Massimo Villata The Dark Arrow of Time A Scientific Novel Science and Fiction Series editors Mark Alpert, New York, NY, USA Philip Ball, London, UK Gregory Benford, Irvine, CA, USA Michael Brotherton, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA Victor Callaghan, University of Essex, Essex, UK Amnon H Eden, University of Essex, Colchester, Essex, UK Nick Kanas, formerly University of California, Kentfield, CA, USA Geoffrey Landis, Berea, OH, USA Rudi Rucker, Los Gatos, CA, USA Dirk Schulze-Makuch, Pullman, WA, USA Rüdiger Vaas, Center for Philosophy and Foundations of Science, University of Giessen, Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany Ulrich Walter, Institute of Astronautics, TU München, Garching, Germany Stephen Webb, DCQE, Portsmouth, UK Science and Fiction—A Springer Series Thiscollectionofentertaining andthought-provokingbookswillappeal equallyto science buffs, scientists and science-fiction fans. It was born out of the recognition that scientific discovery and the creation of plausible fictional scenarios are often two sides of the same coin. Each relies on an understanding of the way the world works, coupled with the imaginative ability to invent new or alternative explanations—and even other worlds. Authored by practicing scientists as well as writers of hard science fiction, these books explore and exploit the borderlands between accepted science and its fictional counterpart. Uncovering mutual influences, promoting fruitful interaction, narrating and analyzing fictional scenar- ios, together they serve as a reaction vessel for inspired new ideas in science, technology, and beyond. Whether fiction, fact, or forever undecidable: the Springer Series “Science and Fiction” intends to go where no one has gone before! Its largely non-technical books take several different approaches. Journey with their authors as they (cid:129) Indulge in science speculation—describing intriguing, plausible yet unproven ideas; (cid:129) Exploit science fiction for educational purposes and as a means of promoting critical thinking; (cid:129) Explore the interplay of science and science fiction – throughout the history of the genre and looking ahead; (cid:129) Delve into related topics including, but not limited to: science as a creative process, the limits of science, interplay of literature and knowledge; (cid:129) Tell fictional short stories built around well-defined scientific ideas, with a supplement summarizing the science underlying the plot. Readers can look forward to a broad range of topics, as intriguing as they are important. Here just a few by way of illustration: (cid:129) Time travel, superluminal travel, wormholes, teleportation (cid:129) Extraterrestrial intelligence and alien civilizations (cid:129) Artificial intelligence, planetary brains, the universe as a computer, simulated worlds (cid:129) Non-anthropocentric viewpoints (cid:129) Synthetic biology, genetic engineering, developing nanotechnologies (cid:129) Eco/infrastructure/meteorite-impact disaster scenarios (cid:129) Future scenarios, transhumanism, posthumanism, intelligence explosion (cid:129) Virtual worlds, cyberspace dramas (cid:129) Consciousness and mind manipulation More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11657 Massimo Villata The Dark Arrow of Time fi A Scienti c Novel 123 Massimo Villata Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino INAF PinoTorinese (TO) Italy ISSN 2197-1188 ISSN 2197-1196 (electronic) Science andFiction ISBN978-3-319-67485-8 ISBN978-3-319-67486-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67486-5 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017953782 TheauthorpublishedtheItalianeditionin2012withaselfpublishing,namedilmiolibro. 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Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland Contents 1 Very Fidgety, the Fat Lady Next to Him. .... .... .... ..... .... 1 2 They Were Flying Over Gentle Crimson Hills .... .... ..... .... 7 3 Helias Slept Fitfully. .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 13 4 Why Did You Do that?.. ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 21 5 The Next Morning It Rained .. .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 33 6 Seated Behind His Enormous Desk . .... .... .... .... ..... .... 43 7 A Sort of Autumn Had Arrived.... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 59 8 The Professor, with His Most Blissful Expression.. .... ..... .... 71 9 As They Came Closer to Mars. .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 83 10 The Pilot and the Prisoner Had Reached the Shuttle... ..... .... 91 11 Nothing Moved in the Silent Valley. .... .... .... .... ..... .... 101 12 Helias Was Stretched Out on the Floor of His Room... ..... .... 109 13 Are They High Enough Yet? .. .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 115 14 The Meeting Had Left Helias Kadler Shaken and Confused.. .... 125 15 In that Moment, Helias Could Remember Very Little of His Conjectures ... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 131 16 But Dr. Kadler, that Hot Afternoon Near a Sea on the Planet Thaýma .. .... .... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 139 17 Helias Had Sat Down on the Step .. .... .... .... .... ..... .... 149 18 Everything Had Ended Well... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 151 Appendix: The Science Behind the Fiction ... .... .... .... ..... .... 153 v Chapter 1 Very Fidgety, the Fat Lady Next to Him Veryfidgety,thefatladynexttohim.Grippingthearmreststightly,everyonceina while she would jerk her head a bit to one side or the other, for no clear reason. It was obviously her first trip, and you could tell from the blank look on her face, blank but strained, uncertain. Itwasthefirsttimeforhimtoo.It’snotthathewasn’tafraid,hewasjusttrying to hide it, even from himself. And he was managing pretty well. Tosomeextent,actually,hewasmodelinghimselfontheseriousmantwoseats down, who—at least apparently—was impassibly, calmly absorbed in his own thoughts, as if he did this every day, all just part of the job. Ontheotherside,abitfartherdown,ablackmanwasmurmuringsomekindof litany, like a subdued propitiatory chant. They were allon asingle, slightly curvingrow ofseats, onebesideanother.He was almost in the center. Fifteen people, one seat was empty. It was almost nine o’clock, almost time for liftoff before the transmission. The cabin with the sixteen seats at the center of the big room full of machinery was closed,andtheenormoushatchintheceilingbegantoopen.Itwouldjustbeafew minutes more, long enough to finish docking. Itwasn’tarealtrip.Ashehadlearnedincollege,itwasn’taquestionofmoving people or things from one place to another, at a certain speed and taking a certain amount of time. That wouldn’t have been remotely feasible. Where he was going, around six parsecs1 away, a trip would have taken several years at the speeds that could be achieved, even allowing for the relativistic contraction of distances. Bynow,realtripswereonlyusedforshortdistances,inside thesolarsystemor itsimmediate neighborhood. Buteventhey wereabout tobemade obsolete bythe recent advances in the transmission technique, cheaper in terms of energy though stillriskier,relativelyspeaking.Aprobabilityofaroundthreeperthousandofbeing lost for good in cosmic space, he’d read somewhere. So it wasn’t a trip, then, really just a hop, skip and a jump. Skipping a lot of trouble, too. 11parsec(cid:1)3.26light-years. ©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017 1 M.Villata,TheDarkArrowofTime,ScienceandFiction, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67486-5_1 2 1 VeryFidgety,theFatLadyNexttoHim Our common existence is played out in a space-time continuum where moving fromonepointtoanothernecessarilytakesatimewhichispositiveandgreaterthan zero. Howmuchgreaterdepends onthespeed. Intheory,high speeds closetothat of light make it possible to reduce the amount of time needed at will. Any given distance can be covered in a time less than that taken by light, even though the speed of light, as we know, cannot be reached or exceeded in our ‘world’. What changes is the passage of time, and the measure of the distances. If a spaceship travelsatavelocityclosetothespeed oflight,sayatv = 0.995c,2overadistance (measuredfromEarth)oftenlight-years,fromourpointofviewitwilltakeslightly overtenyearstocompleteitstrip.Fortheastronaut,ontheotherhand,thedistances aresignificantlyshorter,byaroundafactoroften,3andsothetraveltimewillalso be shorter. Consequently, the normal, real interstellar voyages last for small frac- tions of the astronauts’ lives, while decades go by back on Earth. Theyarealmostalwaysone-waytrips,bywholefamiliesorsocialgroupssetting outtocolonizenewplanets.Newsaboutthetripsarrivessporadically,andhowthey turned out will only be known many years later. The whole business, in any case, involves monumental wastes of time and energy. Transmission was a real revolution. It is not a trip in our world. Somebody had dubbed it “riding the light”. Fifty-five seconds. Fifty-four. Fifty-three. The fat lady vacillates between apparent calm and attacks of the jitters. The buzzing resonates more loudly, its frequency increasing.Nowitisalmostahiss.Orthat’showitseems,atleast.Thesleepinggas pumped through the mask begins to take effect, and it is hard to tell what is really goingon.Throughtheportholes,heglimpsestheattendantscheckingtheseatbelts, the masks and the monitors one last time. The seats tip back. The fat lady goes limp. Helias turns his head to look at the serious man, still imperturbable, though his face behind the mask seems to lengthen and change color. Thelongfaceisinfrontofhimnow,maskoffandeyeshalfclosed.Thenitstartsto revolvearoundthetipofthenose,slowlyatfirst,thenwhirlingfasterandfaster.So fast it is just concentric circles, light and dark. Slowing again, it comes to a halt, upsidedown.Nowitiswearingapairofdarkglasses,ovallensesfittingclosetothe face. “We’ve arrived” it whispers to him, the voice calm and reassuring. The fat ladyisstillsleepingandlookslikeshe’llprobablybeatitforawhile.Betterlether wake up in her own good time. The black man is already on his feet, ramming on the eyeglasses handed to him and striding off toward the open door of the cabin, swinginghissuitcasepurposefully.Fourpeopleontherightarestillsleeping.Some oftheseatsarealreadyempty.Ablondgirlstartstostir,whileHelias’sseatreturns to the upright position and he puts his feet down. The seatbelts unlatch automati- cally.Abithesitantly,hegetsup,findshisluggage,activatestheflotationunitand 2c(cid:1)299,800km/sisthespeedoflight. 3Thedistancescontractbyafactorc=(1−b2)−1/2,whereb=v/c.Inthecaseconsideredhere, b=0.995,sowewillhavec(cid:1)10.01. 1 VeryFidgety,theFatLadyNexttoHim 3 startsfortheexit,alreadywearinghisglasses.Theseriousmanseemstobewaiting for him over there, leaning on a machine in the open-ceilinged concourse. Heliaslookedupatthesky.Itseemeddarkblue,butmaybethatwasbecauseofthe concentrator lenses in his glasses. There wasn’t much visible light on that planet. But its sun emitted plenty of infrared. The glasses increased the frequency of the infrared photons, moving them into the optical band where the human eye could ‘see’ them. Though this resulted in having enough photons to be able to see, the colors were obviously muddled, a sort of dusky, artificial Daltonism in the gloaming. He walked past the serious man, pretending not to see him but sneaking a look through the dark glasses. The quiet voice made itself heard again. “Dr. Helias Kadler?” That voice, calming and disquieting at the same time. “Yes? Yes, I’m Kadler.” “IknowyouaregoingtotheKusmiriCenter.Ifyouwish,Icantakeyouthere.” Itwasallverystrange.Andsowhowasthisman?Whatdidheknowabouthim and his ‘call’? He hadn’t said, “I’m here to take you to the Center.” But “If you wish,Iwilltakeyouthere”.Sohewasn’ttheretowelcomehim.Howcouldhehave been,inanycase,sincehehadarrivedfromEarthwithhim?Histrip,forhim,had gone by in a flash, an instant. But on Earth, twenty years had passed. If he had immediatelygonebacktoEarth,orrather,ifhehadbeen‘retransmitted’,hewould havebeenhome again an instant later,butforty years after his departure, andwith no guarantee that things would still be the way they were before. No wonder that transmissions beyond a certain distance were, at least these days, always one-way trips. And so how could that imperturbable man have arrived together with him from Earth,andatthesametimeofferhimselfasaguidetotheplace?Butmaybeitwas just his impression, since the man been so nonchalant about the transmission, and seemed so much at ease on that planet. Maybe he was a newcomer like him, but simply was well informed about the local topography or means of transportation. Butevenso,howdidheknowhisname,andwhydidheoffertoaccompanyhim? “How do you know my name?” “I am called Mattheus Bodieur.” He hadn’t answered the question, but at least he had introduced himself. “Are you from here, sir?” Before responding, he glanced around as if he wanted to make sure he wasn’t overheard. “Yes.” He was lying. If not, he would have had to have left at least forty years earlier, apparentlyforthesolepurposeof‘accompanying’aperson—him—whoatthetime was twenty years younger. Just a child, in other words. Helias’s first impulse was to say goodbye to the lying stranger and go his own way, following the directions given to him before departure. But his curiosity was piqued, and with his temperament, he wasn’t about to leave without getting to the 4 1 VeryFidgety,theFatLadyNexttoHim bottom of this. He stood looking fixedly at the serious man’s dark glasses, noting that his skin seemed brown. “Ifyouneedtothinkaboutit,mayIatleasthavethepleasureofofferingyoua real Alkenian ice cream at the station emporium? It’s just what you need as a pick-me-up after the ‘jolt’.” A ‘jolt’, he called it. “Since you are so kind…. Thank you.” The Alkenian ice cream was superb, he had never eaten one like it. By com- parison,theonesonEarthwerepaleimitations.Itreallyhadbeenapick-me-up,and now he felt more relaxed and in tune with that unknown planet. “Are you really from here?” “Yes.” “And when did you leave for Earth?” No answer. “You would have had to have left at least forty Earth years ago. Incidentally, how long does an Alkenian year last?” He knew perfectly well. It was just to keep the ball rolling. “Around407Alkeniandays,that’s378Earthdays.There’snotmuchdifference with Earth, and so it doesn’t take long to get used to it.” “Why do you want to accompany me to the Center?” Silence. “How do you know my name?” “It was on the passenger manifest.” “Did you offered to accompany all of the passengers?” “No.” “And so you left here at least forty Earth years ago. You arrived on Earth, you found that I was coming here and you decided to accompany me? Doesn’t that strike you as absurd?” “More or less.” “That’s not a very precise answer, wouldn’t you say?” Hewassilentforamoment,andthenmurmured,almosttohimself,“There’sthe trick.”. “What trick?” The question was ignored. He finished his ice cream meticulously and went to pay.ThenhemotionedtoHeliastogooutwithhimandinthedoorway,puttinghis glasses back on, said “You will know in due time.”. Any electromagnetic signal, such as light pulse or, for the sake of simplicity, a single photon,travelsinemptyspace—avacuum—ataconstantspeedcofaround300,000km persecond.Thisspeedisindependentofthemotionofthelightsourceandofthemotionof whoever or whatever receives the photon.All observers who measurethe speedof light, regardlessoftheirstateofmotion,willalwaysmeasurec. Thoughitseemstocontradictwhatwethinkweknowabout“everydayphysics”,thisisthe waythings work. Ifa projectile—abullet, say, is shot from amoving vehicleandin the direction of the vehicle’s motion, its speed will be greater than if it were shot from a stationaryposition.Likewise,ifthetargetismovingtowardthebullet,theimpactwillbe