Dragon's Egg by Robert L. Forward

Author:Robert L. Forward [Forward, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-0-307-77930-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

“Sure Doc,” Pierre said. “Be right there.

“Break link!”

“Store under Trajectory Graph!

“Detach job!”

He unbuckled from the console chair and pushed himself quickly up the passageway leading to the main deck as the computer obediently flashed confirmation after confirmation toward his disappearing feet.

LINK BROKEN

SAVED TRAJECTORY GRAPH: EARTH GRAVITY

DETACH JOB 3; PIERRE. ACCT: GOLDEN SCIENCE PRESS

TIME 06:52:30 20 JUNE 2050. USED 0:01:26 IN 1:36:33

Pierre swung onto the bridge and over to the group looking at some fresh printouts. As he floated over he could see that they were pictures from the high resolution star image telescope.

Cesar spoke up as he approached. “Sorry to drag you up on your break, Pierre, but these printouts are really bewildering. Since you are our resident expert on neutron star crustal activity, we figured you could make a better evaluation than we could.”

Seiko handed him a sheet. “I took these off the star image telescope this shift. This one was taken at 0645 hours. Notice the pattern here near the west limb.”

Pierre looked briefly at the printout. The chaotic hash of the west limb region was almost familiar by now. But there was something new there, a short arc-like pattern. Seiko was right. As of yesterday there had been no such structure at that place on Dragon’s Egg. “It looks like wrinkle ridges that you could get on any crusted object with a liquid core. In fact, there are many similarities between those patterns and the ones near the Caloric pole of Mercury. But wait … the directions in the pattern are all wrong. From what I know about the behavior of neutron star crustal material under the influence of high magnetic fields, the ridges should all be aligned along the magnetic field lines.”

“So far, we have all come to the same conclusion,” Seiko said. “This pattern is not a wrinkle ridge from a collapse of the surface. Besides, we have been monitoring the spin speed of the star, and if there had been a slump of that magnitude in the past day, it would have shown up as a glitch in the rotation period, and there has been none.”

“Now,” Abdul said, “show him the kicker.”

Seiko pulled out another sheet from beneath the first.

“This was taken at 0648 hours, just before Dr. Wong finished a laser scan of that region.”

She passed it over without further comment.

Pierre saw an elongated oval shape, with ten oval dots around it and one in the middle. The dots on the outside were connected to the large oval with short exponentially tapered horns. There were slight traces of two more dots that would complete the symmetric pattern.

“The direction of the oval looks generally east-west,” he said.

“It is,” Seiko stated, with the calm assurance of someone who had taken the trouble to check. “The semimajor axis is within less than a milliradian of magnetic east, so the pattern is dominated by magnetic effects and not rotational effects. But the lines that make up the oval are not straight magnetic east-west as are all the other cliffs and wrinkle ridges in that area.

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