The Methuselan Circuit (17 page)

Outside the classroom, James had to admit, “She sure makes math sound good!”

The girls gave him sour expressions, and Lisa said, “This is going to be a long semester if we have to watch the boys mooning over her every minute of every class. James, I thought you were going to faint when she actually talked to you!”

Although Lt. Mortimer made class something to look forward to, for the boys at least, the stress on algebra, geometry and trigonometry—all at once—made it difficult. Still if math was hard, Space Physics was impossible.

Doctor Strauss announced on the very first day, “I don’t expect you to understand a great deal of what’s going on here, in fact I’ll be disappointed if you do. I expect you to learn just enough to keep you from killing yourselves in the lab.” He then went on to describe what they would be learning that first semester. There were all sorts of things Doctor Strauss brought up that Alexander didn’t even know existed. He talked about orbital mechanics, energy propagation, radiation and superluminal mechanics, which Alexander learned happened in a place called “curved jiffyland” using particles/waves that neither existed in normal space-time nor had any logical purpose in Creation—“They just are.”

To make things even weirder, at least to Alexander, Professor Strauss pressed upon them that the class would pass or fail his course as a class. “Individuality is the tool of class against class warfare,” he explained. “That is the basis for our troubles on Terra. Therefore, you will work as a collective so to speak. The strong must sacrifice their false aspirations of success for the good of the class.”

Surprisingly, it was James that raised his hand and objected. “Professor, I don’t want to be responsible for dragging someone’s grade down.” He shrugged, saying honestly, “My goal is to pass; I mean science isn’t my strong suit. I don’t want to be the reason Lisa gets a grade lower than she deserves.”

Lisa, who was already reading ahead on the first day, turned bright red at the compliment.

Professor Strauss was unmoved, absently polishing a table top. “Look at it this way cadet, besides reinforcing your cohesiveness,” he stopped, noting half the class had bewildered expressions on their faces; these were 6
^th
graders after all. He tried again. “Besides making you work together as a unit, which is what the Academy is trying to teach you, this approach will help you in the real world. You don’t need to be bragging about how great you are because you went to the Academy; rather, you need to accept that all of you belong to a single equal mass of humanity,” he stopped again, seeing that he’d lost his audience. Professor Strauss sighed.

James raised his hand again, and reluctantly, Professor Strauss nodded.

“I’m afraid you just made my point Professor; I didn’t recognize any science in that at all.”

Strauss’s pudgy brows almost covered his small watery eyes. He huffed around the classroom mumbling to himself, and occasionally staring at the students—especially James. As he passed, Alexander caught a little of what he was saying. “There will be a time when you will see yourselves as workers in a great empire, workers who will unite for the common good of all. Then we can destroy the trappings of class and wealth.” After two wandering circuits of the class he stopped in front of them again and shrugged. “Baby steps then. For the rest of the week we will discuss our first lab—gravitation. Select your notebook tabs please!”

Friday was the first lab. Alexander viewed this with some trepidation, as did most of the rest of the class, even Treya. For the first time, the Chem girl was completely out of her element. Worse, she didn’t really understand why she had to know such things. She raised her hand and asked, quite seriously, “Why do we have to know
how
it works, even in theory. We have many superluminal engines. There’s really no need to build more. Why not be satisfied in knowing how to operate the engines instead of trying to recreate the knowledge of how to build them?”

Professor Strauss took off his glasses and cleaned them vigorously, shaking his head as he did so. He placed them back on his red nose and began pulling at his beard with one meaty hand while drumming the fingers of his other hand loudly on his desk.

“Then it’s time to learn,” he told her seriously. “What if your ship is trapped in Methuselan space with both superluminal engines down and your only hope is to build a single superluminal engine out of the parts from the two smashed engine pods. How are you going to do that if you don’t know how it works?”

Treya frowned. She clearly hadn’t considered that angle, which was strange. Alexander always thought along the lines of “What if this happened, or what if that happened?” It was natural. So many things broke down on Terra that you had to think ahead, and when something happened, as it always did, you had to be able to figure a way to get the job done.

“Everyone pair up with your lab partners,” Professor Strauss announced, adding, “and please, everyone remember to turn on your safety shields. We don’t want any messy fatalities or dismemberments on our first lab!”

Alexander squeezed his Academy badge. A hardly audible hum sounded and he felt a faint tingling on his skin. He paired with Treya. Every pair of students was given a small metal object the size of an old fashioned paper book. It was formed by two metal plates separated by five or six centimeters of dark gray material. Plasteel latches sandwiched the plates to the material.

“What you have before you is a small graviton generator,” Professor Strauss announced. He walked up to the unit sitting in front of James and Lisa and pressed a switch in the side. “These units are self contained, meaning the graviton generator, the fusion power source and the control board—seen here on the lateral side of the insulating Plasteel material—are all in one unit.” He touched the switch and it turned green. There was metallic buzz and then emitted a strange sound like a robotic cat’s purr. A power meter illuminated. “Cadet Jameson, use the selector to change the polarity of the gravitons by sliding it to the other end of the scale.”

James pressed his finger on a small switch and slid it across to the other end of the display. The unit trembled and lifted off the desk. It floated there, warbling softly to itself.

“Very good, Cadet Jameson has successfully reversed the polarity of the gravitons produced by the generator,” Professor Strauss said, walking about the room with his hands clasped behind his back. “The rest of the period, you will experiment with your graviton generators. A one page report is due by the end of the period. I expect you to explain how the unit works and why. Get cracking.”

Alexander and Treya began by turning their unit on and sliding the selector back and forth. The unit rose and fell obediently to their commands. However, once they finished Treya was at a loss as to how to proceed from there.

“It works by changing the polarity of the gravitons generated by the unit,” she said incredulously. “The Professor already told us as much. I don’t know how we can go any further—what are you doing?”

Alexander turned the power off. Now he was releasing the latches and lifting the top plate off the insulating material. He peered inside, saying, “I’m trying to figure out what makes this thing work. That’s our assignment. Until I open it up, all I can do is guess.”

“Rule number one: disconnect the power source,” Alexander told her. This was easy. Galactic science didn’t use wires; instead it used the Plasteel between the graviton plates to run power. Instead of disconnecting wires as he would on an old Terran generator, all he had to do was to take out the small silver cube behind the power switch. It simply unplugged and he set it aside. “There now we won’t get shocked or burned.”

“That’s why we don’t mess with the insides of these things.”

Alexander ignored her, unplugging the control unit in the same way he unplugged the power unit. “We’ll take those apart later,” he said, inspecting the remainder of the interior. Without the power and control units there was only one thing inside: a clear plastic tray that appeared to have a golden-colored gel inside. A transparent membrane covered the tray and the edges of the tray fit within a raised edge on the bottom of the removed plate.

Treya picked up the handheld scanner and pointed it at the gel. The scanner announced that it was, “Beryllax, a Beryllium compound that is used to produce gravitons. The compound can be excited using infinitesimal amounts of energy thereby efficiently producing gravitons. The spin or polarity of the graviton particles is manipulated by the use of Trans-Ferrus Beryllium plates. These plates are very durable so they can be used as decking while they accomplish their primary job of diffusing the gravitons in a homogeneous gravity field—in essence curving the space around us and creating gravity.”

Alexander nodded. “So, the power unit supplies enough energy to excite the Beryllax, causing it to emit gravitons. The control unit does something to the plates to assign a spin to the gravitons and the plates spread the field out evenly.”

“You must be right,” Treya said with surprise. “How do the plates change the spin of the gravitons?”

“Point the scanner at the plates.”

Treya did so and the scanner announced, “Trans-Ferrus Beryllax, a Ferrus Beryllium compound used to manipulate the spin of gravitons because of its inherent electro-magnetic properties. When current is applied to the material it changes the alignment of the electro-magnetic field within the crystal lattice of the material. This is used to orient gravitons and thereby control the gravitational fields set up by graviton emission.”

“I think I understand what that means,” Alexander said, scratching his head. “It sounds like kicking a soccer ball in a freshly mowed field of grass.” Treya just looked at him with her luminescent eyes. “Well, think of it this way, if you kick the ball with the grain of the grass, in the direction it’s laying, it scoots right along, but if you kick it against the grain the grass grabs at it and makes it bounce. If you kick it across the grain, one way or the other, it will spin the ball one way or the other—that’s all this plate is doing. It’s telling the particles which way to spin. The gravitons all do the same thing then, making the gravity uniform.”

“O.k. but I still don’t know what that has to do with taking apart a perfectly good graviton generator,” she said shaking her head. They filed their report with Professor Strauss, who simply nodded and pulled at his wiry gray hair. He sent them on their way and received the report of the next team, but shortly thereafter he had to vacate his desk in a hurry. James decided to take his power unit apart and the fusion generator was now eating a hole in the desk.

“This wasn’t part of the assignment!” Professor Strauss exclaimed, retrieving a pair of what looked to be barbeque tongs. He put them around the errant fusion generator which looked like a small, blue, crackling star now burrowing through the Plasteel desk. He flicked a switch with his thumb and a spherical blue field formed around the fusion generator. With a sigh of relief he lifted it out of the desk. “It’s a good thing I had these handy; otherwise, you could’ve burned a hole right through the deck and all the way into outer space!”

“I was just curious,” James scowled.

“That’s how accidents happen,” he snapped. “Didn’t you ever hear of that darned cat?” He carefully set the fusion generator back in its box and closed the lid. Looking around the classroom, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I will tell you when to be curious and what to be curious about. Now finish up your reports. We have only ten minutes left and I want some time remaining to scold you some more!”

Treya gave Alexander a dig in the ribs. “Hey, thanks for doing all the work; I’d be lost without you today!”

Alexander blushed. He couldn’t think of anything to say but, “Sure, no problem.”

They sat down, but even as they wondered what they were going to do for the next ten minutes a loud buzzer sounded. Professor Strauss hit a switch on his desk and answered with ill concealed irritation. “Do you mind, I’m in the middle of—oh it’s you Ambassador! What can I do for you?” The change in the Professor’s demeanor couldn’t have been more dramatic.

CHAPTER 14: Government Intrigue

Professor Strauss put a communicator bud in his ear so that Alexander couldn’t hear what was being said. It was obvious that whatever it was troubled the Professor. His red face turned ashen and he began to pull at his white hair, muttering “Oh dear, I’ll be right there!”