Chapter
12, Pt. 1:
A Summer Adventure
and a Term at Oxkam
2746-2747
The last half of his Second Form year was
hell for Robbie. He came down with his
annual cold shortly after the episode that would forever live in his memory as
that “foggy night in Epping,” and so for a while he could excuse himself from
going home on Off-Days by saying he didn’t want to give his ailment to his
mother. But that excuse could last only
so long, and when he was again forced to spend time with Sterling, they were
like dinner companions who, having discovered that their politics are
diametrically opposed, are trying desperately for the duration of the meal to
remain polite and avoid dissension. When
he was at school, he was taciturn and edgy.
His teachers ascribed it to the pressures of completing certain academic
requirements before he went up to Oxkam.
As the end of term and the subsequent
six-week summer holiday drew near, Robbie grew even more nervous. Kolm would be going home to Eira and he
wouldn’t have the calming influence of their relationship. The thought of spending six weeks in his
mother’s flat drove him to the brink of contemplating suicide. But he found a partial way out; he learned of
a three-week summer institute for bright preppers at the Grenich Observatory
and he talked Prf. Quinston into reserving him a place in it. Epping possessed a small refracting telescope,
but astronomy wasn’t a specialty of the school, and it seemed appropriate that
somebody who wanted to fly to the stars one day should seize every opportunity
to gain such knowledge. And the
institute was perforce residential, since stargazing can only be conducted at
night.
That would take care of half the holiday
period, but Robbie still didn’t know what to do about the other three
weeks. The counselors insisted that he
should take a break from studying before going up to Oxkam. But they couldn’t know that a stint of living
at home was likely to stress him out worse than he already was …
A few days before the term was to end,
Kolm finally confronted him. “Man,
what’s the matter with ye lately? Ye’re
as crabby as a cat with sand fleas up his ass, and ye’ve been that way for
months. I think ye’d best be sharin’
with me what’s wrong.”
Robbie said, “Nothing. Don’t ask me, Kolm.”
“I haven’t said anythin’ up to now because
it just didn’t seem polite to be pryin’, but ever since ye went down in
mid-week to tell yer Mum about the Oxkam thing, ye’ve been nothin’ but an
aggravation. Whatever happened to ye
that night?”
Robbie’s reaction surprised even
himself. He stood up and belted Kolm in
the mouth, laying him out. Then he
picked his flabbergasted friend up off the floor, saying, “Now look what you
went and made me do, Goody. Bloody hell,
can’t you stop being such a busybody?
Can’t you stop trying to run my life?”
Kolm stood working his jaw from side to
side and checking whether all his teeth were in their proper places, and he
said, “There, that just proves what I said hit a nerve. I think I’m gonna keep bein’ a busybody till
ye talk to me. Ye can’t see yeself like
I can, Robbie. Frankly, lad, I’m a bit
worried about ye.”
“I just … can’t talk about it, Kolm. Don’t ask me to,” said Robbie miserably.
“All right, but I just want to be a help
to ye, man. I don’t think it’s healthy
going on the way ye’ve been.”
“How can you be like you are, Goody? Here I just punched out my best friend and he
isn’t even angry.”
“Well, I can’t deny, I am a little miffed. But what good would it do to be angry? Ye’d have the weight on me in any fight. And fightin’s not me style, anyway. I’m a talker, Robbie. Ye ought to make yeself to be more of
one. And ye ought to use yer natural
sense of humor, man. Ye have one, do ye
remember? But I’ve seen little of it
worth mentionin’ this past spring.”
“I know.
I’m sorry, Kolm. But just don’t
ask me talk about this. I can’t … I just
can’t ever talk about it. But I hear
what you say. My behavior’s been rotten
for people who haven’t done a thing to deserve it. I’ll make an effort to act more civil,
Kolm. I promise.”
“Let me just say this … and don’t ball up
the fists again, friend of mine – I’m not sure me teeth would tolerate a second
whack! Ye made this desperate effort to
get into that institute, when I woulda thought ye’d have jumped at the chance
to spend some time with your Mum before we go up. And ye’ve been avoidin’ goin’ home on the
Off-Days – don’t think I haven’t noticed!
It’s that ye don’t want to spend the last three weeks of the holiday
with yer Mum, isn’t it? Ye don’t have to
tell me why, although it must be a sad situation and it makes me feel very bad,
man, indeed. But maybe I have the answer
for ye. Remember when ye told me about
the birders’ club that Ms. Stythe was talkin’ about?”
Robbie said nothing, stuck in the misery
of realizing that his state of mind was so transparent, and Kolm continued,
“Ye seemed so intrigued by what she’d said, laughin’ and fair bubblin’ over,
ye were. Why don’t ye see if ye can go
on a birdin’ excursion? The teachers
want ye to have some recreational time – what could be more recreational than
hikin’ around in the fresh air peerin’ at little feathered creatures through
VEs? To be honest, it doesn’t appeal
that much to me, but you … ye’ll probably think ye’ve died and gone to the
otherworldly paradise.”
So Robbie did that. He consulted the biology instructor Ms.
Stythe, and she contacted a nearby birding club and
found they had scheduled a two-week August outing to the south coast to observe
sea birds. They were eminently
respectable people, mostly over the age of 50 and endowed with the
single-minded focus common to birders, and they were delighted to think that
this bright young Epping pupil would want to tag along on their old-fogy
outing. They promised to take good care
of him and suggested that he join them at the rail terminal at Suthamton on the
10th of August.
Robbie went to the Village to tell
Sterling about this addition to his summer plans. She stood in a patch of shadow between two
bars of sunlight and said, “I congratulate you, Robbie. You’ve found really ingenious ways to avoid
me this summer.”
He clenched his jaw. “It’s not that … it’s just … these are great
opportunities. I really can’t pass them
up.”
“Of course they are. Of course you can’t.”
And then, as if he could punish himself by
saying hurtful things to her, he said, “Besides, if I stay here with you so
long, I’ll be interfering with your work.”
She stood so still that she seemed carved
out of the shadow. Then she said, “I’m
looking for a flat in Lunden. I doubt if
you’ll have time to come down from Oxkam next year very often anyway, so
there’s really no point in my living in Epping.
I can get cheaper accommodations in Lunden, and besides … ” And suddenly her voice dripped with
sarcasm. “ … I’ll be nearer to my … work … that way.”
He could feel the slap she had inflicted
upon him back in February stinging afresh on his cheeks. “Then maybe I’d better take the rest of my
belongings out of here before I go to Grenich,” he said. “You may be gone by the time I come back.”
“It might be wise,” she said.
So he did that, taking everything
including his space plane, which he returned to its location on the dresser of
his dorm room, no longer caring what anyone thought about his display of it.
And so one distraction that might have
interfered with Robbie’s success at Oxkam was eliminated, but the misery of his
damaged maternal bond remained embedded like a spike in the depths of his
psyche. He could not begin to understand
how to cope with such a situation, and so all he could do was try not to think
about it and get on with his life.
* * *
The birding excursion, however, really did
work wonders, diverting Robbie's mind from his distress and cheering him
up. In that two weeks, he found a hobby
that he was never to forsake, and he discovered that people who were neither
his peers nor his heroes could be charming and amusing and absolutely delightful
to know. The group took the scenic train
along the Dorset and Devonsheer coast all the way through Kornwell to Landend,
with a detour through Stone Hedge country on the way home. Robbie had never seen anything of his adopted
land outside of Lunden Prefecture and Epping, and he had had no conception of
its beauty and mystery.
The birders would disembark from the train
at various points along the way and hike the rocky coast with a merciless
stamina that left the 16-year-old huffing.
They identified several species of gulls; they saw common terns and
Sandwich terns, sandpipers stalking the beaches, and even a sooty
shearwater. Storm petrels flew off the
coast of Kornwell. In the evenings the
group would return to the rail line and bunk in various tourist hostels along
the route, although a couple of times they camped out overnight along the
beaches, loaning Robbie enough gear to tide him over.
Viewing the sea for the first time from
ground level was an awe-inspiring experience.
Swimming was discouraged along most of the world’s coastlines, but the
water in the south of Britan had been cleaned up sufficiently to allow Robbie
to venture into its unfamiliar medium.
The sensation of the stuff of the sea creeping against his skin only
added to his sense of awe. He could
imagine that space was like this – endlessly vast and ceaselessly in flux – a
place of nothingness and fullness, fearful peril and ultimate reward – a place
where heroes are made.
At night he would lie on his back and lose
himself in the stars, and it tickled his fancy to think that he, the callow
young Robbie Nikalishin, could enthrall these dignified old gentlemen and
ladies with lectures on the constellations.
They asked him how he had come to be so fond of birds, and he told them
it was because of these same stars – they had made him want to fly like a bird
so he could go into that sky one day.
Then they had to hear all about his plans and dreams, exclaiming and
questioning with a naïve, non-judgmental enthusiasm. He quite fell in love with them all and they
in turn with him; they called him their mascot and invited him to come birding
with them whenever he wanted. He and
they possessed a mutual understanding of the eccentricities of the obsessed.
Robbie had taken Kolm’s advice to heart,
about learning to use words and humor to his own advantage, and he found these
slightly pixilated birders to be the perfect subjects for practicing those
skills. It does not seem unjustified to
say that his conversational adroitness and his ability to use humor to help
himself deal with uncomfortable situations may have been birthed in that first
birding excursion. He found that both
skills added a good deal of fun to life.
They also provided an excellent means of shielding one’s soul.
When Robbie returned to Epping, his mother
was gone. She had left him a rather
formal message giving him her new address and com number and saying she hoped
he would come down for a visit before Mikelmess term convened. He sent her a message back saying that he and
Kolm were going up a little early for orientation and he would have to defer
the visit. He heard nothing more and
relentlessly pushed the situation into the background of his consciousness.
* * *
Robbie was fortunate to be able to room
with Kolm again in the Edmund’s Adjunct House at Oxkam, because he didn’t find
those other intellectually elite students who shared the residence all that
compatible. He and Kolm were the only
advanced physics students in the House, and he had trouble relating to artists
and musicians and economists and budding dramatists. Enrolling in the military or becoming a space
pilot had never entered the mind of a single student there; in fact his fellows
looked at him askance when they learned of his ambitions. A couple of youngsters were studying
ornithology, but they were less natural historians than research-oriented types
who tended to produce essays with titles like “The Effect of Class G19
Herbicides on the Chemical Composition of the Yolks of Pheasant Eggs at Three
Distinct Points of Embryonic Development.”
Kolm, on the other hand, got along with
everybody; he had a naturally open and sunny disposition and the ability to
find something agreeable to talk about no matter whether his conversation
partner was a Professor of Griek Poetry or the deliveryman. And he simply laughed at pomposity, while
Robbie’s impatience with snobbery and the pretentiousness of rank was mushrooming.
Of course, this impatience got Robbin
Nikalishin into trouble; he became a familiar sight in the waiting room of the
Discipline Officer, and the words “wayward,” “stubborn,” and “uncooperative”
cropped up frequently in his records.
But, although he could never say afterward that he enjoyed every aspect
of the year he spent in one of the most prestigious universities in the world,
he realized that the knowledge he was gaining and the contacts he was making
were essential to the future he had in mind for himself.
He and Kolm were privileged to be studying
under two of the premier temporal quantum physicists of the time. One of them, Prf. Claud Flournoi, was a
theorist, a Specialist in Alternate Dimensional Temporal Analysis, which took
Iven Herinen’s basic equations up several levels. He was an easy-going, 45ish man, with a big,
soft body and a slight French accent that betrayed his birth in Marsay
Prefecture. He smiled easily and his
door was always open.
The other, Prf. Karlis Eiginsh, was the
Temporal Quantum Applications man. He
was less easy to like – a nervous little fellow with fishlike eyes, who had the
stubby fingertips of a former nail-chewer, always wore a scowl, and snapped at
his students if they interrupted him.
Furthermore, he persistently called Robbie “Mr. Nikerishin.” Robbie fumed about this to a degree that made
Kolm shake his head and say, “Just calm down, Robbie, boy – at the rate ye’re
going, ye’ll be gulpin’ blood pressure medication afore ye’re twenty! He calls me ‘MaGillicruddy,’ but do ye see me
poppin’ a valve over it?”
Robbie felt immense respect and awe for
the intellectual brilliance of both of these Professors, but he considered it
lucky that he had drawn Flournoi as an advisor while Kolm had been stuck with
Eiginsh. Kolm didn’t mind and Robbie was
pretty sure that Eiginsh and himself would have quickly been cursing at each
other.
It was during Hillarious Term, about a
month after his seventeenth birthday, that Robbie first began to draw special
notice. Prf. Eiginsh was lecturing one
day to his class of five Adjuncts and university freshers on the subject of the
formation of temporal quantum loops. It
was hypothesized that below the chaotic sub-quantum brane of 11-dimensional
superstrings existed a second dimension of time that manifested itself as temporal
quantum loops. It could be said to
project in a different direction from the brane – downward, said the Professor,
if you must have a way to visualize it, and completely outside our plane of
existence, although attached to it. It
possibly served as the first dimension of time in a parallel universe, just as
the time that Earth knows would be the second dimension of time in that
universe. Mathematical models showed
that within their own universes temporal quantum loops were non-chaotic and
stable, but this hypothesis could not be demonstrated experimentally, since the
classical assumption was that no physical relationships exist between entities
of the multiverse, except for some insignificant leakage of quantum energy.
However, Iven Herinen had hypothesized
that if energy can leak between dimensions, so can quantum time. Ever since he had perfected the formulas,
experimental physicists had been trying to force one of these secondary time
loops to pop into existence on our side of the brane, by manipulating high-mass
particles within various types of electromagnetic and gravitational
fields. Detection would be achieved by
noting some anomalous effect, like a distortion of the EM field, transitory
graviton fluctuations, or a deflection or momentary discontinuity within a
stream of weak-force particles. However,
any phenomena that might have occurred was too unstable or too infinitesimal to
persist long enough to be detected.
“What is necessary,” Prf. Eiginsh was
droning, “is to find a set of events that will force a loop to fold. The formation of a fold should create a
minute residual electromagnetic effect … ”
Eiginish interrupted himself to point out the pertinent elements of the
formulas displayed on the big viewing screen.
“ … which, with our increasingly sensitive detection equipment, we
should be able to discern. However,
inducing a detectable expanded, stable, secondary temporal quantum fold
employing particles of high mass and standard EM/grav containment fields has
proved virtually impossible up to now.”
Robbie suppressed a yawn. All this had been covered more than once in
previous lectures; the man was a veritable fount of repetitiveness. But then probably some of these
befuddled-looking students weren’t as capable of following the thread as he was
…
But now Prf. Eiginsh was introducing
something new. He flashed a fresh model
up on the view screen and said, “A different approach, however, was suggested
several years ago by the late Prf. Irina Hilo of the Moska Consortium. It involves a process of bombarding the least
massive of atoms – hydrogen and helium – with a focused beam of neutrinos … ”
Robbie had woke up and now he
interrupted. “There’s an anomaly in step
five of that fourth formula, Professor.”
Eiginsh grimaced. “I know that, boy. Will you kindly allow me to finish? The discussion period will come later.”
“Sorry, sir.”
The Professor proceeded to work his way
through the model. The other students
were getting more confused by the minute, but Kolm and Robbie looked at each
other, thinking the same thing.
“It becomes obvious that the commonest
isotope of hydrogen,” Eiginsh was saying, “yields a reconcilable model. The anomaly crops up when we posit the
apparently non-reactive collision of a neutrino with the nucleus of a deuterium
atom. Some additional entity is required
to complete the model. After extensive
exploration, Hilo concluded that nothing reconciles the model except a
second-dimension time loop; no hitherto known particle emission or interaction
could account for this particular anomaly.
“Since hydrogen-1 contains no neutrons, it
would appear that it is the neutron in deuterium with which the neutrino is
interacting. Similar results are
obtained with tritium and with helium, but in a less straightforward fashion. It seems the heavier the element, the greater
the quantum chaos factor and the more difficult it becomes to isolate and
detect the results.” He worked through
some more formulas. “Neutrinos pass
constantly through all matter, causing an effect in perhaps one collision in 10
billion as a single particle passes through the thickness of the Earth. Now it appears that those collisions might be
producing a hitherto undetected effect – that of inducing secondary time
loops. It is an effect that has no
deleterious impact on matter because a loop in itself effects nothing in our
universe, and it’s doubtful that even one in a billion loops becomes a
spontaneous fold.
“So it is now being hypothesized that
transitory, harmless secondary temporal quantum loops are being produced
constantly throughout our universe. It’s
even been postulated that the rare spontaneous temporal quantum folds may be
responsible for some of the unexplained events that occur occasionally – things
like psychic phenomena, hallucinations, prophetic visions, or sudden inexplicable
disappearances. That’s tangential to the
more fundamental inquiry that we’re pursuing here today, but it certainly is
possible that such folds could cause rare alterations of matter or glimpses
into alternate realities.
“However that may be, experiments with
potential TQ fold technologies are presently ongoing, involving the bombardment
of deuterium atoms with neutrinos. One
venue where this is taking place is the Temporal Quantum Research Facility in
Okloh Prefecture, Midammerik. That
complex is the first operational element of the Herinen Memorial Space Port.”
“I’ll bet I know what they’re finding,”
said Robbie, unable to contain himself.
Eiginsh ground his teeth, fixing his eye
on the irritating youth. “And what would
that be, Mr. Nikerishin?”
Unable to stand it any longer, Robbie
said, “It’s Nik-a-LEESH-in, sir – Nik-a-LEESH-in. I’d really appreciate it if you could
pronounce my name properly.”
Seated next to Robbie, Kolm rolled his
eyes slightly, but Robbie didn’t really care.
The man owed his students the courtesy of getting their names right.
Eiginsh cocked his head, took a breath,
then expelled it. “I’ll work on
that. And since you seem determined to
have your say, why don’t you just take your pointer and explain to the class
where I’m going with this?”
“Yes, sir.” Unfazed, Robbie used his desk port to
manipulate some figures on the screen.
“See, this won’t work, nor this, nor this. Actually, I’m not sure what would work. But if you could achieve exactly the right
modulation and density of the neutrino bombardment – it would probably have to
be pretty dense, denser than anything we can generate at the present time,
maybe – along with the proper pressure and temperature for the deuterium, you
could probably induce a secondary fold that would last long enough … ” His
voice was rising in excitement. “ … long
enough to accomplish something. I’m not
sure what, but something.”
Robbie seemed to have Prf. Eiginsh’s
attention, and the other students were gaping at him. Only Kolm was nodding as if he had expected
it all along.
“As a matter of fact,” said the Professor,
“a fold could be generated that could encompass a quantity of matter … ”
“Maybe a significant quantity!” cried
Robbie, his excitement becoming uncontrollable.
“Isn’t it true, Professor, that a fold is capable of transporting – transporting – matter?”
“So Iven Herinen hypothesized.”
“Well, then, why not create one big enough
to encompass a space plane and transport it across the universe at FTL speed?”
cried Robbie.
Now it was Kolm who couldn’t restrain
himself. “Robbie, boy, it’s an
interstellar drive ye’re after inventin’!”
Some of the students snickered, but Robbie
said, “I’m serious! Why couldn’t a
neutrino-producing accelerating reactor be developed that would induce one of these
loops to expand? To be converted into a
kind of … oh, call it a cloak … large enough to serve as a time-quantum drive
in ships? Sort of swoosh the ship across
the surface of the brane and dump it before the fold pops back into its own
dimension.”
Prf. Eiginsh leaned back, folded his arms,
and stared intently at his ebullient student.
Finally he replied, “The proper term for the phenomenon is ‘pod.’ Temporal quantum pod.”
Robbie stared. “You mean, somebody else already thought of
that?” There were additional snickers,
but Robbie ignored them. “Wait a
minute! The SkyPiercer Project – its
headquarters are at the new Herinen Space Port!
Is that what the Project is working on – a drive that uses time-quantum
technology? How near are they to perfecting
it? What’s … ?”
Prf. Eiginsh waved a hand. “Sit down, Mr. Nikarshin! Class is dismissed for today! Nikarilshin, stay a minute, if you will.”
“Sir,” said the incorrigible Robbie,
“pardon me, but there’s no ‘R’ whatsoever anywhere in my last name.”
Kolm was on his way out, but he shot back,
“Muzzle it, Robbie!”
Robbie sighed. “Sorry, Professor. It’s only that I’ve always had trouble with
people butchering my name. There’s a
smart aleck over at Edmund House who calls me ‘Licorishin.’ Of course, she does it on purpose to
aggravate me. I don’t think that’s what
you’re doing.”
Eiginsh fixed his bug-eyed stare on
Robbie, then actually laughed, just a couple of short explosions, but Robbie
thought that was a start. “Sit down,
boy. What do you know about the
SkyPiercer Project?”
“Only what’s on the public Ed Base. That’s not much.”
“Did you know I’m a member of the Advisory
Panel? So is Flournoi.”
“Actually, I didn’t know that, sir. That’s exciting! What can you tell … ?”
Eiginsh ignored the question. “Your ability to forecast the implications of
this very complex mathematical model I threw at the class today is – rather
impressive.”
“Thank you, sir!”
“Since you have such a lot of confidence
in your own abilities, I’m going to give you some extra work.”
“Yeah?”
“Stop by the Departmental Offices at
1800h. There’ll be an info key there
with your name on it. It will contain
some formulas. Let’s see if you can
solve any of them by our next tutorial … uh, that’s five days off, I
believe. Of course, you’ll have to
complete the regular assignments as well.”
“I’ll do my damnedest, Professor!”
“For some reason I believe that. See you then, Mr. Ni … kar … ”
“Nik-a-LEESH-in, sir.”
“Yes, well, whatever. Under other circumstances, I’d call you by
your given name, but the beefeaters in the Administration like us to maintain a
certain pretense of decorum with the younger students. Dismissed.”
* * *
Robbie got a bit less sleep than he needed
during the next five days and when he confidently presented his solutions to
Eiginsh, the Professor mercilessly tore them to shreds. Robbie held his own, however, quickly
grasping his errors, reordering his thinking, and following through with some
suggestions of his own. When he told
Kolm about all this afterward, the young Eirishman was impressed. “I can follow what ye’re sayin’, but I don’t
think I coulda devised it on the spur of the moment. Ye’ve got to have one of the most adept
brains for this sort of foolery that’s ever been bred, lad.”
The tutoring sessions continued, during
which a frustrated Robbie was bombarded with every possible situation that
could thwart the formation of a temporal quantum pod substantial enough to
enclose something as large as a ship.
They got into the problems of duration, distance, and trajectory. Could such a pod be stabilized long enough to
drag a ship across the galaxy? Would the
length of a jump be fixed or variable, and what means could be used to control
it? How could one compel the loop to
destabilize at the desired destination?
How long would such jumps be – a few meters, a hundred thousand
kilometers, or a dozen light years? What
would happen if two loops should intersect?
What would be the effect on matter – and especially living matter –
within the pod? What time effects would
take place within the pod? What would
happen to matter in the path of the trajectory?
And what was to prevent the pod from destabilizing at the wrong moment
and dropping the ship in the middle of a star, for example, or in the event
horizon of a black hole?
But in all this work Robbie never could
get Prf. Eiginsh to discuss what was going on in the SkyPiercer Project, or to
state the point to which its work had progressed.
Coming soon:
Chapter 12, Pt. 2:
Robbie meets Kolm's Eirish family during the Midwinter holiday
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