“This red dot is us. This blue spot is the Forest sun. We are moving along this green line in this direction. It is possible to alter the course of a ship in isolator drive but only to a small degree depending on available excess power. We have very little excess power, but Captain Helt is making as much of it available for course alteration as possible.
“As you can see, this green line has a slight curve in it. We are bending the course of Forest as much as possible to bring us as close as possible to this system and, eventually, to this system. Our general heading is back toward human occupied space but only along the edge of it, not deeply into it. Our velocity is rather low because we only had the orbital speed of Forest when we started and that was about 30kps.
“We will pass this first system at about a one light-week distance in fifty-eight Earth standard days from today. It is what we call a class-three system; that is; it does not have any planets capable of sustaining life. What it does have is a large asteroid mining operation under the control of the RMK consortium.
“Seventy-one days later, we will pass very close to the Mallcott system. This is a class-one system with a high level Earth-like planet in the early stages of colonization. It, also, has an initial stage asteroid mining operation.”
CeCe signaled to the crewman again, and turned off the projector as the lights came up.
“It seems that there have been a few instances in the past where ships in isolator drive have had accidents where panels or things attached to the hull have come off. In a couple of those cases, the lost item was found undamaged floating in normal space. This indicates that it is possible to launch objects into normal space from a ship in isolator drive. Our plan is to launch a beacon with a message detailing our problem as we pass the RMK operation. Captain Helt is working on a device with a powerful transmitter.
“Because we can only get to within about one light-week of the RMK operation, our signal will take a week to reach them, but that should not be a problem because of the time it will take us to get to the Mallcott system. Our message will request that they notify all available agencies that can be reached in time to have as many ships as possible waiting for us at Mallcott when we break out. There, we will evacuate Forest.
“If, for some reason, our beacon fails to attract attention, our passage past the Mallcott system will take several months; that should give us plenty of time to put together an evacuation even if our arrival is a total surprise.”
Several of the Watts town leaders were sitting in a front row and had started an animated conversation. CeCe stopped in front of them, “Do you have a question?”
A few more quick words apparently designated one of them to speak.
“<mallcott> will be our new sun <question>”
“Ah . . . no! Because of our normal space velocity, it would be possible to break out at a precise point that would place us into a stable orbit around the Mallcott primary. However, our orbital distance from the sun would be within only several thousand kilometers of Mallcott itself and would eventually lead to the destruction of both planets. Also, the introduction of such a large mass into a stable system would disturb that stability. Therefore, we are aiming for a pass well outside the system plane that will take it on a path away from other systems.”
One of the volunteer civilian crew members a few rows back stood up, “Captain, won’t the lack of a sun freeze this planet solid before we get there?”
“Indications are that there should not be a problem. It was discovered almost immediately in the early days of isolator research that low-level energy does not transfer either way. The only thing that crosses the interface is spatial distortion caused by large concentrations of mass. That is the reason a mass resonator works and the only kind of thing we have to avoid driving into. Because we cannot radiate heat through an isolator field, all ships store excess heat in molten salt heat sinks while in isolator drive and then dump it when they return to normal space. In fact, the heat sink tanks on the Weasel were never enlarged when the Berlin reactors were installed because those reactors were intended to be used while the ship was grounded in normal space and we could radiate excess heat. Right now we are producing a huge amount of heat but venting it to the atmosphere. It is expected that we will only have a heat dissipation problem after we break out. We will not be close enough to the Mallcott sun for it to have any real effect in warming the planet.
“Until we reach Mallcott, survival is the only job. All of our floaters have been equipped with exterior lighting to illuminate fields that are being harvested and as many linear battery powered lighting systems as we can build are being set up in the towns. All of the people that can be spared from the Weasel’s crew are out helping in any way that they can. We all have our jobs; let’s do them. Thank you.”
As CeCe finished and disappeared into a crowd of people with more questions, Wills leaned his head close to Helt’s and pointed a finger toward the door to the dining hall, “Who is that woman standing next to Jordan? I can’t remember
