Дэймон Найт: Orbit 11

.. . The McJunkins effect does not invalidate the principle of Einstein’s Relativity that simultaneity is meaningful only for reference systems at rest with respect to each other. The rate of time flow in—or rather on—the surface of a McJunkins field is not infinite and it will apparently vary according to the Einstein transformations.

WHAT GOOD IS IT?

Can the McJunkins field ever be more than a scientific curiosity? The final answer is not yet clear. The possibilities would seem endless—perfect suspended animation for starship crews or victims of incurable diseases, an impenetrable barrier, even an ideal refrigerator—but the simple fact is that we know of no way to turn off a McJunkins field once it has been created. For all practical purposes, the field, once established, will last forever. It might still have use as a weapon. A McJunkins field generator could be turned on and “freeze” an enemy for all time.

But this proposal, while possible, is impractical. Interestingly enough, the power requirement for establishing a McJunkins field is less dependent on the size of the field than on the total mass enclosed. The energy of several AN-bombs would be required to freeze even a small city. Small wonder that the first (and, to date, the only) McJunkins field established was not only small, but enclosed nothing but the field generator and a sphere of air!

In fact, only one proposal has been put forward for the use of the, McJunkins effect—and that proposal is little short of fantastic! It is so fantastic that one might be tempted to dismiss it as the suggestion of a crackpot. But the proposal comes from Dr. Roy M. Cullins and Dr. E. John Cain, both respected men in their fields.

We have known for three decades that the universe is cyclic in nature, Dr. Cullins points out. That is, our universe was preceded by another one which collapsed under its own gravity and was compressed almost into a geometrical point, then exploded in what has for a century been called the Big Bang. The matter expanded from the explosion and filled space, condensing into galaxies of stars. Our universe is still expanding, but the galaxies will, at some time in the distant future, cease their outward flight and begin the long fall back to the point where the universe was born, to fuse together again into an unbearably small space, then explode outward in a new Big Bang, giving birth to a new universe. This cycle had no beginning and will continue without end. And it is inconceivable that man, should he still exist in that far future, should survive the contraction of the universe.

A LIFEBOAT FOR DOOMSDAY?

Or it was inconceivable until the discovery of the McJunkins Effect. The proposal of Cullins and Cain is that a standard starship be fitted with a McJunkins generator powerful enough to create a field surrounding the ship. That ship could survive the collapse of the universe, for not even the weight of the collapsing universe could force anything into a zone where there is no time, hence no motion. When the new universe expanded and condensed into new galaxies, the ship would still be unscathed in its field and the crew would not have aged even a second from the moment that the field was established.

As had been stated earlier, for all practical purposes a McJunkins field lasts forever—but only from the standpoint of a human lifespan.

Actually, a McJunkins field, left to itself, will not last forever. For every field established, a time would eventually come when the field would break down as quickly as it had been established. The time between creation and collapse of the field is a function of the mass within the field. A field which enveloped the mass of a star would collapse almost as soon as it was generated. The field that Dr. McJunkins created in his experiment enclosed five pounds of generator and less than a pint of air and would last several hundred times the span of a cycle of the pulsating universe. By carefully measuring the mass of the starship within the field, Cullins and Cain observe, the field could be timed to collapse as little as a few billion years after the new Big Bang.

In this way, they argue, the human race could survive the death of the universe itself.

And the McJunkins effect, far from being a trivial curiosity, would have been proven to be the most important discovery in the history of the human race.

From the article, “The Incredible Field That Stops Time,” written by Roy Cullins under the pseudonym of David Lester for the telezine Popular Technology Monthly.

If one could observe them, the electrons in their vague orbits would be stilled, their positions no longer fuzzy zones of probability, but as definite as rigid crystal. But, though stripped of the cloak of the uncertainty principle, they are not revealed in their nakedness, for with time stopped, no medium of transmission can carry the message that they do not move.

Seeds have grown in skulls:

Roy Cullins said this “I think that the real cause of the opposition is that most people are afraid to risk it and face a strange new universe, but at the same time don’t intend to stand by and see somebody else survive the death of the universe.” Unfortunately, he said it at the wrong time. A light statement, it weighed no more than a straw on the back of a camel. A door was slammed and he could no longer look down and see a face on the pillow.

What he needed, he decided, was a cold shower. After drying, he disconnected the phone in the hotel room and attached his own illegal phone with built-in scrambler, then whistled for Elfred Cain.

“It’s got to be you, Cullins. Nobody else would call me at this time of the morning, not even my mother if my father was dying, or vice versa. You’re a dead man now, Cullins. My trained hamster with the poison-tipped fangs will be on your trail and you’re as good as six feet under. I would send him after your ass right now, but he needs his sleep too. Good night, dead man.” Click.

On the eighth call, before which the unleashing of the hamster was threatened six more times, each time with exactly the same wording, the real Cain answered the phone; “Mmmmmmggglpf?”

“Nice try, E. J., but I wasn’t fooled. You might be that banal at this time of the morning, but you would have been too dopey to organize the message that well. All you’re losing is a little sleep. I may have lost Erika.”

“Whopened?”

“Remember, she said that if I mentioned anything having to do with the Seed during one of those times once more, she would split that minute? I’m afraid that I said—”

“Did she put her clothes on before she left?”

“Hmmmmm.” Pause. “I don’t see them anywhere.”

“Well, she won’t be back for that reason. The. Yawn. The least she could have done was wait until you got your rocks off.”

“Well, actually this was the sixth time tonight—”

“Cullins, are you sure that she left over the Seed?”

“Roll it. Do you really have a killer hamster?”

“No, the hamster is a clever fabrication so that your mind will be diverted and my Tyrannsaurus Rex will take you completely off guard when he pounces.”

“Seems to me that she would understand that I have a lot on my mind. The vote on the appropriation for the Seed comes up in the A. U. Senate next week.”

“You’re worrying? The Senate currently consists only of Senators whom you have charmed over to our side and those whom you are blackmailing, like that one from Massajeryork Complex who has the secret mistress. . . .”

“Yes, I was able to convince him that the hard core of his Americas Homosexual Party would take a dim view of her. About Erika—”