The Invincible

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The Invincible moved across the outermost quadrant of the Lyre Constellation. The heavy cruiser was propelled through space by photon drive. It was the largest ship at the disposal of the space fleet based in this section of the universe.

The ship’s complement numbered eighty-three men, all of them presently asleep inside the hibernation tunnel. The flight distance was sufficiently short that it had not been necessary to resort to full hibernation; the men were simply kept in deep sleep, body temperature regulated so as never to fall below 50° F. Within the cruiser’s control center only the automats carried on their work.

Dead center in the direction finder hung the disk of a sun not much hotter than an ordinary red dwarf star. The moment the sun filled half the screen the space-drive automatically cut off. For a while dead silence reigned throughout the ship. The air conditioning system and the computers functioned noiselessly. The slight vibration ceased when the photon stream no longer emerged from the spacecraft’s stern. This stream had been like an infinitely long sword, sheathed in darkness, thrusting the cruiser ahead through the vastness of space. The Invincible still coasted along just under the speed of light; rigid, deaf and seemingly without any life aboard.

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