The Angels of Destiny Read Online Free

appeared to be enjoying every moment, pausing for thought before he continued. "Carl Sagan, using the famous Drake equation in 1966 estimated that there could be as many as one million advanced civilizations in existence communicating within our Galaxy. This was based on the fact that he thought there were over a billion stars in our Galaxy alone. We now know, thanks to Hubble, that Sagan grossly underestimated the number of stars. Hubble's deep space images of what we thought was just darkness have shown many more galaxies that at the time, Sagan knew nothing about. We now know that there are some eighty-billion other galaxies in the observable universe and seventy-sextillion stars, that ’ s 7x10 to the power of 22, in the visible universe alone. We are also finding more and more planets circling stars that could be the home of our two dead aliens. What is more important though, is that we find a communications ‘ window,' that is a civilization, that is similar to ours in its development, and able to communicate in a way that we can understand. ”
    He paused to take a drink of water. “ Civilizations far more advanced than ours may well use techniques that we don ’ t understand, so we couldn ’ t listen to those signals even if we wanted to. More primitive civilizations, of course, will not be transmitting anyway, so this ‘ window ’ as we call it is crucial, if we are to be successful and make contact, but when you consider the massive numbers of stars, our chances must be high. This was the argument that persuaded the government to invest in M13 in the first place. Ironically, if we do make contact, the civilization that sent the signals might well be extinct, due to the long time delay in sending the signals across the Universe. We start sending the co-ordinates to point the transceivers at M13 as soon as the data network links are in place. In essence, Vicki, it's a numbers game, ” concluded Klyushin.
    "That ’ s your job, Vicki," said Samuel Black, and she nodded in agreement.
    "The amount of data we expect to receive is massive," continued Yuri.
    "That ’ s no problem, ” responded Vicki Stark. "We have enough disk space, believe me."
    "My problem is analyzing the huge mass of data," replied McPherson.
    "Okay...okay...lets keep some order to the proceedings," interrupted Black, authoritatively. “ Have you finished for the time being, Yuri?"
    "I think so."
    "Thanks for your input, Yuri. It sounds like we ’ re in good shape."
    "We are. ”
    Continuing, Black asked. "Okay, on the basis that we can get the information ...explain how we get it to Houston, Vicki."
    Looking at Black, McPherson thought how tired and drawn he looked, his face was pale and sad, and yet, he appeared to be in good spirits.
    Vicki Stark then gained his attention. She was the only female on the team, very attractive, and clearly very confident, thought McPherson, as she began to address Black ’ s question.
    "Well, as mentioned earlier, we have four base stations; one in Australia, one in Kuwait, one in Europe and one in West Virginia. They are globally positioned to take account of the Earth ’ s rotation so that at any one time at least two of them will be communicating with the Transceivers in space. Each station on Earth communicates with Houston via satellite. We have already tested the local satellite links from the stations to here in Houston and everything ’ s fine. This afternoon I finish checking the communications from the base stations to the transceivers. We believe, however, that a small meteor has damaged one transceiver, but that has to be confirmed."
    "What will that do to our schedule, if it ’ s true?" Yuri Klyushin asked Samuel Black.
    "In fact, our schedule, is based on using data from only eight of the transceivers."
    "Good," replied Klyushin, sporting a large smile.
    Linda Washington recorded every word being spoken, for automatic conversion to text.
    McPherson noticed that she spent a lot of time