Read Online In the Ocean of Night by Gregory Benford - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Gregory Benford
Tags: FIC028000
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orbit fairly near its star. If it had merely a transparent atmosphere it would be too cold, but analysis showed it to be cloaked in thick, deep clouds. Such planets could warm themselves, the ship knew, by gravitational contraction and by heat-trapping—the greenhouse effect. Life could well evolve in their skies and seas.
Still, such clotted blankets of gas and liquid meant awesome pressures. Life in similar worlds rarely developed skeletons and thus could not manipulate tools; the ship’s log carried many instances of this. Trapped in their deep bowl of ammonia and methane, free of technology’s snarls, such creatures could not communicate—and the ship could assuredly not fly into such pressures in search of them.
A smaller source of radio waves lay further inward. It was the third planet, blue and white. The signals wove complex overlapping patterns, faint tremors that could be atmospheric phenomena: thunderstorms, lightning flashes, perhaps radiation from a magnetosphere. Still, the world was wrapped in a clear gas, a hopeful sign. The craft flew sunward.
By 6 P.M. they became discouraged. The Monitor’s main dish was reprogrammed to carry out a methodical search pattern around the spot where the unknown radio source should appear.
It was functioning. The data were coming in. All operations were proceeding smoothly.
And there were absolutely no results.
The flight engineering staff was milling about, writing day summary reports, ready to go home. To them, the echo problem was a temporary aberration that cleared up of itself. Until it reappeared, no cause for alarm.
The target should have emerged from Jupiter’s rim at 3:37 P.M. , according to revised estimates. Given the time lag in signals from Jupiter, Operations Control began receiving data slightly before 4:30 P.M. The main dish’s search was completed within an hour. They couldn’t use the narrow-angle camera—not enough technicians were free from the Mars Burrower and the planetary satellites. In any case, nothing indicated that there was anything worth seeing.
“Looks like balls-up on that,” Nigel said.
“Either the whole idea is a pipe dream—” Lubkin began.
“Or we haven’t got the orbit right,” Nigel finished. An engineer in portable headphones came down the curved aisle, asked Lubkin to sign a clipboard, and went away.
Lubkin leaned back in his roller chair. “Yeah, there’s always that.”
“We can have another go tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Lubkin did not sound particularly enthusiastic. He got up from the console and paced back and forth in the aisle. There wasn’t much room; he nearly bumped into a technician down the way who was checking readouts at the Antenna Systems console. Nigel ignored the background murmur of the Control Bay and tried to think. Lubkin paced some more and finally sat down. The pair studied their green television screens, which were tilted backward for ease of viewing, where sequencing and programming data were continually displayed and erased. Occasionally the computer index would exceed its allowed parameter range and the screen would jump from yellow-on-green to green-on-yellow. Nigel had never gotten used to this; he remained disconcertingly on edge until someone found the error and the screen reverted.
The console telephone rang, jarring his concentration still further. “There’s an external call for you,” an impersonal woman’s voice said.
“Put them off a bit, will you?”
“I believe it’s your wife.”
“Ah. Put her on hold.”
He turned to Lubkin. “I’d like to get the camera free tomorrow.”
“What’s the use?”
“Call it idle speculation,” he said shortly. He was rather tired and wasn’t looking for an argument.
“Okay, try it,” Lubkin said, threw down his pencil and labored to his feet. His white shirt was creased and wrinkled. In defeat he seemed more likable to Nigel, less an edgy executive measuring his moves before he made them. “See you tomorrow,”
Still, such clotted blankets of gas and liquid meant awesome pressures. Life in similar worlds rarely developed skeletons and thus could not manipulate tools; the ship’s log carried many instances of this. Trapped in their deep bowl of ammonia and methane, free of technology’s snarls, such creatures could not communicate—and the ship could assuredly not fly into such pressures in search of them.
A smaller source of radio waves lay further inward. It was the third planet, blue and white. The signals wove complex overlapping patterns, faint tremors that could be atmospheric phenomena: thunderstorms, lightning flashes, perhaps radiation from a magnetosphere. Still, the world was wrapped in a clear gas, a hopeful sign. The craft flew sunward.
By 6 P.M. they became discouraged. The Monitor’s main dish was reprogrammed to carry out a methodical search pattern around the spot where the unknown radio source should appear.
It was functioning. The data were coming in. All operations were proceeding smoothly.
And there were absolutely no results.
The flight engineering staff was milling about, writing day summary reports, ready to go home. To them, the echo problem was a temporary aberration that cleared up of itself. Until it reappeared, no cause for alarm.
The target should have emerged from Jupiter’s rim at 3:37 P.M. , according to revised estimates. Given the time lag in signals from Jupiter, Operations Control began receiving data slightly before 4:30 P.M. The main dish’s search was completed within an hour. They couldn’t use the narrow-angle camera—not enough technicians were free from the Mars Burrower and the planetary satellites. In any case, nothing indicated that there was anything worth seeing.
“Looks like balls-up on that,” Nigel said.
“Either the whole idea is a pipe dream—” Lubkin began.
“Or we haven’t got the orbit right,” Nigel finished. An engineer in portable headphones came down the curved aisle, asked Lubkin to sign a clipboard, and went away.
Lubkin leaned back in his roller chair. “Yeah, there’s always that.”
“We can have another go tomorrow.”
“Sure.” Lubkin did not sound particularly enthusiastic. He got up from the console and paced back and forth in the aisle. There wasn’t much room; he nearly bumped into a technician down the way who was checking readouts at the Antenna Systems console. Nigel ignored the background murmur of the Control Bay and tried to think. Lubkin paced some more and finally sat down. The pair studied their green television screens, which were tilted backward for ease of viewing, where sequencing and programming data were continually displayed and erased. Occasionally the computer index would exceed its allowed parameter range and the screen would jump from yellow-on-green to green-on-yellow. Nigel had never gotten used to this; he remained disconcertingly on edge until someone found the error and the screen reverted.
The console telephone rang, jarring his concentration still further. “There’s an external call for you,” an impersonal woman’s voice said.
“Put them off a bit, will you?”
“I believe it’s your wife.”
“Ah. Put her on hold.”
He turned to Lubkin. “I’d like to get the camera free tomorrow.”
“What’s the use?”
“Call it idle speculation,” he said shortly. He was rather tired and wasn’t looking for an argument.
“Okay, try it,” Lubkin said, threw down his pencil and labored to his feet. His white shirt was creased and wrinkled. In defeat he seemed more likable to Nigel, less an edgy executive measuring his moves before he made them. “See you tomorrow,”
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