The Eridani Convergence (Carson & Roberts Archeological Adventures in T-Space Book 3) Read online

  The Eridani Convergence

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017, 2019 by Alastair Mayer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed, electronic, or other form without permission. E-book editions of this book are available wherever fine e-books are sold.

  Cover © 2019 by Mabash Books

  Image credit:

  Spaceship crashed on the beach © lurii - Depositphotos.com

  Image used by permission.

  T-Space is a trademark of Alastair Mayer

  For announcements about other T-Space books and special offers, sign up for Alastair Mayer’s newsletter at

  http://www.alastairmayer.net/

  A Mabash Books original.

  Mabash Books, Centennial, Colorado

  Second edition, July 2019.

  Amazon Kindle Edition

  For Jerry E. Pournelle, 1933-2017

  Thanks for everything, Jerry.

  Acknowledgments

  NO BOOK REACHES publication without a lot of work and input from many people. My thanks to the usual suspects (you know who you are) and, especially, to the readers and fans who continue to support my work and have given me valuable feedback. You make it worthwhile.

  I also want to acknowledge the largely unsung heroes of the exoplanet community, the scientists, grad students, and even members of the public who help analyze all the data and tease out of it those weak signals showing not only that there are planets around other stars (unknown when I was growing up reading science fiction), but that they come in huge numbers and varieties. You guys make my job both harder and more fun. Harder, because I'm scrambling to keep up and incorporate your findings into my stories. More fun, because you're giving me more material to work with. The systems of Tau Ceti, Kapteyn's Star and 82 Eridani in this book are cases in point. Yes, sometimes I also make up a planet, and so, a friendly challenge: prove me wrong.

  Also, special thanks to Jessica Hastings for her help in catching and correcting many minor typos and errors in the first printing. Any remaining errors are of course my own . . . or the computer’s. A software engineer always blames the hardware. ☺

  —Alastair Mayer, Colorado, 2017, 2018

  Glossary

  Chara: G type star 27.5 light-years from Earth, also called Beta Canorum Venaticum.

  Kakuloa: Alpha Centauri B II - terraformed planet orbiting the second largest star (B) in the Alpha Centauri system.

  Kapteyn’s Star: a red dwarf star about 12 light-years from Earth. It is known to have at least two planets, each larger than Earth, and orbiting in or near the habitable zone.

  Kesh (or kesh): Aliens encountered by Carson, Roberts and Marten at Zeta Reticuli, possessing advanced technology. They neither confirmed nor denied that Zeta Reticuli was their home system, but it is currently (so far as Carson knows) uninhabited.

  omni: Short for omniphone - compares to today’s smartphones as smartphones compare to walky-talkies. (Look for “Nokia Morph” on YouTube for a nearly-there concept video.)

  omniphone: See omni.

  parsec: A distance of approximately 3.26 light-years.

  Sandquist: A class of small interstellar ship (S-class), capable of sleeping about six if they’re close friends, with a range of just over 20 light-years on full tanks.

  Sapphire: Another S-class series of small starships, of a different configuration than Sandquist.

  Sawyers World: Alpha Centauri A II - second planet orbiting the largest star (A) in the Alpha Centauri system, the first extrasolar planet settled by humans. (See the Alpha Centauri series.)

  Tanith: 82 Eridani IV - fourth (hypothetical) planet orbiting the star 82 Eridani. In real life, this star is known to have at least three planets, all larger than Earth.

  Taprobane: Epsilon Indi III - Third planet orbiting Epsilon Indi, home world of timoans.

  thruster: High-efficiency reaction drive, a kind of fusion-powered arc-jet.

  timoan: (Analogous to “human”) The sentient natives of Taprobane. Descended from the ancestral species of terrestrial mongoose and meerkats the way humans are descended from the ancestral species of monkeys or lemurs.

  T-space: Terraformed (or Terraform) space - Usual term for “known space,” a spheroid of stars centered on Earth and about 20 parsecs in diameter. So-called because many of the sun-like stars within it were found to have planets that were not merely Earth-like, but deliberately terraformed.

  Unholy War: A nuclear war which took place in the first half of the 21st century, involving primarily the smaller nuclear powers, purportedly for religious reasons.

  Union de Terre: Union of Earth, the successor to the United Nations formed after the events of and immediately after the Unholy War.

  Velkaryans: Church of Divine Stellar Providence. A core belief is that God created the terraformed planets for humans, and, not as loudly stated, specifically for them.

  Verdigris: Delta Pavonis III - third planet orbiting the star Delta Pavonis, so named for its greenish hue and the heavy jungle covering the habitable areas.

  warp bubble: The thin shell of highly-curved space surrounding a ship in FTL flight. Based on Van Den Broek’s lower-energy configuration of an Alcubierre warp metric.

  Zeta Reticuli: A pair of G type stars separated by about 0.1 light-year at a distance of 39.2 light-years from Earth. (Technically, Zeta 1 and Zeta 2 Reticuli)

  Timeline

  For an explanation, see the author’s short note to the reader, “A Few Words About Space And Time”, preceding the story.

  This lists the chapters in absolute time order, together with the approximate number of days elapsed from the Sophie and Carcharodon leaving Zeta Reticuli at the end of the previous novel. The Prolog takes place shortly before all this.

  Chapter Title Days elapsed

  2 A Rude Awakening 0.0

  5 The Carcharodon Arrives 14.0

  8 Report Received 35.0

  3 Marten’s Homecoming 38.9

  4 Findings 38.9

  6 The White Hart 39.0

  7 Cuneiform 39.0

  11 Stirring the Pot 42.0

  9 Old Records 45.0

  20 Operation Jade Ribbon 48.0

  10 Planet Skead 48.9

  12 Ducayne’s Message 48.9

  13 Sawyer 48.9

  1 Taxi! 49.0

  14 Dinner 49.0

  15 Going for a Ride 49.0

  16 Dessert 49.1

  17 Homeworld Security 49.2

  18 Departure 49.5

  19 Ducayne Has News 50.0

  22 A New Artifact 51.0

  24 Carson’s Other Ride 51.5

  21 Approaching Tanith 59.0

  23 Harp City 60.0

  25 The Whereabouts of Smith 60.3

  27 Approaching Convergence 61.0

  26 Rendezvous 61.3

  28 An Unexpected Caller 61.4

  29 Convergence 61.8

  30 Vaughan 61.8

  31 The Pickup 62.0

  32 Vaughan Recalled 62.0

  33 Catching Up 62.1

  34 Carson and Burnside 62.3

  35 Tevnar 63.0<
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  36 Divergence 63.1

  37 Packing It Up 63.2

  38 Tevnar’s Story 63.3

  39 The Artifact 63.4

  40 Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch 64.0

  41 Change of Plans 64.0

  42 Second Divergence 64.1

  43 Kapteyn’s Star 71.0

  44 Toward Delta Pavonis 71.1

  45 Kapteyn’s II 71.5

  46 Delta Pavonis 77.0

  47 Taprobane 84.0

  48 Home 91.0

  A FEW WORDS ABOUT SPACE AND TIME

  DEAR READER:

  The events here cover several months and many light years. The story follows characters separated widely within that space and time, converging on a single point in both. For best entertainment value, read it as written here, even if, from a universal, objective viewpoint (which Einstein tells us is nonsense anyway), the first few chapters may seem out of sequence.

  With one exception—Carson’s flash-forward in Chapter 1—the chapters for any given character (or their location in space) are in chronological order; it’s just the threads that are braided.

  If you insist on reading it in a non-Einsteinian, rigid space-time order, use the time-line given at the back of this book (or front, for the ebook). It lists the chapters in that order. (Although please note that, thanks to Alcubierre, the warp drive is Einsteinian.)

  But to quote Steven Moffat writing for Dr. Who: “People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint—it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . time-y wimey . . . stuff.” And who am I to disagree with a multiple Hugo Award winner?

  Enjoy!

  —Alastair Mayer

  FLIGHT PATHS, BY SHIP

  (not all are explicitly referenced in the book)

  PREVIOUSLY . . .

  Warning: Spoilers for the prior books.

  In The Chara Talisman:

  Archeologist Hannibal Carson finds the remains of a high-tech talisman in a primitive tomb on the planet Verdigris, in the Delta Pavonis system. A ruthless cult, the Velkaryans, believes it may be a clue to a lost cache of alien weapons. Homeworld Security enlists Carson, together with a starship pilot, Jacqueline “Jackie” Roberts, and Carson's timoan partner, Marten, to decipher the clue and find whatever it points to before the Velkaryans do.

  On a planet orbiting the star Chara, thirty light years on the far side of terraformed space, they find a mysterious pyramid and its high-tech contents. After several run-ins with the Velkaryans, gaining an ally named Rico, they manage to return, but some of what they found was destroyed.

  In The Reticuli Deception:

  Captain Jackie Roberts uses the star patterns inscribed on several similar talismans to discover that they were drawn from a common point-of-view, a point somewhere near the Zeta Reticuli star systems. Carson recalls a legendary UFO encounter, the Betty Hill Incident, after which Ms. Hill drew a star map she claimed to have seen while aboard the alien craft. That map showed “trade routes” from Zeta Reticuli to our sun and other nearby stars. But the records of the map are second and third hand, virtually illegible.

  Roberts, with Carson and Marten, takes her ship, Sophie, to Zeta Reticuli. Rico and another Homeworld Security man, Brown, go to Earth to try to retrieve the original UFO reports. Everyone runs into trouble. En route to Zeta Reticuli, Roberts and company are initially refused landing on Verdigris, but land anyway. They find another pyramid, this one already broken into.

  They continue on to Zeta Reticuli, where they have a close encounter of the third kind with a mysterious alien and another run-in with Velkaryans in the person of a man named Vaughan and his ship Carcharodon. The aliens temporarily isolate the Velkaryans, while our heroes return home empty-handed but for their knowledge of the encounter.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Timeline

  A Few Words About Space and Time

  Flight Paths, by Ship

  Previously . . .

  PART I: A SCATTER OF TIMELINES

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Taxi!

  Chapter 2: A Rude Awakening

  Chapter 3: Marten's Homecoming

  Chapter 4: Findings

  Chapter 5: The Carcharodon Arrives

  Chapter 6: The White Hart

  Chapter 7: Cuneiform

  Chapter 8: Report Received

  Chapter 9: Old Records

  Chapter 10: Planet Skead

  Chapter 11: Stirring the Pot

  Chapter 12: Ducayne's Message

  Chapter 13: Sawyer

  Chapter 14: Dinner

  Chapter 15: Going for a Ride

  Chapter 16: Dessert

  Chapter 17: Homeworld Security

  Chapter 18: Departure

  Chapter 19: Ducayne Has News

  Chapter 20: Operation Jade Ribbon

  Chapter 21: Approaching Tanith

  Chapter 22: A New Artifact

  Chapter 23: Harp City

  Chapter 24: Carson's Other Ride

  Chapter 25: The Whereabouts of Smith

  Chapter 26: Rendezvous

  Chapter 27: Approaching Convergence

  Chapter 28: An Unexpected Caller

  PART II: CONVERGENCE

  Chapter 29: Convergence

  Chapter 30: Vaughan

  Chapter 31: The Pickup

  Chapter 32: Vaughan Recalled

  Chapter 33: Catching Up

  Chapter 34: Carson and Burnside

  Chapter 35: Tevnar

  Chapter 36: Divergence

  Chapter 37: Packing It Up

  Chapter 38: Tevnar's Story

  Chapter 39: The Artifact

  Chapter 40: Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

  Chapter 41: Change of Plans

  Chapter 42: Second Divergence

  Chapter 43: Kapteyn's Star

  Chapter 44: Toward Delta Pavonis

  Chapter 45: Kapteyn's II

  Chapter 46: Delta Pavonis

  Chapter 47: Taprobane

  Chapter 48: Home

  Epilogue

  Next

  PART I: A SCATTER OF TIMELINES

  PROLOGUE

  Epsilon Eridani star system

  THE SMALL S-CLASS ship Razgon had just dropped off a group of geologists—two humans and three fellow timoans (the ship had been comfortably crowded)—on Spitzer in the Epsilon Eridani system. Captain Tevnar’s next planned stop was a planet orbiting Zeta Tucanae, to pick up a team who would be due back at Kangara University in about six weeks. That gave her some margin in her schedule.

  Zeta Tucanae was just beyond her single-hop range from Spitzer. The obvious place to refuel would be on Tanith in the 82 Eridani system, near the midway point. But there were other options. She checked the navigational database.

  There. Kapteyn’s Star, at eight-and-a-half light-years. A red dwarf, but this one was known to have planets. One, perhaps two, in the habitable zone. That didn’t necessarily mean they were habitable of course, just that they were in the right temperature range for liquid water to exist. She read farther. No, not habitable. The outer one was frozen, and both were what was called “super-Earths”, planets several times more massive than Earth. But the inner one was not as big; it was within her ship’s limits. Sure, why not? Tevnar began to prep the ship for warp.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Kapteyn’s Star

  A week after leaving Epsilon Eridani, Tevnar aerobraked the Razgon into a low orbit over Kapteyn’s-II. The atmosphere was thick, but her instruments were up to the task of scanning for a body of open water and a large, flat area to set down on. Her database hadn’t had many details about the planet, so she might well be the first to conduct such a scan. The data could be worth something. The scan could also take a while; there was a lot of planet to cover. She set the equipment to automatic and then headed to the galley
to rustle up some grub. She could have done without the extra time in zero-gee, especially given the high gravity she’d be experiencing on the surface, but she didn’t mind it as much as some other timoans did.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  It was a full day before the ship’s systems alerted her to the presence of a small lake in the middle of a large, open plain—itself the dried bed of an earlier, much larger lake. That would do. It would be even better if the lake were freshwater. Did the lake have an outflow? She began to review her data scans of the area in detail.

  It did have an outflow. The lake’s size was constrained by the geography, not by evaporation. Perfect! Tevnar checked her position. The Razgon was on the far side of the planet from the lake, that simplified things. She went back to the cockpit and ran a course calculation, then modified the Razgon’s orbit to bring it over the lake as it came around the planet again. She’d make a final check first.

  Two hours after that, Tevnar began her deorbit burn.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  As she brought the Razgon low over the old lake bed to a landing, she noticed something jutting out of the water near the shoreline ahead, almost on the beach. She was still too high to be sure, but it gave the impression of being artificial rather than natural, not the sort of thing you’d expect in the middle of a lake bed. Odd. She adjusted course to land near it. It was worth checking out.

  CHAPTER 1: TAXI!

  Carson

  Now: an autocab outside Sawyer City, Sawyers World