Tiona (a sequel to "Vaz") (13 page)

Tiona wondered why he hadn’t hit the bag; then realized he might have been embarrassed to do it in front of his daughter. When he dropped off the pull-up bar, she moved to slowly stand up and turn around. He was standing there looking at her. She said, “I think I’ll go out for a run. Do you want to go?”

“Um, I’m not a very good runner.”

Tiona eyed him. She wouldn’t have thought he would be very good at pull-ups either, but then he always wore really loose long sleeved shirts, so she had no idea what his arms looked like. “Okay, but I could run slow if you wanted? Or I could run circles around you.”

Vaz stood there, blinking expressionlessly, saying nothing. Just about the time Tiona had decided he wasn’t going to respond, he said, “I think you’d better run by yourself…” As usual, it seemed he had no idea she’d been trying to make a joke.

“Okay,” Tiona said, heading up the stairs. Curious, at the top of the stairs she turned and quietly walked back down to peek in the door of the basement. To her astonishment, her father started
pounding
his heavy punching bag with such violence that she found it hard to believe.

She blinked, then as she let the door quietly close, his heavy sweatshirt flipped up as he threw a right hook. She stood, staring at the closed door, or rather at the mental image of ridged muscle on his back and left side
. How can that be? He’s nearly 50!

Tiona went for her run, at first pondering her father’s surprising muscularity, then thinking back to the time he had defeated those men who’d attacked the family when she was in high school. She’d thought it was some kind of fluke, or that he’d tricked them somehow, like he’d outsmarted them in getting his family out of the basement. Dante had said something about their dad fighting in an MMA tournament, but she’d just thought it was some very low-level amateur bout.

Now
she wasn’t so sure.

Her mind turned back to the question of how the membrane discs produced thrust. This happened just before the “second wind” phenomenon left her sailing gently down the street, feeling as if no effort were needed to keep running.

No fields for the discs to react to… No matter ejected for a reaction drive… No propulsion of surrounding matter like a propeller… Matter?
Something niggled at her mind. Something to do with matter.

Dark matter!

Vaz was holding one of the discs they’d assembled. It had fifteen centimeter lithium-copper doped graphene membranes on either side of a one centimeter slab of Styrofoam. The current generator was producing seventy-five watts of power and the disc was pushing on his hand with about a pound of force. He’d looked up the force produced by propellers on model airplanes and the power consumption for the force produced was comparable.

Tempting as it was to compare the disc to a propeller, no air was blowing out of the back of it! He felt a headache coming on…

Vaz heard someone open the door at the top of the stairs to the basement. Whoever it was started pounding down the stairs. He felt apprehensive. People who ran down the stairs were usually angry and he didn’t like dealing with angry people. He thought back over his day, wondering whether he had done something to upset Lisanne.

The lab door slammed open. Tiona stood there in sweats, looking like she had just finished a run. “Dark matter!” she exclaimed.

Vaz’s initial reaction was relief that no one was angry. Then he thought,
dark matter?
“Um, what about dark matter?”

“The discs! They are pulling dark matter in on the front side and ejecting it on the back side.” At Vaz’s blank look, she continued, “Like an ion thruster! They use an electrical field to propel ions out their exhaust nozzle.” She frowned, “Well, this is more like a jet engine. Pulling matter in the front, accelerating it, and shooting it out the back. Except, instead of air, it’s doing it with dark matter.
That’s
why we can’t feel the jet!”

“But… but dark matter doesn’t interact with normal matter and the only force that seems to act on it is gravity!”

“Right! That’s why we can’t feel the jet. It passes right through our hands because it doesn’t interact with normal matter.”

Vaz blinked slowly at her. “Okaaay. Still, how are we acting on it to accelerate it through our discs?”

Tiona shrugged, “
I
don’t know. But, I’m not sure we’re the first ones to observe this effect. Shawyer’s EmDrive and Fetta’s Cannae drives were ‘reactionless drives’ that were powered with radiofrequency energy. They didn’t produce much thrust and the results obtained with them were variable. But what if they were accelerating dark matter? We’re using gigahertz range energy like they were, though they radiated their energy into various cavities. If I’m right, maybe this is the same effect, but something about our discs accelerates dark matter more efficiently? Maybe the variations in their results were due to differences in the density of the dark matter in the region of earth at the different times that they did their tests? Less dark matter, less thrust because there would be less mass to accelerate.”

Vaz’s eyes widened and he sank back in his chair. Then he got a distant look. A minute later he turned to the lab’s big screen and began speaking to his AI. Articles started popping up on the screen for him to scan.

Tiona watched his screen and followed the searches he did for a while, but then activated one of the other screens in the lab and started doing her own searches.

***

Houston, Texas - NASA today announced that their Bellerphon module has arrived at near Earth asteroid Kadoma. This asteroid is relatively small, with a diameter of approximately 15 meters. It was discovered about ten years ago and accompanies earth in a similar orbit. Left undisturbed, it would eventually have come within 300,000 miles of Earth but then moved away again. Bellerphon carries a massive ion engine powered by one of General Electric’s new fusion power plants. Astronauts White and Abbott will attempt to fix the engine to Kadoma and begin melting frozen gas on the asteroid to provide ions for fuel.

NASA admits that this is an extremely ambitious project. Many untried technologies are being used, including the methods for attaching the ion drive, the system for melting and pumping the frozen gas to fuel the ion drive, and the large ion drive itself. However, Raj Mehta, NASA’s representative, said, “Finding an NEO which will require so little delta-v (change in velocity from a rocket) to put such a wealth of material into Earth orbit is a rare opportunity that we cannot afford to squander.”

Although it is small, it is expected to contain about 3,600 metric tons of water, various gases, silicate and carbonaceous minerals, and metals. “Having large quantities of such resources available in earth orbit will make a huge difference for the space program,” Mehta says.

Protests have been organized in several locations across the United States and in other locations around the world by those who fear that NASA will miscalculate and crash Kadoma into the earth. Mehta says that they should realize it will be extremely difficult to bring Kadoma close enough for it to be captured into orbit, much less to cause it to strike the earth. He said, “However, even if we did somehow manage to place it on an intersecting orbit, it is small enough that it should burn up almost entirely in the Earth’s atmosphere. The project poses minimal risk.”

Zack swore repeatedly. “Dammit, Abbott, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. First, it’s months in that little tin can with you instead of Sophie. Then it takes us five tries to dock with this miserable rock without bouncing off. Now, not only won’t this damned ion engine detach, but the warmers in my boots aren’t keeping up with the cold!”

Ralph Abbott laughed, “You’re absolutely right. They should’ve sent Sophie instead of you! At least
she
wouldn’t have been whining the whole time. Now, would you mind pushing on that pry bar one more time?”

Zack self-consciously checked his tether. Doing anything forcefully on this little rock carried the danger that if something gave way he might fly away into space.

Irretrievably.

He couldn’t push down on the pry bar as pushing down merely lifted him up off his feet in the microgravity of the asteroid. Satisfied with his tether, he heaved up on the bar instead.

Nothing happened!

Zack pulled himself down and peered at the connector clamp that held their capsule to the big ion engine. The connector shouldn’t have corroded in the vacuum of space. Most likely it was a differential contraction issue in response to the cold here on the asteroid.

The asteroid was slowly tumbling, so in theory they could just wait until it rolled to put them back in the sun. However, it tumbled fast enough that they never stayed in the sun long enough to achieve much heating. The engine was attached to the front of their space capsule so that they could fly it into place. Getting it positioned here without bouncing it off the rolling rock was what had taken five tries, so the first thing they had done once it was in place was to attach it. First with a new adhesive that worked in space, then they drilled and inserted some conical bolts through the engine’s feet. The engine was now solidly attached to the rock.

Unfortunately, their space capsule was still securely attached to the engine, at the bottom of a little divot that further limited the sunshine to a short period each rotation. That fact had a lot to do with Zack’s cold feet. They needed a heat source to warm up the junction somehow. Ralph’s voice came over the link, “Let’s try wiggling it by alternating our prying. I’m prying now, when I let off you’ll pry, when you let off I’ll pry. You ready?”

As Zack inserted the pry bar again and positioned himself, he considered what might happen if they couldn’t separate the engine from the capsule. They should be able to fly back to earth, but if they had to push that huge ion engine it would take much longer than if they were flying the capsule without it attached. He wasn’t sure they would have enough food. “Okay, you call it out,” he said.

“Okay,” Ralph said, “I’m letting off, you’re putting pressure on. I’m putting pressure on, you’re letting off. I’m going back on, I’m easing off, I’m going back on, I’m easing off…”

They rocked back and forth on their pry bars for a couple of minutes. Finally, Zack said disgustedly, “This isn’t working. I think cold shrinkage is the problem, we need to apply some heat.”

A little irritation showed in Ralph’s perpetually cheerful voice, “Oh, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Let me just go back into the capsule and get our widget heater.”

“Seriously man, we need to heat this thing up. I know we don’t have a heater, but surely a bright boy like me, with a little low wattage from a dim bulb like you, can figure this out. We have plenty of power from that fusion plant. There must be some way to use it! Maybe we could cannibalize the magnetron out of our microwave and aim it at this thing. Maybe we could just run some current through the grips and heat them up enough.”

Ralph said, “Wait a minute. Maybe we could use the heater that we’re supposed to melt the ice with?”

“Oh…! Yeah! I knew that little bulb of yours was good for something!”

***

Tiona went back down the stairs. Her dad had been locked in some kind of a fugue state since she had suggested the idea that the disc membranes were accelerating dark matter. She had spent some time herself doing online searches and reviewing journal articles without finding anything that proved her idea wrong. She’d tried to talk to Vaz about it several times. He either completely ignored her, or if she poked him hard enough to force him to take note, he would simply brush her hand away like he might a fly that landed on him.

She’d taken him down some lunch, but he hadn’t eaten it. Now it was dinner time. She wondered whether he would be responsive this time.

When she entered the basement lab, Vaz turned. Without giving her time to tell him that dinner was ready, he said, “I think you might be right. I can’t find anything wrong with your dark matter acceleration hypothesis and I
certainly
can’t find any other explanation for the thrust produced by the discs! Do you have any professors who are experts on dark matter?”

Thinking of Dr. Weitzel, Tiona said, “I did take a class from a professor with a special interest in it this semester. Do you think I should talk to him about this when I get back next semester?”

“Yes!” Vaz blinked a couple of times, “Why do you have to wait until next semester?”

Tiona tilted her head curiously, “It’s the Christmas break. It would be rude to interrupt his time off.”

“But…” Vaz said with wide eyes, “
Surely
he’d want to know about this as soon as possible!”

Tiona laughed, “Not everyone is as excited about this kind of thing as you are Dad. Right now it’s time for dinner.” she jerked her head at the door. “Come on, Mom’s waiting.” She started up the stairs.

Vaz trailed behind her, saying plaintively, “At least call him. He can always tell you he doesn’t want to talk about it until next semester.”

Tiona opened the door at the top of the stairs, “I’ve been thinking about this. Dr. Eisner might not be all that happy I’ve been showing
you
our research. I really think I should discuss this with him before I talk to Dr. Weitzel.” Tiona sat down at the table.