“ For instance: with a possible error of plus or minus two seconds Alpha Centauri A began to explode the instant we came out of ultradrive!"Now, the probability of that occurring comes out so small that it should happen only once in ten to the four hundred sixty-seventh seconds."It was Commander Benedict's turn to frown. "So?""Commander, the entire universe is only about ten to the seventeenth seconds old. But to give you an idea, let's say that the chances of its happening are once in millions of trillions of years!" ”
Randall Garrett
Summary
“Time Fuze”, is a work by Randall Garrett. It explores elements such as Leicher, ultradrive and Benedict.
Quotes from Time Fuze (Randall Garrett)
“ Benedict said nothing; he just waited expectantly."There is only one thing that could have done it. Our ship." Leicher said it quietly, without emphasis."What we know about the hyperspace, or superspace, or whatever it is we move through in ultradrive is almost nothing. Coming out of it so near to a star might set up some sort of shock wave in normal space which would completely disrupt that star's internal balance, resulting in the liberation of unimaginably vast amounts of energy, causing that star to go nova. We can only assume that we ourselves were the fuze that set off that nova." ”
“ It is certainly true that we will never know, now, whether Alpha Centauri A ever had any planets. But, in another way, it is extremely fortunate that we should be so near a stellar explosion because of the wealth of scientific information we can obtain. ”
