by John Hunt
For the sky did not darken after the blast. A glow persisted, radiant enough to make fully visible the faces of each person standing there on the grass. A finger’s breadth to the right of a bright star, a round circle of light remained. It was nowhere near the size of the moon, but many times more luminous than the brightest planet roaming through the sky. Paradise 5 shined on brilliantly over the Earth.
Epilogue
THE ALARMS WENT off on the computers at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration in Houston, creating a great uproar. The militaries of the major countries all went on alert. Astronomers throughout the western United States turned their telescopes upon the new object in the sky. In Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, and every other city, town, and farm in that corner of the globe, people were aroused by their neighbors to gaze upon the new wonder in the heavens.
Over the next hours, it became clear to everyone that the bright light in the night sky was not going to fade. Pentagon officials wrote press releases informing the public that the event was unprecedented, but seemed to pose no danger. Scientific theories ranged from a comet that suddenly fell into Earth’s gravitational influence to a fragment of a Jovian moon that had been shaken away by seismic activity. Less-scientific theories considered it a sign from God, a signal from aliens, or an interdimensional portal. But regardless of the theories, it appeared as a diamond in the rough in the heavens, and the people of Earth were instantly enamored.
Although no information had yet been released by the Island Project, somehow the new object assumed the name Paradise. Astronomers told the world that Paradise was somewhat larger than a kilometer in diameter — a near-perfect sphere, which was following behind the Earth in its orbit about the sun. Theoretically, and by all observations thus far, it was going to stay on that path for more than a thousand years before gradually being pulled by the Moon into a safe orbit around Earth.
Twice as far away as the Moon, with only a small fraction of the mass, Paradise nonetheless reflected almost as much light. The scientists attributed this to the fact that its surface was entirely made of ice. Almost every beam of light that hit it was reflected back. None was absorbed by any dust or rocks on that pristine surface.
It was midmorning on Paradise 1, and Petur and Joseph lay back on lawn chairs on the grass outside the Guest House. Low in the clear blue western sky, the bright light of Paradise was shining just above the horizon.
Neither man had slept that night. Petur was looking up at the sky, imagining distant scientists staring back at him. Joseph, although less than a meter away, was somewhere else altogether.
“Petur, it’s up there. The sphere, it’s up there in that new star. We can get it.”
“Yes, Joseph. We can get it. It won’t be easy, but nothing we have set out to do has been easy.”
“But it’s worth it. Can you imagine how close we were to harnessing gravity? The sphere that Fletcher Christian so carefully kept hidden holds a secret that is key to mankind’s future. With it, we won’t need rockets; we won’t consume tons of energy just leaving the gravity hole of the earth. We will have spaceships that laugh at gravity. We must make every effort to get it back! We’re planning on doing that, aren’t we?”
Petur replied lazily. “I doubt anyone could stop you. We have to join the space race ourselves now. Haven’t done much of that yet. All of our accomplishments, and we haven’t given nearly sufficient thought to the next frontier. I wonder who will be the Island Project’s first astronaut.”
“Let’s get working on it. The sooner the better, because we need that sphere. From here on, with nuclear fusion harnessed, energy will be unlimited. But getting mass into space is an entirely different matter.” Joseph squirmed uneasily in his chair. “I wish Harrigan had picked another island for his experiment.”
Petur smiled at his friend. “Christian’s sphere is exciting to you and to me both. And I feel terrible that, after being so close, it may now take us years to get it. But I’m not as concerned as you are about getting mass into space.”
“Why not? That has always been the problem — getting mass out of Earth’s gravity.”
“The worry is gone now, Joseph. Don’t you see? Harrigan’s little trick of interfering with time won’t be useful for changing the past, or even viewing it to see what really happened in history. We won’t be able to go back and kill Hitler before he invades Poland. Or see why King Tut died. In fact, for years, all the science fiction that dealt with time travel was missing the most important point of it. Harrigan didn’t develop his theories and put them into practice to be able to manipulate the past. We wouldn’t have brought him into the Project had that been his goal.”
“So, what was it all about?”
“It’s about that great shining light up there in the sky — that ball of ice and water and rock, Joseph. You see, Harrigan has made rockets unnecessary. He has taken an enormous amount of matter, and simply placed it in space. Paradise 5, and the billions of tons of water that went with it, is now in a wonderful location to be used by people who wish to expand into the galaxy. Joseph, we no longer have a problem getting mass into space. We can reach the next big frontier, the next huge source of wealth, and access to resources unlimited. Our planet will be able to rest, while the people thrive. Alongside Sophia’s nuclear fusion, Harrigan’s discovery has created the huge new sources of wealth that the world needs to pay off its accumulated debt to the future. That’s what it was all about.”
Joseph said nothing at first. Several minutes passed. “So, we may not need the sphere at all?” There was something between sadness and hope in his voice.
Petur gently answered, “We need the sphere more than ever, Joseph.”
“Why? If we can get into space with ease now, why do we need it?”
“Because we need to learn about who built it, Joseph. Before we run into them, somewhere in space.”
Joseph nodded.
The two men stared at the horizon.
Joseph said, “We have to get into the spaceship business.”
“Guess so.” Petur smiled. He turned to his friend then, and with just a faint twinkle in his eye, asked, “Got any money I can borrow?”
Paradise 5 was setting now. It was fitting that as it set, it seemed to be diving straight for that point in the ocean from which it originally came, due west. For a fleeting moment, the ugly little island, now a beautiful beacon in the sky, was back where it belonged.
From the vantage of Paradise 5, Earth never set. Paradise 5 had opened its eyes to gaze down upon the half-lit blue planet whence it came. The outer shell of the small orb of water and land had already frozen to a depth of twelve meters. The long process of radiating heat outward would slow down now, and it would take years more for the newly created asteroid to turn completely to ice and rock.
One hundred meters below that thick layer of new ice, a large, gray, metal mass floated freely in the darkness. Inside, there was a man.
That man lay, neck deep in water, in a sunken submarine. He could not move anymore. He could barely breathe. The submarine’s Indonesian skipper had succumbed to his injuries and the water a few minutes earlier. On the verge of death, Khamil took solace in his knowledge that he had successfully achieved his revenge upon the people of the Island Project. It never crossed his mind, nor would he ever discover, that quite to the contrary, he was an integral part of their greatest success. Never would he learn that he was the Island Project’s very first astronaut.
End