Chapter Three:

Professor Ambergee’s paper on the new frontier in space travel read as if she’d invented it all, driven every idea, and the rest of the Professors, Grellin and Viniker and Maglen, had stopped by for a cup of tea while she was hip deep in it.

“This is an outrage!” Maglen informed the rest of them.

They sat at breakfast in one of the Professors’ lounges at the Academy. This was one of the smaller ones, with seating for roughly fifty people, tables with white linen, patterned dishes and cutlery, food provided by servants in red pants and jackets with blue turtle-neck shirts identifying them. The smell of breads and fried meat and juices filled the air. At one point, serving the Professors had been one of the jobs pushed off onto the scholars as a way for them to ‘earn their place,’ but that practice had been abandoned centuries ago. Red-uniformed staff helped to distribute the wealth of the Academy to those whose minds were not adequate to admit them.

Viniker drank from a ceramic cup, sipping sweet, hot coffee. The aroma filled his nose – he didn’t have many pleasures that he admitted to, but this was one of them.

They’d come to discuss Maree’s entry into the Professorship, and this tended to inhibit that.

“This was Maree’s work,” Grellin added, speaking Viniker’s mind. “I don’t see how we can submit her for acknowledgement when another Professor has already claimed credit for it.”

“She wasn’t supposed to publish until I at least got to read –“ Viniker began, but Maglen waved him quiet.

“No one cared about astrophysics before this experimentation,” the older Professor said. He leaned back and turned his gaze to the tall bank of windows opposite him. The view here was of rolling hills where scholars walked, some hand-in-hand, others alone or in groups. There were benches with persons in yellow and white, or even black, studying or just enjoying the morning.

The serenity outside belied the tension within.

“The world will certainly be caring about it now,” Grellin agreed. He rubbed his stubbled, grey chin with his left hand, his right holding his own cup of coffee. “We beat the dust – this is important on so many levels.”

“I think we can still move Maree forward on her acoustic drive,” Maglen said, still not looking at the rest of them. “In her haste to publish, Ambergee barely spoke of the acoustic drive.”

“She probably doesn’t understand it,” Viniker said, the scorn in his voice plain.

Grellin and Maglen looked sideways at each other, then back at the newest Professor. “Careful, that,” the former warned.

There existed a bond between Professors at the Academy – no matter their internal problems, they presented a united front to the rest of the world. A professorship was considered a crowning achievement in modern society – one that could be achieved by an elite few. Criticizing another Professor or disparaging his or her level of knowledge could get the guilty party ostracized from the rest of the Academy. Papers would be ignored, invitations to events lost in process.

“In fact,” Maglen said, his voice lowered as he leaned in to the other two, “she probably doesn’t – there is little common ground between acoustics and astrophysics.

“Grind her face in that,” the older man warned, “and she’ll opposes Maree’s elevation and, that done, your friend will be a scholar or less for the rest of her days.”

Viniker fumed. From the outside, even as a scholar, the Academy seemed to be a place where learning and the advancement of knowledge trumped everything. Now, as its newest Professor, he was seeing that politics reined here, just as it did in regular society.

It was disappointing.

“Should I publish a counter-paper, perhaps, or should Maree?” he asked.

The other Professors shook their heads. “Maree has already begun to submit a treatise on her acoustic engine,” Maglen said. “When it’s done, I’ll immediately put her forward. She should have her black robes in a year.”

Viniker had to remind himself that his own elevation had come exceptionally, and abnormally, quickly. Sound-based propulsion wasn’t the paradigm-shaking discovery that opposed-gravity had been.

Breakfast continued. Viniker was already scheduled for lectures on his method for his discovery. People were as interested in how he’d come to his conclusions, as they were in what those methods had brought him to. A new and better academic method, leading to similar discoveries, excited everyone.

As well, his personal wealth was expanding more quickly than he could account for it, and a good part of his day would be occupied managing it, if he didn’t quickly hire someone to do that for him. While many Professors might be over-joyed to have such a problem, Viniker had spent too many nights as a hermit, fighting his body’s needs against his mind’s, for wealth really to intrigue him. In fact, if not for Maree, he probably would still be wandering the campus in last-month’s haircut, old shoes falling apart and, at best, dressed in the first black robe that he ran across which was for sale. His apartment would still be barely more than a closet with a cot and a table, the floor littered with papers and books, and his cuisine would be the closest thing at the supermarket to the door.

When all of that was set aside, however, Viniker was going to find time to set aside, for a meeting with a Professor whose promises meant nothing to her.

Professor Ambergee sat alone in her office, her workspace bustling with new scholars who’d petitioned to study under her, her assistant’s telephone buzzing with requests that she speak.

Her lunch sat uneaten at a desk in front of her, where papers were stacked neatly and in order of importance to her from right to left. She leaned back in a new chair, padded in the skin of some unfortunate animal, and stared at the clean, white ceiling, as if it were a canvas for the rest of what would be her incredibly successful life.

Viniker stumping angrily into her personal space, to glare at her from across her desk, was an unwelcome if not unpredictable occurrence. The young man was angry – he should be. She’d published out from under him. She’d made him promise to share credit, and in fact she’d taken it all.

“I read your paper,” he began.

“I’ve amended it to include your name and to credit your contribution,” she informed him. A new Professor, he wouldn’t realize that no one read amendments to these papers. Often times, when these papers were archived or turned into texts, the amendments were left off.

“My contribution?” Viniker repeated. “Does it read, ‘All of the actual work, planning and thought performed by other parties?’”

Ambergee stiffened. “Without my lab,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Then let your lab write a paper,” he countered. “Professor, Maree and I beat the dust. In fact, the dust contributed more than you.”

Ambergee bristled. She’d been a Professor here for twenty years. She’d fought for this lab, for its resources, for the scholars that monitored the stars under her.

Viniker was going to want to go into space – he’d have no idea where to go, if not for her.

“You do not want to make an enemy of me,” Ambergee warned. “You’re going to want to continue to use my facilities – without them, you can fly blind into the solar system and wonder when your craft will return.”

Viniker smiled, and in that smile she saw that he’d already considered that before coming here. He might be a new Professor, but he learned quickly.

He reached into his black robe, and pulled a roll of paper out of it. He dropped it on her desk in front of her, glaring at her, daring her to read it.

“And what is that?” she asked him, making her voice sound bored.

“That is my research facility,” he said. “My telescopes, my monitors, my access to the satellite network.”

Ambergee felt her eyes widen as she snatched up the paper. “The Academy wouldn’t dare,” she heard herself saying aloud.

Even as she thought this, she caught herself. The Academy, in fact, might dare, but it simply couldn’t move that fast. This equipment was expensive – the people who could operate it were rare. Even if astrophysics were to explode in popularity, it would be a decade before the Academy could man another suitable facility.

“The Academy didn’t have to,” Viniker informed her. “I’m paying for it.”

Ambergee’s mouth dropped open. That hadn’t even occurred to her.

She herself had already ordered a fliver. The waiting list was a year long, and you had to pay in advance. Other vehicles, fueled by electricity and other fuels, were being abandoned and their factories being retooled for these craft that flew through the air, on the power of the sun.

The Academy would normally claim the lion’s share of profits from any Professor’s invention – in this case, the Academy hadn’t only not supported Viniker, it had opposed him. The speed of his professorship was a testament to how badly they wanted any part of his invention, and it was very likely that Viniker had negotiated quite a percentage for himself.

If he was now taking that wealth and spending it on the Academy himself – well, Deans and Board Directors did such things.

She could find herself assigned to a department that Viniker presided over, with her recent actions to compensate for.

She could fight him another day, when her feet were underneath her and her position secure. In time, she could destroy him if she had to.

For now, she needed to gather and to think, meaning that she couldn’t be at war with a young, wealthy Professor now.

“What is it, exactly, that you want?” Ambergee asked him. She leaned forward, looking into his blue eyes. She could lose ground now – she would make it up later. Regardless, the coming experiments had to be performed in her lab, with her people, and under her supervision. This science could not move forward without her.

He held her gaze, then looked away, seemingly at the wall behind her.

“What I want,” he said, “depends on what you could provide – and right now I can’t imagine what that is.”

With that, he turned and walked out. She called to him, and again, louder, drawing attention from her scholars – but neither mattered. Viniker crossed her lab and exited without a word.

Her assistant appeared at her door, her eyes down, waiting to be acknowledged. Ambergee just stared at the door, closed behind the young Professor.

What had she done?

“Good job,” Maree informed Viniker, through the wig in his ear.

An entirely new lab would have put Viniker in debt for a decade, even with the incredible wealth that he was already massing. A listening device and microphone, called an ear wig after the tiny parasite that could nestle undetected in a person’s ear, was inexpensive, as was a transmitter and receiver that worked with it.

After his lessons, after meeting with his new money manager, Viniker had discussed his plans with Maree, who’d discussed them with Maglen who, knowing that a conflict between the young Professor and Ambergee was inevitable, had advised this.

“Ambergee knows how to get ahead in the Academy,” Maglen warned them both. “If you fight her, you’re going to lose. She knows more than you can quickly learn.

“The answer,” he’d explained, “is to make her fight herself. Then, as she is occupied, you move on.” And so – this tactic. Viniker made her think that he would finance his own project, and let Ambergee’s own paranoia embrace her.

In the meantime, she would be unwilling to attack Viniker, not knowing what his next move would actually be.

Later that night, Maree and Viniker sat at dinner once again and asked each other just that.

“We have telemetry back from that craft we fired out into space,” Viniker informed Maree, referring to their first experiment with space travel – the vessel that failed to accelerate after 3,000,000 miles.

“And?” Maree asked.

The waiters were just setting their plates down in front of them. The seared meat smell filled Viniker’s nostrils. Even the vegetables here were steamed in natural gravy. His mouth watered as he spoke.

“It’s gone millions of miles,” he said, “and it’s not close to anything, it’s not detected anything that we didn’t already know about. It’s not taken as much damage from space debris as we thought it might, but what little it’s encountered has slowed it.”

Maree sighed. “I wish we could bring it back,” she said.

Viniker agreed. There would be a lot to learn from the craft now. “We could turn it around,” he said, “but with nothing to push against, that would just send it out backward.”

“We couldn’t even send out another probe,” Maree said. “It would cross the same distance – find the same problems-“

Viniker’s brow wrinkled. “Wait a moment,” he said.

Maree quieted, took a bite of the steak in front of her.

“If that probe had your acoustic drive,” he said, “it could turn itself around and come back on its own momentum.”

Maree nodded, watching him. Viniker was looking right through her, as if he could see that craft in space right now.

“But it would have no energy – or very little,” he continued. “The power of a solar cell, so far out, would barely power anything.

“But what if we sent a rescue craft, one WITH an acoustic drive and a large battery?”

Maree waited, and realized he was waiting for an answer. She took a sip of tart, red wine and thought. “I suppose you could send a robot, to install the battery,” she began, but he was already shaking his head.

“We can’t send out an army of robots to keep installing batteries,” he informed her. “I want to keep going, and to keep going faster, so I really don’t want to send it the battery, just the energy.”

“But no matter how much energy,” Maree countered, “you can only go so fast. As you approach the speed of light –“

Viniker cut her off. “That only works in a closed system,” he said. “I’ve always had a problem with that equation, now I know why.”

She leaned forward, “What are you on about?” she asked him, looking into his eyes.

He smiled, and stood, the meal forgotten. He was out the door, leaving her to follow or not to. She grimaced as she covered their bill and hustled after him, glad that they’d walked here.

A month later, they were back in Ambergee’s lab. This time they launched a larger, brand-new craft with an acoustic drive, a deflector, and a receptor array sitting safe in the hold of their ship. A press of a button transmitted a signal that told the craft to point the array back at Syriahs. It was able to send back telemetry and images to the Observatory, and was equipped with a rudimentary radar which could judge distances to other objects. Specifically, it could identify the previous craft that it would be chasing.

They launched the craft, this time named The Fisherman, after the last one. It would take a week for it to achieve its full speed.

That left Maree and Viniker with plenty to do.

A week later, an object that looked like a cannon had been mounted on a larger, older telescope which the Academy had been meaning to tear down, but never had.

The telescope was now a targeting device. The ‘cannon’ emitted a high-energy particle beam on command.

“We have a lock on The Fisherman,” one of the scholars on duty informed them.

Ambergee nodded. “Calculate the speed of the target, and then allow for speed-of-light travel for the expected beam,” she ordered another.

In the time that it had been travelling, not only had The Fisherman moved, but Syriahs had, as well. Ambergee had created the targeting sequence which would actually fire four-dimensionally, allowing for a target in three-dimensional-space, which it would have to hit not now, but minutes in the future.

“Tracking,” the scholar informed them. She looked up from her console, “We’re constantly correcting for time now. We should hit the target.”

“Deploy the receptor array,” Viniker ordered. The same scholar looked up at Ambergee, who nodded.

Ambergee, Viniker noted, was taking no chances. These people were to ignore his orders until she verified them.

“Fire,” Viniker told Ambergee. Ambergee nodded and relayed the order. A scholar simply pressed a button.

The particle beam cannon released a bright, yellow stream of energy into space.

“Cease fire,” Ambergee ordered. The cannon de-energized.

“Receiving telemetry,” another scholar, at another console, informed them. “There is interference from the particle beam.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Viniker informed them all. “We can have it repeat its logs as far back as we want.”

The waited, most them not realizing that they were holding their breath.

“Acceleration is at zero,” the scholar verified.

“Contact!” another announced, almost immediately. “The battery is recharged. The acoustic drive is re-engaging.”

They waited. Maree took Viniker’s hand in hers, but he barely realized it.

“Acceleration!” the scholar shouted, standing. Her blond hair flew around her shoulders as she looked about the room. “Past the previous threshold – we’ve exceeded maximum speed.”

“Calm yourself,” Ambergee warned the young woman. “Locate the previous probe.”

The woman ran a finger through her hair. Another scholar, a young man with close-cropped, brown hair and the usual white shirt and yellow pants, spoke up.

“I have the lock,” he said. “Changing course – acceleration is already approaching zero.”

“That’s to be expected,” Viniker assured them. “Are you still tracking?”

The scholar in charge of the particle cannon said, “We are.”

“Fire again,” Viniker said.

Without waiting for Ambergee to authorize the command, the excited scholar obeyed, sending another blast of energy to The Fisherman.

They all waited. “Cease fire,” Ambergee ordered him, before Viniker had the chance.

“Cease fire,” the male scholar repeated.

“Waiting on telemetry,” the blond, female scholar announced.

Again, the Observatory was silent. Maree felt almost as if they were actually weaving out history together, creating a tapestry for the ages.

The female scholar turned in her seat, smiling. “The Fisherman is gaining ground on the probe,” she announced. “At projected speed for the end of the acceleration period, it should overcome the first probe in a month.”

“The first probe is now designated, The Fish,” Viniker informed them. The smile on his face was telling – Maree felt it mirrored on her own.

Professor Ambergee’s eyes met both of theirs. To one side, Maglen watched silently, writing furiously in a portable pad he carried.

“What have we accomplished here?” she asked.