lift.”
“Your trajectory is clear of traffic, Starhopper . You are cleared out of the inner zone.”
“All right, Engineer, you may release the jinn from its bottle.”
Tory sent the impulse that transferred final control to the computer. The effect was immediate. Somewhere aft, a dozen small reaction jets came alight. Nothing happened for a second or two, and then the radar altimeter began to register a slow climb. When the velocity indicator registered 10 meters per second, the reaction jets grew silent.
Starhopper continued to drift slowly skyward. It had effectively escaped the small moon’s gravitational hold and was now in orbit about Mars.
“We’re safely away, Captain,” Tory reported unnecessarily.
“Very well, Engineer. Begin final checks of the antimatter system and electromagnetic nozzle. We head into the deep black as soon as we clear the inner traffic zone.”
#
Faslorn of the Phelan stared at the image of Sol and its planets and marveled at the sight. His ancestors had studied this yellow star from the moment they had discovered it to be the source of artificial generated electromagnetic radiation. Following the destruction of Tau Ceti, his predecessors had studied Sol to glean as much information as possible. For much of the long voyage from the home system, however, Sol’s nine children had remained invisible to Phelan telescopes. All the knowledge they had of the system came from human broadcasts.
It had not been until the cycle of Faslorn’s birth that the ship’s telescopes had first picked out the faint sparks of Sol’s attendant worlds. Jupiter had been first, of course, followed by Saturn, Venus, and Earth. Over the revolutions, all of the solar planets had been observed save two. The innermost, Mercury, was lost in the glare of the star, even when advanced obscuration techniques were attempted. The outermost, Pluto, was too far out and badly positioned for observation. Neither failure was of much interest to the Phelan. Their vision remained firmly fixed on the third of Sol’s children.
For all the time they could see them, Phelan telescopes had watched the changing pattern of sunlight on the solar worlds. Each planet showed as a nearly full circle when on the far side of the sun, and as a tiny sliver of light when near. As they watched, Faslorn and his crewmates saw a system very like home. Two worlds in the home system had been twins of Jupiter, while hot, cloud shrouded Milsa had been Venus’s counterpart. Earth resembled lost Phela as closely as one world can resemble another. Even the oversize Luna had its counterpart in Phela’s largest moon.
Faslorn’s current interest, however, was in none of the worlds of Sol. His attention was fixed on a patch of violet-white fog that would have been invisible had the computers not noted its presence.
“The astronomers are certain that this is a ship coming to meet us?” Faslorn asked his chief advisor.
“There can be no doubt,” Rosswin replied. “They have been observing the cloud for twenty watches. At first, they thought it the exhaust of an interplanetary liner en route from Mars to an outer world. They became suspicious when the cloud did not move like a ship in the main planetary plane. When it did not fade away at the proper time, they began taking Doppler measurements. There can be no doubt. It is moving directly toward us.”
“How fast?”
“At the beginning of this watch, at 0.0413 fraction of luminal velocity.”
“What is the delay in the light reaching us?”
“One-quarter cycle.”
“Then if the vehicle continued boosting, it could actually be moving much faster by now. Could it be a weapon?”
“Our human psychologists put the probability at less than two dozen parts in a gross,” Rosswin replied. “They think it more likely that the humans have modified the interstellar probe they were building and are using it to send a ship out to meet us.”
Faslorn’s posture showed his concern. “A
“Your trajectory is clear of traffic, Starhopper . You are cleared out of the inner zone.”
“All right, Engineer, you may release the jinn from its bottle.”
Tory sent the impulse that transferred final control to the computer. The effect was immediate. Somewhere aft, a dozen small reaction jets came alight. Nothing happened for a second or two, and then the radar altimeter began to register a slow climb. When the velocity indicator registered 10 meters per second, the reaction jets grew silent.
Starhopper continued to drift slowly skyward. It had effectively escaped the small moon’s gravitational hold and was now in orbit about Mars.
“We’re safely away, Captain,” Tory reported unnecessarily.
“Very well, Engineer. Begin final checks of the antimatter system and electromagnetic nozzle. We head into the deep black as soon as we clear the inner traffic zone.”
#
Faslorn of the Phelan stared at the image of Sol and its planets and marveled at the sight. His ancestors had studied this yellow star from the moment they had discovered it to be the source of artificial generated electromagnetic radiation. Following the destruction of Tau Ceti, his predecessors had studied Sol to glean as much information as possible. For much of the long voyage from the home system, however, Sol’s nine children had remained invisible to Phelan telescopes. All the knowledge they had of the system came from human broadcasts.
It had not been until the cycle of Faslorn’s birth that the ship’s telescopes had first picked out the faint sparks of Sol’s attendant worlds. Jupiter had been first, of course, followed by Saturn, Venus, and Earth. Over the revolutions, all of the solar planets had been observed save two. The innermost, Mercury, was lost in the glare of the star, even when advanced obscuration techniques were attempted. The outermost, Pluto, was too far out and badly positioned for observation. Neither failure was of much interest to the Phelan. Their vision remained firmly fixed on the third of Sol’s children.
For all the time they could see them, Phelan telescopes had watched the changing pattern of sunlight on the solar worlds. Each planet showed as a nearly full circle when on the far side of the sun, and as a tiny sliver of light when near. As they watched, Faslorn and his crewmates saw a system very like home. Two worlds in the home system had been twins of Jupiter, while hot, cloud shrouded Milsa had been Venus’s counterpart. Earth resembled lost Phela as closely as one world can resemble another. Even the oversize Luna had its counterpart in Phela’s largest moon.
Faslorn’s current interest, however, was in none of the worlds of Sol. His attention was fixed on a patch of violet-white fog that would have been invisible had the computers not noted its presence.
“The astronomers are certain that this is a ship coming to meet us?” Faslorn asked his chief advisor.
“There can be no doubt,” Rosswin replied. “They have been observing the cloud for twenty watches. At first, they thought it the exhaust of an interplanetary liner en route from Mars to an outer world. They became suspicious when the cloud did not move like a ship in the main planetary plane. When it did not fade away at the proper time, they began taking Doppler measurements. There can be no doubt. It is moving directly toward us.”
“How fast?”
“At the beginning of this watch, at 0.0413 fraction of luminal velocity.”
“What is the delay in the light reaching us?”
“One-quarter cycle.”
“Then if the vehicle continued boosting, it could actually be moving much faster by now. Could it be a weapon?”
“Our human psychologists put the probability at less than two dozen parts in a gross,” Rosswin replied. “They think it more likely that the humans have modified the interstellar probe they were building and are using it to send a ship out to meet us.”
Faslorn’s posture showed his concern. “A
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