The Cold Steel Mind Read Online Free PDF Page B

core,’ Al said. ‘It seems to be entirely intact and of a far more advanced design than anything any of the current races have.’
    ‘That’s right, Aneka,’ Gillian said, sounding a little surprised. ‘You’ve grasped the concepts of our networking technologies?’
    ‘Basic computer networking infrastructure was part of my facilitator training.’ Something about what Al had said was nagging at Aneka and she could not quite put her finger on it. ‘Well,’ she said to Al, ‘don’t distract Cassandra, if that’s possible. Otherwise, enjoy your chat.’
    ‘Cassandra is as capable of multi-tasking as you are.’
    ‘Of course she is.’ Aloud she added, ‘Anything you want for the labs, or shall we go on?’
    They moved on to the medical bay. Aneka slipped her jacket off, popped open her backpack, and the mundane, but important, process of recording and packing dozens of bottles and other containers began. None of them looked like the contents had survived the long wait in the vacuum, but there was possibly residue to analyse and Gillian was determined that they should miss absolutely nothing.
    There were a number of instruments to be catalogued as well: injectors, scanners, various things which appeared to be for parting something to allow someone to look inside, as well as more mundane devices like tweezers. The clever, high-tech, bit of mundaneness was the tube-shaped device that Ella stated was a laser scalpel. Aside from that there was a medical bench with an array of manipulator arms around it. It all looked incredibly complex.
    ‘If the Xinti didn’t think much about bodies, why all the medical paraphernalia?’ Aneka asked.
    ‘I doubt they could replace them outside one of their stations or worlds,’ Gillian replied. ‘If they died out here, they were dead.’
    ‘Couldn’t they just… restore a backup?’
    Gillian had obviously considered this. ‘Unless they had some form of moral qualm about that, yes. However, all the experience they had gained on the mission would be lost. Hence good medical facilities.’
    ‘I think Doctor Wallace is going to want to see this table,’ Ella said. ‘I think this is like the scrapped field medic robots we’ve found on old battlefields, but this is intact.’ She glanced back at Aneka. ‘They could perform even very delicate operations in battlefield conditions. They used nanofibre probes to get into the body without causing excessive tissue damage.’
    ‘They really had technology far in advance of what you have even now, didn’t they?’
    ‘Some of what they could do was… magic to us.’
    ‘None of this is magic,’ Aneka said, ‘just really, really advanced.’
    ‘I think Doctor Wallace might disagree when he works out what that warp core can do,’ Al said.
    ~~~
    ‘It’s not possible,’ Wallace said as they sat around eating their evening meal. ‘That drive is not possible.’
    ‘Told you so.’ Al sounded a little smug.
    ‘What’s the problem, Abraham?’ Gillian asked. She was grinning; her friend’s perplexity amused her.
    ‘It’s a binary core,’ Wallace explained. ‘All our warp engines have a single core.’ He glanced at Aneka and apparently felt that a more basic explanation was required; he was not entirely wrong. ‘The warp core produces a, well, a warping of space-time. Essentially it foreshortens space in front of the ship and extends it behind. This allows the vessel to exceed the speed of light while not actually breaking the rule that nothing can travel faster than light. Even our largest engines have a single core system, generating a single warp field, and this limits the efficiency of the drive.’
    ‘Okay,’ Aneka said, since he had directed most of the last part at her. ‘This one has two cores which somehow makes it more efficient.’
    ‘Exactly. One generator pulls, the other pushes, if you will. Actually, from the power feeds it’s not really more efficient, but the resulting drive is half the size of an