Enigma Ship - J. Steven York [23]
The space was dimly lit, and their hand-lights helped them pierce the shadows. A large cylinder, covered with glowing blue panels along its length, stretched from one end of the space to the other, a distance of perhaps fifty meters. Duffy was drawn to this device, while P8 scrambled inside a large copper-colored piece of machinery at one end of the room. Gomez focused on some illuminated wall panels that might be controls or readouts. With the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere confirmed, both Duffy and Gomez took off their helmets to conserve their suits’ respective air supplies.
Duffy walked along the length of the device, feeling the pulse of power from inside as his glove slid along its mechanical supports. He knew instinctively it had to be some kind of engine. He stopped occasionally to take a tricorder reading, then moved along. He’d traveled the full length of the device before coming to a conclusion. “I think this is a space drive, a caterpillar.”
Pattie’s head popped out of an opening in the top of the device she was examining. “Excuse me? That last part can’t possibly have translated properly.”
Duffy laughed. “I wasn’t talking about one of your family members, Pattie. It’s a kind of theoretical reactionless drive. Inside this cylinder, a bit of space is being pinched, kinked. The drive then uses that kink to pull itself forward. Once the kink has been pulled through the length of the engine, it’s released, a new one forms at the other end, and the process repeats itself.
“It’s like an inchworm crawling along—again, no offense—or one of us climbing that line hand-over-hand. It’s a perfect stealth drive, no exhaust products, no radiation, no thermal emissions, just a few stray gravity waves that these people apparently have the technology to mask. Thing is, this kind of drive should require a lot of power.”
“Two things,” Pattie said. “One, you really don’t need to apologize every time you make a metaphor to an Earth-based insectoid or vermicular life-form.”
“Sorry.” Duffy grinned.
“Secondly, I believe that this device I am studying is the source of that power. I believe it may be a zero-point energy collector.”
Duffy whistled softly. “Literally energy from nothing. The Federation’s never been able to make that one work, though we’ve had the theory for centuries. Couple this drive to that collector, and you’ve got about as close to a perpetual motion machine as you’ll ever see.”
“I’m not having much luck making sense of these panels,” said Gomez. “For all I know, I’m trying to decipher a decorative wall hanging. But there’s definitely control activity behind it. If I can find a way to tie in a hard connection for Soloman, maybe he can access their control circuits from outside.” A puzzled look crossed her face as she studied her tricorder. “Is anyone else getting unusual readings?”
Duffy stopped what he was doing. “What kind of readings?”
“These tricorders are modified to be especially sensitive to photonic force fields. Kieran, can I borrow the magnetic probe?”
Puzzled, he unhooked the tool from his belt and handed it to her.
“My readings are inconclusive,” she explained. “This is the only way to be sure.”
She activated the probe to a low gain and pushed it through the lighted panel.
Duffy looked around the room, as though seeing it for the first time. “This is all a hologram.”
Gomez nodded. “A much more sophisticated one than we’ve ever seen, but yes.”
“Look at this,” said Pattie, gesturing at a series of flashing green panels along the wall. “These lit up when you pushed the probe through the panel. You may have disrupted something.”
The flashing lights reminded Duffy of something. As he thought of it, he became aware of something else, a tone at the high end of his hearing range, pulsing in time to the lights. “This is an alarm of some kind,” he said.
Just then, a bulkhead at