The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) (35 page)

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T
he basic monetary
unit of New London is the
pound
, though most items in the Fringe Worlds cost considerably less than this; at least those produced on the planet or nearby. The
pound
is further divided into
shillings
and
pence
.

T
he perplexing problem
dated back centuries, to when mankind was still planet-bound on Earth. Scientists, theorizing about the origin of the universe, recognized that the universe was expanding, but made the proposal that the force that had started that expansion would eventually dissipate, causing the universe to then begin contracting again. When they measured this, however, they discovered something very odd — not only was the expansion of the universe not slowing, but it was actually increasing.

This meant that something, something unseen, was continuing to apply energy to the universe’s expansion. More energy than could be accounted for by what their instruments could detect. At the same time, they noticed that there seemed to be more gravitational force than could be accounted for by the observable masses of stars, planets, and other objects.

There seemed to be quite a bit of the universe that simply couldn’t be seen. Over ninety percent of the energy and matter that had to make up the universe, in fact.

They called these dark energy and dark matter, for want of a better term.

Then, as humanity began serious utilization of near-Earth space, they made another discovery.

Lagrangian points were well-known in orbital mechanics. With any two bodies where one is orbiting around the other, such as a planet and a moon, there are five points in space where the gravitational effects of the two bodies provide precisely the centripetal force required to keep an object, if not stationary, then relatively so.

Humanity first used these points to build a space station at L1, the Lagrangian point situated midway between Earth and the Moon, thus providing a convenient stopover for further exploration of the Moon. This was quickly followed by a station at L2, the point on the far side of the moon, roughly the same distance from it as L1. Both of these stations began reporting odd radiation signatures. Radiation that had no discernible source, but seemed to spring into existence from within the Lagrangian points themselves.

Further research into this odd radiation began taking place at the L4 and L5 points, which led and trailed the Moon in its orbit by about sixty degrees. More commonly referred to as Trojan Points, L4 and L5 are much larger in area than L1 and L2 and, it was discovered, the unknown radiation was much more intense.

More experimentation, including several probes that simply disappeared when their hulls were charged with certain high-energy particles, eventually led to one of those probes reappearing — and the discovery of
darkspace
, along with the missing ninety-five percent of the universe.

Dark energy that moved through it like winds. Usually blowing directly toward a star system from all directions, pushing those systems farther and farther apart, but sometimes coming in storms that could drive a ship far off course. Dark matter that permeated the space, slowing anything, even light, outside of a ship’s hull and field.