The Quantum Connection

This is something that you might need. He palmed two small medallions made of a flintlike stone to me. One was a grayish color and the other black.

What are these and why are you giving them to me? 

You have the Servant and understand its mechanisms quite clearly. I think you could use this best. It is FUER. Your people have yet to develop this technology, but I give it to you now with hopes that you will understand its potential applications. It is what you might mistakenly call elementary particles. 

When he thought it and spoke it the word sounded like a drawn out 'fuyer' and sounded almost exactly like the way that Anson says the word 'fire' in his slow Southern redneck drawl. He downloaded the instructions to me and I realized that it was a serious weapon, one which worked similarly to a nuclear bomb. If you forced the two rocks together hard enough, like striking two flint stones, you would create sparks. If you really slammed them together it would release tremendous amounts of energy, many hundreds or possibly thousands of times greater energy than a nuclear device. FUER was a Latin acronym for fugitivus unus elementum retineo. Fugitivus translates to something like a fugitive or runaway slave. Unus means one and only one. Elementum is the first principle or basic constituent. Retineo means constrained or confined. Put it all together and you get something like fugitive one and only one basic constituent confined. It rang a bell with me and I was sure it would with Anson, Jim, or Tatiana. The best I could gather was that the rocks were crystallized arrays of quarks.

Single quarks didn't exist as far as I knew until that moment. Quarks are the basic constituent of matter and always come in twos or threes—never one and only one. The gluon force required to keep the damned things together gets larger the harder you try pulling them apart. In other words, quarks are attached in such a way that they can't be pulled apart because it would take a near infinite force to do it. I say infinite just because humans have never figured out how much energy it would take. Oh, there are theories, but nobody has ever figured out how to do it. Obviously, Prawmitoos had figured out how to free some quarks, capture the free ones, and confine them in some type of matrix. He was giving me a couple of chunks of the stuff.

Human, you must keep this inside your warp field or Opolawn will be able to detect it. Do you understand? 

Yes. Thanks, I think. But why are you doing this? 

When we get to Lumpeya City I cannot help you. We are under treaty with the Lumpeyins and will not make war with them unless they are infringing upon that treaty. They are not violating the treaty as you are not protected by us. Use this gift of FUER wisely. 

Mike, did you get all that? 

Yes, Steven. Curious, isn't it? 

Let's remember to download it to Tatiana later. 

Okay, Steven. 

Mike? 

Yes, Steven? 

You are a good friend.

Thanks, Steven. 

* * *

Tatiana had the brilliant idea of attaching the two FUER pieces to a small warp armor belt. If we modified the warp bubble to rapidly collapse like the Gray's confinement bubble, it would force the two pieces of quarkium nuggets together and implement the quark fusion bomb effect. The warp device would be destroyed, thus releasing the mammoth explosion. We talked this over with Mike and were able to build such a device into a box much smaller than a wristwatch. I then had Mike attach the FUER medallions on either side of the thing and place a low- level warp bubble on and around the FUER at all times. This small warp bubble was about the size of a golf ball and I had Mike place a hard shell around the warp field. Then I picked up the little ball with the miniature warp bubble inside it and put the thing in my pocket. I hoped I wouldn't have to use it, but all it would take to activate it would be a mental order from me to Mike and I would use it if I needed to.

CHAPTER 24

'Yeah, but I still don't trust the little bastard,' 'Becca replied as she turned and leaned back in her chair. The YIT radar data displayed on the widescreen bridge monitor behind her head overlaying our current position on that region of the galaxy. There was still a long way to go to Lumpeya City.

'Well, I don't either, but why else did he give me the FUER?' I looked around at the group for a response. I could tell that Anson didn't like Prawmitoos either. We had made the bridge, the engine room, and the nanomachine room off-limits to the Gray so we could speak here without worrying about him eavesdropping. Mike kept tabs on what he was up to continuously. The silly Gray just seemed to sit idle in his assigned quarters and did nothing.

'Steven,' Tabitha said. 'These Grays are very self-serving and conniving. Everything they do is planned. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to see that there are plans within plans that we haven't yet considered.'

'Plans within plans within plans . . .' Anson said.

I realized he was quoting from Dune. The W-squared's science fiction training seemed ever present. 'You're right, of course. But this is quite a gift, I just need to make sure that I don't use it to the Gray's advantage. I'm not sure when or how that will be,' I said.

'An opportunity will present itself sooner or later, Steven,' Jim said. 'As long as we are all on the same page here; none of us trust the Grays, right?'

'Duh!' 'Becca said and slugged him on the shoulder.

'Well, Jim, I'll tell ya one damn thing. That stuff about his soldier drone not having the chance to fail him again sounded a bit like Darth Vader or Admiral Thrawn to me,' Anson said. 'Hell fire, boy, I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw him.'

'I can't quite get a grip on his motivation either,' I said.