Today's Reading

PROLOGUE
Promissa Probe DS-8723-1A

Arrival in Promissa Orbit and Atmospheric Entry

<Transmission> Atmospheric entry. Data send 1428.
<Function> Atmospheric analysis. Deploy.
<Data> Received.
<Data> Received.
<Data> Received.
<Error> Unauthorized inquiry.
<Data> Received.
<Error> Unauthorized inquiry.
<System Fault> Main power overload.
<Transmission> Data send 1429.
<Error> Unauthorized inquiry.
<System Fault> Emergency power overload.
<Transmission> Error. Power overload. Transmission failed.
<System Fault> Offline
<System Fault> Offline
<System Fault> Offxxxxxxxx...

CHAPTER ONE
Sheila Jackson

140 Cycles Until Arrival

Dr. Sheila Jackson reached across her desk to the button that darkened the window between her office and the open workspace of her department. It barely qualified as an office, as she could almost touch two of the walls without leaving her chair, and the other two weren't far off. She still appreciated it. She'd earned it when, at age thirty-seven, she became the second-youngest deputy director in the almost 250-year history of the ship's science department. In the science and medicine division, led by Dr. Lavonia Carroway, only deputy directors and the director herself rated private workspaces—a luxury in a place where privacy was at a premium. As it happened, Lavonia had her office right next door out of tradition. The first director had been a space explorer, and while directors since had come from many different fields, the office had stayed. As with most days, that office was currently empty. Lavonia was a medical doctor by training and didn't have much use for the day-to-day management of space exploration.

At least not for now. With the message waiting on her computer, Sheila had a feeling that might change. Depending on the data, a 'lot' of people might find new interest in space exploration, and Lavonia wasn't one to miss out on an opportunity for attention.

Technically, Sheila wasn't supposed to be here. The ship had rules about shifts, and working too long was theoretically as big a crime as not working long enough—work-life balance, and all that. But that rule applied more to subordinates than bosses, and for all intents and purposes, Sheila was the boss of her own little fourteen-person empire. Nobody would report her for getting in an extra hour. Most of that empire had departed at the ship-wide chime that signaled the end of first shift. The department did keep coverage around the clock, and two people still manned the large work area outside her office, but they were used to her and wouldn't disturb her unless there was an emergency—and there just weren't that many space exploration emergencies.

At least not usually. The message in her inbox might change that.

She leaned back in her high-quality office chair, which was bolted to the deck, letting her feet come off the ground slightly in the low gravity. The science department was four levels up—or more accurately, in—from the residential deck, and the gravity monitor in the outer area constantly displayed 0.53g. It was only 10 percent lower than her living space, but she could swear she felt it, even though the people in charge of such things said she couldn't. She rolled her shoulders and called up the first-ever live data from a probe in orbit around the second planet in the Zeta Tucanae system. A planet commonly called Promissa. Prom for short.

The probe could transmit only a little data to the ship at a time, since they were something like .06 light-years away, which required an extremely tight beam. They had been traveling at 11 percent of light speed at their fastest, but had been slowing for twenty-seven days, and Sheila didn't even know their current velocity. But the computers did, and they compensated. Even so, they would get only a split second of transmission time before they lost the signal. It was part of what made space exploration from a fast-moving ship challenging.

Much of the data they had was still centuries old—information that scientists with giant telescopes had discovered back on Earth before they departed. Even now, with their first probe arriving, she wouldn't get much in this first of what should be many reports. But what she did get... it could be the most important discovery to date in the 253-year-long mission.
...

Join the Library's Online Book Clubs and start receiving chapters from popular books in your daily email. Every day, Monday through Friday, we'll send you a portion of a book that takes only five minutes to read. Each Monday we begin a new book and by Friday you will have the chance to read 2 or 3 chapters, enough to know if it's a book you want to finish. You can read a wide variety of books including fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, teen and mystery books. Just give us your email address and five minutes a day, and we'll give you an exciting world of reading.

What our readers think...