Oscar Bell leaned forward. “What isn’t right?”
Gustafson’s frown deepened. “A couple of things. First, this here… I don’t know what it is. It looks like the frame for an airlock, but you wouldn’t need one for a hadron collider. I mean, a door to what? It doesn’t even enter the main tunnel. There’s nowhere to go. Strange.”
“What else is wrong with it?”
“Huh? Oh…,” said Gustafson as he placed one sheet atop the others. It had several lines of serial number-letter codes paired with corresponding numbers given down to ten thousandths of inches. “See this scale key? Each of these codes indicates a component of the overall machine, and the numbers on the left are the dimensions.”
“And—?”
“And the scale is completely off. These plans are for a large machine approximately eighty feet in diameter. But you said that you had a model of a smaller one?”
“A working prototype,” said Bell, nodding.
“I don’t see how it could work. It would be impossible to generate the kind of electromagnetic power necessary to do anything or learn anything. The wires and capacitors would be too small to take any serious strain, and even if they did manage to keep from fusing, they couldn’t generate the near light-speed necessary for any kind of serious particle collisions.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely certain,” said Gustafson. “And any qualified civil engineer, electrical expert, or metallurgist would agree.”
Bell nodded. He stood up to take the materials back, folded them, and put the designs into his desk drawer. He removed a separate set of papers, considered them, and then tossed them onto the desk so that they slid across to the scientist. “Now tell me what that is.”
With some trepidation, Gustafson opened the folder and went through each of the papers. There were more design sketches, wiring schematics, materials lists, power output predictions, and other technical data. Some of it was computer printouts, some of it was written in an awkward hand. Gustafson’s frown went deeper still.
“Does any of this make sense to you?” asked Bell. “Take your time with it. Be sure.”
Gustafson took ten more minutes reading through the papers, comparing one set of notes to corresponding sketches, and back again. Then he looked up, clearly troubled.
“I don’t mean to offend, sir,” he said, “but did you commission this work?”
“Why?”
“Well… if this is something you paid for, then you have been tricked.”
Bell brushed lint from his sleeve. “How?”
“This is nonsense. I mean, sure, this is impressive work in many ways and whoever designed this has some appreciable understanding of physics, collider technology, and materials… but really.”
“What is it a design for?”
“I… I don’t know. Nothing that makes any sense,” said Gustafson.
“Try to make sense of it,” said Bell. “Indulge me. What would such a machine do?”
Once more Gustafson placed the papers on the desk and pointed to a sketch. “See this? This piece is a more detailed version of the airlock from those other sketches. It looks like one of the NASA designs that they are working on for the proposed Mars settlement. See here? Atmosphere filters, air scrubbers, a bio-aerosol mass spectrometer, a radiation detector. All of that by itself is reasonable for an airlock for a base on a planet with uncertain atmosphere. Though the filters here are based more on identifying air quality rather than protecting against the kind of radiation you’d have on Mars. It’s not something you’d use, say, in a space station or on the moon, where there’s no atmosphere.”
“But—?”
“But why build something like this into the wall of a hadron collider? There is no way that makes any sense.”
“If it’s a hadron collider,” suggested Bell.
“It is,” said Gustafson. “At least that’s the central design of those other plans. It’s some kind of particle accelerator.”
Bell nodded. “What else can you tell me?”
“Mm, well, some of these plans are for a power generator that makes no sense at all. The output predictions are way off the scale. You couldn’t hit those numbers with any generator short of a nuclear reactor, but this isn’t a centrifuge or a reactor. There’s no mention of a reactor or nuclear fission.”
“No,” agreed Bell.
“And yet there are numbers for the amount of kinetic energy created by this engine that are not possible outside of fission. I mean, look here, there are references to something called refractive crystalline source generation. What is that? It’s nonsense. There is no such thing.”
“I see,” said Bell. “So this is all nonsense?”
Gustafson hedged. “If I may be frank—?”
“Please.”
“Whoever designed this is probably a genius. There are some truly elegant refinements to the standard collider components. Things I’ve never seen. Possibly even revolutionary. Any of those elements would be worth filing patents on right away because they, at least, are sound and, really, they’re quite exciting.” Gustafson shook his head. “But the rest… either someone is trying very hard to sell you a bill of goods, in which case if you’ve paid for this work you could probably sue. This is someone trying to dazzle you with bullshit. With science fiction.”
“You said ‘either,’” observed Bell. “What’s the rest? What’s the other possibility?”
“Well… you know the saying that there is a fine line between genius and madness? If the person who designed this actually believes that this machine will work, then he’s quite mad.”
“I see. But tell me one last thing, Doctor,” said Bell. “You’ve told me what’s wrong with it and why it won’t work. However, you haven’t speculated on what you think this machine is for. If — and indulge me on that — if the person who developed this was working toward a specific end, then what end is that?”
“You don’t know? Surely he told you.”
“As I said, indulge me.”
Gustafson shrugged. “The power calculations, the placement of a door in an accelerator, the fact that the door is designed to scan for air quality and radiation… it’s obvious. However deluded or misguided, it’s obvious. The person who designed this is trying to generate enough power to open a door.”
“Be specific, Doctor.”
“This person is trying to open a door to another dimension.”
Bell smiled. “Ah.”
“As I said,” Gustafson added quickly, “this is nonsense. It can’t ever work. And if anyone was unfortunate enough to actually build this thing, it would probably blow up.”
“I see.”