light.
"And, as far as we can tell from the Bruno data," Sally said, "that Gaijin flower-ship was pretty much a RAIR design: exotic-looking, but nothing we can't comprehend. Bruno actually passed through what seemed to be a stream of exhaust, before it ceased to broadcast." A nice euphemism, thought Maura, for was trapped and dismantled. "The exhaust was typical of products of a straightforward deuterium-helium-3 fusion reaction, of the type we've been able to achieve on Earth for some decades."
Sally hesitated. She was a small woman, neat, earnest, troubled. "There are puzzles here. We can think of a dozen ways the Gaijin design could be improved -- nothing that's in our engineering grasp right now, but certainly nothing that's beyond our physics. For instance the deuterium-helium fusion reaction is about as low-energy and clunky as you can get. There are much more productive alternatives, like reactions involving boron or lithium. I think I always imagined that when ET finally showed up, she would have technology beyond our wildest dreams -- beyond our imagining. Well, the flower-ships are pretty, but they aren't the way we'd choose to travel to the stars--"
"Especially not in this region," Nemoto said evenly.
"What do you mean?" Maura said.
Nemoto smiled thinly, the bones of her face showing through papery skin. "Now that we are, like it or not, part of an interstellar community, it pays to understand the geography of our new terrain. The interstellar medium, the gases that would power a ramjet, is not uniform. The Sun happens not to be in a very, umm, cloudy corner of the Orion Spiral Arm. We are moving, in fact, through what is called the ICM -- the intercloud medium. Not a good resource for a ramjet. But of course the flower-ships are not interstellar craft." She eyed Maura. "You seem surprised. Isn't that obvious? These ships, with their small fraction of light speed, would take many decades even to reach Alpha Centauri."
"But time dilation -- clocks slowing down as you speed up--" Maura said.
Nemoto shook her head. "Ten percent of lightspeed is much too slow for such effects to become significant. The flower-ships are interplanetary cruisers, designed for travel at speeds well below that of light, within the relatively dense medium close to a star. The Gaijin are interplanetary voyagers; only accidentally did they become interstellar pioneers."
"Then," Maura asked reasonably, "how did they get here?"
Nemoto smiled. "The same way Malenfant has departed the system."
"Just tell me."
"Teleportation."
Maura had brought Sally Brind here because she'd grown frustrated, even worried, by the passage of a full year since Malenfant's disappearance: a year in which nothing had happened.
Nothing obvious had changed about the Gaijin's behavior. The whole thing had long vanished from the mental maps of most of the public and commentators, who had dismissed Malenfant's remarkable jaunt as just another odd subplot in a slow, rather dull saga that already spanned decades. The philosophers continued to debate and agonize over the meaning of the reality of the Gaijin for human existence. The military were, as always, war-gaming their way through various lurid scenarios, mostly involving the Gaijin invasion of Earth and the Moon, huge armed flower-ships hurling lumps of asteroid rock at the helpless worlds.
Meanwhile, the various governments and other responsible authorities were consumed by indecision.
Truthfully, the facts were still too sparse, questions still proliferating faster than answers were being obtained, mankind's image of these alien intruders still informed more by old fictional images than any hard science. The picture was not converging, Maura realized with dismay, and history was drifting away from meaningful engagement with the Gaijin.
Which was why she had set up this meeting. Nemoto had, after all, been the first to detect the Gaijin. She had quickly understood the implications of her discovery, and
"And, as far as we can tell from the Bruno data," Sally said, "that Gaijin flower-ship was pretty much a RAIR design: exotic-looking, but nothing we can't comprehend. Bruno actually passed through what seemed to be a stream of exhaust, before it ceased to broadcast." A nice euphemism, thought Maura, for was trapped and dismantled. "The exhaust was typical of products of a straightforward deuterium-helium-3 fusion reaction, of the type we've been able to achieve on Earth for some decades."
Sally hesitated. She was a small woman, neat, earnest, troubled. "There are puzzles here. We can think of a dozen ways the Gaijin design could be improved -- nothing that's in our engineering grasp right now, but certainly nothing that's beyond our physics. For instance the deuterium-helium fusion reaction is about as low-energy and clunky as you can get. There are much more productive alternatives, like reactions involving boron or lithium. I think I always imagined that when ET finally showed up, she would have technology beyond our wildest dreams -- beyond our imagining. Well, the flower-ships are pretty, but they aren't the way we'd choose to travel to the stars--"
"Especially not in this region," Nemoto said evenly.
"What do you mean?" Maura said.
Nemoto smiled thinly, the bones of her face showing through papery skin. "Now that we are, like it or not, part of an interstellar community, it pays to understand the geography of our new terrain. The interstellar medium, the gases that would power a ramjet, is not uniform. The Sun happens not to be in a very, umm, cloudy corner of the Orion Spiral Arm. We are moving, in fact, through what is called the ICM -- the intercloud medium. Not a good resource for a ramjet. But of course the flower-ships are not interstellar craft." She eyed Maura. "You seem surprised. Isn't that obvious? These ships, with their small fraction of light speed, would take many decades even to reach Alpha Centauri."
"But time dilation -- clocks slowing down as you speed up--" Maura said.
Nemoto shook her head. "Ten percent of lightspeed is much too slow for such effects to become significant. The flower-ships are interplanetary cruisers, designed for travel at speeds well below that of light, within the relatively dense medium close to a star. The Gaijin are interplanetary voyagers; only accidentally did they become interstellar pioneers."
"Then," Maura asked reasonably, "how did they get here?"
Nemoto smiled. "The same way Malenfant has departed the system."
"Just tell me."
"Teleportation."
Maura had brought Sally Brind here because she'd grown frustrated, even worried, by the passage of a full year since Malenfant's disappearance: a year in which nothing had happened.
Nothing obvious had changed about the Gaijin's behavior. The whole thing had long vanished from the mental maps of most of the public and commentators, who had dismissed Malenfant's remarkable jaunt as just another odd subplot in a slow, rather dull saga that already spanned decades. The philosophers continued to debate and agonize over the meaning of the reality of the Gaijin for human existence. The military were, as always, war-gaming their way through various lurid scenarios, mostly involving the Gaijin invasion of Earth and the Moon, huge armed flower-ships hurling lumps of asteroid rock at the helpless worlds.
Meanwhile, the various governments and other responsible authorities were consumed by indecision.
Truthfully, the facts were still too sparse, questions still proliferating faster than answers were being obtained, mankind's image of these alien intruders still informed more by old fictional images than any hard science. The picture was not converging, Maura realized with dismay, and history was drifting away from meaningful engagement with the Gaijin.
Which was why she had set up this meeting. Nemoto had, after all, been the first to detect the Gaijin. She had quickly understood the implications of her discovery, and
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