Free Alicia Jones 4: Enigma by D. L. Harrison

data.
    I got some surprising results.  It was far from
complete, but it was a start.  Every failure brought me a little closer to… I
wasn’t really sure yet.
     

Chapter 12
    Kristi came into my office, and Carmine followed with a
large smile on his face.
    “Yes?” I asked, with a phantom smile.
    Carmine’s smile grew, “I did it.”
    “Did what exactly?”
    Carmine replied, “Terraforming, fast terraforming.  At
least, as long as the planet isn’t completely barren of atmosphere, an EM
field, and the right gravity.  You know, all the stuff we can’t really do
anything about.”
    I smiled finally, and asked, “How fast?”
    Carmine replied, “Well, Kristi has been giving me world
data, she wouldn’t tell me from where, but she assures me they’re real planets,
somewhere.  Out of fifteen that have some kind of atmosphere, nine of them
will only take ten years to support humanoid life comfortably, the rest under
fifty.”
    I looked at Kristi, and she shrugged.  Apparently she’d
been sharing finds from the stealth sensor net, without giving any details
besides planetary conditions.
    “That’s fantastic, can you patent the procedure?”
    Carmine nodded, “Already done.”
    Kristi offered, “I can get him in contact with the council
and governments.  I’m sure they’ll jump at the chance for fifteen more
colonies over the next fifty years.  And that’s just so far, we’re still
less than halfway out to the rim from Earth.”
    I asked, “What will you do now Carmine?”
    Carmine replied without hesitation, “I appreciate all you’ve
done for me, but I want to go out there and see it work, not just sell the
procedure.  It’s been my dream to terraform worlds, and I’m not interested
in inventing anything else.”
    I nodded, “In that case, good luck to you, and if you need
help we’re still here for you.”
    After all, we still had a large stake in his invention, it
only made sense to help him.
    Still, I’d have to start looking again for scientists with
projects that have possibilities.  That made all three of the original
scientists successful, which was great.  I knew both Caroline and Shelly
wanted to make more improvements, still, they were already successful.  So
maybe just one more as soon as I could, but I was horribly busy right now, a
lot was happening.
    Carmine’s smile was bright as he said, “Thanks,” and then walked
out.
    Kristi asked curiously, “So, what are you up to?”
    I grinned and said, “Step one is complete.”
    Kristi tilted her head, “For world domination?”
    I giggled, “No, ditzy blonde, for subspace, dimensional
space, whatever you want to call it.”
    Kristi asked, “How?”
    I got up and closed my door, and then had Al bring up the
sensors outside the galaxy.
    “I set up a wormhole device to, I’m not sure what to call
it.  Instead of making a tunnel that leads from location to location in
normal space, it creates an aperture of sorts directly into subspace.  After
setting up parameters I had Al run through thousands of iterations, and then
modified the parameters based on the data and had Al run more tests.  Rinse and
repeat.  I’m pretty sure I exceeded even Edison’s failure count for the
lightbulb when I finally stumbled across the right combination.”
    I had Al turn it on, and the same white luminescence that
surrounded the Drenil ship appeared several miles away from the lab ship. 
Initially it flashed white in a very large space, and then settled into a round
disc.
    Kristi asked, “How do you know that’s where they go?”
    “I’m fairly sure subspace is in layers, it’s the only one to
go to from here, to access the next one you have to go to this one first. 
Most likely the rules in the one above are even more different. 
Regardless, like I said, this is just the first step.”
    I ordered, “Al, move the Shield missile in front of the
opening.”
    The shield missile moved slowly in front of the opening, and
when it got