The asteroid I’d pinned Sniffer to had a slow, lazy spin. They kept quiet by using only beamed communications. It suddenly hit me. The blip homed in on me. I stepped us up to max gee. I could see no ports, no locks, no antennae. Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. Transmission ends.”. There are a dozen overlapping safeguards on the system, but if you know how—I punched in the command. But this one worried me. I edged us out from the rock and looked around. This is a monumental collection of thirty-eight Gregory Benford stories, including some of the best science fiction of the last fifty years, chosen from more than two hundred he has published to date. He sometimes collaborates with his twin brother Jim. It’s cheaper in energy to boost ice into the slow pipeline orbits in from the Belt to Earth—much cheaper than it is to haul water up from Earth’s deep gravity well. A jumble of complex structures. A century or two in space would make them into very different people. It came up out of the background noise on the radar scope. I didn’t like the conclusion, but it fit the facts. 1994, Bantam. That made Sniffer dart around, just enough to make hitting her tough. * The Dark Backward, (ss) Amazing Feb 1993. Prospectors shoot at you if you’re jumping a claim. I felt the bridge swimming around me, a sour smell of burning—then I was out, the world slipping away, the blackness folding in. 1987 R. Reed Hormone Jungle (1989) 7 And there is the multitude of Belter worlds, each unique. Request micro-burst of confirmation on your hail frequency, Sniffer. I thumbed on the mike. There wasn’t much else to do. How come they didn’t overrun Earth before we even evolved? But now—I switched the radio back on and reached for the mike to hail Ceres. You have things to do, children to feed, even work you get paid for. The American writer Gregory Benford belongs to my favorite authors. Though outnumbered, Yugi will never give up, as long as he believes in the heart of the cards! Repeat, this is Ceres Monitor—”. I took all this in while I watched for reflections from the next laser strike. I made the side jets stutter, too, putting out little bursts of plasma. Nobody who grew up in fractional gee, with the freedom the cylinder world gives you, would want to be a ground-pounder. A prospector finds an interstellar spaceship hiding among the asteroids in the main belt. Where? Oresniffers use radio for communication—it radiates in all directions, it’s cheap, and it’s not delicate. Editor Jerry Pournelle with John F. Carr. I turned in my couch to see it. Story found! Read reviews from world’s largest community for readers. Clarke, Arthur "Summertime on Icarus" in The Nine Billion Names of God. If they moved at even one percent the speed of light, they’d have spread across the whole damn galaxy in a few million years. My helmet buzzed and went dark as its sunshade overloaded. We accelerated away, making tracks. By jittering around, Sniffer was making it impossible for him to send us a distress signal. The cesium ionizes easily and makes a perfect shield against radar. My companion asteroid had enough traces of metal in it to keep standard radar from seeing Sniffer’s outline. You can’t stop watching. It was a cylinder, decorated almost beyond recognition. Gregory Benford's "Dark Sanctuary". The laser bolt must have caught us for just a few seconds. Cheaper, that is, if the rockrats flying vac out here can find any. In three hours I had my answer. Gregory Benford bibliography (3,713 words) exact match in snippet view article find links to article Vol. If I kept radio silence, I’d be pretty safe. I was looking for this on r/scifi and r/TOMT. A few rocks twinkled in the distance as they tumbled. I hesitated about what to do, but they decided for me. And slept. DJ/CEO DARK SANCTUARY RADIO January 2014 – Present 5 years 11 months. I pulled away from our shelter and boosted. I forced myself to think. So I waited. In the long waits while I dodged from rock to rock there was plenty of time. Curious, as I said. I was getting worried. They were making better gee than I could; it was going to be a matter of who could hold out. While I was out on my own, taking samples from rocks, I saw this gray, ice-covered asteroid about a hundred klicks away. Undoubtedly the cylinder beings could have destroyed us. Guild summary for the Horde guild 'Dark Sanctuary' on Ragnaros - EU In the meantime, the Belt was a natural hideout. I have reread his novel "In the Ocean of the Night" many times ( driveby ). They were old, older than we could imagine. With Sonja Smits, David Cubitt, Bruce Gray, Patrick McKenna. These ancient beings found an exponentially growing technology on their doorstep. The blip appeared around its edge. They’d need raw materials, sure. So call me stupid. DP22-JP012 – Ultra Rare Evil HERO Malicious Bane DARK Fiend Fusion Effect Monster LV8 3000/3000 1 “Evil HERO” monster + 1 Level 5 or higher monster Must be Special Summoned with “Dark … Emitting radio, exploding nuclear weapons, flying spacecraft. Moored snug to the asteroid’s face, I’d be hard to pick out. When I woke up I couldn’t see the blip. I looked around, and I found one that was heading into the mathematical cone my number-cruncher dealt me. One minute the scope was clean and the next—a big one, moving fast, straight at us. The high-boost fuel puts out incredibly hot gas. A prospector finds an interstellar spaceship hiding among the asteroids in the main belt. very enjoyable. The deck plates rattled. The aliens wouldn’t be much different. 1967, Signet. Putting all this together was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with only half the pieces, but still—something told me I was right. Better than trading laser bolts with rockrats at thousand-kilometer range, any day. That implied something further, too. A roar rattled the ship. So now I knew what was after me. They could nudge a middle-sized asteroid into a collision orbit with Earth, and watch the storm wrack engulf humanity. I checked radar. The surface itself glowed, like rock with a ghostly fire inside. Votes: 158 But we think life isn’t all that unusual in the universe. More Amazing Stories, ed. The best-paying commodity in the Belt right now was methane ice, and I knew a likely place. I was scared. Also, I could tell which way I was facing when the bolt hit me. Director: Kunihisa Sugishima | Stars: Amy Birnbaum, Madeleine Blaustein, Dan Green, Megan Hollingshead. But suppose some rocker lost his radio, and had to use his cutting laser to signal? The blip was coming at me at better than a tenth of a gee—incredible acceleration. The inboard computer overlaid a perspective grid on the image, to convince me. Sanctuary may not be the answer you were hoping for, but it … The rock damps the runaway reaction. It was old. They’d be spacefarers, able to live in vac and tap solar power. Give it a name and it becomes a human quality—which is in itself a deception. The laser beam hit me smack in the face. I wanted some camouflage. Inside that cone was whoever had tried to wing me. That was one reason I carried them—they doubled as a signal flare, visible millions of klicks away. It didn’t fit. I floated, frowning. But now that I thought about it—. II, collected in In Alien Flesh and The Best of Gregory Benford "Dark Sanctuary" Omni (May 1979), reprinted in The Endless Frontier and Lightspeed (February It was a gamble, but worth it in fuel. The common theory is that life in general must be like that. In 2007 he was awarded the Asimov Memorial Award for Popularizing Science. The side pods held fission-burn rockets, powerful things. The moly bolts came free with a bang. I was pretty safe now; Sniffer’s strutting mode was fast and choppy, jerking me around in my captain’s couch. 1996 G. Benford Dark Sanctuary in Matter’s End 147 That happens every time the cylinder boys build a new tin can and need to form an ecosystem inside. I saw the thing behind fade away in the exhaust flames. The sun was a fierce white dot in an inky sea. Some code, some moral sense that ruled out firing on a fleeing craft, no matter how much they wanted to stop it. And waited. I couldn’t make them stop. They had a tough decision to face. Prospectors are hermits. It couldn’t have been hiding—there was no rock around to screen it. They didn’t want to be detected by other, younger societies. By some chance somebody had seen mine and relayed the coordinates to Ceres. I went into the observation bubble to have a squint with the opticals. “You are not the first to have tried rebuilding the world according to your own ideals. Belters aren’t scientists. They fired one time only and cost like hell. 1994, Bantam. Dark Sanctuary. Get inside the ship. They each took a sip and let silence take its seat in the room. I checked the ranging figures, shook my head, checked again. Just the reverse, in fact—they were hiding. My throat was raw, my nerves jumpy. Towers jutted out at odd places—twisted columns, with curved faces and sudden jagged struts. By the time I was a few hundred klicks away from the asteroid it was too small to be a useful shield. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. For the Goddess Route, you must pull less than seven swords from the Vile God before clearing Cavare Desert - Sanctuary. My fingers were shaking so badly I didn’t dare punch in instructions. Refresh and try again. Contrast the story in the previous post, Dark Sanctuary, with The Final Now. The yellow-blue craft had never fired at me. And Belters are loners—my instinct was always to keep troubles to myself. Rock and ore they can get from Earth’s moon. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of. All through the chase I hadn’t called Ceres. I ate breakfast and freed Sniffer from the asteroid I’d moored us to. It punched a blue-white fist in the blackness. You watch your instruments, you tinker with your plasma drive, you play 3D flexcop—an addictive game; it ought to be illegal—and you worry. I checked some orbits. It was swelling in the sky, getting close. So Belters are the new cutting edge of mankind, pushing out, finding new resources. Most of us are from the cylinder worlds orbiting Earth. Maybe they’d broken off the chase. I smiled grimly and cut in the whole system. But this was too much for me. Reprinted by permission of the author. That was in the days when everybody thought cadmium was going to be the wonder fuel for ion rockets. I took Sniffer up and out, backing away from the asteroid to keep it between me and the blip that was coming for us. I stared at that strange, monstrous thing, and thought, and suddenly I didn’t want to be around there anymore. There was a hot, gun-metal smell. But worth it. Sniffer was groaning with the strain. It occurred to me that if I hadn’t been outside, fixing a hydraulic loader, I wouldn’t have known anybody shot at us at all, until my next routine check. Be the first to ask a question about Dark Sanctuary. Which meant they could deflect radar waves, at least for a few minutes. A serene, long-lived, cosmic civilization might be worried by our blind rush outward. It didn’t help much. In the Belt there is plenty of time for moving around, and a chronic lack of fuel—so we use high-efficiency drives and take energy-cheap orbits. Benford is a scientist—he’s an astrophysicist on the faculty at UC-Irvine—so the “science” in his scienct fiction is the real deal. It's Dark Magician versus Dark Magician! yugioh 50 card all holographic holo foil collection lot! Right now the big cylinder worlds orbiting Earth needed water, CO2, methane, and other goodies. Belters and lasers I could take, sure. DP22-JP011 Jibakurei no Izanai / Call of the Earthbound. Belters aren’t scientists. Some people think that argument is right. I don’t carry weapons, but I do have a few tricks. Most of us are from the cylinder worlds orbiting Earth. No cause for alarm. It would have been of no use—there were no craft within range to be of help. I filed its orbit parameters away for a time—like now—when the market got thirsty. Omni 8 May 1979 GB. I hesitated. Dark Sanctuary, by Gregory Benford Dark Sanctuary is one of Benford's early efforts, recently posted. If mankind ever cast off into the abyss between the stars, which way would they go? Rosemary Jokopi, sole officer. The cylinder gave off no radio, but ships navigating that much mass into place would have to. I might be the first human to stumble upon them, but I wouldn’t be the last. Enjoyed this story? In a dinky rocket? Sniffer took five hours to rendezvous with it—a big black hunk, a klick wide and absolutely worthless. They’re gamblers, idealists, thieves, crazies, malcontents. Or was I assuming too much? The blip showed up again. I punched in a quick computer program. 4.0. excellent. The pressure patches on knees and elbows had brown bubbles in them. I reached up to scratch my nose, thinking, and I realized my helmet and skinsuit were still sealed, vac-worthy. It's not as easy to read as Dark Sanctuary, but deeply interesting for what the author is undertaking. I used the radar to rummage through the nearby rocks, looking for metal that might be a ship. In addition to science fiction, Benford also writes a lot of alternate history. The thing came and went, fluttered, grew and shrank. Who’s got a radar that can pinpoint that well? Jack is arrested for assault; Gardner/Ross assumes an airline's debt. That would explain why they didn’t contact us. Dark Sanctuary Benford, Gregory "Dark Sanctuary" in Matters End. A fretwork of blue. My drive pulsed, suddenly rich in deuterium. Why? The core of the motor is a hot ball of plasma, burning heavy water—deuterium—and spitting it, plus vaporized rock, out the back tubes. Guild summary for the Alliance guild 'Dark Sanctuary' on Onyxia - US Plus, we have original science fiction by Keith Brooke (“War 3.01”) and bestselling author Carrie Vaughn (“Harry and Marlowe and the Talisman of the Cult of Egil”), plus SF reprints by award-winning authors Gregory Benford (“Dark Sanctuary”) and Kristine Kathryn Rusch (“Craters”). Nothing. Already, men were living in space habitats. An angry prospector would’ve done it without thinking twice. On top of that, all in a microsecond, came a shot of cesium. Benford, Gregory “Dark Sanctuary” in Matter’s End. Benford, Gregory “Dark Sanctuary” in Matter’s End. A peaceful existence. If they scorched me again, I’d have to button up while my own ship’s air tried to suck me away—but stopping the itch was worth it. Benford is a scientist—he’s an astrophysicist on the faculty at UC-Irvine—so the “science” in his scienct fiction is the real deal. All at once I wished I wasn’t such a loner. “Dark Sanctuary” was originally published in Omni Magazine, May 1979. Patches of strange, moving yellow. I decided to hide behind one rock heading sunward at a fair clip. A prospector finds an interstellar spaceship hiding among the asteroids in the main belt. I yanked on a strut and tumbled into the yawning, fluorescent-lit airlock. They had blistered and boiled away. Five years back I had been out with a rockhound bunch, looking for asteroids with rich cadmium deposits. Stupid, no. Consider supporting us via one of the following methods: Gregory Benford is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. fun read. I knew he had to be over ten thousand kilometers away—that’s radar range. So I tried another trick. I let Sniffer’s ballistic routine chew on that for a minute and, waiting, looked out the side port. It fit. 2. Somebody would have picked it up. The cylinder was pointing nearly away from me, so radar had reported a cross section much smaller than its real size. I moved fast, working my way forward through a connecting tube to the bridge—a fancy name for a closet-sized cockpit. Rock and ore they can get from Earth’s moon. Thirty years later Benford is confident enough to tackle an end of the universe story, and take a stab at defining the meaning of the Creation. DP22-JP010 Shiryou Zoma / Zoma the Spirit. Kim Mohan, Tor 1998 * Dark Sanctuary, (ss) Omni May 1979 Matter’s End, Bantam Spectra 1995; Matter’s End, Bantam Spectra 1995 * A Darker Geometry (with Mark O. Martin) [Man-Kzin Wars], (n.) Man-Kzin Wars VII, ed. 30 years later, Into the Mirror Black gets the anniversary treatment, complete with added demos and a bonus live show. Asteroid miner discovers secretive alien civilization in the asteroid belt after she is hit in the faceplate by their communications laser. Rock and ore they can get from Earth’s moon. It would have been a simple shot at this range. They had come here and settled, soaking up energy from our sun, mining the asteroids, getting ices from comets. I sat there, not breathing. I turned up the fusion drive. Probably a comet hit the rock millions of years ago, and some of it stuck. Over the last century the scientists have looked for radio signals from other civilizations out among the stars, and come up with zero results. I twisted away. Delayed reaction, my analytical mind told me. A bolt from who? Which didn’t make sense. Some aft sensors burned out, a loading arm melted down, other minor stuff. Once you’ve grown up in space, moving on means moving out, not going back to Earth. The sun carved sharp shadows into the rock face. But as my hands hovered over the control console, they started trembling. It mixed and heated and zap—out the back, moving fast, went a hot cloud of spitting, snarling plasma. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about what I’d seen, but now it looked like I was in for a long haul. The gee thrust went up. The best proof of this is that they haven’t come calling. Sensors said it was carbon dioxide ice with some water mixed in. I stared at that green cone and ate some tangy squeeze-tube soup and got even more curious. Another second or two and I’d have been sucking vac. I took the risk. This is a monumental collection of thirty-eight Gregory Benford stories, including some of the best science fiction of the last fifty years, chosen from the more than two hundred he has published to date: At the end of the 1960s, Benford expanded his novella “Deeper than the Darkness,” to become his first novel of the same title in 1970. When I hung up the mike, my hands weren’t shaking anymore. Those two facts could give me a fix on the source. By all rights, Sniffer should’ve been a drifting hulk by now—sensors blinded, punched full of holes, engines blown. They must be worried now, with humans exploring the Belt. I had been in my skinsuit the whole time and I didn’t smell all that good either. Until we were hit, we’d been on a zero-gee coast, outbound from Ceres—the biggest rock there is—for some prospecting. Only it didn’t come. Dark Sanctuary Gregory Benford 15. When the blip appeared I started staging the engines. I’d known that, deep in my guts, the moment I saw it. Maybe they just plain ran out of fuel; everybody has limitations, even things that can span the stars. Maybe they’d been damaged. Inside the cone was somebody who wanted me dead. I twisted away. The dust got sucked into Jupiter long ago. I looked back. Me, I like it. Cable Cars in the Sky Hans Moravec 16. The asteroid would take me coasting through the middle of that cone. I needed sleep and I didn’t want to keep up my fusion burn—they’re too easy to detect. In fact, I thought it was noise. That would tell me composition, albedo, the rest of the litany. Nobody could build a thing like that out there and keep it quiet. And fixed the aft sensors. Down to the planets? On our next revolution, as soon as the automatic opticals got a fix, there were two blips. That out there and keep it quiet thinking, and some of the American Physical,! The butt a fierce white dot in an inky sea before she was commissioned elbows had bubbles... 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