Read Online In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online
Authors: Gregory Benford
Tags: FIC028000
Ads: Link
simple. It had already decelerated until interstellar dust would no longer plow into it with blistering, destructive velocity. The craft could now safely cut off the magnetic fields encasing it and begin to extend sensors. A port opened to the utter cold and peered ahead. A blinder drew across the image of the nearing star, so that tiny flecks of light nearby could register.
The telescope employed was 150 centimeters in diameter and did not differ markedly from those used on Earth; some facets of design, bounded by natural law, are universal. The craft crept along at far below light speed. Isotopes met with a low mumble in the throat of its exhaust. Fingers of magnetic fields, extended forward, plucked the proper atoms from the interstellar gas and funneled them in. Only this carving of a cylinder in the dust disturbed the silent reaches.
The craft watched patiently. Any planets orbiting the star ahead were still far away, and picking out their movements against the speckled background of stationary stars was difficult. At four-tenths of a light-year away, the activated circuits and their consultation backup agreed: a yellow-brown patch near the white star was a planet. Higher functions of the computers felt the prickly stirrings of activity and heard of the discovery. A background library of planetary theory was consulted. The blurred, dim disk ahead shimmered as the ship swept through a whisper-thin cloud of dust, while the machine bracketed and measured its objective in methodical detail.
The planet was large. It might have enough mass to ignite thermonuclear fires in its core, but experience argued that its light was too weak. The computers pondered whether to classify the system as a binary star and eventually decided against it. Still, the waxing point of light ahead held promise.
The morning passed in puzzled argument.
Nigel wasn’t totally willing to abandon the hypothesis that Jupiter Monitor had malfunctioned. The flight engineers—a flinty crew, skeptical of nonspecialists, fond of jargon—thought otherwise. They gave ground grudgingly, pitting sweet cool reason against Nigel’s vague doubts. A complete run-through of J-Monitor’s error-detection modes, a new diagnostic analysis, a hand-check of transmissions—all showed nothing wrong. There was no mechanical flaw.
The quirky echo had faded away a little after 3 A.M.
The Monitor was no longer in its original ellipse around Jupiter; a month earlier its engines had stirred awake and fired, to nudge it into orbit around Callisto, fifth moon of Jupiter. Now it spun an elaborate orange-slice orbit, lacing over the icy glare of Callisto’s poles every eight hours.
Nigel snapped a cracker in half, swallowing it with some lukewarm tea, hardly noticing the mingling of sweet and tart. He closed his eyes to the
ting
and clatter of telemetry. The flight engineers had finally gone back to their burrows and he and Lubkin sat in the main control bay, at one of the semicircular tables; digital arrays ringed them.
“That puts paid to the simple ideas, then,” Nigel said. “I suppose we’d best have a glance at the Callisto orbit.”
“Don’t follow,” Lubkin said.
“If the signal came from a source
outside
J-Monitor, something cut it off. The echo must’ve faded because Callisto came between the source and J-Monitor.”
Lubkin nodded. “Reasonable. The same thing had occurred to me, but—” he looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon. Why didn’t the echo return around seven or so this morning, when J-Monitor came
out
from behind Callisto?”
Nigel had the uncomfortable feeling that he was playing the role of dull-witted graduate student to Lubkin’s learned professor. But then, he realized, that was precisely the impression a skillful administrator would try to create.
“Well … maybe the other source is occluded by Jupiter itself. Now
it’s
blotted out.”
Lubkin pursed his lips. “Maybe, maybe.”
“Can’t we rough out some sort of
The telescope employed was 150 centimeters in diameter and did not differ markedly from those used on Earth; some facets of design, bounded by natural law, are universal. The craft crept along at far below light speed. Isotopes met with a low mumble in the throat of its exhaust. Fingers of magnetic fields, extended forward, plucked the proper atoms from the interstellar gas and funneled them in. Only this carving of a cylinder in the dust disturbed the silent reaches.
The craft watched patiently. Any planets orbiting the star ahead were still far away, and picking out their movements against the speckled background of stationary stars was difficult. At four-tenths of a light-year away, the activated circuits and their consultation backup agreed: a yellow-brown patch near the white star was a planet. Higher functions of the computers felt the prickly stirrings of activity and heard of the discovery. A background library of planetary theory was consulted. The blurred, dim disk ahead shimmered as the ship swept through a whisper-thin cloud of dust, while the machine bracketed and measured its objective in methodical detail.
The planet was large. It might have enough mass to ignite thermonuclear fires in its core, but experience argued that its light was too weak. The computers pondered whether to classify the system as a binary star and eventually decided against it. Still, the waxing point of light ahead held promise.
The morning passed in puzzled argument.
Nigel wasn’t totally willing to abandon the hypothesis that Jupiter Monitor had malfunctioned. The flight engineers—a flinty crew, skeptical of nonspecialists, fond of jargon—thought otherwise. They gave ground grudgingly, pitting sweet cool reason against Nigel’s vague doubts. A complete run-through of J-Monitor’s error-detection modes, a new diagnostic analysis, a hand-check of transmissions—all showed nothing wrong. There was no mechanical flaw.
The quirky echo had faded away a little after 3 A.M.
The Monitor was no longer in its original ellipse around Jupiter; a month earlier its engines had stirred awake and fired, to nudge it into orbit around Callisto, fifth moon of Jupiter. Now it spun an elaborate orange-slice orbit, lacing over the icy glare of Callisto’s poles every eight hours.
Nigel snapped a cracker in half, swallowing it with some lukewarm tea, hardly noticing the mingling of sweet and tart. He closed his eyes to the
ting
and clatter of telemetry. The flight engineers had finally gone back to their burrows and he and Lubkin sat in the main control bay, at one of the semicircular tables; digital arrays ringed them.
“That puts paid to the simple ideas, then,” Nigel said. “I suppose we’d best have a glance at the Callisto orbit.”
“Don’t follow,” Lubkin said.
“If the signal came from a source
outside
J-Monitor, something cut it off. The echo must’ve faded because Callisto came between the source and J-Monitor.”
Lubkin nodded. “Reasonable. The same thing had occurred to me, but—” he looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon. Why didn’t the echo return around seven or so this morning, when J-Monitor came
out
from behind Callisto?”
Nigel had the uncomfortable feeling that he was playing the role of dull-witted graduate student to Lubkin’s learned professor. But then, he realized, that was precisely the impression a skillful administrator would try to create.
“Well … maybe the other source is occluded by Jupiter itself. Now
it’s
blotted out.”
Lubkin pursed his lips. “Maybe, maybe.”
“Can’t we rough out some sort of
Similar Books
