The Solar Sea Read Online Free Page A

you to change your mind about funding that kind of project?"
    "Quinnium."
    Thomas turned and looked at his father with genuine confusion.
    "The scientist Alonzo who works for me calls them chronotons—time particles.” Jerome smiled wryly at him, then shuffled down the path a short distance and sat on a concrete bench under a blossoming orange tree. “I think it's important that we give them a name that ties them to the company. Also, it'll obscure what they are, assuming any corporate spies see our internal memos or tap into our communications."
    Thomas shuffled his feet and sniffed. He was less interested in corporate machinations and more interested in the chronotons—the Quinnium. Since his alter ego had discovered them, he'd devised even more possible applications for the particles. Doing calculations on their energy output, he realized they could be a new power source, possibly better than oil.
    "Son, I was wondering...” Jerome interrupted Thomas’ reverie. “How would you like to go to the Moon and see this solar sail being built?"
    Thomas stared at his father wide-eyed. He'd already begun arrangements, though it was proving more complicated than he'd thought, making his ID match his real face and creating misdirections that explained his absence from college. Then he realized he needed to say something. “That would be great, Dad!"
    Jerome stood and grabbed his shoulder. “You'd better pack then. The shuttle leaves tomorrow. If you could use some more flight hours, maybe we could arrange some cockpit time."
    Thomas nodded enthusiastically, wondering how much his father knew or merely suspected. If he'd felt closer to his father, he might have said something about being Thomas Alonzo. “That would be great! I'll pack right away,” he said instead.
    * * * *
    Jerome squeezed his son's shoulder, then continued down the path. A moment later, he turned and looked at his son through moisture-blurred eyes. Thomas was already heading back toward the house. “Be careful,” whispered Jerome.
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Chapter 2
    Myra Lee
    Myra Lee grew up in the desert of Arizona. As a young girl, she thought rivers were mostly mud and quicksand with little trickles of water running through the middle where minnows swam and occasionally great walls of water crashed through the channels during intense rainstorms. When she was ten years old, her father took her to Nantucket Island to be the flower girl in a wedding. While there, her father took her out on a boat. She had never seen so much water in her life. However, she saw something even more amazing—she saw a whale.
    Growing up, the biggest fish she had seen in the wild were silvery minnows, little more than an inch long. Several would fit in a coffee can. The whale she saw was over forty-five feet long. It was a humpback with giant, white paddle-like fins. It rose from the depths and shot a fine spray of water, drenching her, making her laugh. She watched it swim around the boat, never once taking her gaze off the behemoth. When it finally dove back to the depths, it raised its great tail and splashed the ocean, as though waving goodbye.
    That night, Myra's father brought her a compact disk of whale song and the humpback whale sang her to sleep. The next day, she asked her father what the humpback said in the recording.
    "I don't know,” he said, kindly. “But it's very haunting, isn't it?"
    She nodded. “I'm going to find out one day."
    * * * *
    Thirty years later, the research vessel Eleana gently rocked in the frigid water of Frederick Sound, Alaska. The three-decker boat, once white, was now streaked with the brown of rust. Barnacles lined the hull's dull red bottom. Two poles jutted from the vessel's side and cables extended into the water. The black cables were attached to hydrophones, recording all the sounds of the deep. Standing in the bow of the ship, watching the deepening blue of the twilight sky was Eleana's captain, Lance Naftel. He wondered