"How does he look?"
Rising up in the center of the chamber was a squat metal cylinder, a
great ugly cone of dark gray. Technicians circled around it, wiring up
the exposed relay banks. Reinhart caught a glimpse of endless tubes
and filaments, a maze of wires and terminals and parts criss-crossing
each other, layer on layer.
"What is it?" Reinhart perched on the edge of a workbench, leaning his
big shoulders against the wall. "An idea of Jamison Hedge--the same
man who developed our instantaneous interstellar vidcasts forty years
ago. He was trying to find a method of faster than light travel when
he was killed, destroyed along with most of his work. After that ftl
research was abandoned. It looked as if there were no future in it."
"Wasn't it shown that nothing could travel faster than light?"
"The interstellar vidcasts do! No, Hedge developed a valid ftl drive.
He managed to propel an object at fifty times the speed of light. But
as the object gained speed, its length began to diminish and its mass
increased. This was in line with familiar twentieth-century concepts
of mass-energy transformation. We conjectured that as Hedge's object
gained velocity it would continue to lose length and gain mass until
its length became nil and its mass infinite. Nobody can imagine such
an object."
"Go on."
"But what actually occurred is this. Hedge's object continued to lose
length and gain mass until it reached the theoretical limit of
velocity, the speed of light. At that point the object, still gaining
speed, simply ceased to exist. Having no length, it ceased to occupy
space. It disappeared. However, the object had not been _destroyed_.
It continued on its way, gaining momentum each moment, moving in an
arc across the galaxy, away from the Sol system. Hedge's object
entered some other realm of being, beyond our powers of conception.
The next phase of Hedge's experiment consisted in a search for some
way to slow the ftl object down, back to a sub-ftl speed, hence back
into our universe. This counterprinciple was eventually worked out."
"With what result?"
"The death of Hedge and destruction of most of his equipment. His
experimental object, in re-entering the space-time universe, came into
being in space already occupied by matter. Possessing an incredible
mass, just below infinity level, Hedge's object exploded in a titanic
cataclysm. It was obvious that no space travel was possible with such
a drive. Virtually all space contains _some_ matter. To re-enter space
would bring automatic destruction. Hedge had found his ftl drive and
his counterprinciple, but no one before this has been able to put them
to any use."
Reinhart walked over toward the great metal cylinder. Sherikov jumped
down and followed him. "I don't get it," Reinhart said. "You said the
principle is no good for space travel."
"That's right."
"What's this for, then? If the ship explodes as soon as it returns to
our universe--"
"This is not a ship." Sherikov grinned slyly. "Icarus is the first
practical application of Hedge's principles. Icarus is a bomb."
"So this is our weapon," Reinhart said. "A bomb. An immense bomb."
"A bomb, moving at a velocity greater than light. A bomb which will
not exist in our universe. The Centaurans won't be able to detect or
stop it. How could they? As soon as it passes the speed of light it
will cease to exist--beyond all detection."
"But--"
"Icarus will be launched outside the lab, on the surface. He will
align himself with Proxima Centaurus, gaining speed rapidly. By the
time he reaches his destination he will be traveling at ftl-100.
Icarus will be brought back to this universe within Centaurus itself.
The explosion should destroy the star and wash away most of its
planets--including their central hub-planet, Armun. There is no way
they can halt Icarus, once he has been launched. No defense is
possible. Nothing can stop him. It is a real fact."
"When will he be ready?"