find what we’re looking for, I’d recommend stopping at the first one. We won’t need more than one.”
Chapter 14
Year 6
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
—Neil Armstrong (what he was supposed to say)
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
—Neil Armstrong (what was actually recorded)
SU Time: +7,500,000,000 Years
This galaxy glowed a vivid blue-green, a disk with fiery hydrogen clouds exploding outward from its core. The gaseous plumes reminded Thomas of a volcanic explosion. The light from billions of stars mingled with mixing and accreting masses of gas and dust—other stars about to be born. Vast fields of more loosely clumped clouds intermixed light and shadow. Beyond the edges of this island-like galaxy, in all directions around and above, minuscule clusters of light revealed other galaxies dotting the canvas of the universe. It rivaled the most dazzling Hubble pictures Thomas had ever seen. He stood in awe, taking in the fabulous panorama.
He wanted to explore each and every galaxy directly, but there was only so much time and processing power. And this galaxy was the home to the planetary system that their search had matched with the desired attributes most likely to eventually produce life. So here they were, about to check out the planet.
With a sweep of his right hand, Thomas conjured a small image simulating a heads-up display.
“Jenn,” he said, “show me the results of the analysis of most likely locations for stars with planetary systems that could support life.”
“Yes, sir. You’ll see the most likely candidate in just a sec—though, we don’t think the planetary system has fully developed yet.”
Jenn’s voice had come over the environmental audio, but she was nowhere to be seen. Although all the new rendering rooms had their own computer systems with LCDs set up to allow local control, there were central controls for them as well. In this case, Thomas had wanted to check out this planet alone, so Jenn was in the control room with everyone else. They could watch his view on a single screen in central command, but that room didn’t have the full immersion of the rendering rooms. Thomas was sure that they were irritated that they weren’t in the rendering room with him, but he had wanted to be the first to “set foot” on this new planet. He wasn’t sure why, and he usually didn’t let his ego run wild, but for whatever reason, he wanted to do it this way. So he had.
Lisa had said, “Typical,” and that bothered him, but it had also made him more adamant.
A set of numbers materialized, glowing a somber amber on the heads-up:
9234,47815,29899
With another subtle gesture, Thomas activated the guide displays. Small glowing numbers showed next to arrows at the corners of his vision. Two slightly larger sets of numbers appeared in front of him:
5012,9402,10932
11092,32015
Thomas turned right and down, and the second set of numbers swung so that they always stayed in his view. The digits spun to reflect the numeric value of his focal point. Thomas slowed his movement, watching the numbers, and stopped when they read:
9234,47815
Of course, he couldn’t yet see the planetary system he had turned toward. From this distance, neither star would be even a tiny pinprick of light at the edge of the galaxy in front of him.
With a slight flick of his fingers, he shot forward. This time, the top three numbers rolled, slowly at first and then faster as his speed increased. The stars streaked past him as he swept into the upper fringes of the galaxy’s enormous disk.
Thomas heard Stephen’s voice over the environmental audio: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Thomas smirked and said, “Han Solo, huh, Stephen?”
“Sorry, Thomas. It came out louder than I’d expected.”
“That’s OK,” Thomas said and then inwardly agreed that the streaking stars did remind him of the
Chapter 14
Year 6
That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
—Neil Armstrong (what he was supposed to say)
That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
—Neil Armstrong (what was actually recorded)
SU Time: +7,500,000,000 Years
This galaxy glowed a vivid blue-green, a disk with fiery hydrogen clouds exploding outward from its core. The gaseous plumes reminded Thomas of a volcanic explosion. The light from billions of stars mingled with mixing and accreting masses of gas and dust—other stars about to be born. Vast fields of more loosely clumped clouds intermixed light and shadow. Beyond the edges of this island-like galaxy, in all directions around and above, minuscule clusters of light revealed other galaxies dotting the canvas of the universe. It rivaled the most dazzling Hubble pictures Thomas had ever seen. He stood in awe, taking in the fabulous panorama.
He wanted to explore each and every galaxy directly, but there was only so much time and processing power. And this galaxy was the home to the planetary system that their search had matched with the desired attributes most likely to eventually produce life. So here they were, about to check out the planet.
With a sweep of his right hand, Thomas conjured a small image simulating a heads-up display.
“Jenn,” he said, “show me the results of the analysis of most likely locations for stars with planetary systems that could support life.”
“Yes, sir. You’ll see the most likely candidate in just a sec—though, we don’t think the planetary system has fully developed yet.”
Jenn’s voice had come over the environmental audio, but she was nowhere to be seen. Although all the new rendering rooms had their own computer systems with LCDs set up to allow local control, there were central controls for them as well. In this case, Thomas had wanted to check out this planet alone, so Jenn was in the control room with everyone else. They could watch his view on a single screen in central command, but that room didn’t have the full immersion of the rendering rooms. Thomas was sure that they were irritated that they weren’t in the rendering room with him, but he had wanted to be the first to “set foot” on this new planet. He wasn’t sure why, and he usually didn’t let his ego run wild, but for whatever reason, he wanted to do it this way. So he had.
Lisa had said, “Typical,” and that bothered him, but it had also made him more adamant.
A set of numbers materialized, glowing a somber amber on the heads-up:
9234,47815,29899
With another subtle gesture, Thomas activated the guide displays. Small glowing numbers showed next to arrows at the corners of his vision. Two slightly larger sets of numbers appeared in front of him:
5012,9402,10932
11092,32015
Thomas turned right and down, and the second set of numbers swung so that they always stayed in his view. The digits spun to reflect the numeric value of his focal point. Thomas slowed his movement, watching the numbers, and stopped when they read:
9234,47815
Of course, he couldn’t yet see the planetary system he had turned toward. From this distance, neither star would be even a tiny pinprick of light at the edge of the galaxy in front of him.
With a slight flick of his fingers, he shot forward. This time, the top three numbers rolled, slowly at first and then faster as his speed increased. The stars streaked past him as he swept into the upper fringes of the galaxy’s enormous disk.
Thomas heard Stephen’s voice over the environmental audio: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Thomas smirked and said, “Han Solo, huh, Stephen?”
“Sorry, Thomas. It came out louder than I’d expected.”
“That’s OK,” Thomas said and then inwardly agreed that the streaking stars did remind him of the
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