Visions of the Future by Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Greg Bear, Kevin J. Anderson, Ben Bova, Hugh Howey, Robert Sawyer, Ray Kurzweil, Martin Rees Page A
Authors: Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Greg Bear, Kevin J. Anderson, Ben Bova, Hugh Howey, Robert Sawyer, Ray Kurzweil, Martin Rees
Tags: Science-Fiction
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entire time, I’ve never seen you shed a single tear or heard you say one word about it. You sit up here surrounded by her things and brood. It’s not healthy.”
His voice tightened. “This is where I live.”
“You can change where you live. Find a place that isn’t full of memories.”
Memories? He didn’t even have those. His wife’s death had left a void with nothing but his grief to fill it. Why had he married another officer? Losing a friend in battle was hard enough. When the news had come, two months and an eternity ago, that the battlecruiser Cory commanded had been destroyed—and she with it—a part of him had died as well.
Kelric pushed down the memory. He didn’t want pity. What could he do to make his well-meaning mother go away before her solicitude started him unraveling?
“I’ll look at apartments next week,” he said.
Her luminous face lit with a smile. “There’s a nice place on Arroyo Cliffs. You could see it Tillsday evening.”
“All right.” That would be after his test flight of Schuldman’s mutant plane with its starship engine.
Dawn’s ruddy light stretched long shadows across the red sands. Sunrise turned the airfield crimson and reflected off the Glint’s hull like sparks of fire. Out in the desert, nothing but rock spires showed as far as the horizon. Only the rare boom of a snare-drum cactus interrupted the dawn’s silent splendor.
Kelric walked around the Glint. The only visible changes were the photon thrusters mounted behind the rocket exhaust. He knew what waited inside that plane, though—a marvel ready to shoot him into the heavens.
Inversion. The word had fascinated him since childhood. At the Academy he had earned his degree in inversion theory, the physics of faster-than-light travel. His people had once believed reaching supraluminal speeds was impossible. It meant going through the speed of light, where slower travelers would see his mass become infinite and his ship rotated until it pointed perpendicular to its true direction. Time for him would stop relative to the rest of the universe. Which of course could never happen. So how could he go faster-than-light?
The answer turned out to be simple.
It depended on imaginary numbers, the square roots of negative numbers. Relativistic physics said his mass and energy became imaginary at supraluminal speeds. If he also added an imaginary part to his speed, the equations no longer blew up at light speed. By venturing into a universe where speed had both real and imaginary parts, he could go around light speed like a hovercar leaving the road could go around a tree. But for a starship, “leaving the road” meant leaving the real universe.
Kelric pressed his hand against the plane’s hatch. “What do you say, Glint? Want to go faster than a photon?” The plane couldn’t of course. It wasn’t designed for interstellar travel. But the inversion engine could accelerate it far better than the rockets. Engineering thought he might reach one hundredth the speed of light. It would make his last flight a snail’s pace in comparison.
“I just hope they fixed the computer,” Kelric said.
“Fixed it, double-checked it, triple-checked it,” a woman’s gravelly voice said behind him. “Can’t have you blowing up out there. You and me got a debt to settle.”
Kelric turned to see Jessa Zaubern, a gaunt figure in the blue jumpsuit worn by the engineers assigned to the Glint project. Her close cut cap of fiery hair glistened in the dawn’s light.
He snorted. “You’re the one who owes me money, Zaub.”
Her grin animated her face, chasing away her usual stoicism. “Next game, I’m going to wipe your bank account clean.”
Kelric smiled. He and Jessa got along well. He was one of the few people she let see the sentimental streak under her gruffness. They understood each other, both of them plagued by the same awkwardness with words. He was also the only person who had ever beat her at Dieshan choker
His voice tightened. “This is where I live.”
“You can change where you live. Find a place that isn’t full of memories.”
Memories? He didn’t even have those. His wife’s death had left a void with nothing but his grief to fill it. Why had he married another officer? Losing a friend in battle was hard enough. When the news had come, two months and an eternity ago, that the battlecruiser Cory commanded had been destroyed—and she with it—a part of him had died as well.
Kelric pushed down the memory. He didn’t want pity. What could he do to make his well-meaning mother go away before her solicitude started him unraveling?
“I’ll look at apartments next week,” he said.
Her luminous face lit with a smile. “There’s a nice place on Arroyo Cliffs. You could see it Tillsday evening.”
“All right.” That would be after his test flight of Schuldman’s mutant plane with its starship engine.
Dawn’s ruddy light stretched long shadows across the red sands. Sunrise turned the airfield crimson and reflected off the Glint’s hull like sparks of fire. Out in the desert, nothing but rock spires showed as far as the horizon. Only the rare boom of a snare-drum cactus interrupted the dawn’s silent splendor.
Kelric walked around the Glint. The only visible changes were the photon thrusters mounted behind the rocket exhaust. He knew what waited inside that plane, though—a marvel ready to shoot him into the heavens.
Inversion. The word had fascinated him since childhood. At the Academy he had earned his degree in inversion theory, the physics of faster-than-light travel. His people had once believed reaching supraluminal speeds was impossible. It meant going through the speed of light, where slower travelers would see his mass become infinite and his ship rotated until it pointed perpendicular to its true direction. Time for him would stop relative to the rest of the universe. Which of course could never happen. So how could he go faster-than-light?
The answer turned out to be simple.
It depended on imaginary numbers, the square roots of negative numbers. Relativistic physics said his mass and energy became imaginary at supraluminal speeds. If he also added an imaginary part to his speed, the equations no longer blew up at light speed. By venturing into a universe where speed had both real and imaginary parts, he could go around light speed like a hovercar leaving the road could go around a tree. But for a starship, “leaving the road” meant leaving the real universe.
Kelric pressed his hand against the plane’s hatch. “What do you say, Glint? Want to go faster than a photon?” The plane couldn’t of course. It wasn’t designed for interstellar travel. But the inversion engine could accelerate it far better than the rockets. Engineering thought he might reach one hundredth the speed of light. It would make his last flight a snail’s pace in comparison.
“I just hope they fixed the computer,” Kelric said.
“Fixed it, double-checked it, triple-checked it,” a woman’s gravelly voice said behind him. “Can’t have you blowing up out there. You and me got a debt to settle.”
Kelric turned to see Jessa Zaubern, a gaunt figure in the blue jumpsuit worn by the engineers assigned to the Glint project. Her close cut cap of fiery hair glistened in the dawn’s light.
He snorted. “You’re the one who owes me money, Zaub.”
Her grin animated her face, chasing away her usual stoicism. “Next game, I’m going to wipe your bank account clean.”
Kelric smiled. He and Jessa got along well. He was one of the few people she let see the sentimental streak under her gruffness. They understood each other, both of them plagued by the same awkwardness with words. He was also the only person who had ever beat her at Dieshan choker
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