Chapter 16
To say that all the Terminals were the same,” We've seen 'em all”, is a bit blasé, but this was their second Terminal. How many other people, Earth-people, could say that? None.
Their arrival was identical to their entry to the other one, it was in total darkness. George assured them it would be a few minutes before circuits could be 'woken-up', as he put it, the gravity and atmosphere adjusted, etc, etc. When you come to think of it, if a place has been out of action for a million or so years, it's pretty reasonable to expect there to be some delay in the resumption of normal operations.
The mice wasted no time. They were up and out of their mouse-hole at the instant of arrival, off to the workshops to continue with the photon cutter components, a few days work evidently.
Pat and Carl had a look at the holo, to see where they were, as if it would give them any info at all. Daft really but it was nice to know where they were, in a manner of speaking.
To get the whole view, their previous exploits were reduced to a pinprick in the void and a 'very' thin line traced their tortuous path to this Terminal.
George assured them that they had travelled in a dead straight line, but looking at the trace it was all but straight. But, Carl supposed, in space and time, what is a straight line? It may look straight, but then it would. The cosmic forces would bend the curves straight and the straight lines curved, to be straightened some no-time else or place. Space is as large as we want to think it to be and time does not pass by. It is here and now, so the passage of time and distance is totally irrelevant.
Carl thought a lot during the next few days, on the time-and-space problem, as he had the days previous. George had done his best to help but his logic circuits were biased towards Yil information and beliefs. One analogy he did put forward or, to be more exact, explain. He was helping with the high-speed travelling they were doing, billions of times the speed of light, and the Einsteinean problem of the General Theory of Relativity. By rights all other space and time, other than theirs that is, should have progressed forward, always forward, by millions of years. George informed Carl that this was a correct hypothesis, but only if you actually travelled that distance. That threw Carl completely, of course they had travelled the distance. George assured him that they had, but not physically. He likened their travel to thought. He said that you could 'think' of travelling millions of light years, could point to the exact spot you wanted to go to and that thought took only a couple of seconds. Their Jump Drive did just that, somehow. It 'thought' about the position they were going to and 'thought' their arrival, and there they were. Carl could not grasp that at all. He asked about the distance in between and George said that that was physically travelled by the jump's thought processes, Shadow just arrived. That is why he said they travelled in no-time, sideways on the Einstein graph, not up, forward or back but sideways.
'Because,' George had said, 'we didn't actually travel the distance.'
That idea answered the 'time' question to a tee but how did the jump unit do it? George was honestly adamant that neither his records nor the Yil knew how. They had fallen onto the process by accident, with the loss of life of many leading scientists. They had, evidently, just popped out of existence when carrying out trials.
To Carl, this whole system sounded like a matter transmitter. He had to explain the meaning of that to George who confirmed that it sounded just like it.
Carl's time on those thoughts, and talks with George, carried on over the days spent at the Junction. Pat was busy with the mice and the photon cutters - to be their first weapon. That was the whole idea. Both Carl and Pat didn't like the idea of only having the two incapacitating devices that only worked on living creatures. They both wanted a 'pop-gun' of some sort, the cutter would be that popgun. It was going to be some hand gun, just a touch better than the 'Make my day' Magnums, by some hundreds of thousands of percent.
An interesting couple of hours was spent by being present whilst one of their large mice was taken apart and repaired, or recalibrated, as George put it. The inside of the mouse was solid with appendages and circuits, combinations of electronic, pneumatic and hydraulic. Carl had thought they were a fairly empty case with a few bits and pieces inside. Was he ever wrong? The whole ovoidal body was like a series of advanced timepieces bolted together. It was absolutely beautiful; shining and twinkling with little rods and shafts push-pulling and spinning. The circuits were by the thousands, they were paper-thin with gleaming traceries on their surfaces. They smoothly slid out, without command it seemed, were taken by mini-mice and replacement slivers were slid back in. The functional testing was quite terrifying. All the functions were activated and operated at maximum output for over an hour, the noise was awful. It sounded as if the mouse was falling apart. George assured them that the pace of movements could continue for months without harm - what materials did they use?
When the tests were over, the outer shell, which was also full of circuitry, was installed which totally silenced all further servo operations, both physically and technologically. The outer shell's purpose, amongst many, was to match a sound with an opposite or inverse sound, result, silence.
Carl noticed that there was no activity in or around Shadow. Evidently Shadow was in perfect working order, had already carried out five calibration runs during their time aboard and wouldn't require attention for quite a few years. Somewhat better than British Railways or Amtrak, Carl suspected. George did carry out some adjustments to their food and drink provision circuits, they were nearly perfect but could now be finalised with all the experience he had with their human metabolism. It is very convenient to have the backup of a million volumes of encyclopaedias, or however big George’s memory bank was, plus the ability to carry out 99.99% of the processes required by those volumes.
Apart from one aspect, Carl was most happy with the situation as it was at the moment. The only dampener on the proceedings was the knowledge that they were still lost, with very little hope of any return to Earth and the people they loved. He didn't fancy living with only Pat as his companion for the rest of his life, after all, he wasn't Carl's ideal picture of his hearts desire. Very little like it in fact.
They spent some very enjoyable hours playing, first Draughts, then Chess and then Uckers. They played with the mice! George insisted that he had not programmed their random memories, they could learn quite effectively without his influence. So it was that they had some really good 'evenings' hammering the mice. They slowly picked the games up and were very human minded in that respect. They were not faultless, they made the same mistakes everyone does, plus they didn't always remember the get-out replies to many moves. Uckers was a scream. They just couldn't handle the rules, or the continual rule amendments that were made before, during, and after the game. They hated getting smashed off the board. You could practically see them having an internal tantrum when it happened. They couldn't get the hang of mixy-blobs either. It was great fun. Games they could take with them and, George assured them, if the mice became too proficient he would wipe a bit of their memory. Rotten bugger.
All good things have to come to an end, if you could call the last five days at Terminal, good-things.
Pat came in with the photon cutters, lovely looking pieces of electronic wizardry. It was try-out time.
“I reckon we need to have a bit of practice with these things.” He looked at Carl, who had to agree.
“Best idea Pat, is to go out to an asteroid and give it a blast or two.”
“Sounds reasonable, let's go to it then.” And with that they set off towards the hanger and Shadow.
Why not? Can't stay around the Terminal forever.
Shadow was just where they had left her, in a ten-foot hover. They entered and took up station in the cockpit, after a couple of minutes to allow the seats to bed into their present 'comfort' position, Pat punched up a Hud display and zoomed in towards an asteroid infested area.
“Looks promising,” he said,” see anywh
ere better Carl, George?”
“No.”
“No.”
Then the asteroids were suddenly all around them, from tennis ball to Isle of Wight size, thousands of them.
“Bloody hell,” Pat said,” how the hell did we miss hitting one of those?” Asking the air.
“Just one of my abilities.” Said George, in an oh-so modest voice.
“Piss off George.” Was Pat's rejoinder.
They slipped their right hands into the glove-type fitting, which interfaced perfectly with the Tangler mount. It was a most comfortable fixture, with part of the glove extending partway up the forearm before firmly, but without pressure, gripping the arm. A very nice piece of kit.
“Let's away and have a bit of target practice.” Said Carl.
They stepped out of the entry door and jetted a couple of miles away from Shadow.
Carl activated his and ran through the pencil beam to the full fan spray and back again, running up the power band. This was all accomplished via nerve outputs in the forearm, it all felt so normal, perhaps their ten minutes of 'instruction', previously carried out at the Terminal had something to do with it.
“Feels, very, comfort, able, to, acti, vate.” Carl stuttered.
“You're, right, Carl.” Pat stammered.
They then carried out some earnest destruction of the local scenery. They decimated it. On full power and pencil setting, the cutting beam passed right through any size of asteroid in the vicinity, no matter how fast the sweep past was made. They quartered one large asteroid and watched it oh-so-slowly disintegrate. Their accuracy was perfect, the dartboard type sight on the Hud worked a treat, and it was so natural to find the centre of aim. There were no trajectory equations to work out either, straight meant straight. George confirmed that the beam could be affected by gravitational force and black holes, but that would only be over great distances. They didn't expect to have to use them over that type of distance. The range was nearly infinite but the beam would scatter by itself as it struck atoms in its path. Natural when you think about it.
“Does, that, mean, the, beam, could, cause, damage, over, light, years?” Carl asked of George.
“That is difficult to calculate but it is quite possible. There is no reason why not.” Was George's reply.
“We'll, have, to, be, careful, then,” Said Pat”maybe, only, use, partial, power, or, only, use, enough, power, to, cut, what, we, want, to, cut, and, nothing, else.”
“We, can, do, that, easily, from, what, I, have, in, memory, and, it's, easy, to, adjust, up or down, in power, during, a blast.” Carl reasoned.
“I am sure you will have no problems about intensity and missed shots,” interrupted George,” your skills have already shown themselves. It might have been another story if you had to learn their operation from a trial and error basis. Instruction cuts through all that and puts actions and results into known equations. I will programme a depth of cut of the photon beam, that will prevent the beam travelling too far beyond the target.”
“Thanks, George.” Nothing like cutting a person down to size, thought Carl, not his actions at all, only what the 'Instruction!' has put in. He knew in his heart it was a 50/50 sharing.
“Back?” Carl motioned to Pat.
“Yep. Good idea about the depth of cut.” He replied.
Shadow was really impressive in the blackness of space. A dull gleaming flattened cylindrical horseshoe, narrow at the two fronts and a bit tubby at the curve. A bit like a Funny Car, on the forward tilt and all ready to shoot off, ‘not without us though’, Carl cautioned himself.
Pat entered and Carl went to the outside of the cockpit screen and looked in. Pat came in and flopped into his seat, jumping when he saw Carl.
“Shave-off Carl, you gave me a turn there.” He said.
“I, just, wanted, to, see, what it, looks, like, from, out here.” He stuttered, and shot round the side and into the entry port.
“It looks really smart in here, from out there.”
“That's because it is smart,” Pat answered,” and comfortable, and home for now.”
“That brings us back to the main subject, home. Do we go for another set of grid jumps?” Carl asked.
“I think we must,” he said,” how the hell else are we ever going to know where we are. I'd like to know sometime you know.”
“Same here.” Agreed Carl.” Ok George, what we'll do is go back to our finish point, last jump, and decide from there.” He said.” Why I'm telling George I don't know.”
“Nor do I,” said Pat,” I've got the point, so we'll go when you're ready.
“Ready as I'll ever be,” he said,” we might as well have a meal, the jump's going to take ten minutes or so.”
“Ok, here we go.” And Pat selected the required set of jumps.
Carl had the two meals for them and was back in his seat within two minutes. In time, in fact, to look at the planet they had stopped at, part way through the sequence.
“Radio contact, non Earth I'm afraid gentlemen but contact has stopped the journey.” George informed them.
“That's sure as hell not Earth.” Pat confirmed.” There's too much water, it's all bloody water, where's the land?”
There appeared to be no land, it was all water. The radio signal was not general or emanating from many sources, it was being transmitted from a single point on the equator of the water world.