No Contact

Cribed in future tents. Dementia! Can you predict what will come in 100 years? Or in 10? Or in the next minute? Some people think they can. Nuclear scientists, mathematicians, astronomers, biologists, they'll predict the shape of the future.

Why? Because they make the future. Because they see beyond the known dimensions of time and space. into the unknown dimension X. It was in the year of 1982 that space men first discovered the great galactic barrier.

In the past ten years, rocket traveled to the moon in the mirror planet had become commonplace. And then men fixed their sights on a more distant star, the remote planet known as Volta. Five exploratory ships went out and none came back.

Each in turn disappearing mysteriously at the same vanishing point at an invisible wall somewhere in the vast outer reaches that became known as the wrecker of space ships, the Galactic Reef. And yet the explorers refused to admit defeat.

It was on June the 2nd, 1987, that the rocket star cloud made ready for takeoff, the sixth to attempt to crack the barrier and win through the Volta. I don't suppose you want the ship's doctor up here on the bridge during Glasgow.

I think not, Smitty. All right then, I'll be in the sick bay counting vitamin pills if you need me. What do you like, Lois? Thank you, Smitty. Lieutenant Carter. Yes, sir? You're relieved. You better get down to navigation control and take over.

Yes, sir. Oh, Lieutenant. Yes, sir? Uh, we've, uh, never flown together before. This is your first flight in the Space Vessel as big as the Star Cloud, isn't it? Yes, sir. But I was trained in oversized jobs at the Naval Academy.