SHEDDING LIGHT

by Michael Edelson

  SHEDDING LIGHT

  BY

  MICHAEL EDELSON

  A Club Lighthouse Publishing E-Book

  ISBN 978-1-926839-02-8

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2010 by Michael Edelson

  Cover Art: Michael Edelson © 2010

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely co-incidental.

  For information contact:

  editor@clublighthousepublishing.com

  A Club Lighthouse Sci-Fi Edition

  CHAPTER 1

  IT WASN’T A REAL VIEWPORT, just a dense fibre optic weave that channelled light from the hull to a high resolution display that took up the entire outer bulkhead. The ThruVue logo glowed a pale blue on the panel’s bottom right corner, reminding Jack that he wasn’t standing in front of an open airlock.

  He took a tentative sip of his tea, but it was still too hot. Setting it down on the table to cool, he started walking in circles, hoping the exercise would clear his head. Eighty hours under a neural pacifier in the hop capsule was ridiculous, though he had only himself to blame. He could have plotted the course differently, but he was so damned self conscious he wanted everything to be perfect. When they got back, no one should be able to say that Commander Jack Roberts was a screw up just because he wasn’t on the mission roster until a week before launch.

  After a few minutes of fruitless pacing, he grabbed his tea cup and started to raise it to his mouth when the ship lurched, like a sudden drop in an elevator. His hand stopped, but the tea rose out of the cup, forming a perfect sphere that sailed towards his face at an alarming speed. He jumped back, realizing too late what had happened and sailed straight up into the ceiling, barely able to save himself from a painful collision by tumbling and kicking off. A week of condensed astronaut training in action.

  “Commander Roberts,” the ship’s intercom blared. “I need you in the drive bay.” It was Carl, the engineer. He had a lot of explaining to do.

  Jack pulled himself out of the ship’s lounge using the inconveniently spaced handholds and floated down the corridor.

  “Commander, wait up!” He looked over his shoulder and saw Debbie flying towards him, coming in way too fast. He flattened himself to the wall, waited for her to float past and grabbed her tightly with both hands.

  “Hey!” she shouted, trying to push him away. “What the hell?”

  He held on, and his added mass slowed her enough for him to bring them to a quick stop.

  “Take it easy Miss Watanabe,” he said. “You were going too fast.” He let her go and she shoved him away, glaring fiercely.

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Too fast for what? There’s no fucking gravity!”

  “Gravity is not what kills you, it’s momentum. Remember your training.” She was a reporter, not an astronaut, but she was one of the first to be selected for the mission. That meant she’d actually had more recent zero gee training then he did. She must not have paid much attention.

  “Fine,” she said. “I won’t press charges then.” She graced him with her award winning smile, and he remembered the first time he’d seen her on CNN, just after the Chinese sank the USS Clinton off the coast of Taiwan. She had been standing on the deck of a guided missile destroyer, her voice barely audible amidst the launching of orbitals carrying their neutron payloads to the Chinese moon base. That had to be almost ten years ago, and she still looked exactly the same.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Now tell me where it is you think you’re going.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, just long enough for him to notice, then the smile came back.

  “To engineering, with you.” She was tiny, barely over five feet, with great big almond eyes expertly enhanced with subtle applications of liner and shadow. He skin was bronze, her auburn hair artfully decorated with strawberry blond highlights. She hardly needed the artifice, but he had to admit it worked in her favour.

  “Uh huh. And give me one good reason why I should let you?”

  “Because if you don’t,” she said, pursing her lips. “I’ll have to make up a reason why the gravity suddenly cut out right after a hop, and it will probably have something to do with you. Besides, you’re supposed to give me full access. It’s in my contract.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Fine, fine. Let’s go. Just stay behind me, no more speeding, okay?”

  “Gotcha.”

  They didn’t run into anyone else on their way to engineering, which was fortunate, since the corridors were narrow and handholds were a design afterthought. They arrived just in time to see Carl almost completely disappear inside the mass interface coupling’s access port. A heavy metal lid hovered eerily nearby.

  “Carl,” Jack said. “What’s going on? I almost burned my face off.”

  “Hold on a sec, sir,” Carl said, his voice muffled.

  “Did you shut the gravity off?”

  “No sir. Went out by itself. I think I see the problem. Wanna come in here with me?”

  “What is it?” Debbie asked. “Another malfunction?”

  “Hang on,” Jack said. “You’ll know as soon as I do.” He squeezed into the access port next to Carl, careful not to bump his head. There was supposed to be enough room for two people, but it was a tight squeeze with Carl, who was a bear of a man.

  “Here,” the engineer said, pointing to a bundle of fibre optic cables.

  Jack frowned. “It’s a data link failure?”

  “Yep.”

  “But how? Those cables don’t get hot.” It looked like a pair of the cables melted away from the harness. Nothing else appeared to be damaged.

  “They don’t,” Carl said. “But it’s possible one of the adjacent components came into contact with them.”

  “Any idea what did it?” He didn’t see how anything could have touched the cables, but Carl was the best engineer in NASA, with more time in space than anyone, alive or dead. Unlike Jack, he wasn’t on the mission because of some last minute miracle. If Carl said it could happen, then it could happen.

  “Nope,” Carl admitted. “None of these circuits show any heat damage.”

  “The captain will love that.”

  “I can’t do better, Commander,” Carl said, shaking his head. “It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen.” He started to push himself out of the access tunnel. “I’ll go get a spare harness.”

  “Well?” Debbie asked. Jack felt her brush up against his leg as he followed Carl out from under the coupling. “What’s going on?”

  “Just a minor glitch,” Jack said. “We’ll have it fixed in a minute.” He turned to Carl. “I suppose you’ll want me to help you diagnose the entire system. That is why you called me here, isn’t it?”

  “You got it, sir,” Carl said with a guilty grin. “I’d ask the captain, but he’s busy fixing…” He paused, glancing at Debbie. “Working on the adjustments to the capsule interface.”

  “You don’t need to dance around me, Lieutenant Commander Linnard,” she said, irritated. “I know damned well what happened to the capsules.” She didn’t miss a thing, it seemed, except perhaps for that ounce of common sense that kept normal people from leaping face first into every war and disaster they could find.

  “Alright,” Jack said, giving her a sideways look. “Let’s get started then. We have an observation window in one hour.”

  CHAPTER 2

  ACTIVATE THE VAN TESSEL field,” Merrick ordered, his hands busy configuring recording devices on his observation console. Yelena Nobukova, the VTF technician, began the activation sequence from her control station.

  “Field spreading, main
taining stability,” she announced. “Radius, zero point zero three astronomical units.”

  Jack leaned over to his commanding officer. “What are we looking at today, do you know?”

  “Still the temple in Rameses, I think,” Captain Perpignan said. “He wants to record their building techniques to use against his naysayers.”

  “Van Tessel field radius zero point five astronomical units,” Yelena said. “Field expanding, maintaining stability.”

  “What happened with the coupling?” the captain asked him, keeping his voice low.

  “We don’t know yet, sir. Carl thinks something overheated and melted the optic link, but we ran a diagnostic and didn’t find anything.”

  “See me in my quarters later today. I want to talk to you about this.” It had been a bad few days for the captain, and it showed. Rough stubble peppered the dark skin of his face and neck. His hair, usually cropped down to the nub, was starting to show its dark grey color.

  “Aye, sir,” Jack said, returning his attention to the events on the deck.

  “Van Tessel field radius at one point seven astronomical units,” Yelena announced. “Field integrity at ninety-two percent.” She was a major in the Russian air force, though her round cheeks and ready smile made her choice of careers seem unlikely. Despite her goofy cute appearance, she was a seasoned cosmonaut, having spent months in Jupiter orbit documenting deep space phenomena with the first Van Tessel telescope. On top of that, she was a medical doctor and had completed a surgical residency. Another first choice, Jack thought bitterly.

  “Push for two AU,” Professor Merrick said. “Then hold it steady.”

  “Affirmative, field radius two astronomical units, integrity eighty-four percent.”

  “Let’s see what we can see.” Merrick rubbed his hands together as the main observation screen came to life with white fleecy clouds over blue water and yellow sand. As the professor adjusted the controls, the picture expanded until Jack could make out individual waves, which became a blue blur as the view moved south, finally stabilizing over a large area of desert where tiny ant-like people swarmed over a monstrous construction site. The picture became clearer, then dropped down to focus on a group of workers chiselling away at a large black stone.

  “Fascinating,” Merrick said, motioning for his assistant, Jonathan Goldstein, to begin recording. “I want you all to take a look at this.” He pointed to the black stone. “They’re making that statue from dolerite. Did anyone see Henderson’s special on Pyramid building? He’s a big proponent of the idea that the Egyptians had some masonry techniques lost to the ages.”

  “I saw that,” Jack said. “He kept breaking diamond drill bits trying to carve the rock.” Jack liked the Professor, and it wasn’t only because the man had no interest in who was assigned to the mission or in what order. He was a cheerful British chap with all the prerequisite trimmings: white hair and beard, ready smile and gleaming eyes full of excitement. Usually absorbed in his work, he was always willing to talk someone’s ear off about his latest findings. Since Jack was a big fan of educational programming, he was one of the only people onboard with whom Merrick cared to hold a prolonged conversation, albeit mostly one way.

  “That’s right, Commander,” Merrick said, beaming. “I’ve always maintained that technology could never compete with good, old-fashioned human perseverance. Look at those slaves and their chisels. It will take them years to finish that statue, but that doesn’t matter…they’re slaves, they have no choice. So much for Henderson’s diamond drill bits.”

  “Should I keep recording?” Jonathan asked. The stubbly-faced youth had a PhD in archaeology and could have been teaching his own students had he chosen to settle down in some second-rate university. Goldstein’s decision to take a postdoctoral fellowship with Merrick was probably the best thing that could have happened to him; he would get his choice of tenures when they returned with their discoveries.

  “Yes, yes,” Merrick said. “This is very important. Do you know who those people are? The ones working on the stone?”

  “Israelites?” Captain Perpignan asked with a chuckle. “Waiting for Moses?”

  “That’s correct,” Merrick replied without humour. “They’re building the city of Rameses in the Nile Delta for Rameses II. Captain, I’m going to need to go forward at least two hundred light years, until we catch them leaving Egypt. I want to know—”

  “If the bible is right?” Debbie interrupted, her glowing blue palm held high, ready to record every word. “You want to see if Moses really led the Israelites out of Egypt?” Jack had never liked sub-dermal computers, no matter how handy they were. When he looked at his hand he wanted to see skin, not an interactive display.

  Merrick frowned. “I don’t know how much detail we will be able to see, but yes. I want to see if Moses really did part the Red Sea.”

  Jack looked around, waiting for someone to say something, but everyone was silent, and he could hardly blame them. This was exciting work.

  Merrick broke the silence. “Keep it here a while. Jonathan, document some of the other building techniques while I focus on these people here. Here is a list of Henderson’s claims. See if you can catch something that will discredit each of these.”

  “Sure thing.” Jonathan took his list and began playing with the VTF controls. The captain and Carl left the observation deck as the monotony of working slaves ate away at the novelty of seeing ancient Egypt in the flesh.

  “Commander,” Merrick said, turning to Jack. “I need you to calculate the observation window times for the next two hundred light years. Keep the current parameters, I want to keep looking at Egypt.”

  “Will do,” Jack said, suppressing a groan. Two hundred light years? That would take him hours, and he was still groggy from the hop capsule.

  Those who remained stood and watched until darkness encroached on the work site. The picture had been verging from somewhat clear to hazy and blurry, but as night descended on ancient Egypt they lost it completely. Yelena shut down the field and took her leave while the professor and Jonathan poured over their data—data that could answer a question mankind had been asking since the first proto-human looked up at the sky and wondered what the sun was.

  CHAPTER 3

  “HEY.” DEBBIE POKED JACK’S arm as she walked up to him. “The captain told me to come talk to you. I need to know how to explain what we’re doing to the public in a way they can understand.”

  He frowned, wondering why she would ask him when there were much more knowledgeable people on board.

  “Why don’t you ask Professor Merrick?” he asked “This was all his idea, after all. Or Jonathan. They’d know a hell of a lot more about it than I would.”

  “I did. They gave me some long-winded speech I can’t even begin to understand. You’re more like a knowledgeable layman.”

  “Thanks a lot.” She seemed completely unaware that she had insulted him. Perhaps that was part of her charm.

  “Just explain it the best you can.”

  “Fine. We can see the past because we are outrunning the light that is reflected from the Earth.”

  “I know that part,” she said irritably, tapping her palm to turn on her voice recorder. “Explain how you can see something that already happened just by outrunning light.”

  “Did you just wake up one morning and decide to hop on a spaceship?” he asked, crossing his arms defensively in front of his chest.

  “Stop being a smartass. Either tell me or don’t. I understand it, I just don’t know how to explain it to someone else.”

  “Fine,” he said, resigned. “You can see things that happened in the past because seeing is nothing more than reacting to photons striking your eyes. We’re not in the past, ancient Egypt is gone forever. All we can do is capture the light reflected off those workers thousands of years ago. How can I explain it…” He hesitated, trying to think of something appropriate. “Okay, let’s say you’re standing outside and you take a glass of milk and acc
identally spill it.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “So as you do this, light from the sun strikes you and bounces off, heading out of the atmosphere and into space.” This was the longest one-to-one conversation they’d ever had, and he took advantage of the opportunity to admire her face as he talked. If there was such a thing as obnoxiously beautiful, she was it.

  “Okay,” she said, scribbling something in her infernal notepad. It was the old-fashioned kind, with paper made from tree pulp. He didn’t understand why she would need to take notes if she was recording their conversation, but it was none of his concern.

  “The light that reflected off you spilling the milk is travelling at the speed of light,” he continued. “A hundred years later, it will arrive at a certain distance, which would be a hundred light years from the Earth. If an alien was flying by in that particular spot at the right time, and he looked at the right spot on the Earth, he would see you spilling milk a hundred years after you did it, because that is how long it took the light to reach his point in space. Get it?”

  “Keep going,” she said. “This is exactly what I need.”

  “Okay, well, since the Venture can go faster than light, we can travel a hundred light years in a very short period of time and catch that light. The milk you spilled a hundred years ago is long gone and nothing can change that, but we can see the light reflected from that moment. Just like when we look at a distant galaxy, we don’t see that galaxy as it is now, we see it as it was millions of years ago because that’s how long it takes its light to reach us. For all we know, it’s not even there anymore.”

  “Okay, but how can we see the Earth with the sun and other stars sending out so much light? Doesn’t it get drowned out or something?” She frowned, and he noticed the cute dimples in her cheek. He frowned in return, annoyed that no matter how much she irritated him, he never stopped noticing how attractive she was.

  “It’s a good question,” he said. “Have you ever had a telescope?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have.”

  “A telescope’s light gathering ability is measured by its aperture size.”