Gravity Rising (The Parallel Multiverse Book 2) Read online

  “I would never compare you to a chicken,” Guidard said, “the red hair notwithstanding.”

  Maggie blushed.

  “I think he won that round, Mags,” Larry said.

  “Shut up!”

  Larry and Guidard grinned at each other.

  “I suppose I’d better get started on the supper, then,” Larry said.

  “Anything I can help with?” the little man asked.

  “There is actually not enough space for two people around the stove. I can take care of it.”

  “I did bring an offering for the dinner,” he said.

  Guidard stood and pulled a brown paper wrapped parcel from a bag. “Here. This might be tasty.”

  “What is it?” Maggie asked.

  Larry carefully unwrapped the package. “Mags, it looks like we have a beef steak of some kind here.”

  “Sirloin,” Guidard supplied. “If I’m going to be sitting at your table, I felt I should help things along.”

  “Oh, this certainly helps,” Larry said.

  “Let me start putting this stuff away, while you start on the steak,” Maggie said. “I’m getting hungry just looking at that. We don’t see much beef, here.”

  “And we can talk at the same time,” Larry said as he picked up a frying pan and studied it. “I think this is clean enough.”

  “Let me see that,” Maggie said.

  She walked over to the sink and wiped the pan out with a rag, and then rinsed it. “Men.”

  “Any additional information you can add to the current topic?” Guidard asked.

  “We were followed to the market and back again, by another car,” Larry said.

  “I know about that,” Guidard said.

  They both looked at him in surprise.

  He waited a moment and then spoke. “I saw them pull out and follow you.”

  “Oh,” Larry and Maggie said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The Clenèt fusion reactor was mechanically a simple device. A collection of Osiris Cells was placed spherically around a reactor core. The devices focused a very tight gravity wave at the center of the sphere. With the group of cells working in concert, small amounts of deuterium fell over a threshold into the reactor pit, where they flashed into helium and released enormous amounts of energy as a byproduct.

  The Osiris Cell exhibited two critical characteristics. One, of course, was the ability to focus gravitational energy. The second was equally as important; A feedback loop built into the cell allowed it to harvest a portion of the energy liberated by the fusion reaction and use that to continuously power the cell. The result was a self-sustaining fusion reaction that was stable and easy to manage. This was Audry Clenèt’s major contribution to the state of the art. It was a magnificent engineering achievement.

  The Clenèt fusion reactor was able to fit neatly in the existing infrastructure built for fission power plants. An extensive network of coolant tubes routed water through an elaborate arrangement of baffles in which were nestled the Osiris Cells. The coolant was sent to a heat exchanger where the secondary cooling water flashed into steam. This drove the conventional steam turbines that spun the generators. This provided virtually unlimited power – unlimited in duration, not in voltages. Those remaining pockets of civilization, that could afford it, built a network of fusion power plants.

  Those who could not afford it utilized the still abundant natural gas to spin turbines for power. Though, perhaps, wasteful of a finite resource, it was what they had. And, the natural gas supplies that were developed through twenty-first-century fracking seemed limitless.

  It had been a long day in the lab, and Larry hadn’t made much progress tinkering with the apparatus he had constructed. He had taken an Osiris Cell, one of the key components of a grav fusion reactor and was tweaking it to see if he could make it do something it was not designed to accomplish. He looked, in frustration, across the lab where Fluffy Pournelle was helping another student with a test apparatus. As he watched, Fluffy and the student burst into laughter, and then the professor slapped the student on the shoulder.

  Since his return to Cambridge, Fluffy and been friendly, even cordial to Larry. However, he avoided giving any assistance. When Larry asked for advice in building his equipment, Fluffy was non-committal. He always had some kind of excuse when Larry approached him. It didn’t seem to be hostility on Fluffy’s part, but rather as though he didn’t care. It was puzzling. Fluffy Pournelle was a first-rate hardware engineer, and part of his role at MIT was to guide the doctoral students where he could and assist in equipment fabrication at need. The financial limitations of the school meant that students and professors constantly scavenged equipment from prior experiments and recycled it for new uses. This was something everyone participated in, and Fuzzy’s lack of assistance was strange.

  Larry shook his head and turned to the equipment. He applied a small amount of power to the cell and watched his instrumentation. The cell generated a predictable focused gravity wave. The strength of the wave increased smoothly as he fed more power. That much was reassuring. What he was attempting was to generate a type of gravitic force beam that would allow him to levitate objects, in other words, a type of anti-gravity. He was aware he was duplicating other experiments. In the decades following Clenèt’s work, a few scientists had attempted the same thing, but without results. All of them had given up without showing any progress. He wondered if he were demonstrating the definition of insanity – repeating the same activity over and over but expecting a different result.

  “I would suggest wrapping up for the day, Lawrence.”

  Larry looked up to see Pournelle standing next to him.

  “Sir?”

  “The weather seems to be turning worse than usual. It would be unfortunate if anyone got caught outside and lost in the blizzard.”

  Larry looked over at the windows. In his concentration, he had missed the change from bright sunshine to a storm-driven early dusk.

  “Thanks, Dr. Pournelle. I completely missed it.”

  He began shutting down the equipment. He disconnected his computer from the data collection equipment, and then shrugged into his jacket. Maggie had decided to work in her flat on this day. She was coming to a critical portion of her dissertation and needed the solitude to concentrate. Of course, she was usually the one to come and pry Larry out of his work.

  Fluffy was back over helping the other student shut things down. Larry pulled his hood up and put on his gloves. It did look nasty outside. His memories of being locked out were still fresh and he had no desire to repeat the adventure. Walking down the hallway he encountered Seb Sylvester, who was also leaving the building.

  “Hey, Seb, going home?”

  “Yeah. Walk with me. Maybe the two of us won’t get blown away in the weather.”

  “That wouldn’t be funny at all,” Larry said.

  “The voice of experience?” Seb responded.

  “You got it,” Larry laughed. “Once in a lifetime was a great plenty for me.”

  “I think I’ve heard you say that before.”

  “And, I’ll keep saying it,” Larry said. “I suppose there are worse ways to die than freezing to death. But this was plenty bad.”

  “Okay, okay,” Sylvester laughed. “I’ll stay upwind and protect you, Larry.”

  § § §

  Seb followed Larry into his flat. When he stepped through the door he was assaulted with the smell of cooking fish. Maggie stood at his hot plate working with the skillet and spatula.

  “Hey Maggie, I could have done that,” Larry said. “I haven’t used up my turns, yet.”

  “I wish I could get someone to cook for me,” Seb said plaintively.

  “Oh, sit down,” she said. “There’s enough for you, too.”

  “I can’t eat your food,” he replied. “I know how much it cost.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Larry said.

  “Well, if you insist.”

  Larry grinned at Maggie. “
Notice he didn’t try that hard to turn us down.”

  “Be nice,” she said, slapping at his arm.

  “Why are you cooking anyway?” he asked.

  “I was getting hungry and decided we could eat whenever you got home. I figured it wouldn’t be long when the weather started getting bad.”

  “Nasty out there, tonight,” Seb said.

  They eventually ended up around the small table, with Larry sitting on the arm of the sofa again. Maggie had fried up some potatoes and onions to go with the fish. She scooped equal portions on all three plates, and they began eating.

  “I got an email today, Maggie, from an Arthur Winkleman,” Seb said. “He is interested in hiring me to teach in a cybernetics program in Urbana. Is this the fellow you told me about?”

  Maggie clapped her hands together. “Oh, that’s great, Seb. Are you going out to see him?”

  “He sent me codes for flight tickets and to cover expenses. Is this for real? I mean it was pretty generous.”

  “Oh, yes,” Maggie replied as she speared a piece of fish with her fork. “It’s worth the trip out there.”

  “What if I don’t like it?” Seb asked.

  “What did the email say?” Larry asked.

  “He said there was no obligation. But, there has to be a quid pro quo somewhere. That’s an awful lot of money to be throwing around.”

  “The obligation, Sebastian, is to go out and let him talk to you,” Larry said. “I guarantee you will be impressed.”

  Seb took a bite of the potatoes and closed his eyes in bliss. “This is really good, Maggie.”

  “Thanks,” she said modestly. “Just a little something I threw together.”

  “How could I convince you to cook for me, instead of for this scoundrel?”

  “Oh, no, Seb,” she said. “If I don’t keep an eye on Larry, he tends to wander off in the snow.”

  “Oh, thank you very much,” Larry said.

  Seb snickered. “You two are something. You fall into a bad odor with Fuzzy Pournelle, disappear for three weeks, and return with gold plated stipends. Most of the campus is envious.”

  “I wouldn’t know why,” Larry said. “Nobody ever talks to me.”

  “They’re afraid of you.”

  Larry shook his head. “Come on, now, Seb. Me?”

  “Yes, you. The most brilliant student in the school. You have them intimidated.”

  “Well, they’re wrong,” Larry said. “Maggie is the smartest student in the school. I just kind of bumble along.”

  “I wish I could bumble like that,” Seb said.

  “I really don’t want to spend the evening arguing about who is the smartest person at MIT,” Maggie said. “If everyone wants to agree that it’s me, who am I to argue?”

  Larry rolled his eyes. “And she’s modest, too.”

  “So, what are you working on, Larry?” Sylvester asked.

  “Practical applications of gravitics,” he replied. “Of which there appears to be exactly one: the fusion reactor.”

  Their friend whistled softly. “I don’t know, Lare, if you’re headed down that path I wouldn’t bet against you.”

  “I’m not headed down any path, Seb. I’m banging my head against a wall.”

  “That’s my joke,” Sylvester retorted. “Cybernetics is a profession similar to banging one’s head against a wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.”

  Maggie burst into gales of laughter. “I’ve never heard that one before.”

  “Don’t encourage him, Mags,” Larry said. “He’s probably told me that one fifteen times.”

  Seb glared at Larry. “It’s been only five times. I counted.”

  Maggie started again. Larry once again enjoyed her snorts of laughter.

  “I suppose I should finish up, here,” Seb said. “I have a lot of reading tonight.”

  The three friends formed a warm bond on the bitterly cold night. Outside, a dark figure moved through the blowing snow behind Maseeh Hall. The stocky figure was dressed as an old woman, but wearing only a dress, with no overcoat. She did not seem uncomfortable as she went about her business. She stopped periodically and looked around herself carefully.

  Finally, she moved over to where Sebastian Sylvester’s car was cocooned in the drifts. Stepping through the growing depth of snow, she scraped a bit of the rime off the side window and bent over to peer inside. She straightened with a hiss. Sitting behind the wheel was the dead body of Philip Guidard. With a severe frown, Mrs. Willow turned and trudged back to her apartment in Maseeh Hall.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Early the next morning Maggie knocked on Larry’s door. “Let’s go, Larry. I need to get over to my office.”

  Larry opened the door, already wearing his coat and carrying his computer in the backpack. “Been waiting for you, Mags. I need to get back to my test gear. Fluffy has pretty much given me exclusive access to a bench in the lab, and I want to make use of it before he changes his mind.”

  He pulled the door shut and then fought with the lock. It was stubborn as usual.

  “I would be tempted to just say, forget about it, but I’m kind of paranoid.”

  “I lock up all the time, now,” Maggie said. “Too many weird things going on.”

  “If I can find one new application for gravitics, I could write my dissertation and get out of here next summer.”

  “I think I will have mine done,” Maggie said. “I’m sure you are going to need some help in getting things set up in Urbana.”

  “Maybe we could get married, then.”

  “Oh, Larry.” She turned and walked down the hall.

  “Now, what did I say?” he muttered as the lock mechanism finally snicked into place.

  He picked up his backpack. He trotted down the hallway to catch up with her. She could be a funny girl at times and he did not think he would ever figure her out. She pulled open the door to the stairwell, but then halted as a man and a woman in the Cambridge Constabulary uniform walked past on their way to one of the upper floors.

  “I wonder what that’s all about?” Maggie said as she looked back at Larry.

  “Who knows? Probably one of the students got into it with a shopkeeper or something. The people in town are a touchy lot.”

  She shrugged and headed down the stairs. Larry followed. At the bottom of the stairs, she pushed open the exit door and stepped outside.

  “Holy cow, it’s cold!” she exclaimed.

  Larry took a deep breath as he stepped outside and then bent over coughing.

  “Shallow breaths, Larry,” she said, patting him on the shoulder.

  He straightened up after a moment. “I’m all right. Let’s go.”

  The storm had dumped two feet of snow on Boston and Cambridge the previous night. Already, this morning, students were out, putting their snow shovels to work. Larry patted himself on the back for being a part of what started the custom. He hoped it continued.

  “We should have been out here, too,” Maggie said.

  “You’re right. Maybe we can get out this afternoon if there is anything left to shovel.”

  She pointed over to the parking lot where several more constables were around Sebastian Sylvester’s car.

  “Look at that. It looks like someone broke into Seb’s car last night.”

  “I guess that’s what the cops were doing, coming up the stairs,” Larry replied. “Whatever would have been in his car that somebody would’ve wanted?”

  “With some people, you can never tell. Poor Seb.”

  Larry dropped Maggie off at her office, then walked on towards the lab. He pulled his computer out of the backpack and connected it to his test gear. He put everything else out of his mind as he began his setup. During a period of wakefulness in the night, some ideas had occurred that he wanted to try before he forgot the thoughts.

  The functions of the Osiris cells were counterintuitive, and also inconsistent with the math. The more Larry studied them, the more puzzled he was. He sat ba
ck on the lab stool and tapped a pencil against his cheek.

  “You look pensive.”

  He turned around. “Oh, hi, Mags. No, just a little puzzled.”

  “Why so?”

  “Just that Clenèt invented the Osiris cell and put together the first grav-fused reactor, and none of it is explained by the math, or by his theory. It just sort of appeared out of whole cloth.”

  “You’ve been kicking that around for months,” she replied. “What’s new today?”

  “I’m just a little frustrated. Nobody has been able to extend his work in any meaningful way. It’s almost like he built the stupid device and then tried to document how the thing worked. I’m beginning to think he had no idea how it worked, either.”

  “That’s been known to happen in the past, has it not?” she asked.

  “Yes, but not at this level.”

  “So, how about if you assume the math and theory is all wrong. Throw it out. You have a working grav-fusion device. Start tinkering. We generally throw out a lot of our climate math every fifty years or so. The field seems none the worse for it.”

  Larry turned back around and stared at the Osiris Cell for several minutes. Then he reached out to disconnect the test leads and pulled the cell out of its enclosure. Turning it over in his hand, he seemed lost in thought. Maggie stood and watched him for a while, then quietly slipped out of the lab. For an hour he stared at the cell and then jumped when Fluffy Pournelle eased up to him.

  “You seem lost in thought, Mr. Berthold,” the white-haired professor said.

  “Do we have any more Osiris Cells in the equipment room?” Larry asked.

  “We do not.”

  “Can we get some more?” he asked.

  “Not likely,” Pournelle replied. The professor then turned and sauntered out of the lab.

  Larry watched him leave and then turned back to his apparatus. He thought for a while longer and then pulled up his email program. Nothing significant was in the inbox, and he created a note and sent it to Arthur Winkleman. Arthur had promised any reasonable assistance in his research, and it was time to test the promise.