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simple. The past is shaping the future all the time, which is a perfectly
familiar notion. All we're saying is that this alien technology enables a
reverse-flow of influences to be superposed on the pattern. It creates a
closed, self-modifying loop a 'feedback loop through time,' if you will."
"
That's where they got their name for it from," Pearson breathed, next to
Carol.
"
Servochron
," Chalmers repeated, nodding.
In his chair between Kreissenbaum and Josephson, Garfax was becoming visibly
impatient. As a lull
occurred, he sat forward and raised his hands to cut the exchange off there.
"Enough of all this," he said.
"We could talk about the logic of it all day and get nowhere. Why don't you
just accept what we're telling you for now? We can prove it easily enough. But
in the meantime, there is more important business to discuss."
"What kind of business?" Norfield asked. Something in Garfax's tone sounded
ominous. He turned toward Josephson and motioned for him to take it. Josephson
cleared his throat and leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table in front
of them.
"This communications channel that we're talking over is just an ancillary
function of the
Servochron
," he said. "The
Servochron
's prime purpose is not to transmit information through time, but to transmit
energy
." Norfield stared back, looking nonplused. Josephson went on, "We believe
that this device was built by an alien civilization that went through an
energy crisis in the course of its development, in much the same way as
ourselves. However, it seems that unlike us, they made advances in other areas
of physics that we haven't yet begun to suspect exist. And this enabled them
to deal with their energy crisis in an ingenious and extraordinary way. They
used their knowledge of timeline plasticity to send surplus energy, produced
at a time when cheap and abundant supplies had become available, back through
time to earlier periods when crises existed. Their action in doing so
dramatically improved the circumstances of their own past, which from what
Professor Kreissenbaum has just been saying, reconfigured their own situation
into a better present. So they never had to live with the consequences of past
errors or problems. They could eradicate them from their universe." Josephson
sat back and regarded Norfield expectantly, as if inviting him to complete the
rest for himself.
"My God!" Pearson murmured beside Carol. "That's what those dishes are all
around
Nomad
. They're enormous energy collectors.
Nomad sends it back up the timeline."
Carol had realized the same thing. She turned a stunned face toward him. "And
I think I know why now," she said. "I know why they sent it out on a
thirty-year orbit."
Norfield seemed to have understood it too. He stared incredulously from the
screen, his lips moving feebly without forming any sound. On the other screen,
Garfax cackled suddenly and began nodding his head vigorously.
"That's right, you've got it!" he exclaimed. "That was why we sent you the
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Servochron as a present.
Now you can use it for what it was meant for to send your surplus back to .
You must be aware of us the problems we're going through right now the whole
Middle East fighting over oil; Europe's almost bankrupt; the environmentalists
wrecked fission; fusion wasn't funded early enough; solar was a joke."
Garfax made a tossing-away motion with his hand. "Everything's a mess here.
But according to the long-range plans being drawn up right now, you should be
through all that. You ought to be moving toward an expanded space program with
colonies on the drawing boards, and extraction and processing plants being set
up on the Moon to build the hardware. And just about now, by our forecasts,
you ought to be completing the first phase of putting long-range converters in
close orbit near the Sun to beam back energy for powering it all. Ten out of
ten? How's that going? Is it all on schedule?"
Norfield just nodded numbly.
"Splendid!" Garfax exclaimed, beaming. "So you can help us out. The collectors
on the
Servochron are designed to receive in the microwave band just what the studies
we're initiating here will recommend for the close-solar converters. A
fortunate coincidence, wouldn't you say?" He cackled again. "All you have to
do is position your receiving-end relays in a pattern fifty miles out, set up
in a way that we'll tell you, and start pumping. Let's see now . . ." Garfax
glanced down at some notes lying in front of him. His
manner became businesslike, and he rubbed his hands together like a gambler
preparing to clean out the bank. "What's the status on the close-in solar
orbiters? How many have you built, what are their capacities, and what do you
have coming later? Also, what's the position on the receiver relays?"
Norfield shook his head helplessly and directed an appealing look somewhere
offscreen. A scientific advisor who had been following appeared on another
screen to reply. "The solar prototype projector and one production model
complete and in position. Another to be constructed, pending commissioning
trials.
Three relays complete, one almost complete, and three more scheduled over the
next two years. Rated at ten-gigawatt beams initially, phasing up to a hundred
gigawatts per beam for the later ones.
"Mm . . ." Garfax thought for a moment and scribbled something on one of his
papers. "Say the equivalent of thirty large power plants guaranteed in the
near term. We figured we could use forty. You'll need twelve of each to run at
full capacity, but we won't need all that for a while yet." He turned an
inquiring eye toward Josephson to invite comment.
"We should be able to manage through the early phase," Josephson said. "But
they'll need to do something about speeding up the timetable for the bigger
beams. Probably cut back on some of their space projects especially the
longer-range ones. They could look into later expansion and upgrades too, once
they've got the principle figured out. The
Servochron can handle a lot more than those numbers."
"
This is preposterous!
" Norfield yelled out, suddenly finding his voice and losing his patience.
"You're not seriously suggesting that we're going to allocate our entire
Distant Solar Relay output to you? You're out of your minds! What makes you
think we can spare it or would want to if we could? We need every damn
kilowatt of it. Do you have any idea how many billions of dollars and
man-years of effort we've put into that program? We'd have to shut it all
down. Why should we? I don't care what problems you're having.
We have solved all those problems. I'm not interested."
Garfax seemed to have been expecting some such outburst. "Professor [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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