Authors: Robert L. Forward
Most of the Advisory Board had a difficult time accepting the fact that solid substances like the hard crystalline crust of their neutron star home or their equally tough yet supple bodies were not stable. Yet, without gravity to hold them together, they would decompose and reform into a tenuous molecular structure with the nuclei spaced a hundred times further apart than normally. However, these facts were well known to Floating-Crystal. One of the Old Ones tending her hatchling pen had worked on the original
antigravity machine. He, himself, had seen a small speck of neutronic material expand when placed in the zero gravity region formed by the machine, and he had watched it turn into a transparent, twinkling molecular crystal floating in space. He had given her name to her when she hatched, and later told her about the beautiful floating crystal that had been her namesake.
After many meetings of the Comm Advisory Board and the engineers, it was finally decided that a visit to the humans was technically feasible. However, the effort required was substantial, so a commitment by the President and the Council of the United Clans was needed.
After much public debate, the program outlined by the engineers was approved, the finances were allocated, and the generation long project was started. Although the focus of the effort—“A Visit to the Humans”—was quixotic in nature, since there was almost nothing that could be communicated during the visit, they all knew that the real reason for the project was to crack the invisible egg-sac of gravity that had kept the cheela bound in the hatchery of their laying. For they all knew the cheela species could not stay on their home star forever.
The decision for the Visit came soon after the data stream was turned off. During the period while the cheela engineers were rebuilding the data transmitter and Pierre was replacing the full HoloMem crystal with an empty one, Floating-Crystal took over the Comm link to Amalita and with the help of the Visit program engineers, told her what to expect and what to do.
“We are coming out to visit,” was her first message. As the turns passed and she saw in the display the look of astonishment and concern build on Amalita’s face, she quickly brushed aside the protest that was forming on Amalita’s lips. “We will not explode. We will provide our own gravity.”
For the next minute Amalita listened attentively while Floating-Crystal explained the general outline of the planned visit. Amalita was a little concerned when she heard about the X-ray generator they were going to use to illuminate the inside of the spacecraft, then blushed a little when she began to realize how much someone could see who used soft X-rays for part of his vision range. However, the cheela already knew a great deal about human physiology. They had had plenty of time to study the human encyclopedia and the textbooks that had been beamed down by the humans many generations ago, so they knew that the total X-ray dose they would be using on their human friends during their short visit would be minimal.
At the end of the first minute, Pierre returned from the computer room to hear the musical voice of Floating-Crystal.
“We have started the data again. First is a schedule for you to follow during the visit. The expedition will start in about fifteen minutes. Read the instructions carefully, for the whole visit will only last ten seconds.”
Foating-Crystal saw Pierre come slowly around the corner and was overjoyed to see him. She had been hoping he would come back into view before she had to retire her job and take her place as an Old One teaching the hatchlings how to talk.
“I’m glad to see you again, Pierre,” she said. “I must say goodbye now. You have much reading to do and preparations to make. When you return to the monitor, there will be a new Keeper of the Comm.”
“These fifteen-minute lifetime friendships are hard on the emotions,” Amalita said to herself as she brushed her eyes, then flicked the communications screen to the computer and started reading the words that appeared there.
The cheela plan was very detailed and concise, for
the cheela had long since had a complete description of the ship Dragon Slayer.
Amalita punched for a hardcopy of the screen full of words for Pierre to read, then went on to the diagram. The diagram was animated and showed herself seated at the console and Pierre near one window. Then the cheela ship arrived outside the ship. Her cartoon image rose from the chair at the console, raised its arms and, twirling around once like a clumsy ballerina, fell toward the right viewing port. Meanwhile, the cartoon of Pierre clung to another port, its nose pressed to the glass. A closeup view showed that less than a meter from his nose was a tiny speck a few millimeters across, and on that speck sat a cheela—no spacesuit—no pressure container—nothing to keep it from exploding.
Pierre quickly read the instructions, then they both watched the animation again. They were bewildered by their motions in the animation. They both looked clumsy and constrained—as if they were acting out their motions in earth-bound simulators instead of the graceful ballet of free-fall motion they were used to.
They read further and then began to realize why they had been so clumsy in the animation. To survive in space, the cheela explorers had to bring gravity with them. Their main spacecraft was a hard crystalline spherical shell about four centimeters across with a rather “large” miniature black hole at the center. At 11-billion tons mass, the black hole provided 180 thousand gees at the surface of the crystal sphere. Although far from the 67-billion gees that the cheela lived in at the surface of the neutron star, it was enough to keep their electron structure in its degenerate form. Individual cheela and equipment modules had their own smaller version of the main spacecraft. The radii of the individual flitters and equipment tugs were
much smaller, so that only a tiny black hole was needed for each one. The smaller spacecraft had separate power and inertia propulsion subsystems, and the whole swarm fitted neatly into hemispherical depressions that pocked the surface of the main spacecraft.
“Inertia propulsion!” Pierre exclaimed. “On our last shift we were teaching them Newton’s law of gravity. Today they have inertia drives! Where will they be tomorrow?”
“They probably will be able to control space and time and won’t have to bother with such clumsy things as black hole gravity generators and inertia drives,” Amalita replied. “But now I see why we were so awkward. Their main spacecraft will stay fifteen meters away from our spacecraft, but it is so massive that we will experience about one-third of a gee from it, pulling me out of the console chair and over to the viewing port. I guess I could manage to twirl once as I fall so they can see the human joints in action, but I bet I am going to be clumsier in one-third gee than that animation.” She turned from the screen and looked at him, “I wish you were doing my part, so I could get to see the cheela.”
“I don’t know whether you would like it,” Pierre said. “According to this contour plot of the gravity field from the individual craft, although the size and mass of the flitters are much smaller than the main spacecraft, this one is going to come up to less than one meter from my viewing port and my nose is going to be pulling three gees!” He looked down at her body and grinned, “I guess the reason they didn’t choose you is they must know you don’t wear a bra in free-fall and they didn’t want to give you reverse Cooper’s droop.”
Amalita turned back to the display, jabbing him with her elbow as she did so, and brought up the next screen full of instructions. “You know perfectly well that since this is the one time that our two civilizations
will be close enough culturally to make a physical visit meaningful, they chose the earth’s best known science writer and interpreter for the interview,” she said. “How long do you get?”
Pierre scanned down the time schedule that the cheela had sent up. “He will stay there for about one second, and will try to remain as motionless as possible for as long as he can, so that my eyes will have time to focus on him. At that, he will probably come close to starving to death unless they can figure out a way for him to eat without moving too much.”
“It seems ridiculous for them to go through this visit,” said Amalita. “We both have complete descriptions of each other’s physiology and plenty of pictures, both still and motion.”
“However,” she went on, “if I were offered the opportunity to visit the surface of a neutron star and spend fifteen seconds watching a half year of cheela civilization whirling about me, I would jump at the chance.”
The console beeped and the computer switched off the information display. A cheela’s visage appeared on the screen.
“I am Bit-Cruncher, the new Keeper of the Comm.”
Bit-Cruncher waited out the polite response from the humans by interviewing some new apprentices. One of them would take his place one of these turns, but all of them would meanwhile become so thoroughly soaked in human culture that they would almost think like humans. He was kind to the youngsters, remembering his terror when old Floating-Crystal had interviewed him. Still, they had a rough time ahead, for only one of them could become Keeper of the Comm.
As one of Floating-Crystal’s apprentices, he had worked hard and had not only kept up with his apprentice work, but had developed a complex new
computer program to cross-correlate the immense amount of human knowledge that was still stored in the Sky-Talk Library. His new program was now finding out more about humans than the humans knew about themselves. For this prodigious feat he was awarded the rare opportunity to choose a new name for himself, and it eventually had led to his being made the new Keeper of the Comm when Floating-Crystal became an Old One and went off to tend eggs.
“It was the opportunity for a new name that really drove me,” he rippled to himself. “I’ll never forgive that romantic-minded Old One that named me Moby-Dick, after reading one of those old human adventure novels.”
Bit-Cruncher continued to think about prior times as he flowed back to the Comm compound. After he had been awarded the job as the new Keeper of the Comm, his comrades and competitors in apprenticeship had had to seek other occupations. Crystal-Blossom was now a Professor of Humanology at Sky-Talk University and Clear-Thinker was leader of the Visit expedition.
“Even though he lost out to me for Keeper of the Comm, I think maybe Clear-Thinker might be better off,” he mused. “There will be many Keepers of the Comm, but only one Visit. In addition, although I see humans on the display every turn, I do it through their cameras, which are made for their eyes. He will get to see a human in the flesh, bones and all!” Bit-Cruncher returned to the display just as Amalita was finishing.
“… meet you, Bit-Cruncher. When will the visit b …”
Bit-Cruncher contacted Clear-Thinker through the links and got the latest schedule. Things were going well. The main spacecraft had made it out to space and back on automatic control. Everything, even the unwilling Slinks that had been sent along in cages to
test the life support system, had survived without damage. Another few hundred turns and they would be ready.
“Set a definite time,” said Bit-Cruncher, “so the humans can get everything ready.”
“All right,” Clear-Thinker said. “Two greats of turns from now.”
“That long? Everyone is going to be tired of waiting for the liftoff,” Bit-Cruncher said. “But I guess it is better to be on the safe side.” Bit-Cruncher returned to the communications display as Amalita finished and informed her that the visit would take place in exactly 57 seconds.
Amalita and Pierre turned away from the console and got busy. Amalita opened the shields over the viewing ports, set the automatic cameras for the focal distances and exposures the cheela had recommended, and turned them on. She then returned to her chair at the console, found her acceleration belt and adjusted it so she would stay in her seat until the time came for her to twirl across to the port.
Pierre bustled about the cabin, plucking loose items from loops, off sticky pads and out of corners where they had drifted, and stuffed them into a cabinet. He then went around making sure that all the cabinets were latched.
“The last thing we want is a pile of loose junk cluttering up the ports,” he said.
The seconds ticked away. Pierre took up his position near one port, his hands firmly gripping the handholds set in the frame. They both looked out the other port toward the place where the visitors would arrive.
As they waited, the light in the room flickered eerily as the white radiance from the neutron star flashed into the ports five times a second, alternating with the red glow of the ultra-dense asteroids that circled
around their spacecraft, their strong gravitational fields blocking the crushing, tearing tides of the neutron star.
Suddenly there was a flash of multihued light and they both glimpsed a small brilliant white object the size of a golf ball holding a steady position fifteen meters away. There was a moment’s pause and then the golf ball seemed to explode into a cloud of colored snowflakes that swarmed across the intervening distance. The larger snowflakes stayed well away from the ports while the smaller ones came in closer.
“Holy Egg!” murmured one of the cheela crew as they slowly drifted in between the large glowing condensed asteroids and settled down in a synchronous orbit fifteen meters out from one of the viewing ports. “I expected the thing to be big, but I never imagined it would be this big!”
Clear-Thinker mentally agreed with the crew member. He couldn’t see who said it, since she was out of sight around the horizon on their little home away from home. What really bothered him was not that the human spacecraft was big, but that it was “overhead.” Although all the crew had been in space and had learned to conquer the fear that the home star they were orbiting was going to fall on them, this object was much too close for comfort. He quickly called an unscheduled hold in their carefully timed schedule. The humans would hardly notice a one-fifth of a second pause and he felt a full turn of rest and recreation while the crew got used to the sight of the human spacecraft overhead would be worth the delay.