Michael McCollum - Antares 01 - Antares Dawn

ANTARES DAWN

A Novel By

Michael McCollum

Sci Fi - Arizona, Inc.

Third Millennium Publishing

A Cooperative of Online Writers and Resources

CHAPTER 1

The landing boat fell in a nose-high/belly-down attitude toward the blue-white orb of the

planet below. Outside the hull, the first whisper breaths of the hypersonic wind tugged at the

boat’s wings and control surfaces, causing them to be bathed in a nearly invisible envelope

of plasma glow. Inside the hull, the keening of the wind was more sensed than heard, and

the first gentle tugs of deceleration were but a foretaste of the pressure soon to come.

Captain-Lieutenant Richard Drake, commanding officer of the Altan Space Navy CruiserDiscovery , the

landing boat’s sole passenger, lay strapped into an acceleration couch and gazed out the viewport next to

him. Drake was of medium height, with a slender build, black hair, and the faded tan of an outdoorsman

who has spent the last eight months in space. He was thirty-five, but looked younger. His hair, which he

wore in the close cropped style of a military spacer, showed a touch of gray around the edges. His eyes

were green, and widely spaced above a broad nose and high cheekbones. A whitish scar ran diagonally

across one of his eyebrows - the result of a collision during a secondary school athletic contest.

Drake’s expression was pensive as he gazed at the plasma flow building up on the leading edge of the

landing boat’s wing. In his pocket was a message flimsy that ordered him to report to the Admiralty

Building in the Altan capital of Homeport immediately. The message was stampedMostSecret and signed

by First Admiral Dardan himself.

“What have we done to deserve this high honor?” Commander Bela Marston, Drake’s

second-in-command, had asked when Drake showed him the order aboardDiscovery .

“You don’t suppose he’s found out about those extra field coils we requisitioned the last time we were

undergoing maintenance at Felicity Base, do you?” Drake asked, only half in jest.

Marston shook his head. “No reason to worry there, Skipper. Those old coils should have been junked

ten years ago.”

“That won’t save us if Dardan thinks he’s going to have to go back to Parliament for a supplemental

appropriation this year.”

“Good point,” Marston said. “Shall I have your yeoman lay out your armor-plated underwear?”

Drake had nodded, laughing. “Not a bad idea. I might need them.”

The landing boat touched down at Homeport forty minutes after it encountered the first tenuous wisps of

Alta’s atmosphere. As soon as the craft had parked at the passenger terminal, Drake unstrapped and

made his way to the starboard airlock where a nervous crew chief watched intently as a cantilevered

loading bridge maneuvered slowly over the boat’s still-glowing wing surfaces.

“What’s the matter, Chief?” Drake asked. “Don’t you trust the port handlers?”

“Trust them fumble fingered goons withMolly here, Cap’n? No, sir. Not as far as I can spit under triple

gravs.”

The landing boat had touched down well past local sunset, but the million-candlepower beams of the

spaceport’s polyarcs had no trouble turning night into day. Drake watched as the loading bridge sealed

itself against the hull. When the Chief signaled that all was secure, he stepped onto the spidery trusswork

and crossed to the terminal beyond.

Inside, he found Commodore Douglas Wilson waiting for him. Over the years, Drake had served three

tours of duty under the older man’s command. He had long since learned to sense Wilson’s every mood.

Drake could tell that the Commodore was excited and trying mightily to hide the fact.

“Good to see you again, Richard,” Wilson said. “How was your trip?”

“Rough enough, sir. I have not had to suffer through a maximum performance reentry since my days at

the Academy. What’s up?”

“The Admiral will brief you,” Wilson said noncommittally. “Come on, I’ve a car waiting.”

Drake followed as Wilson led the way to an Admiralty limousine. An enlisted driver helped him with his

hand luggage, and then slid behind the control panel while the two officers arrayed themselves in the back

seat for the ten-kilometer drive to the Admiralty.

“How is that young lady of yours?” Wilson asked as the driver maneuvered the car into the heavy traffic

headed for Homeport.

“Cynthia? She’s fine, sir.” Drake gestured at the overnight bag. “I was hoping for a chance to see her this

trip.”

Some unidentifiable emotion flashed across Wilson’s features. “Sorry, Captain, but you won’t be on the

ground that long.”

“Oh?” Drake accompanied his question with raised eyebrows, but the commodore refused to rise to the

bait. Instead, he leaned back in his seat and gazed out the window at the shadowy trees zipping past at

two hundred kilometers per hour.

They rode in silence for several minutes until the driver gestured toward the eastern sky.

“Antares is coming up, sirs!”

Drake turned to follow the driver’s pointing finger. Sixty kilometers to the east was the Colgate mountain

range. By day, their snow-capped summits and forested slopes provided a view that was a favorite

among the purveyors of scenic holocubes. By night, they were a jagged black wall looming against the

horizon. As Drake watched, a single star of eye searing, blue-white brilliance rose from behind the central

peak of the mountain range. In that moment, the scenery around them changed dramatically. The

scattered clouds, which had reflected the dull orange glow of the Homeport streetlights, suddenly blazed

forth with a blue-white fire of their own. The once dark forest on both sides of the highway was suffused

with an internal silver sheen, sending long, jet-black shadows leaping westward across the highway.

“Is it always like this?” Drake asked, gesturing to the view beyond the limousine window.

Wilson nodded. “It has been ever since the nova began rising after dark. Before that it wasn’t very

impressive at all - just a star bright enough to be visible in daylight.”

“It still looks that way from orbit,” Drake said. He gazed at the passing scene in silence for several

seconds. “Who could have predicted that a disaster of such magnitude would be so beautiful?”

#

The first person to postulate a rational theory of gravitation was Sir Isaac Newton in 1687. His

PhilosophiaeNaturalisPrincipiaMathematica established the theory that gravity is a force, one by

which every atom in the universe attracts every other atom. Newton’s views on the subject remained

essentially unchallenged for nearly two and a half centuries. The reign of Newtonian physics ended in

1916. That was the year Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity. Einstein suggested

that gravity is not a force at all, but rather a curvature in the very fabric of the space-time continuum

caused by the presence of mass. No one seriously challenged Einstein’s view of the universe until

Bashir-ben-Sulieman published his definitive treatise on macro-gravitational effects in 2078.

Sulieman was an astronomer working out of Farside Observatory, Luna. He had spent his life measuring

the precise positions and proper motions of several thousand of the nearer stars. After two decades of

work, he reluctantly concluded that Einstein’s simple models of gravitational curvature could not

adequately explain the placement of the stars in the firmament. The discrepancies were small and

exceedingly difficult to measure; but nonetheless, they were there. Try as he would, Sulieman could not

explain them away as “data scatter” or “turbulence,” as had earlier astronomers working from deep

within the terrestrial atmosphere. The longer Sulieman pondered his data, the more convinced he became

that, besides being curved locally in the presence of stellar and planetary masses, space is also folded

back upon itself in long lines that stretch across thousands of light-years.

The idea that the space-time continuum is multidimensional is an old one. Classical space-time has four

dimensions, three spatial and one temporal: up/down, forward/back, right/left, past/future. However, if

four-dimensional space-time is curved (as Einstein postulated), then there has to be at least one additional

dimension for it to be curvedinto . For General Relativity to be correct, space-time must possess at least

five dimensions. Bashir-ben-Sulieman’s contribution was to add yet another (orsixth ) dimension. He

reasoned that if Einstein’scurvedspace was indeed curvature in the fifth dimension, then his own

foldedspace must be curvature in the sixth. To keep the two separate, he established the convention of

“vertically” polarized curved space - indeed, humanity’s very concept of vertical depends on gravity,

which is the prime manifestation of curved space - and “horizontally” polarized folded space.

He theorized that the origin of the long, intricately wovenfoldlines was the massive black hole that

occupies the center of the galaxy. He went further. Noting that the foldlines stream outward along the

spiral arms, he wondered aloud whether the lines of folded space might not be sweeping up interstellar

matter as they rotated; in effect, acting as the catalyst for star formation. The problem of the relative

overabundance of stellar births in the spiral arms was one that had long plagued astronomers and

cosmologists.

Sulieman spent the remainder of his life improving on his theories. At the age of 92, he proved that the

sixth-dimensional foldlines are distorted by the fifth-dimensional curvature that is gravity in much the same

way that a lens distorts a ray of light. Sulieman demonstrated mathematically that whenever a foldline

encounters a star-size mass, it is “focused” into a restricted volume of space. Usually, the effect is so

small as to be undetectable. Sometimes, however, the “focus” is sufficiently sharp that a weakness

appears in the fabric of the space-time continuum, and afoldpoint is formed.

Twenty years after Sulieman’s death, scientists discovered a practical use for foldpoints. They positioned

a spaceship within one of the two foldpoints known to exist within the solar system and released copious

quantities of energy in a precisely controlled pattern intended to warp space even further. The energy

release caused the ship to drop into foldspace, thereby instantaneously transporting it to the next weak

point along the foldline. One moment the research ship was floating high above the sun; the next, it was in

orbit about Luyten’s Star, some 12.5 light-years distant.

There was no holding the human race back after that. The Great Migration began almost immediately.

Over the next several centuries, the leakage of population into space became a flood. The pattern of the

migration was determined entirely by the shape of foldspace. While some stars were found to possess

only a single foldpoint, others possessed two, three, or more. The biggest, most massive stars were

discovered to be especially fertile ground for foldpoint production. The red super-giant star Antares was

the champion throughout human space. Antares had six foldpoints, a fact that made it the linchpin of a

network of star systems on the eastern edge of human expansion.

Since the foldlines were aligned with the spiral arm that contains Sol, humanity found it easiest to expand

along the axis of the arm. Distances between colonies were figured, not by the spatial distance between

their respective stars; but rather, by the number of foldpoints between them. In order to reach the star

next door, it was sometimes necessary to first jump to one five hundred light-years distant, then double

back.

Early in the great migration, survey ships searching the systems of the Antares Cluster (those stars

associated with the foldline hub in the Antares system) found an Earth-like planet circling an unnamed G3

spectral class star some 490 light-years from Sol. They named the starNapier (after the ship’s captain)

and its single habitable planetNewProvidence . Charter companies were formed and vast quantities of

resources were poured into the system. New Providence prospered and attained self-sufficiency in less

than a hundred years. As the colony matured, it too began to look around for stellar systems in which to

invest its excess capital and manpower.

The Napier system was close enough to the giant Antares to be affected by the larger star’s warpage of

foldspace. Because of this interaction, New Providence was blessed with more than its fair share of

foldpoints. In addition to the foldpoint leading to Antares, there were two additional gateways in the

system. Beyond both foldpoints were systems containing prime real estate in the form of Earth-class

worlds.

With the New Providence colony firmly established, these additional systems became the targets for two

competing colonization drives. The better funded of these concentrated on the metal-rich

Hellsgatesystem . The smaller colonization effort was left with the job of establishing a colony in the

system of an F8 dwarf identified only by its catalog number. The New Providence colonists in this latter

system gave their new home world the name ofAlta . They named their starValeria , and quickly

devolved to calling it “Val.”

The Altan colony grew apace, although more slowly than Sandarson’s World in the Hellsgate system. By

Alta’s bicentennial year (2506 AD), it was beginning to look with longing toward the surrounding stars.

However, the Valeria system was one of those unlucky enough to possess only a single foldpoint. Altan

starships were thus forced to traverse the Napier system to reach either the Antares hub or its sister

colony in the Hellsgate system. In 2510, negotiations were begun with the New Providential government

to allow Altan ships unimpeded access to the Napier system. Two years later, with both governments

largely in agreement as to terms, the question of access became suddenly moot.

For, at 17:32 hours, 3 August 2512 (Universal Calendar), the Altan spacelinerVagabondTraveler

reported that its instruments could no longer detect the Val/Napier foldpoint at its charted position.

Survey ships were immediately dispatched. In a matter of weeks, they had confirmed the extent of the

catastrophe. For reasons that no one could explain with certainty, the sole foldpoint in the Valeria system

had ceased to exist. Alta was cut off from the rest of human space.

#

The Admiralty building was a large, unsightly pile of steel and glass left over from the first years after the

founding of the Altan colony. Drake and Wilson exited the limousine in front of the Admiralty’s main

entrance, acknowledged the salutes of the guards on duty, and stepped briskly through armor-glass

doors into the spacious lobby beyond. The building had originally been constructed by the central

government of Earth for use as an embassy and ambassador’s residence. The familiar continental outlines

of the Mother of Men were still visible in the marble tile work of the floor.

The guard at the interior desk was less ceremonial than those at the entrance. He sat within an

armor-glass cubicle and required both of them to insert their identity disks into a slot in the cubicle wall.

A computer in a sub-basement consulted its files, concluded that they were who they said, and flashed a

green light on the guard’s control panel. The guard saluted them as they retrieved their identification.

Wilson led Drake to an old elevator-style lift and ordered the car to the topmost floor. They soon found

themselves marching down a quiet hall between portraits of previous first admirals. Wilson stopped in

front of a heavy door carved from a single slab ofonyxwood , knocked, and was rewarded with a

muffled order to enter.

Beyond the door was First Admiral Dardan’s private office. The First Admiral was seated at his oversize

desk. His attention was focused on a small, white haired man who stood before a lighted holoscreen. At

the sight of Commodore Wilson entering through the door, the first admiral rose from his desk and

moved to greet the newcomers. His sudden movement caused the white haired lecturer’s voice to trail off

into exasperated silence.

“Ah, Richard, good of you to come so quickly. May I present Professor Mikhail Planovich, Chairman of

the Astronomy Department at Homeport University.” Dardan guided Drake by the arm to where the

lecturer stood. “The professor was just starting to review what is known of the Antares Supernova for

us.”

“Pleased to meet you, Professor Planovich,” Drake said, shaking hands.

“Likewise, Captain.”

Dardan pulled Drake toward a man who was slouched on the couch opposite the Admiral’s desk. He

held a drink in his hand and appeared totally relaxed. “I believe you know Stan Barrett, the Prime

Minister’s troubleshooter.”

“Yes, sir. I met Mr. Barrett when I served as Navy liaison to Parliament two years ago. I’m not sure he

remembers me, though.”

“Of course I remember you, Drake,” Barrett said, shaking hands without rising from the couch. “Your

last job, I believe, was the five year forecast for the cost of fleet operations. We really nailed the lid on

old Gentleman Jon’s coffin that time, didn’t we?”

“We were successful, anyway,” Drake replied. The “Gentleman Jon” Barrett had referred to was the

Honorable Jonathan Carstairs, leader of the Conservatives, and no friend of Navy appropriations.

Barrett laughed. “Talented and modest, too! I like that, Captain. I think Luis here has picked the right

man for the job.”

“Save that for later,” First Admiral Luis Dardan said. “Find a seat, Captain Drake, and we’ll let

Professor Planovich finish his talk.”

“Yes, sir.”

Planovich turned to the holoscreen and pointed to a bright red star with a speck of blue-white near it.

“As I was saying, Admiral, Antares, otherwise known as Alpha Scorpius, is a supergiant star with a mass

twenty times that of Valeria, and a diameter four hundred times as great. Antares is...” Planovich looked

up from his notes and smiled sheepishly. “Antareswas an M0 stellar class star that possessed a

companion of spectral class A3. You can see both stars on the screen. Stars of the “M” class range from

red to red-orange in color owing to their surface temperatures of 2600-3500 degrees Kelvin. The name

‘Antares’ comes from the Greek, meaning ‘Rival of Ares.’”

“What’s an Ares?” Barrett asked.

“I believe, sir,” Professor Planovich said, “that it is a reference to the reddish color of Sol IV, as viewed

from Earth.”

“I thought Sol IV was named Mars.”

“The Greeks called it Ares, after their God of War. Mars is the Roman name. Now, if I may continue,

sir...”

“Sorry,” Barrett said without sounding the slightest bit sincere.

“Two months ago, the appearance of Antares changed rather dramatically.” The holoscreen view

changed. In place of the red speck with the blue-white dot beside it, the screen now showed the

retina-searing point of brilliance that Drake and Wilson had watched rise over the Colgate peaks less

than ten minutes earlier. “The change, of course, is due to the Antares Supernova of twelve decades ago.

Since the distance from Antares to Val is 120 light-years, the wavefront is just reaching us. Our analyses

are not yet complete, but it appears as though Antares is the largest supernova on record.”

“Larger than the Crab Supernova of 1054?” Wilson asked.

“Actually, the Crab exploded in approximately 4000 BC, Commodore. It was, however,observed on

Earth by Chinese astronomers on July 4, 1054. It was visible in sunlight for 23 days and for two years

thereafter at night. And yes, the Antares Supernova is far larger!”

“I stand corrected,” Wilson growled.

“I do not make the distinction to be pedantic, sir,” Planovich said, stiffly. “The speed-of-light delay

between explosion and observation is important. Since we know the distance from Val to Antares, and

the precise moment when we first observed the supernova, it is an easy matter to compute the date on

which the star actually exploded. That date, it turns out, was 3 August 2512.”

“The same day our foldpoint closed,” the First Admiral mused.

“Yes, sir,” Planovich said. “The correlation is as exact as we can make it, considering that we are unable

to pin down the exact moment of foldpoint failure closer than a sixteen hour period on that date. We have

long suspected that something catastrophic happened on that day, something large enough to disturb our

local foldline sufficiently that the Val/Napier foldpoint lost its focus. Obviously, the Antares Supernova

was the culprit.”

“Then we weren’t the only system affected?” Barrett asked.

Planovich turned to face the advisor. The white glow from the holoscreen illuminated half his face, leaving

the other half in darkness. “You may rest assured, sir, that we have not been singled out for Divine

Wrath. If anything, we have been luckier than some. I greatly fear for the fate of our parent world.”

“Why?” the First Admiral asked.

“Surely, sir, you must know that New Providence is but fifteen light-years from the supernova.”

“So?”

“Even before the explosion, the New Providential poets spoke of ‘the baleful glow of the one-eyed

warrior, a-glimmer on the snow fields of a crisp winter eve.’ They were, of course, referring to the

brightness with which Antares shines in New Providence’s Southern Hemisphere before the winter

solstice.” Planovich strode to the window and pulled back the curtains, allowing the silver glow from

outside to flood the room. “Can you imagine what it must be like to havethat shining 64 times as bright in

the night sky?”

“Are you suggesting that New Providence could have been placed in danger by the supernova?” the First

Admiral asked.

“Not ‘could have been’, sir.Was! A supernova throws out all manner of dangerous particles: everything

from gamma and X-rays, to high-speed neutrons, protons, and electrons. There will even be a goodly

amount of anti-matter in the cosmic wind from such an explosion. In all likelihood, when Antares went

supernova, it sterilized New Providence and the entire Napier system!”

“And if their foldpoints were disrupted?”

“Then three billion people died, horribly.”

Drake felt a shiver run down his spine at the university professor’s cold matter-of-fact words.

“How the hell could something like this happen without warning?” Barrett demanded.

“It didn’t,” Planovich replied. “Astronomers have long been aware that Antares is a star well into its

dotage. The first explorers of the Antares Hub noted that the red giant’s neutrino production rate was

way above normal. That indicated that the star’s core was well into its iron-enrichment phase. We knew

that it was only a matter of time until it ran low on nuclear fuel, collapsed in upon itself, and exploded.

Only, where stars are concerned, ‘a matter of time’ is usually on the order of a few million years. No one

expected it to happen quite so soon.”

“What should we expect now?” Barrett asked.

“A good question,” Planovich responded. ”The radiation from the explosion will be considerably diluted

after a century of expansion. Alta’s atmosphere should have no problem filtering out the harmful particles.

Therewill be a measurable rise in the background radiation in space, however; and it may be necessary

to equip all exo-atmospheric installations with additional radiation shielding.”

“What about foldspace?”

Planovich shrugged. “The effect on foldspace is anyone’s guess. There are those who believe that our

foldpoint might heal itself once the discontinuity of the nova wavefront passes.”

“Really?” Dardan asked as he exchanged looks with Barrett and Wilson.

“That is the theory, Admiral. Personally, I have no strong opinions on the subject one way or the other.”

“Perhaps you should.”

“I beg your pardon.”

Dardan took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. “It may interest you to know, Professor

Planovich, that approximately twenty hours ago, one of our sensor stations picked up an object

materializing high in the northern hemisphere of this system. That object is very large and is under boost

even as we speak. From its radiation signature, we have concluded that it is a starship from outside the

Valeria system!”

#

CHAPTER 2

Astarship!

Richard Drake blinked twice, trying to understand the import of the First Admiral’s revelation. Strictly

speaking, the cruisers that formed the nucleus of the Altan space navy were all starships. Twelve decades

earlier,Discovery and her two sisters had been part of the Grand Fleet of Earth. Except for the bad luck

of having been on a tour of the eastern colonies when Val’s foldpoint disappeared,Discovery ,Dagger ,

andDreadnought might still have been in the service of Mother Earth. Nor were the three battle cruisers

the only starfarers trapped by the Antares Supernova. Two hundred other interstellar craft - freighters,

passenger liners, and rich men’s yachts - had been in the system on that fateful day. However, a starship

without a foldpoint is a contradiction in terms. With no entry into foldspace, such a vessel is going

nowhere.

The appearance of astarship in the Valeria system had far reaching implications. It meant the long

isolation was finally over, that interstellar trade would soon be resumed. It meant that Altan society,

frozen in near-stasis for more than a century, would come alive once more under the stimulus of a

hundred years of new ideas and inventions from all over human space. It meant that his ownDiscovery

would again be free to fly between stars - perhaps even to Earth itself.

Drake glanced at Professor Planovich. The academic’s face was frozen in a look of total surprise. He

suspected his own expression mirrored the smaller man’s slack jawed, wide-eyed amazement. In stark

contrast were the cool, studied looks worn by Dardan, Wilson, and Barrett.

After several seconds of silence, Planovich cleared his throat and asked somewhat unsteadily: ”Are you

sure, Admiral? No mistake?”

“No mistake. Commodore, please brief our guest.”

“Yes, sir,” Wilson said. He got to his feet and strode over to take Planovich’s place at the holoscreen

while the professor sat beside Barrett on the couch. Wilson tapped out a code on the screen keypad and

the blue-white nova disappeared. A schematic representation of the Valeria system formed in its place.

Deep within the cube, a tiny red arrow floated above the golden point of light representing Val. The scale

of the scene was such that the orbits of the four innermost of Val’s twelve planets showed clearly.

“The ship materialized high in the northern hemisphere at roughly two hundred and fifty million kilometers

from Val. The point is close to the classic position for the Val/Napier foldpoint, but is not coincident with

it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure, Professor.”

“Then the supernova has disturbed the local shape of foldspace!” Planovich said.

“Yes, sir. That was our conclusion, as well. I see that you grasp the implications. If the disturbance is

great enough, then the inter-connectivity of the foldlines may no longer be what it was. The Napier

system and New Providence may no longer be at the other end of our local gateway.

“Are you saying that our jump charts may no longer be valid?” Drake asked.

“It’s a distinct possibility, Captain.” Wilson turned his attention back to Planovich. “That is why you are

here, sir. It was our thought that you scientists might have the means to remap the foldlines for us.”

Planovich stared at the holoscreen for long seconds, his expression pensive, and his eyes unfocused.

After a moment, he nodded. “It may be possible at that! A series of ultra-precise measurements of the

gravitational constant around the foldpoint should do it.”

“When can you be ready to leave?” Admiral Dardan asked.

“Leave?” Planovich spoke the word precisely, as though he did not understand it.

“Yes, sir. Leave on an expedition to map the gravitational constant.”

“Oh, I can’t possibly get away until the end of the current semester. As department chairman, I have

administrative duties to perform as well as classes to teach.”

“We appreciate your problem, Professor Planovich,” Barrett said, “but this is a matter of utmost

importance to the government.”

The white haired man glanced at Barrett and then the first admiral. Having spent the last two months

studying the Antares Supernova, he recognized an irresistible force when he saw one. He looked wistful

and sighed. “When will this expedition begin?”

“Hopefully, within the next seventy hours. The Prime Minister has already commandeered a spaceliner

for transportation. We have enlisted a number of other specialists, including some of the top people in

multidimensional physics.”

“Who have you got?”

“Doctor Nathanial Gordon has agreed to go.”

Planovich looked more surprised than when he had been told about the ship from outside. “You asked

that poor excuse for a lab assistant before you asked me? Why, I’ve never...” he said before trailing into

silence.

“Never what, Professor?” Barrett asked.

“Forget it. Just send word where and when you want me and I’ll be there.”

“Excellent.”

“If I’m leaving in three days, I had best begin making arrangements.”

“A good point, sir,” Barrett said, rising to his feet. “My car and driver will take you wherever you need to

go. Of course, you realize that news of our visitor from outside is currently classified as a state secret...”

The two civilians left the room, leaving the three Navy men alone.

Dardan smiled from his seat behind the desk. “Barrett and I have been working that same routine on

scientists since noon. That was the fifth recitation of the history of the Antares Supernova I’ve sat through

today.”

“Barrett seems very good at getting them to do what he wants,” Drake said.

“That he is. Thank God we weren’t born to be politicians, eh, Captain?”

“Yes, sir.”

Michael McCollum - Antares 01 - Antares Dawn

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