F Paul Wilson - LaNague 02 by Wheels Within Wheels (v5.0)

assume.”
                  “I suppose so,” Tella replied. “Either that or
a company buys a gate and uses it exclusively for its own craft. They’re going
to be hellishly expensive, though. Finding quantum holes isn’t too hard, but
locking them up in a stasis field small enough to make the holes useful and
large enough to prevent anything from accidentally entering their event
horizons is pretty tricky. But that’s not the whole story. Wait’ll you hear
this: Denver Haas is rumored to be working on modifications that will
theoretically allow his warp gate to operate inside a planet’s gravity well!”
                Stunned
silence at Old Pete and Jo’s end of the table.
                The major
drawback to the current on-board warp unit was its inability to generate a
stable warp field in the presence of any appreciable gravitational influence,
whether stellar or planetary. This necessitated the use of peristellar drive
tubes to travel past the point of critical influence for a given planet
circling a given star. And this type of travel, despite the use of a
proton-proton drive in tubes lined with Leason crystals, was maddeningly slow.
But if all that could be eliminated, if all you had to do was shuttle up to the
ship, board, and then flash through an orbiting warp gate…
                  “If that’s truly possible,” Old Pete said in
an awe-tinged voice, “then humankind will be able to begin its golden age as an
interstellar race.”
                Easly and
Tella glanced at each other and the latter said, “I never looked at it that
way, but–”
                “But
nothing!” the old man retorted. “The first interstellar trips took decades; the
perfection of the warp field made them a matter of days, weeks, or months,
depending on where you were coming from and where you were going. We are now
talking about hours! Hours between the stars! Think of what that will mean for
trade!”
                “The thing
is, Mr. Paxton,” Easly said patiently, “that this guy Haas hasn’t perfected
those modifications yet.”
                “He must
have if he’s going into production as Andy said.”
                Easly shook
his head. “He’s going to market with a prototype that can only operate beyond
the critical point in the gravity well.”
                For the
second time that evening, there was dead silence at that particular pokochess
table. Jo finally broke it.
                “You must
be mistaken, Larry.”
                “I assure
you I’m not.”
                “But it
simply doesn’t make sense. He’ll be trying to market a rather expensive device
that offers no real advantage over the onboard warp unit.”
                “Oh, it has
advantages,” Easly replied. “The gates generate an extremely high-degree warp,
high enough so a ship can travel from gate to gate in a single jump. No more
jumping in and out of warp, checking co-ordinates, then jumping again. You just
follow a subspace beam from one gate to another.”
                “Not
enough!” Jo said. “The big expense in interstellar travel is time, and the Haas
gate that takes days to get to saves no time. The warp jumps are inconvenient,
but they add little appreciable time to the trip. If Haas can eliminate the
trip out past – and back from – the critical point in the gravity well, he’ll
have revolutionized interstellar travel; if not, then he’s only invented an
expensive toy.”
                “Expensive
to his backers, you mean,” Old Pete added.
                “That,
too,” Jo agreed with a nod. “ Star Ways will see to it that he doesn’t sell too many gates.”
                “How can
they do that?” Tella asked. “And why?”
                Jo signaled
the waiter for another round of drinks before answering. “