This novel has thirty-two chapters although Chapter 32 is just:
"FENN WOKE." (p. 403)
We are currently rereading 3. When download Guthrie approaches Alpha Centauri, regains consciousness and activates his c-ship's instruments, he feels fields, gradients, vectors, masses, particles and ambient space. Although electromagnetically shielded from radiation, he hears its seething and tastes its sharpness.
I had forgotten how the planet Demeter was destroyed but I gather that it had collided with Phaethon. The still-molten globe glows red streaked with smoke and slag. Accelerated spin whips mountainous fire-geysers. Blasted-out rocks in chaotic orbits either crash back down or form rings while a new moon coalesces and the c-ship avoids a whirling fragment. Alpha Centaurian space has become hazardous.
Next Guthrie must contact the asteroid-dwelling Lunarians but that is a whole 'nother ball game. I must venture through Lancaster on a wet Sunday morning for provisions. I attend not church on Sunday morning but meditation group on Monday evening.
Go with God or whatever It is.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Up to me I would not have bothered terraforming/colonizing Demeter, not if it was going to be destroyed in 1500/2000 Earth years. Better for the exiles of Earth led there by the download of Guthrie to build O'Neill habitats in the asteroid belt of that star system. And eventually used as a springboard for reaching far more lasting planets orbiting other stars.
Ad astra! Sean
I suppose terraforming Demeter could be regarded as practice for more long lasting projects.
Kaor, Jim!
It would still dissatisfy me, if the terraforming was only going to last such a "short" time.
Ad astra! Sean
True. One thing about terraforming is that it is inherently a *long* term project. The changes would take at a minimum centuries and continue for probably millions of years.
Kaor, Jim!
Exactly! I would have argued with the download of Guthrie against the terraforming of Demeter for precisely the reasons you gave. Better for the exiles led to Alpha Centauri by Guthrie to live in O'Neill habitats, and used as a base for reaching other stars.
I was reminded of Anderson's story "Strange Bedfellows." I loved the idea given there of how the Moon could be terraformed--with such an effort being said likely to last a very satisfactory 500,000 years. One engineer to whom I quoted the relevant parts of that story even told me it was scientifically doable.
Ad astra! Sean
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