Part 28 (1/2)
”Then you're positive it works. Right, Selene? You're positive?”
”I'm positive,” said Selene. ”I've told you five times by actual count.”
Neville didn't seem to be listening. He said in a low, rapid voice, ”It doesn't matter that Gottstein was there, then? He didn't try to stop the experiment?”
”No. Of course not.”
”There was no indication that he would try to exert authority-”
”Now, Barron, what kind of authority could he exert? Will Earth send a police force? Besides-oh, you know they can't stop us.”
Neville stopped moving, stood motionless for a while. ”They don't know? They still don't know?”
”Of course they don't. Ben was looking at the stars and then Gottstein came. So I tried for the field-leak, got it, and I had already gotten the other. Ben's setup-”
”Don't call it his setup. It was your idea, wasn't it?”
Selene shook her head. ”I made vague suggestions. The details were Ben's.”
' ”But you can reproduce it now. For Luna's sake, we don't have to go to the Earthie for it, do we?”
”I think I can reproduce enough of it now so that our people can fill it in.”
”All right, then. Let's get started.”
”Not yet. Oh, d.a.m.n it, Barron, not yet”
”Why not yet?”
”We need the energy, too.”
”But we have that.”
”Not quite. quite. The leak-point is unstable; pretty badly unstable.” The leak-point is unstable; pretty badly unstable.”
”But that can be fixed up. You said so.”
”I said I thought thought it could.” it could.”
”That's good enough for me.”
”Just the same, it would be better to have Ben work out the details and stabilize it.”
There was a silence between them. Neville's' thin face slowly twisted into something approaching hostility. ”You don't think I can do it? Is that it?”
Selene said, ”Will you come out on the surface with me and work on it?”
There was another silence. Neville said, unsteadily, ”I don't appreciate your sarcasm. And I don't want to have to wait long.”
”I can't command the laws of nature. But I think it won't be long. . . . Now if you don't mind, I need my sleep. I've got my tourists tomorrow.”
For a moment, Neville seemed on the point of gesturing to his own bed-alcove as though offering hospitality, but the gesture, if that was what it was, did not really come to birth and Selene made no sign of understanding or even antic.i.p.ating. She nodded wearily, and left.
16.
”I had hoped, to be frank,” said Gottstein, smiling over what pa.s.sed for dessert-a sticky, sweet concoction- ”that we would have seen each other more often.”
Denison said, ”It is kind of you to take such an interest in my work. If the leak-instability can be corrected, I think my achievement-and that of Miss Lindstrom-will have been a most significant one.”
”You speak carefully, like a scientist. ... I won't insult you by offering the Lunar equivalent of a liqueur; that is the one approximation to Earth's cuisine I have simply made up my mind not to tolerate. Can you tell me, in lay language, what makes the achievement significant?”
”I can try,” said Denison, cautiously. ”Suppose we start with the para-Universe. It has a more intense strong nuclear interaction than our Universe has so that relatively small ma.s.ses of protons in the para-Universe can undergo the fusion reaction capable of supporting a star. Ma.s.ses equivalent to our stars would explode violently in the para-Universe which has many more, but much smaller, stars than ours does.
”Suppose, now, that we had a much less Intense strong nuclear interaction than that which prevails in our Universe. In that case, huge ma.s.ses of protons would have so little tendency to fuse that a very large ma.s.s of hydrogen would be needed to support a star. Such an anti-para-Uni-verse-one that was the opposite of the para-Universe, in other words-would consist of considerably fewer but of far larger stars than our Universe does. In fact, if the strong nuclear interaction were made sufficiently weak, a Universe would exist which consisted of a single star containing all the ma.s.s in that Universe. It would be a very dense star, but relatively non-reactive and giving off no more radiation than our single Sun does, perhaps.”
Gottstein said, ”Am I wrong, or isn't that the situation that prevailed in our own Universe before the time of the big bang-one vast body containing all the universal ma.s.s.”
”Yes,” said Denison, ”as a matter of fact, the anti-para-Universe I am picturing consists of what some call a cosmic egg; or 'cosmeg' for short. A cosmeg-Universe is what we need if we are to probe for one-way leakage. The para-Universe we are now using with its tiny stars is virtually empty s.p.a.ce. You can probe and probe and touch nothing.”
”The para-men reached us, however.”
”Yes, possibly by following magnetic fields. There is some reason to think that there are no planetary magnetic fields of significance in the para-Universe, which deprives us of the advantage they have. On the other hand, if we probe the cosmeg-Universe, we cannot fail. The cosmeg is, itself, the entire Universe, and wherever we probe we strike matter.”
”But how do you probe for it?”
Denison hesitated. ”That is the part I find difficult to explain. Pions are the mediating particles of the strong nuclear interaction. The intensity of the interaction depends on the ma.s.s of the pions and that ma.s.s can, under certain specialized conditions, be altered. The Lunar physicists have developed an instrument they call the Pionizer, which can be made to do just such a thing. Once the pion's ma.s.s is decreased, or increased for that matter, it is, effectively, part of another Universe; it becomes a gateway, a crossing point. If it is decreased sufficiently, it can be made part of a cosmeg-Universe and that's what we want.”
Gottstein said, ”And you can suck in matter from the- the-cosmeg-Universe?”
”That part is easy. Once the gateway forms, the influx is spontaneous. The matter enters with its own laws and is stable when it arrives. Gradually the laws .of our own Universe soak in, the strong interaction grows stronger, and the matter fuses and begins to give off enormous energy.”
”But if it is super-dense, why doesn't it just expand in a puff of smoke?”
”That, too, would yield energy, but that depends on the electromagnetic field and in this particular case the strong interaction takes precedence, because we control the electromagnetic field. It would take quite a time to explain that.”
”Well, then, the globe of light that I saw on the surface was cosmeg material fusing?”
”Yes, Commissioner.”
”And that energy can be harnessed for useful purposes?”
”Certainly. And in any quant.i.ty. What you saw was the arrival in our Universe of micromicrogram ma.s.ses of cosmeg. There's nothing, in theory, to prevent our bringing it over in ton-lots.”
”Well, then, this can be used to replace the Electron Pump.”
Denison shook his head. ”No. The use of cosmeg energy also alters the properties of the Universes in question. The strong interaction gradually grows more intense in the cosmeg-Universe and less intense in ours as the laws of nature cross over. That means that the cosmeg slowly undergoes fusion at a greater rate and gradually warms up. Eventually-”