Read Online Launch Pad by Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Brotherton - Free Book Online
Authors: Jody Lynn Nye, Mike Brotherton
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responded! Humans have survived!
I did not transmit my name, and yet they called me by the name Hisae gave me so many millennia ago. They remembered me.
I want to respond, “When? When are you coming?” But I cannot transmit until I am near periapsis, and my neural net will not survive another pass through that radiation field.
Hisae’s banded crescent floats in the blackness of space. The crimson light of Aoi refracts off her icy rings. I know no one will ever glimpse this, but I capture an image anyway.
What happened to the real Dr. Aoi and her daughter? And her daughter’s daughters’ daughters? What has humanity become?
I have so many questions. The answers are coming, but I doubt they will reach me before I shut down. I don’t know if I will ever wake again. So I just wanted to say, to anyone who might be listening, thank you for sending me.
It was worth it.
Data fau—
***
Are We Alone?
By Mike Brotherton, PhD
Assistant professor Beverly Rix-Johnson smiled with satisfaction as her program compiled without error. She knew that there were yet myriad bugs to find and fix, but there weren’t any obvious ones left. Those elusive exoplanets would soon start giving up more of their secrets!
She had literally been waiting for years, planning how she would apply a new imaging algorithm to try to unpack the data from the recently launched Argus Space Telescope into something more interesting than what previous NASA missions had so far managed. With the Argus archives starting to fill, she was ready to take advantage of her membership on the science definition team to get the first look.
As Bev was preparing to start testing and identify the next level of problems with her code, there was a knock at her office door.
“You ready to head over?” asked a male voice with a British accent.
Bev spun her chair around. In the doorway leaned Rodger Butler, the new chemistry professor. He was tall and red-headed like her, and the Dean had joked they could be brother and sister. She kind of liked Rodger, so she preferred not to think of him as a brother. He had freckles and green eyes, while her blue eyes sat in a freckle-free face. Totally different to her way of thinking.
But why was he here? What had she forgotten? She glanced at her dinosaur calendar and saw the scribble “P. O.” in black magic marker on the last Thursday underneath September’s triceratops.
“The plagiarism orientation?”
“The plagiarism orientation,” he confirmed. “We can go together. Or,” he said, looking around and grinning, “we might just stay here and unpack your office.”
Bev had given up being embarrassed by the unopened cardboard boxes stacked around and on top of the old, beat-up university furniture. She wondered why she even had all that stuff when all she really needed was a desk and a computer. Just to fill the office? It was the biggest office she’d ever had. The size of it seemed like overkill. Unpacking would just be another interruption to her research. The plagiarism orientation, too. Another interruption in a day of interruptions. Week of interruptions. Month of interruptions. Semester of interruptions.
Her first month as a professor and it was already as she’d been warned by Marty Schwartz, the department chair. “It’s going to be busy, and as busy as you think it’s going to be, it will be even busier.”
She stopped that depressing train of thought. This faculty position was her dream job and it would be as wonderful as she let it be—or as bad. In any event, attending University orientation events was part of her job. After her first semester she’d be considered “oriented” and freed from that particular set of obligations, at least. Bev saved her workspace and stood up. “I’m coming,” she said, her smile gone.
“I see my effect on the joy of others is not as positive as I’d like.” Rodger sniffed his underarm and scowled. “It isn’t all that bad, is it? I did remember to
I did not transmit my name, and yet they called me by the name Hisae gave me so many millennia ago. They remembered me.
I want to respond, “When? When are you coming?” But I cannot transmit until I am near periapsis, and my neural net will not survive another pass through that radiation field.
Hisae’s banded crescent floats in the blackness of space. The crimson light of Aoi refracts off her icy rings. I know no one will ever glimpse this, but I capture an image anyway.
What happened to the real Dr. Aoi and her daughter? And her daughter’s daughters’ daughters? What has humanity become?
I have so many questions. The answers are coming, but I doubt they will reach me before I shut down. I don’t know if I will ever wake again. So I just wanted to say, to anyone who might be listening, thank you for sending me.
It was worth it.
Data fau—
***
Are We Alone?
By Mike Brotherton, PhD
Assistant professor Beverly Rix-Johnson smiled with satisfaction as her program compiled without error. She knew that there were yet myriad bugs to find and fix, but there weren’t any obvious ones left. Those elusive exoplanets would soon start giving up more of their secrets!
She had literally been waiting for years, planning how she would apply a new imaging algorithm to try to unpack the data from the recently launched Argus Space Telescope into something more interesting than what previous NASA missions had so far managed. With the Argus archives starting to fill, she was ready to take advantage of her membership on the science definition team to get the first look.
As Bev was preparing to start testing and identify the next level of problems with her code, there was a knock at her office door.
“You ready to head over?” asked a male voice with a British accent.
Bev spun her chair around. In the doorway leaned Rodger Butler, the new chemistry professor. He was tall and red-headed like her, and the Dean had joked they could be brother and sister. She kind of liked Rodger, so she preferred not to think of him as a brother. He had freckles and green eyes, while her blue eyes sat in a freckle-free face. Totally different to her way of thinking.
But why was he here? What had she forgotten? She glanced at her dinosaur calendar and saw the scribble “P. O.” in black magic marker on the last Thursday underneath September’s triceratops.
“The plagiarism orientation?”
“The plagiarism orientation,” he confirmed. “We can go together. Or,” he said, looking around and grinning, “we might just stay here and unpack your office.”
Bev had given up being embarrassed by the unopened cardboard boxes stacked around and on top of the old, beat-up university furniture. She wondered why she even had all that stuff when all she really needed was a desk and a computer. Just to fill the office? It was the biggest office she’d ever had. The size of it seemed like overkill. Unpacking would just be another interruption to her research. The plagiarism orientation, too. Another interruption in a day of interruptions. Week of interruptions. Month of interruptions. Semester of interruptions.
Her first month as a professor and it was already as she’d been warned by Marty Schwartz, the department chair. “It’s going to be busy, and as busy as you think it’s going to be, it will be even busier.”
She stopped that depressing train of thought. This faculty position was her dream job and it would be as wonderful as she let it be—or as bad. In any event, attending University orientation events was part of her job. After her first semester she’d be considered “oriented” and freed from that particular set of obligations, at least. Bev saved her workspace and stood up. “I’m coming,” she said, her smile gone.
“I see my effect on the joy of others is not as positive as I’d like.” Rodger sniffed his underarm and scowled. “It isn’t all that bad, is it? I did remember to
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