Omega Point Trilogy by George Zebrowski Read Free Book Online Page B

half a dozen times,” his son said, “but the ship fixes on another sphere and runs toward it.”
    “We’re not in the usual otherspace, but in a nearby parallel space. A quantum uncertainty within the ship’s vibrancy matrix generator causes this sort of thing. I was warned against it. It doesn’t happen very often, but it can’t be helped. The old builders didn’t have time to iron out the problem, and they were not sure it could even be solved without altering the fundamental laws of nature.”
    “But you know how to get us out?”
    “I’ll try.”
    The object ahead was now twice as large. In a few moments it covered the viewscreen. A reflection of the ship appeared in the black surface, a silver image rushing up to meet them head-on. Frozen energy, the old Herculean thought, everything that a living sun is not. The continuum flickered again, leaving a slow fading flash in the black below. Suddenly the ship’s image seemed to pass into them and the vessel was flitting across a Stygian plain. A mock sunrise flashed on the horizon as the continuum flickered again. Maybe we’ll die , the older Gorgias thought. He would not have to face his son, or watch him carry out his plans.
    The ghastly flickering became more frequent. The Herculean passed his hand over the glowing program plate.
    The ship switched. For a moment it seemed that a more familiar jumpspace was coming into view on the screen; then the alien space flickered again and he knew that the ship had only changed position within it.
    “Tell me the truth — we may never come out.”
    “You may be right.”
    “Try again.”
    “Here we go.”
    The ship switched, straining to surface into the known universe, again without success. The ship was running at another black sphere.
    “What now?” his son asked. There was a trace of anger in his tone.
    “Wait — try again, as often as it takes to bring us out. The uncertainty in the generator fields can’t last forever by their very nature.”
    “Regular watches?”
    “Try three times during each watch.”
    “I’ll wait until you try once more,” his son said. “Then I’ll get some rest and leave you to it.”
    “Here we go.”
    The ship switched for the third time.
    The screen went black.
    “Now what?” his son asked.
    “I don’t know.…”
    The ship’s lights flickered.
    “It’s as if we’re not getting enough power,” his son said. “Can we check anything in here?”
    “No, the receiving accumulators are a sealed mechanism.”
    “You mean we get power from somewhere else?” his son asked.
    “We’ve never taken on fuel, if you’ve noticed. For what this ship can do, it could never carry enough power or generate its own. I think we get it from the Cluster, but I don’t know how. Engineering and armoring was not my strong suit. I was just an attack-force captain.”
    “But if the ship works, then the power source was never destroyed!” his son said.
    “We’re far out of our spaces — that’s probably interfering with power reception.”
    All signs of movement were absent from the black screen; reality had solidified, freezing all motion.
    The screen lightened, growing brighter, as if some titanic explosion were taking place outside. The ship was suddenly in a white space, and the stars, if they were stars, appeared as small black points.
    The Herculean passed his hand over the panel for the fourth time.
    The known universe recreated itself on the screen.
    “We don’t seem to be far from where we started,” his son said, “maybe a dozen light-years from Precept.”
    Where hundreds lay dead in the dust. What had they known of the war? What had they ever done to my son? I should have tried to stop it.
    But his doubts and tender feelings of mercy would not restore the Empire’s power. His son would never accept the Empire’s demise; restoration was for him the one supremely valued end, overriding all others; the effort to revive Hercules was the only way of life for him,