Stainless Steel Rat 11: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns by Harry Harrison Page A

works like this as well, only on a far greater scale—to the square of two million in fact—with results equal to the forces released. It permits the ship’s molecules to expand exponentially until they are literally approaching light years apart.”
    I wish I had some of what he was smoking!
    “You can’t be serious?”
    “Regretfully, I am. The Bloat operates along the central axis AB. With no observable motion of point A and continual acceleration of point B . . .”
    My head was beginning to hurt. “Simplification I beg!”
    The captain took the steel glasses off. “The ship gets bigger and longer in one direction.”
    “Understood!”
    “So, when one end of the ship is at its destination it begins to shrink again—from that direction. Like stretching a rubber band between your hands. You pull wide with your right hand. Then bring your left hand over after it. The stretched band contracts back to normal size. But it is now in a new place. The same way that the expanded ship contracts. This is done until the ship is small again, only now it is at the new location in space.”
    The professor put his glasses back on, scowling at the stupidity of the untutored.
    “That’s why it is named the Bloater Drive. It also uses a great deal of power and is very inaccurate. After it arrives at the target, star observations are made, a new course is calculated and the next Bloat is made. Usually a number of these are needed.”
    “Well, thanks . . .” But I was too late. He was in full Bloater Drive now!
    “Gravitons are responsible. The graviton is an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravity and molecular adhesion in the framework of the quantum field theory. The graviton is massless, because the gravitational force must have unlimited range, and must have spin of two because gravity is a second-rank tensor field.”
    I was feeling third rank myself by this time and badly in need of rescue.
    “And how is all this powered?” I asked desperately, maybe forcing a change in subject.
    “I explained that in detail that I thought was quite clear. Gravitons are orientated in the tensor field as you can see here.”
    He pointed to a glowing screen, looked away, then pulled his attention back to it sharply. His jaw fell and he reached out and almost tapped it. Grimly he whipped off his steel glasses and thumbed a switch, spoke sharply and abruptly.
    “Engineer Stramm to bridge—code red.”

CHAPTER 8
     
    This was the first time I had seen our highly efficient captain loose his cool. He punched the buttons angrily, ran a quick program in the computer—growling under his breath—then wiped it from the screen with a muttered curse. He became even more active when Stramm hurried in. They bashed at the control console, ran equations. Even tapped dials.
    “Something wrong guys?” I asked.
    I must say that Captain Singh exercised great self-control and did not strike me down on the spot.
    “Gravitons . . .” Stramm muttered darkly and they sighed in mutual disgust.
    “Might I ask you to expand on that just a bit?”
    “That treacherous swine Rifuti . . .” The captain growled. Then grabbed his self-control and was in command again.
    “More sabotage. He was the wily one, making acts of double sabotage in the hope that when we were dealing with onewe wouldn’t notice his second dark deed.” He tapped a meter. “He bled off over eighty percent of our gravitons.”
    “Weren’t they seen?”
    “Hardly. Since they are invisible, infinitesimal and exist only in quantum terms. The ground might be heavier for a few microseconds before they vanished into the planet’s core.”
    “So . . . what do we do?”
    “Hope there is a graviton refueling depot waiting at the other end—when we finish our Bloat.”
    “They are not very common.” Stramm said, adding to the general gloom. “The collection stations are located on massive high-G planets where there are plenty of gravitons lying around.” He