Escape Velocity: The Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page A

ground. He told himself these vast heights didn't count on a low-gravity planet; it was the thin air that made him dizzy. He flew down to the metal boxes hanging below the main mirror, and turned on his echo sounder. It all made sense. The collected light went through a maze of mirrors and lenses to produce an image, like a photo. He thought it seemed a bit primitive for such a huge telescope. The light detector was cooled by liquid nitrogen, for goodness sake, and it was a mere inch across! He saw they still converted the light into electricity like an antique digital camera. Maybe building an eighty-foot high telescope wasn't so remarkable when you were six feet tall yourself, and the gravity was only 9.8m/s. This giant could barely spot a candle on their moon!
           Zuggyzu's heart sank. If humans were stupid then his plan wasn't likely to work. But he'd come too far to give up. He'd get more data and improvise. A hundred and sixty tons of telescope swooped ‘round, sending Zuggyzu scurrying. The vast dome rotated to align the open shutter with the telescope. Everything was moving, and without a fixed frame of reference, Zuggyzu felt giddy.
           When the telescope settled down, Zuggyzu flew back to the instruments and continued his investigation. Those wires leading from the detectors must go to whatever passed for a computer in this backwater. With such primitive detectors, they might even store their data on magnetic tape.
     
    Dr. Reid bounded into the control room. “Ready?”
           Pedro sighed. All this enthusiasm was tiring. “I finish the calibrate now. What is your first object?”
           Anne handed him a list. “This one. Then we do a blind offset to our colliding galaxies.”
           Pedro typed co-ordinates into the computer. Soon the telescope was tracking the galaxies across the sky, as the Earth turned on its axis.
           Dr. Reid typed busily into the instrument control computer. “We'll take a one hour exposure. Right, what shall we talk about while we're waiting?”  
           Anne said, “While we were coming up the mountain, the taxi driver told us that aliens visit the observatory all the time.”
           Pedro nodded. “Montana Matos down in Garafia, it makes clouds formed like a lens. People think they are flying saucers.”
           Dr. Reid raised His eyebrows in mock astonishment. “You mean it's not true? Shame!”
           Pedro smiled. I wonder which planet you come from , he thought.
           Dr. Reid put a Beatles CD in the stereo unit.
     
    Zuggyzu had it all worked out. He would unplug the wire from the detector and send his own message to the computer instead. Once the humans decoded it, they'd understand how close they were to runaway global warming. Even better, they'd have the formulas for nice clean, safe nuclear fusion. It was so easy to save a planet.
          
    Pedro thought it wonderfully appropriate when the astronomers bawled out the chorus from The Fool on the Hill .
           Finally, Dr. Reid's computer beeped and he displayed the image they'd just taken. “Blue meanies!”
           Pedro and Anne came over. Instead of a pretty image of two colliding galaxies, the screen was covered with random dots.
           “ I never see this before,” said Pedro. “I call the duty engineer, yes?” He picked up the house phone and punched in a number.
           Claire, the engineer, arrived five minutes later. “What's up?”
           Dr. Reid pointed at the screen. “What is that?”
           Claire's eyebrows went into orbit. “Mind if I have the keyboard?”
           Dr. Reid moved over and Claire checked the detector. Temperature in range, responding to network messages – all completely normal, except for an image that resembled a piece of modern art. “I'll take a look in the dome,” Claire said.
           As Zuggyzu struggled to reconnect the cable,