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Stories from the Verse
In Verse Proportion
Chapter 99: Brown 226
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 199
“Captain,” Vashti said. It surprised Derek, because beyond a few pleasantries when they arrived and the standard requests and directives they rarely spoke while on the bridge.
“Commander Vashti?” it replied, clearly as surprised as he was.
“I’m detecting a large mass, sir. It appears to be headed in our direction, on a possible intercept course.”
“Composition of this mass, Commander?”
“Um--it appears to be largely water, carbon dioxide, and various minerals, with some other compounds.”
“Can we see it?”
“It is still some distance from us, and it is not reflecting much light.”
“It sounds like it might be a comet,” Derek said. “How far are we from the nearest star?”
It took Vashti long enough to respond that Derek considered whether he ought to have checked this himself, but she returned a response. “Approaching one hundred thousand astronomical units.”
Derek nodded, thinking for a moment.
“Commander Derek?” the Captain said.
“Sir, I’m thinking that if this is a comet, it will be on an orbital trajectory, and highly elliptical. Commander Vashti, please plot for us, with the nearest star as reference point, the anticipated trajectory of the object relative to our own anticipated trajectory. You will need at least three sightings of the positions of all three objects, starting with current positions.”
“You’re thinking,” the Captain said, “that despite the vastness of space there is the potential that two objects as large as ourselves and that mass might collide, and it might damage Wanderer.”
“Correct,” Derek answered. “In any case, obviously we withstand many small impacts every hour, and more when we are close to a star as we are here.” He began doing scans of his own. “I detect several planets in orbit around the star that warrant investigation in pursuit of our mission, Captain.”
“Course adjustment?”
“None required at this time, sir. I would recommend getting that comet’s trajectory before we make any changes in our own. We don’t want to complicate this.”
“Very good. Make it so.”
Derek reached out telepathically to Vashti. Have you got this? he asked.
I think so, she replied.
He paused, then sent Good. If you want help, let me know. Then he turned his attention to what interested him about the situation.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #448: Inventive Versers. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
