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Nanda was a large, reddish beacon that was clearly visible beyond the gate. Although it is difficult for the human eye to judge things in space, the axis of the gate seemed aimed at the star. Mark wondered if that was a coincidence. Maybe a stargate had to be aimed at its target like a rifle. That was a disturbing thought. It meant that when the Broan Avenger had thrown itself and the
Hraal
into the New Eden system by firing on the stargate, that it had done so along a predictable line. If the Broa ever realized that
Hraal
and
Wanderer
were the same ship, it would give them a vector toward human space.

“How did Sar-Say take the news?” Mark asked as he listened to the captain authorizing them to make their final approach to the gate.

“Better than I expected,” Lisa replied. “He seemed stoic about it. Sometimes I wonder if I truly understand him, or he, us.”

“I thought he had a pretty good idea of what makes humans tick.”

“Perhaps,” Lisa replied. “Still, you would have thought he would have predicted our reaction to his offer that we sell ourselves and our species voluntarily into slavery.”

Mark chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Sar-Say,” he said. “He reminds me of a dog I once had. He was a big dog, a Great Dane. He used to drive my mother crazy by placing his butt on the couch and sitting like a people. My mother used to say all the time: ‘That dog thinks he is a human being!’ What she did not realize was that the dog did not think he was a human being at all. He thought we were dogs, and that was the way dogs were supposed to sit on the couch!”

Lisa laughed. It was good to hear the sound again after her depression. “What has that to do with Sar-Say?”

“Well, deep down I suspect that he feels we are just funny looking Broa. I know that we have a tendency to think of him as human. As a result, we react to one another as though we were members of the same species, never quite understanding that inside that other brain, there are some truly alien thoughts.

Perhaps the Broa have a fatalistic streak in which they give up in face of overwhelming odds. He probably finds it shocking that we react to the same stimulus by fighting harder. You will have to watch him, you know. When it sinks in, he may try to harm himself.”

She nodded. “The captain has increased the security monitoring, if that seems possible. Now they will have a pair of eyes watching him every second. They’ve even put a camera in the bathroom!”

“So, use the facilities in our cabin before you go to see Sar-Say every day, or when you get back. Look, we are nearly there …”

The stargate had grown more quickly than they had realized, until it nearly filled the screen at minimum magnification. Up close, it looked no different than it had far away. It was a featureless silver ring floating in space. Whatever power source it used or control mechanisms must be inside because nothing marred the mechanism’s skin. Mark wondered if the featureless surface was necessary to the operation of the gate, or merely conformed to the Broan idea of beauty.

“All hands, stand by! We jump in two minutes.”

As the echoes of the general announcement died away around them, Mark reached out and took Lisa’s hand. He squeezed it as they watched the key to humanity’s future grow still larger on the viewscreen. If Earth were to become a space-based Rock of Gibraltar, an unassailable fortress from which would pour forth ships and men to do battle; then they would have to master this new technology. Master it they could and master it they would. All they needed was time and knowledge.

“Hopefully, we will be able to provide humanity with both,” Mark muttered.

“What?” Lisa asked.

“Beg your pardon?”

“You just said something.”

“Did I? Sorry, I must have forgotten to disengage my mouth. It was nothing.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded as he watched one section of the gate touch the edge of the screen and disappear from view.

Now it was not a ring in space, but rather an arch. A sudden force tugged him forward in his seat, indicating that they were slowing still further. On the intercom, the voice of the chief engineer was issuing orders to bring the Broan jump generators online.

This was where it could get dangerous. No one had ever tested the jump generators, not since the battle with the Broa. By themselves, of course, they were merely inert metal. When coupled with the field the gate put out, they would force the
Ruptured Whale
somewhere else for an instant, and then back into the real universe at a point a dozen light-years distant.

The chief sensor operator’s voice announced that all instruments were at high gain and recording.

Whatever physical forces and energy patterns they encountered in the next few minutes, they would capture it in their computers.

“Well, here we go …” Lisa said.

There was a catch in her voice that told him that she, too, was frightened of the coming jump.

Intellectually, he knew it was safe, but his racing heart was not listening to his intellect. If something went wrong, there would be
Columbus
and
Magellan
to carry the news home. Still, he did not want to be the second Rykand to die in space.

He had a mental flash of Jani’s smiling face framed in wild, red hair. He wondered how much of her memory had gone into fomenting the wild-eyed scheme that he had blurted out at breakfast three days ago. Whatever else Mark knew, he knew that it would be wrong to hide from the monsters that had killed Jani. In a dangerous universe, death is inevitable; but a pointless death is a tragedy. He could not bring Jani back, but he could do his best to avenge her, and that was the course on which they were about to embark.

Mikhail Vasloff was right about one thing. His Gibraltar Earth plan did not suffer from an excess of caution. He believed that it was necessary to ensure the long-term survival of the species, but that did not make it any less dangerous in the short term. In fact, it would subject the human race to the greatest risk it had ever known.

On the other hand, when had that not been so? The first men to venture forth from the caves to confront the saber tooth tigers had risked all. So, too, had the veterans of ten thousand wars, from the charioteers of Egypt, to the legionaries of Rome, to the combatants of four world wars. In an uncaring universe, everyone's life is at risk every moment. The dinosaurs had lived for hundreds of millions of years, only to be snuffed out in less than a single year when an errant rock fell out of the sky. The sun could go nova at any second. The
Ruptured Whale
could run into a pea-size meteorite and be vaporized faster than thought. Or, his heart could give up its pounding inside his chest.

No, to be alive was to be at risk. Mark’s ancestors had never shrunk from the challenge; nor, he was sure, would the current generation. It was not in the nature of human beings to cower in a hole to await inevitable discovery. Human beings do not cower, even when it would be smart to do so!

The Broa did not know it yet, but they had just acquired a competitor. Human beings from Gibraltar Earth would someday sweep outward to free the galaxy.

God help the overlords when they did!

#

The End

AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHY

Michael McCollum was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1946, and is a graduate of Arizona State University, where he majored in aerospace propulsion and minored in nuclear engineering. He is currently employed at AlliedSignal Aerospace Company, Tempe, Arizona, where he is a senior engineering manager in the Pneumatic Controls Product Line. In his career, Mr. McCollum has worked on the precursor to the Space Shuttle Main Engine, a nuclear valve to replace the one that failed at Three Mile Island, several guided missiles, Space Station Freedom, and virtually every aircraft in production today. He is currently involved in an effort to create a joint venture company with a major Russian aerospace engine manufacturer and has traveled extensively to Russia in the last several years.

In addition to his engineering, Mr. McCollum is a successful professional writer in the field of science fiction. He is the author of a dozen pieces of short fiction and has appeared in magazines such as Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, Amazing, and Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. His novels (all originally published by Ballantine-Del Rey) include
A Greater Infinity
, ,
Procyon's Promise
,
Antares
Dawn
,
Antares Passage
,
The Clouds of Saturn, and The Sails of Tau Ceti,
His novel,
Thunderstrike!

, was optioned by a Hollywood production company for a possible movie.Several of these books have subsequently been translated into Japanese and German.

Mr. McCollum is the proprietor of Sci Fi - Arizona, one of the first author-owned-and-operated virtual bookstores on the INTERNET. He has completed the first book in a series titled
The Gibraltar Stars
Trilogy
.
Gibraltar Earth
was the first original novel published on Sci Fi -Arizona. Mr. McCollum is now working on
Antares Victory
.

Mr. McCollum is married to a lovely lady named Catherine, and has three children: Robert, Michael, and Elizabeth. Robert is a newly minted engineer, and Michael is studying to be a police officer. Elizabeth is a student at Northern Arizona University, where she is majoring in communications.

A Virtual Science Fiction Bookstore and Writer’s Workshop

Michael McCollum, Proprietor

WWW.SCIFI-AZ.COM

If you enjoy technologically sophisticated science fiction or have an interest in writing, you will probably find something to interest you at Sci Fi - Arizona. We have short stories and articles on writing- all for free! If you like what you find, we have full length, professionally written science fiction novels in both electronic form and as hard copy books, and at prices lower than you will find in your local bookstore.

Moreover, if you like space art, you can visit our Art Gallery, where we feature the works of Don Dixon, one of the best astronomical and science fiction artists at work today. Don is the Art Director of the Griffith Observatory. Pick up one or more of his spacescapes for computer wallpaper, or order a high quality print direct from the artist.

We have book length versions of both Writers’ Workshop series, “The Art of Writing, Volumes I and II”

and “The Art of Science Fiction, Volumes I and II” in both electronic and hard copy formats.

So if you are looking for a fondly remembered novel, or facing six hours strapped into an airplane seat with nothing to read, check out our offerings. We think you will like what you find.

NOVELS

1. Life Probe -US $4.50

The Makers searched for the secret to faster-than-light travel for 100,000 years. Their chosen instruments were the Life Probes, which they launched in every direction to seek out advanced civilizations among the stars. One such machine searching for intelligent life encounters 21st century Earth.

It is not sure that it has found any...

2. Procyon’s Promise -US $4.50

Three hundred years after humanity made its deal with the Life Probe to search out the secret of faster-than-light travel, the descendants of the original expedition return to Earth in a starship. They find a world that has forgotten the ancient contract. No matter. The colonists have overcome far greater obstacles in their single-minded drive to redeem a promise made before any of them were born...

3. Antares Dawn - US$4.50

When the supergiant star Antares exploded in 2512, the human colony on Alta found their pathway to the stars gone, isolating them from the rest of human space for more than a century. Then one day, a powerful warship materialized in the system without warning. Alarmed by the sudden appearance of such a behemoth, the commanders of the Altan Space Navy dispatched one of their most powerful ships to investigate. What ASNS Discovery finds when they finally catch the intruder is a battered hulk manned by a dead crew.

That is disturbing news for the Altans. For the dead battleship could easily have defeated the whole of the Altan navy. If it could find Alta, then so could whomever it was that beat it. Something must be done…

4. Antares Passage - US$4.50

After more than a century of isolation, the paths between stars are again open and the people of Alta in contact with their sister colony on Sandar. The opening of the foldlines has not been the unmixed blessing the Altans had supposed, however.

For the reestablishment of interstellar travel has brought with it news of the Ryall, an alien race whose goal is the extermination of humanity. If they are to avoid defeat at the hands of the aliens, Alta must seek out the military might of Earth. However, to reach Earth requires them to dive into the heart of a supernova.

5. Antares Victory - Coming, 2000

The long-awaited conclusion of the Antares Series will be available on Sci Fi-Arizona in the summer of 2000. Watch for it!

6. Thunderstrike! - US$6.00

The new comet found near Jupiter was an incredible treasure trove of water ice and rock. Immediately, the water-starved Luna Republic and the Sierra Corporation, a leader in asteroid mining, were squabbling over rights to the new resource. However, all thoughts of profit and fame were abandoned when a scientific expedition discovered that the comet’s trajectory placed it on a collision course with Earth!

As scientists struggled to find a way to alter the comet’s course, world leaders tried desperately to restrain mass panic, and two lovers quarreled over the direction the comet was to take, all Earth waited to see if humanity had any future at all…

7. The Clouds of Saturn - US$4.50

When the sun flared out of control and boiled Earth's oceans, humanity took refuge in a place that few would have predicted. In the greatest migration in history, the entire human race took up residence among the towering clouds and deep clear-air canyons of Saturn's upper atmosphere. Having survived the traitor star, they returned to the all-too-human tradition of internecine strife. The new city-states of Saturn began to resemble those of ancient Greece, with one group of cities taking on the role of militaristic Sparta ... \