Alien Secrets by Ian Douglas

Author:Ian Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

“You know,” Dr. Brody said, “I miss the stars streaking past.”

“What stars?” Hunter replied. “I don’t see any stars.”

“Exactly.”

The two men were sitting in one of Hillenkoetter’s spacious lounges, where a long broad window looked out into space. At the ship’s current velocity, however, very close to the speed of light, only an impenetrable darkness was visible. Up on the bridge, when they’d left the Earth-Moon system the week before, Hunter had seen the strange ring of frosty light ahead as they transited to lightspeed, but he’d not understood it.

The astrophysicist Lawrence Brody, however, was able to explain.

“Imagine a rainstorm,” he said, “where the rain is coming down straight. No wind. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now imagine driving through that rain very fast. What happens?”

“Well . . . the rain hits the windshield at an angle. It comes at you almost sideways if you’re going fast enough.”

“Precisely. And that’s what happens when we move at relativistic speeds through all the light coming from all the stars around us. From our point of view, the incoming light kind of gets crowded up forward. That ring they see on the bridge is the light from all the stars around us, all the stars in the universe, but smunched together up ahead.”

“So what stars did you want to see?”

“Oh . . . I was a fan of Star Trek, back in the sixties. I was just a kid . . . but I loved that show. I loved seeing the Enterprise zipping along with the stars streaming past like snowflakes in a blizzard.”

“Ah. And you miss that, do you?”

“Oh, yes,” Brody said, nodding. “You can’t imagine how disappointed I was at MIT when I learned it wouldn’t look like that.”

Hunter chuckled. “Never saw the show.”

“What? You benighted heathen! Not even the movies?”

“Nope. I never cared much for sci-fi.” He shrugged. “Now here I am living it. Go figure.”

“Well . . . just don’t wear a red shirt when you go down with the landing party.”

Hunter didn’t understand the reference, but before he could ask, he was interrupted by a noncom.

“Commander?”

It was Sergeant Pomeroy.

“Yes, Sergeant?”

“Excuse the interruption, sir. You’re needed in the gym. A fight between Master Sergeant Coulter and Chief Brunelli, sir.”

“God, what now.” He stood. “You’ll excuse me, Dr. Brody?”

“Of course. Duty calls!”

Except that it wasn’t duty . . . or it shouldn’t have been. By the time Hunter got there, the two men had been separated. It looked like most of the unit was there around them, milling about and gossiping.

“Okay, what the hell is going on here?” Hunter demanded, uncomfortably aware of the audience.

Brunelli pointed. “That queer made a pass at me!”

“I did not,” was Coulter’s rejoinder. “He started it!”

Both men were somewhat the worse for wear. Coulter was holding a handkerchief to a bloody nose. Brunelli had the beginnings of a shiner beneath his right eye.

What was shocking about the incident, Hunter thought, was the fact that both men were pay grade E-7. Both had been in the service for at least ten

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.