KOTTO OKIAH
With the Big Ring finally completed, Kotto felt giddy with joy and anticipation, yet also intimidated.
For years he had led the Roamers to this, guided the construction crews, drawn his designs, and told the clan engineers what to do. He had racked up an incalculable expense—not that he had ever been good at finances or budgeting. The data produced during the test might change fundamental comprehension about the underlying structure of the universe, might open up huge system-to-system transportals like the much smaller ones the Klikiss had left behind in their ruins. Or it might do something else entirely.
This project was not hubris—it was audacity. Such was the heart of a Roamer, and Kotto wanted to remind all of the clans, as well as the Confederation and the Ildiran Empire, exactly what Roamers were best at. He wanted his Big Ring to be a bright example for the bold, optimistic vision that had always driven the clans.
After receiving the completion report from Station Chief Alu, Kotto just stood inside his laboratory module and stared out the windowport. It was done.
The Ring design was deceptively simple, just a giant doughnut loaded with a cascading loop of power blocks that, when operated in sequence, would create a ring current greater than anything ever recorded. That current would generate a cross-magnetic field, turning the Big Ring into a freestanding magnetic coil with the diameter of a small moon.
Right now, the Ring hung edge-on to the incredible furnace of the keystone stars in the Fireheart nebula. When the experiment began, maneuvering jets would turn the Big Ring on its axis, so that the intense stellar flux would flow through the center of the Ring, like a high-energy fire hose gushing through the superconducting magnetic coil. That would cause a logarithmic increase in the magnetic field, thereby increasing the current in the Ring, which would in turn further enhance the magnetic field … in an ever-accelerating spiral.
Kotto felt excited just to imagine the possibilities, but even his highest-order mathematics could not predict what would happen beyond that point. He just hoped the experiment would work, that his legacy as a genius would remain secure. It had been a long time since Kotto had shown he was the greatest Roamer scientist, and he needed to prove it again—to himself as well as to everyone else.
Shareen Fitzkellum and Howard Rohandas had surprised him with how easily they solved problems that had stymied him for years. When they grew older they would build upon his work and maybe stand beside him in the history books. But not yet. The Big Ring would put Kotto back on a pedestal for years to come.
Chief Alu pressed him for a demonstration date, but this was no time to rush the work. Three more days. Although the Ring was constructed and could be operated at any time, Kotto exercised due caution. He called for more extended testing to verify every single connection, every vital component. He didn’t consider it stalling. Now that he had reached this point, he was a little afraid to see the project come to its end, one way or another.
And if it failed …
As instructed, Shareen and Howard had delivered their proposed new designs for the filter-flow system, along with a thorough analysis on another frivolous brainstorm he’d had one sleepless night years ago—a kind of photonic shield that could bend light around objects and make them invisible. Howard Rohandas had written a lengthy proof, demonstrating that the concept was physically impossible and could not work along the lines Kotto suggested. He took Howard at his word without going through the many pages of derivation. Kotto himself had never been able to solve that particular problem, though he had secretly harbored the hope that his young lab assistants might find a miraculous work-around. No such luck.
Well, it didn’t really matter. The Big Ring was the focus of his energies and his dreams right now.
He invited Shareen and Howard to join him as he went to the station’s launching bay, where he had reserved an inspection pod large enough to carry three passengers. “This is my reward for the good work you two have done.”
Shareen’s eyes were bright. “Are we going out there? To see the Ring for ourselves?”
“Thank you, sir.” Howard was polite, as always. “We both very much look forward to seeing the Big Ring.”
“We will commence the actual experiment in a few days and demonstrate the wonders of big science.” Kotto ushered them toward the inspection pod.
Since Shareen had plenty of experience flying, she offered to pilot the pod, and Kotto happily gestured her toward the controls. He was a competent pilot himself, but he preferred to spend his attention looking out the windowport. The Big Ring always took his breath away.
The small craft flew into the ionized sea, heading toward the curved sections of the enormous torus. Countless nebula workers swarmed like insects over the outer skin, testing power blocks and aligning amplifiers. Kotto scanned a stream of reports that he received on his datapad. “Everything is proceeding nicely. The complete round of final checks might be done in three days, and then we’ll see the Big Ring in operation.”
Shareen flew them through the center of the torus like threading a needle and looped around so they could follow the curve, riding the Ring up and around. Howard drank in the details of the construction, but Shareen seemed preoccupied. Kotto thought that something was bothering her. Finally, she blurted out, “Are you absolutely sure about this, sir? We looked at complete copies of your Big Ring plans—Howard and I studied every detail. We ran and reran your calculations.”
Kotto frowned. “But I haven’t even released the complete plans.”
“We obtained access to the records, sir,” Howard said. “After we finished the other work you assigned us, we wanted to verify your calculations. Just as an exercise.”
“We think there’s something wrong,” Shareen interrupted. “We found no overt errors, but some of the conclusions are iffy. A few anticipated results just don’t follow, and we question the assumptions.”
Kotto felt as if he’d been struck, and he couldn’t help but react defensively. “I did not give you permission to comb through my work. Besides, I … I didn’t put down every detail of my thinking. You must have missed a step.”
Howard sounded apologetic. “We were able to connect the mathematics, sir. After the exercises you gave us, we’re familiar with your thought processes, so we figured—”
Kotto looked back and forth between the two young assistants, growing alarmed. “You should not have done that.”
“But we think there’s a problem,” Shareen said. “The Big Ring might not work the way you expect it to.”
“I intend to keep an open mind. It is an experiment. We will operate the Ring, look at the results, and then draw our conclusions. We don’t need to understand the answers before we run the tests.”
Shareen sounded frustrated. “But we think there’s cause for caution. You should reconsider before going into full operation.”
“We can’t! Final testing will be complete in three days.” Kotto glanced down at his pad. “And the experiment will proceed as scheduled. I won’t hear any more of it from two junior assistants.”
Howard fell into silence. Shareen’s cheeks rippled as she clenched her jaw. Obviously stung, she flew away from the Big Ring and headed back toward the docking bay in the main station.
Kotto leaned back in the seat, crossed his arms, and tried to pretend that he was indignant rather than panicked. He didn’t want to admit to himself that Shareen and Howard had merely echoed and amplified his own doubts. After such an investment in time, effort, money, and Roamer pride, Kotto simply could not call off the Big Ring test.
But, in a small place deep in the back of his mind, he was afraid that Shareen and Howard were right.