Authors: Allen Steele
“Quite right. I shouldâ¦but I'm not, and that's all there is to it, yes?” A dejected smile. “Still have my pipe? I could use a smoke just now.”
“Maybe later.” Harker sat down in the chair next to him. “I didn't get a chance to say so before,” he said, dropping his voice to a near whisper, “butâ¦well, thanks. Thanks for coming clean with Emily.”
“Sure.” Once again, Ramirez gazed out the window, only this time he seemed more nervous. Raising a hand to his mouth, his absently gnawed at his fingernails. “She's your lady, isn't she? I mean, you two are an item, right?”
Something in the way he asked stirred the hair on the back of Harker's neck. “Yes, she is. And I'd prefer if you didn't⦔
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” Ramirez looked straight at him. “Sorry. Didn't mean to get your back up like that. It's just⦔ His face turned red, and he hastily looked away. “You're a lucky man. If you don't know that already, then you should.”
Oh, hell
, Harker thought.
Does he have a crush on�
“Got it!” Kaufmann yelled. “We've got it!”
The rest of the team let out a collective cheer and began pounding each other on the back. Ramirez sprang to his feet, rushed over to the console; Harker followed him as he pushed his way past Cole and Sinclair to squeeze in behind Rauchle. Sinclair started to object, but stopped when Harker blocked him with his arm and quietly shook his head. The astrobiologist had more right to be there than the political officer.
Peering over Cruz's shoulder, Harker examined the console's center screen. Displayed upon it was a thin crescent that dimly reflected the wan light of the distant sun. For a moment, Harker thought he was looking at Eris again, yet the crosshatches overlaid upon the image made it clear that the object was much smaller than that minor planet, its albedo considerably lower.
“Distance, 95,867 kilometers,” Kaufmann said, once everyone quieted down. “Just about where we thought it would be.” He glanced up at Harker and smiled. “My compliments to your navigator. She put us almost exactly where⦔
“Never mind that now,” Rauchle grumbled. “Get us a better resolution.”
“Patience, Toby, patience.” Grasping the joystick of the optical telescope's remote manipulator, Kaufmann carefully centered the bull's-eye upon Spindrift, then turned a knob to zoom in. The image grew larger, then refocused. They could see that it was iron grey, the color of an old bridge girder, its surface wrinkled with rills and small ridges, pockmarked by countless craters both large and small.
“Thank you.” Cruz was already tapping at his keyboard. “Initiating spectrographic analysis now.” On his screen, columns of figures appeared, began to scroll upward; bending closer, the astrogeologist carefully studied the readout. “Ironâ¦magnesiumâ¦carbon and carbon silicatesâ¦oxidized ironâ¦surface traces of frozen carbon dioxide⦔
“No sign of the secondary object,” Ramirez said. “Where is it?”
“Haven't spotted it yet.” Kaufmann gently moved the telescope to the left, bringing the curvature of Spindrift's visible horizon into view. “Perhaps it's orbiting on the far side, but⦔
“A planetary transient.” Rauchle's expression was sour with disgust. “A rogue, nothing more.” He glared at Harker. “Thank you for the exciting ride, first officer, but there's little here that we couldn't have seen if we'd stayed in the Kuiperâ”
“Robert, look here.” Ignoring Rauchle, Cruz tapped Kaufmann on the shoulder, drawing the physicist's attention to his screen. “See that percentage of carbon dioxide? Don't you think it's rather high for a metallic body?”
Kaufmann studied the screen for a moment, slowly nodded. “The ratio is high, yes. Frozen-out atmosphere?”
“I thought so, too, but see here⦔ Cruz typed another command into his keyboard; his screen changed to display bar graphs of different elements and compounds. “Look at that spike,” he continued, pointing to an orange bar that rose a little higher than most. “Not evenly spread out, like it would be if it was atmospheric in origin, but instead concentrated in certain places.”
“Vented from the interior?” Rauchle's brow furrowed. “Seismic activity, perhaps⦔
“From a rogue?” Cruz glanced at Rauchle. The team leader folded his arms together but otherwise remained silent. “I doubt it. Can you give us an infrared image?”
Without a word, Kaufmann entered a prompt into the telescope command. The visual image of Spindrift disappeared, to be replaced by a false-color IR display. Now it appeared as a complete sphere, brown, with splotches of red, blue, silverâ¦
Harker heard Ramirez gasp. Looking around, he saw that the astrobiologist was staring at the screen. Everyone else had gone silent as well; no one said anything as they, too, noticed the pattern of orange circles that described a semicircular line across Spindrift's surface. An almost perfect arc of longitude, stretching from pole to pole.
“That can't be natural,” Ramirez murmured. “That's not something that⦔
“Hold it. Wait a second.” Kaufmann held up a hand. “Getting something else.”
Without bothering to explain, he pushed the IR image to one corner of the screen. Cruz and Rauchle angrily protested as the visible-light image of Spindrift reappeared, but Kaufmann paid no attention to them; using the joystick, he pulled back from the close-up until Spindrift resumed the same appearance as it had before.
Harker saw what had drawn Kaufmann's attention: a small circular object, coming into view just beyond the limb of the rogue. Ramirez pointed to it, but Kaufman was already tracking it with the telescope. He centered the crosshairs upon the satellite, then zoomed in. It took a moment for the telescope to focus, but when it did, Harker felt his heart skip a beat.
“My god.” Ramirez's voice came as a whisper. “Oh, my god⦔
Although the ring wasn't perfectly identical to the one they'd left behind in the Kuiper Belt, no one had any doubt what they were seeing.
A starbridge.
JANUARY 8, 2291âEAS
MARIA CELESTE
“E
veryone strapped down? Suits zipped up?” Although she turned her head to look back, her helmet's faceplate prevented Emily from seeing the passengers seated behind her. Both Ramirez and Cruz answered in the affirmative, though, and she didn't need to ask Ted if he'd secured his harness or sealed his flight suit, so she touched the
MIC
switch on the com panel above her head. “
Galileo
, this is
Maria Celeste
. Requesting permission to depart.”
“
We copy,
Maria.” Arkady's voice came through her earphones. “
Permission granted. Ready to disengage on your mark.
”
“Roger that,
Galileo
. Mark in T-minus thirty.” Emily switched over to internal power, then initiated the primary ignition sequence for the main engines. A quick glance at the idiot lights on the environmental control panel told her that all hatches were secure and cabin air pressure was nominal. Flipping the switch that would retract the docking collar, she heard a hollow thump above and behind her. She reset the comps and loaded the new programs. All safety and rescue systems were on standby; with luck, none of them would be needed.
Emily glanced at the chronometer. Ten seconds left. Time enough for one last detail. Briefly raising her faceplate, she kissed the fingertips of her glove, then gently touched the small medal of St. Christopher she'd attached to a discreet place just above her control yoke. She'd given up on Catholicism a long time agoâor at least it'd been many years since she had last attended Massâbut this was one small ritual she'd maintained ever since her first solo. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ted quietly observing her. He'd seen her do this before; as always he said nothing, instead maintaining a respectful silence. She flexed her fingers within her gloves, took a deep breath, then grasped the yoke.
“
Maria
to
Galileo
,” she said. “Mark. Disengage.”
Another thump, a little harder this time, as the docking cradle opened on either side of the shuttle, allowing the spacecraft to float free. “
Disengagement complete,
Maria,” Arkady said. “
You're on your own.
”
“We copy,
Galileo
.” Through the forward cockpit window, Emily watched the service module as it slowly drifted away, surrounded by a thin halo of frozen oxygen that had broken away from the docking collar. She pulled back on the yoke, and the RCS fired, lifting the shuttle away from the starship. Now she could see
Galileo
in all its immensity, a giant spindle shoved one-fifth of the way through an enormous torus. Its hull was illuminated by red and green formation lights, and mellow radiance came from the windows of the hab module, but otherwise the ship was cloaked by the shadows of interstellar night.
A brief, almost undetectable shudder as the shuttle passed through the periphery of the Millis-Clement field. She felt herself rise slightly within the confines of her seat. “We're in the clear,
Galileo
,” she murmured. “Go for deorbit burn.”
“
Roger that,
Maria.
Got you on our scope.
”
Emily twisted the yoke to the left, firing thrusters to execute a barrel roll. Like a dancer performing a deft pirouette, the
Maria Celeste
twisted around on its axis, realigning itself within its new sphere of orientation. Through the cockpit windows,
Galileo
veered sharply away, the starship disappearing beneath the belly of the shuttle until it was replaced by the vast, dark curvature of Spindrift.
“Firing mains on the count of three,” Emily murmured as she laid her right hand upon the thrust bars. “Oneâ¦twoâ¦three⦔ She eased the bars upward; a faint rumble from behind them, then she was gradually pushed back in her seat as the shuttle's twin nuclear engines ignited. Spindrift seemed to move closer, gradually but inexorably. She counted silently to ten, then pulled the bars back three-quarters. “Deorbit burn complete. We're on our way.”
“
We copy.
” Arkady's voice had become scratchy with static; in a few minutes,
Galileo
would be out of direct line of sight with the shuttle. “
Have a good flight. We'll be in touch again soon.
Galileo
over.
”
“Thank you,
Galileo
.
Maria Celeste
over.” Until they reached the ground and
Galileo
's orbit brought it over the local horizon, this would be their last radio contact with the ship until after they landed.
“Nice job, Emcee.” Harker gave her a brief smile, then loosened his harness and turned to look back at Ramirez and Cruz. “How're you two holding up?”
“Fine. Just fine.” Cruz's voice was tight, as if he was holding his breath.
“Couldn't be better.” By contrast, Ramirez sounded no more concerned than if he was enjoying a rickshaw ride through Tranquility Centre. “Just glad I took your advice about skipping breakfast.”
“Helps prevent motion sickness,” Harker said. “Besides, until we get back, we're on a liquid diet. You don't want to be pinching a loaf when you're on EVA for eight hours.”
“Thank you for that image.” Ramirez sighed. “Just what I need to take with me where no man has gone before.”
“No pun intended, of course,” Emily murmured.
“An obscure cultural allusion, my dear.” Turning back around, Harker typed a command into the comp. Side-looking radar painted a wire-frame image of Spindrift across the screen; midway up the northern half of the central meridian, a tiny red spot blinked amid a maze of hills, craters, and crevices. “There's Larry. Want me to lock on?”
“Be my guest.” Emily engaged the autopilot, then reached between her knees to withdraw a squeeze bottle from its sling. Pulling out its straw, she had a sip of water. A double beep from her console told her that
Maria
's navigation subsystem was locked on to the probe's transponder. If she cared to do so, she could program the shuttle to land on its own, without any manual guidance on her part. Not that she'd ever do that, of course. What fun was it to be a pilot if you left everything to the comp?
“How long till we get there?” Cruz asked.
“About an hour, more or less.” Emily recapped the bottle, placed it back within the sling. She hesitated, wondering whether she should reiterate what had already been said during the mission briefing. A little repetition couldn't hurt. “I know you've heard this before, but let's go at it again. This is my ship, so while we're in the air, I'm in charge. Once we're on the ground, though, and the three of you have gone EVA, it's Ted's mission. That means you listen to everything he says. If he tells you to do something⦔
“Then we do it.” Ramirez's voice affected a tone of boredom. “Got it. Understood.”
“Jared⦔ Emily loosened her harness, then half turned in her seat so that she could look him in the eye. “Look, you've receivedâ¦what, ten hours of suit training at Tycho Centre? If you got in a fix back there, there were a dozen people to come to the rescue.”
“None of us had any mishaps during training.” Cruz became defensive. “And may I remind you that I've been EVA before? Twenty-six hours logged on Mars⦔
“This is different. As Ramirez said, we're going where no one has gone before. If you run into any problems, you won't have anyone to count on but each other.”
“Except you, of course,” Ramirez added.
“Wrong,” Harker said. “Her job is stay put in the shuttle. Under no circumstance is she to leave the ship. Even in the most dire emergency.” He reached over to pat her arm. “Emily here is our lifeline. Without her, none of us go home.”
“Which means that, once you set foot on Spindrift, you're under Ted's supervision.” Emily looked at Cruz. “Don't assume that this is like Mars, because it isn't.” Then she glanced at Ramirez. “And, as I told you, we don't have the luxury of having a second shuttle able to come to our rescue. Once we're on the ground⦔
“We're on our own.” Sobered, Ramirez nodded. “All right, I understand.”
“Yeah, sureâ¦same here.” Cruz paused. “But, lookâ¦if there's nothing down there, then whyâ¦?”
“C'mon, Jorge.” Ramirez shook his head. “If you really think that, then why are you with us?”
Cruz didn't respond. Emily turned back around in her seat. A glance at the comp screen told her that her first chance to touch down at the landing site was coming up in less than a minute. “Right,” she murmured. “Glad we got that settled.” Tightening her harness again, she reached forward to switch off the autopilot. “Fasten your seat belts, gentlemen. We're going in.”
Â
Landing on Spindrift presented its own special challenges. With no atmosphere and an escape velocity of only .6 kilometers per second, it was much like landing on the Moon, only in a slightly higher gravity. Emily locked down the wing ailerons, useless in the airless environment, and made the final approach relying almost entirely upon the RCS and the vertical landing thrusters.
What precious little light the asteroid received from the Sun was no help to her. Even after she switched on the floodlights, all she could see was a dark, rock-strewn landscape, with little sense of height or dimension. Keeping a sharp eye on the eight ball, she had Harker call out altimeter readings and didn't lower the landing gear until they were only sixty meters above the ground, when she was sure that she wouldn't have to abort the descent.
“Fifteen meters,” Harker said. “Ten metersâ¦nineâ¦eightâ¦seven⦔
The thrusters kicked up a cloud of fine grey powder that swirled within the floodlights and clung to the panes of the cockpit windows. Emily gently inched back the thruster bars; a bead of sweat rolled down her forehead and stung her left eye, but she didn't dare take her hands from the controls.
C'mon,
Marie
â¦we can do it, babyâ¦
“Sixâ¦fiveâ¦fourâ¦three⦔
She pulled the bars to horizontal position, then grasped the yoke with both hands and, with one last nudge, hauled it to neutral. A half-second sensation of falling, then a gentle bump beneath her feet as the skids made contact with hard surface.
“Goal,” Harker said. “And the crowd goes wild at Wembly.”
“Score one for the English team.” Emily killed the engines, then quickly checked the cabin instruments. No loss of internal pressure, no indications of fire or short circuits. “All safe and secure. We're down, gents.”
“Nice. Very nice.” Behind them, Ramirez slowly let out his breath. “I had only one cardiac eventâ¦well, no, make that two⦔
“Cynic. I'll have you know that you've just met the best pilot in the European Space Agency.” Harker grinned, then formally offered his hand. “Congratulations. This may have established some sort of record.”
“Call Guinness when we get home.” Emily let out her breath, then shook his hand. “At least it'll give the lads at the pub something new to argue about.”
Now that they'd landed in one piece, she didn't have to worry about regulations; she grasped her helmet with both hands, moved it counterclockwise until it snapped loose from the collar ring of her flight suit, then dragged it off her head. Despite the warmth supplied by the cabin heaters, she felt cool air touch her forehead and the nape of her neck. She pushed a strand of damp hair away from her face as she looked at Harker. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you mean, what?” She nodded toward the cockpit windows. “We're here, aren't we? I got you where you wanted to go. What do you think we were going to do, have a picnic?”
“She can't be serious.” Cruz was about to remove his own helmet; he stopped short of unlocking it.
“She's serious.” Harker unsnapped his harness and stood up, ducking his head to avoid the instrument panel. “Our itinerary calls for sixteen hours EVA, max, in two walk-outs. That may sound like a lot of time, but it isn't. Don't count on taking any naps.”
“I wasn't, but⦔ Ramirez fumbled with the clasp of his harness. “Pardon me, but do you have any idea where we're going?”
Emily reached down to the keyboard, punched in a couple of commands. A lidar map of the landing site appeared on the screen, with two red markers distanced about two centimeters from each other. “There's Larry,” she said, pointing to the one at the top, “and here's us. All you have to do is find Larry, then follow his tracks to the vent. I'll feed the coordinates to your suits' direction finders once you've put 'em on.”
“See? Piece of cake.” Stepping between Cruz and Ramirez, Harker made his way toward the aft deck. “Time to put on the long johns. Gentlemen, if you pleaseâ¦?”