Superpartners

December 30th, 2000

In the deep blackness of space that wasn't quite real space, the ship hurtled along at sixty times the speed of light. The Higgs field generated by the ship's reactor enveloped and cradled the ship, isolating it from normal space. Forty-five light years from Earth, the James Clerk Maxwell was only a month away from its destination: 51 Pegasi.

On the morning of December 10th, 2051, Josh Manners woke up and looked around. As the lighting slowly came up, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and gazed at the sterile walls of his room. Cold, white indirect light bounced around the edges of the ceiling and revealed soft, beige colored walls that were totally bare. He looked at his chronometer. It was 7:07 am.

Josh threw back the covers and rolled out of bed. The floor was cold and hard, and he shivered as he left his room and walked down the hall to the dimly lit main family room. He plopped into one of the couches in front of their simulated fireplace which was glowing low and red and looked around. The walls were equally bare. Josh, age 16, brooded while only the quiet ticking of a pendulum clock on the fireplace mantle rose above the soft hum of the ship's machinery.

Josh decided that what the room really needed was a real Christmas tree.

 

* * * * *

 

Chief engineer Roger Horn paced his way nervously through engineering. At each station, he stopped, squinted at the displays, and pointed out the problems to his technicians. As he moved along, the Chief engineer became more annoyed and started talking to himself. Finally, he grunted in disgust as he left engineering and headed for the bridge.

The bridge of the Maxwell was laid out like a planetarium. A 20 meter diameter darkened hemisphere overhead showed the appearance of the sky as if one were floating in normal space outside the ship. Some of the familiar constellations of Earth were now oddly distorted; others were still easily recognizable. Around the periphery, each station was lit only by its pale displays. A low, circular backless couch in the center of the dome surrounded a circular pad that served as the elevator to the bridge. A double ring of red LEDs in the floor outlined the circular couch to mark its location in the dark. The eerie silence of the darkened dome, with the brilliant points of white light adorning the hemisphere overhead, and subdued red dots on the deck tended to make things seem more tranquil than they really were.

When Chief Horn arrived on the bridge, Captain Hector Cortez was leaning over one of the displays, staring intently. As the lift pad matched the deck of the bridge, a small electronic chirp announced Horn's arrival.

Cortez turned sharply. "There you are! Tell me what you know, Horn."

"I don't know anything yet," the engineer replied.

"When will you know something?" Cortez was holding his anger.

"I don't know yet when I'll know something." Horn shrugged, but inside he was very concerned.

Captain Cortez made a sweeping motion with his hand. "You've told me in the past that if the Higgs field collapses at this speed, it'll be like an egg hitting a steel plate at Mach one. Is that about right?"

"I understand, sir."

"Then tell me what you do know."

"I know that critical components of the Higgs field generator are out of tolerance, but only by a little. And the tolerances have conveniently offset each other so that the generator continues to function. But we ... I sir ... don't know why."

The Captain rubbed his chin. "What do you recommend?"

Horn looked up at the dome, gazing at a slightly misshapen Orion. He took his time. "I want to take her down to sublight and pull the generator apart."

"How long do you need?"

"Twenty-four hours."

The Captain took his time as well before responding. "Okay. Do it."

 

* * * * *

 

On the morning of December 12th, 2051, Josh Manners woke up and looked around. He'd overslept, and he knew that because he could hear the gentle bustle of his parents and younger brother in the kitchen at the end of the hall. Too hungry to shower and dress, Josh threw on a bathrobe and hurried down the hall for some breakfast. He slid into his usual spot at the kitchen table.

"Hey, dad! Are we gonna have a real tree for Christmas?"

Wayne Manners munched on his toast and swallowed. "We already have a tree, Josh."

"Yeah. Sure. A stupid holographic tree. I can put my hand right through it. It really sucks, you know."

Holly Manners eyed her son disapprovingly as she poured him a glass of milk. "Josh, it's only two Christmases we're going to miss. Can't you live with an artificial tree until we get home?"

"Besides," his dad said, "you know we have to conserve resources. We couldn't make one if we had to from the supplies on board."

Josh sipped on his milk and shrugged. He had other plans.

 

* * * * *

 

Roger Horn and his chief physicist, Dr. Tracy Schwarz, knelt down and peered into the quantum cavity of the Higgs field generator. Clearly, a section of optical fiber about 15 cm long had been removed. It was a miracle of engineering design that the generator had not failed. Horn and Schwarz looked at each other in astonishment.

"No one could survive in here while this is operating, right?" Schwarz sat back against the unit's casing and shook her head.

"That's right, " Horn said. " Instant death. And I checked this system myself back in Mars orbit. It was perfect. I think."

"What about a robot?"

"I checked the logs. None of the robots have been in here."

"Doctored logs?"

Horn looked at his colleague with some concern. "Are you thinking sabatoge? I can't believe that. Nobody on this ship wants to have their atoms blown into space across a hundred million kilometers. This crew was hand picked."

Schwarz tried for a smile, but it was half-hearted."Well, at least we were all fine when we left," she said.. "But I agree. Clearly, someone has tampered with that unit. What do you want to do?"

Horn, ran his hands through his hair and pushed through to his long brown pony tail. "I think we're going to have to interview everyone on the ship. In the meantime, we need to go back over the logs."

"And the generator?" Schwarz asked.

"I'll replace the fiber and certify the unit. I want you to keep an eye on me while I do that. Come to think of it, let's get a video record of the install."

 

* * * * *

 

Twenty-two hours after the Maxwell dropped to 0.5c, Chief Engineer Roger Horn reported to the bridge. "Captain, we're ready to proceed."

"Our heading remains unchanged. Speed is zero point fifty-one c." Cortez watched his display intently.

"Higgs field is now ... on!" Horn announced. "Accelerating."

The Captain called out the speed. "Zero point seven. Zero point eight. Zero point nine. Holding there."

It would have taken an enormous amount of energy to accelerate to that speed without the Higgs field. But with the ship almost massless, the acceleration was brisk.

"I want to hold point nine c for two hours. If the unit holds, we'll go superlight." Cortez said. "Keep a close eye on that generator."

"Yes sir!" Horn said crisply.

* * * * *

 

Josh Manners looked around as he approached equipment storage bay number four. His partner in crime and some time girlfriend, Katy, yanked on his sleeve.

"Josh!"

"Shssh!"

"Josh, " she whispered. "What if they catch us?"

"They won't. I'll have us in and out in no time."

"This is stupid! You're scaring me."

"Hang on a sec." Josh said as he smiled smugly. "See? Door's open. Security is so lame on this ship. If they can't do better securing the door than that, they'll never catch us. C'mon!"

Josh dragged Katy over the bulkhead, into the storage bay and quickly gathered the electrical components he needed: some insulated wire, connectors, a spindle of optical fiber, and two boxes of green LEDs. Katy was in near convulsions as Josh inspected each box, then threw it into his pillow case -- like a Grinch tiptoeing around, stealing Christmas present by present. Then as he quickly ushered Katy out, he whispered. "Now, we're gonna have a tree!"

 

* * * * *

Two hours after the Maxwell stabilized at 60.4 times the speed of light, Roger Horn finally got some sleep. He'd been up for 30 hours attending to the Higgs generator and was exhausted. But he only got fifty minutes of sleep when his intercom display lit up with the image of a very agitated Captain.

"Horn! Wake up Horn!"

The engineer was tired and confused. He tried to focus on the display, but saw only a blur. His head hurt and his back ached. "What? Huh?"

"This is Cortez. We're getting strange readings. Just like before. I need you to check it out."

"I'm, uh, hang on. Yessir. I'm on it."

Horn stumbled into engineering, grumbling to himself about a Captain that never slept. His technicians were running around and yelling. Then he took one look at the displays and knew that something was very wrong. The Higgs field generator was barely holding itself together. He approached the main viewscreen and punched up the bridge. Suddenly, Horn was wide awake. "Captain. I want us sublight. Right now."

"Done. What's happening down there?" the Captain said, squinting.

Horn was exasperated. "We have a saboteur."

 

* * * * *

 

Josh pulled his work in progress, his artificial Christmas tree, out of the back of his closet, a secret compartment that he'd fabricated, and set it up for inspection. He poked at it here and there to spread out the limbs. It stood one and a half meters tall, fuzzy, bristled with lit up optical fibers, and glowed with hundreds of tiny green LEDs. He glowed with pride as he inspected every connector and light..

The plan was to wait until the day before Christmas eve and take it out into the main room late at night. The next morning, when everyone woke up, he would present his family with this fantastic surprise.

As he continued to adjust the spacing of the branches and check the lights, the warm, sweet smells of dinner drifted down the hallway to his room. Dinner was a happy time for Josh, for he enjoyed being able to tell his family about all his accomplishments at school each day. He wanted to be a scientist -- what kind he didn't know. He just knew he loved to fiddle with computers and electronics and optical equipment.

Soon, Josh was drawn into the small kitchenette that was really just a corner of their main living quarters. He loved to nibble before dinner despite the stern looks from his mother. Sometimes, it was all she could do to keep up with dinner preparation as Josh nibbled his way through whatever she had just put on the table.

It was during dinner when the door chime sounded. Greatly annoyed, Wayne Manners got up from the table to see who was interrupting their dinner. He was all the more surprised when he was greeted by none other than Captain Hector Cortez and Chief Engineer Roger Horn. Mister Manners invited them in and then looked at his wife and shrugged. He struggled for words. "Gentlemen! What an unexpected visit. Um. This is my family, of course. Er, how can I help you? Would you like to sit down? "

The Captain ignored these greetings, led the way in and stood stiffly. "No thank you. I see we've interrupted your meal, so we'll make this brief. Are you Doctor and Mrs. Manners?"

"Yes, sir."

"And these are your sons Josh and Nate?"

"Yes sir."

"We've had some serious problems in the engine room lately, so we're doing an investigation."

"How can we help you? My wife and I are physicians."

"Even so. We have to talk to everyone on the ship personally. Right now, we're looking for an apparent saboteur. Someone who has a taste for stealing optical fiber. Do you know anything about that?"

Wayne Manners wandered back towards the table and looked at Josh as he spoke, suspecting something from his science fair son. "Stolen fiber? From where?"

The Captain continued. "I must tell you, the ship came very close to exploding yesterday. Optic fiber was removed from the Higgs field generator. For the second time. We're running at half lightspeed now, and we'll stay there until we figure out what happened."

Wayne Manners shrugged again."I don't think we know anything about that. Do we? Josh? Do you know anything about stolen optical fiber?"

Josh put his fork down. His mind was racing. He wasn't responsible for the damage to that field generator. Yet, if he told them that he had procured some extra fiber from stores, they'll just assume he'd damaged the generator. For sure. He'd be disgraced. Put in confinement? His parents would be disgraced. Possibly charged with his crime. And they'd probably confiscate his tree. This had suddenly gone way beyond a little midnight requisition. After a long look at his dad and then the Captain, Josh made his decision. "Nope. Don't know anything about that. News to me."

"May we have a look around?" Horn said.

"Of course," Josh's dad said. "Our dinner is getting cold here. Why don't we finish eating."

As the Captain and his engineer disappeared down the hallway, Josh slumped over in his chair and prayed that they wouldn't find his tree. When they returned to the main quarters, smiled, paid their respects and left, Josh heaved a sigh of relief.

* * * * *

Dr. Tracy Schwarz was in astrometrics, working intently. She was tired. It had taken her three days to analyze the sensor readings and make sense of them. Finally, she coaxed it out of the ship's computer. She paged chief Horn and the Captain.

They both walked into astrometrics to see tea cups and salad bowls scattered everywhere. "All right. What's all this about?" Cortez said.

Schwarz waved her hand over her board and called up a 3-D display. Hanging above her work table, there appeared a shimmering cloud of particles. "Here it is."

"What?" Horn asked.

"Selectrons."

"Huh?" the Captain said, confused.

"A cloud of superpartners. A very big and massive cloud," Dr. Schwarz explained. "See? Right here."

"You lost me," Captain Cortez said. "I'm an Air Force Colonel, not a physicist."

"Galactic dark matter," Horn clarified.

"Oh. Got it." Cortez turned to Schwarz. "How'd you detect it?"

"Magic."

"Ha!"

Schwarz continued."That cloud is directly in our path. Apparently it's an impossible, steady state mixture of selectrons and higgsinos."

"Why do I need to know that?" the Captain asked.

"Because," Schwarz said as she pushed her long brown hair out of her face,"if we had hit that cloud at sixty c, the higgsinos would have collapsed our own Higgs field."

Cortez paused and peered at the cloud in the display before him. "Shit."

"Oh, yes indeed. Shit," she said.

"How far away is it now?"

"About sixty billion kilometers."

Horn rolled his eyes. "Let's see ... about an hour at sixty c. Oh, man. That was close!" He thought for a second. "Okay, what happens if we hit the cloud in, um, about five days, at sublight?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing," she said. "Whoever sabatoged the generator, saved us all."

"Now there's an interesting thought," Horn mused. "I wonder ..."

"Wonder what?"

Horn, now deep in thought wandered absently out of astrometrics, working on a theory, mumbling to himself. The Captain sighed and reached out his hand to the physicist. "Good work."

* * * * *

"So what's this?" Holly Manners asked harshly as she pointed to Josh's tree.

"Aw, mom. That's a surprise I've been working on. You weren't supposed to find that."

"Well, I did find it. And now I'd like to know where all this optic fiber came from."

Josh gulped and tried to smile. "Well ... Ya see, I was in the engine room a few days ago, visiting. I told one of the engineers I was building a tree. He gave me the fiber for my project. Said it was extra."

Holly Manners stood with her arms akimbo and squinted at her son. She knew her son well enough to surmise that this was a fib. "Nice try, kiddo. Wanna try for the truth this time?"

Josh resigned himself to the fact that the heist was over. His mother had found the tree and the Captain had paid a visit looking for missing fiber. Time to come clean. "I ... I just kinda borrowed it. From ship's stores," Josh pleaded. "I've never been near the generator! Honest!"

"Josh, I think it's time we paid a visit to the Captain. Bring that tree with you."

 

* * * * *

After Josh and his mother left the Captain's quarters, Roger Horn, who had been listening to the confessional, got up and started pacing. "The kid didn't do it," he said.

"Huh? How do you know that?" The Captain was visibly irritated.

Horn walked over to the Captain's desk and dropped a piece of fiber used for the generator as well as one from Josh's tree on his desk. "There was only one piece of fiber that could have been pulled and not destroy that unit. Josh is smart, but not that knowledgeable about supersymmetric Higgs fields. And the fiber we use in the generator is different that the data fiber he used on his tree. Here, look. We turned the ship upside down three times, and we still haven't found the missing generator fiber."

"So who pulled it?"

"We don't know."

"It had to be the kid. He's lying. He used a robot."

"The robot logs don't agree. The kid's computer savvy, but he's not good enough to alter my logs. And he never could have pulled the fiber while the unit was operating. Something else caused the fiber to disappear."

"What?"

"I don't know yet. But after we get through the dark matter cloud in a few days, I predict that it won't happen again."

"Have you lost your mind?" the Captain stood up. "We're not going to superlight until that missing fiber is on my desk!"

"Let's see," Horn gazed at the ceiling. "Five years to arrive instead of one month. And if we find nothing, five hundred years to arrive home at one-tenth c, the best we can do from rest without the generator to cancel our mass. We could all get mighty hungry."

"Look harder."

"I'm not prepared to tell you where that fiber is, "Horn continued calmly. "But I am prepared to say that we can go superlight on the other side of the cloud. You'll have to trust me. Or else grow very old sitting in that chair."

"We shall see," the Captain said.

 

* * * * *

 

With an unexpected and very welcome escort, the Maxwell entered synchronous orbit around 51 Pegasi "c" on January 6th, 2052. They had gone to superlight once more without incident, and when they arrived at the outermost reaches of the planetary system in orbit around 51 Pegasi, and dropped to sublight, a very sleek and beautiful pair of ships appeared and, without communicating, escorted them to the third planet. A green and blue planet, swirling with clouds.

Soon after they settled into orbit, a television signal was detected, and the Maxwell's engineers displayed it on the dome of the bridge. The ship's bridge officers sat on the circular couch and waited with anticipation. A series of graphics indicated that a high speed radio link between their computers needed to be constructed in a specific fashion so that their computers could talk.

After two days of furious construction followed by intensive computer chit-chat, the ambassador from the planet below appeared on the dome of the Maxwell's bridge and appeared to be speaking perfect English, although it was just lip synching. The beings on the Maxwell were invited to a welcoming ceremony. At that point, Captain Cortez spoke to the ambassador for several hours to ascertain that everything looked as peaceful and safe as it appeared. Finally, they mutually agreed that only the Captain would make first physical contact.

 * * * * *

At local dawn the next day, Captain Hector Cortez stepped into an escape module, a winged lifting body, and maneuvered so as to rendezvous with one of their escort ships. He moved his small craft the five hundred meters between the ships and into a large open port on the side of the alien ship, a well lit hangar like area and gently "landed" his craft onto the deck as the promised gravity gradient slowly appeared. He waited for the signal that it was safe to emerge from the module and waited by his ship. Cortez had never been sure what to expect on a trip like this, and he certainly wasn't expecting a greeting like this, but he figured that he just needed to play it by ear. No human had ever done this before.

In a few minutes, the ambassador came through a doorway on the far side of the hanger. A doorway that Cortez hadn't seen before. But that didn't bother him. After all, his mantra was Sir Arthur Clarke's third law. And after a year with engineers Schwarz and Horn, Cortez understood magic.

The ambassador appeared to be wearing some kind of gear with hoses, and he assumed that it was breathing apparatus designed to deal with a human tailored atmosphere that seemed, to Cortez, remarkably fresh and light.

Cortez had brought along a pair of gifts as agreed in their prior discussion. One was a small, exquisitely made Questar III, a Maksutov telescope that had been specially made for this occasion. A virtual work of art. The other was a small D-sphere, a clear, crystalline sphere, the size of an orange, that could project a holographic image, on touch, of all the great works of human art.

As his host approached, Cortez could see that it was holding a small box. It was held out to Cortez, and he paused for a second, trying to cope with the appearance of the native. But he knew better than to let that stun him. He accepted the gift, a box the size of one of the old cigar boxes that felt like a soft, warm wood. Clearly, he was supposed to open the box.

Captain Hector Cortez opened the small box, and inside, laying against a bed of what seemed to be a soft, black velvet, there was something that brought a smile to his face.

 * * * * *

 On the morning of January 7th, 2052, Josh Manners woke up and looked around. It was unusally quiet in the family's quarters. At first he thought he had seriously overslept, but then a look at his chronometer revealed that it was still only 8:10 am. He threw on his pants and walked quickly down the hallway. He checked the monitor in the main room -- it showed that none of his family was present there.

He scanned the room. The purloined Christmas tree was still where his father had placed it -- after it had been inspected and returned. Josh threw himself on the couch and got ready to turn on the ship's news system when, through the main entrance, burst his parents, little brother, Katy, her parents, Captain Cortez and engineer Horn. Josh jumped up, startled.

"Hey! What's going on?" Josh asked.

Wayne Manners walked casually over to his son and put his arm around him. Katy then joined them and gave Josh a peck on the cheek. Mister Manners turned towards the rest and addressed the Captain proudly. "Josh, the Captain has a present for you. Sort of a late Christmas present."

The Captain walked over to Josh. "Josh Manners, I have a gift for you. Something you will want to hang on that very special Christmas tree of yours." He handed Josh a small wooden-like box which the young man quickly opened. And there, in box, were two pieces of optic fiber, fastened together with some kind of light stranding that he couldn't identify -- and formed in the shape of a cross.

Josh was confused.

"A gift from our hosts," engineer Horn laughed as he explained. "It appears that they also have a taste for pilfering optic fiber. Very politely, discretely, and also quite magically, I might add."

And so, Josh hung the cross on the top of their tree and felt very fortunate to be alive. He couldn't wait to talk to the natives. They all had much magic to learn.

Copyright 2000 by John Martellaro, All rights reserved. Quantum Threads banner artwork by Tracy Haynes.

About the Author

John Martellaro lives in Colorado at 2,800 meters above sea level with a Ph.D. wife and two cats, Nikki and Data. He holds a B.S. in Astrophysics and an M.S. in Physics. His hobbies, include amateur astronomy, downhill skiing, bicycling, and listening to piano solos. His personal Macs are a B&W G3/400 with a flat screen Studio Display and a blueberry iBook.

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