They know their jobs, he admitted inwardly. I could not have chosen better people. Likewise, Fain had been satisfied with the crewmates that the Sarpan captain had selected. The two of them had worked carefully with their respective crews and had every right to be proud of them.
Visible in the viewscreen less than a thousand meters to starboard was the Sarpan flagship. This was the closest the two ships had come to one another during this mission. For reasons of protocol or practicality, the two had been widely separated; but now they floated together—along with the science ship Port of Kowloon—to view the physical test that would signify the end of this mission.
As he watched the insertion phase beginning at the Sol star, he realized that there were really two tests going on here. One was the research necessary for the success of the project, of course; but the other test was perhaps even more important. The joint mission was a test unto itself, and would prove that the two races could indeed work together.
Fain’s attention remained on the viewscreen, but he couldn’t help wondering it the Sarpan captain could feel pride.
It’s nearly over.
Academician Bomeer stared at the twin displays, and saw that the insertion of the singularity into the Sol star had gone as smoothly as it had on the feeder. He turned to Rice, heard the scientist speaking rapidly into his headset and knew that final readings were being taken of the shields containing the singularities. Once completed, the generator ships would move into final position in preparation for allowing the shields to go permeable and start the wormhole effect that would link the two mini-stars.
The test would fail. Rice already knew it. Emperor Javas, Fain and all the scientists at the test site—both human and alien—knew it would fail. And, according to the surreptitiously gained information he’d received from a source close to Rice, even Dr. Montgarde would know by now that this test was destined to be unsuccessful.
He had no way of knowing what Dr. Montgarde’s reaction was when she had received the illegal communication his source told him had been routed through the aliens. But if the mood of those now observing the test—from those around him here at the site, to Emperor Javas back on Luna—was any indication, the effect was not what he had anticipated.
Bomeer had hoped to bring about a questioning of their goals, a review of the project itself and the value it would serve compared with the obvious choice of merely evacuating Earth as he and Fain had originally proposed on Corinth a century ago. What he found instead was an attitude that what was about to happen was not a failed experiment, but rather a data-gathering endeavor that would better hone the experimentation process for research and development yet to come.
How could I have been so wrong? he asked himself. There was a time when a failure like this would have stopped all forward motion; the Council of Academicians would have demanded that more study be done, that nothing further be attempted until a full reevaluation of the stated goals was presented, reviewed, dissected and then reassembled for still further study.
But things were different now. There was the New Attitude, after all, now being openly embraced by the member planets of the Hundred Worlds.
Fain and Javas are right. And before them, Emperor Nicholas. Bomeer nodded slowly in the darkened room, admitting for the first time that it was he and the last holdouts among the academicians who were out of step with the Empire, and not the other way around. We were blind to it all—No, he silently confessed, we blinded ourselves.
“Academician?”
He felt a hand on the sleeve of his tunic and turned to see Rice staring at him.
“Academician?” he asked again, his hand covering the microphone of his headset. “Did you hear me, sir?”
Bomeer smiled softly in resignation. “I’m sorry, Doctor, my mind was elsewhere. You were saying?”
“Everything is in place. We’re ready to allow the shields to permeate and begin the test. As the ranking member of the science team, the order is yours to give, Academician.”
The irony of the situation struck him that it would be he who gave the order for the test. A test that everyone involved in the research—indeed, everyone now watching in realtime through the tachyon link—already knew would be a failure. He felt suddenly old and wondered how he would be remembered for his actions this day.
“Begin,” he said simply.
Rice spoke into the headset, his eyes not leaving the twin projections before them.
Nothing happened visually. They continued watching, and Rice received reports over the headset almost as rapidly as the figures scrolled through the air around the various parts of the display. The readings were changing, much as they had in the second model, but still no visual changes occurred.
Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Nearly thirty minutes had gone by before Bomeer noticed that the glow of the Sol star had increased slightly.
The radiance grew steadily, becoming almost too bright to watch before the computer-controlled projection dimmed the image on the left. The brightness still increased, the familiar yellow glow lightening to a whiter shade as the energy heightened.
“Academician…” Rice started to say, then hesitated and cupped his hand over the headset’s earpiece. He stood suddenly and stared, not at the Sol star where most of the effects were being manifested, but at the feeder star.
Bomeer followed his gaze, puzzled by the expression visible in the glow cast from the bright objects. The feeder star was visibly unaffected, the energy drain having the effect of speeding up its aging process. There should not be noticeable change in a feeder star until much later during its lifetime; certainly, since this mini-star would be dissipated at the conclusion of the test, nothing would be seen here. But still Rice stood riveted, his mouth open.
What is he—? Bomeer stopped himself when he saw what had captured Rice’s attention. Where was the fourth generator ship?
“System! Increase right side image!”
“What magnification would you—”
“Double it!” Bomeer demanded, cutting off the system’s query. The image enlarged immediately and the remaining three ships were easily visible. All were clearly in trouble.
One was breaking up in space, the wet Sarpan atmosphere puffing out in a frozen crystalline cloud for a brief second before dissipating. The craft crumpled, as if being squeezed by a giant invisible hand, its size shrinking as it formed a tight ball of debris before he lost sight of it. The other two ships managed, through either their pilots’ skill or good fortune, to get farther away and, although they suffered nothing like the damage that had just occurred to the other ship, they now appeared to be dead in space.
The two men stood transfixed at the sight, unable to speak until a warning claxon jarred both of them.
“System!” Bomeer yelled. “What’s happening?”
There was a brief pause as the room system analyzed his voice patterns, determining if he had clearance for the requested information. “Commander Fain has ordered the Port of Kowloon to begin an immediate pullback.” It offered nothing further and Bomeer knew that asking for additional information would be fruitless.