A Larger Universe (29 page)

"That changed when one of The People's ships met a ship
from a civilization whose home planet had been destroyed... they claimed by the
Kadiil.

"When our ship returned with this news, the debate
began again.  Two main opinions emerged, although few additional facts
supported either faction.  On the one side were those who felt the Kadiil had
kept their part of the bargain, and we had no reason to distrust them.  On the
other side were those who were sure the Kadiil were keeping something from us,
that they had stopped the research to keep us from learning even greater
secrets.

"Although the public debate never reached a conclusion,
some among the group who distrusted the Kadiil were extremely wealthy.  Those
wealthy individuals funded a new research station on one of our moons.  One
individual was wealthy enough to build a Kadiil drive ship on her own; a ship
named
My Flowing Streams
.  Her control of that ship is the only reason
we know the rest of the story.”

She collapsed back onto the rock.  "In spite of the ban
on research, some physicists and mathematicians had continued to think about
the problems and discussed their results with each other. 
My Flowing
Streams
transported some of them to the old research station along with the
supplies they needed.  With the stars now open for travel, both moons had been
deserted for fifty years. 
My Flowing Streams
waited close by for over six
months until the station was ready for its first experiment, and then withdrew
several light seconds.  Its job was to monitor a number of satellites that had
instruments pointed at the moon.  

"Soon after the appointed time,
My Flowing Streams
received a message that the experiment had been a success.  The satellite
instruments reported small gravitational anomalies, and the ship prepared to
return to the moon. 

"A few minutes passed, and the moon exploded. 

"A few seconds later, Stream also exploded. 

"My Flowing Streams
escaped the debris of our
home world with little time to spare."

Ull stared at the lapping water at the lake's edge until
Tommy decided to ask, "So the technology was dangerous?"

"One might think that, the satellites the ship monitored
told a different story.  One of the smaller Kadiil ships appeared between the
moon and Stream about five minutes after the experiment's completion.  The
original gravitational anomalies reported from the moon were almost
undetectable, but several huge gravitational surges were recorded at the moment
of the explosions.  The moon and Stream were sheared apart by the gravitational
tides of multiple black holes, each with the mass of Stream. 

“Within seconds of their appearance, the black holes
disappeared, but the data from the satellites showed they had not been
distributed randomly. A three-dimensional plot of the center point of each
surge made two arcs of different radii, both centered on the Kadiil ship.  Our
home world and every one of The People except those on our ships were murdered
by the Kadiil!

"
My Flowing Streams
sought The People's other
ships.  Eventually, we all learned what happened, and that we could never
return." She waved an arm, including the entire Sanctuary.  "This
space and others like it on The People's remaining ships are all that remain of
Stream's ecology.  Were they to die, we would surely, finally, die with them. 

“Do you understand now why you must be careful in what you
do here."

Tommy nodded.  "What contact have you had with the
Kadiil since?"

"They are everywhere we go.  Sometimes we see them. 
Sometimes we do not.  But we know they are nearby, lurking, watching."

"How?" he asked.

"Because they often arrive within minutes of events
involving our ships.  Shortly after
The Extended Claws
' destruction and
before we began our salvage, one of their ships arrived.  When we entered the
central column, the drive was gone.  That is what we find.  Always.  They
remove the drive from every ship that is permanently disabled or destroyed."

"Who are the Kadiil?  Do you know anything about their
home world?"

"For two thousand years we have tried to learn that and
more.  Some among us have wanted revenge.  At every contact with other
starfaring species, we ask questions about the Kadiil.  What is discovered is
told to everyone at the Gathering.”

She looked out over the lake.  “We have discovered nothing. 
Only rumors.  Some say the Kadiil are remnants of a technologically advanced
species that destroyed their civilization and want to save others from their
fate.  According to those, the Kadiil destroy those who break their rules as
object lessons.  Others say all of the species in the local neighborhood of the
galaxy are held back by a civilization that wants to protect its
interests."

"What have you found to support any of this?"

"We have only traveled a small part of the galaxy, but
what we have seen has enough strange things to support virtually any theory. 
Most, though, rely on the existence of the closed star systems.   If an
advanced civilization exists, it is likely to be found on one or more of
them."

"Closed?  How do you close a star system?"

"No one knows the answer.  Perhaps the Kadiil know.  If
a ship tries to transit into one of these systems, the transit ends short.  If
a ship tries to enter with insystem drive, it finds itself surrounded by a
transit-like blackness and emerges on the other side."

The warble of The Peoples' laughter drew their attention to
the lake.  A large number of kits, accompanied by two adults, frolicked in the
water.

"I am pleased to see this again," she said.

Tommy tilted his head.  "What do you mean?"

"The crowding in the family ponds had become so great,
coming here always resulted in an ordeal.  No one wanted to return to the
ponds, and yet they had to.  If we all moved into the Sanctuary, it would soon
be barren.  The mothers quit bringing their kits here to avoid the turmoil that
always came afterward.  Now, many are using the Sanctuary again."

She turned back to Tommy.  "With the additional ponds
and the privacy they provide, many are considering finding a mate.  I have
avoided taking a mate, in respect for others, although I have a private pool. 
Now, I, too, am considering it." 

She leaned over and gazed directly into Tommy's eyes. 
"More than the ship was on the verge of dying.  By restoring our lakes and
ponds, you have given us back our ship and our lives.  We will always be
grateful for this.  I will always be grateful."

Tommy made an embarrassed sound in his throat and looked
away.  "I was doing what you ordered me to.  You know that."

"I also know you could have taken months to repair one
lake, and I would not have known you could have repaired many more in the same
time.  We have never had a human like you on this ship." 

"Maybe their being slaves has something to do with
that," Tommy suggested.

"Perhaps.  But can a tame human have the
characteristics of a wild human?"

Perhaps they could learn to
, Tommy thought.

The crowd of kits passed close by, and Ull turned to
watch.   "Did I give you the answer to your question about the
drive?" she asked.

"No, not really.  But you gave me a lot more to think
about."

"When you are thinking, please be careful," she
said.  "I hope my story made you realize how dangerous it would be to
tamper with the Kadiil drive.  We have always been afraid to touch it.  It
might stop working, or the Kadiil might decide to destroy us as they did
Stream.

"Now, let me show you your new quarters.  I expect to
see you there, at least occasionally.  And your cat, too."

#   #   #

While he hadn't learned much about the Kadiil drive,
following the cables had convinced Tommy that replacing all the old computers
in the bridge sub-deck was a waste of hardware and his programming effort.  The
first wasn't scarce yet but might be someday, and he never had enough time to
do everything he wanted to do.  The key had been the computer that combined the
other computers' signals and transmitted them down the center column on a
single cable.  In the new navigation computer and its backup, he already had
enough computer speed and capacity to exceed, by many times, all the old
computers controlling the drive.  To duplicate them, he would add his version
of the other programs to a common library in the single computer and route
cables between that computer and modified or new consoles.  The old computer at
the top of the center column would come out, too, and the single cable would
stretch from the new computer to the drive. 

The single cable was a problem.  If it were cut, the ship
would be helpless.  He took care of that, as best he could, by having the
electricians pull another cable up a shaft on the other side of the center
column and into the access corridor to the drive.  On the wall, he attached one
of the older Earth computers, to route signals either from a primary or
secondary input cable to the cable attached to the drive.  His solution wasn't
as good as a second direct attachment to the drive, but he hadn't been able to
find another jack.

Duplicating the console functions would free him to focus on
what he wanted to do:  dig deeper into the device driver that created those
ten-dimensional arrays.  If he couldn't learn about the drive by breaking into
it, maybe the programs that controlled it would reveal some of its secrets.

The library of reusable program objects he had been creating
made his job a lot easier.  He was ready to parallel with the old computers six
days before breakout from transit and was free to reflect on the drive.

The only clues he had were the data from the four bridge consoles
and the resulting output from the device driver.  He had duplicated inputs and
outputs in his replacement programs, but that didn't mean he grasped what was
happening.  To get a better understanding, he decided to create a visual representation
of the programs.  The simplest output made the least sense:  the gravity
computer sent a signal to the device driver about once an hour regardless of
activity on the console.  He duplicated the functionality in his programs, but,
since the drive didn't respond to the signal, he had no idea what it was for. 
The rest of computer output corresponded with some movement of the ship.

Using the targeting room three-dimensional viewer as a
start, he wrote a program that displayed a model of the
Nesu Tol
. 
Signals from a simulated console affected the model without going through the
device driver.  If a console signaled rotate, the on-screen model would rotate
in the desired direction.  If the signal was to move the ship, an arrow
indicated vector and acceleration.  The gravity console controlled internal
gravity within a narrow range.  He simulated that with a different colored
arrow pointing down from the base of the ship.  The model should show patterns
in the output from the device driver. 

He didn't rush the process.  He made the smallest possible
adjustments to the attitude control and examined the output arrays from the
device driver until he understood what adjustments caused which changes.  He
then began the same process on the insystem drive.

In building the model, he assumed the ship could accelerate
in any direction.  Signal the ship to move sideways and the arrow in the model
pointed sideways.  The arrays showed something different happening some of the
time.  If the desired acceleration was small--from one to ten micro-gravities
according to the console--the computer sent a single set of arrays, commanding
acceleration in the chosen vector.  For acceleration exceeding ten micro-gravities,
the computer sent two sets of arrays.  The first matched the attitude control
arrays he had studied first and pointed the ship along the requested vector;
the second accelerated the ship, but always straight ahead.

Ull confirmed that his interpretation was correct.  Docking
with other ships or stations had to be accomplished with great care, by moving
in slowly from a distance.  He got additional information from his conversation
with Ull; a rapidly accelerating ship created a very dangerous volume of space
ten to twenty kilometers directly in front, and not just from the possibility
of collision.  The leading ship would be pulled off course or damaged.

Using the acceleration settings of ten micro-gravities or
less, he analyzed the arrays' vector component.  With this and the gravity
control arrays, he formed a working hypothesis about the normal-space actions
of the drive.  For movement, the drive projected a point source gravity field
of variable intensity in the direction of acceleration.  The ship fell into the
field, and the field moved ahead of the ship, with no apparent acceleration to
the passengers.  For gravity, the drive projected a more diffuse field
throughout the ship. 

None of this explained the drive's transit function.  The
transit arrays were structured identically but contained different sets of
parameters.  He did establish that one set encoded the velocity of the ship on
exit from transit.  The old Nesu consoles didn’t support this functionality,
and it was related, somehow, to the same parameters that controlled ship’s
attitude.  The only explanation that fit his findings, however farfetched, was
that the drive controlled the ship's frame of reference in normal space.  To
turn the ship, the drive changed the ship's angular momentum, violating what
the Earth physics books called "conservation of angular momentum." 
When the ship exited from transit, the drive set the ship's velocity and vector
without regard for what they had been on entry.  Any explanation of this was
beyond his abilities.

His discoveries suggested how the Kadiil ripped apart
planets.  The creation of a point gravity source of black hole strength should
be possible.  Focusing a black hole inside a planet or ship, then repeatedly
turning it off and focusing it somewhere else should give the shearing effect
Ull reported.