"Lee Edgar - Return to Andromeda" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edgar Lee)

There was silence for a moment before the First Officer spoke up. ‘We’ve got to go on.’
‘Mike’s-a right,’ agreed Juanita. ‘We are the only chance those poor people have got.’
‘Are we sure we will make it in time?’ asked Bob Walker. ‘It will be a shame to go through all this for no
good reason. Added to that, if all that is left of the Andromeda Spiral is a black hole, what will happen to us?’
Steve looked straight at him. ‘I won’t beat about the bush, Bob. Wayfarer One will be drawn in to the vortex.
Even with the Proton Drive, there will be no chance of escaping the kind of gravity which can bend light itself.’
‘Then we don’t have long to decide.’
‘We have-a already decided,’ said Juanita. ‘We must-a go on, whatever the risks. That’s why we are here.’
Steve looked around the faces. ‘Are we all agreed?’
‘Shall we vote?’ suggested Mike.
Steve smiled at his colleague. ‘Why not? All in favour of pressing on, raise your right hand.’
Juanita raised her arm immediately and Mike’s followed. The engineer hesitated but, upon receiving a stare
from Juanita, raised his also. Steve raised his and then turned to look at Cassi and Lyn.
Cassi shrugged. ‘We’re biased.’
He smiled and then looked towards an ten-year-old girl in denim shorts and tee-shirt who sat beside her.
‘Maggie?’
‘Me?’
She looked up at her father who nodded. ‘Go ahead. You are one of the team.’
Margaret Hardy beamed broadly at the privilege of being able to vote like a grown-up. The child nodded
furiously. ‘I want to go and see Cassi’s home.’
 ‘Then it’s unanimous,’ said Steve. ‘We go on.’
‘I’m in, but how do we know we will be in time to do any good?’ asked the engineer.
‘Good question, Bob. I think I’ll let Cassi answer that one in a few minutes as she seems to be the only one
who is really certain. In the meantime, I will set the scene. Tell me, how much do you all know of the original
Wayfarer mission?’
‘One or two?’ asked Mike Hardy.
‘Let’s start with Wayfarer One, Commander Markham’s venture.’
‘He went missing in the summer of 2020.’
‘Yes. Do you know why?’
‘I only know what Cassi has told me. I believe her, of course.’
Steve Carter looked at his sister-in-law. ‘So do I, as it happens.’
Cassi smiled proudly in response. How different this was from when she first came to Terra and no-one
believed the story her father had told.
‘Something to do with breaking light speed, wasn’t it?’ said the engineer.
‘Exactly. Wayfarer One launched as planned and vanished seventeen and a half minutes after launch
because it exceeded the speed of light - something scientists considered impossible at the time.’
‘Some of them still do,’ muttered the First Officer.
Steve smiled. ‘Don’t be too hard on them, Mike. There’s still a Flat-Earth Society, don’t forget.’
‘What, precisely, did happen to Henry Markham, Steve?’
‘It seems he lost control of the ship and it went to Andromeda. I guess Iris must have flipped her lid.’
‘It wasn’t Iris,’ insisted Cassi. ‘Since exactly the same thing happened six months later to my father’s ship,
there has to be another explanation.’
‘Would you care to enlighten us, Professor Hardy?’
‘Later,’ said Cassi with the trace of a smirk on her face. ‘Finish the background first.’
‘Okay.’ He faced the group once more. ‘Both ships went to Andromeda, two and a quarter million light
years away.’
‘No wonder no-one believed the story,’ grunted Bob Walker.
Steve smiled. ‘I didn’t, for one. Henry Markham vanishes. Then Jim Duncan vanishes and, just a month
later, he turns up again at Orion Base Station with some fantastic tale about having travelled halfway around
the universe. Not only that...’ He again looked at Cassi. ‘He returns with a nineteen-year-old beauty he claims