Starfarers by Poul Anderson

Author:Poul Anderson [Anderson, Poul]
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Science fiction, General, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, High Tech, Space Opera, Adventure, Life on other planets, Interplanetary voyages
ISBN: 9780812545999
Publisher: Tor Science Fiction
Published: 2000-03-23T19:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

Year three.

Envoy had been a star, hastening through night heaven to vanish in the planetary shadow, emerging to sink toward the eastern horizon. Now it was gone. For a while people found themselves glancing aloft before they remembered. At first they were glad of the undertakings that kept them occupied. Later, one by one and more and more, they were troubled.

A hurricane formed in midocean. On a previous trip, the Tahirian he called Stefan had shown Ruszek the energy projectors on the little moon. With animated graphics — using conventions lately developed, mutually comprehensible — en had explained that focused beams, precisely aimed, changed the courses of such storms; they veered from coastlands where they could wreak harm. Now en and he boarded a robotic aircraft, among those that were to monitor events from within. "You're really learning to read our feelings, aren't you?" Ruszek exulted.

The teardrop sped through the stratosphere. Ruszek kept his instruments going, recording whatever they were able to. Eventually he might accumulate such a stack of information that Yu could make something of it, maybe even figure out how the jetless drive worked. He suspected the principle was quantum mechanical, and a starship's engineer was necessarily a jackleg quantum physicist. At least, when Dayan got back —

The teardrop plunged. The weather loomed black ahead. He recalled Nansen's story about flying through stuff like this, once . . . but that was five thousand years and light-years away. . . . The boat slammed into the dark. Wind raved, lightning flared. Forces shoved Ruszek brutally back and forth against a safety web improvised for him. "Ha!" he bawled, and wished he were the pilot.

But the pilot was a machine. Its purpose was not to have fun but to collect data and shoot them up to the moon. Harnessed nearby, Stefan stared at a crystalline ball en clutched. Glints danced in it, barely visible to the man. Another kind of instrument, he guessed while his skull rattled. Keeping track of... velocities, pressures, ionizations, a barrelful of shifty rages. Why? The robot must have full, direct input. Does Stefan want to follow along? Does en want to share the stress, effort, risk? Did any Tahirian do anything like this, before we arrived from beyond?

Stefan gestured. The fuselage went opaque. Interior lighting went out. Ruszek sat tossed about in a blindness that shuddered and howled.

Enjoy, he told himself, and did.

Light returned. This was no place to use a parleur, but Stefan fluted notes that were perhaps apologetic while looking with ens middle eyes at Ruszek, touching the globe, and waving at the lightnings.

En needed total darkness to take a delicate reading, Ruszek deduced. No . . . not total. Just no background. We've wondered if Tahirians can see single photons. Why not? Humans almost can. A coldness crept up his spine. Yes, I think that's so. And. . . all the chaos while they evolved — let the science gang chew on the idea — but I think they think more naturally in quantum mechanics than we do.

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