Read Online Visions of the Future by Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Greg Bear, Kevin J. Anderson, Ben Bova, Hugh Howey, Robert Sawyer, Ray Kurzweil, Martin Rees - Free Book Online Page A

three minutes into the future. When he went this fast, Control recorded his clock as running slow. However, he recorded the clocks on Diesha as running slow. It was like when he sat in a magtrain and it looked like the train next to him was going backward when in fact his train was the one that had started to move forward. Relative to him, the other train was going backward. Similarly, relative to this plane, Diesha was shooting off in the other direction. Only when he turned the Glint around did it break the symmetry of their relative motion. What it meant was that when he returned home, he would be several minutes younger than everyone at the base.
    Captain. The Glint’s urgency cut through his mind. The strain on this craft exceeds advised safety limits.
    No one ever claimed this job was safe, Kelric thought. How fast can you go, sweet Glint? Fast enough to the blow the grief out of his heart? Could anything take him that fast, that high, that far?
    I also register a strain in your mind greater than advisable safety limits, the Glint said.
    Who programmed you to tell me that? Jessa Zaubern?
    Captain, I advise that we return to base.
    Kelric watched his visored reflection in the console. Can we invert?
    You mean go faster than the speed of light?
    That’s right.
    Captain, this flight wasn’t set up for such a maneuver.
    Just answer the question.
    I don’t know if we can invert, the Glint thought. But if we do, we won’t have enough fuel to get home.
    Raise the beambox threshold. By scooping up only higher energy electrons, he could get more bang out of each annihilation and extend the range of his positron fuel.
    If I raise it, the Glint answered, you will run out of air before we find enough electrons with an energy that high. You will die.
    So invert the fuel first.
    I see no reason to—
    The cosmic ray flux is higher in supraluminal space, Kelric thought. We’ll find electrons a lot faster there.
    They will be there and we will be here, the Glint said. Photons produced by annihilations in imaginary space do us no good in real space.
    Sure they will, Kelric thought. If I release a flock of birds by an open window, some are bound to fly through it. As long as the engine operates here, some photons will invert back here.
    That violates energy conservation.
    For flaming sake. His computer was arguing with him. No, it doesn’t. What we gain, imaginary space loses.
    Photons are not birds. Now the Glint sounded like Jessa. Inversion engines are not windows.
    Just do it, Kelric thought.
    Captain, you may not survive this procedure.
    Are you refusing to accept my commands?
    Yes.
    Kelric frowned. You can’t do that.
    What you suggest could be fatal. It amounts to throwing away your fuel.
    The hell it does.
    The only way for imaginary photons to become real, the Glint thought, is for their existence quantum number to change from zero to one. That doesn’t happen spontaneously.
    So what? Kelric answered. Nothing spontaneously inverts. If starship engines can force starships to do it, they ought to work on photons, too.
    There was a long pause. Then the Glint said, A finite probability exists that you are correct and that this either brilliant or insane idea of yours may actually work. If it works, it will revolutionize star travel.
    I’m a test pilot, Kelric thought. I’m supposed to test things.
    You are putting yourself in too much danger.
    Yes, I have a dangerous job. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.
    I still advise against the procedure. The Glint’s thought came with what felt like genuine reluctance. However, it appears I am unable to refuse your command.
    Good. Kelric glanced over his displays. Reset the engine to invert its fuel in increments of point one percent.
    Engine reset.
    Kelric fired the photon thrusters—and his speed jumped to 98 percent of light. The stars leapt on his holomap, converging towards a point in front of the plane. Data flashed on his displays: if Control could still track him,