Starquake.pdf

This was the first time there had been a need for the management of a team of electromagnetic engineers
and Electromagnetic-Manager/1 was the first of his profession.
Graviton-Maker/321 and his crew of robots brought the laser communicator to a halt near the
electromagnetic-makers' strange machines floating in orbit some distance away from Dragon Slayer. He
stacked up most of his robots, but left a few at the job of keeping the laser communicator in place.
Electromagnetic-Manager/1, his team of engineers, and their hordes of specialized robots were waiting
for him.
"To you," said Graviton-Maker/321.
"To me," said Electromagnetic-Manager/1.
"Don't ..." started Graviton-Maker/321.
"... touch," chirped a chorus of treads from the team of electromagnetic-makers.
The power cable for the laser was brought near an electron generator. It was difficult for the
electromagnetic engineers to generate large currents at such low voltages, but soon four amperes of
electrons at 500 volts were shooting from one
end of the electron generator and four amperes of positrons from the other end. The Web-Con
electromagnetic robots steered the beams with the electric and magnetic fields emanating from their
bodies and directed them at the conductors in the cut end of the cable.
"Laser photons detected from end of human instrument," said Electromagnetic-Maker/32, who was
monitoring the response of a long-wavelength photon detector in one of his robots that he had positioned
in front of the laser communicator.
"Positron erosion?" asked Electromagnetic-Manager/1.
"Ten picometers per methturn," replied Electromagnetic -Maker/25.
"Good," said Electromagnetic-Manager/1. The technique for extracting the electrons from the return
conductor seemed to be working. A set of ultraviolet generator robots kept the return conductor
illuminated with ultraviolet photons which knocked electrons out of the metal. The electrons billowed up
in a cloud over the end of the positively charged conductor where they were annihilated by the stream of
positrons. Most of the annihilation gamma rays were scattered by the electron cloud, but some high
energy photons reached the metal and caused the loss of copper ions.
"Wire temperature?" Electromagnetic-Manager/1 asked another engineer.
"Stablized at 352 K," said Electromagnetic-Maker/28. "Electromagnetic cooling working." His team of
robots were monitoring detectors that estimated the detailed spectrum of the heat photons excited in the
surface of the metal where the beam of electrons penetrated. The electron beam was then modulated to
produce heat photons that had the same estimated spectrum but with the phases reversed, so that on the
average, the new photons would tend to cancel the old photons. Being a statistical technique, it didn't
work perfectly, but it did keep the wires well below their melting point.
"Modulation!" ordered Electromagnetic-Manager/1.