Subway in the Sky by Nathan B. Dodge

Author:Nathan B. Dodge
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781961511385
Publisher: Novus Mundi Publishing

I decided a long time ago that as a manager in an even medium-sized company, let alone a large one, one’s life consisted mainly of making schedules and then changing them. Before I could even start to Fort Worth, and ultimately Mars, my phone rang, and of course I thought Kaley had forgotten something.

No. “Scotty? This is Wendy.” So our project pals at UT Dallas must have some sort of news. I suddenly realized with deep pangs of guilt that I had promised Wendy and Ray that I would contact Intersolar Command, specifically McKissack, and request a tiny slice of free time in the portal schedule so that Professors Simmons and Dougal could do a bit of experimenting on portal connections. Their lab had a tiny dual-portal system that they hadn’t used much in years, the portals being not much more than basketball-hoop-sized. But just like every other portal that went operational, they had to be worked into the world-wide portal schedule.

“Holy shit, Wendy, I totally forgot to call IC. I’ll be over there in a few minutes, so I’ll—”

She cut me off. “Scotty, you know me better than that. I can help myself—I know Admiral McKissack a bit anyway, so I rang him up. We’ve been running for two days.”

Which make me feel a bit better, but still guilty. “Well thanks. The first time we get together, drinks are on me. Got a problem?”

“Not at all—maybe a bit of news. Ray’s been wanting to experiment with cross-field power and FlucGen pulsing for years, and he decided the time is right. We just discovered a weird phenomenon that we’ve not seen before, and we’re going to pursue it. It may help us in the future, maybe even to wrest control of a portal from the bad guys or grab an idle portal much more easily than we thought possible.”

I tried to wrap my mind around how you might do that, but she explained before I could mentally speculate. “It’s so darn simple we’re a bit embarrassed that we didn’t catch it years ago. If you keep the magnetic fields about thirty percent elevated over the bogey value, then hit about a five-X FlucGen pulse, you can grab a free portal that’s not only idle, but one that’s just connecting. And further—and we haven’t validated this yet—we may be able to jerk one end of a live wormhole to our connection.”

Puzzled, I told her, “I don’t get it. Our experience is that if two portals are connected and the wormhole is solid, you can’t yank either end free.”

“Yeah, that’s the conventional wisdom. Look, I just wanted to tell you that and ask you over here as soon as you can manage. Since you have offered a consulting fee, I thought you ought to get your money’s worth.”

See what I mean? Schedule made—then the disruptions start. Unfortunately for Wendy, I was committed to getting to Kaley ASAP. “Wendy, I’m on my way off-planet. I’ll call you as soon as I get back.”

“Fair enough.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.