Heller, Caldwell, and Danchekker looked at each other. "What’s a quadriflexor?" Caldwell asked.
Calazar sighed. There was no point in being evasive. "They are the devices with which we were going to enclose the solar system," he said. "They were to be positioned at a considerable distance outside Pluto at points defining a quasi-spherical surface around the system. Every quadriflexor would couple through h-fields to the four adjacent to it in the grid, and collectively they would create a cumulative deformation of spacetime at that boundary which would equate to an escape-proof gravitic gradient.
