Copyright William Hammett 2018, 2022
All Rights Reserved
The thirty-man
crew of earth’s first starship, the Icarus,
had been interviewed on hundreds of programs televised on earth’s WTN, or World
Telecast Network. The men and women of
the plasma-driven Icarus were heroes,
the first humans to soon leave the confines of the solar system and voyage into
the interstellar void. More precisely,
of course, they were going to enter hyperspace once the star drive helped the
mile-long craft attain 85% of the speed of light in its trip to Tau Ceti, a
G-class yellow dwarf in the constellation Cetus. Tau Ceti, had five earth-like planets, one of
which was thought to be a habitable, earthlike planet, a proverbial big blue
marble with oceans, land masses, and oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere capable of
sustaining human life. The project’s
chief scientific advisor, Professor Emilio Gonzales of the Western Alliance Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, predicted that the vessel would slip into a black void
for a period registered as one month on the chronometers of the Icarus before breaking thrusters brought
the ship to sub-light speed near the solar system of Tau Ceti.
“We
have worked since the early twentieth century to achieve superluminal speeds,”
Gonzales told reporters. “Einstein is no
doubt turning over in his grave. We also
calculate that slipping into the artificial wormhole created by the plasma
drive’s rapid acceleration will cancel most of the distortions predicted by the
theory of relativity. The Icarus will explore the Tau Ceti system
for approximately one year and then return to earth. Our fourteen-month journey will register on
the clocks of earth as two years, meaning that the time dilation one would
expect at superluminal speeds will be minimal.
The relatives of the crew will be alive and well when we return.”
Andrew
Peterson, Captain of the Icarus, had
done his obligatory interviews many months before the scheduled departure date
of April 20, 2188 so that he could supervise the final onboard preparations and
calibrations of the plasma drive. And,
of course, tender a proper farewell to his wife, the beautiful
thirty-year-one-old Dr. Marta Christenson, a Harvard exo-biologist who had been
rejected for the mission. No relative of
any crew member was allowed to be part of the interstellar expedition given
that this was the first “light jump” ever attempted by a craft with humans
aboard. Two remote-controlled unmanned
ships had been lost in 2176 and 2182 respectively. A third ship had successfully gone to and
returned from Alpha Centauri in 2186.
The voyage was deemed safe but, as the media reported, not without considerable
risk. Captain Peterson therefore tried
to spend as much time as possible in February of 2188 with his gorgeous and
somewhat pouty wife, green with envy at her husband’s coming opportunity to
make history. Her long, straight black
hair fell below her shoulders, her brown bedroom eyes swimming above fair kin
and high cheekbones. Her envy at her
husband’s good fortune had been tempered considerably by news from her
physician in January that she was pregnant with a male child, their first.
The
couple had endured a tumultuous period in their four-year marriage when Marta
discovered a lone cyber message on Andrew’s crystal touch screen computing
station at their home in the woods outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her own station had malfunctioned the
previous December, denying her access to the World Digi-Light Com Network, so
she’d used her husband’s station. Before
she could type in her own password to access the Satellite Photon Exchange, a
small blue square on the clear rectangular screen on Andrew’s desk had flashed,
signaling an incoming message. Why had
she opened his personal mail? Andrew had
been distant recently, and the couple had not made love in over a month. Technology had changed, at least for earth’s
Western Alliance, but human nature was as predictable and transparent as ever.
Marta touched the screen, which
shimmered and turned blue, with white letters scrolling filling the middle of
the display.
My
Dearest Andrew,
Our bed is so empty when you are away. I turn and reach for you and my hands clutch
only the cold satin pillow. Your last
visit in October was so precious since I know that you will soon be headed for
the stars. How I wish I could be with
you, my darling Captain, as you go to wondrous places and new worlds. But have not you already taken my soul to
amazing places when we make love or stroll along the summer grass and picnic
with a bottle of wine. I am sending you
a photograph with this message, a recent one that I hope you will bring with
you on your mission. Look at it often
and think of me. You will remain in my
heart though you travel light years from New Leningrad.
All
my love forever,
Nadia
Marta had raised her right fist to
smash the crystal station, but she had broken into tears instead. Although he’d been an experienced pilot who
had logged many missions to the Martian colonies, the forty-one-year-old Andrew
had been an ambassador to the crumbling Eastern Alliance in the many years
after the war of 2156. After the turn of
the century—2100—the earth had been divided into two alliances, the Eastern and
Western. The Western Alliance, comprised
of North and South America, was a loose federation of democratic states that
opposed the totalitarian philosophy that had dominated Europe, Asia, India, and
Africa by the end of the twentieth century.
After decades of saber-rattling, followed by conventional missile
attacks on the United States, limited nuclear exchanges in Europe and Asia had
left the Eastern Alliance powerless.
Starvation, unemployment, and disease had decimated once-great
countries. Technology existed only in
small areas in a portion of the world where migrant populations scavenged for
food and lived in buildings damaged from the war. Radiation sickness was rampant.
Beginning in 2176, the two alliances
had decided to begin a long, arduous journey to rebuilding a single, stable
world government built on democratic models.
Beyond humanitarian aid, the first step in establishing a new world
society was to help the Eastern Alliance rebuild its infrastructure and recover
its shattered technology. Andrew Peterson,
a skilled engineer as well as renowned space pilot, was enlisted as one of
hundreds of negotiators to work with the rag-tag remnants of the Eastern
Alliance. Apparently he had helped
achieve détente in more than one way, Marta had thought to herself after
reading the cyber mail.
Andrew had been contrite and
forthright, admitting that he’d had an affair with the blond, svelte Nadia
Korozanski, Deputy Minister of Foreign Relations in New Leningrad. Marta had gazed at the photo attached to the
mail and seen skin whiter than snow, eyes bluer than the sky right before a
winter sunset. Her red lips were large
and sensuous, and Marta wondered how many times they had touched those of
Andrew.
“I wish I could
say all the proper clichés,” Andrew had said when first confronted,
lowering his head
and swallowing hard. “That Nadia was a
meaningless relationship. Comfort away
from home when I was so lonely. Or that
she was a temptress who seduced me when I was weak. But none of those things would be true. Nadia and I worked together and fell in
love.”
“Love?” Marta said, raising her
eyes, her voice cold and sarcastic.
“Yes. Love.
But I knew the affair couldn’t go on.
You, dear Marta, are the woman I wish to grow old with. I was going to use the coming mission as a
way to break things off with Nadia. I
intended to send her a message from deep space via a hyperspace channel telling
her that it was over and that I was resigning as ambassador, that I could no
longer be part of the Superluminal Project while being a liaison to the Eastern
Alliance.”
“Does she know about me?” Marta
asked, arms folded as she stood in the living room outside Cambridge. “Does she know you have a wife in the West?”
A tear trickled down Andrew’s right
cheek. “Of course. I was even going to tell her that we were
expecting a child. Would you like
that? Having a child, that is?”
Marta sighed deeply. “Your son is already growing inside me,
Andrew. He will be born next July. He’ll be a toddler when you return.”
Andrew looked at his wife
longingly. “Are you saying that you will
allow me to return home? Are you telling
me that our marriage isn’t over?”
Marta turned her head and looked
through a window. The snow was falling
heavily outside. “Yes. A child needs a full-time father in the
fractured world that we live in.
Everything is uncertain. Earth’s
political future—even mankind’s exploration of space—is fraught with peril. Our son will not be denied the guidance of
two parents. But you must never see
Nadia again or even speak of her. If you
do, I shall take our child away from you.
Before you leave, you will sign papers granting me sole custody and
forfeiting all rights of visitation for the rest of your life should you ever
be unfaithful again. And you will agree
to wear a global tracking implant for as long as I deem it necessary.
Andrew didn’t hesitate. “Anything you say, Marta. Thank you.
I love you so very much.” He
moved forward to kiss her, but she left the room and entered the kitchen.
On the following day, Marta acted as
if nothing had happened. In the days
leading up to Andrew’s departure, the two had grown close again, making love
frequently. Together, they had converted
a spare bedroom to a nursery. Most of
the time, they held each other in front of a fire in the wide brick hearth in
the den.
Andrew Peterson had been a very
lucky man—and he knew it.
* * *
The
eyes of the world were trained on their viewing screens, inside and
outdoors. The
Icarus would be
visible for a few hours when its solid rocket boosters, to be jettisoned after
thirty minutes, nudged the huge craft from its stationary orbit twenty-five
thousand miles above the equator. The
ships twelve nuclear engines would then fire, carrying the vessel beyond the
debris field of the Kuiper Belt, a field where millions of comets, chunks of
icy rocks, and planetesimals lurked near Neptune and beyond. The Icarus
would clear the Kuiper Belt within two days after departure. Only then would it be safe to engage the
plasma drive, which would, over the course of a month, accelerate the ship to
85% of the speed of light, after which it would enter the Great Void, a
nickname for the wormhole that Professor Gonzales had taken from the Tao.
Captain Peterson sat in his leather
chair in the center of the bridge, staring at his forward viewer. “Let’s make this happen, ladies and
gentlemen. May God be with us, and may
the solar wind be at our backs.”
The helmsman’s fingers played over a
digital console, firing the ship’s long cylindrical rockets temporarily
attached beneath the vessel’s hull. From
the night side of earth, the departure looked as if a star in a nearby
constellation had suddenly gone nova. At
ten o’clock in the evening, Cambridge time, Marta Christenson looked around
her, observing shadows of old-style lampposts cast on the streets. From the bridge, those looking at the viewer
could Barely detect any forward momentum until ten minutes later, when the
bright face of the full moon began to grow larger.
After thirty minutes, Peterson
looked to his left at the engineering consoles.
Chief Engineer Rutger Halvorsen nodded.
“Release the rockets,” Peterson
ordered, “and fire all nuclear thrusters.”
“Aye aye,” Halvorsen said. The Danish-born engineer had been smuggled to
the United States as an infant to escape the horrors of the Eastern
Alliance. He had a square jaw and thick
blond hair. He was a muscular, youthful
fifty years old.
Over the next three hours, the
ship’s rear viewer showed the earth shrinking rapidly in size. The Icarus
was rapidly headed away from the home that had been mankind’s cradle of
civilization. Captain Andrew Peterson
wondered what the coming centuries would bring if men and women would be able
to successfully colonize distant extrasolar planets. When his son attained manhood, would mankind
be living on dozens of exoplanets hundreds or thousands of miles from the
earth? And what about his
grandchildren? Would they even call earth
their home, or would they have been born on a planet circling a distant point
of light as he and Marta sat on the deck behind their home, looking at the sea
of stars that he had helped map?
The next forty-eight hours passed
quickly, and the Icarus exited the
solar system, the sun merely a bright star behind the gray vessel with its many
observation domes, radar antenna, and sensory equipment mounted on the titanium
bulkheads.
The moment had
come. “Engage the plasma drive,” Peterson
said, again seated on the
bridge.
The helmsman’s fingers once more
played over a digital console as Halvorsen monitored dozens of digital readouts
at his engineering station.
“Anti-gravity field holding,” said a
technician on the far right.
There was no discernible feeling of
movement as the four round plasma engines glowed blue at the rear of the ship,
but after only a few minutes, the stars visible on all ship’s viewers began to
blur. An hour later, they looked like
shooting stars, blazing quickly and then disappearing. As Dr. Gonzales explained, they weren’t
actually passing stars, but rather seeing the effects of what he called the
“superluminal distortion” of space-time as they approached the speed of light.
“We’re hauling the mail,” First
Officer Sheila Dalquist said from the science station, her comment echoing an
old saying from the early days of the Apollo Space Program. Astronauts would use this phrase as Saturn
rockets gained speed while boosting Apollo capsules beyond earth’s atmosphere.
“Well done, everyone,” Peterson
said.
“Six days and twenty-one hours
before we slip into the Great Void,” announced Dalquist. “We’re passing through the inner edge of the
Oort Cloud at present, but navigation sees no cometary debris in our path.”
The Oort Cloud was an additional
field of rock, ice, and small planets that extended one light year beyond the
sun.
“Very well,” Peterson said. “I’m going to my quarters and make my initial
log entries. Contact me if anything
comes up.”
Andrew Peterson stepped into the
main turbo-lift and descended to Deck Three and entered his private room, which
had an adjoining office with a desk and com station. After an hour of detailing the ship’s latest
maneuvers beyond the limits of the solar system, he stood and paced nervously
about his cabin. He couldn’t stop
thinking about Marta. What was she doing
back at home? Did she miss him? Her demeanor had indicated that their lives
had returned to normal, but he knew Marta well enough to know that, despite the
romantic moments they’d spent before he left, she was coming to grips
internally with her discovery of his unfaithfulness. But there was more to the story of Nadia than
he had revealed. What if she used his
absence to investigate the matter even further?
Andrew felt distracted and
restless. He left his room and headed
for the dome above Section One of the Icarus.
Observation Dome One was fifty
meters in diameter. Andrew pressed the
pad that rolled back the dome’s metallic cover, leaving him standing beneath
the center of the half-bubble on top of the shift. Surveying the panorama before him, he saw the
same streaks of starlight appearing and disappearing, just as on the viewers on
the bridge. Beneath him was trhe vast
length of the Icarus , its top and
sides studded with telemetry packages of every shape rising above the
hull—squares, rectangles, circles, pentagons, and others. Interior lights from various viewing ports
within the ship, as well as thousands of running lights, gave the appearance of
the New York City skyline at night.
Andrew took a deep breath, his mind drifting back to the cold nights
when he and Nadia, dressed in heavy fur-lined coats, had held each other
beneath the frigid but clear Russian sky.
He recalled their first kiss and how Nadia had pressed her slender body
against his own. She was a peculiar mix
of assertiveness and vulnerability. She
knew how to pursue her goals, but at times she acted like a child in need. Given the chaos in her country after the war,
Andrew was not surprised when she would occasionally let her guard down and
cry.
Nadia had been more than an
affair. The twenty-nine-year-old
diplomat and scientist had not just been his mistress, but his wife. Andrew Peterson had been a bigamist. Nadia knew of Marta because Andrew’s bio and
reputation was well known. She’d
accepted that the presence of Marta in her lover’s life and asked only that he
spend his time in New Leningrad with her, sleeping at her apartment. She was willing to share him. Healthy, attractive men in Europe were either
diseased, married, or uneducated and poor.
True, there were many strong-willed men in the military, but they were
petulant, nursing grudges against the Western Alliance for dismantling their
way of life.
Andrew strolled leisurely beneath
the dome and the firefly stars. Why had
he married her? The answer was simple:
because of her neediness, those moments when she melted in her arms.
Andrew’s father, a drunken college
professor, had abandoned his mother when he was six, and Andrew had grown into
the quintessential caretaker for his mom for many years, always putting his
needs last. Even as her had matured,
gone to college, become an engineer, and become an engineer and space pilot, he
had retained a nurturing side. Like so
many powerful, influential men, he’d had a private side and a private life
after beginning his trips to Europe. He
had married Nadia, believing the potential for scandal to be minimal since
record-keeping in the Eastern Alliance had become shabby and incomplete after
the war. Communications and the media
had been severely compromised, and it was doubtful that anyone could find out
that he had wed Nadia Korozanski in a quiet Russian Orthodox ceremony that was
never recorded as a civil, governmental union.
It gave Nadia a feeling of security, and Andrew, after careful
deliberation decided that there was a very fine line between Nadia being a
mistress or a wife when their “status” would never become public knowledge.
When he’d told Nadia that Marta had
learned of their affair and that he must break it off in light of his becoming
a father, she had sent him a single brief message saying that she would miss
him and always love him. She claimed
that she understood his situation and would not pursue him.
But why had he allowed himself to
fall in love with another woman in the first place? Had he felt guilty about cheating on his wife
in Cambridge?
Yes, of course he had. But although he had surrendered to the
caretaker part of personality to provide Nadia with security, he was also a man
of supreme confidence. Those under his
command looked up to him and admired him.
He was a handsome statesman and pilot, and as he looked back at the
events of the years leading up to the Superluminal Project, he realized that
he’d let pride rule many of his decisions.
He enjoyed adulation and the perks of command. Women flirted with him constantly, but it was
Nadia who had pursued him aggressively.
He had indeed fallen in love with her—that part was genuine—and as he
stood beneath the dome in the year 2188, he knew that ultimately he had
committed adultery, not to mention bigamy, because he thought he could get away
with it. It was the combination of
pride, power, and opportunity that had led him into the affair.
His power would only increase, of
course, if the mission to Tau Ceti was successful. He would be the first man to lead a crew into
deep space, and the accolades he would receive would be numerous. Since boarding the Icarus weeks earlier, he’d done much soul searching. If he were going to become even more
influential in the destiny of mankind, he would have to learn humility. And there was his future son to think about. Yes, for the sake of his son, he would need
to become permanently grounded in his marriage to Marta. And permanently faithful.
He returned to his cabin. He would send a message to Marta, which he’d
done each day since boarding the starship.
He loved her dearly and knew that she needed all the support he could
provide.
It also helped to assuage his
considerable guilt.
* * *
A pinpoint of bright light was
centered in the forward viewer. All of
the streaks of starlight seemed to be rushing forward, feeding the light ahead.
“It’s beautiful,” Dalquist
commented.
“Six minutes before entering the
Great Void,” Halvorsen said. “We’re
currently at 85.75% the speed of light.”
“Steady as she goes,” Peterson said
from his command chair. “Dim the bridge
lights to one-half intensity. Everybody
remain at your stations. Look sharp. This is what we’ve been waiting for.” He glanced at Professor Gonzales, who stood
to his right, staring at the forward viewer.
Gonzales smiled. “I suspect that we’ll enter the light ahead
uneventfully and emerge into the Great Void in a matter of seconds.”
“You suspect this?” asked Peterson.
Gonzales pivoted toward the
captain. “It’s what my calculations
indicate, but calculations are not a crystal ball. They can accurately predict a phenomena, but
not how that phenomena will actually feel.”
“Understood,” Peterson said wryly.
The Icarus was now enveloped by a bluish-white light that caused the
crew on the bridge to shield their eyes and turn their heads away. And then quite suddenly, the ship seemed to
slow—indeed, almost stop—and then lurch forward.
Blackness. They had entered the Geat Void, which was
absent of all star light. There were no
stars to speckle the night sky, for, in truth, the preternatural darkness in
which the ship now traveled was not technically sky. It was the absence of all known matter in the
Milky Way. It was a hyper-dimension that
was quite real but that had no matter within it.
“What was that lurch we all felt?” Peterson
asked with a controlled look of concern on his face. “As Dr. Gonzales indicated, the transition
into hyperspace wasn’t supposed to be felt.
Or did I misunderstand all of our mission briefings for the past year?”
Gonzalez moved from his station to
the captain’s chair. “I can’t account
for it, but the important thing is that we made the jump.”
Peterson looked at his
second-in-command.
Dalquist simply shrugged. “Readings are nominal. The ship is undamaged and the plasma star
drives show no anomalies. We seem to be
traveling with utmost ease.”
“Captain, I believe that the slight
lurch was caused by the plasma emissions encountering hyperspace,” Halvorsen
said. “Think of it like a burp. The engines were suddenly pushing against an
entirely different medium, namely hyperspace.
I can recalibrate the star drives so that it won’t happen again. A slightly narrower plasma beam from each
unit would probably allow a smoother transition into superluminal velocity.”
Peterson sighed heavily. “Probably?”
He paused. “Very well. Gather data from the ship’s computer and see
if recalibration is in order. We have a
few weeks to decide if we need to do anything.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Halvorsen. “I’ll report when I have more information.”
Peterson nodded. “I’ll be in my quarters.” He turned to Dalquist and spoke
resolutely. “Alert me if even the
smallest detail seems out of place.”
“You’ll be notified immediately,
Captain,” she responded.
Peterson, his tall body leaning
forward slightly, entered the main turbo shaft and disappeared from the bridge.
* * *
Andrew sat in his cabin, looking at
the holographic picture of Marta displayed vertically by the quartz pedestal on
the edge of his desk. She was incredibly
beautiful.
He rubbed his face with both hands,
mentally and emotionally fatigued. If he
returned safely from the mission—a small nagging voice, nothing more than vague
intuition, was telling him that the journey was going to have its share of
headaches—he decided that he would be more than faithful to Marta. He would be devoted, loving, spontaneous. He would show her small acts of kindness,
give her presents for no reason at all.
But what if he came back and found
that Marta had changed during his absence.
What is she ruminated on his unfaithfulness and decided that she
couldn’t forgive him after all? Worse
yet, would she be faithful while he was gone?
She’d had many lovers in her early twenties, and men still flirted
shamelessly with her at parties and at her exobiology lab. She had the opportunity. Would she ultimately deal with his infidelity
as so many wronged spouses did—by evening the score? Even forgiving spouses felt that they needed
something to purge the bad emotional feelings by some kind of concrete, though
clandestine, act of revenge.
He didn’t think
she would, especially since she was pregnant, but two years was a long
time. Sometimes people changed. He himself had fallen because of opportunity,
and many people who stepped beyond the bonds of marriage were people who were
the last ones ever expected to do so.
Andrew realized that it was
masochistic to consider the possibility. He would drive himself mad. All he could do was to send her hyperspace
messages of love. Such signals had been
able to exit wormholes in the test craft sent to Alpha Centauri, and he hoped
that she was receiving his daily letters.
His thoughts were interrupted by a
voice emanating from the com speaker over his desk: “Captain to the bridge.”
Andrew jumped up and headed for the
turbo shaft. He’d just left the bridge
within the hour and he was already being summoned back. Perhaps his intuition about the mission had
been correct.
Peterson immediately knew why he’d
been summoned the moment he stepped onto the bridge. The forward viewer showed enormous arcs of
red and blue light streaking through the wormhole. Each arc lasted about thirty seconds.
“Status report,” Peterson,” said,
sitting in his chair.
“The ship is operating normally,”
Dalquist said, “but we have no idea what the arcs are. There shouldn’t be anything at all visible
inside the void.”
“They’re obviously not stars,” Dr.
Gonzales remarked, nodding his head in agreement.
“I believe that the wormhole may be
destabilizing,” Halvorsen said.
“Because of that burp going into the
Void?” Peterson queried.
“Perhaps,” Halvorsen replied. “I believe that the width of the beams from
the plasma drives may have been too wide.”
Peterson was becoming annoyed. “We ran endless simulations for years, and
nothing like this ever presented itself.”
“Quite true, Captain,” said
Gonzales, “but this ship is five times larger than the vessel sent to Tau Ceti
and back. Engineering specs took into
account the larger mass, but maybe size of the Icarus has something to do with the phenomenon. I’m simply throwing out possibilities,
Captain.”
“I think I’ve found the problem,
Captain,” Halvorsen said. “Star Drive
Three is leaking a small amount of plasma.
Whether that caused the lurch or resulted from it is unknown.”
“Should we shut down the drive?” Peterson
asked. “Can we still run on three drive
units?”
It was Dalquist who approached the
captain’s chair and answered thoughtfully.
“We can, sir. The ship could
operate quite smoothly on three units, but reducing our speed could have some
rather serious repercussions when we factor in time dilation at superluminal
velocity.”
“Such as?”
“If we alter our velocity and run on
three star drives, twenty years will have elapsed on earth instead of two when
we return.”
Silence claimed the bridge for a
full minute.
“Our relatives and friends will be a
great deal older,” Dalquist continued.
“I believe the safety of the ship
and crew comes first,” Gonzales said.
“If earth should launch a rescue
vessel when it realizes that the Icarus
is overdue,” Dalquist said, “then the second vessel might encounter the same
problems that we have, especially is the size of the ship is responsible for
what we’re experiencing. We can’t warn
them on any hyperspace radio frequency.
The wormhole is absorbing all random energies from the ship, such as
plasma and hyperspace radio signals. I’m
fairly certain that’s what’s causing the arc lights.”
“So you’re saying that we should
continue with all four drives?” Peterson asked.
“I’m saying that we should attempt
to repair Star Drive Number Three.”
“That’s very risky,” Halvorsen
interjected. “We’d have to shut down the
drive to stop the leak. It’s far too
dangerous to attempt any kind of major repair while traveling at superluminal
speed. It would be insane. It would also take considerable time to
restart the engine safely, and then we’re again confronted with altering the
time dilation.”
Peterson thought of returning to a
fifty-one-year-old Marta. He didn’t
think she’d wait for him that long. She
would surely be remarried by then, and his son would be in college. But he couldn’t place his personal life
before the mission. Still, Dalquist had
a point. If earth launched a second
vessel, it, too, might travel into an unstable wormhole.”
“We’re going to attempt to repair
the drive without shutting it down,” Peterson declared.
Halvorsen, running his fingers
through his hair, was about to protest when Peterson spoke again. “I’m an engineer, and I worked on the
development of these drive units. My
guess is that the magnetic field that propels and the superheated Xenon
propellant is slightly out of alignment.
That would account for the leak.
It would also explain why we lurched into the Void instead of gliding in
smoothly. Part of Drive Three may have
been pushing in a slightly different direction at the critical time of
transition into hyperspace.”
“It makes sense,” Halvorsen agreed,
“although my instruments don’t show any anomalous readings for any of the
magnetic fields.”
“Then let’s get down to the access
crawlway for Drive Three and have a closer look,” Peterson said. “Rutger, you’re with me. We’ll make a preliminary inspection and then
take it from there.”
Peterson and Halvorsen left the
bridge and took the horizontal turbo tube to the rear of the ship.
* * *
The aft section of the Icarus was one-quarter mile in length
and was home to the engineering decks.
The Captain and the Chief Engineer hurried to the crawlway leading to
Star Drive Three.
“This is as close as we can get to
the plasma drive,” Halvorsen said as the two men inched their way forward on
their knees. “My team in engineering
reported as we passed through that the readings on the magnetic field is
completely within normal parameters.”
Peterson glanced over his shoulder
to look at his chief engineer. “Then
maybe we need to narrow those parameters a bit.” He pointed to a small control panel on the
side of the crawlway. “Look here. The Xenon gas is too hot. And the magnetic field that controls the
Xenon reads as 100 percent functional.
Let’s knock that down to ninety-five percent.”
Peterson’s fingers pushed a sequence
of digital keypads and again consulted the instrument panel.
“The temperature of the propellant
is dropping!” Halvorsen exclaimed. “For
whatever reason, the magnetic coils on this drive got slightly twisted when we
ramped them up to 100 percent of operational capacity. We can get in there in contamination suits
when we get to Tau Ceti and find out why the coils shifted.”
Peterson smiled as he pressed the
nearest com link pad. “Bridge, this is Peterson. What do you see on your viewer?”
A moment passed. There was complete silence. Halvorsen and Peterson exchanged worried
glances.
“Bridge?” Peterson repeated.
“Yes, Captain. Dalquist here. We see nothing on the viewer, which is as it
should be. Just the Great Void. The wormhole appears to have stabilized.”
“What’s our speed?” Peterson asked.
“Our velocity has decreased by one
tenth of one percent,” Dalquist replied.
“That shouldn’t affect the time
dilation or our schedule,” came the voice of Dr. Gonzalez.
“Very well then,” Peterson said
calmly. “Steady as she goes. Peterson out.”
“Nice work, Captain,” Halvorsen
remarked as the two men exited the crawlway.
“I see you still have your chops for hands-on work around engines.”
Peterson smiled, but said
nothing. He would accept the compliment
with humility.
* * *
The four weeks passed quickly and
without event as the Icarus traveled
through the wormhole. Andrew sent hyperspace
messages daily to Marta, relating the problem with the magnetic field on Star
Drive Three and how he felt lonely and isolated in the Void.
Dear Marta,
Although I have a great crew of one hundred men and
women and a ship that has every amenity that one could hope for, it is still
disorienting to have no frame of reference when looking out from the portals or
observation lounges. One sees only
nothingness. And that is what would be
in my heart were it not for the presence of my love for you and our unborn
child. I regret daily the pain I caused
you, but just as this mission heralds a new era for mankind, I hope that our
new family will likewise mark the dawn of a new period in our lives. I love you and only you. As exciting as it is to make history by
voyaging beyond the solar system, I would rather be holding you in front of the
hearth. We drop out of superluminal
speed tomorrow, and the ship is now bustling with activity and
expectation. What new worlds will we
find? We hope, of course, to find the
planet predicted by scientists, the earth-like planet that will be suitable for
colonization. Whatever we find, it will
not give me as much joy as when I can next see and touch your face. Until then . . .
Love
always,
Andrew
Andrew wondered if the Eastern and
Western Alliances were continuing to make progress. He wanted the world his son would be born
into to be stable, peaceful. Unfortunately,
hyperspace messages could travel in only one direction: backwards. Messages from earth were not able to overtake
the Icarus as it defied conventional
physics and moved farther away from earth.
He looked at the hologram of Marta
on the edge of his desk. He loved her so
much.
* * *
“Dropping out of hyperspace,”
Dalquist said.
Halvorsen smiled. “Smooth as can be. A good transition back into the here and
now.”
Eyebrows raised, Peterson swiveled
in his chair, surveying the many stations on the bridge. “All stations reported that the Icarus’
departure from the Great Void had been textbook.”
“Good work, everyone,” Peterson
said. “Now comes the fun part.” He pivoted toward his chief engineer. “Rutger, engage maneuvering thrusters and
let’s move in on Tai Ceti and see what brave new worlds we find.”
Chief Navigation Officer Kellie
Masters spoke next. “Captain, the star field
in this quadrant of space just isn’t right.
The start ahead isn’t Tau Ceti.”
“Where are we then?” Paterson asked.
Masters punched a few keys at her
station, causing the viewer above her to display hundreds of stars, many of
them quite bright.
“My God!” Dalquist cried.
Gasps emanated from all bridge
personnel, and then there was silence.
The star on the forward viewer, which was growing brighter and brighter
as the ship’s thrusters moved the vessel closer to its destination, was indeed
not Tau Ceti. It was Sol, the earth’s
sun.
“There can be only one explanation,”
Halvorsen said. “The unstable wormhole
brought us back home. I suspect the
instability, thought rectified, caused hyperspace to double back on itself, as
it were.”
“We’ve failed,” Gonzalez said
sullenly.
Peterson stood and addressed his
bridge crew. “I know this is a big
disappointment,” he said. “We’ve been
prepping for this voyage for years, but personally I’m encouraged. We made it through the Void with the help of
some troubleshooting, and if the only problem was a slight misalignment of the
magnetic coils on Star Drive Three, I anticipate that the Propulsion Lab in
Pasadena will give us a green light to try again in a year, maybe less. They’ll naturally want to run diagnostics on
all of the ship’s systems, but I believe the Icarus is destined for another trip into the Void. She’s a good ship.”
“Approaching earth,” Masters
proclaimed.
“Standard orbit,” Peterson
ordered. Communications, tell earth that
we’re home and that I’ll be issuing a report within the hour.”
“Something’s wrong,” Dalquist
stated. “Radio transmissions in the
western hemisphere are sporadic. In some
areas, they’re nonexistent. Transmissions
over Europe and Asia, however, are numerous and active.”
“The opposite of what they should
be,” Peterson said.
“Do you still want me to open a
channel?” the communications officer asked.
“No,” Peterson shot back. “Dalquist, Gonzalez, and I will take a
transport shuttle down to the surface.
* * *
With Dalquist at the controls, the
shuttlecraft Armstrong slid into
Earth’s atmosphere at the precise, narrow angle that prevented it from either
skipping off into space of burning up from entry.
“Where do we land?” Gonzalez
asked. “East or West?”
A voice came over the craft’s radio
com link before Peterson has the chance to answer.
“Welcome home, Armstrong,” said an
unfamiliar male voice. “A tractor beam
will bring you into space port at New Leningrad.”
Dalquist swiveled in her chair,
about to exclaim shock at the brief message, but Peterson motioned for silence
in the forward cabin of the shuttlecraft.
“Affirmative,” said Peterson. “It’s good to be back. Sorry there was no communication when we
re-entered the Terran system. The Icarus had to break harder than
expected. We’ve discovered that these
wormholes can be tricky to enter and exit.”
“Understood,” said the male
voice. “You’re heroes nonetheless.”
Peterson raised his thumb and swiped
it across his throat, indicating that Dalquist should close the communications
channel.
“What’s going on?” Gonzalez
queried. “They think we’re returning
from a successful mission.”
“True, but it’s more than that,” Peterson
said. “Something’s very wrong, and until
I know what it is, we play along and play the part of the conquering heroes.”
“The balance of political power and
the ecosystem couldn’t possibly have changed so radically since we left,”
Gonzalez noted.
Peterson nodded as the three crew
members exchanged glances. They all knew
that something far more radical had happened.
The sleek shuttlecraft descended
into the night skies above Russia.
Dalquist leaned back in her leather chair, raising her hands in resignation. “Someone in New Leningrad is controlling the
ship. Hell, I wouldn’t know where to
land anyway.”
“The tractor beam’s a blessing in
disguise,” Peterson retorted. “Just act
normal. Whoever is waiting to greet us
is probably expecting to see smiles and exuberance. The first superluminal voyage with humans
aboard has been a success. If you look
puzzled and confused, they’re going to know something is wrong. It’s time to showcase whatever acting skills
you possess. Our lives might hinge on
how well you can sell this farce.”
Dalquist and Gonzalez nodded
soberly. “I just wish we knew who ‘they’
were,” he said.
“I suspect we’ll find out soon
enough,” Peterson said.
Within minutes, the craft hovered
above a large ring of blue lights next to a brilliantly lighted complex of
modern buildings. The letters EASC were
displayed prominently on the closest building to the landing area.
“I’m guessing those letters stand
for Eastern Alliance Space Command,” Peterson commented.
The craft’s thrusters fired automatically
when the ship was one hundred meters above the circle of blue lights.
“The prime minister will greet you
personally on this historic occasion,” said the male voice over the com. “And hundreds of members of the government
press are assembled, although they will be kept at a reasonable distance. Get ready to become celebrities.”
Dalquist knitted her eyebrows as she
mouthed the words government press?
“It’s show time,” Peterson
announced, standing and straightening the top of his uniform. “If you don’t know the answer to a question,
smile until you can come up with some neutral answer.”
The three crewmembers stood in front
of the shuttlecraft exit doors, which parted sideways as a ramp slid from
beneath the vessel, arching to the ground in the center of the landing circle.
Peterson emerged first as digi-cam
lights shone everywhere, recording the arrival of the heroes as they set foot
on their home planet. Bright flashes
also blazed in the darkness near the Armstrong
as onlookers and reporters took pictures to install on their crystal touch
screen computers. Night was turning into
day because of the intensity of the glare from the digi-cams, and the three
heroes shielded their eyes with the palms of their hands as a figure walked
forward to greet them. Peterson couldn’t
make out any features but presumed it would be governmental bigwig.
“Welcome home,” said Nadia
Korozanski, Prime Minister of the Eastern Alliance.
* * *
Andrew Peterson froze before slowly
lowering the palm of his hands above his eyes.
He wondered if he would be able to take his own advice—to remain cool
and summon his acting skills so as to pretend that everything was just as it
should be.
Nadia’s hand was outstretched, and Peterson,
his eyes growing accustomed to the intense lighting, took her hand and clasped
it, bowing slightly from the waist.
“Thank you, Madame Prime Minister,”
he said. “Thank you on behalf of the
entire crew of the Icarus. We are thrilled to be back.”
“Tell us about Tau Ceti!” a reporter
shouted.
“Was the mission a success?” called
another.
“Yes,” Peterson replied
instinctively. “It has been a landmark
voyage filled with wonder.”
Loud applause filled the plaza in
which the landing area was located.
Peterson realized that he’d made a
fundamental mistake as soon as the words had left his lips. The data banks of the Icarus contained no information on Tau Ceti, exo-solar planets, or
other constellations. But he would deal
with his faux pas later, for he was presently being led down a red carpet by an
honor guard, Prime Minister Korazanski by his side.
Nadia leaned ever so slightly toward
the captain of the Icarus, speaking
under her breath. “I shall make sure we
have some time together as soon as possible, my love, but first you must attend
a small celebration. Later, after an
initial debriefing, you shall have to answer questions at a press conference.”
“Of course,” he said. “Just point me in the right direction and
tell me what to do. It’s been a long
voyage, and we’re not used to large crowds anymore.”
“I
understand,” she said. Don’t worry. Everything shall be taken care of. Relax.”
Peterson started to roll his eyes
and sigh, but checked himself.
Relax? That was the last thing he
would be doing for quite a while.
Inside the main building for EASC,
more reporters had gathered, and a fresh explosion of lights bathed the three
crewmembers with warmth and more than a bit of adulation and wonder. Peterson and his colleagues had been to
another star system, had traveled light years and beheld new worlds. History would never be the same.
The crew members, escorted by
Korozanski and her cabinet ministers, were taken to the Prime Minister’s
private monorail car, which glided on a maglev rail to a large stone edifice
with the words THE PEOPLE’S GOVERNMENTAL PALACE carved above the center
lintel. The party stepped from the car
directly into a huge, elegant room, with chandeliers high overhead. They walked across a marble floor and
matching columns to linen-covered tables upon which sat dozens of bottles of
champagne and tall fluted glasses.
“A toast to Captain Peterson and the
brave pioneers of the Icarus,”
Korazanski intoned as she was handed a glass of champagne.
Cries of “Hear, hear” echoed
throughout the opulent palatial room.
Peterson, having been handed a glass
with which to toast, smiled affably and raised his champagne. “To a new era in the history of mankind. May there be many more voyages to the stars,
where the fate of humanity undoubtedly lies.”
More cries of “Hear, hear!” echoed
through the room as glasses clinked and more applause erupted.
Dalquist edged her way to Peterson
while Korazanski turned to toast the ministers of her government. “You’re gilding the lily pretty heavy,
Captain,” she whispered. “I don’t know
how you’re going to walk this back, but you’re the one who sits in the big
chair.”
Peterson continued smiling broadly
as he replied, his lips barely moving.
“It’s what’s expected. You’ll
have to do the same when the time comes, but try to avoid any details about the
alleged mission. Keep all responses as
general as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gonzalez toasted Peterson, his
facial expression likewise spread in a wide grin. But Peterson also knew that Gonzalez’s eyes
were saying, “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
Peterson was well aware that he and
his crew would have to walk a tightrope, but there’d been no other option. Telling the truth to a world they no longer
recognized or understood might have jeopardized their lives. He was being guided by the instincts he’d
learned as ambassador to the Eastern Alliance in the years leading up to the
superluminal project. For now, he would
have to be on his best behavior and try to avoid any slip-up until he could be
alone with his crew and figure out why they had not emerged in the Tau Ceti
system.
* * *
With the initial celebrations out of
the way, Nadia Korozanski led Andrew Peterson to her private quarters in the
east wing of the palace. Dalquist and
Gonzalez had been to guest quarters so that they could rest. The sun was already starting to paint the
distant horizon weak shades of violet and pink.
Nadia approached her former lover,
circling his neck with her arms and drawing him close. Pressing her body hard against his, she
kissed him passionately on the mouth, a long and wet lingering kiss.
“How I missed you, my darling,” she
said. “And I haven’t even had time to
show you Nicholas.”
“Ah yes,” Peterson said coolly. “Nicholas.”
He smiled as he took Nadia’s hands in his and gazed lovingly into her
eyes.
“Follow me,” she said, leading him
to a room down the hall from her bedroom.
“He’ll be waking soon, and then you can hold your son for the very first
time.”
Peterson approached the crib, an
old-fashioned baby bed made of cherry wood, something of an anomaly in the
twenty-second century. “He’s
beautiful. He has your nose and chin.”
“But he has your eyes,” Nadia said,
slipping her left arm around Peterson’s waist.
“Let us go back to our bedroom.”
Within minutes, Nadia was nude,
lying on the wide bed in the beautiful room appointed with so many
antiques. “Are you too tired, my
love? I don’t wish to pressure you.”
Peterson shook his head. “I’ve dreamt of little else for weeks,” he
said. He slipped out of his uniform and
lay next to Nadia. The two made love and
fell asleep in each other’s arms as the sun rose over New Leningrad.
Peterson was awakened by a soft kiss
on his forehead. He opened his eyes to
see Nadia, dressed in a dark blue business suit, leaning over the bed.
“Stay in bed and rest,” she
said. “You’ve earned it. I’ll swing back for lunch and then it’s time
to put you in front of the cameras again after a debriefing.” She turned to leave the room but halted and
glanced back at the bed as she slid a pair of black velvet gloves over her
hands. “By the way, Andrew, a team of
our scientists will be going up to the Icarus
today in order to start downloading some of the mission data.” She smiled, turned to leave, and then stopped
again, this time hurrying to the bed to kiss her husband on the lips one last
time. “I’m so glad you decided to
defect, my dearest Andrew. We would
never have defeated the West without you.”
A smile spread across her lovely pale features, her lips highlighted
with bright red lipstick. “Nor would we
have been able to reach the stars without your technical know-how. You assembled such a splendid team to
interpret the initial work done in the West on the Superluminal Project.”
Nadia left, blowing her lover a
final kiss before closing the door behind her.
Peterson sat up and swung his legs
over the edge of the bed. He didn’t have
much time. Within hours, the Eastern
Alliance Space Command would know that there had been no voyage to Tau Ceti. The EASC engineers would be even more baffled
when they learned that the Icarus had
been commissioned by the Western Alliance Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena. He needed to speak with
Dalquist and Gonzalez as soon as possible.
But first he needed to find out how
and why he’d become a traitor to the Western Alliance. He dressed hurriedly, finding a clean ship’s
uniform hanging in the closet. Next, he
searched the lavish apartment inside the palace for a room that he most surely
would have used as his personal office when in New Leningrad. He found it three rooms down the hall and sat
at the terminal of his personal crystal touch screen computer. He worked quickly, searching for his personal
diary. His fingers moved panels across
the screen and found that the diary wasn’t password protected. And why should it be? On the Earth he’d left, Nadia had been fully
aware of Marta.
He read dozens of entries in the
space on an hour, and each line of text caused him to feel more and more
distraught at his behavior. He had
indeed betrayed the Western Alliance, which had, according to the diary, fallen
hopelessly behind in its research for the Superluminal Project. The East had progressed farther than the West
had realized in its own superluminal research, with scientists sequestered in
the Ukraine doing highly classified research on the project, being given
rations and technology not available to the rest of the population.
And Nadia had announced that she was
pregnant. She threatened to tell Marta
of his infidelity if her darling Andrew didn’t defect. It had therefore become a moot question: his
marriage to Marta was over.
Peterson rubbed his chin, eyes shut
tightly against the reality that was displayed on the screen. It didn’t make sense. The Marta he knew had found out about his
affair to Nadia and forgiven him. What had
caused him to not only leave his wife but to alter the entire balance of power
in the world?
The answer was easily inferred from
the balance of his diary entries. He’d
betrayed the West because of opportunity and a lust for power, which was an
essential part of his character in any scenario that played out. He could not resist adulation and the
possibility of becoming a hero. Nor
would he have deserted the woman who was going to bear him a son—who had born him a son. And he wanted to get to the stars. The West had apparently lost focus in its
superluminal research, and nothing was going to stop Captain Andrew Peterson
from journeying to Tau Ceti in search of earth-like worlds to be
inhabited. Were not politics secondary
to the fate of mankind, which was linked to colonization of endless star
systems? He’d decided that he was the
only person who could make it happen, for the Superluminal Project might have
collapsed altogether, never to be resurrected by either the East or the West.
Peterson stood and paced the
Earth. He was fully cognizant that he
was capable of making such a decision.
He was painfully aware of his faults as demonstrated by his infidelity
to Marta before he’d left Earth. But the
one inescapable fact since they’d dropped out of the Void and seen the Earth
drifting in space as they watched the viewers was this: they hadn’t been gone
long enough for their home to be so completely changed. There had been no time to discuss the obvious
with the others as they stepped from the shuttlecraft, but he would shortly
speak with Dalquist and Gonzalez about the reality that must surely have dawned
on all of them by now: they had somehow stumbled into a parallel universe where
history was playing out very differently.
He knew that Nadia would return for
him soon, and he needed to use the touch screen to learn of one final piece of
crucial information: where was Marta Peterson?
He tapped into the vast databanks
that he, as an ambassador, Captain, and husband of the Prime Minister, would
have access to. His search for his wife
in the West was painfully easy. Marta Peterson
had lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now resided in a psychiatric
hospital in Boston. Peterson’s fingers
moved panels around on the screen even faster, searching for his former wife’s
psychiatric records.
These, too, he found with ease. After he’d divorced Marta, she suffered a
nervous breakdown, abusing alcohol and narcotics. She’d been committed to Boston Psychiatric
Hospital, where she still resided. A
picture of his ex-wife stared at him from the screen. Her face was haggard a puffy, absent of all
make-up. She was staring straight ahead,
a vacant gaze in her lackluster eyes.
This was more than Peterson could
stand. He’d been a monster in this
universe, and he hated himself for what he’d done. In the universe he had come from, the West
was gently trying to bring the East back into the fold, and it had been
succeeding. Nadia had accepted his
decision to be with Marta, and they’d managed to mend their fences as well,
although hurdles were surely going to be encountered even after the birth of
their child. As for the Superluminal
Project, it might well have collapsed, although Peterson couldn’t know that for
certain. In this universe, the one in
which he’d shifted the balance of power to the Eastern Alliance, he’d been a
selfish bastard, ambitious and uncaring.
He swallowed hard and left his
office. He needed to speak to Dalquist
and Gonzalez at once.
* * *
“I’ve been sleeping,” Dalquist
reported. “Nobody’s bothered to ask me a
single question.
“I’ve been visited by a few
scientists who had a million questions,” Gonzalez stated, “but I told them that
I’d answer everything after I’d been cleared to do so, which would probably be
after a formal debriefing and press conference.”
“Good job,” Peterson said. “We all know what’s happened, right?”
“We went down the rabbit hole,”
Dalquist said.
“Right into another universe,” Gonzalez
confirmed.
“Exactly,” said Peterson. “Is there any way we can reverse the
process?”
Gonzalez looked thoughtful and spoke
slowly. “I assume that the engine
trouble we had, the very same that caused the burp and the later appearance of
those firefly stars, is what was responsible for allowing the ship to enter a
different wormhole altogether rather than simply an unstable one. It ends up being a matter of semantics. Unstable versus different—hell, we’re messing
with the space-time continuum.”
“Here’s the million dollar
question,” Peterson said. “If we
reproduce the exact conditions that got us here, can we retrace our course?”
“You mean I should alter the
magnetic coils on Star Drive Three to the very same misalignment that caused
this?” asked Gonzalez.
Peterson nodded. “Yes.”
Gonzalez shrugged. “Theoretically, I suppose it could work, but
I’ll be damned if I can think of anything more scientific than just reproducing
what went haywire in the first place.”
“I think it’s worth a shot,”
Dalquist chimed in. “Even when dealing
with spatial aberrations in the space-time continuum, there should be some
basic symmetry that we can use to our advantage. We certainly can’t just go back to the ship,
presupposing that it’s possible to do so, and just cruise around a universe
where we don’t belong. But this is what
concerns me the most. The symmetry I’m
postulating may hold only for so long before space-time imposes a new set of
conditions on the wormhole that brought us here.”
“Meaning that we’ve got to try our
experiment as soon as possible,” Peterson said.
Dalquist and Gonzalez both nodded
their agreement.
“Okay,” Peterson said. “Here’s what we do. Emilio, use your pocket communicator to speak
with engineering. Tell them to align the
magnetic coils on Unit Three to what they were when we first entered the Void. Use a scrambled frequency. And tell Halvorsen to be ready to get under
way when as soon as we’re back aboard.
Same as before. Solid rockets
first, then the nuclear thrusters to clear the solar system.”
“How the hell do we get back to the Icarus?” Dalquist asked.
“I’m not at all sure,” Peterson
answered. “But let’s try to stay
close. We’ll have to look for the
opportunity to make it back to the Armstrong.”
“Even if we managed to get the
shuttle off the ground, they could pull us back with their tractor beam,”
Dalquist protested.
“Emilio,” said Peterson, “I think
you should ask to take a tour of their control rooms to thank everyone in
person. Maybe you can wreak a little
creative havoc with that tractor beam.”
Gonzalez smiled. I can try,” he said. “I can try.”
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