Chapter 11
Spider Webs and Diamonds
The President of the United States! The Resnick kids traded wide-eyed glances. Incredible!
It was then that the full impact of everything they had just been told sunk in. Of course the president. Given what they had just learned, his involvement made perfect sense. In fact, everything now made sense. Their parents’ secrecy, the security here—even why their parents felt they had no choice but to finally leave San Diego to come here. You didn’t turn down a chance to be a part of the most important discovery in history. And they had been angry with their parents for moving here! If they had only known.
“In fact, the president will be visiting next week,” continued Harry Harris. “He wanted to come here yesterday, right after your father breached the force-field, but we asked him to wait until we’ve had some time to explore. We want to be sure his visit is as safe and informative as possible.” He paused and adjusted his thick glasses absentmindedly. “Well, that should do it,” he announced. “I believe you’re now fully up to speed.”
“I just have one more question,” persisted Ryan. “What were you celebrating when we arrived?”
His mom gestured toward the wispy staircase. “Last night we decided to cut out some of these threads to study. It turned out to be far easier said than done. After a number of failed attempts, we finally managed it. We were celebrating our success.”
“Why would it be so difficult just to cut some threads?” asked Regan.
Amanda Resnick smiled. “They’re a lot stronger than they look.”
“Mom, I know that,” said Regan in a tone that suggested her mother had just questioned her intelligence. It was totally obvious that a collection of threads so thin as to be almost invisible, yet still able to easily support the weight of an adult, had to have some special properties. “But, I mean, just how strong are we talking about here?”
“As strong as anything we’ve ever seen except the force-field,” replied her mom. “Far stronger even than spider silk,” she added, as though this were the ultimate compliment.
“Spider silk?” repeated Ryan in disbelief. “Spider silk isn’t strong. You can break a web with no effort at all.”
Mrs. Resnick raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know Ryan, there are a lot of insects who might not agree with you,” she said, an amused smile coming over her face. “Remember that each thread of a spider web is far thinner than a strand of human hair—hundreds of times thinner, in fact. And yet a web can still stop a large, flying bug. A web of equally thin threads—but made of the world’s toughest steel instead of spider silk—wouldn’t be nearly as strong. Put another way, if you could make a web out of spider-silk ropes as thick as a pencil, this web would stop a jet airplane.”
“Wow,” said Ryan, truly impressed. “I never thought about it that way.”
“Most people don’t,” said his mom. She pointed to the staircase. “And these threads are millions of times stronger even than spider silk. We finally began to appreciate just what we were dealing with when our every attempt to cut out a piece for study failed. Our initial efforts failed to even scratch one of these delicate-looking threads. We finally succeeded using a specially made diamond saw, with very fine teeth.”
Regan raised her eyebrows. “A diamond saw?”
“A saw with a blade made out of diamond.”
“Why make a saw out of diamonds?” asked Regan, still confused.
Mrs. Resnick smiled. “Diamonds aren’t just used for jewelry and decoration. They also happen to be the hardest natural material on Earth, so hard they can even scratch glass. So diamonds are used to make the best saws and drills. Luckily for us the saw worked and we were able to get a sample. The secret of these threads alone could revolutionize dozens of fields: architecture, engineering, aviation, space travel—the list goes on and on.”
“And this is only the beginning of what we might learn from the wonders of this place,” added their father. “The force-field. The material in the walking path that makes walking so effortless. Even the light-source for the city, which we haven’t even found yet. All of this, and we’ve been here less than two days!”
“The technology here really is amazing,” agreed Regan. “It almost seems more like magic than science,” she said.
Dr. Harris smiled gently. “If you took someone from two hundred years ago and brought them to the present day, they would think that our technology was magic. Think about it. Television, computers, jet airplanes, electricity, cell phones. They wouldn’t have any idea how these things worked. They wouldn’t even know what these things were.”
A thought struck Regan. “Wouldn’t that also be dangerous for them?” she asked. “What if they stuck a finger in an electrical socket to find out what it was?”
“Excellent point,” said her mom. “That’s one reason we’re trying to be so careful here. We never know when we’re about to stick our finger in the alien equivalent of an innocent looking socket. Prometheus gave a very powerful, but very dangerous, gift to mankind.”
Amanda Resnick frowned deeply. “But without question this city is the most dangerous gift humanity has ever received.”