Darrell Bain by Warp Point

Author:Warp Point [Point, Warp]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

BOOK TWO

Beyond the Warp Point

Chapter Seventeen

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Dan never knew if Matt called out the last second of the countdown or not. He felt a peculiar twisting sensation, as if all his nerve ends were tangling and untangling themselves in swift succession. His vision blurred. At the same time, his muscles were frozen. He couldn’t move, and began to think something had gone dreadfully wrong. Then abruptly, he could see clearly again. He could move, and the first thing he did was tilt his head slightly to take in all the view offered by the screen in front of him. The starry vista had changed. He scanned it quickly but didn’t recognize anything. He gave Matt a few moments to look as new digits and icons appeared, and was just about to ask him if he recognized any part of the firmament when the astronomer spoke.

“The ship makes it easy. I could have figured out where we were eventually, but it would have taken quite a bit of study and spectrographic comparisons. As is…” he hesitated.

“As is what?”

“We’re still in our galaxy. Our own spiral arm, in fact, but much farther in. And Pioneer is showing we also came out in a solar system, though not one like our own. It seems to have only one planet in near the sun, then two gas giants way, way out. So much for Bode’s law, huh?”

Dan had to think for a moment to remember what he was talking about, then it came to him. The planets of Earth’s solar system were arranged at a mathematical distance from the sun, each succeeding one a greater distance away by a factor which could be calculated. “Yeah. Of course it was a misnomer ever calling it a law to begin with. All we knew was our own system and there was never any reason for thinking it might apply to all G type stars.”

“Uh huh,” Matt replied, already distracted by the changing screen.

Again the parameters blinked, displaying a graphic of the new solar system, with vectors pointing from their position to a planet inward toward the sun from where they were.

“Are we still moving, Matt? Never mind, I can see we are. And it sure looks like Pioneer is pointing us to a destination. Chet, any hostile activity?”

“Not so far. In fact, no activity at all.” He continued to scrutinize his screen, which was somewhat different than the one Dan was observing.

“Let’s stay on the present course for a while and see if anything else develops. I don’t want to commit ourselves to the planet that vector is pointing toward just yet, but we’ve got plenty of time to change if we decide to go somewhere else. In the meantime, we’ll see if we can pick up any signs of intelligent life.”

***

Pioneer hung in space, unmoving except as the velocity they had had before broaching the warp point continued. The ship was no longer accelerating, but strangely, it was moving inward rather than outward in

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