The Dark Side of The Moon by jack vance

Author:jack vance [vance, jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi Collection
Publisher: Underwood-Miller
Published: 1986-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

Ultimate Quest

CHIRAM CAME INTO THE ROOM, walked with short, firm steps to the podium. Only then did he appear to notice the two dozen men and women seated on neat rows of folding chairs.

“I can give you about twenty minutes,’* said Chiram. “Exactly what do you want?”

“How about a short statement?** suggested Ed Jeff, of All-Planet News-Fax. “Then perhaps you’d answer a few questions.”

Chiram leaned back, a stocky middle-aged man with an air of decision. He had a leonine ruff of hair the color and texture of steel wool, eyes sharp and monitory, a heavy well-shaped mouth. His clothes were gray and dark blue … conservative but informal, as if Chiram dressed by habit, uninfluenced by either vanity or ostentation.

“My associates and I,” he said, “financed by Jay Banners, have embarked on a program of research which will ultimately lead to an attempted circumnavigation of the universe.” He stopped; the reporters waited. Chiram said dryly, “That is the statement.”

Voices collided and tumbled getting to Chiram’s ears. He held up his hand. “One at a time…… You, sir … what was your question?”

“You said a circumnavigation of the universe? Not merely the galaxy?”

Chiram nodded. “The universe.”

“How do you know it’s spherical?”

“We don’t,” said Chiram, smiling grimly. “There is no first-hand evidence, very little mathematical indication, one way or another. It’s an assumption on which we’re staking our lives.”

The reporters made respectful sounds. Chiram relaxed a trifle. “Estimates of the circumference run in the neighborhood of ten to a hundred billion light years. We plan to set out from Earth, assume a course … almost any course.

After a sufficient period of travel, at a sufficiently high speed, we hope to return from the opposite direction.”

“What’s the chances of hitting Earth on the way back?”

Chiram compressed his lips; the question had been put in what he considered a glib tone.

“In theory,” he replied stiffly, “if we steer a sufficiently exact course we will return automatically. Our research program is concentrating on the mechanics of straight flight. A hundredth of a second error at a hundred billion light years means three hundred thousand light years. If we missed the home galaxy by that margin we’d be lost forever. Our first problem is to guarantee ourselves a mathematically straight course.”

“Can’t you line up on stars ahead or behind?”

Chiram shook his head. “The light from behind can’t catch up with us; in fact, we’ll overtake it and add the images of the stars behind to those of the stars ahead.” He clasped his blunt hands on the desk. “That is our second problem: seeing. Our speed will approximate instantaneity. Assuming ninety percent efficiency in our destriation field, an average speed of six or seven thousand light years a second will take us a hundred billion light years in sue months. The impact of radiation on an unshielded object at this speed would be cataclysmic. The weakest infra-red light would be compacted, by a kind of Doppler effect, to cosmic rays; ordinary visible light would become a

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