Another man at the back stood up, “What is the anomaly?”
Stoker made a face at that, then he smiled, “Ah . . . the big question. We are now in the area of the greatest speculation. Let me start by saying that the one thing that is agreed on is that the Foresters are not native to that planet.”
Again there was a stir in the room. Stoker could see that only a few already knew that from the general surprise.
“We have managed to get biological samples from the Foresters, without their knowledge, of course. Tests indicate a significant biological incompatibility with their environment. One very telling point is that, while they are omnivorous, they avoid many of the native land animals, almost all sea life, and a significant amount of the local vegetation; the crops they grow are not represented by anything similar in the local environment.
“Along with that is the curious mix of their technologies. If you walked into any of their towns, you could almost see a human town out of the middle 1800’s. They have well planned railroads that branch out from what appears to be their central coastal city that we call Watts after the pilot of the scout ship that discovered them. They run out to each of their towns with steam/electric trains on them. And, instead of a Morse code type telegraph paralleling the railroad lines, they have a wired audio phone system. They have four hydro-electric power plants at dams that they have constructed in the limited river systems on the land mass they have occupied.
“That is another curious point; there are other land masses, but they only live on the biggest one and send out teams to explore the others. We believe that they arrived on Forest something like a thousand years ago, landed on the biggest land mass, and set up in survival mode. We think that, because any fully equipped colony effort capable of interstellar flight should have been ready to set up shop with the maximum their technology had to offer; just look at Archer and the comforts we have always had there.
“Further, even though we have not mounted a full geological survey of Forest, our data to date indicates that it is relatively mineral poor which would seem to be the reason that their rail system has wooden rails and a solid reason for their inability to duplicate interstellar-level technology even though they must have arrived with it. They appear to have put their limited supply of metals into what had to be absolutely made of metal.
“As for the anomaly itself, the most prevalent opinion is that it is an isolator drive ship, probably the one they came in. I have to say that the two most common reactions to that reasoning among isolator theorists is to either go into a mad fury over the total impossibility of such a thing or they just shrug and say ‘what do I know’.”
A wave of laughter rolled across the room and another question reached him, “How would a drive operate for a thousand years?”
Stoker got to his feet and held out his hands, “I think I should end this session for today so that Captain Helt’s people can begin the ship system training. But, before I do, I will answer that question as best I can; I don’t know.”
Again, there was a laugh, “I have bumped heads many times with isolator theorists and I can tell you with total certainty, no one really knows how an isolator drive does what it does or what it might be capable of doing. The technology began with an error of thinking that caused a spectacular loss of life, and then took decades of time and more lives to bring us to here and now. I have this feeling that we paid a staggering price to get it to do something we can use and now we are afraid to breathe on it for fear of triggering an unknown response. We think we know what the anomaly is but have no idea how or why; all we know is what it is doing and are trying to do something about that.”
The applause he got was a pleasant surprise and the handshaking even more so.
##
“Breakout in one minute; belts fastened, sensitive gear on your bunks, and side rails up.”
Ames and Twisst called down the passage and affirmed their readiness to return to normal space.
“Lieutenant, can you get us a dump from the solar monitor as soon after breakout as possible?”
“Not a problem, Doc, but it will take a few minutes; the monitor and Forest are a little around the primary from us and I won’t be able to punch a signal through the corona until we get further around.”
“That will be fine.”
“Breakout in five, four, three, two, one.”
The auto-pilot rotated the ship to a stern-wise approach to the star and started feeding power to the ring.
“We’re going to do a slide around the side of the star to get on a vector for--”
The aft view on one of the screens caught his eye, “You better have a look at this.” A few taps on his panel transferred the view to the passenger screens, “Is that as bad as it looks?”
There was silence for a moment before Ames and Twisst started a rapid conversation between themselves. After a minute, Twisst directed her words down the passage to Hayes. “Yes, Lieutenant, the situation has not improved. We would like to suggest that your route past the star be farther out than normal for any component that passes directly outward from the disruptions.”
“Way ahead of you, Doc. I’m going to knock off most of our velocity then do a snapshot to the other side of the flares”
“What’s a snapshot?”
“Just a quick
