Space Visitor by Mack Reynolds

Author:Mack Reynolds [Reynolds, Mack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 2020-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Lacking only Mary Lou, the team with Foucault in attendance were gathered around the large TV screen in the living room of the penthouse suite.

Werner Brecht was shaking his head in disbelief.

Senator Bull Armanroder was speaking. “If there is one intelligent species out there, there are most likely more. According to Shklovski and Sagan in their book Intelligent Life in the Universe, the number of civilizations substantially ahead of our own in this galaxy is perhaps between fifty thousand and one million. The Rand Corporation, in a detailed analysis done by Stephen Dole, determined the mathematical probability of fourteen stars within twenty-two light years of our sun that could have intelligent life. The nearest is Alpha Centauri A and B which are but four-point-three light years from Earth.

The Senator hesitated for a moment for emphasis. And then, “Friends, we must prepare to meet the challenge of these alien cultures. It has been postulated that aliens more advanced than we are would be less warlike, but that might be unrealistic. Fearing for their own security, they might blast us with super-weapons from these space probes which we already know they have. They might use biological fumigation, or they might even have the power to trigger an explosion in our sun, turning it into a nova which would bake the Earth.

“Friends, United America must prepare. We must begin construction of a space fleet to patrol outer space and turn aside any potential enemies. We must find new weapons, greater weapons than the H-Bomb.

“If and when we make contact with the aliens, we must work out some kind of weapons systems limitations with them. We might possibly work toward an agreed number of spacecraft permissible in certain volumes of space…”

“Jesus Christ,” Max Zimmerman exclaimed in disgust.

“… We could keep the communications channel open, an interstellar hot line to prevent a misunderstanding of events, such as an off-course spaceship.”

Brecht reached out and dialed another station. “An interstellar hot line, yet. What a hot line! It would take four-point-three years minimum to get a message one way, another four-point-three years to get an answer. “What a mentality!”

Zimmerman said slowly, “There are some other angles on that, Kraut. A lot of capable scientists have been speculating on this whole thing. A Professor Gerald Feinberg did a paper called ‘On the Possibility of Faster Than Light Particles’ in which he points out that the theory of relativity doesn’t say that nothing can travel faster than light; it says nothing can travel at the speed of light. Feinberg points out that the speed of light is a limiting velocity, but a limit has two sides. He imagines entities which can only travel faster than light. The problem would be, of course, to jump over the speed of light barrier to the other side.”

“Hold it, hold it,” Brett-James protested. “I’m getting a headache, old chap.”

Zimmerman continued heedlessly, “There are electronic devices now which accomplish roughly the same thing. The Tunnel diode is an example: electrons tunnel from one side of an electrical barrier to the other without going through it.

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