The Three-Cornered War| Chapter | F | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
The Three-Cornered War
On an impulse he phoned Lotta. Mostly she worked at home, but calls went through her administrative assistant in the OSP Building. Before Lotta entered a trance, she activated a signal light. It wasn’t on, so the assistant put him through.
"Sweetheart," Artus said when she answered, "I’ve got Kusu’s cube on spaceflight and space weaponry. I’d like to bring it home and work on it. I’ll keep out of your way. . . . Right now. Will that be a problem? . . .
"Thanks. I’ll want to have it on audio, too, if that’s all right. . . . Okay. Be there soon."
It was most of a mile from the OSP building to the small house on the ridgecrest. Much of it was uphill, and wanting to get in decent shape again, Artus speed-marched it, jogging all but the steeper stretches. Being in less than peak condition, he arrived winded and sweaty, his legs tired.
He’d thought Lotta might shut herself into her office suite: two insulated north-end rooms with an insulglass roof. Instead she met him at the door.
"Hi," he said. "I’ll stay out of your way."
"I’ll listen with you," she answered. "I’ve never heard one of Kusu’s War Ministry lectures."
"Maybe I should shower first," Artus said. "I might not smell too good."
"You’re all right. Shower later."
He dried the sweat from his face with a hand towel, and put the cube in one of the living room players. Lotta poured cool fruit drinks, a taste they’d both developed on Tyss. Then they settled onto recliners facing the wall screen, and he started the reader. After a brief introduction by Kusu, the screen split. The right side would show visual aids as appropriate. The text appeared on the left, synchronized with Kusu’s clear baritone:
WAR AND WEAPONRY IN SPACE
Let me begin with two caveats: You are not going to understand this. Even the math provides only limited understanding. What you can do is become thoroughly familiar with it—get used to it—and that’s good enough. For those of you trained in space flight, much of it is already familiar.
My language here will be slippery, imprecise, and roundabout. The only language really suited to the discussion of N-spaces, and the physics of faster-than-light travel, is an esoteric mathematics we have only recently reacquired. Since none of you know that particular calculus, I’ll use the language of metaphor, which serves well enough for our purposes.
Keep in mind that we’ve been doing these things for thousands of years, using technology inherited from before the Sacrament. What’s changed is that we now know how it works, which allows us to explore problems, and create solutions and new applications.
Some Key Things to Know About Space Travel
Strictly speaking, in most space travel, we do not travel in space-time as we know it. Instead we make use of "parallel" space-times, using hyperdrive for hyperspace, and warpdrive for warpspace.
Think of the various space-times as N-dimensional grids, with lines that are simultaneously explicit—both distinct and ordered—yet effectively contiguous, their separation infinitely small. N can be any one of a not yet fully explored and defined set of integers.
With existing technology, or even theoretical technology, only three sets of dimensions can be entered and traversed. They are termed "warpspace," with 10 dimensions, "hyperspace," with 16 dimensions, and our familiar, 4-dimensional "F-space." Warpspace and hyperspace are sometimes collectively referred to as "strange spaces." Only warpdrive and hyperdrive are practical for traversing interstellar distances.1 Everything else is too slow. The equation which permits travel through 16-dimensional hyperspace allows extreme but not infinite "speeds." It also allows the hyperspace ship to track its own progress through F-space, and allows it to emerge into F-space at approximately the coordinates chosen.2
The high hyperspace "velocity" cap permits travel through considerable reaches of our spiral arm in reasonably short periods of time—weeks or years. Furthermore, mass does not increase with either "velocity" or "acceleration," because strictly speaking, in hyperspace (and in warpspace as well) there is no velocity or acceleration. Although changes in location take place over time, in hyper- and warpspace those changes are infinitely small. That is, virtually zero. Only when translated into F-space are they finite.
Artus’s lips had tightened. He wanted to be anywhere but where he was, doing anything but this. He flicked a glance at Lotta. She was looking intently at him, and his eyes flicked back to the screen. Meanwhile Kusu’s voice had not stopped.
I’ve been speaking metaphorically. Now I need to switch metaphors on you. If some parts of this discussion seem inconsistent with others, it is the fault of metaphor as explanation. As far as we know, reality is consistent, and so is its mathematics.
Warpdrive requires far more time to transfer a mass a given F-space distance than hyperdrive does. Thus, loosely speaking, we can say that warpdrive is much "slower." In fact, the far greater "speed" of hyperdrive makes it the only really practical means for travel between widely separated systems.
On the other hand, the distortions caused in warpspace by the proximity of stellar masses are far far less than the analogous distortions in hyperspace. By contrast, for a ship in hyperdrive to "emerge" into F-space deep within the gravity well of a star system, would be violently fatal to ship and crew. Thus warpdrive remains very important to insystem transportation.
Hyperdrive and warpdrive do not generate matter, and hyperspace and warpspace do not contain matter. When they "contain" a ship, the ship is an "island" of F-space, so to speak, an island encapsulated by warp- or hyperspace but not part of them.
Furthermore, the properties of hyperspace permit emergence into F-space from any hyperspace "velocity" without generating F-space momentum. Thus a ship newly emerged from hyperspace is always motionless in F-space. It is "parked," so to speak.
Emergence from warpspace is less simple. Warpspeed must be cut effectively to zero before emerging. Otherwise momentum is instantaneously generated in F-space, proportional to the "warpspeed," with resultant inertial stresses on the spacecraft, and on any organisms in it.1 To emerge from warpspace at only one mile per second would convert personnel to mush. However, within warpspace, "speed" can safely be "slowed" from maximum to zero in picoseconds, an interval undetectable to human senses but nicely manageable by a navcomp. The ship can then be translated safely into F-space.
Reaction drives analogous to those used in fireworks could be built for use in F-space, but would serve no practical function. . . .
Then why ramble on about it? Romlar thought resentfully. He shifted in his seat, and did not look at Lotta. He also cut the audio and speeded the march of the text up the screen, skipping as he read.
Gravdrive is the usual means of maneuvering near planets and landing on them. And it permits hovering in relativistic motionlessness. . . .
Emergence from hyperspace into warpspace, or vice versa, is not possible. One must emerge into F-space as an intermediate step. . . .
Being relativistically immobile while flying encapsulated within strange space, a ship can carry out extreme maneuvers without inertial effects. As an experience, flying in strange space is much like sitting in an unmoving virtual reality game, pretending to fly. . . .
I will now shift gears and seemingly contradict some of what I’ve already said. . . .
Seemingly contradict . . . Artus swore inwardly. This was, he told himself, the most exasperating thing he’d ever read.
Hyperspace and warpspace differ importantly in almost every respect. But in a sense, neither strange space exists in "nature"—except as a potential. From the viewpoint of F-space, they exist only in the fields generated by a hyperdrive or warpdrive. They are artifacts! However, a hyperspace potential and a warpspace potential do exist in F-space. It is these which permit the generation of those foreign spaces.
Communication is a problem for hyperspace ships. Messages analogous to radio messages can be generated, and for example pass through the hyperspace potential from one hyperspace ship to another, with the transmission interval a complex function of their relative hyperspace potentiality coordinates, practical only when ships are traveling together on nearby parallel courses. . . .
"Artus," Lotta said, "kill it for a moment." As his Ostrak operator, she knew her husband’s personality profile, and his history as a person and a student. His military studies had been under T’swa instructors—practical, hands-on studies with intuition emphasized and nurtured. And he’d been brilliant, both analytically and intuitively.
Earlier however, as a pupil in school, he’d been submarginal. Fortunately the problem hadn’t been genetic, and his blockages against learning from books had been greatly reduced by Ostrak processing. But he’d had no successful experience in abstract studies. His successes had been in learning "how to do," and when.
"You told me you’d read it at your office," Lotta said. "How did you go about it?"
Shrugging he frowned, and described what he’d done—read the abstract and summary, but mostly skimmed the rest. "I wasn’t getting it anyway," he added.
She nodded. "You had steam coming out your ears here. You need involvement while you learn." She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Why did you want to work on this at home?"
He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "I guess— No guess about it. I hoped you’d offer to help. I know you’ve got more than enough to do, but I hoped—I knew you’d listen with me, and make some suggestions."
She nodded curtly. "My suggestion right now is that we read, or skim, the rest of it, then eat lunch. After lunch I’ll make further suggestions."
Again they sat back, and he continued the program.
Mainly About War in Hyperdrive
Two ships can actually encounter, detect, and even attack one another while in their separate hyperspaces—in a sense their own separate universes. Because hyperspace potential permeates all of F-space. And hyperdrive can be thought of as propagating a moving hyperspace cell through that potentiality.
Conversely, to a ship in hyperspace or warpspace, F-space is only a potentiality, and objects in F-space have "degrees" of potentiality, depending on their mass. Mass and proximity are the basis for ships in hyperspace or warpspace detecting objects in F-space.1
If they are "near enough" to one another in the hyperspace potentiality, one ship can detect another through the hyperspace potential, "locate" and lock onto it, and destroy it with a torpedo. This is possible because a torpedo is an unmanned hyperspace craft which, instructed by its onboard navcomp, generates its own hyperspace cell, with its own "vectors."
Basics of Defense
A ship in strange space can generate a shield, reconfiguring its strange space to accommodate the shield. However, in any space, interactions between the drive, the shield, and the shield generator result in stresses on the drive and the shield generator. . . . Ships in hyperspace very rarely encounter blips of another ship, even in "heavy traffic" zones. . . .
In hyperspace, a ship fearing a torpedo attack can instantly cut field generation and emerge in F-space. . . . With existing instrumentation, a ship in hyperspace cannot, without emerging, detect something as small as a ship in either warpspace or F-space. . . .
It is futile to fire torpedoes into F-space at a computed emergence coordinate. All strange-space astrogational computations are approximate, and the errors, though expressed in nano- or picodegrees, increase proportional to target distance. Thus, at the distances involved, torpedoes emerging into F-space are virtually certain to miss their targets. . . .
Artus paused the program and looked at his wife. "Sweetheart," he said, "I can see how important this is to people commanding warships, and the subject is interesting, but why does Kusu want me to know it?"
"You’ll have to ask him. But I suspect it’s a matter of knowing the larger field within which you’ll be acting. That’s my guess. Speed the scrolling, and slow it if something catches your attention. Maybe that will help."
Nodding, he followed her suggestion.
. . . In warpspace, a ship’s instruments can provide details permitting an image to be digitally synthesized and identified by a battlecomp. This is not true in hyperspace, where only a blip is discerned, along with its mass and location. . . .
When a ship emerges into F-space, it produces an emergence wave in the hyperspace potential. This wave arrives at a system’s planets and defense installations essentially instantaneously, warning them that something has arrived, approximately where, and with about what mass. . . .
Warbeams
Beam guns have major advantages over torpedoes: First, a warbeam is effectively continuous while being fired. Secondly, a warbeam can be destroyed only by destroying the gun. Thirdly, except on scouts and other small craft, shield generators can produce topologically complex shields that permit ships to fire warbeams without "dropping" their shields.
Beam guns also have major limitations. The greatest is, they function only in F-space. Beams do not propagate through the hyperspace or warpspace potentialities. . . . To fire beams is a major drain on a ship’s power. . . .
Shield protection is weakened if at some point a multi-layered shield is sequentially deactivated to fire torpedoes. . . . When an opponent’s shield and shield generator are stressed by beam attack, a torpedo may more readily break them. . . .
With existing technology, to escape from F-space into a strange space requires deactivating the shield generators, then allowing the shield to decay. Thus, once a ship engages in a beam fight, it is unlikely to have an opportunity to escape, except by running away in gravdrive, which of course is slow.
Torpedoes
Torpedoes are armed with a disrupter charge,1 and have greater destructive power than warbeams. Invariably, a torpedo’s navcomp will be locked on a target before or quickly after launch. . . .
When Lotta saw the sentence on disrupters, she shifted her gaze to Artus. His aura had shrunken and turned cloudy. That again, she thought. Back when she’d been his Ostrak operator and he was still the fat dumb kid, she’d known he had some extreme incident sitting in his deep history, lives and lives ago. An incident too powerful to get at and defuse. Later she’d gotten a sense of it, and later still, parts of the picture. But not the key. Without it, his reaction to Kusu’s lecture would have been much milder.
She returned her attention to the screen. Material about torpedoes was scrolling. Mostly it seemed fairly straightforward.
Ships of about 7 to 12 kilotons can generate two-layered shields, and ships heavier than about 12 kilotons three or more layers, sufficiently separated so that hits on the outer leave the inner intact.
Launching torpedoes from a shielded ship requires generating torpedo ports, which weaken the shield layers. Usually, torpedo ports are generated through one layer at a time to reduce the risk. This greatly slows a torpedo’s launch speed, at the same time warning the intended target. . . .
The last page flicked from the screen, replaced by an image of Kusu’s face saying: "End of program. Thank you for your attention." Artus’s finger shut the reader off. He looked better than he had a few minutes earlier, but Lotta wondered what his dreams would be like when next he slept.
"Did it go better this time than before?" she asked.
"Better?" He shook his head more in thought than denial. "I feel as if I know more. Because I’ve gone through it twice, I suppose."
Lotta got from her chair. "Go take that shower. I’ll dish up some of the sea salad Arlana mixed this morning, and toast some bread."
When they’d finished their lunch, Artus started back to his office, and Lotta placed a call. "Kusu," she said, "what kind of response have you gotten on your space war lecture?"
His eyebrows raised. "Variable. At least when I’ve given it live."
"Elaborate."
He knew at once she’d watched it with Artus, and had found it lacking. "Some of them liked it. Others had trouble with it; too strange, I suppose. Maybe too much all at once? They tended to doze, or seemed—impatient. Maybe irritated. Did Artus have any trouble?"
"Yes he did. You have a particular kind of mind, and you’ve worked with the problems. The operative term being ‘worked with.’ In your lecture you’ve presented a whole stew pot of significances—and no doingness. It goes with the subject, I suppose. What’s needed now is a program in which you stop after every major point or set of points, and ask questions. ‘What if’ questions. ‘So what’ questions. Engage them. Involve them. Call Artus in tomorrow and practice on him. Maybe have him diagram things. It’ll do you both good. Then assign one of your people to do it with others."
Her face and voice were firm, definite. I screwed it up, Kusu told himself. "Will do," he said. "And thanks."
"You’re welcome," she replied, and T’swa fashion cut the connection without another word, as if he was no longer there. For a moment Kusu looked ruefully at the blank screen. He was supposed to be the remarkable, the powerful mind in the OSP, and with regard to science, he was. But for breadth and depth of understanding . . .
He remembered her from one early summer day in his youth, on an institute staff picnic at Lake Loreen. He’d been the young hotshot reopening the long suppressed field of physics research, and Lotta had been a bright, carrot-topped little child in a crisp yellow dress. The only child there, flitting sure and unselfconscious among the adults. The other children—she was one of the youngest—had gone home for the solstice holidays. He hadn’t known her name, but she’d caught his attention as some kind of unclassifiable but very special phenomenon.
If they pulled the fat from the fire, in this time of extraordinary danger, it would be she to whom the greatest credit belonged. He had no doubt at all of that.
He grunted, chuckled. She’d taken time from her own intensely full schedule to review and critique his work, had found it lacking, and given him his orders. I’d better, he told himself, get busy on them.
| Chapter | F | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
