band of considerable tensile strength. Naturally we were terrified."
Speaker-To-Animals asked, "How were you able to deduce its tensile strength?"
"Spectroanalysis and frequency shifts gave us a relative difference in velocities. The ring is clearly rotating about its primary at 770 miles per second, a velocity high enough to compensate for the pull of gravity from the primary, and to provide an additional centripetal acceleration of 9.94 meters per second. Consider the tensile strength needed to prevent the structure from disintegrating under such a pull!"
"Gravity," said Louis.
"Apparently."
"Gravity. A touch less than Earth's. There's somebody living there, on the inner surface. Hooo," said Louis Wu, for the full impact was beginning to hit him, and the little hairs were rising along his spinal column. He heard the swish, swish of the kzin's tail cutting air.
It was not the first time men had met their superiors. Thus far men had been lucky ...
Abruptly Louis stood up and walked toward the dome wall. It didn't work. The ring and the star receded before him until he touched a smooth surface. But he saw something he hadn't noticed before.
The ring was checkered. There were regular rectangular shadows along its blue back.
"Can you give us a better picture?"
"We can expand it," said the contralto voice. The G2 star jerked forward, then shot blazing off to the right, so that Louis was looking down on the lighted inner surface of the ring. Blurred as it was, Louis could only guess that the brighter, whiter areas might be cloud, that regions of faintly deeper blue might be land where lighter blue was sea.
But the shadowed areas were quite visible. The ring seemed to be laid out in rectangles: a long strip of glowing baby blue followed by a shorter strip of deep, navy blue, followed by another long strip of light blue. Dots and dashes.
"Something's causing those shadows," he said. "Something in orbit?"
"Yes, just that. Twenty rectangular shapes orbit in a Kemplerer rosette much nearer the primary. We do not know their purpose."
"You wouldn't. It's been too long since you had a sun. These orbiting rectangles must be there to separate night from day. Otherwise it would always be high noon on the ring."
"You will understand now why we called for your help. Your alien insights were bound to be of value."
"Uh huh. How big is the ring? Have you studied it much? Have you sent probes?"
"We have studied the ring as best we could without slowing our velocity and without otherwise attracting notice to ourselves. We have sent no probes, of course. Since they would have to be remotely controlled by hyperwave, such probes might be traced back to us."
"You can't track a hyperwave signal. It's theoretically impossible."
"Perhaps those who built the ring have evolved different theories."
"Mmm."
"But we have studied the ring with other instruments." As Chiron spoke, the scene on the dome wall changed to blacks and whites and grays. Outlines shifted and wavered. "We have taken photographs and holographs in all electromagnetic frequencies. If you are interested --"
"They don't show much detail."
"No. The light is too much bent by gravitational fields and solar wind and intervening dust and gasses. Our telescopes cannot find further detail."
"So you haven't really learned much."
"I would say that we have learned a good deal. One puzzling point. The ring apparently stops on the close order of 40 percent of neutrinos."
Teela merely looked bewildered; but Speaker made a startled sound, and Louis whistled very low.
That eliminated everything.
Normal matter, even the terrifically compressed matter in the heart of a star, would stop almost no neutrinos. Any neutrino stood a fifty-fifty chance of getting through several light years' thickness of lead.
An object in a Slaver stasis field reflected all neutrinos. So did a General Products hull.
But nothing known would stop 40 percent of neutrinos, and let the rest
Speaker-To-Animals asked, "How were you able to deduce its tensile strength?"
"Spectroanalysis and frequency shifts gave us a relative difference in velocities. The ring is clearly rotating about its primary at 770 miles per second, a velocity high enough to compensate for the pull of gravity from the primary, and to provide an additional centripetal acceleration of 9.94 meters per second. Consider the tensile strength needed to prevent the structure from disintegrating under such a pull!"
"Gravity," said Louis.
"Apparently."
"Gravity. A touch less than Earth's. There's somebody living there, on the inner surface. Hooo," said Louis Wu, for the full impact was beginning to hit him, and the little hairs were rising along his spinal column. He heard the swish, swish of the kzin's tail cutting air.
It was not the first time men had met their superiors. Thus far men had been lucky ...
Abruptly Louis stood up and walked toward the dome wall. It didn't work. The ring and the star receded before him until he touched a smooth surface. But he saw something he hadn't noticed before.
The ring was checkered. There were regular rectangular shadows along its blue back.
"Can you give us a better picture?"
"We can expand it," said the contralto voice. The G2 star jerked forward, then shot blazing off to the right, so that Louis was looking down on the lighted inner surface of the ring. Blurred as it was, Louis could only guess that the brighter, whiter areas might be cloud, that regions of faintly deeper blue might be land where lighter blue was sea.
But the shadowed areas were quite visible. The ring seemed to be laid out in rectangles: a long strip of glowing baby blue followed by a shorter strip of deep, navy blue, followed by another long strip of light blue. Dots and dashes.
"Something's causing those shadows," he said. "Something in orbit?"
"Yes, just that. Twenty rectangular shapes orbit in a Kemplerer rosette much nearer the primary. We do not know their purpose."
"You wouldn't. It's been too long since you had a sun. These orbiting rectangles must be there to separate night from day. Otherwise it would always be high noon on the ring."
"You will understand now why we called for your help. Your alien insights were bound to be of value."
"Uh huh. How big is the ring? Have you studied it much? Have you sent probes?"
"We have studied the ring as best we could without slowing our velocity and without otherwise attracting notice to ourselves. We have sent no probes, of course. Since they would have to be remotely controlled by hyperwave, such probes might be traced back to us."
"You can't track a hyperwave signal. It's theoretically impossible."
"Perhaps those who built the ring have evolved different theories."
"Mmm."
"But we have studied the ring with other instruments." As Chiron spoke, the scene on the dome wall changed to blacks and whites and grays. Outlines shifted and wavered. "We have taken photographs and holographs in all electromagnetic frequencies. If you are interested --"
"They don't show much detail."
"No. The light is too much bent by gravitational fields and solar wind and intervening dust and gasses. Our telescopes cannot find further detail."
"So you haven't really learned much."
"I would say that we have learned a good deal. One puzzling point. The ring apparently stops on the close order of 40 percent of neutrinos."
Teela merely looked bewildered; but Speaker made a startled sound, and Louis whistled very low.
That eliminated everything.
Normal matter, even the terrifically compressed matter in the heart of a star, would stop almost no neutrinos. Any neutrino stood a fifty-fifty chance of getting through several light years' thickness of lead.
An object in a Slaver stasis field reflected all neutrinos. So did a General Products hull.
But nothing known would stop 40 percent of neutrinos, and let the rest
Similar Books
![The Sextet - Occupational Hazards [The Sextet Anthology, Volume 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)](https://fs.ageofbook.com/588970/thumbs/152x264/the-sextet-occupational-hazards-the-sextet-anthology-volume-3-siren-publishing-menage-everlasting.jpg)
