Separate Yet Equal

By Terence Mills

Earth demonstrates a matter-anti-matter bomb in the Artson solar system at 10 light-years away. In desperation the leader of the colony world enlists the help of the newest Circuit Ship relativistic starship, the Hibiscus 2, to plead for peace before Earth strikes again. Her captain is Tioshi Yamaguchi. He is requested to transport 4 people to Earth to head off any possible warfare with the mother world. Those folks are Richard Ross, a diplomat from Earth but trained as a Circuit Ship astronaut, His wife Lida Rikova, a former Circuit Ship astronaut, Marshal Randell, a former Circuit Ship astronaut accused and convicted of destroying the first Hibiscus Circuit Ship. Dr. Dask Conta, PhD, a physicist that will argue that the Artson colony has no intent or technology to harm Earth in any way.

 

After 4 years ship-time and 16 years Earth time, they reach the Earth solar system and are intercepted by 6 spacecraft of Earth's interplanetary Space Force commanded by Colonel Jackson Toneman and Major Alexander Barry. The spacecraft escort them to their ultimate destination, the Earth World Delegation Capitol Dome in Greenland, where they commence reasoning with the planet Earth government on their non-aggression plans. But mysterious matter-anti-matter explosions near Earth and the Moon find our Circuit Ship astronauts on the run to Earth Geosynchronous orbit and to the Moon to escape blame. Col. Toneman and Maj. Barry are tasked to bring them back to Greenland but the confrontation at the Moon's L5 Lagrange point brings a stupendous result with momentous and far reaching implications for humanity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Terence Mills
• Release date: Apr 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201655938

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Barren, bleak, inert , silent, wretched, forlorn, and desolate all perfectly described Asteroid 12904; but neither they nor any human word in any human language was enough to impart the complete and final isolation this place represented. An irregular fifteen kilometer long piece of carbonaceous chondrite that completely tumbled over every 134 standard minutes in an orbit with an approximate radius of 1,590,000,000 kilometers. It would take over thirty years to completely encircle its host star. There were only two remarkable facts recorded by the colonial survey ships that had mapped its asteroid belt. The first was that it was the 12,904th bona fide asteroid they had mapped. The other was that it had swept its orbit clean of stray particles. As far as could be determined, nothing would hit 12904 for at least the next five centuries. Now, almost one century after it was first mapped, it became the perfect answer in a serious and furious search for an asteroid that could hold a dangerous object.

On its smoothened, pockmarked and cratered surface was nothing but the carbon-based rock that spawned from the anvil of creation—the same all over the Milky Way galaxy. The only thing that differentiated it was the package attached to its pitted surface and the sentry satellite that kept constant electronic vigil over it, never straying more than 250 kilometers away.

The box on the surface was constructed entirely of elements that came from Asteroid 12904. The only appreciable light that shone on its surface came from stars. Inside the box was a cache of brown hair clippings from a human male. The people that placed it here had their reasons for using these specifications. The weight of their fear of what the hair represented made it all together fitting that it be placed so.

They knew what their unseen enemy knew; that time and distance (those two definitions of human mortality), meant nothing in a quantum universe. So the hair had been sitting there in the eternal vacuum and blackness of space for six inert years. The quantum particles that made up its matter didn’t know that or even care. At some unmeasured time, in an immeasurable instant, all of those quantum particles changed states, spin and energy levels. It was at once linked up with a like amount of hair ten lightyears away. The hair on Asteroid 12904 immediately assumed the like state of its twin hair (taken from its donor without his knowledge) in a laboratory orbiting Sol, the home system of human beings. The result was utterly cataclysmic for Asteroid 12904, because the hair orbiting Sol was made of pure antimatter—specially altered for this purpose.

The violent bright white explosion was great and complete—completely decimating 12904. The small high velocity stones that remained were not worth mapping and 12904’s service was finished.

Even in the mere seconds it took for the effect of the blast to reach the sentry satellite, the dreaded news was heading down the system to the second planet. Like an obedient dog, it was loudly barking its electronic warning to its fearful masters. There was just enough time to transmit the video and the final three seconds of telemetry before it fell silent as a victim of the electromagnetic shock wave and pelting of high speed rocky fragments exploding outward.

ONE BILLION FOUR HUNDRED thousand kilometers in towards the star Asteroid 12904 used to orbit an astronaut was stretching and yawning. It felt good to lean back and crack his back and neck after hunching over his panel for so long. His name was Michael White Cloud, a twenty-year-old observer-caretaker-astronaut trainee. At twenty years he was considered seasoned by his comrades. The eldest were in their late twenties and the youngest were barely eighteen. But, then all the colony worlds belonged to the children. The priority for the young worlds was to procreate, procreate and procreate to bring their populations up to a point where they were full-fledged societies.

So, White Cloud was one of a pair assigned to a lonely job—observers on the highest manned platform circling Artson 2, the second planet in the system. Normally this small station would be a docking point for visiting Circuit Ships that traveled from star to star. The Iris departed thirty days ago, continuing its circuit to the star Epsilon Eridani and beyond. Now, there was nothing to do except serve out their assignment and return to Artson 2 for more training, until they got to leave on one of those Circuit Ships. His partner, Cha Nguyen, was sleeping as he sat there and thought about leaving on the next one, the Hibiscus, which was currently under construction.

He had plenty of free time—enough to ingrain every feature of his home planet in his long-term memory. He marveled at the puffy clouds floating far below. He could make out the shadows they created on the land. Like his name, they were bright white under the sunlight. Not as much as in the videos he had seen of Earth. According to the books, Artson 2 was more arid than Earth because its water areas were smaller. Their clouds tended to congregate more. Their weather occurrences were more provocative and passed through quicker than on Earth.

Artson 2, also, had more geologic activity. They had roving faults where the ground opened up and closed on a specific course and speed. That point threw the pioneers until they learned to mark and track the faults.

In a biological sense, Artson 2 was far behind the Earth in complexity and number of species. It was a colonizer’s dream—no higher order life except humans and the imports from Earth. But Michael White Cloud dreamed of the day when he would ride a Circuit Ship himself and even visit the birthplace of humanity, Earth, to see all these things for himself.

Until then he would just have to wait. To pass the time, he trained a vid camera on the surface of Artson 2 and tried to pick out the combination airfield and space launch facility on the outskirts of Central City. The terminus had passed over it an hour earlier but the spacecraft assembly building and airfield should be lit up enough for the camera’s optics to pick them out. As he moved the crosshairs he thought, They’re almost finished with her down there. They’ll need new crew members. This is the chance of a lifetime—I’m lucky to have been born in the 24th Century with starships traveling between the colonies...

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

He stopped daydreaming and looked to the source of the alarm. The flashing readout was...

CLASSIFIED ALARM

Classified alarm? he frowned.

With the BEEPING sound filling his ears, he typed in commands to bring the communications areas to the forefront. Sure enough, some type of communications reception was going on. He couldn’t get into the preset parameters—the frequency was classified. He tried to extrapolate a source of transmission—locked out.

Computer, what’s going on with this alarm?

A male voice answered him, Specified parameters for program are classified. The preset event to trigger this alarm has occurred. Reception and relay of incoming message has commenced.

Where is it from and where’s its destination?

Answers to both questions are classified.

On whose orders?

That is classified.

What action should we take?

Michael White Cloud is not authorized to take any action on this alarm. Contact with destination has been accomplished. Message ends and alarms will cease. The whole station snapped deathly silent. He sat there and listened to see if Cha had awaken. After about five minutes he still had not heard from her so he assumed she hadn’t heard the alarm.

Perhaps any other trainee would have been at the end of their rope and would have gone back to their first task. Luckily, communications was White Cloud’s specialty in Circuit Ship training. So, the computer’s reticence to explain this aberration did nothing except heighten his curiosity and provide a test for his specialized training. He set his panel up for tracing.

Computer, access communication tracers.

The panel flashed on the tracing program. Give me signal strength. It was low powered yet clean waveformed. Is the source a spacecraft?

That information is protected.

Overlay the azimuth and declination with a crosshair.

No crosshair appeared.

Why no crosshair?

That information is protected.

Show the quadrant of the sky containing the signal.

The view showed the Milky Way amongst many stars. White Cloud leaned back and thought.

What is interesting is that this is the ecliptic. But there are no planets in this view. The one gas giant was about 90 degrees forward of this shot. As far as White Cloud knew there was nothing but deep space and stars in this perspective. But the signal strength was low enough and at the same time not degraded enough for an interstellar signal. It had to be intra-system. But the only other things out there intra-system were asteroid mining ships.

Computer, could this signal have come from an asteroid mining ship?

No.

So that was not protected, um. Show me the communication logs for the prior month, limiting to asteroid mining vessels.

The log showed normal traffic and none of the vessels should be in that quadrant. What about the asteroid itself—could an asteroid transmit a signal?

Computer, are there any transmitters attached to asteroids in this system?

That information is protected.

White Cloud smiled and said, Reset panel to communications observations.

So, they have a secret transmitter on an asteroid. I wonder if it’s Circuit Ship or Artson? He didn’t know the answer and he was again alone with his thoughts and a lovely view of his home world in his lofty perch.

DOCTOR DASK CONTA WAS amongst the first group of people notified of Asteroid 12904’s demise. As a matter of fact, it was appropriate since he was the first person to suggest that the hair be placed there and he intimately knew everything about the project. As one of the highest people in the chain of authority, the sixty-year old, medium build, dark-haired physicist was charged with verifying the telemetry from the satellite. They didn’t need a worldwide panic so this secret project’s information stopped with him for a check on its veracity. In his laboratory on the outskirts of Central City, he and a group of eight physicists scoured over the last telemetry from the sentry satellite. They started at approximately 10:00 p.m. sitting around a large rectangular table. Piles of smartpages full of pionic particle and gamma ray detector results crowded the table. They also held spectragraphical measurements of the light from the explosion. Video records were watched over and over. They applied the current data to past records and experiments like the good scientists that they were. Through it all they made their own conjectures of what the data meant and what the future might hold. An antimatter explosion in their solar system caused by people ten lightyears away—how precarious their very existence seemed.

By 2:00 a.m. Conta was convinced that the thing they had feared had indeed happened. One of the physicists, Herm Adaqua, put it best. Ladies and gentlemen, he unwaveringly stated, we have a 1-A event and there’s not much doubt. Earth has definitely broken the quantum entaglement connection.

Herm, another colleague responded in a deadpan voice, you have a magnificent talent for understatement.

Well, boss, Herm turned to Conta, what’s next on the agenda?

Conta acted as if he hadn’t heard. His arms crossed tightly over his chest and his head bowed in deep thought as he leaned on the table. Behind him were the piles of smartpaper holding the data and extrapolations. They represented proof of a lifetime of work and held the potential to kill everyone in all the depression wrenching reality of an exploding supernova—no where to run or hide. Where could they go to get out of the way?

They all stayed in their places for at least five minutes, everyone respectful of the disconsolate mood around them. Finally, Conta eased their suffering, You all can go home and get some sleep. I’ve calls to make.

As they all started for the door, he added, Everyone, this is a secret.

They quietly acknowledged and left him alone.

At 2:30 a.m. all the weight of the quantum event had taken its toll on Dr. Conta. Now was the time to notify the real heads of Artson 2 about their fate. His first contact was one of his oldest supporters on the planetary council and son of the founder, Member Emeritus, Daniel Artson. Dial, Daniel Artson, he ordered—the holo-phone responded to voice commands.

One moment, please, it replied while checking its list of names.

The computer projected a 3-D bust of a sleepy Daniel Artson with disheveled dark hair and in night clothes. Conta wondered how many people got to see Daniel Artson so informally? I’m a special person, he thought.

Dask? Artson squinted.

Yes, Daniel. Are you fully awake?

The floating 3-D image fluttered as the camera tried to stay focused on Artson, as he moved to a sitting position. What are you doing up so early, anyway?

I’ve got some bad news.

Artson sharpened up.

The asteroid exploded.

What?

Within the past twenty-four hours. It was there, now it’s gone.

Could it have moved?

Unlikely, but we’re getting a high speed probe ready. It’ll take two months, though.

Hmmm. So you were right.

Daniel, Conta blunted off the praise, we need to go to Earth, now. That’s where the answers are.

You know this is opening a big can of worms?

I opened that can myself thirty-two years ago when I predicted we would have a Superlight Drive. Now, look at what I’ve done. His voice cracked with pent-up emotion, Earth wanting war—Ross sent here—the Circuit Ship blown up—we’re living in fear of annihilation... I am so sorry, Daniel. I wish I could take it all back, I really do.

Artson was ever willing to stand up for his friend, Dask, you’re a good scientist, not some lying politician. You told the truth as you saw it and that’s good enough for me.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Conta sighed, but I can’t help feeling that I’m the cause.

I don’t. Now, we have to try and head-off any more of these aggressions. We all owe you one for putting that hair out there six years ago. And you’re right, we need a face-to-face meeting with our mother worlders.

Daniel?

Yes?

I want to go to Earth with any expedition you send...

Absolutely not!

Listen to me! The Earth people will know me. I alone can best retract my statement.

As I said, Dask, you’re no politician...

So much the better! I’ll have better credibility than anyone else.

Better than Ross? The man they sent here to find a Superlight Drive. The man who had to send back the news that there is no Superlight Drive?

"We could work as a team. I don’t dispute your choice of Ross, but I know, and you know that I am a perfect choice to prevent Earth’s aggressions. They’re reacting this way because of what I said. I should be the one to retract it."

Artson sat there and tried to come up with another argument against this but he couldn’t. As usual, his old friend, Dask Conta was as logical as the field he studied, quantum physics.

"I hope I don't regret this, but I think you are right. You are a good choice... After a sigh, Artson’s voice sank into a depth of despair, I just have the feeling we are about to throw several people’s lives upside-down starting with you and me."

I just hope we can save them, Conta lugubriously added.

CHAPTER 2

Six years ago fear was what he had felt most of all. Admittedly mixed with a bit of shame. Nonetheless, he had followed tradition and completely carried out his duties as Captain. He expeditiously fulfilled his responsibility by boarding last on the last lander to leave. And those responsive lander controls were the first reassuring sign he had felt since they abandoned ship about ten minutes earlier. He sat and waited in the pilot’s seat, monitoring their escape while part of his mind ran through questions with no answers and another part formulated contingency plans he couldn’t carry out just yet.

Why had his ship given him conflicting information? His propulsion and computer engineers were in the back working from their smartpage notebooks on the link to the ship, monitoring the ship’s systems. This situation completely demoralized them because they didn’t believe they had complete control over the ship’s computers. And they didn’t know what that hair was doing in the fusion reactor room, but it seemed to be the root of all their problems. There was no time to analyze it. What the hell was it and what kind of program was it running? he wondered.

Uplink shows a perfect engine start, Captain, Wilson reported. They had set the automatic helm to fire the engines to push Hibiscus into an elliptical orbit as an unmanned test.

Right then he had opened the channel to the other lander out ahead of them, holding the other half of the crew, Haji, what’s your status?

His first officer had answered with a somewhat strained and clipped voice considering the quick evacuation they had just completed, CAPTAIN, WE’RE OKAY. SEPARATION—OVER 100 KILOMETERS AND GROWING.

In back, Wilson uttered, Oh, Oh!! Plasma spike!!

Estava, the computer engineer, sounded highly portentous, This is not good...

Okay... he remembered replying to Haji, while half listening to his engineers behind him, ... let's put down at... He couldn’t utter their landing plans.

Doria Koltz, Wilson’s co-engineer cried the final warning, "Hi... bisss... cusss...!!" she wailed, as if the ship could hear her and avoid the approaching cataclysm.

The blinding flash had stopped him in mid-speech and thought. He knew what it was and it woefully validated all his actions and fears. The camera shot centered on the ship had blacked out from the flash. Incredibly... he had seen the nighttime clouds and surface of Artson 2 light up; so bright was the Hibiscus death blow. The windows tried to darken but weren’t able to stop it all. A new sun had popped into existence where their ship had been—then it left them in dark mournful silence. The final insult was the electro-magnetic shockwave that knocked out all communications and made them the spaceship version of a deaf-mute.

As a survivor he had felt relief that he was right about abandoning ship—that had kept them alive. He had also felt shame at having giving up on his ship—his home. Regret at not figuring out how to save Hibiscus. And frustrated bitter anger he wanted to direct at whoever had caused this uncalled for calamity. Oh... if only he could have gotten his hands anywhere close to the body parts of that person—but that feeling passed during the time it took to land. He was a professional with a job to do. Although the mission was over and Hibiscus was gone he still had a crew to save. And he had felt something else, another rancid raw emotion, but he hadn’t been able to place it back then...

TIOSHI YAMAGUCHI, ERSTWHILE Captain of the once Circuit Ship Hibiscus, shook off his reverie as he felt the lander slow and descend. This lander and its twin were part of the few items left from the first Hibiscus, hull number CS 53-Rigil. There wasn’t scarcely a day that went by where, involuntarily, he didn’t relive barely escaping on this very lander, looking back at his Hibiscus, and seeing her extinguished in a blinding flash of incandescence. To take her across fifty lightyears of interstellar space to six star systems, through more than eight decades of time dilated space travel and then... lose her like that. It had taken months before he admitted to himself that the other emotion he felt after his ship had been killed was... humiliation. In fact, it was so degrading he hardly ever really wanted to remember it—in those weak moments he would concentrate on something else.

Landing check, he commanded himself. Back then, as now, those memories led to the pre-landing instruments scan. Airspeed indicated that the 500 kilometers per hour relative wind roaring against the fuselage that surrounded him was slowly dropping. There was no wind so groundspeed was nearly equal to airspeed, albeit using very little of the power from the two fusion engines whining in the back—engines that could overcome headwinds in excess of 2500 clicks. He admired them because they were perfect for their purpose of landing and shuttling supplies and crews to the surface of a planet. Inside an atmosphere they had an unlimited range by utilizing specific nuclear reactions to breakdown heavier gases into hydrogen for fusion power.

The lander possessed other marvelous components like nearly infinitely variable wings and airfoils created from Gas-fields, impervious to any gaseous substance. The AI computer could form any shape and wingspan needed, from long gliding shapes to delta shaped high-Mach velocity ones. He had heard rumors about Circuit Ship crews removing the airfoil generators to add more hydrogen for longer ranges in space where no wings were needed. He had never mutilated this fine machine like that. Now he was using it to put an end to this forced six-year hiatus on Artson 2—at least he hoped it would end.

He felt some uncertainty as he looked out through the glorified clear morning air down at the deep valley he was flying over. The lack of wind allowed low clouds and ground fog to stick around in the lower regions of these mountains. It covered the valley floor, but not his target in the highlands on the opposite side. The moving-map-display on his center panel showed his destination even though he had never been there.

Underneath the flashing point was the notation:

RYAN’S LOG CABIN

Yamaguchi smiled one last time before looking up. Ryan sure knew how to go off the deep end. He was the most deft of individuals when it came to maneuvering a thousand ton starship around inside a space station or holding a rock-steady course between the stars. He could hold technology in his hands better than maybe even he, but this log cabin idea made Yamaguchi question his helm officer’s sanity. He needed the old Ryan back. This log cabin jaunt had to go.

In the distance ahead, in a clearing amongst pine trees was a quaint little home of horizontal tree trunks and a barebacked man. It had to be Kevin Ryan, who else would be out here all alone in some self-imposed exile? Yamaguchi had heard other members of the crew relate how after the Hibiscus incident Ryan only came into Central City in search of womanly companionship. Otherwise, he kept to himself in the wilderness. Yamaguchi hadn’t spoken to his helm officer for weeks and maybe it wasn’t right to ask him to do this task out of the blue, as it were. But he had to admit he was the best man for the job and now he was down there, chopping wood, seemingly oblivious to this approaching landing craft.

KEVIN RYAN WASN’T COMPLETELY oblivious to the model LC-25’s approach. He heard it, took a sideways glance at it and hoped like hell it would go away. Even though he thought it had a beautiful ovoid shape and fabulous translucent, power generated G-field airfoils and was a joy to fly—only to visit the surface of planets, he couldn’t stand to see anything that represented technology. Ever since he knew that the Hibiscus died, he couldn’t stand to see, hear or feel any technology. The only thing in the universe that made him feel alive was dead—blown apart into a million pieces in a blinding flash.

I should have been inside her when she blew! he fumed. If he couldn’t be aboard the Hibiscus he wanted to be far apart from any technology. It just reminded him of his situation—not at the helm of a starship on some God forsaken ball of granite. Only seeing the stars at night—and this damned one g with no zero g! God dammit I belong in space!!

During his emotion laced preoccupation he kept chopping; each one harder