Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel Read Online Free PDF

soap bubbles!
    —DR. ARTHUR DWYER PACKARD,
    remark overheard by lab assistant
    and quoted by Duffy Hirshberg in
    “Packard—Behind the Myth”
    In light of events, it would be criminal to let them continue.
    —DR. J. JOSEPH RUSSELL,
    comment to newsmen after
    appearing before the Board of Inquiry
    Actually, they were on the wrong track to begin with. The problem was not to create a continuous and stable energy field at all—but only to overload a section of space. Once they began thinking of it in those terms, the solution was obvious—and even practical, considering the then existing technology.
    The answer lay in the use of a series of interlocking continuous fields. The noncontinuous field gives the illusion of continuity, but like a strobe light, the field is actually a very rapid series of ons and offs. Several noncontinuous fields working in phase can create a stable field. Each of the separate noncontinuous energy fields fills in the gaps of the others.
    Three noncontinuous fields can dovetail their functions to make one continuous one, and two continuous energy fields can be overlapped to generate the much sought after warp.
    When six field generators are working in phase and all on the same section of space, a great pressure quickly builds up. Something has now to give. Usually space does.
    —HOWARD LEDERER,
    Encyclopedia of 1,000 Great Inventions
    Dammit! Why didn’t I think of that!!
    —Remark attributed to DR. ARTHUR DWYER PACKARD
    Because, I did.
    —Remark attributed to DR. J. JOSEPH RUSSELL
    The warp has no relation at all to normal space. It is a bubble, or miniature universe. Within it a ship still obeys all the known laws of physics, but it is totally separated from the outer universe.
    The bubble, or warp, is made up of great energies locked together in a titanic embrace. The potential power inherent in that embrace is far greater than the sum of the component energy fields—not just because the bubble is a stable construct, but because it is a dimple in space itself. The very structure of existence is pressing against it, trying to restore itself to a condition of minimum distortion. With such an infinite store of unexpressed force to draw upon, the potential power of the system is almost unlimited. (In practice the limit is the size of the ship’s generators.)
    If the secondary set of fields is superimposed across this point of pressured space—that is, the warp—it acts to liberate some of this great power and simultaneously provides a focus for it. As every second sees the warp restored to stability, the bubble cannot collapse; but this continued release of energy must be somehow sublimated—and it is; the effect is the introduction of a vector quantity into the system.
    Because the shape of the secondary fields can be controlled, they can be used to produce a controllable velocity in any direction. The warp can be made to move at velocities many times the speed of light.
    The Einsteinian time-distortion is neatly sidestepped, as the ship is not really traveling faster than light—only the warp is. The ship just happens to be inside it. It is the warp that moves, the ship moves within the warp and is carried along by it. Consequently, a starship has two velocities, one is the realized faster-than-light velocity; the other is the inherent normal space velocity. . . .
    . . . . For maneuvering within a planetary system, inherent velocity is an important resource; but unless it is compensated for, it can cause havoc to a ship in warp. . . .
    —JARLES “FREE FALL” FERRIS,
    Revised Handbook of Space Travel
    Finally, any system will automatically try to tune out external disturbances by introducing a compensating multiplex vibration. Disturbances will be interpreted by each element of the system in terms of the specific function which the element was designed to cope with, and that element will react in terms of its interpretation of that disturbance. When all elements in the system are