Koban 4: Shattered Worlds (81 page)

Mirikami asked, “Blue, the building Reception AI has all of your images, but can you explain what we see here?”

“I will try, Tet. This object is enormously larger than it may appear in this image. It completely encloses a star, with a radius that is dependent on the energy radiated by the host star selected. A red dwarf has lower energy output, and its lifetime is much longer than a star such as the brighter and hotter one of the Koban system. This type of shell would be smaller around a red dwarf. Such a sphere here, around your star, would have to be much larger for proper heat dissipation, and the Koban system would not have enough planetary material to construct something as large as is needed.

“There are cutaway views, and transparencies to show this structure, and the sphere could be rotated for an adde
d
centrifugal
effect on the inner side, strongest at the equator. This design would leave the poles of the sphere with only the gravity of the mass of the thin skin material. With tachyon energy, there would be no need for that inefficient method of gravity simulation. However, there is little reason to examine this image in detail, because this sort of structure had been determined by us, and by the Olt’kitapi, to be impractical for multiple reasons.

“It would require more planetary material than is usually available in a single star system, and it failed to provide the privacy and environmental customization for the different species they wanted to live in the habitats they constructed.”

Max Born named the object in Standard. “That is known as a Dyson Sphere to humanity, and in our culture this was discussed as a possible structure an advanced civilization might build, to harness all of the energy of the host star. When Blue told me of the images, I looked into archives and discovered this proposal by a physicist named Freeman Dyson, in the twentieth century. There appear to have been others that considered such a concept, with variations. The energy collection was a main consideration, and the building of such a shell was found to be not only a staggering and difficult engineering task, it would be gravitationally unstable around the host star. How do you keep it from constantly drifting off center without continuous adjustments of a truly massive, yet potentially fragile shell?” He shrugged.

“We didn’t have Normal Space drives or tachyon power then. That design fell into disfavor, not that humanity could have considered building one anyway. A solid ring was considered a possible alternative, and which required much less material. However, it too will have a gravitational instability problem, and neighbors would have no natural barriers to form privacy boundaries, and separate biospheres.”

As Born spoke, Mirikami had prompted the AI to see if a ring structure was in the images. One appeared on the wall, and this time a central red colored sun was readily apparent, with the immense ring circling the star at the habitable zone, where water would be liquid. It provided the breathtaking scale of the construction effort required.

Blue popped his lips in agreement, and added, “The Olt’kitapi did not favor either of these constructions, because of the requirement of constant massive energy inputs being required to maintain a stable rotation, and safe spacing of these rigid structures from the star.

“They did not say in our library, which contains only images, but we believe they would have used a more flexible sort of ring that they repeated in more detailed images, which could be expanded easily, constructed in pieces, and mimicked the small individual multiple ring systems every stable solar system already has. My people described it as a
chain of flowers
around the star. There are images of this as well.”

Coldar offered his people’s description, because they had also been looking at the Raspani files for several days. “It was described as the
spawning cycle
by us, when we compared it to how we release our fertilized eggs to circulate around the oceans, to return home when mature enough.”

Wister showed the Prada had once dreamed larger as well. “We have not seen these images, but we thought of such things in the past. It was like a
glade of trees around the mother star
to us.”

Killing the poetic sounding descriptions, Born described the human equivalent. “I think what you each describe was called a Dyson Swarm by us.”

Maggi latched onto something Blue had said. “Blue, you said every stable solar system has multiple rings? What do you mean?”

He wrinkled his brow in a smile. “The planets in their orbits, of course. One bead on a string. There is no reason there should be only one planet in each orbit, nor for there to be only one flat ring of planetary orbits.”

She looked skeptical. “You think the Olt’kitapi intended to make dozens of smaller planets, to form orbital rings around the star?”

Blue and his people had obviously been thinking of the possible Olt’kitapi choices for several days. “I doubt they would have been so wasteful of all of that building material. A sphere that enclosed a star was certainly too great a task for a practical design. However, a string of beads of planetary sized hollow spheres could start small, and be expanded. Clumps of sorted and matched building materials derived from larger planets could be placed in balanced orbits until needed. These raw material clumps would stay gravitationally stable, and the finished planetary scale spheres are massive certainly, on a personal scale of our own bodies. However, with Normal Space drives powered by tachyon energy, such hollow spheres can be slowly maneuvered if that were required, and would contain only a tiny fraction of the mass of a typical solid rocky planet, with none of the heavy metals wasted in a useless molten core.

“With tachyon Traps to generate a gravity field on either side of the two surfaces of a planetary sized shell, the civilizations could live on the outer and inner surfaces, with an atmosphere held in place by gravity. Both sides of the spherical shell could be used, and the location of industry could be moved to the inside if they wish, while the outer surface could have a normal biosphere and cities, with a view of the grand design of the entire managed solar system, with thousands of shifting points of light that are your neighbors. Each sphere would have the surface gravity its users selected, and a biosphere designed for the comfort of their species.

“We think, with mass balancing and managed weather, that rivers and seas and simulated mountains could be placed on the surface of each hollow planet sized world. At a minimum, each planet sized shell, roughly as massive as each of the others in the ring, offer double the usable space per sphere, and there could be many thousands of them, in various ring orbits around the star. If you use polar orbits, then there is no need to squeeze every ring into a single equatorial plane, where planets form naturally from the original stellar disc. Every planetary shell would be tailored for the species that would inhabit that one, or could have zones of different gravity and biosphere, to accommodate different species if they chose to share a shell world.

“None of the species in this room currently have the mathematical, scientific, and technical knowledge to do this, particularly the complex orbital mechanics. Apparently, the Olt’kitapi did. They would have helped the species peaceful enough to accept their invitations, and would have taught them how to use the advanced technology, which they were willing to share. Had they not wanted a more aggressive species to be tamed down, to have the Krall become the future defenders of their planned society, they might have succeeded.”

Everyone paused a moment quietly, to look at an image that the Reception AI, listening to their discussion, had considered to be appropriate. It was of a central star, with twelve orbital rings spaced around it, thirty degrees apart, and had at least a hundred “beads” in each ring, which would represent a shelled habitat sphere, or perhaps a power station or industrial complex. There were at least twelve hundred such spheres shown and with the inner and outer surfaces available for use, double the outer surface areas.

Maggi had a question for the AI. “Reception, what is the scale you estimate in this image that is used for the individual habitats, the diameter of the spheres, not the mass.”

Correctly assuming the answer to her question should be provided to everyone, it answered in Standard for the entire room. “Each sphere has roughly the diameter of either Haven or Koban, which are close to the habitable planet average in Human Space. That would be close to eight thousand miles in diameter, with a margin of error of one or two hundred miles, larger or smaller.”

Mirikami said. “Wow, two thousand four hundred times the room of a single planet. From the spacing of the orbits, it looks as if more rings could be added, as well as more habitats per ring. I guess since there is no shortage of stars, why pack ‘em in any tighter? Start another neighborhood. I have no idea how much building material an entire solar system would provide, but that brings us to the reason why we considered the Olt’kitapi construction project in the first place.

“How were they going to dismantle the planets, the gas and ice giants, on down to the rocky planets, moons, comets and asteroids to get what they needed? Any of these plans need most, or all of the metallic cores, and probably less of the gasses of the Jovian’s. Unless there are races that don’t breathe oxygen which we haven’t met. I wouldn’t bet against that possibility. Obviously, they needed what was in the cores of any of the planets. How do these relatively small ships get in and get that material?”

Thad discussed the rumor that had floated around among the early captives on Koban, when they had first heard about the Krall history of losing their home planet. Whatever did that to their planet was of interest to any enemy of theirs.

“The Krall say their world was totally destroyed, pulled or blown apart. We could only speculate then that an antimatter bomb was used, but that notion is at odds with how the planet was left in fragments. This isn’t how a bomb that strikes the surface will behave. Besides, if you can make and contain a large quantity of antimatter in the first place, what does that have to do with a mining ship? It must be something else.”

After a lengthy discussion, all they were left with was the belief the Olt’kitapi could somehow get to the core materials of a planet, and one old term for the ships that were intended to do that made sense. They were probably called Dismantlers for a reason. Except, how did the process work? Was it fast or slow? Is there a defense against the process? Do the ships get close and bore into the planet, or stand off a great distance?

In the end, the discussion was interesting, but offered no clue as to how a world could be attacked on a large scale by a single ship, and therefore no specific defense could be considered. The one point the Prada and Raspani emphasized, is that the Krall claimed the ships traveled greatly faster than did a T squared Jump Drive, and the Prada had heard Krall clan stories that the ships could Jump directly from the surface of a planet, while deep in a gravity well. They did this without being instructed to do so, when a destination was provided by a soft Krall.

It had been understood that the soft Krall, or Krall’tapi as several of the old Raspani dialects called them, were the only people alive that could operate the ships. Max Born thought it might have to do with a chip in the heads of the Krall’tapi, but the consensus was negative. The Krall had wiped out the Olt’kitapi, largely because of those chips imbedded in warriors of one or more ancient clans. There was no one that could make new chips if that was the key to operating the ships.

Mirikami, who had first figured out the use of his own Krall tattoo as a key to clanships, suggested the advanced ships would not respond to tattoos on a Krall, with its unique quantum key. Perhaps the Krall’tapi had a different key. It wasn’t clear how, if they were Krall prisoners, they could pass on a quantum key to one another that the Krall couldn’t also use. Twenty three thousand years ago, the Krall’tapi and warrior Krall were the same species, even if they were not now.

Pulling on his lip, Mirikami said, “It probably isn’t a different tattoo, but rather the ship recognizing who is wearing or carrying the key code. We repeatedly hear the Krall describe these ships as intelligent, even as alive. That suggests a more advanced form of artificial intelligence than our own AIs, which isn’t surprising, given the other technological and quantum advances that ancient race made. I’m afraid we aren’t going to solve the problem of how these ships are used until the Krall use one. By all indications, it’s a one shot use for each, because the ships stop obeying instructions later.”

Maggi took comments from a few others that offered opinions, but without concrete information to guide them, they eventually decided they would be forced to wait and see what happened. The conference ended, and everyone went back to normal routines.

Mauss, who had been quiet and observant at the meeting, talked with her hosts, Maggi and Mirikami, returning with them to their residential quarters when staying in Xenos.

“Tet, I see you let the aliens have an equal say in your meetings. They don’t provide fighters, so do they have an equal say in your combat decisions?”

“Golda, the navy and army fight, but they certainly don’t have an equal say in our Kobani combat decisions. Our alien allies have contributed greatly to the technological edge we’re gaining on the Krall, and the PU military is benefiting from that as well, but they are not good fighters. There are some advances a Normal can’t take advantage of because they don’t have a superconducting nervous system, or other genetic advances. We know our capabilities, certainly better than planners that think of ways to fight like a Normal does. We consider other viewpoints, but are not bound by them when they differ from our own.”