politics.
Though what it was, Celine was not sure. Not the end of the world, but perhaps the beginning of the end?
"Come and sit down." She nodded at the server, and it began to rotate the loaded tureens slowly to each place.
Astarte brought her tumbler and the bottle with her, set them down in front of her, and watched the action of the server. "Smart little bugger," she said after a while. The server was pausing only at places where someone was sitting. "How's it know where we are?"
"Thermal sensor. Help yourself."
"Yeah. We do it that way at the convent in Weipa. Only they got people to serve food for yer at Wilmer's institute, so yer feel yer can't take too much. How come yer don't get served by people? Yer the President."
"People talk more freely if there's no one else listening." Which was a totally bogus explanation, since Celine knew that the whole meeting was being recorded. "Just take what you want from any dish."
"And you use a knife and fork, Star," Wilmer added. "Same as at the institute. Or you'll be in trouble."
Astarte glared at him, but she nodded. She piled her plate high with meat and shrimp, ignoring all forms of vegetable. Wilmer took his turn and helped himself to a ton of everything. As he was doing so Astarte drained her glass and refilled it to the brim from the bottle of vodka.
"No worries." Wilmer noticed Celine's dubious look. "Star's got a hollow leg. She'll drink you and me under the table and then go back to work on her physics. How about a bit of chat from you, Star? I bring you all this way, and we don't get a peep out of you. What's Celine here going to think?"
"All right." In spite of Wilmer's warning Astarte was holding three large shrimp in her left hand and a juicy veal chop in her right. "What yer want me ter say?"
"It's your theory, girl. Talk about it."
"What about my food?"
"It can wait. We're not going to pinch it."
Celine added, "If you like, we can warm it for you later."
"Oh, all right." Astarte reluctantly put down the veal chop and the shrimp and wiped her hands on the sides of her sleeveless top. "A supernova's—mmm—just one form of stellar—mmm—instability."
"Chew and swallow first." Wilmer turned to Celine. "I can't take her anywhere. She does that all the time. You'd think she was a pelican the way she packs food into her mouth."
Star grinned at Celine, a round-cheeked chipmunk smile, chewed, swallowed, and finally said, "He's always on at me, but he's all right otherwise. Let's start with a question: When is a star unstable? Wilmer proved that yer can't make Alpha Centauri go supernova if you work with the usual theories and continuous variables. But it did. Once you accept that, then yer have ter ask, can yer do it with discontinuous variables? Things that act like an impulse. You know what an impulse is, do you?"
"Assume I do." Once, in the distant past, Celine had possessed a first-rate technical training. The question was, how much of it remained?
"There's a few different ways to drive a star toward instability," Astarte went on. "One is, you load on mass from outside until all of a sudden you have a collapse and an explosion. Another is you run out of raw material for fusion, an' again you get a collapse an' explosion. But those don't work for Alpha Centauri; Wilmer proved that. So I asked myself, is there another way to cause instability, using some kind of impulsive events?
"Well, there is. Yer take a star—an' it don't have ter be the usual sort of star for a supernova. I mean, it don't have to be a binary with one dwarf component, or a star many times as massive as the Sun. It can be any old star, could even be Sol. There's something for yer to think about. So you take this star, an' you apply a compressive pulse. A bit of a squeeze, and it don't have to be a big squeeze, either. Yer can do it asymmetric, like on opposite poles, or you can make it work with radial squeezes, too, toward the center. Either way, yer can calculate the modes of
Though what it was, Celine was not sure. Not the end of the world, but perhaps the beginning of the end?
"Come and sit down." She nodded at the server, and it began to rotate the loaded tureens slowly to each place.
Astarte brought her tumbler and the bottle with her, set them down in front of her, and watched the action of the server. "Smart little bugger," she said after a while. The server was pausing only at places where someone was sitting. "How's it know where we are?"
"Thermal sensor. Help yourself."
"Yeah. We do it that way at the convent in Weipa. Only they got people to serve food for yer at Wilmer's institute, so yer feel yer can't take too much. How come yer don't get served by people? Yer the President."
"People talk more freely if there's no one else listening." Which was a totally bogus explanation, since Celine knew that the whole meeting was being recorded. "Just take what you want from any dish."
"And you use a knife and fork, Star," Wilmer added. "Same as at the institute. Or you'll be in trouble."
Astarte glared at him, but she nodded. She piled her plate high with meat and shrimp, ignoring all forms of vegetable. Wilmer took his turn and helped himself to a ton of everything. As he was doing so Astarte drained her glass and refilled it to the brim from the bottle of vodka.
"No worries." Wilmer noticed Celine's dubious look. "Star's got a hollow leg. She'll drink you and me under the table and then go back to work on her physics. How about a bit of chat from you, Star? I bring you all this way, and we don't get a peep out of you. What's Celine here going to think?"
"All right." In spite of Wilmer's warning Astarte was holding three large shrimp in her left hand and a juicy veal chop in her right. "What yer want me ter say?"
"It's your theory, girl. Talk about it."
"What about my food?"
"It can wait. We're not going to pinch it."
Celine added, "If you like, we can warm it for you later."
"Oh, all right." Astarte reluctantly put down the veal chop and the shrimp and wiped her hands on the sides of her sleeveless top. "A supernova's—mmm—just one form of stellar—mmm—instability."
"Chew and swallow first." Wilmer turned to Celine. "I can't take her anywhere. She does that all the time. You'd think she was a pelican the way she packs food into her mouth."
Star grinned at Celine, a round-cheeked chipmunk smile, chewed, swallowed, and finally said, "He's always on at me, but he's all right otherwise. Let's start with a question: When is a star unstable? Wilmer proved that yer can't make Alpha Centauri go supernova if you work with the usual theories and continuous variables. But it did. Once you accept that, then yer have ter ask, can yer do it with discontinuous variables? Things that act like an impulse. You know what an impulse is, do you?"
"Assume I do." Once, in the distant past, Celine had possessed a first-rate technical training. The question was, how much of it remained?
"There's a few different ways to drive a star toward instability," Astarte went on. "One is, you load on mass from outside until all of a sudden you have a collapse and an explosion. Another is you run out of raw material for fusion, an' again you get a collapse an' explosion. But those don't work for Alpha Centauri; Wilmer proved that. So I asked myself, is there another way to cause instability, using some kind of impulsive events?
"Well, there is. Yer take a star—an' it don't have ter be the usual sort of star for a supernova. I mean, it don't have to be a binary with one dwarf component, or a star many times as massive as the Sun. It can be any old star, could even be Sol. There's something for yer to think about. So you take this star, an' you apply a compressive pulse. A bit of a squeeze, and it don't have to be a big squeeze, either. Yer can do it asymmetric, like on opposite poles, or you can make it work with radial squeezes, too, toward the center. Either way, yer can calculate the modes of
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