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by Vaughan Stanger
Science Fiction, 4 pages.
Originally Published in Futures in Nature, 2009
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When it comes to generating energy, Robert Heinlein’s maxim definitely applies: “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” For now, the sun continues to shine. If it stops any time soon I guess you’ll have a few hours, at most, to blame me.
Belinda and I first heard about extracting zero-point energy from the vacuum long before the news feeds got excited. Invariably the earliest of early adopters, we ordered a box of zero-point light bulbs as soon as we read the press release, despite the outrageous price. Set to hover, they made lovely Christmas ornaments.
Whoever said that perpetual motion doesn’t work?
On the Twelfth day of Christmas Belinda switched off the lowermost bulb and let it fall into her hand.
“Oh!” she yelped.
Worried that she might have scorched her hand, I swivelled in my chair.
“Did you burn yourself?”
Belinda served up her minted you’re-such-a-dummy look. “Oh, Mike; you’re not going senile on me, are you?” At which point, I recalled that zero-point devices operate at ambient temperature.
“What’s up then?”
“Not sure yet.”
She was peering intently at what, from my vantage point, looked like nothing at all. First she bent down; then she stood on tip-toe; finally she crabbed around, bobbing her head, inspecting whatever it was, or wasn’t, from every angle. Finally she gave a little nod accompanied by a grunt of satisfaction.
“Okay, take a look at the rug. From here.” She indicated a point in mid-air with the tip of her index finger.
We really should have got rid of that fraying memento of our honeymoon years ago, but I peered at it as instructed. A small patch looked decidedly pale. Had I spilt something on it? No, because when I raised my head the faded patch moved too.
“Oh, my!”
“Indeed,” said Belinda.
I experimented some more. By looking through the designated spot from various directions I could make patches of wallpaper and curtains fade.
Now it was my turn to point at the flaw in space. “Is that where you hung the light, darling?”
“No, that’s where you hung it!”
I accepted the blame with a sigh before resuming my inspection of the defect. Something had caught my eye: a tiny nub of whiteness where previously there was nothing.
“Unless I’m much mistaken,” I said, “there is something here now.”
With my thumbnail and forefinger pinched together, I attempted to tweeze it out. On my third attempt, I finally managed to extract a short piece of what looked like string.
“Now you’ve done it,” Belinda said.
How right she was.
That evening, I fired up my laptop and sent an e-mail to BBC News. My announcement retained “most read” sta -- [End of Preview.]