Article 23 Read Online Free PDF

just alluded to the greatest non-secret of everyone involved in space. Nine years back the mysterious raiders, known simply as the Tracs , had staged an attack and destroyed several colonies. Thorsson himself had managed to bag one of the Trac ships, and even now it was reported that recovery teams were scouring a billion cubic kilometers of space looking for wreckage and parts in a painstaking effort to put the ship back together, piece by piece.
    Mankind had known that someone or something else was out there for forty-five years, ever since the SETI project, the "Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence," had confirmed a clear signal being detected from Proximus Gemini. Ten years later the first of three Trac raids had occurred. Who they were, where they came from, what they even looked like was a complete mystery. No one even knew if the SETI programs decision to beam a signal back had been the trigger for the attacks.
    All humanity had to go on was the scattered wreckage of a ship the task of reassembling it equivalent to putting together a million-piece three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle without even knowing what it would look like once it was done. If the machine was ever put back together, and someone could then figure out how to activate it, mankind was on its way to the stars. But even if that failed there was still the Ark ship program of building habitats to accommodate twenty thousand people for journeys of thirty years or more until the nearest star was reached.
    It was one of Thorsson's favorite programs; during scrub summer he had lectured about it to Justin's class. He compared the journey to that of 19th-century colonists and whalers braving the Horn on trips lasting up to a year or more into the South Pacific.
    Thorsson slowly scanned his audience as if he were already searching for volunteer crews who would leave Earth forever, and in spite of the fears and anxieties he had yet to completely ditch about space flight, Justin knew he would go if Thorsson asked him.
    "There is one thing, though, one thing that can stop us from fulfilling our destinies," Thorsson said at length, interrupting Justin's thoughts. "And it is not the Tracs . Oh, they're out there that's one of the reasons we must go forward, to meet them in their backyard, and not ours. Perhaps we can make an arrangement with them, but history shows that more often than not when two cultures collide, the weaker one will suffer. For that reason alone we must forge ahead. But that is not my fear, not now. Rather it is the events sweeping our system the separatist movements."
    Justin looked over at Matt and saw his friend shift in his chair. Matt was in quiet support of the movement, and he feared that maybe the UN had issued some sort of decree or was about to require an oath of some sort. If they did, he knew Matt would refuse, if only as a matter of principle, being a very pig-headed solar sailor.
    "As you all know, two weeks ago the Mars Assembly issued a decree of noncompliance with the United Nations and Colonies Space Commission, and also with the USMC. The Assembly has called for and I quote, 'A First Continental Congress of Space to decide whether these colonies shall declare themselves free and independent states.'
    Matt smiled and nodded his head, and Justin saw more than one of his classmates doing the same.
    "I want to emphasize right now that this is not a declaration of rebellion, no matter what the holo newscasters might be shrieking about, either from Earth or anywhere else. When you've been around awhile, you learn that if you've heard it on the news, chances are you better not believe it especially when it's one of those blow-dried fools doing the pronouncing rather than the people who are actually involved in the story.
    "Those of you who were here for scrub summer know we lost a dozen cadets from Mars and two instructors who decided to return home. Now I want to make something damn clear to all of you."
    The mere fact that Thorsson