"Adam's father was a Kennedy," Reiki finally explained.
"I'll be ..." exclaimed Orson. "I'm sure Win doesn't know that."
"And after all the holovideo exposure Adam will get when he returns to Earth," Richard added, "he will soon be one of the best-known Kennedys, which can only help his political chances. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if 'half-breed savage' Adam Kennedy were the next Solar Worlds President after John Quincy, if he wishes to set his sights that low ..."
"Win is really going to be surprised when he finds out," said Orson chuckling.
"He has another surprise coming," said Maria.
"What's that?" asked Orson.
"He's going to be the father of a baby," she said. "The robodoc at the landing pad medic station tells me it's a boy. I'm going to name him after his grandfather—although I'll give Win second billing: John Winthrop Kennedy."
Just then Freeman heard a beep from Nathan's Teacher that he had set up in the sand.
"Five minutes to ignition!" he announced. "Rebecca and Christopher, come on out ... it's almost time!"
UP ON the starship Succor, the slow rotation of the vehicle nose that had provided artificial gravity to the crew compartments had been brought to a halt. The two-kilometer long ship now pointed at the yellow star at the end of Orion's belt. Amidships, a sextet of laser beams reached through portholes in a vacuum chamber cooled to nearly absolute zero and selected out a tiny clear crystal floating on the electromagnetic fields inside. With a flick, the laser beams sent the crystal off through a hollow tube, where it was passed along by radio pulsations to the engine at the aft end of the ship. As soon as the first crystal was sent off, it was followed by another. The crystals of antihydrogen shot through a series of locks and entered the engine where they met a stream of gaseous normal hydrogen. Each tiny crystal of antimatter annihilated in a tiny explosion of energy more powerful per gram than a nuclear bomb. The high energy particles streaming from the mini-explosions heated the rest of the hydrogen gas into a blazing blue-white plasma that expanded against the magnetic bottle that contained it, until it was forced out the magnetic nozzle of the engine as a blazing exhaust, lighting up the moonscapes below.
THE BLAZE of light that came from the blue-white plasma exhaust of the starship fell on the upturned faces of the people below, some of the eyes glistening with teardrops. They had said their good-byes earlier, so there was silence now as their loved ones left ...
Suddenly there was a sneeze.
"Excuse me!" said Maria. "I guess a baby isn't the only thing Win left me with. I'm afraid I've caught a cold!"
The End
About the Authors
Dr. Robert L. Forward writes science fiction novels and short stories, as well as science fact books and magazine articles. Through his scientific consulting company, Forward Unlimited, he also engages in contracted research on advanced space propulsion and exotic physical phenomena. Dr. Forward obtained his Ph.D. in Gravitational Physics from the University of Maryland. For his thesis he constructed and operated the world's first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational radiation. The antenna is now at the Smithsonian museum.
For 31 years, from 1956 until 1987, when he left in order to spend more time writing, Dr. Forward worked at the Hughes Aircraft Company Corporate Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating with the position of Senior Scientist on the staff to the Director of the Laboratories. During that time he constructed and operated the world's first laser gravitational radiation detector, invented the rotating gravitational mass sensor, published over 65 technical publications, and was awarded 18 patents.
From 1983 to the present, Dr. Forward has had a series of contracts from the U.S. Air Force and NASA to explore the forefront of physics and engineering in order to find breakthrough concepts in space power and propulsion. He has published journal papers and contract reports on antiproton annihilation propulsion, laser beam and microwave beam interstellar propulsion, negative matter propulsion, space tethers, space warps, and a method for extracting electrical energy from vacuum fluctuations, and was awarded a patent for a Statite: a sunlight-levitated direct-broadcast solar-sail spacecraft that does not orbit the earth, but '"hovers" over the North Pole.
In addition to his professional publications, Dr. Forward has written over eighty popular science articles for publications such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica Yearbook, Omni, New Scientist, Focus, Aerospace America, Science Digest, Science 80, Analog, and Galaxy. His science fact books are Future Magic, Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics (with Joel Davis) and Indistinguishable From Magic. His science fiction novels are Dragons Egg and its sequel Starquake, Martian Rainbow, Timemaster, Camelot 30K, and Rocheworld and its four sequels: Return to Rocheworld (with daughter, Julie Forward Fuller), Ocean Under the Ice, Marooned on Eden (with his wife, Martha Dodson Forward), and this final sequel, Rescued From Paradise (with Julie Forward Fuller). The novels are of the "hard" science fiction category, where the science is as accurate as possible.
Dr. Forward is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and former editor of the Interstellar Studies issues of its journal, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, National Space Society, the Science Fiction Writers of America, and the Authors Guild.
Julie Forward Fuller turned to writing in desperation after running out of things to read. This is her third novel, the first being a fantasy, Wyrmmount, presently making the rounds of the publishers, and the second being Return to Rocheworld, the first of the Rocheworld sequels, written with her father. She writes while others sleep, which lets her avoid the distractions of telephone, television, and talk, and gives her an excuse to sleep until noon.
Mrs. Fuller grew up as a happy active member of the Forward family. She now lives in Palmdale, California, with her husband of ten years, Charlie Fuller, and enjoys, most of all, the mothering of their three wonderful daughters.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the following people for their help in several technical areas: Bruno Augenstein, Patrick Carrick, Martha Forward, Charles Fuller, Gerald David Nordley, Hans P. Moravec, Charles Sheffield, Vernor Vinge, and Mark Zimmerman.
Most of the art was expertly prepared by that great group of graphic geniuses at Multi-Graphics in Marina Del Rey, California.
* * * * * *
Book information
EAT THIS,
ALIEN SLIME MONSTER!
With a quick twist, Roaring☼Hot☼Vermillion wrung the poison-loaded tentacle-head loose, tossed it away, and proceeded to digest the tail.
☼Tasty!☼
The sonar chirps from the shark now increased in intensity as they were focused on Roaring☼Hot☼Vermillion. There was still no modulation in them—no indication of any attempt at communication.
□The shark is seeing at you! It may attack!□ warned Strong□Lavender□Crackle.
☼Let it attack. It is probably tasty, too!☼
The shark opened its mouth and the five remaining gatherfish emerged. They formed a circle in front of the shark, who advanced slowly toward them, its mouth open to show its rows of sharp teeth. As the ring of gatherfish approached Roaring☼Hot☼Vermillion, he was ready for them, with multiple arrays of red pseudo-pods deployed. The five gatherfish flashed forward to meet the red pseudopods, their tentacles stretched out before them ...
☼AAAGGH!☼ screamed Roaring☼Hot☼Vermillion as high-voltage electrical currents burned their way through his flesh. The shark followed up on the attack of its gatherfish by swimming rapidly toward the now limp blob of red jelly. Clear◊White◊Whistle and Strong□Lavender□Crackle started forward to protect their injured comrade, but were driven back by warning jolts of electricity from the gatherfish. They were forced to stay back and watch as the shark took a big bite out of the large blob of flaccid red flesh that was Roaring☼Hot�
�Vermillion, and then proceeded to stuff the bite into its' gigantic maw with the help of its gatherfish.
RESCUED FROM PARADISE
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 1995 by Robert L. Forward & Julie Forward Fuller
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, N.Y. 10471
ISBN: 0-671-87655-4
Cover art by David Mattingly
First printing, April 1995
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10020
Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, N.H.
Printed in the United States of America
* * * * * *
Back cover
TERRANS GO HOME!
The first interstellar expedition successfully reached Barnard's Star and its amazing double-planet—Rocheworld—and made contact with the flouwen, intelligent aquatic beings with a talent for higher mathematics and a love of surfing. The flouwen joined with the humans to explore the rest of Barnard's planets and moons. When a landing craft carrying ten humans and three flouwen crashlanded on a habitable moon—Eden—the team was marooned on Eden with no hope of rescue until decades later when a second expedition was scheduled from Earth.
Not having another option, the marooned explorers settled down to make the moon their home, befriending the indigenous inhabitants, exploring, learning to live off the land, and, most important, raising families. They struggled to survive natural disasters and unexpected attacks from the sea. The years passed.
A new generation grows up hearing of Earth and its technology as a dim legend, and thinking of Eden as their natural home.
When the Second Expedition finally arrives, its leader announces that he has orders to rescue all the survivors. But twenty-five years have passed. Who of the original members of the expedition will survive to see Earth again, and what new sort of human now waits on Eden to be ... Rescued From Paradise?
Rescued From Paradise Page 33