Wonderful people throughout the author’s life provided unique and irreplaceable lessons and inspirations:
Juniper
Russell
Esther
Smith
Vicky Ball
Dottie Frisbie
Linda
Dezzutti Martha
Higgins
Jennifer Carolyn Gates
Susanne Koller
Rachael
Bleich Charleen
Cox
Paula Wells
Meredith Herzog
Sarah
Satterthwaite
Patricia
Sharp
Ashley
Riddle Peter
James
Antonya Pickard
Valuable readers gave the author feedback after digging through early drafts of the book:
Deborah
Meier
Ardith
Libby
Cecelia
Harper
Karen
Oster
Shelley
Johnson
Jimmy
Johnson
Excellent critiquers commented on thousands of passages, then provided reactions during in-depth interviews:
Sidney Oster, 11
Catherine “Cat” Harper, 12
Sarah Bray, 12
Jessica Johnson, 12
Dylan Oster, 12
Alex Chalcraft, 16
Hannah Li Powers, 17
Elwin Aragorn
Rachael Hedges
Careful publishing assistants, proofreaders, and technical helpers brought the final manuscript as close to perfection as possible: Deborah Meier
Tim Kutscha
Contents
1 Beauty Isn’t Everything ..................................................... 1
2 Leaving
Home.................................................................... 5
3 Solar System Primary ...................................................... 12
4 Orbital
Velocity.................................................................17
5 Baked
and
Frozen ............................................................ 21
6 The Sad Tale of Sonmatia Two........................................ 31
7 Watch Your Back .............................................................38
8 Out of a Trap....................................................................43
9 The
Slow
Way ..................................................................49
10 Presence of Mind and Memory .......................................60
11 Interplanetary Travel.......................................................64
12 Knowledge .......................................................................70
13 Planetary Approach ......................................................... 77
14 Flying Blind .....................................................................82
15 Slowing Down..................................................................86
16 The Monuments of Zolko ................................................93
17 The City of Memna ........................................................ 102
18 The Fabled Arch of Glimpa ........................................... 107
19 The Sonmatia Four Puzzle.............................................. 111
20 The Mines of Sarto..........................................................119
21 Picking Up the Puzzle Pieces......................................... 124
22 Farewell to Sonmatia Four ............................................ 129
23 Lots of Rocks.................................................................. 135
24 Hard Landing................................................................. 140
25 The Meat Grinder .......................................................... 145
26 Gas Giants...................................................................... 149
27 Darkness .........................................................................157
28 Cold ................................................................................ 163
29 Emptiness ...................................................................... 166
30 Simulation ..................................................................... 173
31 The Passenger.................................................................175
32 Melorania’s Gift ............................................................. 182
33 Manessa’s Secret............................................................ 190
34 Space At Last ................................................................. 194
35 A Strange Landing ........................................................ 200
36 The Littlest Planet ........................................................ 208
37 Final Departure ............................................................. 217
38 The Star Drive................................................................ 221
39 Star Transit ....................................................................228
Buna’s New World...............................................................233
First Taste of Freedom ........................................................238
“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”
— Albert Einstein
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 1
Chapter 1: Beauty Isn’t Everything
Once again, Rini was embarrassed.
Earlier, during his low-orbit excursion, he was having so much fun playing with his suit thrusters, he accidentally induced a spin he couldn’t correct.
Mati smiled as she guided the Manessa Kwi into a matching spin so Rini could get into the airlock. Ilika gave him a mild lecture, but let it pass.
Rini’s geo-stationary orbit excursion was worse. Since he wasn’t paying attention to which way he was going, his suit thrusters quickly put him into a lower orbit, which rapidly began to decay. The Manessa Kwi came to his rescue, and Ilika made him do the excursion again.
But during his high-orbit excursion, Rini committed a crime he knew no one on the ship was going to easily forgive.
“Um . . . Sata? It’s really beautiful out here with the world turning below and the stars above, but I just remembered something. A few minutes ago, my half-fuel alarm chimed and I forgot to start back.”
“Oh, I see!” Sata said through the intercom with a taunting voice.
“Actually, your half-fuel alarm was eleven minutes ago. Is that a problem, Rini?”
“Um . . . yeah. This is so embarrassing. I can’t get back to the ship now.
Manessa looks really small, and is getting smaller all the time.”
Rini heard some giggling over the intercom, but didn’t get an immediate response. He watched the ship continue to shrink with distance as he used his thrusters to slow his movement as much as possible.
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 2
Sata’s voice came again. “Rini, we’ve discussed the situation, and since you’ve got enough air for about an hour, we’re going to do a review of language lesson twenty-two. You don’t mind, do you?”
Several voices in the background chuckled.
“Um . . . okay,” Rini said with a sigh. “I guess I’ll . . . be here.”
The minutes passed slowly as Rini used the remainder of his thruster fuel.
He knew it wouldn’t help, but doing something about his mistake brought some comfort. Finally his thrusters sputtered and died.
The silence was profound. He looked at the blue and green world below, but it no longer gave him pleasure. He looked at the stars above, but they now seemed dim and lifeless.
Tapping a code into his mission bracelet, he was informed he would be out of air in about half an hour. Helpless to do anything else about his situation, he began to recall scenes from his life. Moments of both joy and sorrow came to him, memories that had somehow touched him deeply.
Somewhat later, he tapped the code again. Twelve minutes of life left. He could see Mati’s face clearly in his mind, her hair tangled like it usually was during their journey around the kingdom. He felt an intense desire to wrap his arms around her once more before he died.
Three minutes of air, and perhaps another minute after that as he suffocated inside his space suit. Tears formed and began to roll down his cheeks. Blinking them away, he made one last effort to see the ship, but found only blurry stars.
Forty seconds. His mind raced, struggling to find something to do with his remaining moments of consciousness. Fear crept all throughout his body, making his skin cold and tingly. His stomach churned and tightened.
Eight seconds. Suddenly he knew. “Mati! Nothing else in my life has ever mattered! I love you!”
“I love you too, Rini. So get yourself into the airlock so Boro can do his high-orbit excursion.”
The tears in Rini’s eyes blurred the golden sphere in front of him, with a dark opening close at hand. After one final alarm sounded in his ears, the air in his suit rapidly became stale. A suited arm reached out and pulled him into the airlock. He blinked away the tears and glimpsed his teacher and captain
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 3
behind a face plate.
After gasping and crying in Ilika’s arms for several minutes, Rini slowly extracted himself from the space suit, trembling all the while. No one else came to talk to him on the lower deck. He didn’t blame them. After stumbling into the toilet room to wash his face, he kept one hand on the wall as he rose in the lift.
All his shipmates were seated at the big oval table in the passenger area, sipping cups of fragrant tea. Looking at the floor, Rini shuffled forward and slipped into the empty seat beside Mati. Ilika took another seat.
“I really do love you, Rini,” Mati said, “but you screwed up again.”
“I . . . I know.”
“When he’s surrounded by beautiful things,” Kibi began, “Rini loses track of time. It’s not that big a deal, seems to me.”
“He also loses track of directions,” Boro said.
“And warning alarms,” Sata added.
“And people who love him and are waiting for him to come back,” Mati said with a tender frown.
Rini took a deep breath and looked up. “I’m sorry. I’ll do my excursions all over again. I’ll do better, I promise.”
Ilika had been sitting quietly, listening and wearing a subtle smile. “I think you finally heard us, Rini. There are several planets coming up. If you practice every chance you get, I think we can let Boro do his excursion, then move on.”
Rini took several slow, thoughtful breaths. “I will.”
“Fantastic!” Boro said, hopping up. “I’ll be in a suit in eight minutes!”
Deep Learning Notes
There are three kinds of simple (equatorial) orbit. Stationary orbit is at that one exact altitude (different for every planet) at which the orbiting object moves at the same speed as the rotating surface of the planet, so it always stays above the same point on the planet. Lower orbits require the object to
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 4
move faster than the rotation of the planet, and higher orbits require the object to move slower.
There are many kinds of non-equatorial orbit, and orbit can also be in the opposite direction from the rotation of the planet, but none of these allow an object to remain above one point on the surface. On Earth, a stationary orbit has an altitude of about 35 786 km (22 240 miles).
Why did Ilika wait until the last possible moment to rescue Rini?
Why do you think no one came down to the lower deck to comfort Rini as he got out of his space suit?
What value is Rini learning that is necessary to be on any team?
