Adela paused to check her notes, confirming that she had covered all the points she wanted to make in her report. Satisfied that she had included all the pertinent information, she said, “The complete figures and energy projections are included in the data file attached to this recording.” She snapped the cover closed on the handheld. “System, please end current recording and send it immediately to Dr. Rice at the test site.” She hesitated, a knowing smile gracing her lips.
“Encode it for personal delivery to Dr. Rice’s ID only.” She had no reason to suspect that Bomeer would intercept communications intended for other members of the research team without their knowledge, but she felt better at having added the encoding.
According to Rice’s clandestine communication, the physical test was to take place in a few days, and even though she was now less than a week away from Luna—where her report could be sent immediately to Rice using the tachyon link—the file she’d just encoded wouldn’t reach him in time to be of any benefit to him for the test itself. However, her findings would arrive shortly after the testing was concluded and might help him to sort out the results of the failed test; and, no less importantly, verify the new figures.
She felt much better now than she had when Montero had given her the recording the previous day. As is turned out, the unavoidable flaw in her original equations would work to their advantage: The small-scale physical test that Rice was about to conduct, while minuscule in scope compared with the reality of what would be done to the Sun itself, was still the largest implementation of the Sarpan shielding that had yet been attempted. The “real thing” would require far more immense shield generating facilities to contain singularities of the size that would be required for success. But her new figures—which would be borne out by the test, even when it failed—indicated that a smaller set of tuned singularities, and therefore less shielding, would yield the same amount of energy needed to save Earth’s Sun.
In fact, now that she thought about it, she wondered just how much more economical the process could be, based on the new figures. After all, if much of what she hoped to do could be done on a smaller scale, it could quite possibly be done years sooner. And since there was no way of knowing exactly how much time Sol had left, every year sooner they could move up the process would greatly increase the window of safety they had.
Adela regarded the image still displayed in the corner and took a light pen from the breast pocket of her uniform.
“System.”
“Ma’am?”
“Replay current file and activate cursor, please.”
“Ready, ma’am.”
The model began again, the red cylinders forming the perfect pyramids she’d already viewed nearly a hundred times in the last twenty-four hours. She allowed the playback to continue, pointing the pen to the set of figures over the leftmost pyramid, the one at the representation of Sol, at three points—when they first arranged themselves in the geometric figure, when the shielded singularity first appeared inside it, and just before the singularity was inserted inside the star.
“Stop playback and give me a full readout of the requested statistics. Direct the feed to my handheld.” She snapped the cover open once more and studied the figures as they scrolled by: mass of containment, energy of singularity contained, length of time to arrange and insert, required distance and power of shield generators and a hundred other relevant aspects of what was happening during the model.
Once the download was complete, she requested that a new model be created, under a different file name, using the same values as the one from which she’d just extracted the key information she needed to change the model to conform with the new energy equations. Let’s see, she mused as her fingers flew over the keypad, substituting a new figure here, a different value there. The new figures were sent to the model and each change slightly altered the image, followed by a new set of readouts floating near the changed items.
Hours passed, but Adela was so excited and involved in what she was doing that she barely noticed.
“Run the model, please,” she said once satisfied with the changes she’d entered. The image played out and a feeling of elation swept over her as the results matched the first modeclass="underline" There was no apparent change in the image representing Sol; the energy output reading remained as constant and steady as it had before. Only the rapidly scrolling statistics below the projection gave any indication that the star had just been given the boost of a secondary power source, a helping hand designed to keep the star healthy and stable for eons to come.
Grinning now, she ran the model once more to verify her findings, and nearly danced giddily across the room when assured that the new numbers were valid.
She would send the redesigned model to Rice, of course, so he could set up another physical test utilizing the new figures, but there was no hurry. Rice and Oidar, not to mention Bomeer himself, would be actively involved in the final setup for the test at this very moment.
There was an angry rumble in her stomach and Adela glanced at her wrist, surprised at how late it had become. All right, then, she decided; she’d head to the mess for something to eat and put together another recording containing the new model and all the figures she’d substituted when she got back. She hadn’t realized it, but she was nearly as exhausted as she was hungry. Adela stretched aching joints held much too long in a sitting position hunched over the handheld. The next time, she promised herself as she left the cabin and headed for the mess, she’d walk around the room with the handheld to avoid the cramped feeling she now felt in her back and shoulders.
Adela rubbed at her neck and wished, not for the first time since the Levant had left for Pallatin, she was back in Javas’ chamber. The untimely murder of Emperor Nicholas and the importance of the upcoming trip had weighed heavily on her before she’d left, and he had rubbed her neck and shoulders then, his strong but gentle touch bringing life into weary muscles. She felt herself smiling at the memory and stopped to lean against the wall of the deserted corridor. Still smiling, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine the touch of his fingertips, the scent of him and the soft caress of his breath against her neck as he whispered into her ear…
“Doctor? Are you all right?”
She snapped her eyes open, startled, and stared with embarrassment into the face of a young Ensign she did not recognize. She had grown accustomed, since coming out of the tank, to how empty the ship had seemed. Many of the nonessential members of the crew would not be awakened until they were actually in orbit around the Moon, which, combined with the fact that a large number of the ship’s complement had remained behind on Pallatin, almost made the Levant feel like a ghost ship. Other than Montero and the bridge crew, some of her personal team and the medical staff—all of whom were already “up”—she had seen few people aboard the big ship and had simply not expected anyone in the corridor at this late hour.
“Oh. I… I’m fine.” The young man, his face pale and anemic-looking from cryosleep, reached a hand to steady her. “I was dizzy for a moment, that’s all. Hungry, I guess.”
The Ensign smiled in understanding. “I know what you mean, ma’am,” he replied brightly. “I haven’t been able to stay away from the mess since I got out of the tank myself. You sure you’ll be okay?”
“Really, I’ll be fine.” She gave him a reassuring smile and thanked him for his concern, then watched as he headed in the opposite direction.
It was probably just as well that he brought me back to reality, she told herself. The Javas who awaited her would not be the same man who lived in the memory of a night she’d left more than forty years earlier. But it wasn’t fair; from her perspective, taking cryosleep and the near-relativistic speeds the Levant traveled into account, it seemed as if only two years had elapsed. And yet, she knew better. For him, four full decades had passed.