before anywhere in the Universe and to this day nothing even one-tenth as large has even been contemplated. Each side would be exactly 5,332,467.39 kilometers in length and 314,159.26 kilometers thick. The material required to build the Cube would be the equivalent of 5.7 percent of the entire mass of Oria. Taking that much material from Oria would require stripping the outer forty-seven kilometers of the planet—an impossible undertaking. It would destroy all life on the planet. Drawing off that much material from Oria’s molten core would cause geological instability: the surface might even collapse.
Instead, Rankin looked to Oria’s moons to provide the material to build the Cube. The green Alcuinn, the inner-most and largest of Oria’s moons is 0.31 times the mass of Oria and densely populated. The golden-yellow Auric is 0.22 the size of Oria and sparsely populated.
The red Cardenio, a mere four percent the size of Oria, sometimes appearing like a cherry to be plucked from the evening sky, was the most distant of the moons: cold and uninhabited. Cardenio’s color was red because 60 percent of the planet was iron, sort of like a big rust ball, with most of the remainder nickel and tungsten. These hard structural metals would be perfect for building the proposed Cube. Completely dismantling Cardenio would provide almost 80 percent of the material to build the Cube. The rest would come from Oria itself, with a small contribution from both Alcuinn and Auric.
Dismantling an entire celestial body and moving so much material from one area to another would result in a decay of the orbits of Oria and the two remaining moons. Rankin was quick to assure the Orians and inhabitants of the other planets in the solar system that dismantling Cardenio would not affect them. He was right, of course; it didn’t.
Rankin calculated that the orbital decay of Oria wouldn’t become critical for twenty-seven years. He proposed that immediately upon completion of the Cube, the energy of the black hole, harnessed by, transmitted through, and directed from the Cube, be used to stabilize the orbits of Alcuinn, Auric and Oria itself. The significance was not lost on the population or on Oria’s interplanetary friends—and especially its enemies; the Cube, with the black hole as its generator, would have the power to move planets.
The engineers and contractors working with Rankin estimated it would require nine years to build the Cube, employ 20 percent of Oria and the two moon’s work force, and expend 30 percent of the their capital resources. Transports the length of a one hundred-car freight train, each carrying more than one million metric tons of material, would leave Cardenio, or Alcuinn, Auric or Oria, every hour for seven years.
The sheer brilliance and simple elegance of Rankin’s theories captivated the scientific community and the lay press with equal fervor. Rankin made the final presentation of his work before the Septadian Academy of Sciences, the most prestigious organization of higher learning in the galaxy. He finished in a mere sixteen minutes. Rommon Donnon-Don, President of the Academy, arose, walked toward Rankin, and extended her large seven-fingered left hand and small five-fingered right hand to grasp Rankin’s hands. With a smile and a look of sincere admiration, perfectly captured by the official photo of the event, she said, “Young man, I congratulate you. This is the discovery of the century.”
Experiments by independent investigators on Septadia, Ferron, Moroshe, and most importantly, in the laboratories of his skeptics on Oria, quickly confirmed Rankin’s theories and proved that virtual photons were in fact very real and could indeed be produced, measured and quantified.
But the proposal to build the Cube was another matter altogether. Pushing back the frontiers of science with theories about “virtual” sub-atomic particles that are in fact, real was one thing. The “discovery of the century” is certainly no small accomplishment. But proposing that an entire society, four billion people, devote their sweat and financial resources for almost a decade to a project based solely upon the recommendation of a twenty-one year old, was quite another matter.
There were plenty of skeptics. Much of the skepticism was healthy and constructive. But human nature (the generic term used for the nature of any sentient being) being what it is, a good deal was just plain jealousy. Much was due to greed: people who would not profit or thought they would lose from Rankin’s plan. Some was due to opportunism. Not surprisingly, much of the most shrill and sometimes downright vicious criticism came from people who were just plain stupid.
Rankin wanted to make a dramatic statement, so he arranged for a live demonstration that would be broadcast planet-wide. This would give him the opportunity to personally explain the virtual photons to everyone: how they were generated and how they could be used to study the black hole, and how the Cube would be constructed to beam the energy back to Oria. There was nothing better than a successful live demonstration to gain the support of the general public. And there was also nothing better than a successful demonstration to silence his legitimate, and especially his illegitimate, critics.
Rankin was young but not naïve. He knew how things worked, what made people tick, and how to get things done. He didn’t need to prove anything to his supporters. At the demonstration, all the prime spots were saved for his most vocal critics.
Rankin personally contacted the five most influential naysayers to extend his personal invitation for them to be his “special and honored” guests at the live demonstration. With the weak-minded, flattery can get you everywhere. All accepted immediately, not thinking through the consequences of what would happen if the young whipper-snapper were right and they were wrong.
Mozes Csomor and Omere Omerah were prominent politicians who had opposed Rankin’s proposal to build the Cube from the beginning. Csomor was basically an honest person, but character-wise and intellectually, was a light-weight: all glamour and no substance, an extrovert who made the most of her abilities.
She started as a fashion model. On Oria at the time, models weren’t the rail thin, walking clothes racks that we seem to prefer now, but really pretty women with sex appeal. They were the hottest chicks around; the men wanted to look at them and the women wanted to look like them. Models were used to sell everything. Csomor’s hair was naturally almost a peroxide-blond color, which she usually wore long and flowing over her shoulders. But sometimes she pulled it back to better highlight her big reddish eyes, eyelashes that seemed longer than the hair on most men’s heads, and her high cheek bones and thin but seductive lips.
Although not an intellectual, she wasn’t dumb either. She married a man two years younger, the debonair and equally handsome Cosmos Csomor, heir to a dendrite fortune. Csomor parlayed her blazing good looks, flirtatious charm, her husband’s money and influence, and her non-confrontational (how could you ever disagree with somebody so pretty?) personality into a successful political career.
Shortly after assuming office, as she was walking along the street giving on-the-run, off-the-cuff interview, a young reporter in the entourage yelled out, “Hey, chick-e-licious!”
Csomor stopped and gave him a glare that would make most grown men pee in their pants. The silence would make a complete vacuum sound noisy. Then she smiled and said, “Mrs. Chick-e-licious to you, boy.”
At age 52, Mrs C was still hot. Rankin would have preferred to just ignore Csomor, but she had enough influence and was so vocal in her criticism that she just had to be silenced.
The Orians are a very homogeneous race. Paleogenetic research showed that at one time there were at least five separate species of sentient beings on Oria. About fifty thousand years ago, just after the development of agriculture, a great plague, thought to be an influenza-like virus, completely wiped out four of the lines, leaving only about ten thousand survivors in the fifth. Except for those immigrants that have arrived since the development of space travel, all Orians are descendants of this small band of “Adam and Eve” survivors. Although there are dialects, there has always been only one written language on Oria. There are no gross physical differences in Orians, nothing that they consider a different race: no major difference in facial features, skin color, or body type. Individuals and small groups could harbor their own prejudices, but such things were usually not an issue on Oria.
But then along came Omere Omerah. On Oria the average male is 1.92 meters tall. For a monogamous species, the sexual dimorphism on Oria is surprisingly marked; the average female is about 20 percent smaller than