by John Jonas
CHAPTER 8
Jarvick left the station and drove to the Medical division of Space Command. It was located next door to the Transport station where the cargo pilots go through flight exams and pre-flight preparation is performed on pilots going on long distance hyperflights. Earth is roughly one trillion miles away, a fourth of a light year, and the long trek takes about a month when the ship is a hyperlight cruiser at maximum speed. The trip can be made without the need for the pilots and crew entering hypersleep, but it would require too many resources and it would tax the ships environmental systems. Jarvick was traveling alone and he wanted the option of it so he decided to get the flight suit with the life support system. Once that was done, he stopped by the library and picked up a couple of data discs, then drove to the transport yard at the police station. He checked in with the desk and walked out to the ship where he loaded his items, closed the hatch and lifted off.
When the cruiser had exited the atmosphere of Gavilon, Jarvick glanced at the two moons and wondered what he would find when he returned. Because uranium was involved in this mystery, he feared the worst. He programmed the nav computer with Earth’s coordinates but did not want to engage the hyper drive just yet; he needed to consult the discs he picked up at the library, and he wanted to think about something he hadn’t considered in quite a few years.
Jarvick retrieved the discs and inserted the first one into the onboard computer’s data slot and began reading. The ship had reached one fourth light speed and stayed that way for the next several hours. He read about Earth and its continents, how it is about 70 percent water, 25 percent larger than Gavilon in size, which means that Earth’s gravity is that much stronger. He remembered reading about one of its continents, North America, many years ago, and that there were many large cities. What most fascinated him was the large amount of open, unpopulated land that exists, unlike Gavilon where every square foot in the Western Province is occupied. He studied Earth for a few more hours and then checked the automatic navigation system before going to sleep.
The last thing about his dream he could remember before waking up was about a brother he has never met, which he had been thinking about in the back of his mind since preparing for this trip. He knew he had a twin brother, an extremely rare occurrence on Gavilon, and he had been sent away to Earth a week after they were born. He wondered if he would have a chance to find him while on this assignment as he spent a few more hours reading about the planet, then he prepared the ship for light speed. He turned on the Collision Avoidance System, checked the autopilot and descended the ladder down to the hypersleep compartment. Jarvick programmed the computer to wake him in three weeks so he could manually pilot the ship through the asteroid belt that is between Jupiter and Mars. After hooking up the life support system to his suit, he laid down on the bed and shut the transparent cover, then pushed a button located on the side and waited for the darkness.
Jarvick opened his eyes and tried to focus them, trying to remember where he was. He had a sour taste in his mouth, his tongue felt like it had a dirty sock wrapped around it; and then he saw the clear lid above him. He opened the cover and unhooked all the tubes that kept him alive during hypersleep, then went to the head to clean up and rinse out that nasty taste.
When he was finished, he climbed the ladder to the bridge and heard the CAS alarm from the console. The Navigation system was still in autopilot so if there was a possible collision ahead, it would automatically perform evasive maneuvers, and also light up the CAS alarm. Jarvick dropped it out of light speed and opened the metal front shield to allow a view of the space ahead of the cruiser. When the shield was fully opened, the left half of the screen was filled with the sight of the enormous planet of Jupiter. It was gray in color with huge brown stripes of swirling clouds that ran horizontally around the sphere. There were several large, brown and gray circles in the lower half of the atmosphere that were many times larger than any planet in this solar system. Glancing at the navigation screen, he could see the giant planet and its four moons, plus one other object that was not in any navigation chart. This unknown body, Jarvick was thinking, is probably the source of the collision alarm. Jupiter and its four moons were off to the left of the ship and not in the way, but this thing was almost directly in his path. He slowed the cruiser as he approached it to get a closer look; and record its speed and size. Jarvick touched a few controls on the panel and the computer began to record a log of the encounter. He saw that it was a large asteroid, about 60 miles in diameter, traveling close to 250,000 miles per hour. After recording a few more details, he increased the ship’s speed and prepared to navigate the asteroid field ahead, thinking that the one he just saw seemed a bit out of place. With the CAS still activated, but the ship in manual control, he guided it through the asteroid belt; which took most of the day.
After passing the path that Mars takes in its 687 day orbit, Jarvick slowed the ship and studied the navigation chart; looking for Earths only moon. He planned on placing the cruiser in a stationary orbit on the back side of this moon to avoid detection by anyone on Earth. He started a simulation on the computer to predict when the moon will be between him and Earth; so as to use the moon to shield his ship from any onlookers, and then use the Gravitite system to keep it there. The computer showed that the perfect time to make his approach would be in 2 days, so he brought the ship to a stop and let it drift in space.
He used the time to study the discs to familiarize himself with the people and customs of Earth, and also to formulate a plan. He needed to find out where the uranium came from; and how Drago or the missing man, Hemet, were connected to it. He decided that his first step should be to gather what information he could by listening for any radio frequency transmissions coming from Earth, which would require him to bring the ship out from behind the moon in short intervals. He could then instruct the computer to screen for the word “uranium” and glean what information he found with it; and from that he will decide where to start looking.
When the time came, he guided his cruiser to a spot behind the moon at an altitude of 100 miles, where he stayed for a few hours before beginning his listening procedure. Peek out from behind the moon, record an hour of intel, go back into the shadows and look for clues in the results. After doing this for 72 hours, he got several hits. The first one was a news report, in Russian, about a leak at a processing plant. The next two were in American about a new automobile engine. The last one made him jump; it was another one, in American, about the release of a woman from a jail in Phoenix, who had trespassed onto restricted property. The story went on to say that she had climbed a fence at a nuclear storage facility; had been jailed for almost a year, and was due to be released in two days. It went on to report that she was going to return to her home in San Diego; and the last part mentioned something about missing uranium at the storage facility.
Jarvick yelled “THAT’S IT!!” He smiled, knowing that he had gotten lucky this time and hoped that his luck would continue. He decided that he needed to go to the jail in Phoenix before she was released, or he would have a difficult time finding her after. He immediately switched the computer over to the transport mode to program his jump belt, then changed out of his suit into clothes more appropriate for Earth. The detective had one more thing to do before leaving the ship, he had to find the pills he picked up at the Medical division before leaving Gavilon.