The starchild compact, p.9
The Starchild Compact, page 9
"That goes without saying," Carmen said. "We're already doing that."
"I know, Dr. Bhuta. We all are cheering your efforts." He returned his focus to the group. "So, as of now, all Earthside communications go through me – no exceptions." He looked at Carmen. "That includes you, too, Doctor." Jon tried to remain dignified during his discourse, but in zero-g, dignity is difficult to maintain. As he indicated Carmen, he raised his hand, and the next thing he knew, he was floating above the chair he had been "occupying," rotating slowly. Ari reached out and steadied him. "The thing is, there can be no slipups with communications, no accidental mentions of the problem…nothing at all." He smiled grimly. "Houston suggests that we remain coupled until after the boost, and that we solve our tether problem on the Saturn leg. I think we pretty much agree with that." He glanced around the group for feedback. "Ari, you and Noel perform your EVA inspection so we can address any problems you find ASAP. Demitri, you and Ginger join me in my quarters to go over the Jupiter boost." He allowed himself to float away from the chair toward the coffee urn. "One more thing," he said softly. "You all know what happened to Saeed. Don't take a solar storm announcement lightly. Make sure – absolutely sure – that you are in the Core when the storm passes. We cannot afford to lose any of you!" He filled three bulbs with the steaming aromatic liquid. "Besides," he added as an afterthought, "Doc Bhuta has her hands full now. We don't want her to be the only one working around here."
#
In his stateroom, Jon tossed a bulb to Demitri and the second to Ginger. Ginger touched the tube to her lips and squeezed.
"Aiee!" Ginger's face screwed into mock horror. "What's this sweet syrup?"
Demitri sipped his own bulb. "How can you drink this piss?" He exchanged bulbs with Ginger.
"It's simple, really," she said. "It's blond because I'm not, and not sweet because I am."
"Give it up, Demitri," Jon interjected with a wry grin. "You can't win this one." He called up a holodisplay and coupled their Links so they could fully interact. "Let's get to work."
They watched as the astrogation computer turned their current parameters into a visible blue track in the display. Demitri made an adjustment, and the display shifted so they were looking at it from above. Superimposed in the display, their old track appeared in red. "As you can see," Demitri said, "our track has been vectored toward Jupiter."
Ginger picked up. "The closer we get to Jupiter, the more energy we must expend to return to the ideal track." As she spoke, a series of yellow vectors sprang from their current blue track that curved toward, and finally merged with the red track. At each departure from the blue track, a series of numbers appeared, listing the required energy expenditure, the thrust vector at one-g, and the time under thrust.
"What we're saying," Demitri added, "is that sooner is better than later."
"Ari and Noel are prepping their EVA right now," Jon said. "If they find nothing amiss, we'll do the burn."
#
"How many EVAs have you done?" Ari asked Noel as he grabbed an inner garment and handed another to Noel.
"One, actually," Noel answered, "while at the International Space Station during training."
"That's it?"
"Yep…that's it, just one time."
"So…"
"Well…I also had several underwater sessions to practice RL work. Enjoyed it, actually. Seems I have a knack for it."
"Yah…reaction-less work." Ari looked incredulous. "Who thinks up these terms?" Ari pulled an outer suit from its Velcro bulkhead attachment and pushed it toward Noel. "Ever used one of these?"
"Not this model," Noel answered, but I've used an earlier light weight model."
These suits were a radical departure from the bulky suits that had been part of space exploration for so long. Lightweight and flexible, even in hard vacuum, they worked on a technologically advanced application of earlier high-altitude suits. An inner garment formed a flexible, skin tight membrane that substituted for atmospheric pressure, and contained several physiological sensors. A slightly less tightly fitting outer garment retained a minimal atmospheric environment inside the suit, and provided temperature and wear resistance. Ari and Noel entered the outer suits feet first through an airtight zipper-like opening in the suit's back.
It took Noel a bit of getting used to the suit, since initially it felt like his chest was being squeezed. When he breathed deeply as Ari instructed, the pressure seemed to relax, although it came back as he exhaled. He found that with a bit of effort, it almost seemed like the suit was helping him breathe. The gloves were comfortably flexible, although Noel decided he would be glad to remove them when he returned to normal atmospheric pressure. He pitied the guys who had to flex their fingers for eight hours. They each wore a close-fitting skullcap that contained various additional sensors that would transmit their physiological condition back to the ship, and Doc Bhuta.
They were floating in the lower bay of the Box, their clear helmets still attached to the holding platforms. "So you're not an EVA virgin, and RL is part of your skill set?" Ari's voice was friendly, without any sting of sarcasm. "There is a major difference here. You were tethered at the ISS, right?" Noel nodded. "And you didn't have any propulsion…" Noel nodded again. "Well…" Ari pushed himself across the space, what little there was, to a rack containing several pairs of boots. "TBH Propulsion Boots – these are the latest and greatest." He pulled a pair from its Velcro holder, and showed Noel the small nozzle recessed into the sole of each boot at the ball of the foot. The nozzles angled forward about thirty degrees.
"TBH?" Noel asked.
"Stands for Thomas, Bird, and Hellbaum, three NASA guys who invented the first jet shoes back in nineteen-sixty-seven. NASA tested the jet shoes Earthside back then, but so far as I know, they were not introduced into current use until just a few years ago. Once you get used to them, they're better than any of the old back-pack rigs." Ari handed Noel a pair and proceeded to put another pair on his own suited feet. They fit like riding boots, but with completely flexible ankles. The boot uppers consisted of two stiff, shaped polymer bags that contained pressurized hypergolic fuel components – UDMH and nitrogen tetroxide, innocuous by themselves, but bring them together, and they spontaneously combust, producing a significant thrust. The fuel valves were controlled by a microswitch under each big toe. "Press down your big toe," Ari explained, "and ten newtons of force push the ball of your foot. Just bend your knees for the appropriate thrust vector, including torque. You'll get the hang of it in no time, and be tap-tapping yourself all over the place."
Noel slipped his head into the transparent, spherical helmet Ari handed him, and pressed it to the sealing collar around his neck, just like in training. The collar sealed to the clear globe with a faint click; from inside, the helmet was completely invisible. Noel felt a faint movement of cool air as his breathing system cut in. Simultaneously, Noel's suit Link activated. A holodisplay appeared in front of him exactly as it would under normal conditions using a regular Link.
"Com check, Noel." It took Noel a moment to react. "Noel, com check!" Ari's voice was insistent.
Noel reached up to adjust his skullcap, forgetting about the helmet, and struck it with his gloved hand. "This is Noel…roger."
"Ari, Noel, it's Jon…com check." They both responded.
Noel conducted a safety inspection of Ari's backpack. It consisted of three relatively thin cylinders. Two were high-pressure gas tanks that held pure oxygen. The middle slightly larger one contained a breathing bag that used an electronic-molecular trick to scrub carbon dioxide. The gas fed through a flexible tube attached to the suit's right shoulder into the suit just below the collar ring under the chin, and back out through a similar tube over the left shoulder. The electronics pack nestled below the cylinders at the small of the back. After Noel finished his examination of Ari's backpack, he attached a lightweight flush fairing. The fairing served to eliminate possible snag points on the backpack. It displayed in bright florescent letters: RAWLSTON. Following Noel's indication that his unit was okay, Ari inspected Noel's backpack and installed his fairing with its fluorescent label: GODDARD.
Ari reached for a coil of light line. "Just in case," he said over the circuit, grinning at Noel. "I don't want to end up chasing you all the way to Jupiter."
Chapter 9
They floated through the lock, and Ari secured the hatch behind them. Noel turned to face the ship, brought his legs together bent slightly at the knee, and experimentally tapped his big toes. Although he barely felt the momentary thrust against his soles, the effect was to make the ship and Ari seem to shrink slightly. His intellect told him he was moving directly away from the hatch at a nominal velocity, but his senses preferred the shrinking explanation. Noel was tempted to haul in on his safety line, but instead, he straightened his legs so the nozzles pointed slightly forward, and tapped again. This put him into a slow tumble forward that he stopped by bending his knees and tapping when his feet pointed away from the ship. Another tap with slightly bent knees, and the shrinking stopped.
"Pretty good for a newbie," Ari said on the circuit. "My first time, I was tumbling in three dimensions." He laughed. "Try a couple of maneuvers…I'll keep the line on you."
Noel found he was adept at maneuvering with the TBH boots. In no time he found himself pirouetting, pitching, rolling, yawing, and even recovering quickly from a full-fledged uncontrolled tumble.
"You guys gonna play all day, or get some work done," Jon growled from the Core.
"You got a holocam on this guy, right?" Ari asked. "It's his first time, you know."
"He's done a lot of ice skating, Ari, up in Canada. I know they don't have a lot of ice where you come from, but Noel cuts a pretty figure on the ice."
"No shit, Noel, you never told me."
"The subject never came up," Noel said. "The skills are similar." Noel found that he could replace a push-off with a toe tap, and his instincts took care of the rest. It was rather surprising, and he enjoyed the hell out of it.
"Jon's right, Noel…let's get to work."
As Noel jetted the hundred meters he had drifted, he looked about at the star filled universe surrounding him. The sky was so jammed with stars that it was virtually impossible to pick out the familiar constellations. The Sun was easy to find, but unlike from the Earth where it was about the size of a silver dollar, it was about the size of a dime, perhaps a bit smaller, but still too bright to look at directly. Jupiter showed a noticeable disk, as did Saturn, although it was much smaller. Mars, behind them was just a glowing red dot off to the side of the Sun. And the Earth was just a blue "star" on the Sun's other side. The Milky Way was a spectacular band of mottled white that filled a section of sky arching above and below their apparent orientation. Since Noel knew that the Galactic ecliptic intersected the Solar ecliptic at about sixty degrees, he was able to orient himself with respect to their current position – something that gave him a real sense of security and genuine satisfaction. Noel rejoined Ari, and they did a careful inspection of the external cable feed from the forward end cap of the Box. Other than some superficial marking where the major strain by the tether against the nozzle had occurred, everything looked fine.
They made their way along the Box to the after end cap. Like the forward end cap, it also showed some wear marks, but there appeared to be no actual damage. "Okay," Ari said, "let's do the Caboose. We'll split up, but keep in visual range of each other. Remember to stay clear of the checkered stripes."
"Yah, I know, neutron flux from the reactor."
With a light line loosely connecting them, Ari and Noel moved around the fuel tanks at the forward end of the Caboose. They found no damage. The reactor segment was also damage free. The forward portion was easy to examine, because of the smooth exterior. A simple visual check did it. Any damage would have been obvious. The four VASIMR engines, however, were not faired, so that the two men had to move in and about each engine as they conducted their inspection. The process was slow and tedious, and they had to untether themselves in order to avoid entangling the line. The process took a good four hours, but finally they met, floating free at the business end of the Caboose, and exchanged high fives. The systems were undamaged.
In high spirits, they jetted back to the after end of the Box, activated the air lock, and entered the space they had left several hours earlier. Noel placed gloved hands on both sides of his helmet and rotated it to the left one half turn. With a soft hiss, the seal released, and he removed the clear globe. Ari did likewise. "Let's get cleaned up and grab a bite to eat," he said, slipping through the back of his suit.
#
Elke was upset – more than upset, she was pissed off. Order and clarity were important, but order had left her world when the asteroid struck the tether. And the Saeed matter just made things worse, and far more complicated. Her immediate instinct was to toss him out the lock without the benefit of a suit. But it wasn't her call, and the man in charge had his orders…and order mattered above all else. As the one crew member without an immediate task, and only one of two uninjured, Jon had assigned her to scour the Box, looking for anything that might be a communicator.
Once Elke got used to the smell, the task was tedious and boring. If anyone could find the proverbial needle in the haystack, Elke knew she was the person. She started at Saeed's encampment, searching thoroughly one meter out in all directions. If it wasn't sealed, she opened it – she examined literally everything…and found nothing. This meant one of only two things – there were no communicators, or Saeed had hidden them somewhere other than his encampment. Since she could not assume there were no communicators, she now had two choices. She likened her choice to how computer chess programs developed. The initial approach had been to use brute power, analyzing as many moves as possible within the available timeframe. Obviously speed helped, and a so-called super computer played a fantastic chess game. The more elegant approach, and one that languished for decades as computers became more sophisticated, was to analyze the game the way a human player does, and pick the most effective strategy. Only in the last twenty years or so did this approach begin to show real results. She could use brute force in her search, continuing around the encampment compartment, item by item, and on to the next compartment, until she either found something, or finally determined that there were no communicators. Or, she could use finesse, and that is what she chose. She floated inside Saeed's tent, and let her mind wander in a focused way, trying to think like Saeed, something that did not come naturally to Elke.
Saeed had to know that sooner or later he would be found out – it was inevitable. He couldn't be left in the ship when the crew descended to Iapetus, and he couldn't just take unidentified items with him to the surface. So, anything he wanted on the surface would have to be hidden inside something that would necessarily be moved to the surface. There were two combination lander/rovers, so logically, if Saeed had hidden any communicators, they would be inside one of the lander/rovers.
Elke dropped down one level – she still thought of it as down even though back was probably more appropriate in their current zero-g configuration – and made her way into the strange looking combination lander/rover stored in the six-meter-high chamber. Like Cassini II, the lander/rover was constructed of aramid polymer, lightweight and strong. The machine was a four-and-a-quarter-meter long, three-meter wide cylinder sitting horizontally atop three sets of large foam filled rubber tires that rested against the back deck. The front end was a tough radiation resistant transparent polymer, and the cylinder contained three sapphire matrix ports down each side and three along the top. A medium size nozzle surrounded by hypergolic fuel tanks extended three-quarters of a meter from the back. Three extendible pads spaced around the back of the cylinder were designed to absorb the landing forces – such as they were on Iapetus, where the gravity was only 0.02g, some forty times less than on Earth. The lander's three-and-a-half-meter interior configuration was split by a deck running the length of the cylinder with a two-meter space above the deck, and storage below the deck, accessible from both inside and outside. The main deck consisted of a front section that sat six passengers three across with storage behind them. A three-quarter-meter chamber behind the rear bulkhead contained a compact variable output gas core reactor. Like Cassini II's main reactor, this smaller compact version was fueled by gaseous uranium-hexafluoride fissile material. The gas was injected into a small fused silica vessel where it produced extremely high-energy ultraviolet light that generated prodigious amounts of electricity with photovoltaics that surrounded the outer wall. This electricity was directed to the electric motors on the six wheels, and to the vehicle interior. The lander/rover landed vertically on the pads. When it stabilized, a fourth pad extended from beneath the nose in the rover configuration, and the rear pad aligned with the top of the rover configuration extended until the lander tipped onto the nose pad and the six wheels to become the rover. It had a one-atmosphere interior, accessed through a lock on the vehicle's left side. In addition, there were emergency exits in the overhead and undercarriage that opened directly to the outside without benefit of a lock.
Elke conducted a systematic examination of the interior, commencing with the control panel that crossed in front of the clear polymer front end. Since the lander/rover was designed to operate in both zero-g and very-slight-g, every usable surface was covered with compartments, some with elastic net covers, and some with doors. Virtually all the compartments were filled with things that the planners determined would be necessary on Iapetus' surface. Elke systematically emptied each compartment, examined each item, and restowed them in their original configuration. It was slow, tedious work, but Elke didn't complain – she just opened one compartment after the other, searching. In the bottom-most rearward locker on the starboard side, behind a relatively massive storage capacitor that was a spare for their surface burst transmitter, she discovered two spheres about the size of a softball, although she didn't characterize them as such because she wasn't familiar with the game. She didn't recognize what they were, but after a bit of experimentation, she opened one, and immediately deduced that it was a combination miniature holocamcorder and a transmitter of some kind.
