Sunshine poured through the crisp, blue sky while a balmy breeze wafted gently in from the lake. The campus was indolent on soft summer days and the end-of-term studying made the grounds even more quiet than usual. Students lay under the trees to escape the library and the dormitories; most were absorbed in their books but others, it seemed, had been absorbed into the August air. Some were playing games on the spacious university lawns, shouting to each other with voices deeper but no less exuberant than an elementary school recess.
Mingled with the summer students were the perenniel summer tourists. They had come to see the campus, to launch their boats, or to tour the Land Station. Tourists never bothered me too much – especially on my day off. The little girl with her long blonde hair that I saw strolling toward the north end of campus with her parents was not going to get too close to my telemetry console. Not today, at least, and that made the happy family group a pleasant sight.
In fact, the entire campus was a happy scene to me. In my eyes, there was no student worried about passing grades, no boater was cursing a trailer winch, no mothers were embarassed by excessive antics of their two-year-olds. I knew life wasn't really like that, not even under that summer sun, but the perfection of the day purged away all troubles and protected me from any malaise that others might feel.
I headed for the universtiy library.
The Oleg Karanov Library was named for a geophysist about whom I knew absolutely nothing. It was built of white stone just north of the very center of the campus, but back away from the lake shore. Rising only a single story above the ground, the library seemed from the outside to be far from adequate for a university, even for a small satellite campus such as this. But by extending two levels beneath the surface, the library was three times its apparent size and fully adequate. I went down the stairs and turned left to reach the books on telemetric codes. The one disadvantage of enjoying your work is the near impossibility of walking away from it on your day off. At least I knew exactly what volume I wanted; I picked it out and headed back for the circulation desk without wasting much time in the Karanov's caverns.
Upstairs, I checked the book out using my service ID to avoid having to bring it back at the end of the summer session. Then I hurried back out into the summer day.
I decided to head closer to the Land Station. Partly, that was because I saw a vacant willow tree that way. Classes must have just started, because comfortable trees were hard to find near the library. Either that, or the spot I saw had been recently used by a campus dog. I took my chances and headed for the shade. The old, furrowed trunk leaned back from a gnarled root to form one of the most comfortable seats on the campus, and I settled in to leaf through the algorithms in the book.
I didn't get far. My mind soon drifted away from the theories of data transmission and onto the other reason I had come this way. It was re-entry day for the Enterprise – the old one, the sub-galactic explorer. The ship was no doubt already within the atmosphere; it was due in the waters of the great lake at 5:15. I noticed that the road to the lauching ramp was already blocked off. The campus police were very cooperative to the extent of placing barricades and then wandering off. The ramp area was still well populated with tourists and boaters that Land Station officers would have to shoo away when the Enterprise came in for servicing. It was always like this; nothing ever came of it, good or bad.
I had been at the launching ramp when the Enterprise began this journey. This was in the old days, when the interstellar cruisers were still landed for inspection and maintenance between missions. Now I was remembering the ship on its launching frame as our truck backed it down the asphalt ramp into the water. Between the infrequent demands of the old Enterprise for servicing, our ramp was used and maintained by small-boat owners for their own terrestial hobbies. That was why we had asphalt paving right down into the water and a small pier next to the ramp; other Land Stations did well to keep sections of beach open from vegetation between visits from their spacecraft. On the other hand, they didn't have to contend with hobbyists and tourists during launchings and returns.
I recalled the small ship looming over our even smaller green pickup. It had been a calm day, even calmer than today, and the cruiser had simply floated free of its frame without seeming to drift at all. The the white jets from its maneuvering engines set the Enterpise moving gently out to the open waters of Lake Michigan. Somewhere out of sight beyond the horizon, the Enterprise started its particle-thrust main engines and, using the empty water like a runway, had begun its long acceleration eastward.
Siting under the willow tree, I wondered what the light craft looked like, skimming over the waves and into the air. I had never seen a takeoff; none of us at the Land Station had. Yet I, sitting back at the telemetry console, knew more about the Enterprise's perfect rise from the lake than even its command officers.
That was only 18 months ago. The ship's planned journey into interstellar space had been cut short by a singular adventure.
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