disappointed, but quickly recovered.
“Oh, well – at least, Captain Bey, I’d like you to present some of the prizes.”
“I’d be delighted,” the slightly dazed commander said. He felt that the meeting was getting out of hand and determined to return to the agenda.
“May I explain what we hope to do here, Mr. President?”
“Of course,” was the somewhat uninterested reply. His Excellency’s thoughts still seemed elsewhere. Perhaps he was still reliving the triumphs of his youth. Then, with an obvious effort, he focused his attention upon the present. “We were flattered, but rather puzzled, by your visit. There seems very little that our world can offer you. I’m told there was some talk of ice; surely that was a joke.”
“No, Mr. President – we’re absolutely serious. That’s all we need of Thalassa, though now we’ve sampled some of your food products – I’m thinking especially of the cheese and wine we had at lunch – we may increase our demands considerably. But ice is the essential; let me explain. First image, please.”
The starship Magellan, two metres long, floated in front of the president. It looked so real that he wanted to reach out and touch it, and would certainly have done so had there been no spectators to observe such naive behaviour.
“You’ll see that the ship is roughly cylindrical – length four kilometres, diameter one. Because our propulsion system taps the energies of space itself, there’s no theoretical limit to speed, up to the velocity of light. But in practice, we run into trouble at about a fifth of that speed, owing to interstellar dust and gas. Tenuous though that is, an object moving through it at sixty thousand kilometres a second or more hits a surprising amount of material – and at that velocity even a single hydrogen atom can do appreciable damage.”
“So Magellan, just like the first primitive spaceships, carries an ablation shield ahead of it. Almost any material would do, as long as we use enough of it. And at the near-zero temperature between the stars, it’s hard to find anything better than ice. Cheap, easily worked, and surprisingly strong! This blunt cone is what our little iceberg looked like when we left the solar system, two hundred years ago. And this is what it’s like now.”
The image flickered, then reappeared. The ship was unchanged, but the cone floating ahead of it had shrunk to a thin disc.
“That’s the result of drilling a hole fifty light-years long, through this rather dusty sector of the galaxy. I’m pleased to say the rate of ablation is within five per cent of estimate, so we were never in any danger – though of course there was always the remote possibility that we might hit something really big. No shield could protect us against that – whether it was made of ice, or the best armour-plate steel.”
“We’re still good for another ten light-years, but that’s not enough. Our final destination is the planet Sagan 2 – seventy-five lights to go.”
“So now you understand, Mr. President, why we stopped at Thalassa. We would like to borrow – well, beg, since we can hardly promise to return it – a hundred or so thousand tons of water from you. We must build another iceberg, up there in orbit, to sweep the path ahead of us when we go on to the stars.”
“How can we possibly help you to do that? Technically, you must be centuries ahead of us.”
“I doubt it – except for the quantum drive. Perhaps Deputy Captain Malina can outline our plans – subject to your approval, of course.”
“Please go ahead.”
“First we have to locate a site for the freezing plant. There are many possibilities – it could be on any isolated stretch of coastline. It will cause absolutely no ecological disturbance, but if you wish, we’ll put it on East Island – and hope that Krakan won’t blow before we’ve finished!
“The plant design is virtually complete, needing only minor modifications to match
“Oh, well – at least, Captain Bey, I’d like you to present some of the prizes.”
“I’d be delighted,” the slightly dazed commander said. He felt that the meeting was getting out of hand and determined to return to the agenda.
“May I explain what we hope to do here, Mr. President?”
“Of course,” was the somewhat uninterested reply. His Excellency’s thoughts still seemed elsewhere. Perhaps he was still reliving the triumphs of his youth. Then, with an obvious effort, he focused his attention upon the present. “We were flattered, but rather puzzled, by your visit. There seems very little that our world can offer you. I’m told there was some talk of ice; surely that was a joke.”
“No, Mr. President – we’re absolutely serious. That’s all we need of Thalassa, though now we’ve sampled some of your food products – I’m thinking especially of the cheese and wine we had at lunch – we may increase our demands considerably. But ice is the essential; let me explain. First image, please.”
The starship Magellan, two metres long, floated in front of the president. It looked so real that he wanted to reach out and touch it, and would certainly have done so had there been no spectators to observe such naive behaviour.
“You’ll see that the ship is roughly cylindrical – length four kilometres, diameter one. Because our propulsion system taps the energies of space itself, there’s no theoretical limit to speed, up to the velocity of light. But in practice, we run into trouble at about a fifth of that speed, owing to interstellar dust and gas. Tenuous though that is, an object moving through it at sixty thousand kilometres a second or more hits a surprising amount of material – and at that velocity even a single hydrogen atom can do appreciable damage.”
“So Magellan, just like the first primitive spaceships, carries an ablation shield ahead of it. Almost any material would do, as long as we use enough of it. And at the near-zero temperature between the stars, it’s hard to find anything better than ice. Cheap, easily worked, and surprisingly strong! This blunt cone is what our little iceberg looked like when we left the solar system, two hundred years ago. And this is what it’s like now.”
The image flickered, then reappeared. The ship was unchanged, but the cone floating ahead of it had shrunk to a thin disc.
“That’s the result of drilling a hole fifty light-years long, through this rather dusty sector of the galaxy. I’m pleased to say the rate of ablation is within five per cent of estimate, so we were never in any danger – though of course there was always the remote possibility that we might hit something really big. No shield could protect us against that – whether it was made of ice, or the best armour-plate steel.”
“We’re still good for another ten light-years, but that’s not enough. Our final destination is the planet Sagan 2 – seventy-five lights to go.”
“So now you understand, Mr. President, why we stopped at Thalassa. We would like to borrow – well, beg, since we can hardly promise to return it – a hundred or so thousand tons of water from you. We must build another iceberg, up there in orbit, to sweep the path ahead of us when we go on to the stars.”
“How can we possibly help you to do that? Technically, you must be centuries ahead of us.”
“I doubt it – except for the quantum drive. Perhaps Deputy Captain Malina can outline our plans – subject to your approval, of course.”
“Please go ahead.”
“First we have to locate a site for the freezing plant. There are many possibilities – it could be on any isolated stretch of coastline. It will cause absolutely no ecological disturbance, but if you wish, we’ll put it on East Island – and hope that Krakan won’t blow before we’ve finished!
“The plant design is virtually complete, needing only minor modifications to match
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