Exploration Team

Exploration Team

By Murray Leinster

The nearer moon went by overhead. It was jagged and irregular in shape, and was probably a captured asteroid. Huyghens has seen it often enough, so he did not go out of his quarters to watch it hurtle across the sky, with seemingly the speed of an atmosphere-flier, occulting the stars as it went. Instead, he sweated over paper work, which should have been odd because he was technically a felon and all his labors on Loren Two felonious. It was odd, too, for a man to do paper work in a room with steel shutters and a huge bald eagle – untethered – dozing on a three-inch perch set in the wall. But paper work was not Huyghens' real task. His only assistant had tangled with a night-walker and the furtive Kodius Company ships had taken him away to where Kodius Company ships came from. Huyghens had to do two men's work in Loneliness. To his knowledge, he was the only man in this solar system.

Below him, there were snufflings. Sitka Pete got up heavily and padded to his water pan. He lapped the refrigerated water and sneezed violently. Sourdough Charley waked and complained in a rumbling growl. There were divers other rumblings and mutterings below. Huyghens called reassuringly, “Easy there!” and went on with his work. He finished a climate report, and fed figures to a computer, and while it hummed over them he entered the inventory totals in the station log, showing what supplies remained. Then he began to write up the log proper.

“Sitka Pete,” he wrote, “has apparently solved the problem of killing individual sphexes. He has learned that it doesn't do to hug them and that his claws can't penetrate their hide – not the top hide, anyhow. Today Semper notified us that a pack of sphexes had found the scent-trail to the station. Sitka hid down-wind until they arrived. Then he charged from the rear and brought his paws together on both sides of a sphex's head in a rear and brought his paws together on both sides of sphex's head in a terrific pair of slaps. It must have been like two twelve-inch shells arriving from opposite directions at the same time. It must have scrambled the sphex's brains as if they were eggs. It dropped dead. He killed two more with such mighty pairs o wallops. Sourdough Charley watched, grunting, and when the sphexes turned on Sitka, he charged in his turn. I, of course, couldn't shoot too close to him, so he might have fared fared badly but that Faro Nell came pouring out of the bear quarters to help. The diversion enabled Sitka Pete to resume the use of his new technique, towering on his hind legs and swinging his paws in the new and grisly fashion. The fight ended promptly. Semper flew and screamed above the scrap, but as usual did not join in. Note: Nugger, the cub, tried to mix in but his mother cuffed him out of the way. Sourdough and Sitka ignored him as usual. Kodius Champion's genes are sound.”

Sphexes, colonist and bears. Photo by Elena.

Allamagoosa

Allamagoosa

By Eric Frank Russell

It was a long time since the Bustler had been so silent. She lay in the Sirian spaceport, her tubes cold, her shell particle-scarred, her air that of a long distance runner exhausted at the end of a marathon. There was good reason for this: she had returned from a lengthy trip by no means devoid of troubles.

Now, in port, well-deserved rest had been gained if only temporarily. Peace, sweet peace. No more bothers, no more crises, no more major upsets, mo more dire predicaments such as crop up in free flight at least twice a day. Just peace.

Hah!

Captain McNaught reposed in his cabin, feet up on desk, and enjoyed the relaxation to the utmost. The engines were dead, the hellish pounding absent for the first time in months. Out there in the big city four hundred of his crew were making whoopee under a brilliant sun. This evening, when First Officer Gregory returned to take charge, he was going to go into the fragrant twilight and make the rounds of neon-lit civilization.

That was the beauty of making landfall at long last. Men could give way to themselves, blow off surplus steam, each according to his fashion. No duties, no worries, no dangers, no responsibilities in spaceport. A haven of safety and comfort for tired rovers.

Again, hah!

Barbam, the chief radio officer, entered the cabin. He was one of the half-dozen remaining on duty and bore the expression of a man who can think of twenty better things to do.

“Relayed signal just come in, sir.” Handing the paper across, he waited for the other to look at it and perhaps dictate a reply.

Taking the sheet, McNaught removed the feet from his desk, sat erect and read the message aloud.

Terran Headquarters to Bustler, Remain Siriport pending further orders. Rear Admiral Vane W. Cassidy due there seventeenth. Feldman. Navy Op. Command, Sirisec.

Allamagoosa. Photo by Elena.

He looked up, all happiness gone from his leathery features, and groaned.

“Something wrong?” asked Burman, vaguely alarmed.

McNaught pointed at three thin books on his desk. “The middle one. Page twenty.”

Leafing through it, Burman found an item and said: Vane W. Cassidy, R-Ad. Head Inspector Ships and Stores.

Burman swallowed hard. “Does that mean -?”

“Yes, it does,” said McNaught without pleasure. “Back to training-college and all its rigmarole. Paint and soap, spit and polish.” He put on an officious expression, adopted a voice to match it. “Captain, you have only seven ninety-nine emergency rations. Your allocation is eight hundred. Nothing in your log-book accounts for the missing one. Where is it? What happened to it? How is it that one of the men's kit lacks an officially issued pair of suspenders? Did you report his loss? 

“Why does he pick on us?” asked Burman, appalled. “He's never chivvied us before.”

“That's why,” informed McNaught, scowling at the wall, “It's our turn to be stretched across the barrel.” His gaze found the calendar. “We have three days – and we'll need 'em! Tell Second Officer Pike to come here at once.”

Burman departed gloomily. In short time Pike entered. His face reaffirmed the old adage that bad news travels fast.

Assigned Residence

Location: Assigned residence, Etyakt region

Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

I'm a scientist. I find beauty in absolutes. I love the clarity of math, its unwavering dependability. Math will never say one thing and do another one. It will never harm you on purpose because its only purpose is truth. On Esat Ekt, I found that same clarity, that perspicuity, that is so lacking in people on Earth. I found it not because it was there but because I was searching for it. I saw faces in the clouds. I found what I was looking for here because I brought it with me. I know that now. I also know I'm a hypocrite. I marveled at their idealism, applauded them for not wanting to share knowledge with us, but but I lied to them to get the, to teach me. I lied to them to try to save Eugene. I admired their principles so long as the didn't apply to me.

Eugene passed away last night, and when he did, there was nothing gained, nothing achieved. He just died. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't mean anything. The universe will go on without him as it would have with him. The Ekt will see his death as nature following its course. They won't pat themselves on the back for letting him die. There is no malice in them. They watched Eugene die with humility and respect, like we watch the leaves turn to red in the fall. They choose to see the world in a way that gives their life meaning. They choose. It is a choice.

Assigned residence. Picture by Elena.

What do I choose?

There was a church across from my apartment in Chicago. In the summer, I would watch through the window while grooms greeted their guests at the door. I watched newlyweds leave while everyone cheered. Some left me indifferent and lost my interest before they made it down the steps. Some didn't. The way they smiled or looked at each other. That ignorant bliss, or the moment of doubt when they thought, and I wished with all my heart it would be a good one. It felt... intimate somehow, sharing theses precious moments with complete strangers. But it wasn't. I watched through the window. It never occurred to me to get out of my apartment and wish them luck in person. It would have been presumptuous. It was their wedding. I wasn't invited, and I didn't want to be.

That is the way of the Ekt. I only now truly understand it. They watch other worlds through a window. Eugene's death was unfortunate – the bride falling down the stairs – but it wasn't their place to save him. It would have been presumptuous. I can't bring myself to hate him. There is a certain nobility to the way they look at things. Only this time, I was there. I was invited. I couldn't watch my friend die because there was no window to watch it through, and I couldn't bear the reality of it. I lost my friend. I hurt, and that hurt is as real as anything I've seen or touched. There is no objectivity. Everything is perspective.

Great Temples

Great Temples

The world beyond

Many pharaohs temples to be constructed for themselves as well as for the gods. Some of the temples were attached to pharaohs' tombs, erected in separate places or added to other buildings such as the one at Karnak. Temple complexes included huge statues, soaring columns, school rooms, storehouses and workshops, and spacious gardens. By the time Ramesses II came to power in 1290 B.C., many magnificent monuments had already been built throughout ancient Egypt. He added several others during his reign of more than 60 years. The most impressive one was at Abu Simbel in the Nubian desert. The laborers chipped away the side of a hill to make the south front and then hollowed out a vast space behind it for the Interior. Hatshepsut, Amenophis III, Sethos I and Ramesses III were also great temple builders. 

The colossi of Memnon: Two colossal stone statues are all that remain of Amenophis III's monument on the Nile's west bank.

The temple of Hatshepsut: Hatshepsut ordered her great temple to be built on the west bank of the Nile. Sloping ramps connected terraces that jutted out from the rocky backdrop on three levels. Bu the end of the nineteenth century, little remained except a pile of rubble and sand.

Colored Columns: The temple of the goddess Isis stands on the island of Philae. When this lithograph was made in 1846, some color still remained on the columns in the hall.

On a grand scale: Massive granite statues of Ramesses II stood inside and outside his temple at Abu Simbel. A single foot was taller than an adult. Shallow reliefs, carved on the north and south walls, record Ramesses II's battle victories.

Did you know? Twice a year, the shadow interior of Ramesses II's temple is pierced by the rays of the rising sun, which illuminate the four statues in the temple's sanctuary.

Rescuing Abu Simbel: When the Aswan Dam was built across the River Nile in the 1960s, it created Lake Nasser. Many of the Nubian temples were moved to prevent them from being flooded.

Egyptian God. Photo by Elena.

Faith as the Basis for Freedom

Faith as the Foundational Basis for Freedom

Excerpt from Trump's America by New Gingrich

Make no mistake, the Founding Fathers viewed religious liberty and faith as the basis for all our individual freedoms.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson cited “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God” as the authority under which Americans had the right to claim autonomy from England. He went on to write “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

The statement serves as the cornerstone of our individual liberties because it recognizes that our Creator is the ultimate authority over any government of human beings, and that we receive our rights from our Creator – not our government.

As Founder Alexander Hamilton wrote in February 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was ratified. “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.”

These words from one of our Founders show that religious freedom was not some vague notion meant to simply ensure people had the ability to attend the church of their choice – or to choose not to attend religious services. The idea – the dictum – that government lacked the authority to infringe on fundamental rights was unique and vital to America's founding.

The Founders believed this so thoroughly that according to Founder Samuel Adams, people didn't even have to ability to surrender their own rights. In a paper Adams wrote concerning the rights of colonists in November 1772, he said, “If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.”

Faith. Photo by Elena.

… Chiefly, the secular elites point to Thomas Jefferson''s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in which he wrote, “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State”.

However, the separation Jefferson referenced stressed government's inability to regulate religion. It was not intended to be a blanket prohibition against public religious activities. In fact, two days after writing the Church and State letter, Jefferson attended religious services at the United States Capitol. The service was led by Baptist Minister John Leland, who was himself a key helper to James Madison with the inclusion of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. 

In fact, Jefferson and the other Founders believed religion was the principle source of morality – and morality was essential for a free society. They included the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment because there was a healthy and diverse religious community guiding America – and they wanted it to continue to grow unhindered by government.