Henry Gallant Saga 2: Lieutenant Henry Gallant (16 page)

“Yes, sir. What about communications? We’ll need to keep each site in touch with the
Intrepid
as well as each other.”

“So long as Wolfe leaves the force field down, we’ll be able to use standard communication equipment; however, I’ll need special equipment for the AI control systems to run the operations at each site,” said Gallant. “Will you get a comm-tech working on setting it up as well?

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Gallant was pleased Wolfe kept his initial part of the bargain, and mining preparations were soon well underway. Inventorying the supplies and equipment available showed the community would be severely strained to meet the demands of the endeavor; nevertheless, it was clear they were intent on delivering on their promise. For his part, Gallant was unsure how the
Intrepid
would meet its demanding schedule to deal with the Titans, but he intended to keep the work moving ahead as smoothly as possible.

Chief Howard accompanied the
Intrepid
crewmen to Elysium to get them organized, but he planned to commute back and forth throughout the mining and repair mission. Traveling between the
Intrepid
and Elysium was made possible by Howard’s construction of a trailer vessel. Using a tractor beam, Gallant’s Hummingbird towed the trailer behind it, transporting men and equipment from the ship to the surface and back to orbit again.

Gallant divided the mining and construction men into three teams with several
Intrepid
crewmen on each team. The first team was responsible for mining raw heavy metal materials from Brobdingnag’s rugged mountain slopes using trucks, excavators, tractors, and drilling equipment. They established a camp site and supply depot at the base of the mountain.

The second team would develop a small milling, forging, and manufacturing facility to produce repair parts. In addition this team would fabricate a half-dozen nuclear-tipped anti-ship missiles to arm the
Intrepid
for its next encounter with the Titans. This station would be several kilometers south of the mines.

The third team was to construct a six-kilometer in diameter circular track for an accelerator which would create anti-matter and dark matter particles to be kept in containment fields. The track would be located on open range halfway between the jungle and the town of Hallo.

The citizens of Elysium pooled their heavy equipment together into a gigantic convoy which safely transported the workers for many kilometers along a rugged jungle and mountain road to the great volcano. The supplies and equipment involved totaled thousands of tons. Tractors, excavators, and drills were carried on flatbed trucks, all of that were following rock, fuel, supply, and tow trucks moving determinedly toward the three active sites which Gallant had marked on the map. About seventy citizens joined thirty
Intrepid
crewmen, led by Chief Howard, to make the journey. The citizens included several old hands with mining experience from their days on the asteroid Ceres; they expressed excitement at resuming their old craft and gratitude their expertise was needed. Gallant pushed his crew and the citizens as hard as he dared.

The first few hours of the trip passed unremarkably, but when they started climbing the mountain roads with their steep grades, breakdowns began. Broken fuel lines, hydraulic leaks, flat tires, burst pistons, and endless other mechanical and electrical failure took their toll on the overtaxed vehicles. While the colonists worked to keep their vehicles running, much of the quick and efficient repairs were handled by the
Intrepid’
mechanics, who had the greater skills and modern tools.

It took over ten hours for the convoy to travel fifty kilometers before dusk overtook them, and they pitched a makeshift camp alongside the road. Multiple campfires lit up the night as the workers prepared food and thereafter settled into their sleeping bags. Several guards were posted at various points to thwart any dangerous, wandering animals.

The next morning they got up again, and the difficult journey was renewed.

Things became considerably more arduous the following day when the roads were reduced to mere paths and half-cleared trails. Time was spent cutting away brush, and bulldozers were used to clear and widen the access. It took four more days to get to the mining location and to establish their mining and support facilities.

Establishing a base camp was a serious undertaking, requiring engineering planning and precision. Housing and supply buildings were the first to go up, and then the mining roads were laid down from camp to the mining site itself. A nearby river served as a source for water cannons to cut into the loose surface material before they began blasting deeper into the mountain’s rock face to extract ore. A fireworks display noted the holes made at the different deposit sites to be mined.

Soon the manufacturing facilities were also under construction to protect the forge equipment, which was somewhat exposed to the elements for now. A few buildings had half of their foundations laid along with the internal walls framed out. Meanwhile the workers’ tents were arranged around a rough campsite with a fire pit burning continuously.

Site-A was the largest construction area, since the accelerator required a circular track with a twenty-kilometer radius. Remarkably, the entire process was in full operation after only one week.

Gallant was proud of the progress they had made, but they had a tough journey to go before he could declare success.

While the mine began producing heavy metal ores, a foundry and fabrication facility were being built halfway between the mine and Hallo at the edge of the jungle, where they could get the ore delivered and still enjoy the manpower of the town.

The mining and support operations were well under-way and Gallant turned his attention to constructing a heavy-water extraction facility along the shore outside Hallo to produce the deuterium-tritium they needed.

Each of these separate operations required endless coordination by Gallant and Howard. Neumann reviewed their reports and continued to display his penchant as a perfectionist, constantly demanding ever more progress without excuses.

The townspeople were helpful and cooperative, but a growing discontent could be felt, both with the demands for so much labor as well as the deal the UP and Wolfe had made.

Junior’s SSP kept Wolfe and the Elysium Council up to date, as they impatiently awaited additional shipments of weapons.

During the following week, Gallant began supervising construction of the forge and manufacturing facilities north of Hallo. Progress was slow, but steady and he was pleased with the cooperation the citizens were providing his crewmen.

He was standing next to a computer-generated holograph of the site when he saw Junior approaching at a rapid pace.

“I’ve been trying to catch you for days. You’re hopping around from site to site like a jackrabbit,” said Junior.

Gallant doubted Junior had any idea what a jackrabbit was. “What can I do for you?”

Junior stopped next to Gallant and crossed his arms. “For starters, I wanted to tell you we weren’t able to recover the flyer or your sample bag from your crash site.”

He focused his eyes on Gallant as if he were examining an interesting new toy. He stuck his tongue to roof of his mouth and made a clucking sound—once—twice.

“I was lucky to make a controlled crash-landing on the lake. Given how sketchy my idea of the crash location was, I didn’t expect you to recover any of my equipment.”

Junior said, “Not smart—taking a vulnerable young woman on a risky exploration trip—at night, into the jungle, dodging dragors—for three days.” He broke up his speech by repeatedly making the clucking sounds as if to add emphasis to crucial points.

“It was never my plan to take Alaina, but once she volunteered as a guide, I was glad to have her.”

“What do you mean by that?” spat Junior with rising anger, grabbing Gallant’s shirt—twisting a clump of material.

Gallant calmly put his own hand over Junior’s. Clamping down on it, he twisted the hand out and away from his body, breaking Junior’s grip and causing him considerable pain.

“Oww, aww, yow.”

“I meant she knew the jungle and its creatures. Her expertise was essential to my survival.”

“Don’t you ever . . .” Junior began, rubbing his sore wrist.

“What?”

“Stay away from Alaina. That’s all. Stay away,” said Junior, as he slunk off.

Chief Howard looked perplexed.

Standing in front of Gallant in the control room at site-A, he said, “I’m confused about your plan for replenishing the
Intrepid’s
dark matter supply. My engineering expertise is controlling the flow of dark matter from the containment chamber into a hot reactor. I don’t understand how we’re going to create dark matter from scratch.”

Gallant said, “To create exotic dark material, we’ll have to build an accelerator. We’ll create weakly interactive massive particles and confine them inside a superconducting plasma bottle.”

Howard’s perplexed expression didn’t change. “I’ve never manufactured dark matter from an accelerator. What’s the process?”

“The physics principle behind it is straight forward. We’ll build a superconducting supercollider accelerator capable of generating 50 Trillion eV. Then we’ll accelerate heavy metal particles to extremely high velocities and slam them into other heavy particles.”

Gallant slapped his hands together to illustrate the principle.

Smack.

He continued, “Heavy metal atoms are nothing more than large collections of quarks and gluons. When they collide, they create a small but extremely hot fireball. We’ll be watching for newly created particles streaming away from the interaction, such as condensate OO-Quark-antiquark pairs. The higher the velocity and the heavier the target, the more exotic are the newly created particles. The resultant dark matter is then confined inside a containment field bottle, ten centimeters in diameter and a meter long.”

Howard shook his head. “I’m not worried about constructing the accelerator. Once we mine the raw materials, we can manufacture magnets, vacuum tubing, and control systems using a three dimensional printer. In addition, our new synthetic-bonding process will weld the pieces together. And we can run the devices using AI controlled procedures. However, it’s the physics behind creating dark matter that’s confusing. Can you give me the context?”

“I’d be glad to, but if this gets too detailed, interrupt me and I’ll skip ahead.”

“Trust me, if I get lost, I’ll zone-out.”

Gallant chuckled, “During the Big Bang, spontaneous symmetry breaking created matter—and eventually life—including your inquiring mind.”

Howard smiled. “Yeah, I’m inquiring, but keep it basic.”

“Sure. Understanding the origin of mass is one of the greatest challenges of science. Going back to a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the original single force of nature split apart. It split into four forces while an inflationary process exponentially expanded the size of the universe. Under those extremely hot conditions, fundamental particles formed and traveled at the speed of light.”

“I’m familiar with that. I know things in empty space become weightless, but gravity affects all forms of energy, even ones with no mass,” said Howard.

“Force-carrying bosons—gluons, gravitons, and photons—all have zero mass, but they all feel the effects of gravity.”

“Then, how did the Big Bang create mass?” asked Howard.

“After another tiny fraction of a second, elementary particles—six leptons and six quarks—acquired mass through the Higgs mechanism. All particles interacting with the Higgs field have mass, directly proportional to the strength of the interaction. The moment the Higgs field went from zero to nonzero, it created a phase transition, similar to the phenomena of liquid water turning into ice.”

“I understand water turning into ice. As the temperature decreases, the liquid rapidly becomes a solid through a nonlinear change in density,” said Howard, shifting from foot to foot.

“That’s right. Today, only five per cent of the universe is composed of ordinary matter, another twenty three per cent consists of exotic dark matter particles. They interact with the Weak force and Higgs field. In addition, since we know the universe is accelerating, its rate of expansion is due to dark energy. Dark energy is a property of the vacuum of space itself, referred to as the cosmological constant.”

“Go on. What exactly is a Higg’s particle?”

“When you’re traveling between stars and look out of the ship’s viewport, you see empty space. But what appears as empty space is an exotic superconducting Higgs field. A Higgs boson is a vibration in the field. The vibration can create a massive particle, or set up another kind of field, such as electromagnetic field. As a result, a Higgs particle can turn into a virtual charged massive particle and then decay into a photon.”

“I see. But what is spontaneous symmetry breaking?”

“Spontaneous symmetry breaking is a nonlinear jumping from one state of matter to another state. For example, if I turn over a bowl and place a marble on top, it forms a symmetric position. The symmetry is broken when the marble falls in one direction.”

“Oh, I see. When the marble is slightly disturbed, it rolls and breaks the symmetry of the position.”

Gallant nodded, “Exactly. Symmetry is the most fundamental property in the universe.”

The climate of Kauai had a dramatic impact on the design and comfort of house construction in Hallo. From sea level to the peaks of volcanoes, moisture-filled trade winds blew ninety percent of the daytime, causing micro-changes in climate. Instead of a sun-drenched tropical paradise as many expected, many locations suffered perpetual nimbus clouds and over four hundred centimeters of rainfall yearly. The rainy areas were mostly north of Hallo, extending into the jungle regions adjacent to the volcanoes. In contrast, near-desert conditions prevailed a few dozen kilometers to the west of Hallo. In between were rich farmlands and large grazing ranches for livestock. Hallo property owners were grateful for the trade winds because the nearby farms and animal pens could produce unpleasant odors. Many of the individual homes maintained large gardens to have fresh fruit and vegetables at their fingertips. Considering the tropical trees grew at a rate of four meters a year, crops were bountiful.