|
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon.com, 
Amazon.co.uk, 
Amazon.de or 
Amazon.ca
|
 Beyond the Edge  (19 ratings)by Robert Anderson Page 1 of 5 Cosmos Base, Cape York. Oz-Land.
22nd January 2135. Rev. Fr. Chris Burke. Jesuit University College. Hong Kong. G'day, Fr. Chris, Well - we are back! I can just hear you now, asking, "From what - where, who, when?" In very simple terms, three of us went to "The Edge" and came back, safely. I should explain that this is being sent as an old fashioned letter with a pilot friend, because it is for your eyes only - until you decide how to use the non-scientific information. It also reveals a few of our personal indiscretions that may benefit from your heavenly contacts and interventions! Do you realise that it is thirty years since you organised our 101 Class Reunion? Hopefully, you might also remember the long conversation that really started our recent, "little" trip. Some of us who had gone into the Sciences were waffling on about our work and rather naturally, the subject came around to cosmology and the (then) new developments. My efforts on the deep space sensors suddenly seemed quite mundane when compared to Michael J's knowledge on gravity forces and their detection - then this was easily topped by Tony L. with his hush-hush experiments on T-Speed transportation. You were listening quietly - until you inserted your usual, pointed wisdom. Do you remember calling gravity, "God's Glue", and saying it was the physical reason the universe could exist - all the other forces (except for a bit of magnetism) pulled it apart in some way. And you caught on to the big implications of T-Speed immediately - to quote you, "Mankind is suddenly, no longer a prisoner within the speed of light!" You went on to visualise the universe as a lumpy balloon or birdcage, lit from within by glowing dust and floating in a dark void. You wondered what it would be like to go outside the cage - what would be there, could we find something else? Those few thoughts came to haunt me until now, I can tell you that we have done just that - sort of clung to the wires of the cage and peeped out! "They" were very uncertain what to do when we did arrive back. With no idea how things might have changed since we left, we slowed to half light speed coming into the Solar System and those outer satellites picked the movement. Earth immediately asked for an ident. number and explanation. But in twenty eight years, no one remembered our exit and they had to search the old records, leaving us parked besides Jupiter for nearly a week. (We still look and feel the same, but everyone else has aged!) Now, after a month here - there is still a loose quarantine on our movements outside the Base while the labs. sort the huge volume of information in the Bubbles record banks. Everyone wants to hear our stories, and we can only tell the truth. I think they are now beginning to believe us - as the cubes are played. They ask us why we went - we were certainly not looking for anything in particular. Surely, the reason can only be compared to the answer for climbing a mountain, "Because it is there". The Bubble brought back lots of technical information - but like all people who "climb high", I guess that we feel the big discoveries were very personal. Fortunately, all of my close relatives are still eating (and arguing) and most of them seem genuinely glad to see me! Officially, we are criminals for taking a valuable Bubble on a private (joyride) exploration trip, but most people are sympathetic or treat us as just a little odd. To some, we are three minor heroes! The few solid pieces of equipment from Bubbles are already in a museum. Hopefully, because of all the information gathered, we will not be Court Marshalled - the fine would be horrific. We would have to ask you to take up a collection for us! Sorry to jump around so much (that trait has not changed) - I'll go back to the beginning. After the reunion weekend in N.Z., I came back to work in Oz, clearing electronic gremlins out of the system that linked our sensors and scopes, then in orbit around (only) Mars, Venus and Jupiter. They all reported back to Earth Base, recording everything they sensed, right across the electro-magnetic spectrum. Second by second we received an incredible amount of cosmic information - which was scanned by the computers. If anything abnormal showed up, bells rang in the appropriate Department and real people then had to react and try to make sense of all the numbers! My job was not to understand the information coming in, but to make certain it kept coming, and in a form that could be recognised by the computers. Mostly, it was incredibly boring but occasionally, everything would break loose and we had to ensure that it was actually a distant cosmic event, and not ‘little green bugs' loose in our system. Some of that mass of information from the satellites had given Michael and his team the clues to explaining gravity forces then go on to develop the equipment to detect the gravity in almost any space object, even if it transmitted nothing in the E-spectrum. You may have read some of the theoretical research work that was published but they then needed secrecy, for Patents on hardware and technology - except between those Departments that could actually use it. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Robert Anderson, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines. |
Copyright © 1999 - 2004 sffworld.com