The Tahirian Field Drive

Starfarers.

The full name of the zero-zero drive is the quantum field gate drive. However, this is not the Tahirian field drive.

A Tahirian spacecraft approaches Envoy:

"'N-n-no jets.' His crew had never before heard Nansen stammer. 'Dios todopoderoso, how does it boost?'

"'We'll learn,' Kilbirnie called once more." (22, p. 209)

 

"'What about those jetless flyers here?'

"'That may be an application of principles we know in ways we have not thought of.'" (23, p. 222)

 

"On its drive that [Nansen] did not understand, the boat glided up toward his vessel." (24, p. 227)

 

"Eventually [Ruszek] might accumulate such a stack of information that Yu could make something of it, maybe even figure out how the jetless drive worked. He suspected the principle was quantum mechanical, and a starship's engineer was necessarily a jackleg quantum physicist." (27, p. 251)

 

"'I think once I have analyzed these readings, with Esther's help, I will know how the field drive operates.'

"'You don't? I mean, uh, you told me before, you're sure it's a push against the vacuum.'

"Yu sighed. 'An interaction with the virtual particles of the vacuum,' she corrected. 'Energy and momentum are conserved, but, loosely speaking, the reaction is against the mass of the entire universe, and approximately uniform. What I referred to was understanding the exact, not the general, principle.'

"'Uniform? Don't they adjust the field inside a hull? Weight's the same during any boost.'

"'In quantum increments, obviously.' Yu paused. 'Compared to this drive, jets are as wasteful as ...as burning petroleum, chemical feedstock, for fuel once was on Earth.'

"'What I like is the handling qualities. How soon can you and your computer design a motor for us, Wenji?'

"'Not at all, I fear, until we're home. Besides, we couldn't possibly do so radical a retrofit on Envoy, or even her boats.' Yu's voice lilted. 'However, I think with Hanny's help when she gets back, we can devise a unit that will compensate for linear acceleration and keep the vector in the wheels constant.'

"'Do you mean, when the ship's under boost, we won't have to cram like swine onto those manhater-designed gimbal decks?' Ruszek waved clasped hands above his shining pate. 'Huzzah!' he bellowed." (28, p. 262)

"'You've found out enough about the field drive that you can build one for us -'

"'No, no, please. I have explained that we can't retrofit Envoy and her boats. They are too integrated with their existing systems. I do think that we can add a unit that will make us more comfortable under acceleration, but any real shipbuilding must await our return to Earth.

"'Where they may already long have had such craft.'" (29, p. 272)

 

Back at Earth:

 

"They had never heard of a field drive here, or apparently anywhere in the space known to man. Was that historical accident, or did the invention require a Tahirian kind of quantum mechanical insight, guided perhaps by hints the Holont gave those visitors before they fled from it and withdrew from the stars?'" (48, p. 449)

 

On Harbor:

 

"...Our first starships are ready, ships better than any known before, thanks to the union of human technology with the new knowledge brought from afar." (52, p. 492)