Flinx Transcendent_ A Pip & Flinx Adventure - Alan Dean Foster [186]
“My head's starting to hurt,” Clarity muttered.
“It does not matter,” Truzenzuzex objected. “What Bran said about gravitons holds true.”
“In this universe, yes,” the Teacher agreed. “But much as we know about this brane, we know nothing of others. As has long been theorized, the laws of physics in other branes may be completely different from those in ours. A proton in another brane, for example, might have no mass. A wave or particle like a photon that could possibly exist in both might exhibit entirely different properties in another brane. In the L-brane, O-brane, or another, such a particle might possess mass, charge, or both.
“Some physicists and mathematicians have long believed that branes are not fixed within the infinity of the multiverse or Bulk, but that they are in constant motion—at least at the edges of the branes themselves. Where the ripples of two such branes impinge upon one another insistently enough, you get a bang. Sometimes a Big Bang. If that theory is to be believed, new universes contained within their own new branes are being born all the time—universes upon universes within universes.
“Envisage a technology so advanced that it could bring about such an interaction between a pair of branes, but under controlled conditions and on a manageable scale.”
Truzenzuzex's mind was awhirl with the possibilities. “Cr!!lk, perhaps that's where the Xunca went. Through a congruency of two branes, from this one into another. The ultimate escape. Perhaps they traveled in craft propelled by focused gravitons—or composed of them.”
An equally enthralled Tse-Mallory was not averse to taking the impossible another step further. “If they could influence such processes on such a scale, maybe they manipulated the degree and extent of the interaction in order to generate their own made-to-order Big Bang.” Raising a hand, he brought thumb and forefinger toward one another to illustrate his point. “A little Bang, say. The result would be the creation of a new small universe contained within a customized brane. Nothing ostentatious. Insignificant, really. Say, a thousand available and unoccupied new galaxies they could explore and colonize at their leisure.”
“An entire civilization?” Clarity was whispering without knowing why. “To escape what's coming toward the Commonwealth they moved their whole civilization to another dimension?”
Tse-Mallory smiled softly. “Tru and I are just speculating. If there was a Xunca around, I'd ask it. But they're not here anymore. As Flinx says, they went away. Only some of their works remain behind to hint at what little we know of them.” With a wave of his arm he encompassed the view forward. “The plasma tunnel transport system. This place. The quantum impossibility it somehow holds at bay.”
The shipmind was not finished. “But before they learned how to do whatever it was that they finally did, they rendered this brane and another barely proximate in an attempt to try and accumulate what they thought would be enough energy to counter the oncoming menace, which itself I have come to believe is quite likely an intrusion of another kind of matter-energy from still a third brane.”
Truzenzuzex whistle-clicked softly. “I would need to do the math, but the juxtaposition of our brane with another could possibly provide an explanation for the Great Attractor's unbelievable energy.”
“All that effort and science to create a defensive weapon became unnecessary,” the Teacher continued, “when the Xunca found a way to step from this brane to another, or to create their own. Either means of escape would have rendered this weapon superfluous.”
“But,” Flinx pointed out, “they left it behind.”
“Yes,” the shipmind concurred. “They left it behind.”
“Too big to move,” Flinx found himself thinking aloud. “No need to move it, anyway.” He eyed his companions. “Or maybe—maybe they left it