Day of the Dragonstar Read Online Free PDF Page B

reverberated.
    “. . . initial sign of its presence was a series of luminosity peaks. These peaks were caused by the specular reflection of solar radiation off the surfaces of the object — flat surfaces,” Professor Labate had told them. “The intervals between reflectance peaks indicate that the object is rotating about a principal axis of inertia. It’s an immense cylinder, tumbling end-to-end through space as it approaches the sun. Whenever the flat ends of the cylinder face the sun, we get a bright flash of reflected radiation and light. Spectrometer readings suggest that it is of a metallic substance of uniform characteristics. The object is emanating some kind of VLF electromagnetic field. So far we have not been: able to identify its nature, although the parameters indicate something of a fairly large order, well within the limits defined by a controlled fusion reaction.”
    They’d immediately realized the implications of that. Kemp’s own words had almost been superfluous. “A ship. Evidently been there in orbit for a sizable amount of time. Some product of an alien civilization.”
    The expressions of the others had changed rapidly, passing through stages of shock, flickering briefly through a spectrum of awe and confusion, finally settling into acceptance. Excited acceptance.
    Security measures previously implemented by Kemp had been reinforced by Oscar Rheinhardt, Security Chief. No doubt neither the Chinese or the Khan Base had, any idea of what was out there. Their equipment was not as good. Still, they could take no chances. The discovery was of immense political importance, to say nothing of scientific significance. Officially, the Observatory claimed it had had a hardware crash on the machinery pertinent to the discovery, and were awaiting repairs.
    Because it would take an estimated four weeks to reach the object if they deployed one of the ships in the lunar area, it had been decided to use a DS mining operation in the approximate vicinity of the object’s closest approach to the asteroid belt. Two ore-processing ships were within range: the Astaroth and the Cassandra. The Mission Commander of the Astaroth was a former crewman of Kemp’s — Major Altimiras Franco. He could be trusted. The Joint Chiefs had agreed.
    He was in charge of the first operation with the chance of contacting an alien intelligence. How about that, Dad, Kemp thought to himself as he waited. How about that.
    Alterman looked up, his beard strangely underlit by the instrument lighting. “Colonel, we’ve just gotten word from the Astaroth. Their Snipe reports instrument-contact with the object and Major Franco is patching us in.”
    Finally! thought Kemp, turning quickly and returning to the central console. He slid into a chair next to Alterman, strapping a throat mike to his neck quickly. “Thank, you, Major. Ready when you are.”
    “The Snipe’s just keyed in his scramble-sequence. Go ahead, Colonel.”
    “Copernicus Base, calling SP2 double A. Do you copy?”
    “This is SP2 double A, Copernicus. Spec-5 Peter Melendez on the com. How is my signal, Copernicus?”
    “We copy, SP2 double A. This is Colonel Phineas Kemp, Melendez. What have you got for us?”
    As the Snipe crewman repeated, his initial data material, Kemp nodded to himself, then signaled Major Alterman to contact Security Chief Rheinhardt, Scientific Operations Chief Marcia Bertholde, and Gregor Kolenkhov, Chief of Support Operations, a summons which would bring them immediately to the Communications Center from where they waited on standby, quite close.
    “We copy that, Melendez,” Kemp said. “You should be getting a visual any minute now. In the meantime, I want all instrument-data on telemetry ASAP.”
    “Roger, Copernicus. Stand by, please.”
    Panels on the console began flashing and blinking within three seconds. Display screens began accumulating rows and columns of data. Kemp nodded to himself as he spoke again. “All right, SP2 double