Singularity 1 - Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

Author:Charles Stross
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9788495024121
Publisher: Ace
Published: 1975-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

Confessions

The Lord Vanek accelerated at an economical two gees, using its drive kernel to curve the space-time ahead of it into a valley into which it slid easily, without imposing punishing stress on crew or machinery.

Ninety-two thousand tonnes of warship (with an eight-billion-tonne black hole at her core) took a lot of moving, but once set in motion, it could go places fast. It would take days to cross the vast gulf that separated Lord Vanek’s parking station from the first jump point on the return leg of its timelike path—but nothing like the years that humanity’s earliest probes had taken to cover similar distances.

The ships of the fleet had traveled barely twenty light-years from the New Republic, but in the process, they had hopped forward in time by four thousand years, zigzagging between the two planetless components of the binary system in an attempt to outrun any long-term surveillance that the Festival might have placed on them. Soon the spacelike component of the voyage would commence, with a cruise to a similar system not far from Rochard’s World; then the fleet would pursue a bizarre trajectory, looping back into the past of their own world line without actually intersecting that of their origin point.

Along the way, the fleet tenders would regularly top up the warships with consumable provisions, air and water and food; no less than eight merchant ships would be completely stripped and abandoned to fall forever between the stars, their crews doubled up aboard other vessels. The voyage would strain the Navy’s logistic system beyond the point of failure: something had to give, and an entire year’s shipbuilding budget would go into the supply side of this operation alone.

As they cruised between jumps, the warships exercised continually. Tentative lidar pulses strobed at the deep vacuum beyond the heliopause as officers sought firing solutions on the ships of the other squadrons; missile and torpedo trajectories were plotted, laser firing solutions entered into the tireless gear mills of the analytical engines. Tracking ships at long range was difficult, for they didn’t emit much detectable radiation. Radar was hopeless: to pump out sufficient energy to get a return, the Lord Vanek would have produced enough waste heat to broil her crew alive. As it was, only her vast radiator panels, spread to the stars and now glowing a dull red, allowed them to run the lidar at high intensity for short periods of time. (Vacuum is a most effective insulator—and active sensors capable of reaching out across billions of kilometers run hot.)

Martin Springfield knew nothing of this. Lying in his cell he’d spent the past two days in despondent boredom, alternating between depression and guarded optimism by turns. Still alive, he thought. Then: Not for long. If only there was something he could do! But on board a starship, there was nowhere to run. He was enough of a realist to understand this: if they ran out of options here, he was dead. He’d simply have to hope that they hadn’t worked out what he’d done, and would release him rather than antagonizing the shipyard.

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.