Antimatter was the reverse of normal matter; at its most basic a positron was an electron that had a positive, instead of a negative, charge. Antimatter that was placed in contact with regular matter would explode, violently. Both it and the regular matter it encountered immediately transmitted into energy. It had been produced, in minuscule quantities, in the big matter-accelerator at CERN in Switzerland. Minuscule being individual antiprotons and antihydrogen. Producing it wasn’t actually all that difficult, but storing it for any amount of time used up so much energy that the final output was a negative.
Bill had postulated that the thing in the gateway had been a carrier for antimatter. Positrons could be kept from contact with regular matter by inducing a magnetic field around them, generally called a containment bottle. The thing had looked like some sort of containment bottle, if such was made by a species that used biology instead of mechanical devices.
But Tchar had hinted that there was something else, something more powerful as an explosive than antimatter. And the Adar had it. In sufficient quantity to use it as a weapon.
“Something like that would be a tremendous fuel source,” Bill said, dangling for information.
“It was what I was working on before we opened the first gate,” Tchar said, then changed the subject.
The Adar had formed the bosons with the purpose of creating gates for transportation on their own world. They had just about exhausted their easily worked areas of fossil fuels and relied heavily on nuclear fission power to provide motive transport. Even the suborbital rockets that they used instead of most aircraft were powered by nuclear fission. But it had the same byproducts that it did anywhere; spent fuel rods that even when recycled left behind unusable radioactive byproducts that had to be stored for centuries. The Adar did not seem to have the, often irrational, human fear of nuclear power and its byproducts, however. Or, at least, Tchar wasn’t letting on if they did. The one thing Bill had decided in the three hours was that, besides being a crackerjack physicist, Tchar would have made one hell of a poker player.
But finally the measurements were completed as were the calculations.
“They used the same weapon, every time?” Bill asked.
Avery did not seem to have minded three hours of translation, sometimes very esoteric translation. The old admiral was as fresh as when they had started. If anything, he looked more enlivened by the conversation.
“They did,” he said to Tchar’s reply. “The suggestion was made after the first to vary the power to determine if the portals stayed down for more or less time but the Unitary Council, their Cabinet if you will, did not want to take the chance.”
“And we don’t know what the output was on the Dreen side,” Bill mused. “Okay, Tchar, Tsho’futt, Mr. Unintroduced, I thank you for your information. Can I tell you anything we’ve missed?”
Avery translated this and then shrugged. “I don’t think we have anything they want in the way of information. Except data about boson formation beyond what we can translate.”
“I’ve got one more thing to cover,” Bill said. “But, with the permission of the Adar, I’d like to only discuss it with Tchar and for him to be willing and able to keep it to himself for the time being. It does not relate directly to security of either of our worlds but to… the philosophy of physics.”
Avery frowned but translated the request. There was a discussion among the Adar and then Tchar spoke.
“The one who has not been introduced,” Avery said, “requires that he stay. Are you familiar with the Japanese method of negotiation?”
“No,” Bill said. “I’ve dealt with Russians before…”
“With the Japanese, the more senior of the negotiators will often spend the entire exchange with his mouth shut. The junior does all the talking. In this case, it appears to be protocol to completely ignore the third party, who I would guess is a senior scientist or politician.”
“Scientist,” the unintroduced Adar said, suddenly. “And linguist.”
“I want to express that the following information is known to very few people,” Bill said. “Our President, his national security advisor and the secretary of defense. Besides those persons, I have told no one else. And despite the fact that it appears that it has security implications because of the personages involved, I’m certain it does not. It does, however, I believe, relate to the physics of boson formation and gates. And I would be willing to discuss it with you. If you understand the importance of securing the information carefully.”
The Adar discussed this again and then Tsho’futt got up and left the room.
“Your artass will leave or stay?” Tchar asked, pointing at Robin.
Avery looked confused for a moment then chuckled, dryly. “It had been assumed that since Bill was doing all the talking, Robin was his… control.”
“I hope not,” Bill said, looking over at Robin. “Got anything you want to tell me?”
“Only that I hope I get to find out what you’re talking about,” Robin said.
“Robin, you’re a great person, but…”
“The answer is no,” she said, shrugging. “I’ll figure out a way to drag it out of you. One day.” She picked up her materials and left.
“Does your artass wish to do the translation?” Avery asked, carefully phrasing the question to Tchar.
Tchar responded with a head motion that indicated negative.
“Admiral Avery,” Bill said. “I have to ask one technical question. What’s your clearance?”
“Sonny boy,” the admiral answered, tartly, “I was doing nuclear negotiations with the Russians when you were a gleam in your daddy’s eye. My clearance is higher than yours. You can judge for yourself the need-to-know but I don’t even talk in my sleep.”
“Sorry,” Bill said, chuckling. “Okay, here goes. The first thing to understand is that humans are subject to hallucinations.”
“I don’t have an Adar word for that,” Avery said then spoke to Tchar for a moment. “Okay, they have something similar. I think I can work with it, anyway, but it has religious connotations.”
“Well, so does this,” Bill said and then launched into a repetition of his experiences in Eustis during the gate malfunction. He didn’t leave out the fact that he had been tired at the time, up too long and wired to the max, perfect conditions for hallucination. He pulled out notes and referred to them, notes he had made shortly after his experience against letting anything get in the way of the memories. They were as close to verbatim of the exchange he had experienced as he could manage. Stuffed children’s toys were a bit of a problem but he had a picture of Tuffy and Mimi on his laptop.
When he was done the as yet unintroduced artass sat forward, turning his head from side to side and examining him critically with his third eye, which was high on the head as if to check for overhead threats.
“Wonder if you dream,” the artass said. The words were dragged out and hollow.
“Yes,” Bill replied, looking into the weird alien face and wondering what was going on in his mind.
The artass started to say something then spoke a word at Tchar who spoke at length to Avery.
“Human scientists try to separate science and what we would call philosophy or religion,” Avery said. “The Adar do not. They said that the one thing in your ramblings that made true sense was that, at our level, science and philosophy are brothers. To them, science, philosophy and religion are intertwined.”