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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Using a time machine to blackmail the future.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Stellar 5, 1980
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2005

26 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [352 KB], eReader (PDB) [72 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [62 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [55 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [115 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [124 KB], hiebook (KML) [187 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [88 KB], iSilo (PDB) [52 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [65 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [92 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [85 KB]
Words: 17842
Reading time: 50-71 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Somehow, the object escaped detection until it was within a million miles or so of the Moon. This could have been due to its unusual geometry, which made it a poor reflector of radar waves, or because it was constructed from materials with high absorptivity; possibly it was due to a combination of both factors. In any event, suddenly it was just there--falling inward toward the Earth from somewhere in the direction of the outer Solar System.

It first appeared as a new set of coordinates and trajectory data in the inventory of space-borne objects maintained by the computers of the Near-Earth Surveillance Network. The computers decided that it oughtn't to be there and flagged it with a query, which was about as much as they could determine. The echo signals were weak and confused, enabling little to be reconstructed of the object's shape and surface contours apart from that they were irregular and complex, showing none of the characteristics of a naturally occurring wanderer such as a large meteor or stray asteroid. Terrestrial and orbiting telescopes trained on the point indicated revealed something that looked like an indistinct, low-albedo, multi-faceted strawberry, tumbling sedately at two revolutions per minute as it closed on a path that would set it into high-Earth orbit in a little under a week. Once its motion was fixed, its size was estimated from the times for which it eclipsed background stars; it was apparently more than a mile across.

As the days passed, "Nomad," as the object had been christened by the intrigued scientific teams following its progress, gradually resolved itself into the form of twelve circular constructions, each a little under a mile in diameter, arranged symmetrically to define the faces of what, had they been pentagons joined at the edges, would have been a dodecahedron. The constructions were concave, like shallow dishes, and the space behind them contained a confusion of supports and structural members that couldn't be resolved with certainty among the ever-moving shadows cast by the outer surfaces. The surfaces of the dishes absorbed radiation strongly, appearing almost black-body to the probe beams directed at them from installations on the lunar surface and from orbiting laboratories. For their own part they were electromagnetically passive, emitting no detectable energy in any part of the spectrum, other than a thermal signature consistent with the temperature of interplanetary space. The only other thing that could be said for sure at that stage was that Nomad bore no resemblance to anything that had ever been put into space by any nation of Earth.

It settled into high orbit over Earth on time a week later, still showing no sign of activity. Nothing more happened, nor, after a while, seemed likely to. The International Space Agency, in conjunction with a joint force hastily throw together by the nations possessing a military space arm, began preparations to send an exploratory mission to investigate the mysterious intruder at closer quarters.

The melancholic notes of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata trickled through the apartment like the tinkling of a mountain stream reduced to slow motion. The face of the woman sitting at the grand piano by the bay window of the elegantly furnished living room betrayed no emotion as she played, but the lines beneath the layer of powder, and the wrinkles beginning to show around the eyes and neck, hinted of the premature aging that comes with years of solitude and loneliness. While her fingers flowed over the keyboard, assembling the phrases into shape and form without need of conscious intervention of mind, her eyes stared distantly from beneath her mantle of graying hair, replaying their own themes and variations of memories.