only ten light-years away. Flying a spaceship with current technology at a cruising speed
of ten miles a second, or 1/18,600th the speed of light, it would take two thousand
centuries to get to this star. We’d have to find a wormhole or develop a speedster that
would close in on c, the speed of light. Our modern spaceships were jalopies, in
comparison.
But maybe others had solved this limitation. If they’ve come, they likely hadn’t spotted
our signal. Our calling cards aboard the Pioneer and Voyager probes had now gone thirty
light-years’ distance, give or take a few billion miles. Our oldest radio broadcasts had
traveled out roughly ninety light-years. Frank Drake, the father of radio astronomy,
predicted a half-century ago that many planets existed beyond our solar system. This had
now been confirmed. Physicist Enrico Fermi once asked over lunch, “Where is
everybody?” He was referring to life that was both intelligent and technically advanced.
Nick and hundreds of searchers like him still asked the same question. Search methods
were improving with the pace of computers, doubling in capability every eighteen
months. The Kepler space telescope slated for launch in 2008 would continuously look at
one hundred thousand stars for the transit of an earth-sized planet. Still, it was a
frustrating enterprise. A secret part of Nick was ablaze with confined anticipation.
It had been with some urgency that Nick approached the grant committee. The college
accelerated their passport and visa processing. Vaccinations were arranged. The handling
of paperwork was streamlined, and Nick agreed to complete his expedition within a
narrow time frame. With competent guides using rivers for transport, he promised to
produce some answers at the end of the nine-day spring break.
The travel agent for the college set up the itinerary. It involved a red-eye Varig flight
from Miami to Rio de Janeiro. The following morning they would fly into the old delta
town of Belem and meet their first host, a man called Raphael De Sanctos. Raphael was
the owner operator of the Para River Transport Company and would fly them to the
interior city of Manaus, where they would launch on the massive Rio Negro, with their
second guide.
In its short history, the college had sent only two other faculty members to South
America for research. An anthropologist once pawed around Machu Picchu for Incan
remains and a poli-sci don had spent some time studying the origins of Chile’s
constitutional government.
The packing crate required two men to carry it. They checked the crate and their duffels
through to Belem, on northern Brazil’s Atlantic coast. Bruce’s part of the gear was
Spartan. To his minimal clothes list he added a three-piece fly rod. He had done this,
mindful of once when he curbside checked his new graphite on the front end of a fly-in
fishing trip to Canada only to have it pilfered, leaving him with only the memory of its
impressive action. Bruce carefully tracked the duffels and crate into the hold on this first
leg.
Once they were airborne Bruce signaled a neatly dressed stewardess. She waved off a
nearby male attendant and appeared next to Nick, who occupied the aisle seat. She leaned
over the space between them, causing Nick to sink back in his seat.
“May ah help you, sir?”
