Space Stations

“Why don't we try and shove the barge out of there? I could send one of our big Miki T-5s into the hole. I know all of its systems would go down as it crossed the event horizon, but we could back it off and run it in at full thrust with a load of momentum built up. It'd wreck the tug, but it might be enough to knock the barge out the other side.”

Marta turned the suggestion over in her mind examining it from all angles, then shook her head. “No, that might work under simple Newtonian physics but we're operating quantum here. While we know individual atoms can maintain momentum in trans-state, nobody can say if momentum can be kinetically transmitted.

“If we ram a tug into the hole, it might just pass right through the barge's dimensionally irrational form and go right out the other side. On the other hand, there might be enough nuclear forces interaction for the barge's mass to not only absorb the tug's momentum but its physical structure as well. The two vehicles could merge with an overlap on the subatomic levels. Two objects can't occupy the same space, in the nonquantum universe at any rate. When they came out of trans-state at Life-Waters, there could be a mass explosion that could vaporize the whole gate.”

“Lord and Lady!” The tug controller murmured. He liked the People, too.

“We've got no choice, Estiban,” Lane stated to her Assistant Director, making her final decision in the matter. “If we get down to four percent reserve without stabilization, we're going to cut the negative energy fields and dump the hole.”

For a Gate Controller, those words were blasphemy. “You can't be serious!” Rocardo exclaimed, “It took ten years to isolate and fix a properly oriented wormhole for the 359

system. If we dump the hole…”

“I know. If we dump the hole, it's gone. We'll never get it back. We may never acquire another one for Wolf system either. But if we can keep the physical gate structure intact, we'll at least have chance to try again. If we destroy the gates, that chance will be gone, too. Power?”

Rocardo replied by looking down at his station displays. “Now down to nine per on the reserves.”

The string-of-gem city lights on the night side of Life-Waters were blinking out, fading as the orbital light-power-gatherers that fed the People's civilization shifted their flow rays on River-'Tween-Worlds, a half cone of raw energy flooding across space and through the overloading absorption structures.

Tarrischall rode the power tasking pallet himself, nursing the straining systems like a caregiver with a sick pup, rolling each control rod with an extended claw tip. “Smoothly, smoothly,” he murmured to himself, staring into the data bubble, “I-lick-your-fur, sweet one. Steady down and quit twitching on me.”

All others in the Gathering-of-Voices were silent save for Narisara. Bouncing back and forth between her display and that of the Voice-of-Decision, she maintained Tarrischall's situational awareness.

“Evacuation of orbit zone continuing… Voices-of-Central-Energy acknowledge the Word-of-Crisis. We have priority flow in all channels.”

“Praise to a sane bureaucrat. Thermal grade on receptor arrays?”

“Nothing is melting yet and that's all that can be said.”

“And how are the Uprights doing?”

“As well as we are, I must presume. I detect a slight structural flux from their end, but so far the channel holds open.” She looked across at Tarrischall. “I speak as Voice-of-Physics. The wisdom is to cast loose and abandon the channel. There is great danger here and I can see no resolution.”

“No! This fish hasn't escaped yet!”

“Tarrischall-of-the-Crystal-Springs,” Narisara's voice softened, speaking as herself and not the Voice-of-Physics. “What avails catching the fish if one drowns doing it?”

He looked up from the display for a moment meeting her polished jet gaze. “I know, Black Fur, but I will not cast loose while there is a chance. I will not let the People go back to being alone in this Universe.”

“Yes, she's stable and holding!” Rocardo yelled in tri-umph. “We have ambience on the power flow!” “Reserve levels remaining?” “Five percent!”

“Systems stability?”

“Power receptors and cooling systems are operating at about three hundred percent overload, but they are holding!”

Marta covered her face with her hands and exhaled, pushing aside the shutdown command that had been about to cross her lips.

They were holding. The system wasn't supposed to operate this way, but it was. Almost the full load of the great ces-Lunar power grid had been diverted into the Worm Gate receptors, the massed output of the mighty hydrogen III fusion reactors poring up through the microwave beams from the Moon's surface.

Deprived of their power, the low-gee manufacturing complexes and mass driver catapults that propelled the Moon's industrial economy had been forced into a crash shutdown and even the urban habitation centers were reduced to operating on solar backup for basic life support. The screams of protest would already be starting.