Earthlight (eBook)

Bevan Knight (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
380 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9798317821036 (ISBN)

Infos

There is much ado as the Croans take on the Earth: a deadly comet, two lost children, and a family attempting to cope with the pitfalls and promises of a future world.

Bevan Knight has been a librarian, book reviewer, and IT systems administrator. He lives with his wife Naomi in Wellington, New Zealand. 'Earthlight' is the second of his 'Seeds of Time' trilogy.

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In this second instalment of the Seeds of Time trilogy the intrepid Croans visit a future Earth, and in the process turn the lives of Andrew Conway and his wife Maria upside down. Added to the mix is the impact on his brother Julian and sister Dorothea of two lost children, and the impact of dangerous, charming Karl on Julian's daughter. And then, overshadowing all, is the comet. "e;Earthlight"e; takes the reader on a roller coaster from comedy to existential threat, with just about everything else in between.

Textauszug

PROLOGUE

In Deep Space

Euse stirred. There it was again: a shudder that went through the entire ship. Suddenly wide awake he leapt from the hibernation tank, and trailing oily water, lurched up onto the bridge.

“Schyl!” he demanded. “What in God’s name is going on? What’s causing this vibration?”

Captain Schyl spun around. “Euse! Why are you out of hibernation? We’re in hyperdrive now.”

“Never mind that! Tell me what is happening?”

Schyl frowned at the sight of oily spillage, dripping onto the deck; however, he replied calmly. “We’re checking all systems at the moment. At this stage, no malfunction has been reported by the ship. I’ve called a meeting for the crew. Would you like to attend?”

“Yes, and Ess too. My assistant must be there.”

While Euse had overall control of the Croan expedition, his domain was not the running of the ship, but rather the scientific research on which he and Ess would embark when they arrived at planet Earth. That was where he hoped to make his name.

Euse, suddenly overcome by a wave of nausea, staggered over to the nearest bench.

It is said that travelling in hyperdrive is like falling through a hole in space. Unless a treatment known as ‘hybol’ has been taken in advance, all sense impressions become distorted. Alone among the crew, Euse had chosen to hibernate instead. Right now his ears were being assaulted by the sound of distorted voices. He had been warned.

Ess, his faithful assistant, supported him to a seat at the table as the crew assembled to take light refreshments before the meeting got underway. A bowl of gume beetles; little creatures with swivel eyes, and shiny black carapaces, served as a communal snack. These tasty little morsels, emitting high-pitched squeals of terror, were eagerly scooped from the serving bowl, and quickly scrunched to pulp.

Grice, the engineer on the Croan spaceship, commenced his report to the captain and crew.

“We put out the line without a problem.”

“Line?” queried Euse.

“The hyperline, Euse, if you prefer. It will take us within the orbit of Jupiter, the largest planet of Sol, at which time we’ll have returned to ordinary space-time. Right now, there’s nothing within three light years of where we are; nothing at least that would cause an energy flux within the line. Unless, of course, there was an object in the line itself. Either that or some malfunction that the ship was able to correct. We cannot detect any problems, but to be sure we’re running a scan through the ship’s log.”

“Thank you, Grice,” said Euse. He turned towards Schyl. “So what does the captain think?”

“Both Grice and I think that we’ve picked up a passenger.”

A bell rang; Grice glanced at the monitor on his wrist.

“A passenger it is, and a big one. We might have to lose it, if we can’t leave it behind.”

A wanderer from deep space, a huge, dense, pockmarked sphere, the rocky core of some long-destroyed planet, had by remote chance become a ‘passenger’ in the Croan’s line. It had gathered water ice, frozen gases and debris, and was now collecting detritus from the spacecraft itself. For some time it had bobbed along like a dog on a leash, trapped in the ship’s energy field while the vessel maintained its steady acceleration.

Euse listened a little longer, while Grice and the captain discussed what, if any action should be taken; however his capacity to think had reached its limits. He tried to rise, then stumbled, before Ess, moved forward to assist him back to the hibernation tank.

Again the bell sounded. Grice left his perch, disappeared briefly, and then came back smiling. “Fellow crewmen,” he announced: “We’ve just broken the light barrier.”

The Croans rose up, standing tall on their tentacles, to chant a hymn of praise. It was, as always, a solemn, proud moment. Ess, on his return, remained outside the circle, feelings very excluded. He listened to the hum of the craft and noted that the tone was changing.

Captain Schyl caught his eye and remarked,

“We’re going to reach almost five times our present speed, before we begin to decelerate.”

“What is our fastest possible speed, sir?” Ess asked as he moved forward into the circle, grateful to be included in the conversation.

“Mathematically, almost forty times the speed of light, but in reality, that would be impossible. Every increase in speed requires an exponential increase in energy.”

A few more desultory remarks were made, before the crew dispersed, allowing the ship’s brain to take control of the flight. A bell would sound once the deceleration began, but in the meantime, everyone was free to follow their own interests; to choose music, food, and activities, to suit themselves.

Schyl stretched out on a bench and entered a state of trance; a natural ability for Croans.

Ess, technical assistant to Euse, would, like most of the crew, use the time to study. But first, he closed his eyes for a moment of quiet reflection. He recalled Cronalink, his home planet where he’d lived his formative years: the tidy hexagonal cell sixty-three levels deep in a honeycombed apartment complex, with lift wells, vast halls and ever present music. His innocent passion for that music had led him, by degrees into mathematics, space travel, and finally to Euse. Just for a moment, Euse’s cynical gaze passed across his mind’s eye. Ess banished it at once, and moved across to join Erg, who gave a smile of welcome. They began to discuss hyperlines, and the low probability of having a passenger in the line.

“And yet it’s happened,” said Ess.

“Of course,” said Erg cheerfully, “anything can happen at any time; that’s just physics. Hyperlines do involve a slight degree of risk when moving from one dimension to another. Some ships have been lost in the past, but with recent improvements, there’s not much to worry about.”

Reassured, Ess settled down to study. The ship hummed onward. Data continued to flow on screens which nobody watched. The Croan days passed as the craft swept along its unimaginable four dimensional path on its way to planet Earth, towing an asteroid far behind in its wake. Until, that is, the end of the hyperline, when it would emerge into the more sedate pace of ordinary three dimensional space-time.

Almost nobody was alert when the ship’s siren sounded. Groose, the nominal duty officer, stared blankly for a couple of heartbeats, then checked the monitor screen on the dimly lit wall in front of him. He gasped in disbelief, dashed to the captain’s bench, and rudely shook him awake. Schyl groaned and staggered forward.

“What is it, Groose? Turn that confounded siren off!”

“Our passenger, Schyl! We’ve got to lose it! It’s going to run us down!”

“More power then! Power up, power up!”

“No time, captain!”

“Right, get the navigator, and the engineer. I’ll take over.”

Grice was there first. The ship had been gradually slowing for some time, and now their asteroid passenger was within range of the ship’s sensors, and closing fast.

“It will be on us in an hour, captain,” said Grice. “If we speed up we can gain an hour or two more, but then we have no chance of losing it. We need to park it somewhere: preferably onto a big rock. That will mean slowing even further.”

“Erg, is there anything nearby?”

“Not close, but within two hours at maximum speed.”

“Grice, Groose, arm the ship, increase power! We’ll use whatever you’ve found as a drop-off point. Erg, lock the ship onto that rock.”

“The ship won’t have the precision we need for the line, captain.”

“I’ll manage that. How big is the rock?”

“Big enough. Small planet size. You’ll need accuracy within … um … a twentieth of a second on the outside.”

Ess, who had nothing to do, envied those who had. But, what was possible now? Send out a message? No! Communication was not possible in the line. It would be another case of seven souls and a very expensive piece of hardware, disappearing without a trace. It would probably be a year before any serious concerns were raised. He thought about family members back on his home planet of Cronalink; of his game of teasing Euse - there would be no Euse to tease. For that matter, there would be no Ess.

“Ess!” Schyl ordered, “Help Grice. He’ll show you what to do.”

Being thrust into activity was a relief for Ess. Left to its own devices, the ship would try to outrun the rock, but available time was limited, and they would all have perished.

Time dragged; slipping past so slowly, until finally Schyl called an urgent command.

“Cut power! Grice, reverse thrust! Brace! Brace!” The voice of the ship spoke:

Collision due, sixty-three seconds … fifty-eight seconds.

The ship shuddered as it tried to wrest back control.

Thirty-one seconds … twenty-six seconds … said the ship.

God help us, thought Ess.

Schyl studied the screen, holding the tube control trigger, waiting. Points of light danced against a black background. The ship slowed to a mere sixty times the speed of sound.

Ten seconds … collision due, said the ship.

Schyl’s instinct took over. His mind became very quiet. One point of light stood out from the rest:...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 12.12.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9798317821036 / 9798317821036