“Academician!” Rice had grabbed him by the shoulder and was pointing to the image of the Sol star. Bomeer turned, incredulous at what he saw.
The mini-star glowed nearly white-hot, and had expanded to the limit of the innermost of the concentrically arrayed holding shields. The generator ships were moving away, but as the energy level increased, the inner shield disintegrated before his eyes, the star “jumping” in size to fill the space to the next shield. With more room inside the shields, the glow softened slightly and the brightness lowered, but immediately began to build again.
The energy released by the ruptured inner shield traveled out from the mini-star in an invisible wave, catching the nearest of the fleeing generator ships in its grasp. The ship flared instantly, incinerated. There was a second flare on the opposite side, then a third and fourth as the energy wave caught up with them.
The next shield burst, like the thin bubble it was, much the same as the first had minutes earlier. Two more flares followed and, although he hadn’t seen them in the projection because the system had steadily dimmed the image in response to the intensified brightness, Bomeer knew that the two Imperial support ships had just been destroyed.
The two projections had begun shrinking in size, and Bomeer reasoned that the Kowloon was accelerating fast enough now that the distance between them and the test site had been widened significantly. He hadn’t realized that he’d risen to his feet, and he fell wearily back into his chair as he regarded the receding stars. He didn’t bother to order the system to compensate the projection for the distance.
There were no more flares as he watched the image fall away.
Commander Fain’s holographic image at the front of the viewing chamber remained so still that for a moment Rice wondered if the system had malfunctioned. He stood—had remained standing, in fact, since the conference started—lost deep in thought as they awaited the next report from the shuttle now surveying the test site.
In contrast, Academician Bomeer, seated next to him, refused to sit still and fidgeted constantly. The man was severely distraught by what had happened and became increasingly so as the reports of additional fatalities came in. There were dark circles under his red eyes and his academician’s garb was untidy for the first time in memory. Rice knew Bomeer had gotten no more sleep in the last day than he had. The academician ran his hand for the hundredth time through his disheveled hair, the sudden motion catching Fain’s attention.
There was no one else in the room, and although only the three of them were involved in this conference, Rice knew that everything they discussed would be relayed to the Emperor’s top scientific aides on Luna. Emperor Javas himself had not been available for this conference. Rice had no way of verifying it, but he suspected that the Emperor was at this moment occupied in intense discussions with the Sarpan.
“Commander?” The sudden disembodied voice of the reconnaissance shuttle pilot filled the chamber.
Fain raised his head. “Yes, Captain?”
“Sir, the craft the Sarpan sent out is between us and the two generator ships that tried to get away from the feeder star. They’ve got them in a gravity harness and refuse to allow us to get any closer. We’ve done a complete scan, though, and as far as we can tell there’s no life on either of them.”
Fain nodded to himself, then, “No sign of the other two generator ships?”
“No, sir; nothing appears on our scans and the gravity field here is too distorted for us to safely go any closer to the feeder to mount an effective search. We’re having a hard time maintaining this position as it is.”
“Very well, Captain. Return to the ship.” Fain, still on his feet, turned to face them. “I think we can assume that there were no survivors inside a radius of four thousand kilometers at either star,” he said bluntly. “All the Sarpan on the eight generator ships, thirty-two of them in all, were killed; along with the eight human crew members assigned to accompany them.”
Bomeer shifted again uneasily as Fain listed the casualties.
“The Imperial support ships Dendam and Powell were incinerated in the flare, with the loss of all hands—more than three hundred.”
He hesitated and, although there was no outward change in his features, it seemed to Rice that Fain was pausing in a moment of reverence and respect for those killed in the accident—human and alien alike.
Fain’s mouth tightened into a straight line for several seconds, then, “I’m ordering that preparations for the return trip to Luna be finalized immediately, Dr. Rice. We should be ready to leave in under two weeks. Is there anything else your analysis requires here at the test site before we depart?”
“What more analysis could you possibly want?” Bomeer demanded angrily before Rice could respond. He was on his feet and gestured at Fain in frustration. “The mistake we have made here should never be repeated! We should be the master of technology, but in our attempt to move technology too quickly into the future, we allowed technology to become master over us.”
Fain shook his head at the academician’s outburst, but said nothing.
“I’ve been warning of a failure like this since the beginning of the project.”
“May I remind you, Academician,” Rice countered, “that it was you who rushed this experiment to its completion?”
Commander Fain arched an eyebrow. “Is this true?”
Bomeer stood speechless. He tried several times to refute what had been said, but gave up before turning back to his seat and falling heavily into it. “Yes,” he said finally, his voice shaking.
“Then you’ve not only interpreted the data incorrectly,”
Fain said, staring down at them, “but you are also a fool with blood on his hands.” The Commander said nothing more for several moments, then silently broke the connection.
Rice stood, inhaling deeply and rubbing at his sore eyes, and regarded the academician. He sat slumped in his seat, his shoulders drooping, and stared at the darkened display area. Everything that Rice had come to associate with him—the arrogance, the self-assured air, the importance of his position—seemed to drain from him as he watched. The man was a mere shadow of the figure he had been when they left Luna.
“You think this was a failure?” Rice asked in a tone of voice he would never previously have dared use with the academician.
Bomeer didn’t turn, and continued staring wordlessly at the empty area in front of him.
“A tragedy, yes,” Rice went on, “a senseless act of stupidity that could have been avoided if you had put our goals ahead of your own. But this was no failure. We have the proof that Dr. Montgarde’s theories are valid, and we have the figures we need to restructure the equations to allow for the characteristics of the shielding. Far from bringing this project to an end, or even slowing it down, the test shows us that what we’ve done here is only a beginning.”
Rice walked to the exit of the viewing chamber. “What we’ve accomplished here was worthwhile, and your efforts to stall us can’t change that.” He thumbed the control to open the door, then turned back to Bomeer one last time as the door slid aside. “You’ve only succeeded in changing its cost.”
Rice turned away and, although not bothering to close the door as he strode away, didn’t see Bomeer bury his face in his hands.
“Temple? Do I disturb you?”