The Great Escape Chapter 17, Part 8 of 8

The Great Escape
Chapter 17, Part 8 of 8

Rosa and Li each sat at a console in front of various screens. Five members of Hyper Star Japan's engineering team crowded around another console. Stephen Oakshott was following the action from Earth on a remote video link. Danielle carried a small tablet and went from screen to screen, checking on her students, the hyperdrive engineers, and the beacon team.

Jonathan stood to the rear, taking an overview. Roger came and stood by him, and Jonathan gave him a commentary on what was happening.

At first, Danielle was a little worried about how her husband and Jonathan would get on. The wicked side of her nature secretly hoped for a bit of jealousy from Roger to tease him.

Therefore, it was a pleasant disappointment for her when Roger and Jonathan instantly clicked and seemed to act like old friends.

All the reports were good. First, the beacon would be turned on. Jonathan and I had configured a small commercial beacon, only 400 meters across. The beacon was empty now, but one could see the stars through its metal circle. Soon, however, it would contain the plume enveloping the traveler in hyperspace.

I checked the measurements last time while Rosa lined the traveler up with the beacon, giving it a fifty-mile run up to build speed. The engineering team did a last check on the hyperdrive motor before it was ready to be launched.

Danielle said: "Are we all ready?"

There was a chorus of "Yes, Doctor Goldrick."

"We know what we're looking for. Li?"

"Yes, Doctor Goldrick: 18.03581 seconds to the reflection boundary."

"Then you can count us down when we're in the plume."

"What's the reflection boundary?" Roger asked Jonathan in a whisper.

"It's a measure of the relativistic time lag for a signal through the hyperspace plume. It's equivalent but different from how far we traveled in normal space."

"I'm glad I asked," Roger said.

Jonathan laughed.

"Just watch the timer on that big screen in the middle. If it exceeds 18.03581, we've over-shot or deflected by an anomaly. If it's less than 18.03581 seconds, then we've undershot."

"How bad is undershooting or overshooting?"

"It depends. We have many leeway's built inbuilt in case of strong anomalies."

Rosa reported, "Danielle, the motor is working fine. The traveler is ready to launch."

"Li, when you're ready."

I ordered the plume to turn on. The beacon flashed pink for a second and was no longer empty. A purple field grew in the circle, bulging into a lens shape. Lines of force flickered across its surface. Golden light streaked around the circumference of the beacon.

"Plume secure, Doctor Goldrick," said Li.

"Well done," said Danielle. "Rosa, you can launch when you're ready."

"Yes, Danielle."

Rosa checked her console and punched the button to kick the hyperdrive engine into life. Blue streaks crisscrossed the cone-shaped waveguide and hid the craft in a white haze. The signal from the video feed flickered, and there was a flash as the traveler accelerated almost instantly. In seconds, it cleared the distance to the beacon and disappeared into the plume. It left a hollow whirlpool in its wake, which fluctuated at its edges.

Everyone held their breath except Li, who counted out the seconds, reading from the large central monitor:

"Eighteen seconds to the boundary fifteen, fourteen, thirteen."

The seconds ticked away slowly.

"Automatic course adjustments, Rosa?" Danielle asked.

"Negligible, the signal hasn't wavered."

Small pink flashes spiraled across the whirlpool.

"Seven, six, five," Li intoned.

"Almost there, almost there," Danielle whispered to herself.

"Three, two, one! That's the reflection boundary!" I exclaimed as the clock on the big screen stopped at 18.0354 seconds. A pink flash crossed the face of the beacon. Then, the purple lens shrank to nothing, leaving the stars visible again through the metal ring.

"That's plume-collapse!" Li reported. "The traveler is out of hyperspace. We're there!"

There was a big cheer, and everyone clapped, hugged, or shook hands. Danielle herself was caught up in the excitement. She sought out Roger and kissed him unprofessionally.

However, Rosa was staring at her display. She tried to say something to Danielle, but there was too much noise. Jonathan had also gone quiet, looking at the timer. He grabbed a tablet and began to punch numbers into it.

Released by Danielle, Roger noticed Jonathan looking concerned.

"What's wrong," he asked.

"We overshot by 3 microseconds," Jonathan said.

"Is that bad?" Roger asked.

"It shouldn't be. I'm trying to determine what distance it relates to in normal space."

Other people were also going quiet. Li had returned to his console and was working hard with the numbers. The celebrations waned, and, at last, Rosa's voice became audible.

"It faded," she said. "The signal faded."

"I concur!" Jonathan shouted, and that shut up the last of the talkers.

Danielle looked at the read-outs and Rosa's results.

"Damn! You're right!" she said. "Li, do you get that as well?"

"Yes, Doctor Goldrick."

"Rosa, how gradually did the signal fade? Did we ever?"

"What's going on?" Roger asked Jonathan, who had stopped tapping his tablet and stood waiting for the computer to give him a result. Blocks of numbers flashed over the screen, descending in a stream of busy calculations.

"If the traveler bounces out of hyperspace on a straight trajectory," Jonathan explained, "then the plume will collapse abruptly, leaving a straight-line signal. Our plume faded out, which suggests that the traveler was changing direction or decelerating when the plume collapsed."

"And what significance does changing direction or decelerating have?"

"We hit something," he said. "The only question is, did we hit something hard, like a moon, soft like a gas giant, or did a strong gravitational field deflect the traveler?"

"How can you tell?"

"A hard impact means a rapid deceleration. A soft impact means a slow deceleration and a gravity field means an acceleration, not a deceleration. That would most likely be survivable."

"I see. Which is it?"

"I'm not sure yet."

Danielle was working with Rosa, measuring the rate at which the signal faded and the angle of the last contact between the traveler and the plume.

"All right," Danielle announced to a silent audience. "Preliminary results - very approximate - but we think the traveler veered and decelerated due to the overshot. I'm afraid we missed the target. Li, do you concur?"

"Yes, Doctor Goldrick."

"Jonathan?"

His computer finally concluded. He projected the calculations onto the main screen.

"I get a one-lightyear overshot and a hard impact," Jonathan said.

"Smart-arse," Danielle said, looking over his work.

"I'm afraid Doctor Wright is correct," she announced sadly. "Ladies and gentlemen: the traveler overshot, hit something solid, and is lost."

Mixed feelings arose. The celebrations had been premature but not entirely unearned: after all, the engine worked.

"Hello, Goldrick? Are you saying the probe is destroyed?"

This was Stephen Oakshott via his video link. Their conversation was delayed half a minute.

"Yes, Stephen. It probably hit an asteroid or a moon. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You got to Samothea, didn't you? You jumped two thousand light-years for less fuel and in less time than it would take me on the regular shuttle from Earth to Capella. That's an amazing achievement. I say we will go ahead and try again as soon as possible. You've all done brilliantly! Cheap, fast, long-distance hyperspace travel now exists, and it's all down to
you."

"I'm glad you're so sanguine, Stephen, though it's thousands of your money down the drain."

"The best investments are always risky, Goldrick. The hyperdrive motor and the new guidance system both work. We got to Samothea, or thereabouts. We can use the data to send more probes much more accurately. It's not a perfect triumph, but it's enough. I'm authorizing the press release. Let the galaxy know that the Samothea Project is a success!"

The traveler hit the planet Samothea itself, not an asteroid or a moon. The same anomalies in hyperspace that deflected Ezra's ship directly into Samothea's path also deflected the traveler from its course. The extra weight of the transmitter made the calculations inaccurate and steered it toward the nearest gravitating object.

The traveler emerged from hyperspace twenty miles above the planet. At 35,000 mph, it had no time to set up the return beacon or unfurl the solar panels before it hit the atmosphere and burst into flames.

Everyone in Samothea heard the crack, like a thousand lightning strikes hitting at once. The Woodlanders traveling to the Cloner Fair saw a flash of light over the sea and listened to the crackling roar of what seemed to be a meteorite burning up in its descent. Something like an orange furnace streaked across the sky, spitting flames and leaving a dense grey tail of smoke, which feathered out as strong winds in the stratosphere fluffed up the particles.

The trail of smoke and the angry roaring stopped over the mountains east of the forest. The missile fell to Earth and gouged out a huge hole, painting a mushroom of smoke, dust, and ice on the eastern horizon.

"What was that?" Tamar asked Ezra as they walked across the plain.

"I don't know," he said, somewhat thoughtful. "Probably a meteorite."

It was all anyone talked about the rest of the way to Cloner City, and it was an interesting topic of conversation at that year's Fair, seen by everyone who wasn't indoors.

Danielle took comfort in knowing the traveler reached Samothea, even if it was destroyed.

However, she regretted the missed opportunity to learn what had happened to her brother by picking up a communications signal or even a distress call from his ship.

She needn't have fretted. The project was far from a disaster. In the few moments between emerging from hyperspace and burning up in the Samothea atmosphere, the comms probe did what it was designed to: transmit Danielle's message on a range of terrestrial channels and emergency bands.

One of Ezra's escape pods sniffed the emergency bands and picked up the probe's transmission. Now, a green light flashed on its control panel, alerting anyone who passed that a message from another world was waiting to be read.



To be continued