An hour after we arrived, the scientists we had chosen to witness the demonstration flew in on yet another shuttle. Ulrich Zenger and Jay Casares were avid supporters of the constitution, with impeccable academic credentials. They were professors of theoretical physics from the University of Icaria , an independent research school funded by six BMs. We were introduced in the shelter, and Charles immediately briefed them on the experiment.
The test bed itself lay beneath an unpressurized tent-dome. In suits, Charles, Chinjia, Royce, Zenger, Casares and I walked from the shelter to the dome. Charles removed a cylinder of pure hydrogen prepared and delivered by Zenger and Casares, and carefully placed it in a sling hanging from the apex of the dome. Zenger and Royce then brought forward a neutron counter and other equipment. Arbeiters recorded the preparations on vid.
“What are we doing to see?” Casares asked Charles as the final arrangements were made.
“You’ve studied our theory papers, and you understand what we claim we’ve done?” Charles asked in turn.
Casares nodded.
“Are you convinced?”
Casares shook his head. “It’s fascinating, but I resist switching paradigms.”
“Is there any way your hydrogen-filled cylinder can produce energy?”
“In its present state, no,” Casares said.
“We’re going to make it produce a great deal of energy.”
We returned to the shelter, removed our suits, and joined Leander and Zenger in the equipment room. Here, once again, waited a broad steel table and the white thinker with no affiliation. Several small black boxes were connected to the thinker by optical cables.
Leander asked the thinker whether all the equipment was working properly. It replied, in a young man’s voice, that all was well.
Charles sat on a stool beside the table. “Our thinker provides an interface with a Quantum Logic thinker, also contained within the box. Both were grown on Mars, by Martians.”
“Who?” Zenger asked, clearly interested in this development.
“Myself,” Leander said, “and Danny Pincher. At Tharsis Research University .”
“This by itself is worth the trip,” Zenger said. “If the thinkers are stable and productive.”
“They’re dedicated and not very powerful,” Leander said. “Danny and I are growing better ones now. We’ve probably violated several laws by building them the way we have, but we needed QL control of the apparatus, and we exhausted all legal means of procuring a QL thinker.”
Zenger nodded. “Please go on,” he said.
“Some of our work was inspired by a pretty famous scientific mystery. We’ve all studied the Ice Pit accident. That was almost fifty years ago. A Lunar scientist named William Pierce tried to reduce the temperature of a small sample of copper atoms to absolute zero. He succeeded, with disastrous consequences. Pierce and his wife were killed. One observer managed to escape, but he was badly injured. The Ice Pit cavern became an incomprehensible void.”
Zenger seemed unimpressed. “So what are you going to do with our hydrogen?” he asked. “Send it to Wonderland?”
“We’ve never duplicated his experiment,” Casares said. “It’s never been proven that absolute zero was reached. Something else may have happened.”
“We know that zero temperature was achieved,” Charles said.
Zenger turned down his lips and thumped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “How do you know?”
“No details for now,” Leander said.
“We’re going to convert some of the hydrogen in the cylinder to mirror matter,” Charles said. “The reaction between normal hydrogen and mirror hydrogen will produce neutrons, gamma rays, and heat.”
“Let’s do it,” Casares said impatiently.
Charles sat beside the thinker. A control panel was projected above the white box. “The thinker is fixing the descriptor coordinates for the sample,” he said. “The descriptors do not use absolute measures or coordinates. Every space-time descriptor is relative to the descriptors of the observer. In some ways, that makes our job easier. When we’ve located our sample, we can confirm by querying other descriptors, which will tell us what the sample is made of… And we’ll know we’re tweaking what we want to tweak.”
“You won’t tell us how it’s done,” Zenger said, pointing to the apparatus. “But you’re doing it, whatever it is, remotely… What’s your maximum distance?”
‘That’s not going to be discussed today, either,“ Leander said. ”Sorry.“
Zenger turned to me, grim-faced. “We can’t make an evaluation if we don’t have enough information.”
“We’ve asked the group not to reveal certain facts,” I said.
Zenger drew his chin back and shook his head. “You’ve called us in to give expert testimony, but by keeping us ignorant, you might as well impress a couple of chimpanzees.”
Casares was less prickly. “Let’s see what there is to see,” he said. “If you produce energy from our sample, we have something interesting. We can debate secrets later.”
Part of me had hoped for more drama. There was expectation in that little room, curiosity, skepticism — but very little drama. Charles did not try for emotional effect. Instead, he worked quickly and quietly with Leander. Both passed instructions to the thinker, and we were invited to observe.
The display above the thinker projected a 3-D diagram of the cylinder, filled with colors showing temperature gradients. The cylinder, Charles explained, was still cooling to the ambient temperature, about minus sixty degrees Celsius. The gas within churned slowly.
“Charge is conserved, of course,” Leander said. “We can’t convert charged particles except in pairs with particles of the exact opposite charge. Neutral atoms and molecules are ideal. The descriptors distinguishing mirror matter and matter are tied to other descriptors describing a particle’s spin and time component. We have to access these linked descriptors all at once. The result is a conversion that violates no physical laws. But since matter will meet with mirror matter, energy will be released.”
“And how do you change the descriptors?” Casares asked.
Charles grinned almost shyly. “I’m sorry. Can’t say just yet.”
Zenger said, “So what is there to evaluate? You might show us a splendid magic trick. Everything could be rigged…”
“We hope you trust our reputations enough to accept that what you see is legitimate,” Leander said.
“We can’t pass judgment without evaluating the theory behind the effect,” Casares said, folding his arms. “Science is about reproducible results. If only one group has done the work and gotten results, it isn’t science. What I’ve heard so far isn’t encouraging.”
Charles looked between us, clearly frustrated. “I’d just as soon tell you all there is, but for obvious reasons, it’s up to Vice President Majumdar.”
I felt completely out of my element, but I could not afford to be indecisive. “Key parts of the theory must be kept confidential,” I said.
Charles held out his hands, What can I do?
Zenger and Casares shook their heads. Zenger finally waved his fingers as if dismissing me, but said, “All right. I don’t like it, but show us what there is to see, and we’ll argue details later.”
“Thank you,” Charles said. He nodded to Leander. “Let’s project the sample as our thinker sees it.”
Leander touched the insubstantial control panel. A surface of peaks and valleys appeared, arrows dancing from peak to peak and finally settling on one, which promptly grew. A small red cube appeared, and within the cube, blue lines sketched the cylinder. Again the cylinder filled with colors, and within the colors, flashing numbers and Greek letters moved like bottled flies.
“The QL thinker evaluates the sample,” Charles said. “Everything is in the hands of the thinker now. We should see energy produced within the sample in a few seconds.”