little bit of history.
"Therefore, under the university charter, I am immediately directing our pilot, Captain Cleddman, to divert us to this nearby system. In the meantime, contrary to any rumors you may have heard-" Here, Porter gestured to the copy of The Alley Citizen on his desk. "-classes will continue as scheduled. So, enjoy your weekend. That is all."
Even before the 2D screen winked out, all sorts of debris was hurled at the fading vision of Nolan Porter, including a squash racquet.
The lights came on and the babbling began again. Julia looked around. She hadn't thought about the possibility of classes being canceled, but it was clear that several students had hoped they were going to be.
The boisterous crowd got up and started filing out into the adjoining hallways, ready to start their delayed weekend.
Behind Julia, in the crowd that had been sitting high in the rear, was Ben. He seemed to be walking gingerly and he looked a tad shorter than she remembered him being.
Unless, of course, he was walking barefoot.
And he seemed to be in a hurry.
She was about to call after him, but he and his friends had disappeared. Besides that, two professors were already heading in their direction, one of whom held a shoe in her hand. She was looking for the foot that fit it.
Julia decided to contact Ben later. They had, after all, three weeks on their hands.
10
Colin Hollingsdale, who lived in an earlier century, probably never imagined his discontinuity breeder reactor as a means of moving ships through the interstellar void. The Hollingsdale reactors were typically designed for instructive purposes and were found in schools such as Eos University, or on planets far from either Tau Ceti 4 or Earth. This was because the Hollingsdale reactors created very small black holes in free space, so students and scientists alike could study their effects.
Ben had some experience with Hollingsdale-breeder technology back when he was working on his master's degree at UC Fresno-by-the-Sea. The breeders created artificial black holes-discontinuities-by using a form of C-gravitaton compression at distant projection points, tapping into the same energies that powered the Onesci Engines. Depending on the relative motion of the breeder-the ship it was within or the moonlet it was on-a powerful black hole with the same angular momentum could be created-well away from the projection source to prevent the hole's intense gamma radiation from killing its users, of course. But the gravity effects of the discontinuity itself could be felt, and that was the whole point.
Ben hadn't known that Eos University had a Hollingsdale discontinuity breeder until Eve Silbarton had told him that this was going to be their means of limping to the nearby planet where they could reprovision themselves until the new Engine arrived.
So while the students celebrated their good fortune to have a habitable planet nearby and the means to get there, Captain Cleddman sent a bullet back to the H.C. Council, giving directions to the star Kiilmist, which the Enamorati had just named, and its target planet called, for the time being, Kiilmist 5. More detailed data bullets would be sent with more information, once they achieved a stable orbit around the planet. For now, they had a tricky maneuver to make and all of the rail guns were going to be shut down for the duration.
At 1400 hours the following Monday, Eve Silbarton and her handpicked crew activated the Hollingsdale breeder reactor. Ben was among those invited; so, too, was Tommy Rosales. Ben had convinced Eve that Rosales's experience with fusion-reactor technology might come in handy, even if Rosales had dropped out of Eos's nuclear engineering program.
Dr. Silbarton and several engineers had spent the weekend setting up communications links from the nuclear engineering alpha lab, where the Hollingsdale resided, to both ShipCom and the command deck. This last was done at the request of the
"Therefore, under the university charter, I am immediately directing our pilot, Captain Cleddman, to divert us to this nearby system. In the meantime, contrary to any rumors you may have heard-" Here, Porter gestured to the copy of The Alley Citizen on his desk. "-classes will continue as scheduled. So, enjoy your weekend. That is all."
Even before the 2D screen winked out, all sorts of debris was hurled at the fading vision of Nolan Porter, including a squash racquet.
The lights came on and the babbling began again. Julia looked around. She hadn't thought about the possibility of classes being canceled, but it was clear that several students had hoped they were going to be.
The boisterous crowd got up and started filing out into the adjoining hallways, ready to start their delayed weekend.
Behind Julia, in the crowd that had been sitting high in the rear, was Ben. He seemed to be walking gingerly and he looked a tad shorter than she remembered him being.
Unless, of course, he was walking barefoot.
And he seemed to be in a hurry.
She was about to call after him, but he and his friends had disappeared. Besides that, two professors were already heading in their direction, one of whom held a shoe in her hand. She was looking for the foot that fit it.
Julia decided to contact Ben later. They had, after all, three weeks on their hands.
10
Colin Hollingsdale, who lived in an earlier century, probably never imagined his discontinuity breeder reactor as a means of moving ships through the interstellar void. The Hollingsdale reactors were typically designed for instructive purposes and were found in schools such as Eos University, or on planets far from either Tau Ceti 4 or Earth. This was because the Hollingsdale reactors created very small black holes in free space, so students and scientists alike could study their effects.
Ben had some experience with Hollingsdale-breeder technology back when he was working on his master's degree at UC Fresno-by-the-Sea. The breeders created artificial black holes-discontinuities-by using a form of C-gravitaton compression at distant projection points, tapping into the same energies that powered the Onesci Engines. Depending on the relative motion of the breeder-the ship it was within or the moonlet it was on-a powerful black hole with the same angular momentum could be created-well away from the projection source to prevent the hole's intense gamma radiation from killing its users, of course. But the gravity effects of the discontinuity itself could be felt, and that was the whole point.
Ben hadn't known that Eos University had a Hollingsdale discontinuity breeder until Eve Silbarton had told him that this was going to be their means of limping to the nearby planet where they could reprovision themselves until the new Engine arrived.
So while the students celebrated their good fortune to have a habitable planet nearby and the means to get there, Captain Cleddman sent a bullet back to the H.C. Council, giving directions to the star Kiilmist, which the Enamorati had just named, and its target planet called, for the time being, Kiilmist 5. More detailed data bullets would be sent with more information, once they achieved a stable orbit around the planet. For now, they had a tricky maneuver to make and all of the rail guns were going to be shut down for the duration.
At 1400 hours the following Monday, Eve Silbarton and her handpicked crew activated the Hollingsdale breeder reactor. Ben was among those invited; so, too, was Tommy Rosales. Ben had convinced Eve that Rosales's experience with fusion-reactor technology might come in handy, even if Rosales had dropped out of Eos's nuclear engineering program.
Dr. Silbarton and several engineers had spent the weekend setting up communications links from the nuclear engineering alpha lab, where the Hollingsdale resided, to both ShipCom and the command deck. This last was done at the request of the
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