Piper (English version)

Piper (English version) Chapter 2: Illuminati Carnival

2. Illuminati Carnival

The vibrating hum that announced the imminent exit from the Link came unexpectedly early. Just 15 hours after launch in the AC system - that was barely half as long as a flight from Sol to Alpha Centauri took. Alex Either had planned to spend the evening leisurely in the observatory of the MESSENGER. Not that you could see stars in the Link. You could see, well, abstract patterns and colors. Some people liked that, as Either did. Back home on Terra, there were even Trivid broadcasts at night with footage of Link transits.

It didn't really get quiet, though. After maybe half an hour, the bulkhead opened and Rudina Shroty, called Rudy, sat down in the neighboring chair. Rudy wanted to talk. That was nothing special. But just somehow inappropriate.

"You shouldn't stare out so much," she said, "It's unhealthy."

Either frowned. As if the MESSENGER passed a link three times a week! And by the way, what was Rudy doing right now? But it would have been pointless to ask that question - Rudy didn't think much of equal treatment.

So he changed the subject: "Listen, do you think it's a coincidence that already our first interstellar expedition discovered an inhabited and habitable planet? Are these things a dime a dozen? And then with such an unlikely candidate as Alpha Centauri ..."

"Well, AC isn't that unlikely," Rudy slowly returned. "A and B are so far apart that they each have their own planetary systems that don't get in each other's way. And Proxima is really far away anyway. Technically it's a triple, but for all practical purposes it's just three individual suns that happen to be pretty close together."

"No answer to my question," Either said.

"No processing possible - data insufficient," Rudy said with a shrug.

Either sat up a little more comfortably. "I often imagine that there are untold numbers of Earth-like planets," he confessed. "I mean really Earth-like, not what astronomers think they are. I then imagine what ... well, what they look like. What the native life there looks like."

"See," Rudy replied, "that's what I meant when I said you shouldn't stare out there so much."

How had she managed this swerve again now?

At that moment, the humming began. Quiet at first and barely noticeable or audible, but still typical and distinct.

"That was quick!" exclaimed Either in amazement, jumping up to watch what was happening in the control room.

"Can only be Barnard's Star, then. Everything else is much farther away," Rudy groaned, running behind him.

The observatory was on the same deck as the control room, just a few corners away. Not even a minute after the first hum, they both entered the control center. Wilson, number three in the rank order, wanted to vacate the command chair, but Either waved him off and sat in the observer row. Rudy settled down next to him.

The atmosphere in the command center was calm and focused. Good people, Either thought with some pride. The humming grew louder; the plunge back must now be imminent.

And then it came. The on-board clock showed: Tue, July 5, 2203, 20:32. Silence fell and the optics screens lit up. Seconds later, the first evaluation results came in, schematically displayed.

"That's not Barnard's Star," Either commented dryly. It undoubtedly wasn't. A binary star system with a G and an F component. "That raises a huge pile of questions," Rudy muttered. She stood up and walked over to the gauges.

"Position of transition point secured," came Tellens' matter-of-fact message from the tracker interface.

Where was the location message? "Where are we? What system is that?" asked Either with a tiny bit of edge in his voice. Quink-Power at the navigational computer raised his hand defensively. "We're still calculating," he returned.