All of them followed her request. Martin took a last glance at the screen and noticed the main tank was not empty. The green prediction curve jittered, changing between green, yellow, and red. The engine decelerated using the fuel of the thrusters. There would be a collision if they did not exactly hit the coupling dock of the freighter. Francesca might be an excellent pilot, but was she able to hit a disk with a diameter of one meter from several kilometers away—without even seeing it?
“Delta-v at 10, 9, 8...” Francesca counted out loud. “Line of sight acquired,” she whispered, “target deviation 3,000... 2,500... 2,000.” Those must be values in millimeters—they would be missing the target by two meters. It is a great achievement, Martin thought, but it will not be enough. We are going to die. He shivered.
“Heads up... everyone move to the right! At once!” called Francesca. Four human beings jumped toward the right side of the capsule, leaning against each other and breathing heavily. Wouldn’t a salvage team be surprised to find all of our bodies huddled here like this, Martin thought, realizing how dicey this maneuver was even as he felt the acceleration toward the left. Francesca pushed the lever for the right thruster as far as it would go.
“Please, dear God,” he heard her exclaim, but then she controlled herself and counted down professionally.
“Delta-v at 1... 0.5. Target deviation 500.” That might be enough! Yes! Martin clenched his fists.
“Delta-v 0.05. Target deviation 300. Accelerating.” Ha! This is it. She was accelerating one more time, so the mechanism would latch properly. She really was the greatest.
“Coupling now,” she said quietly. The spaceship made a metallic grinding sound. They heard a warning tone.
“You can return to your places,” Francesca said, but this time, no one obeyed. All of them came over and hugged her.
“Thanks,” Amy said. “We really have the best pilot in the world. No, in the entire solar system!”
“Using us to change the alignment was a stroke of genius,” Martin said breathlessly.
“I don’t know,” Francesca replied. “400 kilograms versus 30 tons, but perhaps it really got us the decisive millimeters. I at least wanted to try. I did not have enough time to calculate it.”
Martin returned to his couch. He realized only now how sweaty he was, even though he had hardly moved around during the past few days. For the first time since being rescued from Io, he looked forward to being back on board ILSE. He would be able to take a shower again, experience gravity, eat halfway decent food, and go through regular workouts.
“So, what’s next?” asked Francesca. “Are we going on board?”
“The freighter does not have a cabin,” Valentina answered. “It was never designed for transporting people.”
“Meaning what?”
“Someone who is skilled with computers should put on a spacesuit and go in there.”
Martin noticed everyone looking at him. He shrugged and said, “If I have to, but how do I prepare for decompression?”
“That is not necessary,” Valentina said. “The cargo hold is filled with an inert gas, with about half of the terrestrial pressure. It is like on a high mountain. You just close your helmet and walk over there.”
Martin started closing the zipper of his suit.
“Just wait. We have to heat up the freighter a bit, so you will not freeze to death. Currently it is minus 200 degrees in there.”
“Fine,” Amy said. “Then let’s postpone this until tomorrow. We still have enough time until the rendezvous with ILSE.”
“I would rather get it over with,” Martin said quietly. Then he felt Jiaying’s hand on his shoulder and the tension subsided.
January 23, 2049, ILSE
Taking over the spaceship with the aid of the master password only took a few seconds, but a lot had happened. First, Marchenko had saved Watson’s current state and then returned all systems to their basic settings and initiated a restart. This allowed Amy’s access code to become active again, and he had used it to overwrite the ship AI with his own database. Now he was once more the absolute master of the ship, letting ILSE come to life, step by step.
All systems were functioning within their normal ranges. Based on his experiences during the last voyage out, Marchenko had been concerned whether he would be able to restart the engines after they’d been shut off, but he need not have worried. One of the DFDs was running the whole time to supply the ship with electricity—a friendly gesture directed toward Watson, the on-board AI. The energy of this DFD would easily suffice to jumpstart the other ones.
Marchenko turned on the heating and oxygen-processing systems again, and the habitat ring was turning now, albeit very slowly. The crew would have to do some cleanup due to the damage done to the water pipes. No one had expected humans to use ILSE ever again, so Marchenko thought it best to leave the habitat ring in almost zero gravity.
The command module was the first section to become functional again, and from its appearance, it seemed to have been vacated just a moment ago. It was a visible reminder that there was no dust to settle in a vacuum.
The Closed Ecological Life Support System, or CELSS—the garden—was completely dead. It would take hard work to revive it, because the cold and the lack of oxygen had killed all the microorganisms in the soil. While they had seeds on board that were probably still viable, they might as well plant them in sterile sand.
The workshop was still well-equipped with spare parts, and additional supplies were located in the storerooms. This would definitely suffice for the necessary repairs, and the crew would be kept busy for the first three months.
Finally Marchenko checked the radio communication unit and found it was in good working condition. Hopefully they would hardly need it, as they were not anticipating any signals from Mission Control. In case of emergency they might try to contact Martin’s father at his radio observatory. The mesh network Shostakovich had set up on his asteroids definitely would not reach all the way to Saturn. They would have a lot of time for talks, plus he was looking forward to reconnecting with Francesca. Only a few more days...
And then there was the AI. During their last voyage, he had shared the computers of ILSE with Watson without the AI noticing it. But now Watson knew he was on board. Without the AI he could not have managed this. Should he reactivate Watson? Watson decided to trust him, but this did not necessarily mean they could trust Watson, did it? Would the AI try to contact its creators? Perhaps not, since these creators had condemned Watson to die in the sun. Might Watson do it because he expected a reward? Or was Marchenko thinking too much in human terms?
Marchenko decided to postpone the decision, at least until he could discuss it with the others. First he would have to reach the rendezvous point, and he activated one drive after the other. At the same time he fired the lateral thrusters and used them to turn ILSE by 180 degrees. Sounds echoed through the ship for the first time in months. They were transmitted as body-borne sound, but also via the air—which contained freshly-recycled oxygen—that was now flowing into all modules. Marchenko felt he could almost perceive the typical ozone scent, but that had to be an illusion.
The momentum of the reaction mass flowing from the plasma chambers of the DFDs slowly decelerated ILSE until the ship was no longer approaching the sun. Then the ship accelerated in the opposite direction and used all its force to escape from the gigantic ‘potential well’ created by the sun and its mass. ILSE climbed up the edge of the ‘gravity sink’ like an ant trying to escape the sandpit created by an antlion. Marchenko watched all of this with fascination.
January 24, 2049, Semlya
Marchenko had successfully completed his part of the task! The message had arrived yesterday, improving the crew’s mood even more so than after the dramatic coupling maneuver. This means our next accomplishment will completely depend on me for success, thought Martin, who had been pondering this for a while. He wondered whether it would be better if Valentina went instead, since she could better handle t
he Cyrillic script and the unknown ship.
Martin, however, had not been able to dismiss the arguments raised by the others. This was not about understanding menus and labels in the control software—he did not even have to use one of the programs. Instead, his task was to modify the source code. Valentina already demonstrated that the programmers added comments in English, and Fortran was a universally-understandable language. On the other hand, Valentina only understood it as well as a German could read Dutch. Since it concerned docking procedures, this was definitely not enough, he had to admit.
Jiaying gave him a kiss before he put on his helmet. The cargo hold on the other side was pressurized, but he had to breathe from the tank Francesca had attached to his back.
“It is still not very warm,” Valentina warned him. Then, so she could open the hatch, she introduced air into the airlock. “Pressure stable,” she said.
She turned the large wheel and opened the round steel door. The airlock was tiny—would he even fit inside? Shouldn’t somebody else, someone smaller... No, he told himself, and bent down and climbed into the room. Valentina closed the hatch behind him and it immediately went dark. If he suffered from claustrophobia, this would be the moment for a panic attack. Martin listened to himself, but he was spared this reaction. His eyes adapted to the dim red light, which seemed to darken the room rather than making it brighter.
Directly in front of him was a second spoked wheel, and he grabbed hold and tried to turn it. Phew! He was strong enough to do it, which he had worried about, but it worked. After ten revolutions he heard a metallic click. It must be the mechanical interlock that prevented the hatch from accidentally opening, Martin decided. If he pushed against it now—he wondered whether he had forgotten anything. No, it was time. He opened the door. There was a brief whistling sound as the pressure equalized, and then he was able to climb out.
In front of him was a narrow corridor about two meters high, with containers on both sides. Normally, ore was stored in these containers, but not now. As far as he knew, they held the laser and its necessary powerplant. However, he was unable to confirm it. His assignment was to walk through the corridor, in the dim light from the red LEDs, and find the computer console, supposedly in a recess on the right side.
Martin recalled movies in which a solitary, curious astronaut walked through a dark corridor. Those scenes never had happy endings. What kind of danger could lurk here, though? The worst possible event would be a meteorite strike. Not today, please, not today. Further ahead, there were windows in the steel wall on the left side. Martin tried to peer through them, but they were fogged up. It must be the temperature difference, he mused. Here in the corridor it was icy, but the containers had to be even colder.
“Whoosh,” Martin said aloud, and then laughed to reassure himself. His laughter sounded tinny and strangely girlish, and he concluded it must be the effect of the gas mixture inside the freighter. If he were in a movie, there would be a single-eyed monster with a gigantic flicking tongue staring at him through the glass. Martin, don’t be afraid, he told himself.
Ah, yes. He had reached niche with the console—a low protruding box with a keyboard welded to it, and a monitor screen set into the wall above it. Martin just had to press any key to activate the system. There would be no more security checks, since it was assumed anyone who managed to come on board was authorized to do so. Hackers normally did not own spaceships, and there were no space pirates. Nowhere was as closely supervised as space in the vicinity of Earth.
Valentina had explained the welcome screen to Martin. He needed to keep two keys pressed while rebooting the computer to get into the debug menu, and then he already knew his way around the system. Shostakovich had used a relatively current Unix operating system, and Martin looked for the parameter file. He opened it in a text editor and implemented the modifications. That was simple, he thought. Now, he only had to start a recompilation and he would be finished. He entered the command, and a few seconds later the system displayed a success message.
Martin had to restart the system next, in order to execute the new program segments. This too was a rather simple task, since the good old Ctrl-Alt-Del key combination still worked like a charm. The screen turned black, indicating his task was completed. He was about to go back when the lights abruptly turned off.
Damn. Why does this stuff always happen to me? Valentina had promised him that only the flight control would be affected, but no other systems. She obviously was mistaken. And just why had he been so stupid as to turn down the two-way radio Amy had offered him? He had argued he would be only a few meters away and might as well knock on the wall using Morse code. Stay calm, Martin, the lights will certainly go on again. And he only had to go back through the corridor to reach Semlya.
He counted to 20, paused... nothing. Then he continued to 80, but still nothing happened. Crap. I’ll have to do it without lights. The recess where he crouched was on the right side of the corridor, so he just had to make a 90-degree turn to the left. Ouch. He obviously had turned too far. There it was—the corridor—and he slowly felt his way along the walls. Ouch—a burning pain in his hand. Martin knew his gloves were much too thin to permit extended contact with the walls, since they were extremely cold and getting colder. He breathed heavily, and the sound was so loud it seemed someone was standing behind him. Stay calm, Martin. It’s only about 20 steps. He carefully placed one foot in front of the other. Nothing can happen, Martin. The hatch should be here soon. He hit his head on the ceiling, which was suddenly lower. And indeed—ouch, again—here it is!
Where is the spoked wheel? He felt his way forward but did not find anything. Oh, of course. The hatch is open because I did not close it. He located the opening. All right, in with you, Martin. The lighting of the airlock seemed to be controlled by the freighter because this room was dark, too. Martin inched forward and to the side, feeling along the walls and the ceiling, and found the spoked wheel he would have to open later to get back into Semlya. First, though, he would have to close the freighter-side hatch. He found the handle he had to pull on, and the steel door closed with a loud squeal. Martin turned the wheel 10 times, until he heard the safety interlocks engage. Phew.
He waited. 10 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute. Nothing happened. Shouldn’t someone in there get a message about the airlock being closed again? Shouldn’t they notice air was being pumped into the room? The tight space was oppressive, and his breathing was shallow. He checked the tank and saw the air supply would last another three hours. Good. Slowly, Martin. Did you forget something? Shit—the button. It must be directly below the red lamp that was no longer lit, and he might even be leaning against it. He turned around and felt for it. Ha!
He pressed the button once. No… better hit it two or three times. The light did not turn on, but he heard a hissing sound. It must be the air being pumped into the airlock. Then he heard squeaking. Someone was turning the wheel from the Semlya side. Oh well, then he would not have to work so hard. His heart was thumping fast, and he got tired, so tired. There was the light, first a strip, then it came with full force. Martin squinted. Something warm now touched his shoulder. It was nice, but he got startled. He jerked and accidentally rolled out of the airlock, ending up directly in front of Jiaying, who went into a crouch and caressed him.
Five minutes later he was lying on his couch, while his blood pressure and pulse were being checked. The oxygen saturation in his blood was a bit low, maybe due to the partial vacuum. No reason for concern, though. Valentina checked the modified software, and at least in the simulation the freighter would now successfully dock with ILSE. When the program restarted, the freighter had simply forgotten that there was a human being inside it.
“Everything is going to be okay,” Jiaying whispered tenderly into his ear, and he believed her.
January 31, 2049, ILSE
ILSE was now so close to the rendezvous point with Semlya they could communicate via the on-board systems. Since then, Francesca had bee
n at the two-way radio nonstop. Marchenko was glad about it, for he could easily prepare for the next maneuver and simultaneously chat with Francesca. Of course it was best not to directly tell her about this multitasking, since he did not want his girlfriend to feel slighted. It may be illogical, because she had to be aware that he was currently responsible for ILSE, but it was better not to let it become an issue.
The rendezvous between Semlya and the freighter was not going to be that simple. The capsule with the astronauts aboard was currently attached to the stern of the freighter. This would become an issue when the freighter had to use its stern engines—which was unavoidable during the automatic coupling. In addition, the main fuel tanks of Semlya were empty, so the capsule could not decelerate itself.
“Francesca, it is getting serious,” Marchenko said. “What is the status of your thrusters?”
“We still have some capacity. We moved some fuel from the freighter to the thrusters.”
“Fine. Separate from the freighter and get the capsule on a parallel course.”
“Confirmed.”
On the radar Marchenko saw that the maneuver went successfully, and the distance should be sufficient. Then he sent a command to the freighter to initiate the coupling maneuver. The automatic system turned the ship by 180 degrees, so it could decelerate with its main engines.
“Watch out. When the freighter slows down you have to have Semlya right in front of the bow-docking module.”
“Confirmed,” Francesca said. A small course correction put the capsule in the proper position.
“It is much easier from such a short distance,” she said.
“Attention, the freighter is about to decelerate,” announced Marchenko, who carefully tracked the activities of the automatic system. “Three, two, one… now the coupling mechanism should have reacted.”
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