The starchild compact, p.6
The Starchild Compact, page 6
"Eighty-one! Shit, Jon, could it be as simple as that?"
"Could be," Jon answered, "but remember, the actual number was eighty-point-nine-three, not eighty-one."
"I guess we just don't know," Ari said, "at least, not until we examine the Box."
"And that, my friend, is no mean task. I think we may want to wait till we're in orbit around Iapetus, doing the actual unloading for surface transfer. Realistically, what can happen between now and then?"
#
"Our next major milestone (if you could call it a milestone) is crossing into the asteroid belt." Jon stood before a relaxed crew in the Canteen, all gazing into a holodisplay depicting the Solar System. "Unlike a planet's orbit, a specifically defined, exact track around the Sun," he said as a nearly circular track grew out of Mars and rounded the Sun, attaching to the planet's backside, "the asteroid belt is a loosely defined belt lying between Mars and Jupiter." In the display, a band appeared between Mars and Jupiter, made up of millions of small dots. It started a bit beyond the indicated orbit of Mars, and ended about the same distance from Jupiter's orbit as the Earth was distant from the Sun. "As you can see here, the asteroid belt disk extends about the same distance as from the Sun to Mars. Most of the asteroids are concentrated within a half a million kilometers from the ecliptic." A thin, shimmering translucent disk extended from the Sun. Most of the planets were very close to this disk. The display zoomed in to a closer view of a section of the asteroid belt. The translucent ecliptic disk bisected it. "You can see here how the asteroids cluster near the ecliptic, and extend up and down for a total thickness of about a million kilometers. But notice that asteroids are regularly found as far up and down as seventy-five million kilometers." A slightly curved line appeared right through the most densely populated part of the belt. "This is our path toward Jupiter."
"It looks like we will have a lot of company," Elke said, with widened eyes.
"Oui…I agree," Michele piped in. "We will need lots of care, non?"
"The scale is fooling you," Jon said with a smile, winking at Ginger. "Demitri, you and Ginger want to take it from here?"
"Tell 'em like it is, Girl," Demitri said to Ginger with perfect idiom as always.
"For more than a century we have identified and tracked individual asteroids, but we still have no idea how many there are." Ginger's striking pose actually competed with the holodisplay. "At the turn of the century, we thought there were about one-point-seven asteroids with a radius of at least one hundred meters in a cube of one-hundred-thousand kilometers on a side. The best current estimates are based on rocks about half that size. When you run the numbers, you get just under two asteroids in each cube of space one-thousand kilometers on a side. That's still a lot of space, guys…a billion cubic kilometers."
Each of the men was running numbers on his Link, but Ginger continued. "We're doing about one-hundred-seventy kilometers every second, so we cross a thousand kilometers roughly every six seconds. Somewhere during that six seconds, there should be an asteroid within five-hundred kilometers of us, one that is at least a hundred meters across. All the asteroids will be moving from our right to our left in the ecliptic." The dots in the holodisplay belt began a perceptible movement. "Here's the clincher," Ginger added, "and it's a double whammy. In the real world, asteroids tend to cluster together, which means that parts of the belt are virtually empty, whereas other parts are relatively crowded. Then, we have no idea about the distribution of rocks smaller than a hundred meters." She paused and looked at her fellow crew mates, one-by-one. "There most certainly are millions upon millions of smaller rocks, typically clumped with the larger rocks. These guys have an orbital speed of nineteen to twenty kilometers per second. That may be only a tenth of our velocity, but it's still pretty damn fast! We'll be moving through the belt somewhat like a bolo in a flat trajectory, as I said, at a hundred-seventy kilometers per second, presenting a vertical cross-section of twenty meters at the three modules, and virtually nothing at the tether. So vertically, the odds of a collision are virtually zero. Our horizontal cross-section, however, ranges from four kilometers to twenty meters as we rotate. Furthermore, we are clumped into three small packages, connected by a virtually nonexistent tether – from a cross-section point of view."
By this time, the men with their calculations had gotten the point, but Elke still awaited the bottom line, and both the Doctor and Biologist saw where it was going, but wanted the final numbers. "Bottom line is," Ginger continued, "we will encounter several asteroids in the sense that we will pick them up on our laser scanner or radar, but we're not likely to see one visually, as they will be moving far too quickly for the eye to resolve an image.
"Stealth company," Demitri said with a chuckle.
"The real key here is," Jon said, "that we will be passing through the asteroid belt commencing in about twenty days or so, and lasting for about ten days, and then we have seventeen days of open skies to Jupiter." The path in the holodisplay swung around Jupiter and traced on to Saturn. "Two days before arrival we will retract the tethers and get ready for maneuvering. We'll be sufficiently close to Jupiter at least twice to require our remaining in the Core to avoid the high radiation of one of her belts."
"A question from a dumb engineer," Noel piped up, hand politely raised.
"We're not in school, Noel, you dumb bastard," Ari said in a manner that could only be taken humorously. Everybody chuckled, and Noel shrugged sheepishly, holding his hands out in front of him, palms up.
"Anyway…Demitri, I presume you and Ginger have a fix on all the known asteroids we will pass?"
"That's a fact," Demitri answered, "but that is only about seventy-eight-thousand of the two-hundred-twenty-five-thousand we expect to be there – that are larger than a hundred meters. As you have guessed, we really don't have a clue what we will find as we pass through the belt."
"We'll run a loose watch routine like we did before," Jon added. "Remember, none of the smaller rocks are totally determined. Even where we have good numbers, they are subject to so many forces, that we will not really know their exact position and orbital parameters until a couple of hours before we encounter them."
"What I get from all this," Elke said, "is that the odds are hugely in our favor. Do you think we'll see even one of these guys?"
"It's possible," Ginger said. "I'll let you know in a few days – once we're closer so I can find the bigger ones and determine their parameters."
"Find them, Cherie. I thought you know where they are." Michele sounded a bit perturbed.
"Generally, sure we do," Ginger said, "enough to point the radar and laser. Once we specifically locate one, then we can tell exactly where it will be for all the time it will matter to us."
"I knew that, Cherie…I think."
The questions stopped, so Jon collapsed the holodisplay, and motioned for Demitri and Ari to join him in his cabin.
They settled down, and Jon said, "I want to play devil's advocate. What's our angle to the average orbital tangent of the rocks?"
"About forty-five degrees in the starboard quarter," Demitri said.
"So here's the scenario." Jon activated his Link showing two lines crossing at a forty-five degree angle. A bar on one line indicated Cassini II traveling on its path, and a dot on the other represented an asteroid traveling on its orbital vector. "For sake of argument, we're in the same plane, and this guy catches a piece the Caboose tether." Jon held up his hand. "I don't want to discuss the probability – I know how low it is…but it's NOT zero, so I want to discuss it."
Demitri and Ari grinned. "Sure, Boss," Ari said. Demitri nodded.
"Will the asteroid snap the tether, slip over or under it, deflect it…what do you guys think?"
"Off the cuff, or do you want a real answer?" Ari asked, while Demitri chuckled beside him.
"I think he wants both," Demitri said. "How about two hours for off-the-cuff?"
Jon nodded his assent, and the two men left put their heads together in private.
#
As Saeed passed the hours, he became increasingly uneasy. His upset stomach refused to go away. He actually felt like throwing up. He had a continuous headache, one that sometimes completely overwhelmed him. His concentration was down. He had not memorized a single Qur'an passage for over two hours. He prayed with more fervor than normal, relying upon the grace of Allah to return his strength. But he sensed that he was growing weaker instead of stronger. Obviously, he needed to muster greater faith, a greater unfettered connection to Allah.
It was a test…it had to be a test. Allah had tested Job, and now he was testing Saeed, praise be to Allah. Saeed reached deep into his reserves, and found a bit of untapped strength. He called up the Qur'an on his Link and concentrated on memorizing another passage, and then another, and then another…
Chapter 6
Over the next twenty days they had smooth sailing -- no problems with the ship's systems and no signs of asteroids. That meant, of course, that there was time for crew members to get to know each other more completely.
For Michele, the process was simple and direct, and simply told: Chen declined politely, and she decided not to approach the Captain. The rest…
Elke worked a smaller set that excluded the men, but her German practicality brought her together with Ari and Ginger on at least one occasion. Try as she might, however, Dr. Bhuta remained professional and pleasant. For the first time in her life, Elke was unable to elicit a response from another woman.
Ginger was a product of the modern world, and was happy to share intimate personal time as the situation dictated. Her remarkable physical looks made her the object of attention for virtually every crew member, except Carmen who remained coolly professional and seemed a bit in awe of her, and Chen, who quietly avoided her.
Jon and Ari honed their Hyperchess skills with a daily game that often brought Demitri to the scene. The Russian had learned this space age variation of chess, but had never taken time to develop his skills. He knew the moves, but had no real sense of strategy. Demitri spent most of his waking time with Ginger working out the Asteroid belt implications. They met from time to time with Ari, who added his structural engineering insights into the equation. Ari, in turn, worked through the various scenarios with Noel and Chen.
It turned out that Chen had special insight into the characteristics of the tether itself. Far from being a simple cable, the tether was a complex combination of strength, power, and communication elements. In a way, it resembled the SPCC developed during the mid-twentieth century for tethered deep submergence operations at sea. The SPCC (Strength – Power – Communications – Cable) consisted of a twisted bundle of power, communication, and strength elements about the thickness of a human thumb, wrapped in high tensile strength stainless steel wire. In the tether, the stainless steel was replaced by polyaramid fiber with ten times the tensile strength of steel at a fraction of its mass. Otherwise, the cable was quite similar.
The question that Jon had posed, whose answer had turned out to be way more complex that even he had envisioned, was simple enough. What would happen if an asteroid struck the tether – either in front of or behind the Box? Two days into the coasting leg, Jon had put the question to Houston. They were now approaching the outskirts of the Belt, and Houston still had not supplied an answer. So the question had turned out to be complex, and apparently was not very high on Houston's priority list. On day nine Jon called Demitri and Ari to his stateroom.
"Tell me what you know about the asteroid question," he asked them. "Houston has come up blank thus far, so I'd like to hear your thoughts."
"Simple answer," Ari said, "we don't know. There are way too many variables, and a good percentage of them seem to have significant impact."
"Best guess, then," Jon said. "What does your gut say?"
"One of three things: The tether slips over or under the asteroid; or two, the tether acts like a solid bar; or three the tether acts like an infinitely strong string. In the over-under, depending on which tether is touched, the Pullman or Caboose will experience a surging shock similar to the end of a snapping whip. We can't begin to estimate level of damage, but we think it may be moderate.
"For the bar, the cable will instantly sever, and either the Pullman or Caboose will head off on a tangent directly dependent on its position to the complex at the instant of severing. If it is the Pullman, we're screwed, since we have no way to get to the Box to get a landing unit to try and reconnect the tether. If it's the Caboose, and if we act fast, we might be able to launch a landing unit to retrieve the runaway Caboose – maybe.
"The string is the most complex. Momentum gets transferred to the tether and mostly to either the Pullman or Caboose, although everything gets a piece of the action. Depending entirely upon the moment vectors, which are totally unpredictable, Pullman, Caboose, and Box will be moving in a wild, mutually dependent set of motions. If individual units don't collide, we should eventually be able to sort things out with the gyros, and by retracting the tethers."
"That's the best we can do, Jon," Demitri added. "The variable dependent scenarios branch so quickly, that we get lost in minutia before we get underway. We actually froze the computer at one point. I can't recall ever doing that before."
"Okay, thanks, guys. Don't spend a lot more time on this, but present it to Elke. Let her have a pass from a computer engineering aspect. She may know a way to find the more significant branches in your chaotic tree."
#
Saeed had been certain that he would begin to feel better, but it was three weeks later, and he finally had to admit that he was in serious trouble. Between prostrations, he brushed his hand through his full head of dark hair, and returned a handful of hair to his mat. What was happening? Why was Allah letting this happen? Saeed absolutely knew that he was Allah's chosen instrument. In his mind, the Qur'an left no question: Let those fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him we shall bestow a vast reward.
He prostrated again, felt his stomach heave, and vomited blood on his prayer mat. At that moment he was hit with massive weight, several gees at least, and a twisting, wrenching, totally disorienting surge that made no mental or physical sense. In his weakened state, all Saeed could do was let his body be tossed from wall to wall inside his tent, and hope that he would not tear the fabric. He heard somebody screaming, and then his stomach heaved again, and bloody vomit filled the space around him, flying this way and that, finally collecting on the tent walls. The lights went out, and someone still was screaming, but as the wild gyrations began to settle into a repeating pattern, Saeed realized that he was the one screaming…and he couldn't stop. He reached for his head, pulling out fistfuls of hair…and he screamed again. He retched, but his stomach was empty, and only a little bit of blood mixed with spittle left his mouth, flying at an odd angle to the tent wall…and he screamed, but quieter now, and screamed some more, but quieter still, until his screams morphed into a frightened whimper as he curled into a tight ball on his prayer mat, waiting for the end.
#
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Ginger had the watch in the Core. They had given up on their calculations, for all practical purposes. Elke had had some interesting ideas for resolving the infinite branching, but in the end, all she was able to show was that they had found another of Nature's fractals. Bottom line – there was no meaningful solution. Their best guess was that the odds of an asteroid intersection were so small as to be negligible.
It took Ginger less than a second to grasp how wrong their assessment was.
One moment she was in her chair, working away at one small aspect of the problem, sort of like worrying a hangnail, the next she was on the overhead, left arm bent at an unnatural angle. And then, with a sickening, twisting surge, she was on the opposite deck…and then on the bulkhead…back to the overhead…
It continued for several minutes, before her world took on a chaotic kind of repeating order – bewildering, but somewhat predictable. Ginger hauled herself into the Command Console seat using her good arm, and strapped in. Then she ripped her jumpsuit open, and pulled the left shoulder down around her left elbow to stabilize her broken humerus, and tucked her left hand into her jumpsuit against her stomach to keep the ship's erratic motion from moving her arm. Using her right hand to control the holodisplay, she began to conduct a survey of the ship. Jon stumbled into the Core, glanced briefly at Ginger's exposed breast and wrapped arm, and strapped himself into the Comm seat, apparently getting into synch with the erratic motion.
"How bad is the arm?" he asked.
"Simple fracture. I'll live." She smiled briefly at him. Hell of a way to get his attention, she thought. "I'm checking the ship right now."
"Okay…good. You check inside, I'll survey outside." On the All-Call Jon said, "Doc, if you're okay, I need you in the Core – NOW!" He tore a piece from the front of his jumpsuit and leaned over to tuck it around Ginger's bare breast. "Hang in there, Girl!" he said to her.
Although Ginger had no body shame, and normally was comfortable exposing her body to people she knew, somehow it felt different with the Captain. Had her features been capable of blushing, when he covered her breast she would have been crimson. As it was, she dropped her eyes and said softly, "Thank you Jon. I really appreciate that."
Demitri came stumbling into the Core, favoring his left leg. "Are you hurt?" Jon demanded.
