Koban (94 page)

Damn, it’s going to be worse than I feared it would be,
he thought. Unpowered the Fancy would be a dark hulk, and Jake would function at
most a day or two on batteries. Worse, the labs would be dead, along with the hope
of adapting themselves to better survive long term on Koban.

Taking one of the hidden bottles from another ship as a replacement
for the Fancy was an option, assuming their entire subterfuge wasn’t discovered
first. It would generate animosity from that Captain, to take his ship’s only power
source. However, they needed the labs more than any Captain’s good will.

Telour made a small but surprising concession, however. “My warriors
will not visit the ships that still have humans on them until last. You have time
to move them to the dome.”

His following words proved he hadn’t gone all misty eyed and
altruistic on them. It wasn’t a concession after all, but an example of a Krall’s
preference for efficiency. “Humans will get in their way, and could interfere with
my warriors work. It will take time to travel to each ship and this plan will waste
less time. I intend to go to my orbiting command ship as soon as we finish here.”

Mirikami decided asking about keeping the trucks intact would
remind Telour to destroy those small power plants as well, or he already intended
to do so. He couldn’t see a plus side to mentioning them. Those truck fusion bottles
were too small to run a ship’s systems or any of the major dome equipment anyway.
To get the remainder of the people into the dome fast they needed all of the trucks,
and had no time to hide any of them.

There was no telling at what point the Krall would shut down
the dome’s two large power generators, but Gatrol’s orders to leave them with no
power would surely have included them. He wondered how hot and stifling the dome
would get without air circulation and cooling. At least three of their four ship
sized power plants would be needed to run the dome. He assumed they could figure
out how to convert the outputs to alien equipment power needs.

Eventually Telour grew bored and cut his questions off by disconnecting.
Mirikami Linked to the five committee members and told them the bad news that they
had all expected.

Aldry was extremely upset. “The only hope we have of beating
this planet is if we can join with it. The lab is the only chance for that. We need
that power.”

Join with it? Mirikami wondered at that remark. What do they
have in mind?

However, he knew that if the energy was needed to keep the dome
livable for over twenty thousand people, and for operating a high voltage fence
to hold back the native animals, then the labs would have to be sacrificed. Unless
they found another way to generate power.

Thad’s military mind focused on the one setback that could doom
them within months, if not weeks. He asked “What do we do if they find and destroy
the four hidden bottles? What can we do for a backup power plan for that contingency?”

“I don’t think we have one,” Maggi said. “Those trucks won’t
do us much good even if they leave them alone. The dome will roast in summer, and
freeze in winter. We’ll have to cut holes in the upper dome to let air blow inside
for summer, wood smoke out in winter, and those same holes will pass wolfbats and
skeeters year round. I’ll bet the rippers would find a way to climb up to them.”

Thad had some encouragement. “We don’t have skeeters in the winter.”
He smiled.

“Gee, that sure eases my mind a lot,” was her dry reply. “How
the hell
can
we find an alternate power source if they find those hidden
bottles? Burn wood to make steam for turning a turbine?”

“Mam, you could tap into the tachyon energy in either of the
two Trap Fields. A steam driven generator would be inefficient.”

It was Jake’s voice. He had heard a rhetorical question but provided
a serious answer.

“What? Tet, did you hear Jake too?” Maggi asked, not certain
if the AI’s reply had been on the general Link.

“I did Maggi. Jake, we know we have those trapped tachyons, but
we’re on a planet. How can we get energy out of them in a gravity well without destabilizing
the Traps? We certainly can’t form a Jump Hole where we are. We’d risk planetary
catastrophe if we even try. We keep tachyon power generators off of planets and
moons and out of gravity wells for a good reason.”

“Sir, it is true that the most efficient and maximum energy outputs
are obtained by forming an event horizon, then using the intense gravity field to
extract energy as controlled amounts of matter is delivered. Or the alternative
is to permit faster than light tachyons to tunnel out into Normal Space, where the
speed of light is an upper limit, forcing them to shed energy as they decay,
which also can be used for power generation.”

“Yes, So?” It sounded like Jake was confirming what they all
knew. “We can’t form an event horizon here, even if the fields
could
be kept
stable. We’d bite off a big chunk of the planet before it rotated into Tachyon Space.”

“Yes Sir, you are correct that an event horizon can only be formed
stably when done away from an interfering strong gravity field. As you observed,
attempting to form such an event horizon on a planet would risk its destruction.”

“It is...” Jake had started to say more, but Mirikami spoke over
him thinking he had finished.

 “That’s…, uh. Sorry Jake, I interrupted you. Please continue.”
Not that an AI cared about apologies or politeness, but the habit came automatically
to people.

“Yes Sir,” Jake resumed unperturbed. “It is possible to draw
electricity from Trap field emitters directly when the field they built contracts
rather than dissipating by being switched off. If the contracting field holds one
or more tachyons it can receive additional energy from them as the field starts
to contract.

“It is how the emitters are designed, to use energy feedback
from the fields to keep a Trap active if there is a sudden power loss. The emitters
can deliver electricity continuously by this inefficient method until the tachyon
energy is gone, or the field detunes enough to release the tachyons it holds, and
completes its collapse.”

This time Mirikami waited as the AI took a symbolic electronic
breath.

“This rarely used process can provide enough power to restart
the magnetic confinement field of a fusion bottle on a ship if both bottles have
been powered down. It is an emergency procedure, but it is also safe to use within
a gravity well if the Trap field generation and tachyon capture was previously done
outside of a gravity well. There is no event horizon formed, and it is completely
safe even if the field is allowed to collapse to release the tachyons. The energy
conversion factor is extremely low, which is why this method is not used for power
generation on planets.”

“The Chief once described this virtually never-used bottle restart,
but I was preoccupied at the time. How poor is the energy conversion from the contracting
Trap field?”

“Sir, it is on the order of point zero zero two and point zero
zero five percent of the energy generated by a comparable sized space based power
plant system with an event horizon. The efficiency depends partly on how heavy duty
the wiring to the emitters is, partly on emitter feedback design, and primarily
on the energy of the tachyons captured.”

“That’s a terrible conversion ratio, but you said we can still
draw enough current to initiate a fusion bottle’s magnetic confinement field. How
does that start up power requirement compare to the normal output of the bottle
after controlled and sustained fusion starts?”

Jake’s answer sounded less than useful. “A fusion bottle’s brief
startup energy is many times the normal power output of the bottle. It must be delivered
in a spike, which is needed for only one or two milliseconds to initiate magnetic
confinement and self-sustaining fusion.”

That was a letdown, since they weren’t going to
have
any
bottles to restart if the Krall discovered their subterfuge. However, it was a reply
Mirikami had expected, “Unfortunately Jake, we need a continuous output of at least
the normal power level of a fusion bottle. Not just a millisecond spike.”

“Yes Sir, I was describing the startup requirement for a fusion
bottle. A few millisecond spike of high current is all that is required for a startup.
However that startup level of power can be delivered longer than for one or two
milliseconds.”

This was taking too long. With a sigh, Mirikami asked “For how
many milliseconds
can
that spike of power are delivered Jake?” Jake’s proclivity
for trivia was taking them off track from the problem they needed to address, long-term
power.

The AI’s answer was a bit cryptic, at least to a Spacer like
Mirikami.

“Sir, it would be approximately two point three times ten to
the fourteenth milliseconds for the tachyon held in either the primary Trap or the
secondary Trap.”

“OK. Thank you Jake.” Mirikami was ready to move on.

“Wait!” Dillon said. “Ten to the
what
power?”

“Sir, it is ten to the fourteenth power.”

“OK, it’s a big number Dillon. But it’s still only milliseconds.”

Dillon laughed. “Tet, you
asked
him for the number of
milliseconds. Jake, please tell everyone approximately how many
years
that
so called big spike of energy could be delivered?”

“Yes Sir. It would be about four thousand eighty nine Earth standard
years.”

“Really?” Mirikami was shocked. Power generation used Jump Holes
and tachyons, but nobody used the low efficiency method Jake outlined to get power
from them.

Noreen excitedly asked, “We still have two of those energetic
tachyons trapped, right?”

“Yes Mam.”

Mirikami still wasn’t ready to accept it as a real possibility.
“Over four thousand years, Jake? On one single tachyon, delivering many multiples
of the power of our fusion bottle’s normal output? I don’t see how that can be correct.”
Obviously, he questioned the numbers.

“Sir,” Jake explained, in an AI’s equivalent of trivia heaven,
“the Traps were tuned for the maximum energy tachyons they could capture. The two
we have each have the energy equivalent in our universe to form an event horizon
with the radius of a black hole having the mass of a red dwarf star. The documentation
I have referenced says that, when forming a Jump Hole, if those massive objects
did not instantly and naturally rotate through an unseen spatial dimension it would
be too disruptive to form them near any inhabited solar system. With the large mass
equivalent rotated entirely into Tachyon Space, their intense gravitation leaks
only weakly into our universe. Even that weak leakage is extremely intense and can
be used for power generation.”

Jake continued, “Using the Trap field contraction method under
consideration, it is possible to extract a nearly infinitesimal part of the total
energy involved through the weakly coupled Trap field into our universe. Most of
the tachyon’s energy will go into a sort of quantum evaporation in Tachyon Space,
where the documentation says it will gradually decay into weaker tachyons. Those
tachyons escape the Trap field because it is not tuned for their lower energy. The
evaporation will happen even if we do not extract energy, and that has been underway
since the two tachyons were caught.”

“Put the Chief in our groups Link.”.

As soon as he was on, Mirikami explained to Haveram what he wanted
him to do.

“Captain,” the Chief answered uncertainly, “I was taught the
principle of restarting a bottle this way in training, but normally you would simply
use the second bottle to do that. I have never rewired emitters to feed into a bottle
for a restart but we do have an emergency procedure for that.

“What you are asking for Sir is
steady
emitter current
to
replace
a bottle. I don’t know how to do that, or to regulate it or convert
it to the various power needs of the ship. However, if it can be done, I’ll bet
we have people in the dome that do know how. There are four power plant electrical
engineers, and a couple of physics people. We now have a bunch of Jump engineers
from the other Drive Room crews. How about I invite them here to look things over?”

“Do it Chief. I know you are tired from the bottle moving today,
but this is top priority, an all-nighter. Pop pills if you have to, but we will
be on batteries by tomorrow morning. The Krall might visit us at first light to
kill both of our fusion bottles.”

“Yes Sir, I’m heading for the dome soon as I get some gun hands
to go with me in the dark. We have several trucks parked outside and Jake to keep
watch for us.”

“Right. Be careful but be fast.”

To the other committee members he told them, “You five can’t
do anything tonight and I need you fresh in the morning, so get some sleep. I’ll
be in the Drive Room with the Chief and our guests all night.”

At first light all twenty-nine remaining trucks were swarming
to the ships with people still aboard, and there were four men with .50 caliber
rifles laying on pallets held aloft by haulers, ready to take down any rhinolo that
came near the tarmac.

The truck drivers and gunners had all enjoyed fresh rhinolo steak
for an early breakfast. The old bull tasted a bit gamey, but it was a luxury after
hundreds of frozen military rations. They couldn’t wait for lunch and a promised
second steak.

Running out from the east entrance, just behind the first trucks
departing from there, the K’Tal and four warriors ran in their typical less-than
maximum but more-than a trot pace towards the Flight of Fancy.

Mirikami was watching for them from the hold, having suspected
that Telour would send them here first. They were as ready for this as they could
be in a single long night. They had borrowed additional batteries from another ship,
charged and ready to extend the power needed for lights and tools, once the bottle
destruction Krall team moved to the next ship.