The MIT press conference on the physics of Gateworld was crowded. Marc had been assured the news would NOT be yet another disaster or lead to more Gate militarism before he allowed it to go ahead. Instead, he found out they were simply protecting their chances for the Nobel Prize for Physics by not giving out advance information. They had also informed him that it was something everyone was bound to discover in another few weeks.
Stewart Hartland opened the conference:
You all know that many basic laws of physics seem to operate differently in Gateworld, most especially those laws involving radiation and decay. There have been many concerns raised about the possibility of nuclear war via Gates.
I'm happy to tell you all today - this will not be possible. No modern nuclear warhead can survive Gate to Gate travel and remain operational. At most, such an attempt would result in a "dirty bomb" explosion, which is simply a normal chemical warhead that spreads radioactive debris when detonated. It would NOT be capable of significant nuclear fission, let alone fusion.
Of course, attacks from Earth INTO a Gate are still possible, and a warhead would probably remain viable long enough to detonate in the immediate vicinity of its entry Gate.
All of this is due to the fact that Gateworld reduces radioactive isotopes of all kinds in much the same way that radioactive decay itself works, and the effect is such that about 1% of all radioactive material becomes NON-radioactive each day. This may not seem like enough to the layman, but let me assure you that in terms of active fission, the effect is quite dramatic and even a fraction of 1% is enough to render most nuclear weapons ineffective.
In most materials, stable isotopes replace the unstable isotopes in about the same proportions as those isotopes appear in nature. However, in elements that have no stable isotopes, something much more mysterious and exciting is happening. While the exact details of our findings are still proprietary, we are calling the resulting new, STABLE, materials the "Schrodinger's" isotopes.
So far, we have been unable to separate these new materials from their radioactive cousins on anything but a molecular scale, so we don't have full details on their properties. However, at the heart of todays announcement, we do know of ONE unique property of both Schrodinger's Uranium and Schrodinger's Plutonium:
They are room temperature Superconductors! Furthermore, their superconductivity first becomes evident with any mixture containing at least 3% Schrodinger material.
The room went wild....it never calmed down enough for follow-up questions, and Dr. Heartland quickly exited the room.
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Marc instantly ordered the collection and stockpiling of all depleted Uranium supplies he could control, and instituted a buy-back program anywhere the the public might have collected such supplies. While he wished they'd told him ahead of time, it seemed few had realized that U-235 and U-238 were equally useful in creating Schrodinger Uranium, and within the day he had most of it sitting in a Gateworld warehouse refining itself into superconductors.
Unlike the livestreamed balloon ride, unmanned balloons that went much over 2 miles up quickly were caught in winds and carried away beyond control and communication range. Manned balloon stations, on the other hand, seemed to have little trouble maintaining their position and became MORE stable with altitude - as long as no clouds were present.
Marc's next big concern was China - he simply didn't know what they were up to in Gateworld. Whatever it was, they had excellent operational security. What he DID know was that they were being VERY firm in controlling Gate access to the population in general. they had ways of determining the age of Gates, and any unauthorized Gate created after Day 10 carried severe punishments for the creators and users of such Gates.
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Marc knew the positions of many Chinese Gates in Gateworld, but he'd lost a few drones trying to get more data - further investigation would have to wait until he could afford to lose more of his very limited drone fleet.
Most of the world, now, was simply expanding into the new lands. Some groups were quickly going independent, some even closing off their Gates, but most were just taking advantage of the room to expand and the high rates of food production possible in Gateworld. Return travel was another story, as worries about disease and contamination had many nations terrified, so most frequently used Gates had Earth-side guard posts around them - especially those near population centers.
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The PLA completed their stocking of the NY warehouse, setting timers and booby traps, then closing off their side of the Gate with concrete bunkers. The Gate-opening agent left for Washington DC to arrange a similar fate.
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Rachel tried to explain her absence to her fellow university grad students who had been worried when she had gone missing for 3 days. Two of them had tried to replicate her experience, but with no results, after which many were skeptical of her strange story. With nothing else to try, she agreed to try to repeat her experience - but this time with a full set of backpacking, survival, and seeding gear on her person.
She had quick results, with her intent directed at the thermal paradise she had been to before, it took her less than 25 minutes to vanish from Earth and appear back in her Gateworld domain, this time with supplies. The other students recorded her vanishing and immediately started speculating as to how others could follow in her footsteps. If everything went to plan, she would come back to the hospital in 3 days.
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Shane was more certain than ever that something was boosting his health. His acne had cleared up, the small cuts and bruises from his treks had vanished in record time, and he could now hop across rocks like never before, even with a hefty pack. Walking onwards, a few other small native streams joined his salty one, and he could see many signs of green at the stream edge as life began to colonize the new environment - he even spotted a jellyfish in one calm streamside pool.
At Salt Lake, he had seen numerous small fish and a few crabs along the shoreline, but it was still the main channel from the Gate to Salt Lake where he could beachcomb for fish worth cooking. His gardens were already producing enough to get him by if the fish ran out or he got tired of them.
At night, along the brackish stream, it seemed like total darkness. If the eerie energy came down this far, it wasn't dense enough to be visible.
Th next day proved to just be more of the same - a few more tiny streams joined in, but nothing of note. Shane decided to give up for now and return when everything had had more of a chance to grow.
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Dan Vogt was also feeling a bit more spry and his internet browsing showed that was fairly normal for anyone over 50 living in Gateworld, but research was just starting into the causes. The big factor to watch was that returning to Earth for more than a day or two seemed to allow Gateworld-borne infections to take hold - and they were often easily spread to non-Gateworld folk.
Dan, of course, had opted NOT to get a beacon, so he couldn't yet tell where he was on the slowly growing "Map of Gateworld" site - which so far looked like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle with only a couple dozen pieces in place. He assumed he was fairly near the central region, as he had formed his Gate fairly early on.
His two new Gates so far weren't anything special, but at least they would spread around some more life in the region. With each one, he had placed large piles of assorted smelly "bait" to lure critters through the gateways, and had piled up enough dirt to make pathways for tiny ground creatures as well.
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For Cindy, things were mostly boring, but the cats, frogs, and rabbits did their best to keep her entertained as she did her homework in the lakeside meadow. She had no idea that the animals didn't normally get along and play together so freely elsewhere.