The Quagma Datum

The soup was cold. I pushed it away. “Tell me why I’m here.”

Wyman didn’t answer until the next course arrived. It was a rich coq au vin. He forked it into his mouth with an enthusiasm that told me he hadn’t always been accustomed to such luxury. Earthlight caught the jewelry crusted over his fingers.

Faintly disgusted, I lifted my eyes to the bay window behind him. Now that we’d left the atmosphere the Elevator Restaurant was climbing its cable more steeply. The Sahel ground anchor site had turned into a brown handkerchief, lost in the blue sink of Earth.

Suddenly the roof turned clear. Starlight twinkled on the cutlery and the table talk ebbed to silence.

Wyman smiled at my reaction.

“Dr. Luce, you’re a scientist. I asked you here to set you a scientific puzzle.” His accent was stilted, a mask for his origins. “Did you read about the lithium-7 event? No? A nova-bright object fifteen billion light years away; it lasted about a year. The spectrum was dominated by one element. Doctor, the thing was a beacon of lithium-7.”

A floating bottle of St. Emilion refilled my glass.

I thought about it. “Fifteen billion years is the age of the Universe. So this object went through its glory soon after the Big Bang.”

Thin fingers played with coiffed hair. “So, Doctor, what’s the significance of the lithium?”

“Lithium-7 is a relic of the early Universe. A few microseconds after the singularity the Universe was mostly quagma — a magma of free quarks. Then the quarks congealed into nuclear particles, which gathered into the first nuclei.

“Lithium-7 doesn’t form in stars. It was formed at that moment of nucleosynthesis. So all this points to an early Universe event.”

“Good,” he said, as if I’d passed a test.

Our empty plates sank into the table.

“So what’s this got to do with me? I hate to disappoint you, Wyman, but this isn’t my field.”

“Unified force theories,” he said rapidly. “That’s your field. At high enough energies the forces of physics combine into a single superforce. The principle of the old GUTdrive. Right? And the only time when such energy densities obtained naturally was right after the Big Bang. The superforce held together your quagma.” He was a slight man, but the steadiness of his pale eyes made me turn aside. “So the early Universe is your field, after all. Dr Luce, don’t try to catch me out. You think of me, no doubt dismissively, as an entrepreneur. But what I’m an entrepreneur of is human science. What’s left of it… I’ve made myself a rich man. You shouldn’t assume that makes me a fool.”

I raised my glass. “Fair enough. So why do you think this lithium thing is so important?”

“Two reasons. First, creation physics. Here we have a precise location where we can be certain that something strange happened, mere moments after the singularity. Think what we could learn by studying it. A whole new realm of understanding… and think what an advantage such an understanding would prove to the first race to acquire it.”

“And what profits could be made from it,” I said dryly. “Right? And the second reason?”

“The Silver Ghosts think it’s important. And what they’re interested in, I’m interested in.”

That made me cough on my wine. “How do you know what the Ghosts are up to?”

His grin was suddenly boyish. “I’ve got my contacts. And they tell me the Ghosts are sending a ship.”

I choked again. “Across fifteen billion lights? I don’t believe it.”

“It’s a fast ship.”

“Yeah…” I thought it through further. “And how could such a ship report back?”

Wyman shrugged. “A quantum-inseparability link?”

“Wyman, the attenuation over such distances would reduce any data to mush.”

“Maybe,” he said cheerfully. “In conversational mode anyway. I hear the Ghosts are planning a high-intensity packet burst device. Would that get through?”

I shrugged. “Perhaps. You still haven’t told me why you’re talking to me.”

Abruptly he leaned forward. “Because you’ve the expertise.”

I flinched from his sudden intensity.

“You’ve no family. You’re fit. And the youthful idealism that trapped you in research has long worn off — hasn’t it? — now that your contemporaries are earning so much more in other fields. You need money, Doctor. I have it.”

Then he sipped coffee.

“I’ve the expertise for what?” I whispered.

“I’ve got my own ship.”

“But the Ghosts—”

He grinned again. “My ship’s got a secret… a supersymmetry drive. The Susy drive is a human development. A new one, can you believe it? The Ghosts don’t have it. So my ship’s faster, and we’ll beat them.”

“For Lethe’s sake, Wyman, I’m an academic. I’ve never even flown a kite.”

A cheese board floated by; he cut himself precise slices. “The ship will fly itself. I want you to observe.”

I felt as if I were falling. I tried to think it out. “…Tell me this, Wyman. Will there be any penalty clauses in my contract?”

He looked amused. “Such as?”

“For not getting there first.”

“What’s going to beat the Susy drive?”

“A Xeelee nightship.”

Expressions chased across his face.

“All right, Doctor. I accept your point. The Xeelee are one of the parameters we have to work within. There’ll be no penalty clauses.”

Above my head the Restaurant’s geostationary anchor congealed out of starlight into a mile-wide cuboid.

“Now the details,” Wyman said. “I want you to make a stop on the way, at the home world of the Ghosts…”

Wyman’s “ship” was a man-sized tin can.

It was stored in an open garage on the space-facing side of the Elevator Anchor. The thing’s cylindrical symmetry was broken by strap-on packages: I recognized a compact hyperdrive and an intrasystem drive box. Set in one wall was a fist-sized fusion torus.

Wyman pointed out a black, suitcase-sized mass clinging to the pod’s base. “The Susy drive,” he said. “Neat, isn’t it?”

I found half the hull would turn transparent. The interior of the pod was packed with instrument boxes, leaving precious little room for me.

I studied the pod with mild distaste. “Wyman, you expect me to cross the Universe… in this?”

He shrugged delicately. “Doctor, this is the best my private capital could fund. I’ve not had a cent of support from any human authority. Governments, universities, so-called research bodies… in the shadow of the Xeelee mankind is suffering a failure of imagination, Luce. We live in sorry times.”

“Yeah.”

“And that’s why I’ve set up a meeting with the Ghosts on the way out. This flying coffin isn’t much, but at least it demonstrates our intent. We’re going for the prize. Perhaps it will persuade the Ghosts that we should pool our resources.”

“Ah. So this pod is really a bargaining counter… you don’t mean it to make the journey after all?” I felt a mixture of relief — and profound regret.

“Oh, no,” Wyman said. “What I told you is true. I sincerely believe the Susy drive could beat the Ghosts to the prize. If necessary. But why not spread the risk?” He grinned, his teeth white in the gloom of his helmet.

I left a day later.

Our Universe is an eleven-dimensional object. All but four of those dimensions are compactified — rolled up to an unimaginable thinness. What we call hyperspace is one of those extra dimensions.

The hyperdrive module twisted me smoothly through ninety degrees and sent me skimming over the surface of the Universe like a pebble over a pond.

Of course, I felt nothing. Hyperspace travel is routine. With the pod’s window opaqued, it was like riding an elevator. I was left with plenty of time to brood. When I checked the pod’s external monitors I could see the Susy-space module clinging to the hull, dormant and mysterious.