“As a matter of fact, strictly between ourselves, that was exactly what I had in mind. It’s just that I haven’t . . . ah, shall we say . . . quite gotten round to telling Geneva about it yet.” He added hastily: “But I’m sure they will agree it’s an excellent idea. I just think it would be better if the dome were actually there before I raise the matter. It keeps things simple, you understand. . . .”
“I understand too well,” Sarah said. “If I ever saw three conspirators in league together . . . I’m beginning to wonder what I’ve let myself in for.”
Aub had been staring far into space for the last minute or so. He returned suddenly and regarded them with a curious look, his head cocked to one side.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about something on and off for the last coupla months, too. It’s to do with the way the GRASER modulators initiate the particle annihilations.”
The others looked at him, waiting expectantly. “Well, the method that Al uses concentrates everything at one point in space,” he continued. “That’s what produces the intense spacetime distortion and gives you a simulated gravity effect . . . which, taken to the limit, gives you a black hole. It makes sense he should do it that way, since that’s the kind of thing he was investigating in the first place. Sudbury is a gravitational-physics Institute.”
“Great,” Clifford conceded. “Al’s methods make sense. Nice to hear it. What’s new?”
“Al’s way is fine for what he set out to do, sure, but I figure there’s another way you could do it. I figure it would be possible to set up a distributed modulation and annihilation pattern that would take in a defined volume of space . . . and you wouldn’t be talking about gravity intensities anywhere near like what you get around black holes, anywhere inside it. In other words, you’d be able to initiate the annihilation of a piece of matter . . . an object . . . not just of a focused particle beam.”
“Why should you want to do that?” Clifford asked him, looking nonplused.
“Oh, all sorts of reasons . . . like, it would be a quick and easy way to excavate the holes under those new domes you were talking about, for instance. You just blow away all the rock you don’t need into hi-space. But that really wasn’t the point. The thing I had in mind was something more.”
“Like what?”
Aub’s expression took on a shade of earnestness.
“Well, this might sound way-out, but I can’t see why it couldn’t work. You know how the J-bomb director modulators focus all the hi-radiation on one selected target point. Well, I reckon that they could define a distributed pattern in space too, instead of just one point . . . in the same way that the annihilator modulators could.”
Clifford screwed up his face and glanced at Zimmermann, then back at Aub.
“Still don’t get what you’re driving at.”
“You could synchronize them both together!” Aub exclaimed, gesticulating excitedly. “It would enable you to project a piece of structured matter instead of simply a focused charge of energy. You’d be able to annihilate an object at one place in space and instantly reconstitute it, intact, somewhere else! That’s what I’m driving at.”
“You’re crazy,” Clifford told him. “I thought Al’s science fiction was bad enough. This is science fairyland.”
“I just can’t see any reason why it couldn’t work,” Aub insisted. He looked appealingly at Sarah. She shrugged and pulled a face.
“Don’t ask me. Sounds crazy.”
“It’s not crazy,” Aub declared emphatically. “I tell you, it’d work.”
“I hate to say it,” Zimmermann joined in, “but while I have seen some examples of your unusual inventive abilities in the past, I do feel that what you are saying now is somewhat far-fetched. I am afraid that, were you approaching me as a potential investor, I would not for one moment consider putting any of my money into it.”
“It’s the drink,” Clifford decided. “The gravity’s getting to you already.”
“Never you mind them, Aub,” Sarah said soothingly. “I’ve changed my mind. If those two are ganging up on you, I’ll come over to your side. I believe it will work.”