The starchild compact, p.18
The Starchild Compact, page 18
Ari repeated the entire statement in Arabic to make sure Saeed understood.
Saeed felt overwhelmed by this turn of fortune. He eagerly read the message: "Allah in His infinite wisdom has changed your mission. You are now the Caliphate representative on this historic mission. Behave accordingly to show the world what Islam can accomplish. Learn from the Family of Imran, the 3,154 who reside in your heart."
Saeed left the captain's stateroom with Ari, but remained silent. In his mind he was rapidly moving through the memorized Qur'an, searching out the meaning of the message. He commenced his search with Surah number three: Al-Imran – The Family of Imran. When he got to verse 154, he nearly gasped aloud. The last part of the verse read: Say: Had you remained in your houses, those for whom slaughter was ordained would certainly have gone forth to the places where they would be slain, and that Allah might test what was in your breasts and that He might purge what was in your hearts; and Allah knows what is in the breasts.
His Jihad continued. He would pick the time and place.
#
Demitri was glad the little terrorist was on Jon's team. Had Saeed been assigned to his team, Demitri was certain that he would have come to a fatal accident before they returned to the ship. Demitri and Ginger had worked out the deorbiting parameters for both landers, and loaded the information in each lander system. The landers were fully loaded and the teams were strapped in place. Ginger and Noel, suited with TBH Boots, attached lines to Lander One and manipulated her out of the bay so the lander was floating alongside Cassini II. Then they shifted the lines to Lander Two and moved her so that she floated several meters from Lander One. They left the bay open to space, and returned to Lander Two. The entire task took about a half hour. Both landers waited in orbit alongside Cassini II for their respective launch times.
Ginger had set Lander One to depart first, because in their east-to-west orbit, Lander One's spot came below them before Lander Two's spot, 650 kilometers and about twenty-eight minutes to the west. Lander One commenced its deorbiting burn and rapidly dropped out of sight.
Demitri made sure that Ginger was securely strapped into her seat, and then waited patiently for the time of their burn. Outside the clear polymer nose of the lander, Saturn dominated the sky, partially blocked by the looming nearness of Iapetus. Somehow, sitting in the lander's nose, Demitri had the feeling that he was floating free, falling toward the ringed, banded giant. He had to pull himself back to the task at hand with a conscious effort. Demitri slowly flipped Lander Two so it presented its nozzle to the edge of Iapetus. Saturn swung behind them, and then it was time. A short burst of acceleration pushed them into their seats, and then they were falling toward their rendezvous with the surface, fifty kilometers below.
As their descent commenced, Jon announced, "Lander One is on the surface."
Demitri allowed the onboard computer to set their descent attitude so they would be properly positioned for the braking burn. They swept rapidly across the surface, angling across the depression. Their orbital velocity of just under 400 m/sec was now somewhat greater due to the slight assist of Iapetus' gravity since they transferred a significant part of their horizontal vector to a vertical one. As Demitri's hands hovered over his backup controls, the lander commenced a braking burn of several seconds, removing most of its forward momentum. Below them, the moving landscape slowed until it passed at a visibly much slower pace. The gyro whined briefly; the main jet gave a short burst, and as Lander Two slowed to a hover a hundred meters above the surface, the gyro brought her to a vertical aspect. The main jet came alive again, this time throttled. Recalling Jon's experience, Demitri assumed manual control, and guided Lander Two to a gentle touchdown in an area that appeared to be composed of a light-colored basalt until the exhaust caused its thin layer of dust to billow up and away, revealing a dark, relatively smooth surface.
Lander Two settled on its three pads as the hypergolic motor shut down. "Lander Two has landed," Demitri announced. "Take over, Ginger. Activate Rover Two."
"Roger that!"
Within two minutes, Rover Two stood solidly on its six large wheels, with all four pads fully retracted against the hull, surrounded by the relatively clear surface of the nearly ninety kilometer wide secondary impact crater. About a kilometer away, just over halfway to the horizon, loomed the chaotic merged mountains formed by the secondary impact and the ring surrounding the depression. Since Demitri wanted to get close to the intersection of the secondary crater and the depression, he headed the rover in a generally southwest direction, aiming for a jumble of rock about a kilometer distant.
"Does it look like you thought it would?" Demitri asked Ginger.
"I wasn't really thinking about the dust layer," she answered. "I knew it was there, of course, but in my mind I saw the surface as light. I guess that's my mistake for the month."
Noel, who was sitting on Ginger's right side in the front row, chuckled and added, "This month or this year?"
Carmen looked over at Chen, who was staring out the right window in silent fascination. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Very rested," Chen answered with a smile. "Please try to imagine that for me it is as if we had recently left the orbit of Mars, and here I am on the surface of Iapetus. I haven't completely caught up with the flow of events."
"I know you've heard it a dozen times already," Ginger said from the front row, "but welcome back. We have lots of exciting work ahead of us."
They covered the kilometer in rapid time. Demitri pulled up a short distance from the jumbled intersection of the secondary crater with the depression rim. From this close it lost its character as an intersection, and looked more like a bizarre painting of a very large unweathered rockslide.
"I don't expect to find anything right near the intersection," Demitri announced, "but we'll start here and move off to our left, keeping about a hundred meters from the depression wall. We'll move in to examine anything interesting. Remember Jon's experience. Okay – let's get our gear together." He got up. "Don't forget," he added as an afterthought, "we're being recorded on holo. The world is looking over your shoulder, although we can edit out anything we want."
One-by-one the five explorers passed through the rover's small lock. Each put on a prepared performance for the folks back home. Demitri planted his Russian Federation flag, its bright white, blue, and red horizontal stripes held extended by a wire threaded through the top of the flag. He gave a short, awkward speech in Russian reflecting on Russia's history in space and his link to the first space traveler, his distant cousin Yuri Gagarin.
As it turned out, Chen also had brought a flag, and proudly planted the red banner sporting a large gold star flanked by a semicircle of four smaller gold stars. He spoke briefly in Mandarin and then repeated his words in Cantonese, praising the support of the individual Chinese people, and acknowledging that virtually each of China's billion-plus citizens had contributed some small monetary amount to support China's participation in this enterprise.
Noel stepped up next, holding the Canadian Maple Leaf. "Canada shares this historic event with the world," and added a few comments about the heritage of his illustrious ancestor, Robert Goddard, who laid the groundwork that culminated in this expedition.
Dr. Bhuta stepped forward holding the Indian Tricolor that she planted next to the others. "The saffron, white, and green represent respectively courage and sacrifice, peace and truth, and faith and chivalry," she said in the ancient Sanskrit tongue. "The center wheel is the law. These I bring to this distant place."
#
Jon landed as near as he could to the place where they had penetrated the surface on their first landing. He had Ari in the right seat with Michele between them, and Elke in the second row with Saeed. Saeed had been outfitted with a suit designed for Carmen, since they were about the same size. He had received minimal training, and his suit had been stripped of anything he could use as a weapon.
While Ari tilted the lander to rover, Jon reviewed the disquieting news Ari had related to him following his analysis of the message from the Caliphate to Saeed. He could not rid himself of the Qur'an passage: "… those for whom slaughter was ordained would certainly have gone forth to the places where they would be slain…" He glanced back at Elke and Saeed. What is more powerful? Will he respond to the bond of brotherhood he has established with the crew, or will he heed the command of his Caliph? There was no question in Ari's mind. "Faith will triumph," he had insisted during their private discussion just before launch. "From now on, we have to watch him like a hawk. And we need to keep anything from him that he could use to take us out." Ari looked grim as he added, "Remember, Saeed Esmail is now on a designated holy Jihad, directed by the Caliph himself. Nothing on or off Earth will divert him."
"And what do you recommend?" Jon had asked him.
"If I were Captain, I would give him something to knock him out, and then space him. There is no other option, Jon. He WILL carry out his mission – or die in attempting it." Jon clearly recalled Ari's look as he added, "It's not if, Jon. It's when."
Those words echoed in his mind as he prepared to step out on the surface of Iapetus for the second time. It's not if, Jon. It's when.
Jon exited the rover first, and then reached out to assist Michele. Elke, Saeed, and finally Ari exited on their own. Michele was giddy with excitement as she stepped onto the surface. With a grace that made it look like she had done it all her life, she sailed above the surface to land gracefully by a mound of dust, planting the French Tricolor, saying, "Vive la France!" Then, uncharacteristically, she bowed her head inside her helmet, and stood silently and still for a moment. Then she clapped her gloved hands and danced back to Jon's side.
Elke obviously enjoyed her friend's exuberance, but with typical Teutonic reserve, she approached Michele's flag and planted the German War Flag next to it, saying simply "Für Deutschland!" The War Flag was the traditional black, red, and gold horizontal stripes with a crest of the black German war eagle on a golden background superimposed in the middle. Jon noticed it immediately. That's going to give Rod a couple of headaches, he thought, smiling inwardly. Leave it to Elke to shake things up. He exchanged looks with Ari, and realized that Ari had seen it as well. Apparently, no one else caught it.
Suddenly, Saeed moved forward, cautiously shuffling along the ground, apparently fearful of leaping. He placed a small Caliphate flag alongside the others, a flag that resembled the old Iranian green-white-red banner, but carrying the symbolic crest of the Caliphate in the middle. "Allahu Akbar!" he said in a loud, clear voice, and backed his way to his former position alongside Ari. Resourceful little bugger, Jon thought, as he set the team to the task of roping up for the traverse to the opening.
Chapter 18
Across the Russian Federation, proud Russians got drunk on the best vodka they could afford. Crime bosses cracked open staggeringly expensive bottles of ancient vodka saved and held since the demise of Czar Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov, the last Czar of Imperial Russia. Businessmen toasted Demitri Gagarin while quaffing exotic Finnish imports. Porters and chambermaids shared the rotgut that passed for good vodka among the European and Asian tourists to Mother Russia. Worker bees of all stripes tipped glass after glass of watered down bar swill in a million drinking houses across the Motherland.
Wine flowed freely from Paris to the Pyrenees and the Riviera accompanied by a national chant of "Vive la France!" Sexy posters of Dr. Michele deBois appeared everywhere. Singers in nighttime bistros across the land crooned exultations to Michele's beauty and intelligence.
Frothy mugs clicked over Bierstube tables across the Federal Republic of Germany, from Schleswig-Holstein in the north to the Algäu at the southern tip of Bavaria. A conservative politician from the Algäu high mountain community of Hinterstein introduced a resolution in the Bundestag to change Germany's national flag officially to the Kriegsflagge that Elke planted on Iapetus. The resolution passed unanimously, with only five Green Party members abstaining.
Across China fireworks filled the sky with fiery dragons, exploding stars, and showering fountains, celebrating Chen Lee-Fong's remarkable recovery and his face-saving gift of honor to all Chinese citizens.
Canadians noted the event with quiet pride, and carried on with whatever they were doing, although several parliament members from Quebec questioned loudly why the Fleurdelisé was not also planted on Iapetus. The resulting shouting match triggered the polite intervention of the RCMP unit stationed at the capitol.
New Delhi disseminated the news across its nearly two billion population as quickly as possible. Wired communities celebrated immediately with song and dance long into the night. Communities still awaiting hook-up got the word by a thousand means within the following twenty-four hours, and joined the celebrations. The Tamil National Liberation Army exploded three coordinated car bombs in the midst of a massed celebration in Mumbai – killing more than a thousand Hindis, including 300 children. Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir danced in the streets at the news of the Mumbai slaughter.
#
The Ayatollah Khomeini sat in his raised ornate chair looking intently at the holovision display filling the air before him. It was a recap of the flag planting ceremony at the second landing site on Iapetus. He watched without comment as Saeed Esmail planted the Caliphate flag, and smiled at his declaration: "Allahu Akbar!" His technicians then commenced a second recording that was identical to the first, except only the Caliphate flag was in evidence, and Esmail raised a defiant fist when making his utterance. And, somehow, the spacesuited crew members seemed to defer to Esmail. On seeing this, the Caliph's smile broadened. He clapped his hands. "See to it that this rendition is disseminated throughout the Caliphate." He folded his hands into a tent and thought. Then he raised a finger, chopping the air as he spoke. "Put out the word quietly that the first rendition is a subtle fake prepared by Mission Control in Houston to deceive the world."
"We'll flood worldwide blogs with your wisdom, Sahib. Within forty-eight hours, the world will know the truth."
#
"Once again," a solemn-faced holovision talking head said in sonorous tones, "the world has been deceived by the racist attitude of the current U.S. leadership. This reporter has learned from impeccable sources that yesterday's holocast from the surface of distant Iapetus was doctored by Mission Control in Houston. Here is the unedited version – you draw your own conclusions." Around the world, a defiant Saeed Esmail planted the Caliphate flag by itself on a raised mound on Iapetus, raised his fist toward a looming Saturn, shouting "Allahu Akbar!"
#
"We'll rope ourselves together at three-meter intervals like this," Demitri said, after they had set up a pressurized tent on the flat surface beside Rover Two, and attached an external carry tray to the top landing pad. He was keenly aware that out here what happened was his responsibility alone. He was somewhat surprised at the weight of responsibility he felt. So, Jon, this is what you have been carrying behind those inscrutable eyes. "We'll move forward in a U shape. Noel and I will take the points. Ginger will follow me, and Dr. Bhuta will follow Noel. Chen, you will hook up between the two women. This way we have each woman between two men, and you, Chen, as a not-fully-recovered patient, bring up the rear. Since there are no predators…" he paused with a chuckle, "that we know of, you should not be in any danger by yourself back there." Everyone grinned and Chen blushed, visible through his clear helmet. "Ginger and Carmen – keep at least three meters apart. Don't yield to the temptation to cluster. Remember, Jon fell through the surface. If we all fall through because we are clustered, we'll have the devil of a time getting back out."
They took a good fifteen minutes to get hooked up and ready to go. "Try not to be too exuberant while traveling in this low gravity," Demitri warned them with a smile. "Don't bounce higher than a meter off the surface with each step; there's less chance of breaking through that way."
They commenced a coordinated low hopping traverse of the short distance to the giant pile of tumbled sharp-edged boulders. "Be careful," Demitri cautioned, as Noel reached out to jiggle a medium size boulder. "Things react entirely differently in this low gravity. Friction is far less. A wrong move can bring the whole pile down on you."
Noel stepped back, pulling his hands away from the boulder. "I agree," he said. "Things don't weigh very much here, but they retain their mass."
Demitri led the team around the south end of the boulder pile, probing along the base, looking for the opening they were hoping to find. For the first kilometer, they found nothing but more piled sharp boulders. The layered dust everywhere indicated that nothing had moved in a very long time. They worked their way up a rise and through a narrow pass in the secondary crater ring mountains. Demitri looked back at their passage. "There's no way we can get the rover through here," he said. "It looks like we will have to keep it inside the secondary crater, and carry our pressure tent with us. Chen and I will return to the rover, collapse the tent and stick it on the external carry. Then we'll bring the rover as close as possible to this pass – or else poke around a bit to see if we can find another way through."
Demitri and Chen unhooked themselves from the others, and tied themselves together with one of the extra lines their unhooking had created. Moving quickly, they covered the path back in less than a half hour. In five minutes they had collapsed the pressure tent and stowed it atop the external tray. Once inside the rover, Demitri called Ginger. "We're going to explore along the rim wall for a bit. Perhaps we can find another way through." Ginger acknowledged.
