David Gerold's "Spiderweb" (short story, science fiction): Structures in interstellar space!

This one should appeal to golden era space fiction fans. Not space opera. Sort of quasi-scientific speculation about the nature of stuff up there in the skies. And with a lone superhero. Very readable.

Story summary.

Humans still haven't found FTL & depend on rockets for space travel; so stars are still a dream. But there have been a lot of rocket missions to outer solar system. And a funny phenomenon has been observed. Some ships, but not all, appear to have moved slightly slower than expected. The difference is so slight - a couple of tens of kilometers in a journey of several hundred million kilometers. But some people would like to understand the cause.

That is the reason spaceship "The Baked Bean" is out here in inner reaches of Oort Cloud. Sole human passenger is the narrator on this essentially automatic & robot-serviced ship. He is out to investigate the phenomenon.

By the time he gets notified, ship is off its expected location in space by a little over 20 km - over a journey that has lasted several hundred million kilometers. He will think up many possible reasons, reject them - till finally the winning idea comes up: what if deep space has huge naturally formed non-living structures that resemble cobwebs? Comprising of very delicate & thin threads. So delicate, they will be torn down by solar wind if they get any nearer - reason they haven't been detected yet. Won't it drag the ships down - enough for slow moving ships for phenomenon to be noticed, but not enough for fast moving ones headed to far off destinations? If it is there, it obviously is so thin & sparse, you need special equipment to detect it.

He will construct a pair of huge km-scale spool-contrivances with local robot factory, attach them to sides of ship, & make them spin. And move around the space where slowdown is observed. Sure enough, over several weeks, he will collect observable amounts of threads from these cobwebs!

Fact sheet.

"Spiderweb", short story, review
First published: Jim Baen's Universe magazine, #11 (February 2008).
Rating: A