Read Into the Sea of Stars for Free Online

oxygen, amino acids, carbon compounds, nitrogen, various electronic components, and even worse, any catalysts, substances that are changed by the interaction of a process."
    "The first critical point of scarcity," Richard interrupted, "defines the limits of growth or survival." He looked around with a self-satisfied smile, as Ian and the others turned to him.
    "Well, it's an ecological point, and that's what these colonies are—closed ecologies. The first point of scarcity will define their possible limit, any bioscientist knows that. So you're saying that a number of these units had limited carrying capacity."
    "At least a hundred are most likely dead by now," Ian continued, "unless they entered another star system for resupply and possible colonization. But from what Stasz has said of the. survey , there were no signs of that."
    "So far we've checked the fifteen nearest stars," Stasz responded.
    "And nothing?" Shelley asked.
    "Not a sign."
    "It's damn peculiar," Shelley replied. "You'd have thought that the units would have naturally gravitated to the nearest star systems."
    "Maybe none of them were appropriate," Richard interjected.
    "Two of the systems had planetary bodies that might have been useful for resupply , but the others, except for the energy from the star, were next to useless," Stasz replied.
    "Let's get back to the question of which direction to take," Ellen said, sensing that the rest of them would soon be off on a technical discussion that could last for days.
    "Ah, yes," Ian responded, as if being drawn back from a drifting line of thought that he wished to pursue. "Which way..." His voice trailed off.
    "How about thataway ," Richard announced melodramatically, while pointing off vaguely toward the "down" direction of the room.
    "Dr. Lacklin ," Shelley said quietly, waiting for the laughter at Richard's comment to die down. "Dr. Lacklin , what about toward SETI Anomaly One and the galactic center?"
    Ian brightened up at her suggestion.
    "Precisely what I was leading to, of course," he said hurriedly. "You see, there was one general trend in the movement. Colonial 237 , which was the second unit to depart, was headed straight for the galactic center, and our records show that one hundred thirty-five other units went within ten minutes of arc to either side of that point."
    "Well, that narrows the volume tremendously."
    "Still a bit of a problem, Ellen," Stasz replied.
    Ellen groaned. "It only gives us an area about twenty- one thousand A.U. in diameter to search at a range of fifty light-years out."
    Ian chuckled softly and gave Shelley a baleful glance. "I tried to explain this to the Chancellor, but do you think he cared about the mathematics of our search? Oh no. You see, a bright young graduate assistant had convinced a bunch of drone-head bureaucrats that this expedition could work." His normally high voice started to crack into falsetto. "Twenty-one thousand A.U." And shaking his head, he fell silent.
    "Why the galactic center?" Richard asked.
    "Why not? There were several stars they could orbit into along the path, and somehow it seemed appropriate. Sort of like going to the center of everything, if you will. And if we were to find anything in terms of life, I guess that would be the place to look for it. That, and the SETI contact back in 2018, coming straight out from the galactic center. Even though the contact point was estimated to be four thousand light-years away, it was still something to go for in all that immensity of space."
    "Are there any other areas of such promise?" Stasz asked.
    "No," Ian said softly, "the other colonies were pretty evenly distributed. A fair number going toward the thirty nearest stars, and, like I already said, the paradox of this is that in the first fifteen checked out so far, not one sighting has been made. If we head toward the galactic center, within a hundred light-years three stars not too far off the trajectory might be worth checking out. Twenty- three