Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 3, 1989)
NEWTON'S FIRST by S. Raphael Williams After two months of intensive and top testing, and a month more of gov It was a situation which only a handful secret ! of people would ever experience, and of < ernment consultations and meetings, world those, none would ever be able to fully i media was invited to a highly unusual press Tension and excitement on communicate their emotions or percep- conference. < tionsoftheeventtotheoneswhowereleft i the appointed morning was extremely tan network affiliates across the country hehind. Of course, there had been fear in gible; , the beginning, despite the months of train- j stood by to interrupt their programming, ing, a fear so deep that it readied down ’ while newsmen in every nation waited by through the individual’s experience and their wire service machines. At the end of the large conference touched the very roots of humanity’s col lective subconscious, but after a time the room, scientists and official spokesmen sat fear had subsided enough to allow a great at a long, microphone-hedged table; they had with them a set of photos, charts and sense peace and well-being to develop. He felt that peace now very strongly as enlarged diagrams. The real object was he gazed down at the vast curving edge of locked away in a monitored vault. - Then the news was given to the world: the blue-white sphere so many miles be neath him. He could see North Africa and An artifact of alien origin, made of an the Persian Gulf from this position, he unknown alloy and bearing an unknown could almost run his finger, god-like, di message, had been retrieved by an Ameri rectly along the sharp and fragile outline of can astronaut on the last shuttle mission. The artifact’s function was not yet clear, the continents. A few meters away from him, the but scientists were trying to decipher the shuttle’s cargo bay doors were open like example, of writing that it bore, and it was clipped gull wings, stark and blinding white believed to be some form of message bea in the light of the sun, which shone all con, an alien Voyager. While flashbulbs popped and video around in its full strength and purity. The man’s mission had been to remove a small cameras focused on the diagrams, the mail. fragment of stray metal which had jammed who had found the object sat alone, many the swivel mechanism on the large robot miles away, and watched the proceedings arm; the existence of the scrap had been on a television set; and the screen became deduced after several nervous hours of filled with the charts and photos of the troubleshooting and conjecture, but every mysterious metal thing, everything became clear to him. He realized what it was and thing was back in perfect working order. He slowly manipulated the controls on why it had come here, he could see the his motorized suit so that he was in the events as though they were happening before proper position for the solemn and ballet his eyes. Untold light years away an alien astro like return to the airlock; he remembered the days of the umbilical tethers, which naut, and adventurer of an unimaginable gave a man a lifeline but seemed a strange race, had been on a spacewalk of his own; imitation of the real thing, which existed in something had gone wrong and he had the warmth and secure closeness of the started to drift away from his craft and in , g womb. As he came close to the airlock, a order to get back, he had started to drift ' g faint glint against the backdrop of stars and away from his craft and in order to get back, space caught his eye; it was heading straight he had thrown out what ever he had been for him, tumbling end over end and clear holding at the moment, hoping that the ing the top of the shuttle by less than a counter force would save him. The object had then traveled at the meter. The man reached out his cumbersome, same speed and in a straight line, miracu- heavily gloved hand and caught the object; lousty not encountering any significant dust the forward propulsion units on his suit i or asteroids, not falling into the gravity saved him from being thrust eternally back fields of any stars or planets until it reached wards due to the force of the impact He > Earth. It was not a message-in-a-bottle examined the object in the stark light; it t from an alien civilization, but a simple was metal, about seven inches long, curi tool, like a wrench. The Earthman smiled thoughtfully and ously twisted at both ends, and bote a few i sank back in his seat. He hoped his distant strange markings on its sides. And even though it was unlike any • counterpart had thought his own home thing he had ever seen before, it instantly planet was beautiful when seen from space; he hoped that he had made it back safely. gave him a nagging sense of familiarity. Acknowledgments: Michelle Walch, Editor Mary ‘Squidge* Bennett and David Top, Illustrators Linda Vogt, Advisor Caree Hussy, Me-Lissa and Joan Cartelas, Moral Support inches L* a* b* D50 llluminant, 2 degree observer Density ► Q.Q4 o.Q9 Q.15 0.22 Q.36 o.si A)