“Why three zero nine six point nine MeV?” Bill asked.
“That question was on the tip of my tongue,” Spectre said, bracing his feet. “Yes, indeed, Miss Moon. Why… what he said?”
“I’m not a particle physicist but, isn’t three zero nine six point nine MeV the rest mass of the J/psi particle?” Miriam asked.
“Maulk. I wish my memory would do that,” Bill replied. “That sounds right. I’ll have to look it up.” He looked it up on the ship’s science net and, sure enough, Miriam was right.
“So?” Spectre glanced over at the COB, who was reluctant to release his hold on the bulkhead stanchion. “How does this help?”
“I need to think on it some more but the suggestion is to feed it J/psi particles to adjust the gravity and by increasing or decreasing the half life of the particle just means to increase or decrease its relativistic speed and therefore cause time dilation to occur, which in turn makes us in our reference frame observe that the particle lives longer than it should in a rest frame.”
“And, Commander Weaver?” the CO was out of patience.
“Sorry sir, we aren’t set up for creating J/psi particles. But it does tell us that the pions we are using are making it worse.” Bill tapped a couple more commands and hit enter with dramatic emphasis.
“We should signal the all hands for zero gravity, sir,” Bill said.
“Make it so.”
“ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS. PREPARE FOR ZERO GRAVITY AND CHILL.”
“Someone want to tell me what the heck just happened?” the CO asked. “I do recall someone promising me that this astrophysics survey was going to be event free!”
“Well, sir,” Bill said, slowly and thoughtfully. “I think the black box knows how to adjust for gravity fluctuations of all sorts by inputting different types of mesons. I never really thought of that but it makes sense that it’s got to have some sort of potential control system to deal with the effects we’ve been having trouble with. And apparently the different flavors of mesons have different effects on the thing just like electrons make it go boom. The Mu Ori system is a fairly good sized A type star of about three or more solar masses that has two sets of F binaries orbiting it at very close orbits. The F type binaries are at orbits more like planets from each other rather than like stars. So there are a lot of spinning massive objects here.” Weaver stopped as the CO held up his hand.
“And the box wasn’t set to account for mixed-up gravity. I get it. And we went to zero gravity because we don’t have these J/psi things to adjust it properly?” Spectre asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I was right! We should’ve just turned off the ball to start with?”
“Uh, yes sir. But…” Weaver decided not to finish whatever it was he was going to say. Which was that if the anomaly had been Tchar’s first guess, anomalous particle input, they might not have been able to shut off the drive. Or get it started again. Or several other bad things ranging up to making a new star in the system.
“XO, get me a damage report. Mr. Weaver, don’t you have an astrophysical survey to do?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And figure out how we’re going to get out of this mess!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I need to address the crew.”
“All hands, all hands, this is the CO speaking. What we just experienced was an unanticipated frame dragging anomaly. Following the chill and survey of this region, we will be leaving. We may encounter additional frame dragging anomalies. So grab your barf bags. Thank you for flying Vorpal Air.”
“What the pock is a ‘frame dragging anomaly’?” Portana spat.
“Search me, Portly,” Sergeant Priester said. “Two-Gun? You’re the only guy who gets this stuff.”
“You sure?” Berg asked. “Kinda technical.”
“Just give it to us straight, man,” Lyle said with a fake whine tone. “Tell us how grapped we are! We can handle it! We’re marooned, aren’t we? Stuck in the depths of space with no way—”
“We get it, Lurch,” Berg said, grinning. “Nice way to scare the newbies. But, if you really want to know. I recently found a paper in the database that Lieutenant Commander Weaver wrote about the data in the Gravity Probe B satellite…” Berg started.
“Oh maulk, here we go,” Priester said. “Tell us how much you’re in love with the astro.”
“Grapp you, Priestman,” Berg said. “Honestly, I didn’t understand the paper; it was way over my head. But he did have a simple analogy in it to explain the concept. It has to do with…”
“So, Commander Weaver,” Spectre said silkily. “Kindly explain to your CO, who you convinced over his protestations that an astrophysics survey would be a good thing, what this ‘frame dragging’ thing is, why it grapped up my ship and crew and why you failed to anticipate it.”
“Well, sir,” Bill said with a gulp. “I never really thought it would be a big deal. Until now.”
“Uh huh. Keep going. Feel free to use words of more than two syllables.”
“It has to do with general relativity, sir,” Bill said carefully.
“I did say more than two,” the CO replied. “But relativity is a bunch.” He looked down at his fingers and moved his lips. “Five, actually.”
“Then imagine that space is like a big rubber sheet that is stretched tight. Kinda like a trampoline. And assume our model is being done on Earth so we have one gravity.”
“But space is three dimensions and one of time right?” Spectre said, then winced. He was opening up himself for a full-scale Weaver-assault with that one.
“Oh, this is a two-D analogy sir…”
Whew. Escaped by the skin of my teeth…
“Anyway, consider what happens to our trampoline if you place a lead bowling ball in the middle of it. That would be the analog of the sun.”
“So far, so good.”
“Well, the space around the ball, the sun, curves in on it and is stretched.”
“That’s ‘frame dragging’?”
“Not yet, sir. But, if you spin the ball and allow for there to be friction between the ball and the rubber sheet, the sheet will twist with the ball and bunch up around it. You get my description?”
“Yeah, I can see that. So the space around you is the reference frame you are in and the spinning star drags it around it as it spins?”
“Precisely, sir! I wrote a paper about how if we prove that it exists, then we are a step closer to understanding how to do a warp drive, but that was before the Dreen and the world went to shit.”
“So, where’s the problem, Commander? This frame dragging should be around the star. Localized. We’re a couple of light-years out!”
“Well sir, there are five stars in this system and all of them spinning like maulk.”
“Oh grapp.”
“So,” Portana said, carefully. “Two-Gongoron wan’s t’ habe the astrogator babies and too many star spinning too fas’ in a small space is pad. Why you not say t’at in t’e firs’ place?”
“Hey,” Priester said, leaning back in his bunk. “Welcome to the Space Marines. Please leave your brain at the door.”
“XO!”
“Sir,” the XO said.
“Put a note in the log,” the CO said, standing up and looking around the compartment. It had taken nearly an hour of nerve-wracking and gut-twisting maneuvers to clear the system. “Unless ordered by higher, no more close studies of astrophysics anomalies.”