Operation InterstellarSmith, George O. (George Oliver)
Science
Operation Interstellar
Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Interstellar communication -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
The map would not be fixed. Stars move with respect to one another,
and this factor would be part of the measurements. On a star map or
planetarium, this motion was impossible to show from one year to the
next, these were 'fixed stars.' But for data fed into the Elecalc to
determine the time of drive, the angle, and the velocity, the finest
measurement of distance was none too good.
But even some grasp of the true immensity of space, with its tiny
pinpricks of solid matter scattered sparsely in a vastness of sheer,
black nothing, was lost on the travellers between Sol and Neosol. For
as far as they were concerned the journey was not much longer than the
famous voyage of Columbus. Miles meant nothing; there were too many of
them. Time was the essence, and ten long months passed between take-off
and the ultimate recovery of their own time and space, where the
cheerful stars winked out of a coal-black sky.
The dispersion was not too bad. Neosol was a light-week away, at
about a forty-five degree angle from their course and position. The
small-copy of the Elecalc went to work in the course computing room and
once more the ship took to the silent, black vastness of supervelocity
until the second drop into reality. They were a half-million miles from
Neoterra on the second hop, and there was no room to use supervelocity
now, so the next few hours were spent in matching the galactic drift
of Neosol, and finally Neoterra. But after ten months of living in
an electric-lighted capsule of metal, a half day of jockeying before
landing was pleasant.
But as the ship started to drop down toward the planet, Paul realized
with a shock that it was _not_ Neoterra. As space-trained as Paul was,
even he could not tell one star or one sun from another until something
more featureless is offered for comparison. The planet was definitely
not Neoterra, and this Paul knew only because it obviously bore no
atmosphere. All he could be sure of was that this star was close to
Neoterra as stellar distances went, but which star he had no way of
knowing. He knew that the star was not Neosol because none of the
planets of Neosol were without atmosphere.
Such an absolutely minimum of negative evidence could only tell Paul
where he was not; he was not on a planet of Sol nor Neosol.
As the ship came close to the surface of this planet, Paul noted the
radio-relay station below them, and here his recollection bore fruit.
This planet was of a star about five light years from Neosol.
He thought carefully. The star from Sol bore no more than a catalog
number, being of insufficient size to warrant notice by the
ancients who gave the stars their names. Someone had dubbed the
planet Harrigan's Horror in dubious honor of Lew Harrigan, who had
been the engineer who put up the relay station and had lived in
pressure-buildings for several months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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