Pegasus In Space
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Pegasus In Space». Краткое содержание книги:
For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. But there are those who, for motives of their own, want Padrugoi to fail. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected--and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who is going to save the Talented?
Pegasus in Space is the tale of Peter Reidinger, first Tower Prime!
"Bonjour, Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucl6eaire," a pleasant-sounding receptionist answered.
"Bonjour," Peter replied in his best French, "ici Peter Reidinger de la station d'espace Padrugoi. Je veux parler avec Professeur Tomas Gadriel, s'il vous plait."
"You are calling from Padrugoi?" The receptionist switched to flawless English, making it clear to Peter that his accent needed a lot of work. "May I tell the professor the purpose of your call?"
Peter felt himself growing hot. "I wanted to discuss his latest parapsychic experiment with him."
"Very well," the receptionist said. "One moment please." The line went dead for some seconds. "I am transferring you to the professor now. Good day."
"Hello?" The voice that replaced the receptionist's was baritone. "Mr. Reidinger?" There was a distinct note of pleased surprise in the tone.
"Professor Gadriel, thank you for accepting my call," Peter began. "Ah, it is yourself who calls me," and the professor switched on the visual, showing himself to be totally unlike Peter's original mental image of the telekinetic physicist. A tall, burly man who looked more like an alpine climber than scientist, beamed at him. With both hands he smoothed back thick brown hair from his forehead in what was a characteristic gesture, as he leaned eagerly toward the screen and planted muscled forearms on the worktop. "I must thank you for all that you have done."
Peter was surprised. "Thank me? But your generators!"
"But the science!" Professor Gadriel responded with a Gallic twist of his shoulders. "I am so glad that my generators were available when you needed them, and flattered that you would think of them at a time when you were quite obviously under a lot of stress-"
"Professor, what were you told?" Peter broke in.
"I was told nothing." Tomas Gadriel laughed. "But I am a man of science, and if you work at CERN, you learn to think quickly. My instruments were on and tracking that day, young man. I know exactly when you dumped power into my generators and exactly how much power you dumped. The explosion in space-the so-called 'fire in the sky'-was on every newsvid. It took me less than an hour to sort through the math, you know."
"I see," Peter replied slowly, wondering who else would be able to do the math. "Wait a minute, you say 'dumped'?"
"Mais oui!" Professor Gadriel said. "You dumped over ninety-eight gigawatts of power through my circuitry. It held up rather well, too. It did not take me long to realize that that figure represented an orbital translation-and a lunar one at that. You see, you had to compensate for the difference in specific energy."
Peter slumped in his chair. "Professor, I don't understand. What specific energy?"
Professor Gadriel pursed his lips in thought. "Young man, has not Madame Lehardt insisted that you are well rounded in all the sciences?"
"Well, she has tried," Peter replied in a rueful tone.
"And do I not understand that you have a keen interest in space flight and space travel?"
"I do," Peter admitted.
"Then I would expect you to understand that for every kilogram of mass you put in an orbit, you must have increased the body's energy-both kinetic and potential-by a certain amount."
Peter nodded in comprehension. "I'm sorry, I follow you now. In translating an object from Earth's orbit to rest on the moon, I had to change the total energy per kilogram for every kilogram I lifted."
"If by 'lifted' you mean teleported, then yes, exactly," Professor Gadriel agreed. "But there is more energy per kilogram in an object orbiting the Earth at an altitude of two hundred kilometers than there is in an object at rest on the Moon. So the energy had to go somewhere, n'est-ce pas?"
"Naturally," Peter responded automatically. "But how did your generators cope with such an influx of power?"
Professor Gadriel shrugged. "They did not, of course. But my gestalt circuitry took the power, and when the couplings fused, the power grounded to Earth, Which is a pity, because otherwise CERN would have sold a very tidy sum of electricity to the European power grid." The professor grinned. "Next time, we will handle that. In another six months, please feel free to repeat your performance."
Peter grinned back. "It's not a performance I want to have to repeat, thank you."
"And why not?"
"Because I have never felt so drained," Peter replied. "But why, if I received so much power, should I feel drained?"
"You should ask my fuse the same question, young man," Professor Gadriel replied with a hearty guffaw. "It's not the direction the power flows in which matters-it's the total amount of power."
Peter nodded thoughtfully. "I can see why there would be a power surplus in this case, but if we are only teleporting objects from place to place on Earth, why do we need gestalt generators?"
"Well, of course," the professor replied, "you don't-or we would never have discovered psychic powers. Over short distances, for small masses, the power requirements are such that the psychic's own power is sufficient. It's only over long distances or with large masses that we require additional help.
"Of course, even over relatively short distance, we telekinetics require more power than we use-and that is a mystery," Professor Gadriel continued. "It is a mystery that I am trying to solve."
Peter laughed. "I thought the biggest mystery was how psychic powers worked at all."
Professor Gadriel threw up a dismissive hand. "That problem was solved long ago. Mon Dieu, what Teacher program have you been using? You have heard of Heisenberg, correct? And Schrodinger? You understand quantum mechanics, don't you?"
Peter found himself nodding decisively to all three questions. "I certainly do, Professor. At least I thought I did. I did pretty well on Teacher exams in physics, and general applications of quantum mechanics and string theory. But I'm afraid I don't precisely appreciate what quantum mechanics has to do with telekinetics."
"You do not? But I thought that everyone knew-" the professor broke off and slapped his forehead in disgust. "Ah, idiot! I cannot believe-"
"Professor, I'm very sorry to have distressed you. Maybe I should let you get back to your work," Peter said, dismayed at the professor's temper.
"No, not you-me!" The professor slapped his forehead again for good measure. "Perhaps you haven't had time lately to read the technical journals from CERN." When Peter shook his head, unwilling to admit that he didn't have time to read any technical journals, just manifest lists of where to send what, Gadriel nodded his head sympathetically. "Then you did not know that we, here at CERN, now know how telekinetics and all the psi powers work."
"You do?" Peter was shocked. "That is excellent news. With that knowledge we should be able to build gestalt generators to take us to the stars!"
"Ah, but it is not so easy, Mr. Reidinger," the professor said sadly. "Knowing how psi powers work is the easy part; making them work better-that is very difficult."
"How do they work, Professor?"
"Our psychic powers utilize the quantum mechanical effects of an observer on a macroscopic scale," the professor said simply. Peter looked confused. "You know that in the realm of quantum mechanics, simply observing a particle changes its state, correct? Professor Heisenberg embodied this in his Uncertainty Principle."