Null Infinity - Chapter 8

 Previous chapters can be found under the Forgotten Earth tab above.

Chapter 8

The departmental budget would let them get started on the experiment but eventually they would have to find a backer with more money. Lauren found a couple of used mobile field offices that could be shipped to the site. These would serve as shelter and maybe an overnight room if needed. She and Harry and anyone else they could find in support of the experiment would be staying at the Lacey Motel in Lacey, Georgia. Lauren had booked a block of rooms at a good price, apparently the city of Lacey wasn't much of a tourist destination. Harry and Lauren could see why when they made their first visit.

That part of the state of Georgia was once known as the wiregrass region and extended across approximately the bottom third. It was known for its longleaf pine trees and the eponymous wiregrass. The flat leaves of the grass appear cylindrical because they curl inward at the edges, like wires. The perennial grows in clumps to a length of about a twenty inches. It provides a carpet for the forest floor and an extensive open range for wild game. The region is probably still the most undeveloped of the state.

Harry and Lauren could be expected to share their research area with deer and gophers, bears and rattlesnakes, wolves and wild hogs. They would also share the area with harvester ants which have a stinger that could produce a rather painful sting. Harry and Lauren were suburban kids, so this was a new experience (after New Mexico) for them.

They arrived in Lacey late in the afternoon having started their drive before dawn from Atlanta. Lacey had a small downtown of about a dozen buildings on one side of main street and a railroad line on the other. Two restaurants including a pizza place were present, Harry especially noticed the pizza place.

QM #5

Above all, I hope there will eventually be a solution of the following type (but don't spread this around): That time and space are really only statistical concepts, something like, for instance, temperature, pressure, and so on, in a gas. It's my

Cislunar Collection

The new near-future Cislunar series short story collection is available for a limited time at 99 cents. These 8 stories take place in the region of space between Earth and the Moon and around the Moon known as Cislunar Space. These stories will feature the probable science and technology of the next hundred years as man makes a permanent abode in space. See the sidebar to order.

AW #3

Science fiction has immense value as a mind-stretching force for the creation of the habit of anticipation. Our children should be studying Arthur C. Clarke, William Tenn, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Robert Sheckley, not because these writers can tell them about rocket ships and time machines but, more important, because they

Null Infinity - Chapter 7

Previous chapters can be found under the Forgotten Earth tab above.

Chapter 7

The ride back seemed to take much longer than Harry expected. By the time the van stopped Lauren had fallen asleep. Soon the sliding van door opened.

“Let's go,” said the lieutenant.

Harry woke Lauren and they both exited the van to face what looked to Harry like the same building they been kept in before. Once inside, he was sure it was the same, he even stopped at “his” door waiting for the soldiers to open it so he could enter.

Inside he sat down on the bed and looked at the same room only this time without his luggage. He didn't even have a change of clothes and after the past couple of days he really needed a change of clothes. Even as uncomfortable as he was he finally fell asleep on top of the bed covers.

Harry was awakened by a knock on the door and then a soldier entered with a tray of food. After exchanging a brief greeting the soldier left. Harry looked at the tray, it was the same as before. This time he ate everything, not knowing when he might get to eat again. Just as he was finishing there was another knock on the door, this time Lieutenant Levi, his questioner entered.

QM #4

And I thought that, say, fifty years ago, that this would happen, that these revolutions [quantum mechanics, relativity] and advances in science would have an effect on mankind - on morals, on sociology, whatever. It hasn't happened. We're still up to the same things, or, well, I think, regressed in values. There's this terrible thing [cold war]

AW #2

Science fiction is based upon the belief that the world is changing, that the way we live is changing, and that humanity will adjust to it, or will adjust change to humanity, or will perish.

James Gunn - Alternate Worlds

QM #3

With science I felt I could grab on to actual things and try to understand them. And then they turn out to be so extraordinarily mysterious! Newton's laws of motion, the laws of the electromagnetic field, relativity - they're so far removed from experience, but yet there it is. It's a measure of all the other things that I look at. It gives you an

AW #1

 In any case we live, indisputably, in a science-fiction world. All around us we see evidences of a new order: life is not what it was for our fathers and mothers, and certainly not what it was for their fathers and mothers. Life moves faster, and we move with it or are left behind. We ride the back of galloping technology, and we cannot dismount without breaking our necks. We – at least most of us – watch pictures