“Yes! I did fine on the simulator. Let’s start with the most pleasant part!”
Olga’s eyes flickered under her closed eyelids, and a tiny manipulator brought a small tablet to her mouth. Olga took it with her tongue and chewed it slowly. The tablet tasted to her like smoked sausage, though very dry. Olga flickered her closed again, then took several gulps of mineral water through a thin pipe.
“What flavor is this?” the girl asked.
“Pemmican. An invention of the American Indians, a long-storage meat concentrate. They used bison and elk—that’s dried beef mixed with fats, dried fruit, and spices. Pemmican is a high-calorie product that can be stored for decades. But you can’t live on it for long—it’s bad for the stomach.”
“May I have another tablet?”
“No. You’ll grow fat and get stuck in the spacesuit.”
“This is the best toy I’ve ever had. Thank you, Arina! Look!!!”
Olga tried to perform a cartwheel on the floor but lost her balance. Before she could fall, Arina plucked her out of the air and stood her on her feet. As if nothing had happened, Arina continued to instruct.
“Half an hour a day should be quite enough to teach you how to control yourself in that suit. We’ll spend much on it operating principles. And then you’ll study the maintenance and emergency repair. You won’t be bored.”
* * *
A month later, the always-dispassionate Arina and the now-serious Olga stood by the heavy door of the sluice chamber.
“Are you scared?” the nanny asked.
“I think I am. Just a little. And you?”
“Androids know no fear. We have no need for emotions.” Arina smiled. “So stick with me and you won’t get lost.”
Olga raised her head and addressed the screen. “Were you scared, Uncle Mikhail, on your first walk outside?”
“I sure was. I very nearly soiled my suit—”
“Comrade Petrov, please abstain from the naval humor you are so fond of and don’t distract my pupil,” Arina interrupted. “Now is not the right time for emotional effusions.”
“You’re right,” Petrov corrected himself. “Cadet Voronov, are ready to walk out into the great void?”
“Cadet Voronov is always ready!”
“Then go ahead!” Petrov replied, brushing away a tear.
Nobody noticed this because Arina was already opening a combination lock and swinging the hatch open.
Olga carefully stepped over the steel threshold and entered the sluice chamber. The child quickly and confidently put on her suit as Arina watched carefully. In a moment, Olga was standing in the suit with the light filter raised and her eyes expectantly fixed on Arina.
“All right! My turn now,” the nanny said as she started to dress.
“Why do you need a suit?” Olga asked. “You don’t breathe, do you?”
“I don’t breathe, that’s true. But my body could not stand the temperature extremes without a spacesuit. In the sunlight, my temperature would rise to two hundred and sixty degrees Celsius. In the darkness, it would drop to minus one hundred degrees.”
When Arina had changed into her bright orange spacesuit, she nodded at Olga. “You can do this,” she said. “I have faith in you.”
Olga unlocked the conning hatch and checked the wall-mounted display as the adults silently observed.
“The circuit is sealed. I will enable the pumps on the count of three! One, two, three!” Olga turned the handles and the pumps began to pump the air from the sluice.
“Radio communication only,” Arina said.
“I remember. May I open now?”
“Yes, you may!” Petrov said into her receiver.
Olga manipulated the display and the upper hatch slowly shifted aside, revealing a square black void littered with stars. She involuntarily shrank before this endless nothingness but then took a bold step forward. Olga and Arina stepped onto a lift outlined in red and slowly clambered up from the sluice to the roof of the High House.
Two tiny figures stood on a gray surface of the High House Eight orbiter. An axis resembling a gridded rocker moved slowly. The position lights of the huge factory glowed red. The nighttime hemisphere of Earth loomed four hundred kilometers below.
Olga squeezed Arina’s hand firmly.
“What do you think?” the nanny asked.
“It’s … stunning …” Olga said, trying to find the right words.
“Yes, Raven, it’s always stunning, and you will remember your first spacewalk as long as you live, like your first kiss.”
“Come on, Arina! Start the walk,” Petrov said. “I’m with you in thought.”
With a thin metallic strap, Arina fastened Olga’s backpack to her wrist.
“Your vestibular system is much more advanced than an average human’s,” Arina said. “That gives you the coordination they lack, but still you may feel rather odd the first time especially when we ascend the axial mast where weightlessness is absolute. If you feel something amiss, tell me. Now let’s walk over to the edge of the House. Just walk slowly. The gravity here is the same as inside. Go, Raven.”
Arina switched on the lighting, and the searchlights mounted on the axis flooded the space around them with a cold white light. The figures of Olga and Arina cast long coal-black shadows. Olga hesitated for a moment, then slowly walked toward the far edge of the orbiter as Arina followed. The girl continued to turn her head left and right, staring into the void.
“Nanny, are those lights high above us the high-orbit colonies?”
“Yes. That’s the geostationary zone, thirty-six thousand kilometers above Earth. That object over there, with lights like a cross placed in a square, is the Terminal, the top of the Orbital Lift. I worked there before becoming your nanny.”
“Really? I didn’t know about that. What was it like out there?”
“Not bad. But no comparison to the House. It bustles like a train station. And there’s no such a remarkable girl like you.”
“Oh …”
Olga froze at the edge of the House, and Arina again took the girl by her hand.
They stood at the edge of the abyss. A fathomless black space in five directions, myriads of stars both real and manmade. Cosmic space.
“That’s … that’s …”
“Calm down, Raven,” Petrov said. “The emptiness won’t hurt you. It has no will, no intentions. This is your world, Olga Voronov, and it belongs to you completely, to its very last star! You understand me?”
“Yes. I think I do … Thank you, Uncle Misha!”
Little Olga continued to stare into the endless space, searching for the outlines of constellations and taking note of the largest colonies. Standing at the edge, she thought that it was wrong to say that there’s no top or bottom in space. There sure is. Everything overhead is the top, and everything beneath the shoes is the bottom. True, if one turns a somersault everything will swap positions, but she could cope with this. There wouldn’t be any giddiness or disorientation that the natives of the Earth suffer when they quit the bounds of their home planet.
“Beautiful! No comparison to the view from the window. And nothing to be afraid of. Shall we go to the axis now?”
“All right,” Arina said. “But we have time to spare. Look at the plant building.”
Olga turned her head to look at the gigantic cylinder hanging over the High House. She had seen it lots of times through the windows and on the simulators, but only now could she appreciate how it dwarfed the High House rotating next to it.
Composed of a gray lunar rock, the cylinder measured just one hundred fifty meters in width but nearly a kilometer in depth. The casing was not solid—the factory sported numerous negative spaces so that from a distance it looked like the skeleton of a fantastic beast with many arch-like ribs framing a complex spine. Uncle Mikhail had described it as a beer can with a winding key inserted into it.
“The beer can,” he’d said, “is in constant weightlessness, which is necessary for
the manufacturing processes that will take place. The axis rotates horizontally to provide artificial gravity. On one end of the axis is a pier where you will land cargo ships one day. On the other end is the manned compartment, your home.”
Yes, it did look like a beer can, Olga thought as she looked at the cylindrical factory.
“Olga …” Arina prompted.
“Nanny, what are those white flashes inside the plant? Welding? Construction in progress?” the little astronaut asked about the flickering lights in the depth of the cylinder.
“Yes, my smart girl. The plant construction is continuous, day and night, for eight years now. The ships bring materials every fifth day. But this work is useless without the main component. And that component is now by my side.”
“Arina, I am not a component!”
“I’m joking. The entire thing is useless without a pilot and a director of the facility. This great device awaits you, dear Olga. So, let’s have a look at what you are in charge of. Off to the axis.”
A gridded structure rose from the roof of the manned compartment seventy-five meters vertically up to the axial mast. Arina led Olga up to a small elevator. She stepped onto it first, and then, pressing the girl to herself, pushed the up button and the lift softly ascended.
“Do you feel you’re losing weight?” the nanny asked.
“Yes. It’s just like on the simulator!”
“Observe the sinker on the chain. It will hang soon in front of you, indicating the weightlessness. We’re very nearly there.”
The lift rose still higher over the column body. Gravity weakened with every meter, and in the mast area it disappeared completely.
“Here we are. The terminus.”
The lift stopped with a soft jolt. Arina hitched her strap to the spring hook on the rail. The axis forked off here, skirting around a seven- meter-thick mast that the main body of the structure rotated around. Olga sensed how the lightest of movements would separate her body from the platform and send her into free flight.
“So, this is what weightlessness is like!” the girl exclaimed. Petrov grunted approvingly, admiring the child’s response.
“Now just jump up,” Arina instructed, releasing the strap.
Olga sprang from the lift, her body slowly drifted into the emptiness. The girl doubled up and turned over several times in flight; her wide eyes filled with childish delight.
“I could do that all my life! Wow, how wonderful!”
“Raven, stop spinning around! Check the suit engines. Don’t forget that you’re training here!”
“Yes, Uncle Misha! Arina, what power should I set the engine to?”
“Ten percent.”
“Only ten? Am I a snail? Let’s make it at least twenty-five, eh?”
“Exactly ten and not a percent more. If you can’t obey, we’ll go straight home!”
“All right. Where shall I go?”
“To that part of the axial mast to your left,” Arina said. “Thrust your engines smoothly, without any jerks.”
Olga accelerated too abruptly and was hurled forward like a rubber ball rapped by a paddle.
“Don’t wave your arms like wings,” Arina said. “There’s no air here, so you’ll have nothing to push against. The engines control your flight.”
The nanny continued Olga’s first training session in space, observing with pleasure how the girl nimbly stopped the chaotic rotation with a brief adjustment with the engines. She drifted toward the mast at a much slower rate. A second flash of the engines and Olga froze in the emptiness, hanging a meter from the mast. She reached out and touched the beam with her hand, first with her fingertips and then her palms, gripping harder with the thimbles.
“Now return to the initial position. Try to move in a straight line. Don’t hurry. And watch the fuel consumption.”
Olga disengaged herself from the mast. This time her movements were smoother, more graceful jerks. She stopped and started to perform a series of test maneuvers, rotating from side to side, accelerating and slowing down.
“I must admit, you make a favorable impression,” Petrov said. “The millions spent on your training have not spent in vain. Another five minutes and then come back.”
“Uncle Misha, shall we go to the plant today?” Olga asked the curator.
“No, Olga,” Arina said. “We’ve had enough for today. I’ll take you to the factory the day after tomorrow. But before we go back to the House, I’ll show you something. Just wait two and a half minutes.”
“Arina, what are you up to?” Petrov asked.
“You’ll see too,” Arina replied as she switched off her searchlight.
The High House continued its orbit over the dark disk of Earth and then the planet’s edge flared with a rim of golden light. Olga floated, delighting in the bright crescent dividing day from night.
“Mind the light filter, Olga,” Arina said as usual, just on time.
The sun appeared suddenly on the horizon, scorching the mass of the station with its fire. Olga narrowed her eyes, watching the colossal golden coin rising over the world. A new day had come.
CHAPTER THREE: GAME OF TETRIS
December 10, 2086
“The years 2020 through 2027.”
“The second phase of space expansion,” Olga said in a bored monotone. “The active militarization of space, the leading military powers put a sizable quota of their nuclear arsenals into orbit. As time goes on, the militarization intensifies. Simultaneously, a large quantity of low-orbit civilian use stations, both private and government-owned, are built. Creation of the first permanent lunar colonies begins as do preparations for flights to other planets.”
“The years 2028 through 2029.”
“The first manned flight to Mars, a joint Russian-Chinese expedition, the ‘Big Thrust’ that lasted nineteen months. I know everything; I’m terribly smart and amazingly beautiful. The mission is recognized as successful despite the death of two crewmembers.”
“Aren’t you smart? The years 2030 to 2050.”
Olga lined up a dart. With a quick flick of her wrist, the dart quivered in the bull’s eye. A second and a third immediately followed, forming a tight triangle.
“The third wave, or the Golden Age. In those years the quantity of space colonies in the near-Earth space quickly exceeded twenty thousand. This geometrical expansion resulted from the fact that Earth’s industry could no longer compete against space industry. The new facilities needed permanent personnel, which gave rise to long-term colonies.”
The fourth dart struck a metal wire on the board and fell to the carpet.
“In addition to labor, ever more raw materials were required. The Moon alone could not meet the growing need for mineral resources, which triggered the development of Mercury, Venus and Mars as well as the asteroid belt. That became possible due to the creation of thermonuclear engines. The manned flights to the outskirts of the solar system, the commencement of the space migration, the establishment of the first space-based states. Ever more facilities, ships, colonies and people.”
Olga removed the dartboard from the wall, tossed it up toward the ceiling and as it spun in the air, hit it with two darts.
“You forgot to mention something,” Arina said.
“I could never!”
“The Lift.”
“Ah, of course, I see it every day. In the early Fifties, construction of the Space Lift began, at least at the stage of manufacturing the lifting cable and counterbalance.” Olga put away her darts and approached the window. The position lights of the Upper Terminal shone steadily; the Lift slid down on the weightless nano-cable. The drop into the upper layers of the atmosphere took just two and a half hours.
“Go on. Or aren’t you so sure of yourself now? The years 2050 through 2059.”
“The Space Cold War. The United States and Western Europe’s attempt to stop the progress of space programs in Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa, South America and the first independent colonies by seek
ing to cut them off from the resources of outer space and blockading the emerging trade between the colonies. Hence, the creation of military blocs, the rapid growth of long-term bases, the growth of the fleets …” The girl stopped to fully recall the events that had occurred three decades before her birth.
“True, there were no overt hostilities, but the number of inexplicable catastrophes soared, which testified to the numerous clandestine operations carried out by both sides.”
“The year 2060.”
“The First Space War. It lasted seventy-nine days. The exact cause of the outbreak is unknown to this day. The hostilities took place mainly in the near-Earth space and on the Moon, affecting to a lesser extent the other three interior planets and the colonies on Ceres, Vesta, Pallas and Hygiea in the asteroid belt. The war killed at least three million people, ending in the defeat of the NASA Navy. Following the signing of the Beijing Peace Treaty, the state-supported space agencies in the US and Europe were dissolved. That was followed by virtually a complete abolition of their centralized governments. The Western world’s states were replaced by private enterprise, the Supernova Corporation, my immediate employer.” Olga took a breath, waiting for more questions. Not receiving any, she added cheerfully, “It’s a pity Uncle Misha tells me little about the war. I hear he traveled quite a lot on Ivan the Terrible. He’s got an array of decorations for his feats!”
“As you grow up he’ll tell you all about that, I’m sure. From 2061 to this day.”
“The fourth wave of space expansion was a relatively peaceful time. The steady growth of colonies, active colonization of Mars, further development of Venus, Mercury and distant planets. The Lift Project implemented. The power in Russia and China subsumed by the Union, an association of major space industrialists who retained the sole centralized administration on the Earth’s submissive territories. Following the formation of the Union and the Supernova, a current balance of powers emerges with the bulk of the colonies subject to one of those two spheres of influence. The remaining independent colonies formed the so-called Free Zone: the common space without an administration, whose residents live in their own way. And then there was the Exodus in which ever more natives of Earth tried to escape the ongoing economic crisis and climate deterioration of the home planet and attain permanent residence.
The Raven High Page 3