Protection

I rub my hands together, then reach for the screen. The interface is simple enough. The corner has an icon that is a toggle switch with two states: “Visible” and “Petrova.” It’s currently set to “Visible.” The rest of the screen shows a visible-light view from the ship. Seems like an ordinary camera. I poke at the screen and quickly realize I can pan, zoom in or out, rotate, and so on.

All I see is stars in the distance. I guess I should pan around until I find Tau Ceti. I swipe my finger left, left, left…just generally trying to see where the star is. I don’t have a frame of reference to work with. Every few left swipes I throw in a down swipe. Just to cover all angles over time. I do finally find Tau Ceti, but it doesn’t look like it should.

A few days ago, when I looked at it with the helioscope, it looked like any other star. But now it’s a solid black circle with a hazy ring of light around it. I realize why immediately.

The Petrovascope is a pretty sensitive piece of equipment. It’s fine-tuned to spot even the smallest amounts of the Petrova wavelength. A star will give off absolutely obscene amounts of light at all wavelengths. It’d be like staring at the sun with binoculars. The equipment has to protect itself from the star. It probably has a physical metal plate that it keeps between its sensors and the star at all times. So I’m looking at the back of that plate.

Good design.

***

Chapter 6