Tapekalyfthenta

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© 2014 luigi battisti. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 02/19/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9095-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9094-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-9096-7 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

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I

Rome, Galilei Scientific Secondary School

Mr Giordani likes sunset’s hues that diffuse in the sky, he loves the warm light turning everything into a picture. He also believes that that light creates the suitable atmosphere for helping students concentrate on events of the past. So he wanted multi-chromatic walls in the room of his history class. They can be painted by all colours he chooses by his desk computer. Mr Giordani manipulates the knob on the keyboard to regulate the colours just a minute before the boys and girls enter his classroom, and the multi-chromatic walls are adjusted according to his desires. Finally, by making a series of fine selections, he succeeds in obtaining the combination of sunset colours he thinks are appropriate.

The students come in very quietly and sit in their hyper-media desks, which are provided with headphones, recorders, videos, and hand computers for taking fast notes. The position of each desk, its back and seat and table, is regulated by a posture computer in accordance with the anatomical requirements of each student. Witz’s theory and other studies have demonstrated that one’s mind reaches the highest ability of concentration when his or her body is in a suitable position. The position is completely personal. The computer also obtains the desired softness of the seats as well, when the students use it to inflate or deflate special balloons attached to the seats according to their preference.

The teacher turns the light low in the classroom then uploads the video he has prepared onto the screen and begins:

—In the first century of the third millennium, there came a turning point in the search for energetic resources that allowed for the exceptional technological development of the last centuries and the consequent condition of worldwide equilibrium that has guaranteed peace on earth, apart from some negligible skirmishes…

—Was the bomb that exploded in Tangier last summer and caused the deaths of two thousand a negligible skirmish?

—Good point, Viktor. I am not stating here that there are no problems of any sort in the world. Nor am I saying that the paranoia that causes individuals or groups to commit crime has vanished or even that it can eventually disappear. History lessons deal with Earth, not with paradise. Yet I am saying that the conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century were such that conflict on a planetary scale was imminent and that the armaments in existence were enough to cause destruction of lives and resources on a scale that would have been prohibitive. Perhaps the actual survival of the human species was at risk.

—Are you not exaggerating by making such a historical judgment, sir?—asks another student.—There have been plenty of wars since that time period, and none of them have had the catastrophic effects that you are suggesting. As a matter of fact, every conflict has been followed by technological progress.

—I appreciate your point as well, Matilde, but let’s review historical conditions in the first century of the post-industrial age so that we can better understand the situation.

The teacher clicks on his chair console in order to open a file entitled ‘firstcentury2000’. He sends the file to his students’ screens, enabling them to view the video he wants them to see.

As the footage begins, a voice-over fills the room:

The twenty-first century’s main discovery was the TAP method, which used nuclear fusion to meet energetic needs. In a world in which fossil fuel consumption was increasing every year while resources had dwindled to half of those existing in the early 1900s, the fate of a technological civilisation could only be defined as doomed. An eventual exhaustion in some main source would have sent the entire planet into a panic; crude oil prices would have rocketed; and a catastrophe within the transportation system would have resulted, followed by an economic production crisis and, finally, the end of social order. Governments around the world did nothing to avoid the apocalyptic scenario. Neither did industry leaders understand how their energy consumption was not sustainable. Intellectuals, the press, and other media sources very rarely dealt with the subject, and when they did, it was treated with the superficiality worthy of an escapist topic.

The discovery of the TAP method gave new life to technological progress. An energy source practically inexhaustible, given the wealth of light elements in the earthly crust, TAP allowed, in addition to an abundance of electric power, the first public short-distance flying transit, the elibus. Supplied by a motor with nuclear propulsion, the elibus has revolutionised the lifestyle of the Western world. The aircraft is similar to an ancient helicopter, except that its electric motor is supplied by a nuclear fusion generator. In combination with a series of directional satellites that organise the routes for each elibus line, the elibus can make its journeys at the extraordinary average speed of 300 kilometres per hour. This performance allowed people to move away from the chaos and high prices of living in overcrowded cities and to spend their free time in more comfortable, cheaper, and less polluted province towns. That resulted in a more human life style.

That is why today in the West only a few cities exceed 1 million inhabitants.

—Let’s stop here,—Mr Giordani says, stopping the video.—I want to propose a provocative idea, guys. What would have happened if Gavrin and Powler had made the discovery of TAP technology fifty years later?

—Impossible, sir, the discovery was in the air; it couldn’t possibly have been made more than a few years later.

—It was not a certainty, Ronald. I have done some research that I can also show you. I assure you that the discovery was not as obvious as you think. All laboratories used absurd technologies and could only obtain a low nuclear fusion rate, which hardly gave back the 7 per cent of dissipated energy.

Ronald, a well-built young man with robust shoulders and muscular legs, is clearly puzzled. He shakes his head on his straight, sturdy neck, indicating disapproval.—Then energy got lost instead of being produced.

—That’s true, Ronald. They were very far from achieving energetic balance, the so-called break-even point, and much more so from energy production.

—I cannot believe it, sir, that so many people would have been so short-sighted. In my opinion, they knew how to make it, but they kept it hidden.

—A conspiracy theory is always intriguing, Matilde. Yet Gavrin and Powler were not a part of any official laboratory; they were people who were excluded from the scientific world. I don’t see any reason for which they would have hidden a result that would have inserted them with prestige in that world.

Viktor, the first to speak up earlier in class, stands up. He is a young man with red hair and a wide freckled face, and he speaks with an accent that sounds slightly American.—I read that, in Brazil at the end of the 1900s, alcohol made by cane instead of fossil fuel was already used for cars. If oil had begun to be scarce, other countries could have done the same.

—I like this observation, Viktor,—Mr Giordani says and then clears his throat before continuing.—Well, two things have to be considered. First, the supplies of fuel made by alcohol was only enough for cars in Brazil, and there were not very many at the time. Moreover, you must also consider that, in an extremely industrialised country, fuel consumption for transport and other domestic use is around 20 per cent of the total consumption. Therefore, sugar cane could not have supplied even the total energy required in a country like Brazil, which was not fully developed industrially at the time. Second, let us imagine that pools had become exhausted without warning in one of the crude oil producing countries. It would have been impossible to produce immediately enough sugar cane or sugar beet to satisfy world demand. Neither would a change of transport vehicles been possible on the spot.

—Why do you say a change of transport vehicles? Modifying the motors would have been enough.

—I assure you that the modifications necessary aren’t so simple. Moreover, such a change could not have been made very quickly or at a low cost. In the meantime, other countries with oil pools, scared that their crude oil reserves could also be exhausted, would surely have increased oil prices, and therefore, inflation would have made a jump that would be impossible to sustain.

—There were always crude oil price increases and inflation jumps,—Matilde retorts.—But they were always faced.

—Yes, but the increases and inflation hikes you’re referring to were never a result of the panic caused by exhaustion. Producers can be convinced to reverse their positions or the causal factors can be mitigated when the causes are things like market policy and strategy, but not when production survival is concerned. It was estimated that a panic regarding resource exhaustion could, all of a sudden, double or triple the price of the product.

Staring at her teacher, the girl insists.—I believe that this is a challenge that could also be faced.

—Are you sure, Matilde? A person who had to get to work by car at the time spent one-tenth of his wages on average. What would have happened if the expense had become one-third or even one-half? Moreover this expense increase would have only been the beginning. When inflation jumps, the domino effect occurs. At first, food prices rise. Then the cost of all other consumer goods is raised. Next, rents increase…—Mr Giordani pauses to let what he’s saying sink in.—In the end, the shock would have been devastating for the entire economic system.

All of the pupils stare at their teacher, their minds whirling with strange scenarios.

The athletic young man lifts his robust hand.—Just a question, Mr Giordani. I read that fighters still currently use traditional fuel derived from oil instead of nuclear energy obtained by the TAP method. Why?

—Well, you see, TAP uses nuclear fusion that is turned into electric energy. After all, TAP is an electric energy generator and feeds an electric engine. In no way could a fighter achieve the utmost performance by using an electric engine.

—Why is that? I mean why is it that a fighter can’t get the utmost performance out of an electric engine? Is the reason technological or is there some other primary cause?

The man feels a shudder along his spine. Here is the sort of question that drives you out of your mind, he thinks, because it goes way beyond your class. It’s the kind of question that makes him realise that students really believe a teacher knows everything. He is glad that time is up.—That’s a good question,—he answers simply.—But it will be answered next time. Now, history time is over.

When the lesson ends, while the boys and girls leave the classroom, Mr Giordani puts the projector back into its cabinet and arranges everything. He is very satisfied, apart from the embarrassment of the final question. But he will inquire about its answer; he already knows how to do so. Yes, he is satisfied. He went through the historical period that he had explained during the previous class time and had the students pointing out the importance and up-to-datedness of the main topics. But above all, he had stimulated the students’ imaginations.

Mr Giordani does not conceive history as a compilation of superficial knowledge, dates, and names that students must put down to memory. History is a life master that must be able to teach and make people reflect; otherwise, it does no good. Sure, it is a pity that not all the students are involved and participate in the educational discussions that he proposes. But the three students who do—Viktor, Matilde, and Ronald—give him satisfaction; they are truly open-minded and promising individuals. I will propose them for top marks at the final examination, he thinks to himself.

Approximately 500 metres separate the school from the tower station. There won’t be many people there at twelve, the teacher thinks to himself. Imagining the short queue, he decides, I will be able to get up in two minutes.

The path to the tower entrance is marked by a fluorescent lamp that becomes green and displays in its centre the words, ‘Please come in’. Just ten passengers are admitted into the lift every twenty seconds, making sixty for every two minutes, the time necessary to fill an elibus.

When that time is up, the elibus starts anyway, even if there are free seats, unlike what used to happen when buses waited until they were crowded. As the goal of this public transportation system was speed, everything was calculated in order to ensure the maximum possible number of entries with the necessary time to check baggage, which is inserted into the goods’ elevator and carried up automatically. To guarantee safety, a full radioscopy of each traveller is performed during the climb by well-disguised X-ray cameras; no weapons of any kind can avoid detection.

Any metal objects must be delivered to surveillance people, who apply a label. A copy of the label is given to the passenger, and then the object will pass through the appropriate object elevator. If one forgets to deliver such an object, an alarm will ring at the entrance of the lift and surveillance people will take the traveller and search him or her in the checking room.

Public acceptance of these boarding rules wasn’t initially easy. But their success—never has anyone endured an attack while riding an elibus—has greatly compensated for any inconveniences regarding rules.

Moreover, the elibus would never have become the mass transport means that is today had it not been able to offer a 100 per cent safety guarantee. People had always been afraid to fly, and terrorism was the plague of the century. Just one attack in the elibus’s early stages would have been enough to burn out the new transport system. Its high speed—it took approximately fifteen minutes to make a trip of fifty kilometres, including time to climb, undergo the checks, and exit—would have been of no use.

Of the seven lifts available, the teacher always chooses lift number 3. When he arrives on the platform, he heads towards the closer elibus, which is already in departure position and flashes green, inviting him to enter. He boards through the rear door, which opens and becomes a footboard. With its two propellers and large size, the elibus looks very much like a military helicopter; it differs only from the latter in the rather larger glass doors that cover its sides.

Civil elibuses are generally yellow, so as to distinguish themselves from the combat helicopters used by the army to transport troops. The latter being a mimetic green. Police elibuses are blue; those of firefighters are red; and ambulance elibuses are white, have fewer glass windows, and display huge red crosses on their sides.

By now, Mr Giordani has automatically made his way and is on board, approximately two minutes from when he was down at the base, just in time for take-off. The elibus’s electric motor is the most silent of all motors; in reality, one hears only the whirring of the wings, as if the nuclear generator at the bottom in the tail were non-existent.

The view that appears through the big glass windows is wonderful; this is why elibuses have been installed with the large windows. One can enjoy the wonderful views of the Roman countryside, which has been returned to its former wooded state. Yes, it is a real spectacle—the reddish brushwood made up of ochre-toned oak scrub. Every once in a while, among the yellows, you can see a flash of the dark green ilex mixed in, creating a wealth of shadings no painter could ever reproduce. Here and there on the hillside, olive trees climb up along the wood clearings, with their regular pace like an army formation. Even from above, one can appreciate their characteristic twisted outline, their sturdy knotty branches lifting upwards, their massive bodies that make them almost human creatures. One can imagine they are chained souls asking for heaven’s grace, tormented spirits like the ones of the thirteenth canto in a Dantesque hell.

Goethe’s enthusiasm can be understood, the teacher thinks to himself, mentally turning to a page from Italienische Reise (A voyage to Italy): ‘The region is very delightful, the country is located on a hill or rather a mountain slope, and the artist is offered at every pace magnificent subjects. The view is immense: you can see Rome on the plain and the sea far away. On the right, there are the hills of Tivoli and so on. In this lovely land, the villas are really delightful houses . . . We are turning around here and there and always find something new and fascinating.’

Finally, Giorgio Giordani arrives at home. He lives in a small town of the Roman hinterland. He did not like the great city. He is known to say, ‘Rome is beautiful to visit when you are on holiday; it is not a place in which to live.’

The Giordanis are from Bologna. Giorgio’s mother is now dead. His father, as do all his relatives, still lives there, and when possible the teacher calls on him. Mr Giordani has no friends in the little town, so when his class ends, he finds himself in his little flat, where everything is in order. As a matter of fact, Giorgio Giordani is a methodical and precise individual. The flat opens into a large living room, where he spends most of his time. A TV screen has been built into the left wall. He turns it on, and news is projected on the wall. He listens for a while and then turns right into the kitchen, where a large fridge and freezer stand. From a fountain built into its door, he draws a cup of cool mineralised water. It’s really convenient—this tap that always provides cool water, he muses.

He opens the door of the refrigerator, makes a brief account of the prepared food stored there, and in the end decides for a plate of lasagne to be heated in the microwave. What would life be for a bachelor without these ready dishes, he thinks to himself.

While eating, he listens to the summary on the news wall. Even that was a great invention, he notes happily, online news available on any video wall all day. The news currently offered is the most varied possible and does not serve the interests of anyone—pure, short, and wide-ranging reporting, which gives an accurate and general enough picture of what’s happening around the world.

After a very modest lunch, Giorgio converts the wall into a computer screen, where he notes a few things in a file system, including the lesson of the day. The time is now four.

Even though he may have no friends in the small town, there are places one can go to meet people. One is downtown where you find ‘the centre’, a huge tent divided into pavilions, which was built and set up with all sorts of attractions. Also, one who considers himself an intellectual can find something to do in the centre. Giorgio is good at playing super chess, a kind of game where a screen wall is used as a board to play with the various pieces. Using a joystick, the player selects a piece and requires it to do a certain move; if the move is allowed by the rules, it is granted, and then you can see the simulation of the piece swinging on to the new pane ever so slowly.

Giorgio has taken his seat, as always, in the most isolated side of the pavilion and takes a position in front of a command console for a game of super-chess. Philip is waiting for him as usual. Philip is a university student who stops studying at four promptly to have a game.

The two play for an hour and a half, but once again, the game does not end.

—Sure I’ll win. I’m in a better position,—Philip says with the typical confidence of his age.

—I don’t think so,—Giorgio replies.—I still have two strong moves that you don’t expect.

—Let me see, then.

—Unfortunately, I have to go. I have to finish off some things for tomorrow. The game is recorded; we’ll end it next time. You’ll have more time to think about the moves I will make.

—I’ll think about ’em,—Philip assures the teacher.

Giorgio does not really want to go home; his solitude weighs on him more and more. But he has remembered some things he must do, and his professional conscience will not let him go on with the game in peace.

Of course, if I had a wife, things would be different, he thinks. Such a boring return home would be a joy. Giorgio is over thirty and has not yet found a girlfriend. Indeed, there is one girl whom he would really fall in love with, but she does not consider him as much. Maybe I lack the charm, he considers. As a matter of fact, he’s never had a girl who’s gone out with him for even a month. In high school, everyone else had a girl, but Giorgio thought only about studying and preparing for college. At university, the pretty girls were already taken. He recalls that a few were free but impossible to look at. Giorgio would have considered getting one of them as an insult to his aesthetic sense.

His thought, as usual, was to fly to the one with whom he is so infatuated. Yet Vanessa is a little ‘strange’, he reminds himself. Sometimes, she spends so much time with Giorgio that he begins to think she loves him madly and cannot help but stand next to him. Other times, on the contrary, she ignores him and treats him more or less like an annoying insect. The greater torture also is that she is a colleague and Giorgio cannot help but meet her and think of her. I’m afraid that I’m just falling in love with a woman who will give me only an enduring agony, he thinks piteously.

II

A wall screen comes to life, and the following words appear in the centre of the screen:

Reproduction of the last journey of Enterprise 7 by means of computerised actors. The simulation is based on the final conversations of Professor Micheli with his crew that reached Earth.

The words fade, and the video begins:

—Our spaceship travels at nine-tenths the velocity of light. This means that sighting and crashing against something are the same,—says the actor portraying Professor Micheli.—An object 260,000 kilometres in the distance will be met in approximately one second.

—Then we don’t have sufficient time to dodge obstacles, professor,—says one of the simulated crew members.

—No. This is the problem, Richard.

—How can we resolve it?

—There is no solution. We have to trust our detailed maps and continue with the programmed trajectories. We know that we cannot correct our route by acting on what we see; every online action would happen too late. Now we are passing in the middle of a fine dust of cosmic residues, small spheres with a radius of some centimetres at the maximum. The danger is serious.

—They are too small to produce holes, professor.

—You cannot consider only their width. Think that we’re travelling at nine-tenths the speed of light. Even an object with a small mass carries considerable momentum in a collision at that speed.

—The space maps did not foresee a fine dust with such dimensions.

—How could they, Richard? They are invisible for even the best orbiting telescope.

Multiple collisions jolt the spaceship, and loud noises come from the recording.

—Professor, can we make it?

—Enterprise’s structure is sturdy. Unless we hit a large object, it should withstand the impact.

—How large an object are you talking about?

—Richard, how can I answer you? Let’s follow the programmed routes.

A formidable collision occurs, followed by another one. The crash is terrible. The entire crew, four men and four women, rush to the control room, frightened expressions on their faces.

Someone says,—We have lost all the RTUs of the right sensors.

—That’s just a minor damage,—the professor answers and signals everybody to return to his or her own place.

—Dr Carlson, have you switched on the television cameras? Do they work?

—Do you really intend to continue the takes?

—What else have we come up here for? These takes will be the most sensational astronomical discovery of the last century. We are filming the Alpha Centauri solar system at a distance of less than one-millionth of a light year.

—I mean, goodness knows whether we’ll succeed in carrying them to Earth. This is my fear.

—It’s a superfluous fear; all is going in accordance with plans.

The images wane amid a croaking background noise. Finally, the screen where the simulation with computerised actors was being projected fades, and the lights are switched on.

A man in his late fifties has just stopped the video wall and turns towards another man seated opposite him.—What do you think, Dr Franceschi?

—I don’t know what to think, engineer. It’s an old story. Enterprise 7 was lost with Professor Micheli and his crew. This simulation adds nothing to what we already know.

—Yes,—the engineer, De Lellis, insists,—yet, I think we should analyse the facts, paying close attention to all the details. Enterprise gets lost in space; Professor Micheli sends signals to earth that arrive many months later; and then, without warning, the signals stop. The European agency, ESA, concludes that he and his crew are all dead, lost in a cosmic incident. I say this appears to a superficial conclusion.

—I don’t see the possibility of surveying better,—Dr Franceschi replies.—The spacecraft was lost in space after a gravitational collision with Jupiter. The gravity push that was calculated to bring the route of the vehicle back in the direction of Earth produced instead a strange inexplicable acceleration. Up to the present, we have no explanations for what could have happened. The best scientists of every age since have been trying for a hundred years to solve the puzzle. I don’t know what you and I can do today, after having seen a video reproduction with computerised actors based on the last words that arrived from the ship.

—Are you aware, doctor, that Professor Micheli asserts that the Enterprise was travelling at nine-tenths the speed of light?

—Yes, but what of it?

—How could the spacecraft have reached such a fantastic speed?

—No scientist believes Professor Micheli’s statement. Some have even thought that some hallucinogenic gas had gotten into the craft.

—If so, how could he have gotten close to Alpha Centauri, which, as you know, even though it is the nearest solar system to our own, is 4.5 light years away from earth? Travelling at the normal speed of a spacecraft, it would take 500,000 years to get there.

—We are back at the same point, engineer. Micheli’s statements have yet to be proved; we have no evidence that will allow us to assess them. Was the professor speaking the truth? How can we know?

—And what of the months that elapsed between a message and its arrival to earth? If the professor had not travelled out of our solar system, his messages would have arrived within a day or slightly more.

—We have also relied on the professor’s declarations in order to determine that the messages took months to arrive,—Dr Franceschi counters.—Micheli cited a date. Here on Earth we received the messages on a different date, and therefore, we assumed he was light months away and then a light year and so on. Hence, we hinge on whether or not to believe the professor. The fact remains that the spacecraft went off route after a gravitational collision with Jupiter.

—Here, here is the key point,—says De Lellis excitedly.—Gone off route after a gravitational collision.

—It was the only possible explanation. The spacecraft accelerated suddenly after going past the gravitational sphere of Jupiter. It should have received a push for the return to earth—the orbit had been studied purposely—and instead it took quite another direction and got lost in space.

—In your opinion, have we heard a voice full of despair of someone who is lost in space? Do not forget that Professor Micheli sounds like he knows very well what is happening.

—To tell the truth, I didn’t receive anything because, at the time, I didn’t exist. However, to return to the point, I want to recall that these recorded voices have been analysed for years and years, and nobody has been able to get anything from them. I don’t know what can be added by a simulation made with computerised actors, even though they seem true today with cinematographic techniques. Engineer De Lellis, we are at Noordwijk, in the Dutch ESA centre, not in Hollywood.

—I know you are a traditionalist, Dr Franceschi.

—I beg your pardon, engineer.—Franceschi makes as if to leave but turns back; he has hardly opened the door when De Lellis calls him back.

—Have you two minutes to listen to an alternative hypothesis to gravitational collision?

—I must have them; you are my superior.

—Well, let’s start now from the strange statement, ‘What else have we come up here for?’ What do you make of that?

—I don’t know what to think.

—Let’s suppose that the professor purposely produced the anomalous gravitational collision in order to send the spacecraft where he wanted it to go.

—How could he? He would have needed a lot of fuel aboard—more than there was space for.

De Lellis looks at his subordinate with a sly smile.—Are you sure of that?

—Listen, sir, even if he had loaded double the quantity of fuel provided by NASA, he wouldn’t have had enough to produce such a deviation. No, the amount of fuel required for the acceleration that Enterprise went through could not possibly have been aboard that spacecraft.

The engineer looks at the other with pity.—Traditional fuel, you mean, hydrazine or something like that.

—What other fuel could he have had at his disposal?

—Nuclear.

—I do not understand, engineer.

—If we suppose that the professor had had at his disposal nuclear fuel, perhaps in the Enterprise, there would have been space enough to contain a sufficient amount to produce the purposeful anomalous gravitational collision that I have assumed.

—If you mean uranium 238, no, I’d exclude it.

—No, I mean liquid hydrogen—to be precise, a deuterium and tritium mixture.

The physicist remains perplexed and stares at the wall, while in his mind, a series of numbers begins to hop around.—You mean that Professor Micheli knew how to produce energy from hydrogen nuclear fusion ten years before TAP technology was discovered by Gavrin and Powell. How is that possible?

—Here, here is the evidence,—says the excited engineer.—I found it in NASA’s files. Gavrin and Powell had done a job for the American space agency, together with professor Micheli, who, at the time, taught at MIT. Certainly, the professor would have spoken with the two about his discovery. Then when Micheli got lost in the space incident, the two men put into practice his discovery and took care that people did not know it was not their own work.

De Lellis presses a key on the desk, and on the screen in the front wall, a diagram appears, which Franceschi remains to look at attentively.

—This design scheme was found in the study of Professor Micheli during investigations to shed light on his disappearance.

Franceschi carefully observes the figure on the screen before saying softly,—Well, of course, it could be the description of the basic principle of TAP technology. However, it could be anything else; it’s a very simple scheme.

—It is TAP’s basic draft, no doubt. Those are the microcells that produce nuclear fusion from hydrogen. Professor Micheli knew how to get nuclear fusion and put into practice his discovery on the Enterprise journey.

—Of course, the spacecraft could have stored a huge amount of liquid hydrogen, and if the professor had really known TAP nuclear fusion technology, he could have had a lot of available energy.

—How much energy? For tomorrow, you must give me the exact calculation. Based on the volume of the ship’s tanks, I want to know how much nuclear energy could have been available to Enterprise.

—Where can I find the description of Enterprise?—Dr Franceschi asks hesitantly.

—Here it is.—De Lellis goes to his desk and pulls a microchip from a black envelope marked with the words ‘Enterprise 7’.—I want the calculations for tomorrow,—he says.

—I hope I can get them, engineer.

*    *    *

Franceschi starts up his car, which runs on liquid coal. He is one of the few who goes to the office by car; almost everyone takes the elibus. But he prefers to live near the ESA seat.

What a nuisance, he thinks, to spend the evening on the reservoirs of the Enterprise, a spaceship of some centuries ago. He shakes his head as he considers the peculiarities of his boss.

The job at the European Space Agency was a promotion for Dr Franceschi. He had been chosen by the company where he worked in Italy for a transfer to Noordwijk, Netherlands, the most important ESA seat, to work in the centre named ESTEC. The salary was good, and the compensation for working away from his home country was excellent. The work was pioneering, but engineer De Lellis chose only the most fanciful projects that took nowhere.

Now his boss had even developed this story and wanted to dredge up the Enterprise 7.

Franceschi’s bigger concern, however, was not his work but Martha, his wife. The couple had no children, and he had hoped that a few years abroad, visiting various places and meeting new people, would have produced a miracle. Even if they were not young, they were not at all old. But instead, Martha has seemed increasingly cold and distant.

He calls home to tell her he is on his way, but nobody answers. She’s gone out. Why is she not yet back? he asks himself. It’s seven in the evening.

He starts the car. The engine is extremely quiet, almost inaudible, as he leaves the underground car park and takes Keplerlaan Road towards Noordwijk aan Zee.

*    *    *

Martha knows she has only a few minutes to get home; Enrico is coming. It is important that he finds her at home. Otherwise, he would ask a lot of questions, and lying consistently is a pain she would rather spare herself. Instead, if she can make it home and start preparing dinner, all will be smooth. Sure, he could have telephoned and, having received no answer, will ask some question, but for that, there is a variety of ready and tested responses.

The affair with Joseph requires this sort of stealthy return, as well as the thrill of being hugged by two arms that are nearly twenty years younger.

Not only men like the younger partner, she thinks to herself.

Once home, she knows what will happen. Enrico will greet her and then take off his shoes and change into his slippers. Then he will ask her the usual two or three questions. They have no children, and there is nothing to talk about for a couple without children. Eventually, he will set in front of the interactive wall screen in the living room to catch up on the day’s events. Then there will be a light dinner, as he doesn’t want to eat that much; he would gain weight.

Now is the time of Joseph’s phone call. She grabs her cell after three concerted rings. It is the most intense moment of the day, after a few hours, they need to hear each other’s voice and ensure one another that they still want each other, like two young sweethearts.

Okay, I’m in time, Martha tells herself. He has not arrived yet. I can cook dinner.

Enrico Franceschi comes home tired in an unusual way.

—Hello, Martha. What have you done today?

—The usual things. I saw Sandra. We went shopping. Is anything wrong?

—No, the usual office routine. Actually, there was one interesting thing.

—Have you gotten a raise?

—No, but the boss gave me a very boring job to be finished tonight. How nice gift it is, isn’t it?

—It must be something important if it’s so urgent.

—No, it’s simply an idea De Lellis is fixated on. Like every boss, he pretends that his ruminations have some sort of truth behind them. He’s made up his mind to revive the fortunes of Enterprise 7.

Martha is reassured that her husband isn’t asking questions. She doesn’t have to waste one of those excuses she has ready. This is better; it will