4:55 p.m.
Immanuel follows his brother and Dr. Mohr into the secured facility that holds the Balam. The chamber is deserted, GOLDEN FLEECE’s technicians having already left for their four-day Thanksgiving holiday.
The immense starship’s mirrored gold hull sparkles beneath the overhead lights.
Dr. Mohr pauses by one of the vessel’s massive engines, grinning at Jacob from ear to ear. ‘Okay, I’m ready to give this thing another try.’
Jacob stretches, feigning boredom. ‘Go ahead, Doc, but explain things so Manny can understand them. Remember, he’s only a PE major, not an expert in quantum physics.’
Immanuel shoots his twin an elbow to the ribs.
‘Okay, Manny, er, Sam, the thing you need to understand about space travel is that the universe is big. The fastest thing we know of is light, which travels in the vacuum of space at 186,281 miles per second. Even at that rate, it would still take light a full four years just to reach our closest neighboring star. According to the star charts your brother was able to access, this ship originated from somewhere within the Orion Belt, which means it’s capable of exceeding light speed. With that sliver of information, GOLDEN FLEECE scientists have been trying to reverse engineer these engines, trying to figure out how the heck they work. Now, we know the ship doesn’t use conventional rockets-’
‘How do you know that?’ Immanuel asks. ‘They look like regular engines.’
Mohr smiles. ‘Rockets are okay for traveling to the moon or Mars, but you can’t use them for interstellar travel. The problem is the rocket’s fuel, or propellant. Unlike a plane, which pushes against air, a spacecraft has no mass to push against in the vacuum of space. Therefore, rocket ships must transport with them all the mass they’ll need to push against in order to move. Let’s say you wanted to use one of our newest Mars transports to reach Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun. Forget the fact that it would take you nine hundred years to arrive. In terms of propellant, there isn’t enough mass in the universe to get you there. Now, if you used a nuclear fusion rocket, something several space agencies are working on, you’d still need a thousand supertankers of propellant. Of course, if you wanted to get there sooner, it would require even more ungodly amounts of fuel.’
‘I saw a program about the new Mars cargo vessels. They’re going to use lunar-based lasers to push light sails.’
‘Correct, but the technology is still not feasible over great distances. Let’s say you were one light-year from Earth and wanted to make a course change. It would take two years just for the new commands to be radioed to ground control, received, and sent back.’
‘So what’s the solution?’
‘The solution is twofold: First, find a source of energy that is already in the vacuum of space; second, discover the means to manipulate the coupling or connection between mass and space-time.
‘Back in 1948, a Dutch physicist by the name of Hendrick Casimir completed an experiment using two metal plates. When brought close enough together, the plates attracted each other, revealing the presence of energy within the vacuum. The Casimir effect, as it was later named, was defined as zero-point energy-the random electromagnetic oscillations left in a vacuum after all the other energy has been removed.
‘Exactly how much energy resides in space is unknown, but many scientists now believe that before the Big Bang, the conditions of the universe were very similar to those inside a black hole. At minus 273 degrees Celsius, or absolute zero, molecular motion ceases. Zero-point energy doesn’t cease; in fact, it may have been so intense that it actually triggered the Big Bang, creating the universe as we now know it. Even though we can’t see it, space is, in fact, a sea of zero-point energy, so-called because it is everywhere and balanced to apparent zero. If we were to place a glass vase in a vacuum, the energy would cause it to wobble but prevent it from falling over since the energy would be rushing at it from every direction, neutralizing the effects. If zero-point energy does exist out there, and we believe it does, then there is more than enough energy in the volume of a cup of coffee to evaporate all of Earth’s oceans.’
‘That’s some cup of coffee.’
Dr. Mohr smiles. ‘Yes it is. Our challenge lies in organizing these multidimensional spectrums of energies simultaneously. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, the speed of light is the limiting velocity for all ordinary material particles. Tardyons-particles having nonzero rest mass can approach the speed of light but can never achieve it, or their masses would become infinite. At the same time, luxons-particles with zero rest mass, such as photons and neutrinos, must always travel at light speed in a vacuum.’
The rocket scientist points to the starship’s engines. ‘The inverse of tardyons are tachyons-theoretical subatomic particles that can only travel at speeds exceeding that of light. What I believe we’re looking at here is some type of hyperdrive system that channels tachyon energy.’ Mohr turns to Jacob. ‘So, Professor Gabriel? Am I right?’
Jacob grins. ‘There was a young lady named Bright, whose speed was far faster than light. She went out one day, in a relative way, and returned the previous night.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘What your brother means is that if you can move faster than the speed of light, you could theoretically travel back in time, potentially causing all sorts of paradoxes.’
Immanuel turns to his twin. ‘As in… a time loop?’
‘Shh, don’t interrupt,’ Jacob says. ‘Okay, Doc, you’re stumbling along just fine, now see if you can tell me how this hyperdrive concept of yours works.’
Dr. Mohr points to the wasp’s nest of charred, afterburner-shaped housings, each orifice no less than thirty feet in diameter. ‘Once in orbit, those housings open, allowing a tachyon stream to pass through. The Balam ’s computer regulates course and speed by widening or shunting off the openings in different combinations. The lower the tachyon stream’s energy, the faster the ship would travel.’ The scientist smiles. ‘So? Did I pass?’
Jacob’s communicator flashes on, interrupting them.
It’s Dominique. ‘Jacob, dinner’s ready. I want you and your brother home now, please. And tell Dr. Mohr that his wife called, and he’d better get his rear end in gear.’
Dave Mohr checks his watch. ‘Oops, abort, abort. I’ll see you boys tomorrow morning.’
Immanuel watches the wiry scientist hurry toward the exit. ‘He seems to know an awful lot about this spaceship.’
‘He should,’ says Jacob. ‘After all, he once piloted it.’
‘Huh?’
Jacob turns to face him, his piercing blue eyes suddenly dead serious. ‘The time loop, Manny. When the cataclysm strikes Earth, Dave Mohr will be one of the scientists selected for Mars Colony. Only he’ll never make it, his ship and several others caught within the gravitational forces of the wormhole.’
‘Dr. Mohr was on Xibalba?’
‘Yes. Fortunately, he and a few other members of the brotherhood managed to escape before the Abomination took over.’
‘Whoa, wait a minute… are you telling me Dr. Mohr was a… a Guardian?’
‘Was, and will be again, unless we return to Xibalba and succeed. He doesn’t remember it, but Dr. Mohr was once the great Mayan wise man, Kukulcan.’
South Beach, Florida
The setting sun has turned the Atlantic Ocean a deep magenta.
Lauren remains hidden in the shadows of an alleyway another five minutes before crossing A-1-A to the row of private beach garages. She quickly locates the facility belonging to the Peacock family and enters the access code.
The aluminum panel opens, revealing motorized water skis, lounge chairs, and a canary yellow three- wheeled dune buggy, its fiber-cast hull more boat than car.
Lauren climbs inside the two-passenger open cockpit of the Amphibian. Powering up the engine, she guides the vehicle out of its garage, then bounds over the grass dunes and sand, straight into the ocean.
Waves lift the buoyant vessel away from the silt. Wheels retract. A forward ski moves into place beneath the pointed bow, a rotary-driven propeller dropping beneath its stern.
Lauren guns the engines. The wind howls in her ears as she races north, bouncing along the surface at fifty miles an hour, heading for Cape Canaveral.
