the stars. I can tell you an unequivocal yes. That being the case, why don’t we simply show you how to build star traveling vehicles?

      “Through trial and error over eons, the star traveling species of this galaxy have determined that a species must find its own way off the planet of its birth. This is more difficult for us than you can imagine because we want so desperately for you to succeed. For every species that makes its way to the stars, incalculable numbers fail and drown in their own waste on the planets of their birth or suffer some catastrophe for which the only solution would be to evacuate the planet, which they cannot do. As a general rule we pay very little attention to the non-star traveling species. If you find a practical way to leave your planet to travel to other stars we will welcome you. If you fail your species will probably not even be listed. The galaxy is huge and there are so many worlds teeming with non- star traveling species.

      “And who knows, you may be the species that develops the next generation in propulsion coils, the one that takes us far deeper into the dark matter ball. Maybe you will be the species that develops the ultimate goal of propulsion coil technology, the coil that takes a spaceship all the way to the center of the dark matter ball where all the gravity well wormholes meet. At that point you could travel from any gravity well in the light matter universe to any other gravity well in the light matter universe instantly. Maybe you will develop a way to artificially create a wormhole so you can travel through the dark matter ball to anywhere in the light matter universe without regard to gravity wells. Maybe you will develop a practical method for travel between the stars that we have not dreamed of.

      “There are naysayers among you who will tell you it can never be done. That the stars are too far away and you can never go there. They would say that, instead of me being a member of a species СКАЧАТЬ