15 August 2018

"Ulltracapacitors A, and B, are go."

"Main relay grid is go. Secondary relay grid is go."

"Fifteen seconds. Start increasing the induction."

Hermione Weasley, wand ready, eyes as curious and intelligent as ever, shifted nervously within the chamber. This was, by definition, an experimental vessel. Still, she was among the best Apparators in Europe; that was one major reason that she'd been chosen for this mission. If anyone could make this thing work, it was she. Also, her Muggle upbringing made it easier for her to use and understand the complex technology upon which this was based. (It was a shame, really, that no "science" was taught at Hogwarts. As Jeff Sheldon would eagerly tell you whenever you asked him, it was certainly not irrelevant or worthless compared to magic. She'd talk to Kingsley about it once this mission was over.)

She watched the Muggles, intent on their tasks, through the thick plexiglass (with some copper compound thrown in to increase the relative permittivity value so neither her magnetic field nor the machine's magnetic field would destroy the electronics). They seemed well-prepared and competent, in contrast to Cho, who looked nervous and uncertain. Cho was intelligent and had lived as a Muggle for a while, so she understood technology well enough to make herself useful, but her main purpose was a backup Apparator. Hermione had learned by now that space agencies liked to have at least one backup for everything, if at all possible.

This was the third day of the mission. A SpaceX rocket had carried them into orbit two days ago, and the following day had been spent running careful tests of every spacecraft component. Hermione, as was her wont, spent the time reviewing ship's systems for the thirtieth time.

The Muggles, in fact, were just as nervous. Unlike every spacecraft test NASA and the ESA had ever conducted before, there could be no unmanned flight first. The spacecraft had been designed so nothing could possibly go wrong, but so had Apollo 13.

The room would have been very cramped in gravity, and was only somewhat cramped as it was. Display screens flickered along the "walls". Cho glanced at the GNC console, seeing nothing wrong. The trajectory numbers were exactly as specified. The EECOM console showed plenty of air, electric charge, and water, as well as perfect connection to the satellite relaying transmissions. The three Muggles also in the room were intent on their consoles, not panicked, but alert and intent. Cho was mainly trying to stay out of the way.

The speaker crackled. "Mission Control to AHAC-One. You are go for maneuver. Ronald, Mary, and Celia send their best wishes." Hermione, mentally reviewing what she had to do, barely noticed this.

"Roger," Pierre answered, smiling for a moment as the last name was spoken. "We're ready to disable the communications system; we are awaiting your go-ahead."

"AHAC-One, you are go to disable communications. Good luck. Over--and out."

The speaker cut out abruptly as the antennas were disabled to protect them during the "maneuver". (There was a nontrivial chance someone could be listening in on this frequency; if so, discussing Apparition would be a rather bad idea.) Cho remembered nervously that most of the electronics were supposed to cut out a few seconds before transit to prevent them from being burned out.

"Induction at one hundred millitesla. Two hundred. Four hundred."

"Ten seconds."

"Rate of change of distance to target point is stable. Distance is currently 408.13 megameters." (The ESA had recently begun to use megameters, gigameters, and terameters instead of thousands, millions, and billions of kilometers, respectively.)

"Main relay grid is solid. All distribution nodes reading normal."

"GBAR is go. ADOP is go."

GBAR, Cho knew, stood for Gravitationally Based Apparition Rejection. It was supposed to keep them from accidentally ending up in the center of Jupiter, or some other undesirable location, in case the control systems failed to put them on top of the target. The target was near the orbit of Luna, but not close to it. That way, they could get back with normal propulsion if they couldn't Apparate back, but the distance was enough to determine whether Apparition was the long-sought FTL drive. One of the lead engineers had privately told Cho a few days before launch that he honestly thought the GBAR was a piece of useless junk. Fortunately, space was very large and planets, by comparison, were very small. The chance of them hitting anything large was in the billionths range. Cho didn't remember what ADOP stood for, which wasn't surprising, she thought, considering the number of different parts on this ship. She had studied very hard, but as one of the other engineers had explained, Apollo 11 might have been aborted due to Armstrong and Aldrin not knowing the significance of some alarm, if not for an "almost precognitive" SimSup. There was just too much to know.

"Five seconds."

Hermione held up her free hand in acknowledgement, closed her eyes, and set her feet. She gripped her wand very tightly.

"Induction approaching critical value."

"All systems go."

"Mrs. Weasley, three, two, one, now!" Lawrence called out briskly. Hermione hauled in her breath, whirled, and Disapparated. An instant later, Cho, with an awful wrench, was seized and hurled into the crushing black of Apparition. She felt frozen and crushed, nothing, nothing, nothing, what if they never came out, she couldn't breathe...

The ship reappeared around her. An alarm began to blare. Air was sucking violently at Cho, whipping her hair about and ruffling her clothes through the neck of her space suit. Her ears popped and she yelled in fear. Hermione, feeling dizzy, pushed off the "floor" wildly, hit the chamber wall, and went into a spin inside the narrow chamber that brought her face into violent contact with the door. Fortunately, the intercom had cut out, and the rest of the crew was spared her comments on this.

"Warning," sounded the computer. "Explosive decompression. Warning. Explosive decompression."

Pierre Gaston pressed several buttons on his console rapidly. Heavy thuds rang through the deck, causing Cho to start slowly drifting upward. The gale stopped abruptly.

"What happened?" Lawrence asked after a long moment to regain composure. "GNC, report. Is the ADOP working?"

"No reading from the ADOP, sir," Nate Bernard answered. He flicked through screens of data, looking steadily more confused. "I have no telemetry from engines, fuel tanks, oxygen tanks, or electrical subsystems in the stern half of the spacecraft. No communication with the main computer. Auxiliary computer is at about 70 percent CPU usage and I don't know how much more it can handle. We've got no navigation information. All cameras aft of the RCTs are down."

"Bring up a forward camera," Lawrence snapped. "Gaston, are we in immediate danger?"

"We have hull integrity in this part of the ship. There eez no sign of any pressure leaks here, but I, have, no environmental telemetry aft of the RCTs. Oxygen tanks one and two are not...hmm...reading anything, and the pipelines leading to them have been sealed off automatically due to ze leaking. Oxygen tank three is at eight point six megapascals and steady. Batteries five through seven are reading in, parameters; all other batteries are reading ze zero. All solar panels either, not registering or, capturing negligible energy."

"I don't think we're in immediate danger, then," Lawrence answered.

"It does not look like zis, no."

"But what is going on? Why is everything behind the roll control thrusters dead?" He paused, then spoke quietly and calmly. "Does either of you have any reading at all that originates from behind that point on the AHAC-One?"

Hermione got herself stabilized and began to pound on the plexiglass of the apparition chamber. Cho nearly used an incantation to release the door before remembering what that would do to the computer systems. Instead, Lawrence pushed himself across the cabin, gripped a handle, and yanked a lever marked "Emergency Release." The door popped open.

"My apologies, Mrs. Weasley," Lawrence said. Hermione nodded, but forced down her questions; the Muggles were doing the best they could. Lawrence glanced into the apparition chamber, which seemed to have several char marks on the walls. "Bernard, do you see that?"

"See what?"

"The apparition chamber. Look at that damage."

"Well, at least we didn't blow a whole panel of the service module off, Scott."

Lawrence snorted. Cho, of course, had no idea what he was referring to.

"Hermione, did you hear what was going on?" Cho asked nervously.

"I did. This doesn't sound good. It almost seems like the whole back end of the ship disappeared, Cho."

Cho thought about that for a moment. There was silence in the cockpit. She suddenly had a thought. "Could it have...Splinched?"

Hermione grimaced. "It would make sense."

There was a pause as the Muggles tapped away at their screens, and Cho and Hermione desperately tried to remember everything they knew about Splinching.

"Lawrence," Bernard said finally, very quietly and calmly,"I have looked through all the forward cameras. Our TCR should have brought the entire star field into view over the last minute. The highest-magnitude object in the sky is about negative one."

"My God," Lawrence said. He was rapidly turning white. "We're not even in the solar system."

"We have one working antenna, sir," Gaston said. "I will try to find the television stations, and figure out how far away we are. If we are two of the light-years away, then we see the TV from two years ago."

"Good idea." Lawrence took several deep breaths, trying to remain calm and think clearly. "Gaston," he continued, "I will also need an estimate of how long we have in terms of consumables. Bernard, can you use the spectrum of nearby stars and star systems, say Sirius (the witches glanced up for a moment, startled, then realized what Lawrence was talking about), Alpha Centauri, and Vega, to determine what they are, then triangulate our position?" He turned to Hermione and Cho. "You're the only ones who understand...what is it...this Splinching. How do you people put things that are...splincherized...back together?"

There was a pause.

"I should have stayed at home," Cho said to Hermione.

Hermione grimaced.



3 September 2014

Kingsley Shacklebolt considered what the man in front of him had just proposed. He considered it very carefully.

"You are completely mad," he told the man. "We have about seven violations of the International Statute of Secrecy just from what you've said so far."

"Look," Jeff Sheldon answered hotly,"the British government is rather good at keeping secrets, from what I've heard. Certainly much better than we are across the pond. You've got an 'Official Secrets Act', for God's sake! Anyway, it's not as though this has never happened before. What about the WADVs? Wizard Air Defense Volunteers?"

"It was a completely different situation. The Germans were pounding the hell out of London and we could not allow that. Besides, as I understand it, no one knew how far Grindelwald might have been prepared to go. We needed to be ready in case he decided to reveal himself to the Nazis and coordinate with them. But this is just a harebrained quest."

"Was the moon landing a 'hairbrained quest'? The Muggles are catching up, Minister. In centuries of trying we never found a way to reach the moon, and the Muggles put a few decades of effort in and Neil Armstrong's up there skipping around." He thought of another example. "Peter Pettigrew blew about a block to pieces. One city block. At Hiroshima half the city was reduced to powder! What if the Muggles invent something that can see through Invisibility Cloaks? Or a headset that blocks Muggle-Repelling Charms? We need to show the Muggles, now," he struck the desk as he said this,"that we are good friends to have. Or do you want to go back to Salem and the Inquisition? Because if the Muggles decide to try to wipe us out again, they'll be able to do it. Flame Freezing Charms are all well and good, but I suggest you see how they hold up against Sidewinders and smart bombs and plastic explosive and God knows what else."

Shacklebolt frowned.

"You are only convincing me that we should be even more cautious."

"Minister, sooner or later the Muggles will find out about us. I think it's better if it's by us telling them than by them inventing some gadget that can see through all magical concealment when they won't know the first thing about us."

There was a pause.

"You have no idea whether this will work."

"Sir, I was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, what we call MIT, for three years before I finally found out I was a wizard. I slipped through the cracks of the Americans' notification system. I have been conducting experiments for the past several years, and I have arrived at the conclusion that magic is an analyzable, quantifiable, and manipulable phenomenon subject to laws of physics, like everything else. Apparition is a localized displacement of spacetime through higher-dimensional space. The 'pressure' phenomenon is due to the effects of higher dimensionality on the body's ratio of surface area to volume. The displacement can be manipulated by a combination of gravitational singularities induced in a particle accelerator, and a strong magnetic field to tie the Apparating person to a device."

"Have you done this?"

"Welll, I could show you the theory, but I don't think your Hogwarts' Arithmancy covers tensor calculus and general relativity. It's all based on general relativity, Kip Thorne's work with wormholes, and the Standard Model. These are established theories, which have been tested and proven." As he would later admit, he was stretching the truth about Thorne's work. Stephen Hawking, for example, had taken an opposing view on the matter.

Kingsley got up, walked to the window, and looked out, ignoring the fact that they were actually fairly deep underground. He finally turned. "Fine. I will give you a permit to speak to these blokes. But I will warn you that if they start to blab, I will not take any responsibility for it. Is that understood?"

"It is indeed, Minister."

15 August 2018

Lawrence gazed at them expectantly. They said nothing for a long moment. "Bloody hell, can't you people do magic?"

"Hermione, could you make a Portkey?" Cho asked suddenly and slightly desperately.

"It wouldn't work," Hermione answered. "The Muggles explained it. How does it work?"

Pierre floated over. "The more dimensions zere are, ze higher any...object's ratio of volume to surface area. If zat ratio eez too much for a cell, such az ze ones in your body, it can't take in what it needs or throw out ze waste. When you Apparate, or you use a Portkey, you are entering higher-dimensional space. The magic keeps everything where it belongs so your cells are not with the insides out, but the cells now have much less...mmm... surface area than they should. So, you feel as though you are being suffocated, and crushed. Your brain continues to work well, though, because your neurons have to be very big to work properly. So they are very...le mot, le mot elongated, so as to, minimize, zat ratio, which means some new dimensions, do not matter much."

Hermione had understood most of that. Sometimes she wondered whether, in some ways, it might have been better to grow up as a Muggle. They certainly understood the universe, the stars, and even their own bodies at a far deeper level. Wizards had used magic for centuries, but they hadn't even understood how or why it worked until this project. She quickly forced her thoughts back to the current situation. Cho, despite her knowledge, made little sense of it. "So if we tried to Portkey back, we would suffocate?" Cho asked.

"Yes. Or Apparate. This is why Apparition is not normally do-able across ze continents. It takes too long in hyperspace, you get too much oxygen...hmm...owed, and you become unconscious before reaching your destination. As Mrs. Weasley explained yesterday, zere are also problems with...quel est le mot...navigation. This ship fixes the first problem. Now we know it doesn't fix the second."

"Mr. Gaston, have you finished your work?" Lawrence demanded formally.

"No, Mr. Lawrence, I have not," he answered in kind, and quickly returned to his calculations--after another glance at Cho.

"It's possible, Hermione, isn't it?" Cho asked/demanded. "I mean, when people Splinch, they don't usually bleed to death if they aren't sorted out, r-right?"

"Ron nearly did during the war," Hermione answered. "But no, they usually don't, so come to think of it, there must be some kind of connection or sealing off, at least." She thought desperately. Everything she had ever read about Apparition (which, of course, was a considerable amount) seemed to have left her mind the moment she'd passed her Apparition test.

"Could we try to go back?" she asked finally, still thinking.

"I'd rather not," Lawrence said,"if there's any other way. Based upon this first trial, we could wind up nearly anywhere. And I doubt we would have enough energy to try it more than a few times."

"We've got to try something!" Cho almost shouted.

"Miss Chang, we do not have time for panic, pull yourself together," Lawrence ordered. There was a long silence. Hermione patted Cho's shoulder. Mortal danger had always strengthened friendships quickly.

"I have a fix on Vega and Alpha Centauri, Steve," Bernard reported. Everyone looked toward him. "Based on the magnitudes, we aren't that far away from the sun. I mean, in terms of the galaxy." He fiddled with the camera controls. "If I'm right, Sirius should be somewhere in this direction. Okay, gimme a moment." He fiddled with the camera some more. "Okay, got it. Computer's working on this now." The stars appeared on the 3D display, and lines traced from them toward a common center--with several jerks as the computer backlogged. By this time everyone except Pierre was clustered around him. The lines converged, and some numbers flashed up. "Okay, from Earth, right ascension seven hours 45 minutes, declination positive four degrees 54 minutes, range...approximately one point four light years." He released a breath. "Basically, a light year and a half in the general direction of..." he cast around, "Procyon."

Lawrence opened his mouth, then closed it again, nodding briefly as though resolving to deal with something minor later. "So that's it," he said. "Even with full consumables we would starve or suffocate long before we could get back in the, er, normal way, even if we had a working engine. We can only try to Apparate again. Unguided." He swore. "This project was you people's idea."

"We have not more time for panic than we have for complaining," Pierre said sharply. Lawrence nodded.

"Guided..." said Hermione to herself. "Guided..." She was remembering this now. "I remember! When Splinching happens and there's no blood--when the pieces are still attached through higher-dimensional space, as you would say--the teachers did it to Susan Bones when we were learning to Apparate, one Summons the smaller detached portion through higher-dimensional space. The incantation is Accio Spatium Superior."

"But it wouldn't do any good to summon the other part of the ship here. All that would do is give us a little while longer before we starved or suffocated," Lawrence answered. "We would have to try another uncontrolled transit."

"Well, maybe we should try to diagnose the problem, then," Bernard suggested, joining the discussion. "Do any of you have any ideas what happened?" He considered for a moment. "Mrs. Weasley, did you notice anything? Or do people ever report things like this?"

"You can call me Hermione," she said with a brief smile. "I just Apparated like I would any other time. I was thinking of our target, the orbit of the moon--our destination. I deliberated on the target--I thought of learning about astronomy and the moon, eclipses, moons of other planets, the orbit--"

"Hermione, you must not have been determined to get there, then," Cho said sarcastically. "I'll never forget those three D's."

Hermione laughed weakly. Bernard spoke a moment later, but without confidence. "Maybe that was the problem? She...umm...was thinking about the moons of other planets, so...we ended up there?"

Lawrence looked startled. "None of this should have happened if the navigation instruments had been working. But, if we passed near a gas giant in the outer system, the magnetic field might have disrupted the connection between M--Hermione and the spacecraft."

"And if we were that close, you'd get a very strong gravitational assist from the planet. Doesn't gravity break the...dimensional barrier?" Bernard suggested.

"Gravitons can leave our brane and enter the bulk," Pierre said. "I had ze minor in it in undergraduate," he said with a shrug when Lawrence glanced at him.

"So that could have done it. Flung us at random, while disengaging part of the ship from Hermione's magnetic field," Bernard suggested. "But if that's what happened, I'm surprised the spacecraft's still in one piece. The g forces must've been immense. Not to mention we must have been practically skimming the cloud tops. I'm surprised we didn't hit anything..." He trailed off.

Hermione had been following their logic and did not like it. "So without Jupiter, or Saturn, or one of those planets, we can't get back?" she asked grimly. Lawrence gestured to the two witches, conveying quite effectively "you should know, because I don't." There was another silence.

"If you can do it one way," Cho suggested, "couldn't you do it the other way?"

"We don't even know if we are still attached," Hermione pointed out. "And this is not an ideal time to be trying new spells."

"There is one of ze ways to find out," Pierre said. "If we open a oxygen line. And the leaking is not what it should be, then we will know zere is still a...connection, yes? And then, if that works, we could do what ze lovely Miss Chang is suggesting."

Lawrence didn't even ask whether they had oxygen to spare for this test; he knew that Pierre would not have suggested it if they had not. Instead, he asked,"Could you carry this out now?"

Pierre reached into a locker "above" his console and pulled out a printed operations manual (in case the computer failed, which effectively it had). He began flipping through it. "I do not know what is the override code," he explained. "It does not generally come up, yes?"


18 September 2015

"It's not the construction that costs so much. That's all standard stuff we've known how to do since Apollo and costs us less than it did then. The problem is the R&D. You have to understand, this is something which no one has any scientific understanding of. We've had to go through five prototypes already and the design is still unsatisfactory."

NASA's Administrator was not happy, as he was arguing with the President of the United States, which is an activity that tends to make people unhappy. Worse yet, he was arguing against giving his own agency more money, which was a very annoying thing to have to do. At least, the Chief of Staff imagined it would be annoying.

"Look, what I'm telling you is, we're having to cook the books like crazy to get the budget for this thing. We're having to pretend that the Terrestrial Planet Finder is way over budget, and Congress is talking about canceling it. We're having to pretend the R&D work for the Ceres mission is way over budget, and people are complaining about that. Yes, I know you're doing what you can with the black budget, and I appreciate it. But we still don't know whether this contraption is going to work, and if it doesn't, that's going to be the end of serious space research for two or three election cycles, minimum. You're a lame duck almost, the Republicans are going to be out for blood in 2016, and they aren't big on spending...Yes, of course I'm speaking metaphorically. The point is, you know what they think about that fiscal cliff deal you made them go along with back in '12."

Barack Obama answered, inaudibly to the Chief of Staff.

"No, I agree, I don't think the Europeans are going to want to do that. They're coming out of an economic crash just like us."

The Chief of Staff began sorting his papers while Obama replied.

"I'm not arguing with your priorities. Your priorities are fine. I'm concerned about how this is going to look to the public. Yes, I know you've known about these people since you were elected, and I know Area 51 holds our national school for these wizards, but I only learned about this less than a year ago, and I don't have as much confidence in this magic."

The Administrator obviously did not like Obama's response. "Look, technically, Congress is supposed to be setting our budget and priorities, not you. I don't consider myself entirely obligated--"

He listened for some time. "I understand you're a busy man. Feel free to call me back later." He hung up.

"You know what's ironic?" the Chief of Staff said. "For the first time, we actually are covering something up. And no one knows about it."

The Administrator massaged his temples. "Please tell me you have good news."

"The tests of the magnetic joining system have succeeded," the Chief of Staff explained. "But we're having trouble minaturizing the coils enough to fit on the spacecraft without them overloading."

After a discussion, they decided to err on the side of allowing them to overload, on the logic that they would then be small enough to bring spares along.

"I hope Pierre's suit doesn't rip," Cho said, looking out the porthole anxiously.

"The EVA suits," Hermione stated, "do not 'rip'. They are comprised of various polymers, all of which have tensile strengths far greater than..."

"Oh, skip it, please," Cho cut in. There was a long silence.

Hermione carefully strapped herself into her hammock. One time floating out of it unexpectedly had been enough.

"Sorry. I'm just scared."

"Quite all right, so am I. Cho, if I may ask...why did you decide to...come back?"

"I didn't think I was going to die billions of kilometers from home if I did," she answered.

"We're not going to die," Hermione said, trying to sound confident. Cho didn't answer.

There was another silence. Clanking noises drifted down from the control room. Lawrence was extracting the wrecked coils from the Apparition chamber (trying to do this by magic would have destroyed the remaining computers), and Bernard was trying to sort out the oxygen pipes. Pierre had gone EVA to get the replacement coils, which were outside the part of the ship still holding pressure. Cho was wearing the other EVA suit; her job was to put a Bubble-Head Charm on herself and Apparate outside the ship (which should be safe enough with the bulkhead and hatch between her and the computers) to help Pierre if he got in trouble. Hermione had been ordered to rest, to maximize the chance of her magic being successful.

"So it worked out well? You and Ron?" Cho asked suddenly.

"Yes, it did," Hermione answered, almost apologetically. "Look, we cannot all get what we want in life..." She trailed off. "I've never learned when to stop talking, have I?"

"Not really," Cho answered. "But at least you aren't an idiot like me."

"You aren't an idiot."

"Really?" Cho sniffled. "What do you call someone who brings in the person who gets a society of thirty people, our best chance, caught? Then makes the one guy she loves hate her? And decides...and decides to stop using magic, like that would make anything better..." Teardrops welled out of her eyes and drifted away toward the air vent, wobbling back and forth. "I'm useless, useless!"

The hatch opened and Henry lurched into the cabin. "Right, what the bloody hell's going on here?"

"I'll handle it," Hermione said. "Cho's...she's having some..."

Henry nodded after a moment. "Do what you can." He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it again and went out, shutting the hatch gently behind him.


"How are you doing, Pierre?" Cho asked, trying to sound normal.

"I am doing well, am near ze coils. I am not sure I vill be able to hold all of zem..." His heavy breathing replaced his voice in Cho's headset. "Cho, please go and ask Lawrence whezzer he thinks you can, er, with ze safety, Apparate out here. This eez too many things to carry."

"I'll ask him," Hermione said.

"No point both of us getting out of these," Cho returned. "Oi, Lawrence!"

"What?" he almost snapped after a few seconds.

"Pierre says he isn't sure he can carry all the coils. He wants me to Apparate out there and bring them in for him."

"Bloody hell, I told him, you're not doing that unless it's an emergency. Your suit might not come through with you. Right, tell him to make several trips if he has to, we don't lose that much in the airlock."

"All right..."

Cho told Pierre that, while Hermione adjusted her straps again nervously. Floating in space was far too much like riding a broom. She got them more or less in order, and lay "back". Cho continued listening to Pierre's status reports, but stopped speaking. The whirring of the oxygen fans drowned Lawrence's banging, and Hermione slowly fell asleep.


Henry Lawrence was managing to keep calm, but only barely. Part of this was fear, and part amazement: they were hundreds of times further from Earth than any human had ever been! Even if they died out here, this was...

He got another coil loose. Holding it in one hand, he carefully moved a plastic bag he was holding to get the old coils toward the "bottom" of it. Releasing the coil he'd just extracted, he unzipped the bag and swept the latest coil inside. A few oxidized fragments had drifted out of the inside of the equipment, and he had to sweep those up as well. He closed the bag, released it (being careful not to leave it moving), and began examining the next coil. It seemed to be fused.

"Bernard, we've another fused coil here, how many can we safely leave in?"

"How many do we have?"

"This one makes four."

"That...should be okay."

"Right." Henry continued to the next coil, which was not actually fused in place, but was stuck.

"I'm checking my work here, but I'm pretty sure we can make the test whenever you're ready," Bernard said.

"That's not time critical, so let's wait until Weasley's up and the Frenchman's back inside. I'll want their opinions."

"Okay, is there anything else we need?"

"Well, have..." Henry broke off, pulling hard on the coil with the crowbar-like tool he was using. It didn't move. "Er, have you been recording the camera input?"

"I don't think so..."

"Well. We're out here, we ought to get some pictures, don't you think? It's a shame really that we've no scientific instruments, we could get all sorts of data on the interstellar medium..."

"I'll get some footage."

"That reminds me, the personal statements. We're to do 'em as soon as circumstances permit; well, in your case, they do. Damn this thing! So write yours up."

"All right, I'll get that bull out of the way..." Bernard extracted paper and the latest space pen model from a marked drawer, settled himself by the bulkhead, and began scribbling notes.


Hermione awoke, for the first time since launch, knowing where she was and what she was doing. A mix of dread and anticipation accordingly filled her body as she cautiously unzipped her hammock. She rubbed her eyes and face, which felt awful. The first thing she was doing after getting back to Earth was taking a good long shower. Ironic, really, she mused: she'd gone for far longer without washing during the war. One of the few times she'd wished she could do Bat-Bogey Hexes like Ginny was when Harry had "explained" why they could never have done what the Horcrux depicted: the smell. She'd settled for punching him in the arm.

She rattled through the hatch, with no idea what time it was. Time was pretty meaningless here: the lights and stars never changed.

A tired but focused Henry Lawrence looked over from his position at the computer, where he was frowning at the display. "Ah, Mrs. Weasley, I'm glad to see you're awake. Mr. Gaston was able to retrieve sufficient coils, and the American and I have succeeded in installing them. We're trying to check the system, but this computer is right awful, it's taking far too long."

"What's this 'the American' crap?" Bernard asked, flipping through a manual. "Maybe I'll start calling you the," he imitated a British accent, "right proper and correct English gen-teel-man."

"C'mon, mate, this is an international ship," Henry answered. "God Save the Noble Star Spangled Marsaillase and all that."

"Are we ready to test the oxygen lines?" Hermione asked. Sometimes these two were as bad as Harry and Ron.

"Yeah, we are," Bernard said. "Hey! Pierre! Get your Napoleon Bony-ass in here!"

"Right away, George Weighs-a-Ton," Pierre answered, pulling himself through the tunnel. "Miss Chang eez still asleep, I see no good reason to wake her."

"Agreed," Lawrence answered. "Right, Bernard, primary tank three valve to closed position."

"Primary tank three valve, closed position."

"Secondary tank three valve to closed position."

They continued to set the controls.

"Right," Lawrence said finally. He confirmed that the camera was recording. "This test will determine the, er, hyperspatial integrity of the AHAC-1 spacecraft. The test will be considered a success if air does not leak from the LOX tanks one and two pipelines - "

"Lawrence, we know all this," Bernard said.

"I am required to record this according to procedures given to me by my government. Right, success if air does not leak when valve O-8A is placed in open position, as determined by shutting off the oxygen supply to the cabin for a limited time and measuring the cabin pressure. If that occurs, we will attempt to, er, reunify the spacecraft through procedures to reverse Splinching. Failure will occur if there is significant leakage: if that occurs, our only viable option will be to set coordinates for a point in LEO where we will have sufficient delta V from the remaining thrusters to reenter in a controlled fashion, and attempt another enhanced Apparition to that point."

"Okay, let's do this," Bernard demanded. "Ready on valve."

"I am watching ze gauge," Gaston said. "Steady at 6.82 kilopascal."

"Right, Bernard, valve O-8A to open position."

"Tank one, main valve to open position."

"Mister Gaston?" Lawrence said after a moment.

"6.82...6.82...6.82..." After about thirty seconds, Gaston looked up with a grin. "Zat eez not going anywhere, Lawrence."

Bernard whooped loudly, startling the Brits. "Okay, this is amazing!" he said. "I'd love to be able to look down that pipe..."

"Right," Lawrence said. "We can worry about the science later. Mrs. Weasley, do you have a plan to reunify the ship?"

"I know there is no such incantation," Hermione answered. She hesitated, not as long as she would have, but longer than she would have liked. Why couldn't they have sent Harry?

"So, our only chance is to try to invent a spell on the spot. Almost all incantations are simply the Latin for the desired action, but there are numerous ways to express the same thing in any language, Latin being no exception, so it may not be right the first time. If we're lucky, the wrong ones will do nothing serious, I'll be able to keep trying. Then there's the wand movement, the best I can come up with is to use the standard Splinch reunification procedure, and -"

Lawrence cut her off. "At what do you estimate our chances?"

"Well, ah, there's a reason this stuff isn't taught in Hogwarts, and we're deliberately prevented from learning Latin. The first attempts at any new spell can be disastrous. Although, in a way, this is counterproductive, as it inhibits young wizards' ability to determine the effects of the spell from the incantation, which would tend to prevent incidents like the one with Harry and Sectum - "

"Mrs. Weasley, I'm quite sure this is fascinating, but now is not the time. To be frank, I see no other choice than what you propose. We cannot traverse a sufficient distance from here with conventional propulsion, nor can we Apparate that far without a substantial gravity well."

"Right, then," Hermione apologized. "The Latin is 'Unificare' for 'unify', but I'm not certain about the conjugation..."

"Sorry," Lawrence answered after a moment. "We're neither biologists nor linguists."

"I will simply attempt forms until, until we have a success."

"All right, let's do it then," Bernard interjected. Now that he said it, there was no reason to delay. If they failed, no one would ever see anything they wrote or recorded, and their radio wasn't powerful enough to get a message back to Earth (unless radio astronomers knew what they were looking for and exactly where to look, which they wouldn't).

"First, everyone needs to get inside a space suit and strapped in their acceleration couches," Lawrence ordered. "We could lose hull integrity if something goes wrong."

"Henry, if something goes wrong we'll probably all wind up inside out," Cho retorted. "Let's just try it."

"He's right, Cho," Hermione explained. "We might Splinch again, but just shave off a bit of the hull."

The next few minutes were a flurry of chaotic activity. Even with modern designs and two "rooms" in which to do it, five people entering spacesuits in a very confined space with no gravity, and three of them trying to accomplish other tasks at irregular intervals, is not an easy thing to accomplish. Hermione was hit in the face by a flying glove, Bernard banged his elbow on an acceleration couch, and Cho got tangled up with Pierre while they were trying to get their boots on (and stayed that way perhaps a second or two longer than necessary). Lawrence was speaking into an iCube, describing the procedure and slamming his hand over the mike whenever he yelled an order or one of the others started swearing sufficiently loudly.

Finally everyone was strapped in, and silence fell, all eyes on Hermione. A bead of sweat came off her forehead and drifted in her helmet. All she could hear was her own heavy breathing, echoed back by the faceplate.

She raised her wand.

Cho suddenly spoke. "Pierre - I think -"

"Unificare Spatium Superior."

Crushing blackness claimed them. They were whirling, driving, the force crushing, no air, no light...and on, and on, and on. We'll never get out! Hermione thought. We'll be stuck in this until we die! No, calm down, get a grip -

Then a bang, and a lurching shudder, and the capsule again.

No one said anything for a long moment, hauling in air. Pierre and Bernard disengaged their helmets with practiced caution, but the cabin air was fine.

"System status?" Lawrence queried, removing his helmet as Hermione and Cho began to fumble with theirs.

Bernard checked the displays. "We've got it back!" he exclaimed. "A few things are still showing zero or errors, but everything else is back on line. We've got a leak somewhere in the equipment storage, probably the reunification wasn't exact."

He and Lawrence began discussing the systems. Hermione and Cho let go massive sighs of relief, then detached their helmets. Hermione supposed she should be cheering or something, but she was more exhausted than anything. Pierre, however, began punching buttons on the console.

"Monseiur Lawrence," he said, looking at a very clear picture on his screen. "We are not yet out of trouble. We are at Neptune."

All eyes turned to his display, which showed, dimly but clearly, a dark blue planet with an even deeper blue oval in the upper right quadrant.

"Can we determine our velocity?" Lawrence asked quickly. "We are probably not in a stable orbit, and Neptune's magnetic field is bloody awful."

"Yeah, the computer should be able to handle that -"

"I don't know if I can take us back to, ah, LEO from here," Hermione broke in. "Our first attempt was nowhere near its target."

"Zis time," Pierre said, "all your mind, all your soul, will be aimed for the destination."

No one responded to that for a moment. Neptune drifted off the display, and Pierre calmly switched the feed.

"Okay, Lawrence, we aren't in a stable orbit," Bernard reported. "Our perihelion is too close to Neptune. We will hit the upper atmosphere, lose too much speed to maintain orbit, and fall. We just don't have enough velocity. I might be able to buy us a few cycles with the engines, but this planet is probably the worst one for this in the whole system."

"Not to mention," Lawrence noted, "the magnetic flux change will be hell that close. Hardening only goes so far, and we can't control the Apparition at all."

"How's that?" Cho asked.

"It would be like trying to do brain surgery in a car on a bumpy road, signal's lost in the noise," Bernard said. "Not that the guidance seems to have worked anyway."

"Can we contact Mission Control?" Lawrence asked after a moment. "Lightspeed delay's about eight hours round-trip. Do we have that long?"

"What could they tell us?" Bernard pointed out. "Nobody's ever tried to do anything like this before. They won't know any more than we do."

"In any case, we can get a signal to Earth from here," Lawrence decided, "so the first thing to do is to transmit all our data and observations to Earth in case we can't make it back."

"What good - "

"That information will be very useful in determining what went wrong, why, and how to fix it," Bernard cut off Cho. "I agree. Then

"...we go."

The Muggle crew set to work, Bernard on the transmission, the other two on the Apparition enhancer equipment. Hermione drifted there outside the magnetic chamber, thinking as hard as she could of Earth, of home: of Harry, Ron, her parents, her children, the smell of old books, the thrill of setting right what was wrong, the rolling hills of Scotland, the cliffs of Dover...

A semi-remembered bit of science fiction she'd read as a little girl came back to her now; a song sung by a young man on Ganymede unlikely to ever stand on Earth again. Far drive the sons (even then, the gender bias had annoyed her) of Terra/Out rides the thundering jet/Up leaps a race of Earthmen/Thus far, and onward, yet.../We've gauged each tumbling space mote/And reckoned its true worth/Bear me back to the fleecy skies/And the cool green hills of Earth.

"Can I see it?" she asked Bernard.

"See what?" he answered, lining up the antenna.

"Earth. Physically, I mean."

"No, it's right between us and the Sun, so it'll be lost in the glare and have no light reflection besides. And even this far out, staring at the Sun isn't a great idea. Oh, and don't start thinking about the Sun now, because I'd prefer not to be vaporized the moment we exit hyperspace."

"I could do it, Hermione, if you don't feel up to it," Cho offered.

"Sorry for the bluntness," Nate retorted, "but Hermione's got a lot more for her on Earth than you do."

"I have to concur," Henry added, after a pause, without looking up from his work. "Right, that should be the last of the synchronization checks. How's the power?"

"It appears to be O.K.," Pierre answered.

"I sent everything to Earth twice," Bernard told Lawrence.

"Right then," Lawrence directed, "Mrs. Granger, into the chamber, if you please. Miss Chang, get yourself strapped down."

Cho, somewhat angrily, thrust herself into her couch and began tightening the straps. The Muggles ran through their checklists, priming the chamber. Hermione focused all her thoughts and will upon Earth, home, rain and clouds and the smell of wet grass and fresh parchment, the myriad variations of humanity, the music, the light, the all-pervasive life...

"Induction two hundred millitesla, three, four hundred now -"

"Main relay grid is go, distribution nodes reading normal."

"GBAR shutdown confirmed, ADOP at specified power."

"Five seconds."

Hermione was thinking about that all-pervasive life, when she suddenly recalled a large cockroach that had recently startled her in the bathroom. She desperately tried to shake the image, but as usual, couldn't force herself to not think about something.

"Induction critical, all systems go!"

"Mrs. Weasley, three, two, one, now!"

Hermione, still unable to shake the image of the cockroach completely, whirled into the black.

It was a long, dark trip. Hermione was almost blase about the hellish compression, the choking feeling, the total darkness, by now, but she had no idea where they would end up. To her horror, several very undesirable exit points flashed through her mind, which she frantically refocused on the sights and sounds and smells of Earth. But suddenly, she felt a violent yank, clearing everything else from her mind.

Their return to normal reality was heralded by a tremendous crash, a moment of gravity, and a sudden return to free fall, followed by a less noisy but much rougher collision with something else. Hermione was slammed against the inside of the chamber several times, colorfully expressing her opinion of the space program each time, until the spacecraft stopped tumbling and ground to a halt. The lights flickered and went out.

"Is everyone all right?" Lawrence shouted after a moment.

"I'm fine," came Bernard's voice.

"All right here," Gaston said from what was now the ceiling. "Alzo, I am not certain how to get myself down."

"I'm just perfect," said Cho sarcastically.

"Bit banged up, but alive," Hermione put in. "Do you know where we are?"

"We're under gravity," Lawrence said slowly. "So either we're accelerating, which is very unlikely because the main engine isn't oriented that way, or we're on the surface of a planet." Sudden happiness leapt into his voice. "If it was Venus, or one of the gas giants, we'd be dead by now, and it's too strong for anywhere else -"

He yanked open the hatch. Warm sunlight and the smell of green grass flooded in.

"- but Earth!"

This was the sort of moment that seemed to call for cheering, but everyone was too worn out. Broad grins were on every face, though, as Lawrence climbed out.

"AHAC-1, this is Houston, do you read?!" burst from the radio. "Where are you? Your signal's very strong, but we can't get a fix on your position."

"Uh, Bernard here, Houston, thanks for the concern," Bernard said, keying his headset on, "but we're on the ground. On Earth. I'm not sure where exactly, but judging by the sound of it, we seem to have materialized right on top of a building."

"What?" A pause. "Did the GBAR fail, AHAC?"

"Uh, negative, Houston, we disabled it because it appeared ineffective and we wanted to have sufficient energy to attempt another jump."

Cho managed to get out of the last of her straps, and crossed the curved "floor" to the chamber. After a bit of exchanging gestures, she got the idea and pulled the emergency release. Hermione tumbled out. Cho helped her up. Though Hermione wasn't one to gripe, she was quite certain at that moment, that she was never leaving Ron or her kids, and certainly not Earth, again.

"Another jump? Where were you?"

"Well, you should get everything in a few hours, but I'll tell you now, the navigation completely failed. Our first jump sent us more than a light year outside Sol system - well, part of us."

There was a silence. While Cho started removing Pierre's straps carefully, Hermione climbed out of the capsule into the suddenly dazzling light. Finally the CapCom spoke again.

"I can see this is going to be an interesting debriefing. Where are you now?"

"I told you, we don't know. We seem to have lost power after that impact."

"I know where we are," came Hermione's voice from outside, with a strange mix of anger, despair, and hilarity.

"What do you mean?"

"We landed," she explained, "on top of my house." Specifically, she added mentally, the bathroom with that damned cockroach. It hadn't even startled her that much, who knows why she couldn't shake the thought.

"We're in England," Bernard reported calmly.


20 August 2018

NASA's Chief of Staff hurried into the conference room. "We've issued a press release," she said. "No specifics, just that we've tried out a new form of propulsion, and it provided adequate thrust but was practically uncontrollable. There's a lot of speculation on the Web about us covering up controlled fusion and zero-point energy, but no one close to the truth."

"Good. That does seem to cover it," NASA's Administrator added. The hastily convened conference held him, NASA's Chief of Staff, their European counterparts, the crew aboard the AHAC-1, Ron and the Muggles' wives, and several magical officials from the USA, the UK, and France. "We've found no evidence in the sensor logs that the control systems had any effect at all, in fact."

"Ordinary Apparition can be controlled reasonably well," Hermione said. "But this...I've had fleeting thoughts of other destinations quite often when Apparating, and it has scarcely ever been a problem. But this...it picks upon anything, or nothing."

"Still," one of the ESA people said, "this is a tremendous accomplishment. We have achieved the dream of science fiction, centuries ahead of its time; the transits were far faster than light. At a light year each jump, if it can be controlled, we could get a more powerful spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in minutes."

"But without control, this is worthless."

"Can't you just keep jumping until you..." he made vague gestures ,"get somewhere?" one of the American wizards asked.

"I'm afraid space is very large and everything in it is comparatively miniscule," said the Chief of Staff. "We could do that for years and get nowhere except hard vacuum. And, this thing can't reliably return to Earth, and has to be manned to work."

"I'd say it's back to the drawing board for a while," the Administrator summed up. Everyone nodded. "We'll need to discuss continued funding, but that's a matter for our respective governments."

"In any case," Hermione put in, "you lot will need to find a new astronaut. It's not that I couldn't stand it, but I can't risk leaving my children without a mother. Not again."

"I understand."

With little else to be said for the time being, the meeting concluded.