Read Online In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gregory Benford
Tags: FIC028000
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orbit for the source, given a triangulation with Callisto?”
Lubkin nodded.
Around every star stretches a spherical shell of space, and somewhere within the thickness of that shell, temperatures are mild. For an Earthlike world, given the right primordial nudge, water will be liquid on the planet’s surface.
One-third of a light-year from the burning nugget of the star, the craft surveyed this livable zone and found it good. There was no sign of a large planet like the yellow-brown gas giant circling further out. This was a crucial test, for a massive world, close in, would have made another stable orbit impossible within the life-giving volume. Had the ship found such a planet, it was under standing orders—encrusted, ingrained, so old they functioned as instincts—to accelerate through the system, gathering all possible data for the astrophysical index, and chart a course for the next in a lengthy record of candidate suns.
Instead, the ship quickened the rumble of deceleration. It uncapped its telescope more frequently and peered ahead for longer intervals. A blue-white splotch revolved into another gas giant planet, smaller than the first and further out. Its image resisted precise definition. The craft noted a blurred circlet of bluish light—the body was ringed, a not uncommon occurrence among heavy planets.
Another massive planet was found, thinly ringed, and then another, each further away from the star. The machines began lowering their estimates of the possibility of life in this system. Still, past experience held out a glimmer of hope. Small, dim worlds might lie further in, even if the weight of theory and observation made it seem unlikely. By a fluke, the ship could be approaching from the night side of a world and miss it entirely. The craft waited.
At one-sixth of a light-year out the computers found an ambiguous smear of blue and brown and white: a planet near the star. Reward circuits triggered. The machines felt a spasm of relief and joy, a seething electric surge within. They were sophisticated devices, webs of impulses programmed to want to succeed, yet buffered against severe disappointment if success eluded them.
For the moment they were content. The ship flew on.
Spherical trigonometry, the vectoring line of J-Monitor’s main dish, calculus, orbital parameters, estimates, angles. Check and recheck.
Slowly, the most probable answer emerged—3:30 P.M. , an hour away. By then the source should arc into view of J-Monitor’s main dish. Nigel imagined it as a dot of light slowly separating from the churning brown bands of Jupiter, rising above the horizon. As it traced its own ellipse, J-Monitor would be surveying the snow fields of Callisto below with its own mechanical intensity; craters, wrinkled hill lines, fissures, glinting blue ice mountains.
“One hour,” Lubkin said.
“Can we realign the main dish that quickly, without disturbing the surveying routine?” Nigel asked.
“We’ll have to,” Lubkin replied firmly. He picked up the telephone and dialed Operations Control.
“Tell them to rotate the camera platform, too,” Nigel said quickly.
“You think there’ll be anything to see at that range?” Nigel shrugged. “Possibly.”
“The narrow-angle camera? We can’t move both in—” “Right. We should work out a set of shots. Use the filters, stepping down from ultraviolet to IR. They can sequence automatically.”
Lubkin began speaking rapidly and precisely into the telephone, smiling confidently now that there were orders to be given, men to be told.
The ship was still cruising in deep silence, far from the star’s warmth, when it began to discern radio waves. More of the higher functions of the craft came alive. The weak signals were weighed and sifted. Filtering away the usual sputtering star noise, they found a faint trace of emission localized to the planets.
The most powerful source was the innermost gas giant. This was an optimistic sign, for the world did
Lubkin nodded.
Around every star stretches a spherical shell of space, and somewhere within the thickness of that shell, temperatures are mild. For an Earthlike world, given the right primordial nudge, water will be liquid on the planet’s surface.
One-third of a light-year from the burning nugget of the star, the craft surveyed this livable zone and found it good. There was no sign of a large planet like the yellow-brown gas giant circling further out. This was a crucial test, for a massive world, close in, would have made another stable orbit impossible within the life-giving volume. Had the ship found such a planet, it was under standing orders—encrusted, ingrained, so old they functioned as instincts—to accelerate through the system, gathering all possible data for the astrophysical index, and chart a course for the next in a lengthy record of candidate suns.
Instead, the ship quickened the rumble of deceleration. It uncapped its telescope more frequently and peered ahead for longer intervals. A blue-white splotch revolved into another gas giant planet, smaller than the first and further out. Its image resisted precise definition. The craft noted a blurred circlet of bluish light—the body was ringed, a not uncommon occurrence among heavy planets.
Another massive planet was found, thinly ringed, and then another, each further away from the star. The machines began lowering their estimates of the possibility of life in this system. Still, past experience held out a glimmer of hope. Small, dim worlds might lie further in, even if the weight of theory and observation made it seem unlikely. By a fluke, the ship could be approaching from the night side of a world and miss it entirely. The craft waited.
At one-sixth of a light-year out the computers found an ambiguous smear of blue and brown and white: a planet near the star. Reward circuits triggered. The machines felt a spasm of relief and joy, a seething electric surge within. They were sophisticated devices, webs of impulses programmed to want to succeed, yet buffered against severe disappointment if success eluded them.
For the moment they were content. The ship flew on.
Spherical trigonometry, the vectoring line of J-Monitor’s main dish, calculus, orbital parameters, estimates, angles. Check and recheck.
Slowly, the most probable answer emerged—3:30 P.M. , an hour away. By then the source should arc into view of J-Monitor’s main dish. Nigel imagined it as a dot of light slowly separating from the churning brown bands of Jupiter, rising above the horizon. As it traced its own ellipse, J-Monitor would be surveying the snow fields of Callisto below with its own mechanical intensity; craters, wrinkled hill lines, fissures, glinting blue ice mountains.
“One hour,” Lubkin said.
“Can we realign the main dish that quickly, without disturbing the surveying routine?” Nigel asked.
“We’ll have to,” Lubkin replied firmly. He picked up the telephone and dialed Operations Control.
“Tell them to rotate the camera platform, too,” Nigel said quickly.
“You think there’ll be anything to see at that range?” Nigel shrugged. “Possibly.”
“The narrow-angle camera? We can’t move both in—” “Right. We should work out a set of shots. Use the filters, stepping down from ultraviolet to IR. They can sequence automatically.”
Lubkin began speaking rapidly and precisely into the telephone, smiling confidently now that there were orders to be given, men to be told.
The ship was still cruising in deep silence, far from the star’s warmth, when it began to discern radio waves. More of the higher functions of the craft came alive. The weak signals were weighed and sifted. Filtering away the usual sputtering star noise, they found a faint trace of emission localized to the planets.
The most powerful source was the innermost gas giant. This was an optimistic sign, for the world did
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