Day of the Dragonstar Read Online Free PDF

object. Other sensors were also flashing into screen-brilliance. A solid object of incredible proportions . . . Melendez keyed in a request for some preliminary figures.
    The display blinked. Numbers appeared.
    Distance from object: 4100 kilometers. Mean dimensions of object: 321.45 kilometers by 64.78 kilometers.
    Melendez re-keyed the request, Couldn’t be anything out there that big if it was a ship. Theirs or ours. Surely, if it was an asteroid, the Survey would have known about its existence a long time ago, especially if it was off the ecliptic.
    The display screen blinked. The same numbers reappeared. Melendez checked again, just to be certain before contacting the Astaroth, No error. Whatever it was, the Snipe was gliding toward it at a speed of six kilometers per second.
    “Hey Chuck. Look at this,” Melendez said in a soft voice.
    O’Hara looked. “What the hell is it?” His tone of voice had changed from condescension to something milder.
    “Don’t know. We’re not in visual mode yet. But it’s damned big. We should be seeing it soon . . .”
    “You’d better get the Astaroth . . .”
    “Yeah.” Melendez keyed in his mike. “Big Mother, this is SP2 double A . . . Do you copy? SP2 double A, calling Big Mother . . .”
    “Big Mother here.” Major Franco’s voice swept through the phones.
    “Major, we have scanner-contact.” Melendez read out the incoming data. “Visual will come momentarily. It’s big, Major.”
    “Affirmative, SP2 double A. I have orders to patch you directly to Copernicus now. Good luck, gentlemen. Big Mother, out.”
    Static crackled, followed by a series of bleeps and clicks as the scrambler codes activated. All transmissions from the Snipe would now be beamed hundreds of millions of kilometers back to the moon. Traveling at the speed of regular radio waves, communication from the asteroid belt to the lunar surface would have required a fifteen-minute time lag between transmission and reception. Thus, an inquiry and the reception of an. answer would consume a half hour of real time. Communication over the immense distance within the solar system would be frustrating if the IASA were constricted by the old laws of relativistic physics. Indeed, it was the discovery of the tachyon — that particle zipping along at hyper-light speeds, incapable of deceleration below the speed of light — which had made Deep-Space Operations feasible. Deep Space communications were accomplished by means of a tachyon wave-generator.
    Peter Melendez keyed in the proper frequency code, which would validate the Priority Channnel transmission, and waited.

    * * *

    At Copernicus Base, it was early afternoon. Business as usual for the majority of lunar base personnel. Almost eight hours had passed since Phineas Kemp had convened the meeting of the Joint Chiefs. Only a handful of high-echelon Copernicus staff knew of the as-yet-unidentified object. Kemp was pleased with the efficiency and smoothness of Oscar Rheinhardt’s Security operations.
    Copernicus Base hummed with the life of the hive: farmers, mechanics, technicians, scientists, administrators, pilots, all busily engaged in their duties, all necessarily unaware of the drama about to unfold in Deep Space, thought Phineas Kemp.
    Attired in his Informal Officer’s jumpsuit, he paced back and forth in the Communications Center, waiting. Waiting and brooding. The room was empty except for Major Alterman, Director of Communications for Copernicus Base — one of the few personnel briefed on the current Security topic. The room was bathed in a soft darkness above, illuminated only by the operational lights on the consoles. It was cool and quiet with the relaxing murmurs and thrums of smoothly functioning machinery permeating the atmosphere.
    In contrast, Kemp felt tense.
    The image of the reactions of the Joint Chiefs to Labate’s pronouncements still registered in his mind. Kemp realized they were merely reflections of his own awe. The words