Star Light
Encyclopedia
Star Light is a science fiction
novel
by Hal Clement
. It is the sequel to one of Clement's earlier books, Mission of Gravity
. The novel was serialized in four parts in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine
from June to September 1970. Star Light was first published as a paperback book by Ballantine Books in September 1971.
. The planet has an ammonia/water atmosphere with some oxygen, at temperatures ranging from 70 kelvins to almost the freezing point of water. The planet rotates extremely slowly, taking around two months for one revolution. It also has a long eccentric orbit around its star, which is a red dwarf
, Lalande 21185
. Much of the planet's heat seems to come from within. The gravity at the surface is 40 times the Earth's. Almost everything about the planet defies scientific theory, including its size, lack of hydrogen, its temperature, and the presence of free oxygen in its atmosphere.
A consortium of spacefaring races, including humans, recruits Mesklinites, the centipede-like natives of the high-gravity planet Mesklin, to explore Dhrawn. The recruits include Barlennan and Dondragmer, respectively the Captain and First Mate of the Bree, a merchant vessel of Mesklin, which sailed to Mesklin's south pole to rescue a probe sent by humans. Now, thanks to institutes of learning set up on Mesklin, the natives have produced capable explorers who can go where other races cannot.
Barlennan is in command of the main base on Dhrawn while Dondragmer
commands a "land cruiser", the Kwembly. This is a tracked vehicle about 30 meters long, 6 meters high and the same wide. It is designed to move like a large worm on independently steerable trucks. The power is supplied by self-contained fusion generators but the controls are simple pulley-and-rope systems using Mesklinite materials which the crew can repair themselves. There are several more cruisers, and each has audio/video links for communication with satellites.
The humans and others are on a satellite in synchronous orbit
above the explorers on the ground. Unfortunately the planet's slow rotation means that they are about 10 million kilometers above the surface, and signals take over 30 seconds to travel
to the satellite. Real time conversations are therefore impossible.
On the satellite are linguist "Easy" Hoffman and her son Benj, who is both an engineer and a linguist. Both speak fluent Stennish, the Mesklinite language, and have formed close personal relationships with the explorers on the surface. They are later joined on the satellite by Ib Hoffman, Easy's husband and Benj's father.
One of the cruisers, the Esket has apparently suffered a catastrophe and all the crew have vanished, much to Easy's dismay. The cruisers communicators still function, but all they show are views of a deserted ship.
In reality, Barlennan is executing a complicated deception. A wily negotiator who successfully blackmailed the humans into giving him technology in Mission of Gravity, he is apparently plotting to gain yet another advantage from the situation he created. The exact nature of his objectives is unclear.
Soon, however, the Kwembly is in very real trouble. As the planet warms, the complicated phase changes of water and ammonia mixtures at these low temperatures mean that a frozen lake can melt in seconds, carry the ship off in a flood, and equally suddenly leave it hung up on large rocks, unable to move as the liquid around it freezes again, trapping some of the crew below the surface in their protective suits.
These events, along with some bad timing, lead to the discovery of Barlennan's trickery when Easy recognizes a friend of hers from the Esket as he appears, as if from nowhere, but actually from one of the dirigibles that Barlennan is clandestinely using to move his men and materiel around.
The Hoffmans would prefer to deal honestly with the Mesklinites, but they have to deal with the prejudices, not only of fellow humans with political motives, but with the more paranoid of the non-human supervisors of the mission. Having an inkling of what Barlennan is really after, Ib Hoffman finally breaks the deadlock with an idea that will save the crew of the Kwembly and make the mission successful beyond the dreams of its planners.
from mixtures undergoing freezing or condensation, can produce drastic changes in conditions. Seemingly solid surfaces can liquefy under the pressure of the land cruisers, even as individual Mesklinites can walk on them in complete safety.
To some extent, the narrative is much weakened by the focus on the science. There are long passages of exposition intended to show both what can go wrong in a seemingly well-understood situation, and how individual ingenuity and perseverance can overcome problems. The human characters seem made-up and lacking in depth, simply being people with extraordinary abilities trying to deal with a situation where they are getting information that is late and, they later realize, unreliable.
The final lesson in the novel is that full and complete disclosure is the only way to succeed in a situation where unpredictable changes can occur. Ib Hoffman relates the story of how his son Benj, at the age of thirteen, designed and built SCUBA equipment
, carefully calculating all the parameters, only to come close to dying on his first dive because he lacked a crucial piece of information about the physiology of breathing, one which all his knowledge of physics and engineering could not have predicted.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Hal Clement
Hal Clement
Harry Clement Stubbs better known by the pen name Hal Clement, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre.-Biography:...
. It is the sequel to one of Clement's earlier books, Mission of Gravity
Mission of Gravity
Mission of Gravity is a science fiction novel by Hal Clement. The novel was serialized in Astounding Science Fiction magazine in April–July 1953. Its first hardcover book publication was in 1954, and it was first published as a paperback book in 1958...
. The novel was serialized in four parts in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact Magazine
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
from June to September 1970. Star Light was first published as a paperback book by Ballantine Books in September 1971.
Plot summary
it was set several decades after the events of Mission of Gravity. It takes place mostly on the supergiant planet Dhrawn, which some suspect of being a failed starBrown dwarf
Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects which are too low in mass to sustain hydrogen-1 fusion reactions in their cores, which is characteristic of stars on the main sequence. Brown dwarfs have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth...
. The planet has an ammonia/water atmosphere with some oxygen, at temperatures ranging from 70 kelvins to almost the freezing point of water. The planet rotates extremely slowly, taking around two months for one revolution. It also has a long eccentric orbit around its star, which is a red dwarf
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....
, Lalande 21185
Lalande 21185
Lalande 21185 is a red dwarf star in the constellation of Ursa Major. Although relatively close by, it is only magnitude 7 in visible light and thus is too dim to see with the unaided eye...
. Much of the planet's heat seems to come from within. The gravity at the surface is 40 times the Earth's. Almost everything about the planet defies scientific theory, including its size, lack of hydrogen, its temperature, and the presence of free oxygen in its atmosphere.
A consortium of spacefaring races, including humans, recruits Mesklinites, the centipede-like natives of the high-gravity planet Mesklin, to explore Dhrawn. The recruits include Barlennan and Dondragmer, respectively the Captain and First Mate of the Bree, a merchant vessel of Mesklin, which sailed to Mesklin's south pole to rescue a probe sent by humans. Now, thanks to institutes of learning set up on Mesklin, the natives have produced capable explorers who can go where other races cannot.
Barlennan is in command of the main base on Dhrawn while Dondragmer
commands a "land cruiser", the Kwembly. This is a tracked vehicle about 30 meters long, 6 meters high and the same wide. It is designed to move like a large worm on independently steerable trucks. The power is supplied by self-contained fusion generators but the controls are simple pulley-and-rope systems using Mesklinite materials which the crew can repair themselves. There are several more cruisers, and each has audio/video links for communication with satellites.
The humans and others are on a satellite in synchronous orbit
Synchronous orbit
A synchronous orbit is an orbit in which an orbiting body has a period equal to the average rotational period of the body being orbited , and in the same direction of rotation as that body.-Properties:...
above the explorers on the ground. Unfortunately the planet's slow rotation means that they are about 10 million kilometers above the surface, and signals take over 30 seconds to travel
Travel time
Travel time may refer to* Travel, movement of people between locations* Travel journal, record made by a voyager* Propagation speed, term in physics to measure things such as the speed of light or radio waves...
to the satellite. Real time conversations are therefore impossible.
On the satellite are linguist "Easy" Hoffman and her son Benj, who is both an engineer and a linguist. Both speak fluent Stennish, the Mesklinite language, and have formed close personal relationships with the explorers on the surface. They are later joined on the satellite by Ib Hoffman, Easy's husband and Benj's father.
One of the cruisers, the Esket has apparently suffered a catastrophe and all the crew have vanished, much to Easy's dismay. The cruisers communicators still function, but all they show are views of a deserted ship.
In reality, Barlennan is executing a complicated deception. A wily negotiator who successfully blackmailed the humans into giving him technology in Mission of Gravity, he is apparently plotting to gain yet another advantage from the situation he created. The exact nature of his objectives is unclear.
Soon, however, the Kwembly is in very real trouble. As the planet warms, the complicated phase changes of water and ammonia mixtures at these low temperatures mean that a frozen lake can melt in seconds, carry the ship off in a flood, and equally suddenly leave it hung up on large rocks, unable to move as the liquid around it freezes again, trapping some of the crew below the surface in their protective suits.
These events, along with some bad timing, lead to the discovery of Barlennan's trickery when Easy recognizes a friend of hers from the Esket as he appears, as if from nowhere, but actually from one of the dirigibles that Barlennan is clandestinely using to move his men and materiel around.
The Hoffmans would prefer to deal honestly with the Mesklinites, but they have to deal with the prejudices, not only of fellow humans with political motives, but with the more paranoid of the non-human supervisors of the mission. Having an inkling of what Barlennan is really after, Ib Hoffman finally breaks the deadlock with an idea that will save the crew of the Kwembly and make the mission successful beyond the dreams of its planners.
Themes
As might be expected from the author, the main theme revolves around hard science, particularly the physics and thermodynamics of mixtures. While water should be in the form of ice at all times on Dhrawn, the effect of ammonia in the atmosphere is to cause it to become a liquid under certain conditions of temperature and pressure, because of the formation of a eutectic mixture which melts and freezes at a much lower temperature than water. Although the scientists on the satellite attempt to supply weather forecasts for the Mesklinites, they are using tools designed for Earth's weather to predict conditions in a two-component water/ammonia system instead of Earth's one-component system. Even local effects, such as liberation of latent heatLatent heat
Latent heat is the heat released or absorbed by a chemical substance or a thermodynamic system during a process that occurs without a change in temperature. A typical example is a change of state of matter, meaning a phase transition such as the melting of ice or the boiling of water. The term was...
from mixtures undergoing freezing or condensation, can produce drastic changes in conditions. Seemingly solid surfaces can liquefy under the pressure of the land cruisers, even as individual Mesklinites can walk on them in complete safety.
To some extent, the narrative is much weakened by the focus on the science. There are long passages of exposition intended to show both what can go wrong in a seemingly well-understood situation, and how individual ingenuity and perseverance can overcome problems. The human characters seem made-up and lacking in depth, simply being people with extraordinary abilities trying to deal with a situation where they are getting information that is late and, they later realize, unreliable.
The final lesson in the novel is that full and complete disclosure is the only way to succeed in a situation where unpredictable changes can occur. Ib Hoffman relates the story of how his son Benj, at the age of thirteen, designed and built SCUBA equipment
Scuba set
A scuba set is an independent breathing set that provides a scuba diver with the breathing gas necessary to breathe underwater during scuba diving. It is much used for sport diving and some sorts of work diving....
, carefully calculating all the parameters, only to come close to dying on his first dive because he lacked a crucial piece of information about the physiology of breathing, one which all his knowledge of physics and engineering could not have predicted.