And All the Stars A Stage by James Blish

Author:James Blish [Blish, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

FOR a ship’s computer to pick out a possibly likely system and sound a preliminary warning of this kind was not unique; it had happened twice before in the fleet as a whole—though never to the Javelin—but both these incidents had proven to be false alarms. All the same, since the event was novel to the Javelin herself, it created an almost undiluted ecstasy of excitement.

Since Ertak had issued his Yellow Warning One to all hands, the excitement was not confined to the crew. Even before human observers were able to examine in detail what the computer thought it had found, everyone on board the Javelin was looking at his neighbor, thinking, Maybe, maybe we have reached our unknown goal; maybe this is It.

After his first look at the tapes and at the star itself, however, Kamblin was puzzled.

“It’s certainly an intensely luminous star,” he said, “as most stars go—especially only three light years away from it. Its absolute luminosity appears to be about sixty, and its surface temperature is upwards of 15,000 degrees: That’s by no means as big a sun as the model the computers are set to scan for.”

“I don’t see how they could have made a mistake,” Jorn said, frowning. “They shouldn’t have been fooled by so simple a thing as the comparative nearness of the object.”

“Well, no,” Kamblin agreed. “They’re also supposed to search for planets, and the tape says this star has at least one. We have to bear in mind that very large brilliant stars, like our old one, are pretty rare, and they ] aren’t necessarily the only type which might bear planets suitable for us. Even back home, from the lunar observatory, it was possible to detect four faint nearby stars, each of which had at least one planet-like companion; so actually planets must be relatively common.”

“In other words, if the computer has made a mistake,” Ailiss said, “we hope it’s a happy accident.”

“You could put it like that.”

“We’ll close in,” Ertak decided. “But cautiously. Birn, I want a tangential approach, arriving at right angles to a radius of the total system at a distance of about a light year. Thereafter we’ll spiral inward, making sure we don’t miss any planets on the way; if we do make a landing, I don’t want anybody on the back of my neck that I’m unaware of. Ailiss, begin to scan for patterned electromagnetic disturbances of any kind and keep at it until further orders. If the computer thinks there might be an inhabitable planet here, it may very well be inhabited as well . . . Dr. Kamblin, you have that expression of mild indigestion again. Any comments?”

"Nothing serious. But at the rate this star is burning its hydrogen, it can’t be much i more than a thousand million years old. There’s a question in my mind as to whether any of its planets can be far enough along in their evolution to support life in any form.”

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