No one had expressed any gratitude for Seba’s time.
Turnberry had had his hand up for a while now and finally, rather than answering a question someone had posed without being called on, Seba had focused his eyes on Giles and said, “Dr. Turnberry?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you, Mr. Seba. Not just for calling on me, but for your kindness in making yourself available to answer our questions this evening. I’ve been intrigued by a comment you made when you gave your talk to the University and the world. You said you expected Stade to reflect neutrinos. Do you have proof that happens? Or ideas for other experimental physics it could enable?”
“No.” Seba shrugged, “But remember Stade isn’t a material, reflecting waves or particles in the usual fashion. It’s a segment of space-time in stasis and nothing can penetrate its surface. As far as we know everything bounces off, i.e. is reflected. We’ve measured its ability to reflect one hundred percent of light. We know it stops heat transmission, presumably by reflecting infrared as well as preventing conduction. It also reflects radiation of all types, alpha, beta, gamma, and neutrons. If it does reflect neutrinos, as I expect, then you could concentrate them with a concave Stade mirror, making detection easier. You could determine the direction they’re coming from by pointing that mirror in various directions and seeing which direction gave you the highest counts. You could funnel them into a Stade pipe and conduct them from one place to another. If tachyons exist, you should be able to do the same thing with them or any other forms of radiation.
“Because it’s a perfect insulator, it should make ultracold studies easier to carry out. And if they find something useful, commercial applications should be less expensive to keep cool.
“The same should be true for ultra-high temperature studies of plasmas and other phenomena including nuclear fusion…
Seba kept making suggestions until Turnberry felt like his head might explode. Turnberry could see numerous members of the faculty desperately making notes.
When Seba wound down, Giles’ friend Art Mandel shook his head and said, “I hope you know most of this is essentially unbelievable?”
Rather than getting angry, Seba merely smiled. “Prove me wrong if you can. ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof,’ and all that. I’m sure most of these claims are true but we’ll all learn from it if you are able to prove some of them wrong.”
Seba glanced around the room, said, “Thank you. My time is up,” and walked out without a backward glance.
Turnberry stood and began to applaud. Seconds later, most of the other physicists in the room joined him.
***
Grace was out for a walk when her phone chimed. “Yes?”
“You have a call from Kary Welch.”
“Who’s that?”
“Simone Welch’s niece.”
“I’ll take it… Hello, Kary?”
“Hi, Aunt Grace. I’ve been trying to call Aunt Simone, but her phone says she’s not available. Is she okay?”
Is she reaching out? Grace wondered. Simone’s brother had become very distant after Simone married Grace. His kids, who hadn’t been that interested in their aunt even before the wedding, had been in even less contact. That’d faded to none once Simone got sick. Putting a cheerful tone in her voice in hopes of reuniting some part of Simone’s fractured family, Grace said, “Thanks for calling.” Then she toned down the cheer to say, “Unfortunately, Simone got terribly sick several weeks ago—"
“Oh my God,” Kary interrupted. “Did she die?!”
“No, she, uh…” Grace wondered how to explain, “she asked to be put in stasis. Do you know what that is?”
“No…” Kary said, a suspicious tone in her voice.
How can she not have heard about it? “You can find a talk about it on the internet. A young man name Kaem Seba—”
“What is it?” Kary abruptly interrupted, “Just tell me.”
“It stops time around the person. Simone’s going to stay in stasis until Arvinzamab, a new medication, comes available.”
“Stops time?”
Trying to keep an even tone, Grace said, “Uh-huh. So your Aunt Simone’s disease won’t progress while she’s waiting for the Arvinzamab.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“Not till she comes out of stasis and feels better.”
“Doesn’t she come out of whatever it is a few times a day to eat?”
“Nooo…” Grace said, wondering how to explain better.
“Okay. Bye,” Kary said. The call disconnected.
Grace stood still; eyes focused in the distance. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, she thought.
***
Arya’s stomach roiled. It was payday and she didn’t have enough money in Staze’s accounts to pay people’s salaries. After paying $400,000 for the Mylar to make Space-Gen’s vacuum chamber, she’d been deep into the credit line from MBB. Paying salaries and buying supplies since then had pushed her close to the edge. It was too late to insist again that Kaem be more frugal. She’d already been riding Space-Gen to pay for the vacuum chamber, but they’d “been awaiting certification of the chamber,” which she thought was just a way to keep the money drawing interest in their own accounts for another week or two. Should I ask MBB to raise the limit on our line of credit? she wondered, thinking it unlikely they’d agree to increase a credit line with such a short track record. Or do I ask people to accept a delay in their salaries?
She took a Tums and headed over to the table where they were going to have their weekly meeting. My report’s gonna go over like a lead balloon, she thought.
Emmanuel went first, explaining that his furnace at Staze East had been holding temperature without the injection of any more heat—as would be expected in a space enclosed by Stade. So far, sampling revealed that almost all toxins had broken down except, of course, the heavy metals. “I’ve had an idea,” he said. “At present, almost everything in the furnace except the carbon ash
