Beyond the Sky: Chapter 19
The Uranium Problem
“What?” Takji exclaimed. If Jepsei Burrowers had nuclear technology...
“Not to a dangerous level,” Benson continued. “You’d suffer no harm in drinking its water, for instance. But it is detectable, and originates from the underground city.”
“That’s why you sent that...thing down there?” Velli asked.
“We hoped to find the radiation source itself, but it seemed to be missing.”
“There was—” Velli started to speak, then glanced to Takji and paused. “I can’t say.”
“Because your nations are at war?”
“In rebellion, hers is!” Takji said.
“You invaded us! Killed our Hero!”
Takji scoffed. “He—”
“Enough!” Benson’s fist slammed the table. An advanced alien growing angry made a scary sight indeed. “I’m not here to litigate a history of bloodshed! We’re trying to save your planet, and like it or not, you’re going to work together! Now, Velli, were you aware of any nuclear materials in the Burrower city?”
“No. But,” she paused again, “they were working on something for the Front.”
“Pardon?”
“Jepsei National Front,” Takji said. “The terrorist—” Velli glared “—rebel group. I’ve heard nothing of that. Nothing.” Her mind reeled at the sheer intelligence failure needed to permit this. Yet, as soon as the Uranium Problem was recognized, it was known this day would come. Takji had hoped it would not be in her lifetime.
“Yet it appears they were knocking on that very door.”
“But how?” Velli asked. “The physics are secret! Her people kill anyone who figures it out!”
“Technological knowledge is not so easily suppressed,” Selva replied. “For better or worse, once the prerequisites are met, independent discoveries are inevitable.”
Benson said, “That is not how it went on my homeworld. I think I know why.” He went over to a set of little hatches like white-metal cupboards, removed a piece of yellow rock, and set it on the table.
“Uranium?” Takji asked.
“Recovered by one of our surface teams. The element itself is found in two common isotopes, one with two hundred and thirty-eight nucleons, the other with two hundred and thirty-five. The ratio of the latter isotope to the former is called enrichment, and uranium in ore on your world is naturally enriched at three percent.”
“Which means?” asked Velli.
“Don’t tell her!” Takji demanded.
Benson ignored her plea. “Probably due to a metal-rich supernova which led to your system’s formation. Your planet is young, in relative terms, only about two billion years old; uranium-235 decays considerably on geologic timescales but there is still a significant amount left. Three percent enrichment is, coincidentally, precisely what is needed to build a reactor.
“The details, I won’t get into: neutron moderators, burnup rates, fuel cycles. But, with three-percent enriched uranium, you can pull the metal straight from the ore, put it in a reactor using common water, and achieve criticality—a nuclear reaction. From there, again with more details, you can use the neutrons produced to breed an element we call plutonium, the fuel for a nuclear bomb.”
Were they in Mespreth, the rebel girl would be killed for hearing that. The aliens too, ironically—they held no clearance from the Throne.
“Whatever you do,” Takji tried to remain calm, “you must ensure she never tells anyone!”
Velli asked, “Why? What makes this so much more important than any other of your secrets?”
“Because,” Selva said, “At some point not all that long from now, virtually anyone with access to uranium and enough technical skill will be able to produce nuclear weapons. On Earth, the human homeworld, it required complex and expensive enrichment only major nations could afford—uranium there is under one percent U-235 by concentration. Not so, here.”
“Now you know why it’s secret,” Takji said, after a pause. “We do it to protect people, imagine what would happen if the warlords of the North or the radicals of Ghanat-Tahj got their hands on atom bombs!”
“Or the JNF, it seems,” Benson added.
Velli asked, “So you’d take them for yourselves to rule the world?”
“She’s not without a point,” Benson replied. “The more nations with nuclear capability, the higher the odds of failure. It’s simple mathematics. And once one nation uses theirs, others may follow.”
“What’s your plan?” Takji asked. “Take them away from everyone?”
“We see no other solution, if industrial civilization on your world is to have a future. These weapons represent an intolerable threat, and we hope to persuade you to give them up.”
“But that’d mean another Long War!”
“Hence the bind you are in. Mass death, the short way or the long way. However, there is still hope. My own people suffered a war even greater, destroying many worlds, not just one. Yet we rebuilt and united, resolving that it will never happen again.”
“So what, we have to learn to live together in harmony?” That felt even more unbelievable than space-traveling aliens.
“I’m not saying it’ll be perfect, or that we can accomplish it overnight—if we can at all—but you looked out that window. You saw your world—one world, shared among all its people. Your species are growing up, into an adulthood of science, technology, and newfound power. It’s time you acted like it.”
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