ABLE (Jim Able: Offworld Book 1) by Ed Charlton (13 inch ebook reader txt) 📗

use them. But space-time is four dimensions. The theory is these things are doing something in the fifth or some higher dimension. It’s the galaxy’s dirty little secret. Not only do people like me not know how they work, but being within the confines of space-time, we can’t know how they work. They’re performing some extra-dimensional activity, and maybe it’s just a side effect. Anyway, it is damned useful to us.”

Madhar was staring at Jim, much as she had when he first stood in her field.

Jim went on, “The way it was explained to me was this—you’re familiar with there being other dimensions, right?”

“Of course! Mathematically speaking.”

“Right. Imagine we were just three-dimensional beings. I know the analogy doesn’t really hold up, but try explaining sculpture to someone who doesn’t experience time. All they’d know is you’re talking about an object being itself, and then—whatever ‘then’ means—a strike with a chisel and it is two objects, large bit over here, small bit over here.”

“Ouch,” she muttered, frowning.

“These switches are doing something we can’t imagine. The effect we see is movement in space with no accompanying movement in time. In fact, if there is time taken during the traveling, and the time is reversed when we arrive, how could we know? It may be—must be—an activity like sculpture that we, from our vantage point, can’t hope to understand. We just see the result.”

“So which smart-ass invented, or discovered, it?”

Jim shook his head. “Like I said, it’s the galaxy’s dirty secret. We didn’t. There is one supplier. They are an...odd...life-form. We normally don’t have dealings across that kind of barrier. In fact, we all tend to keep to our own groups: primates like you and us are more comfortable with other primates, reptilians with reptilians, and so forth. These guys are really different. And even they were given the first switches. We don’t know anything more than that. It was a long time ago. They only sell them to legitimate ship makers, who embed them in appropriate navigation systems. As I said, I use them; I don’t really get into it apart from that.”

“Well, it makes me more comfortable, in a way, that you guys out there don’t know it all. But it also makes me very scared of how much we’ve got to learn.”

She thought for a long while in silence. “Are there limits to how far you can go?”

“Sort of. They have a really short range relative to interstellar distances. But think about it: you can just keep D-switching over and over. It doesn’t take any time. The only time taken during a journey is for the navigation unit to recalculate and set the next coordinates. It does add up; it took me a couple of weeks to get here.”

“Do you use them for personal transport on your world?”

“No, you can only use them in empty space. You need to get away from the gravity wells of star systems. From what I hear, the flatter the space, the longer the range. That’s why we still carry other kinds of propulsion—chemical thrusters, solid fuel burners, ion drives, whatever—for local travel.”

“What happens if you try it? I’m sure it’s the first thing I’d try if I had one!”

“It doesn’t take you anywhere. Or, if it does, it isn’t enough to notice.”

“And these ‘odd’ folks aren’t talking, huh?”

“You don’t risk upsetting them, or the ship makers for that matter. It’s a monopoly, and business is business. No one wants scientific curiosity to get in the way of that.”

“So, some things are the same out there as they are down here.” She smiled sadly but did not elaborate.

Madhar went into the small kitchen to prepare some more food. Jim stood and looked more closely at the pictures on the walls. He noticed that the pictures of students on the dock, aside from the obvious informality, had one thing in common: Madhar was almost doubled over with laughter in every shot. He had seen her laugh a little, exposing her neat rows of triangular teeth, but the scenes on the dock were of unbridled mirth that evoked in Jim both admiration for her and a quiet sadness for himself.

He looked out of the corner of his eye as she worked at the kitchen table. Her hands, with the typical Turcanian look of supple leather, were making rapid, accurate movements, chopping something that looked like cheese. He thought of the contrast between the scientist at work and at play: between the precision and the abandonment. Still a novice at reading Turcanian facial expressions, he guessed the wrinkling of her brow indicated that her mind was fully occupied with forming a question for him while her hands were busy about other things. Jim saw that her forehead was less pronounced than Edward’s. Her eyes, human-like in their brightness and keen intelligence, were less hidden. They gave her round face an open quality that spoke of approachability. Jim guessed that her students loved her.

As she worked in the kitchen, Madhar tried to calm herself. She had to keep a clear head to absorb the wealth of technical information coming from the alien. She knew well how to project a calm exterior. She had delivered lectures and demonstrations before large crowds of students, occasionally with unpredicted results. She had hosted live episodes of Science World during which she had grappled with everything that threatened to push affairs into chaos. She had done these things within the confines of the people and world she knew. This was different. She was discovering more than any one scientist ever had a right to find in one lifetime. But she felt she was missing things. There were too many questions to ask and too few points of reference from which to launch them.

She hated to admit to herself that part of the problem was how ugly the alien appeared. She was annoyed at herself for even letting such considerations enter her mind, but the reaction was there to be dealt with. She felt that