The Eye of God Read Online Free

was to fly IoG-2 across the comet’s blazing tail, where it would attempt to absorb that anomalous energy detected by Dr. Shaw and transmit it back to its sister craft orbiting the earth.
    Luckily, to accomplish this task, engineers had to only slightly modify the earlier mission satellite. A part of its original design included a perfect sphere of quartz buried in its heart. The plan had been to set that sphere to spinning once the satellite was in orbit, creating a gyroscopic effect that could be used to map the curve of space-time around the mass of Earth. If the experiment was successful, the beam of dark energy from one spacecraft to the other should cause a minute disturbance in that curve of space-time.
    It was a bold experiment. Even the acronym IoG was now jokingly referred to as the Eye of God . Painter appreciated the new nickname, picturing that whirling perfect sphere as it waited to peer into the mysteries of the universe.
    The lead specialist called out. “Spacecraft will be entering the tail in ten !”
    As the final countdown began, Dr. Shaw’s eyes remained fixed to the flow of data on the giant screen.
    “I hope you were mistaken earlier, Director Crowe,” she said. “About something going wrong here. Now is not the time for mistakes, not when we’re tapping into energy connected to the birth of our universe.”
    Either way, Painter thought, there was no turning back now .
    7:55 A . M .
    Over the course of six painstaking minutes, the flight path of IoG-2 slowly vanished deeper into the ionizing stream of gas and dust. The screen to the right—running live feed from the satellite’s camera—was a complete whiteout. They were now flying blind, entirely reliant on telemetry data.
    Painter tried taking in everything at once, catching the room’s excitement, sensing the historical significance of this moment.
    “I’m registering an energy spike in IoG-2 !” the EECOM tech called from his station.
    A smatter of small cheers broke out, but the pressure of the moment quickly quashed them. The reading could be an error.
    All eyes swung to another console, to the aerospace engineer monitoring IoG-1 . He shook his head. There seemed to be no evidence that the energy picked up by the first satellite had been transmitted to its Earth-orbiting twin—then suddenly the engineer jerked to his feet.
    “Got something!” he yelled.
    The SMC control officer hurried over to his side.
    As everyone waited for confirmation, Dr. Shaw pointed to the world map, to the scroll of telemetry data. “So far it looks promising.”
    If you say so . . .
    The crawl of incoming data was incomprehensible to him. And it only continued to flow faster. After another tense minute, the flood of data grew to a blur.
    The EECOM tech popped to his feet. Warnings and error messages flashed on his screens as he continued to monitor IoG-2 ’s passage through the comet’s tail. “Sir, energy levels here are off the map now, redlining across the board! What do you want me to do?”
    “Shut it down!” the control officer commanded.
    Still standing, the EECOM tech typed rapidly. “No can do, sir! Satellite navigation and control are not responding.”
    To the right, the giant screen suddenly went black.
    “Lost camera feed now, too,” the tech added.
    Painter pictured IoG-2 sailing from here out into space, a cold and dark chunk of space debris.
    “Sir!” The engineer assigned to IoG-1 waved the control officer to his side. “I’ve got new readings here. You’d better see this.”
    Dr. Shaw shifted to the rail of the observation deck, plainly wanting to catch a glimpse. Painter joined her, along with most of the brass gathered on the deck.
    “The geodetic effect is altering,” the engineer explained, pointing to a monitor. “A point two percent deviation.”
    “That shouldn’t be possible,” Dr. Shaw mumbled at Painter’s side. “Not unless space-time around the earth is starting to ripple.”
    “And look!” the