A Glibertarians Exclusive: Riding the String I

Elsewhere

They thought of it as “Elsewhere” when they were riding the String.

Elsewhere was what they saw in between worlds – in between universes.  Elsewhere was its own kind of place, except that it wasn’t really a place, more of an in-between place.  It was black, that wasn’t just black, it was the complete absence of anything.  It was a place that wasn’t a place, and yet it touched every place.  It was outside of time, in that their transits through Elsewhere seemed to be instantaneous when they emerged, no matter how long they perceived their stay in Elsewhere.

And they were lost. Utterly, hopelessly lost.

***

Six months earlier – Sutter High Orbital, Earth Orbit

Anne Hodge had wanted to build the Transiter in the form of an old English police box painted blue, after an old vid she had seen once.  But her partner, Wilfred “Will” Frye, said that the shape wouldn’t work, so the Transiter took the form of a polished aluminum craft shaped more or less like an egg flattened at the ends, about three meters tall and two and a half meters around its ‘equator.’ A small hatch on the side led to the cramped passenger compartment, with one seat at the hyperspatial transit controls and the other on the gravitic controls for “local” travel.  Under the passenger compartment was a Smith Industries anti-matter tokamak, the latest model, producing 3.7 million megajoules.  Two thick polymer portholes, each only ten centimeters across, allowed the only visibility outside, but the gravitic control panel had viewscreens tied into micro-cams around the circumference of the device. The two chairs folded down into hard, uncomfortable cots. A tiny ‘cooler on one wall stored a day or two’s worth of feed and drink.

While they were building the device, Anne and Will had only called it the Transiter. When it was complete and ready for testing, Anne wanted to give it a more formal name, but they couldn’t think of anything suitable, so “the Transiter” it was.

The Transiter was intended to make intersystem travel instantaneous, eventually even interstellar travel once the proper coordinates were established.

“There’s a lot of guesswork in this,” Will had told their investors. “Nothing like this has even been attempted before. That’s why our first attempt at a jump will be, essentially, line of sight – from Sutter High Orbital over Earth to Tycho Station on Mars.”

“What if you fail?” one of the investors asked.

“I guess,” Will said, attempting to deflect the question with a joke, “I guess I’ll call a wrecker. I’ll have Main Chance Towing and Salvage here at Sutter High Orbital on standby.”

Most of the investors didn’t find it funny.  But the possibilities of this new technology were too staggering for them to ignore; a few risks were acceptable, especially since Will and Anne intended to test the Transiter personally.

The night before the trial, they inspected the Transiter one last time, carefully.  Anne went over the checklist as Will listened carefully.  “Reactor is fully charged,” Anne reported. “Pressure check of the hull is good.  Hatch seals are good.  Software analyses run, all results at 100%.  Updated trajectory to Mars was updated an hour ago and is programmed in.”

“We’re good to go,” Will agreed.

After closing and locking the launch bay they had borrowed from Main Chance Towing & Salvage, they went back to their Medium Personal lodging for a light meal.

“Anne?” Will asked as they sat at the lodging’s tiny two-seat foldout table. “You look a little… I guess pensive.”

“We really haven’t given this system a good test,” she pointed out.  “I’m a little nervous. What if something goes wrong? We’re stepping into a continuum that you’ve only hypothesized.  Oh, I know, you say it’s consistent with your calculations of cosmic super-string theory, and you understand that better than I do.  But what if you’re wrong?  Can we get stuck in there? Can we get lost?”

Will reached across and took Anne’s hand. “My math is good,” he said. “My experiments were good. Don’t worry, hon.  You’ll see – we’ll ride the String to Mars and pop up in a low orbit within sight of Tycho Base. You’ll see.”

“I hope so,” Anne said. “Let’s clean up.  I think I’ll go to the chapel tonight.”

“If it makes you feel better, of course!”

Anne stepped out of the Medium shortly afterward. Anne was something of an oddity in the Sol system population, being still a practicing Catholic, but there was one small chapel sixteen levels down in the bowels of the station where Mass was held twice a day, morning and evening.

She came back two hours later to find Will seated on the Personal’s tiny fold-out couch-bed, reading something on his datapad. He looked up when she came in.  “How’d it go?”

“Mass? About like it has for the last few centuries, except of course for the three bums asleep in the back pew, and all the beggars out front. It’s bad enough you see that down on the surface, but you wouldn’t think that someone that useless could get up here.”

Will set his ‘pad down and shrugged. “Gets worse all the time. Sutter High Orbital has been open for almost eighty years, you know. Couple of generations, at least. That’s plenty of time to breed up some no-hopers.”

“That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, right? To open new horizons?” She kicked off her shoes and sat down next to Will.

“Something like that.”

***

The next morning

Will talked to the few ‘vid-reporters that had gathered in the cheap rented hangar for about half an hour. Most of them didn’t understand the explanation of how the Transiter worked. Anne didn’t get all of it – her expertise was in gravitics and engineering, not physics – but she knew that strings were involved somehow, cosmic strings and vibrations or something like that.  She made a show of sitting in the Transiter with the hatch open, fiddling with her controls, listening to the faint hum of the now-active anti-matter reactor while Will described what he called “riding the String,” the hyperspatial transit process he had worked out.

The reporters looked skeptical, but finally, they ran out of questions and wandered off to upload their ‘casts.

It was time.  Will and Anne climbed in the Transiter, went through their checklists, and finally opened the bay door.  As Anne used the gravitic controls to ease the craft out into open space, Will looked around the bay; he saw the short, stocky form of Roman Main watching from an observation ‘port, his tall, slim wife Willow standing beside him.  Will waved, and Roman waved back.

I really hope we don’t need you guys, Will thought, but I’m sure glad you’re watching.

Anne took the Transiter out to what Will had reckoned a safe distance, a kilometer away from the Station.  As Anne shut down the gravitic drive, Will looked at her, winked, and took the transit controls.

The reactor whined.  The Transiter hummed.  “Three,” Will counted down, “Two.  One.  Mark!”

For a moment there was nothing but the humming of the reactor.  The viewports were… blank. Not even black, but a black beyond black – a nothing that their minds couldn’t quite grasp.  Anne immediately thought of it as “Elsewhere.”  She said as much to Will.  “Makes sense,” he agreed.

Then they were out, having ridden the String to…  somewhere other than Mars orbit.

“Did we crash?” Anne asked.  She looked out the ‘port.  “On Earth?  I see grass.  There are some trees in the distance.”

Will looked at the tiny environment readout.  “Look like it’s late afternoon, towards evening.  The temp is nice and warm.  Air says it’s Earthlike, anyway.  O2 levels are a bit high.  We shouldn’t have any trouble breathing.”

Anne started to cry.  “I was afraid of this!” she said, wiping her eyes.  “We’re lost!  We should have run more tests, we should have tried it with a ‘bot first,” she said, sobbing.

Will hugged her.  “Don’t worry,” he said.  “Don’t worry.  Keep it together, hon.  All we have to do is reverse the vectors and countermarch back.  Piece of cake.  But we’ll have to let the reactor recharge; it needs water, and it will take a day or so to extract and synthesize tritium and positrons.  This looks like a friendly enough place.  Let’s get out, find some water for the Transiter, and have a look around.”

“All right.”

They climbed out of the Transiter.  There was indeed grass, but it didn’t look quite like grass.  The trees looked odd, too, but there was what looked to be a streambed nearby.  Will pulled a folding bucket out of the Transiter and sealed the hatch.  “Let’s go.”

Halfway to the stream, they saw two figures approaching.  “Will,” Anne said, close to panic again, “They aren’t people.”

“Wow.”  Will took Anne’s hand. “Stay with me, hon.  I need you.”

The two figures approaching walked on two legs, but not upright; their long bodies were parallel to the ground, balanced by long, stiff tails. Their bare feet were yellow, scaled, very birdlike, with long, sharp claws. Their arms were likewise tipped with yellow-scaled hands, again with long, sharp claws.  They had round skulls with long snouts; each was covered in glossy black feathers. The larger had a crest of bright red feathers on its head.  Both wore a sort of harness festooned with pouches and what were apparently tools.  The larger creature held a long, sharp stave in one hand.

The two creatures stopped, staring, then came on towards Will and Anne.  They stopped again a few meters away, and the larger one began a strange act, almost a dance, shifting from foot to foot and bobbing its head while raising and lowering his red crest and chittering out an odd combination of clicks, trills, and squeaks.

“Oh my God, Will,” Anne cried, “They’re dinosaurs!”

“Yeah,” Will said.  “I think you’re right.”

***

Just a minute before you leave, girl
Just a minute before you touch the door
What is it that you’re trying to achieve, girl?
Do you think we can talk about it some more?
You know, the streets are filled with vipers
Who’ve lost all ray of hope
You know, it ain’t even safe no more
In the palace of the Pope

Don’t fall apart on me tonight
I just don’t think that I could handle it
Don’t fall apart on me tonight
Yesterday’s just a memory
Tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be
And I need you, yeah