Slava looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“Sorry. It must be the stress. Please take a look at the radio. You can do this.” Yunus was annoyed with himself. They were still just useless civilians. They were safe in the Gateway, and yet... He knew he was behaving irrationally. In an actual crisis in space they’d both perish. He hoped someone with adequate training would pick them up from here.
August 30, 2026 – SpaceShip SS1
“We’re not sure what to make of it either,” said Luna.
Daniel read through the four lines. “They have a malfunction, and the dark matter is causing problems,” he said.
“And we shouldn’t go there,” added Brandon.
Daniel gave the writer an evil look.
Brandon held up his hands defensively. “I’m not saying we should do what they say!”
“Your crewmate’s right, Dan,” said Luna.
“My crewmates are out there. Nothing against Brandon, but he’s a civilian with no training.”
“He’s written books about space travel.”
“Yes, Luna. Fiction. All invented.”
“My books are always based on hard science,” said Brandon.
“Textbook knowledge at best, not practical experience.”
“Give him a chance, Dan,” said Luna. “You don’t have a choice, and two heads are better than one.”
“Fine. But this sentence here, ‘Come here please,’ that sounds to me like a call for help.”
“It’s an ellipsis, not a sentence,” said Brandon.
“Luna, I can’t promise I’ll be able to control myself. Please tell him to quit with the clever shit.”
“Brandon, can you hear me? In the interests of both of you, I’m asking you as your CapCom to keep any information to yourself that’s not relevant.”
“But how am I supposed to know if it’s relevant? Often you don’t know until you discuss it. For example, in this case, the use of ellipsis instead of whole sentences could be a sign of brain—”
“Brandon, please.”
The writer stopped talking. Daniel took a deep breath. Did it have to be this wise guy, of all people, who chose to stay on board? Vyacheslav probably would’ve been more useful. He’d supposedly been in the army and looked physically fit. Oh, well, he had no choice, like Luna said.
“Can we go through the messages again?” Daniel asked. “I’d really like to know what we’re up against.”
“One minute, Dan. Charles wants to tell you what the Germans have discovered. It has to do with the dark matter.”
“What does that mean in concrete terms, Charles?” asked Daniel.
It was always the same with scientists. They warned you, but then said they could be completely wrong. Were they coming or going? Why couldn’t they give you a straight answer?
“You have to be careful not to put yourselves in danger,” Charles warned.
“Great. As if we needed a scientist to tell us to be careful on a rescue mission. We obviously wouldn’t have lost contact with the Orion if it was completely safe out there. Can’t you be more specific?”
“The German was already pretty specific. He said we should abort the mission.”
“That’s not an option. I’m not turning my back on Dave and Livia!”
“That’s what I told him.”
“Have I understood this correctly? A scientist is saying our rescue mission will probably fail?” asked Brandon.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Charles replied.
“It’s too late to bail out now,” Daniel said.
“I didn’t say I wanted to bail out. I just want to know what I’m up against. We’re going to die out here. That’s important information.”
Daniel turned to the writer. Was he completely bonkers? He seemed quite calm. It must be the shock. This was stupid. They weren’t going to die, they were going to do their duty and rescue Dave and Livia. It wouldn’t be easy, so they had to be cautious and stick to the plan.
“What does Chatterjee say?” asked Daniel. “He knows best what this ship’s capable of.”
“We haven’t been able to reach him personally, but we spoke to his chief designer. He wasn’t prepared to answer the question off the top of his head, and asked us to send him the German scientist’s data.”
“What’s your impression, Charles?”
“I’m not sure. The SS1 is supposed to be able to launch from the surface of Mars, so shouldn’t it have enough power to escape from a comet? On the other hand, it has to conform to Kepler’s laws. The planned rendezvous course is admittedly pushing things pretty close to the edge. There’s no other way. The damaged capsule has a two-day head start. A small deviation could have huge consequences.”
“Thanks for your honest opinion. If it was just a research mission to 67P, I’d abort immediately. But we don’t leave anyone behind,” Daniel said with added emphasis. “Period!”
“Dan?”
Only friends called him that. “Yes, Brandon?”
“We should talk about how to prepare ourselves for the comet.”
“You buckle yourself in, don’t get in my way, and wait for me to tell you what to do.”
“I don’t want to interfere.”
But, Daniel chose not to say, that’s what you’re doing. The author would eventually shut up. Shit—he wasn’t going to shut up.
“I just thought we could—”
“Not necessary.”
“Just listen for a minute, Dan.”
“Daniel.” Arrrgh! This guy just doesn’t get it.
“We can’t just fly blindly to our doom, Daniel. This ship must have measuring instruments. We’re so close to our destination now that we’re in a much better position than Earth to assess what we’re heading into.”
“How do you know which devices are built into the ship?” He should just ignore him, but the guy’s arrogance was provoking him.
“I wrote a book about it.”
“This is reality, not a book. I thought I made that clear. This ship is built for tourists. It’s like a city tour bus. They don’t have measuring instruments for air quality and particulates.”
“Umm, yes they do. A modern engine and its exhaust system both have to react to the environment.”
“Fine. Bad example. This ship is a rowboat.” Another stupid example, but he couldn’t think of anything else.
“Most rowers have a fitness band or a smartphone with them.”
“There’s no reception up here.” His arguments were getting more obtuse, but Brandon was pushing his buttons and he couldn’t stop reacting.
“Umm, yes, there is—Alpha Omega has a small mobile network installed. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Mission Control. We still have time. If the chief designer makes contact with them, he can answer that.”
“Fine,” Daniel sighed. “But then do you promise to keep your mouth shut?”
So this was where Kenichi Kikuchi, the Japanese billionaire, had sat. Daniel buckled himself in. This seat wasn’t any more comfortable than the others, but it was the only one from which he could take over control of the ship. He entered the Japanese man’s login details, which had been sent to him by Mission Control. Then he opened the settings menu, as Chatterjee had personally instructed, and clicked on ‘Information’ eleven times.
The program’s interface changed. Whereas before he could only look up information, now he had direct access to all components, including the thrusters. It was a good feeling to have control over the ship. He wasn’t intending to start the numerous thrusters himself. The software could do that much better than he could himself. But he could now manually initiate an emergency launch, with full power to all engines.
And he could access the ship's instruments, too. They were in the ‘Analysis’ menu. Brandon was right, but Daniel wasn’t going to tell him, because the smart-ass already knew it. He could see it in his eyes. And it was only logical. If the ship was supposed to launch indepe
ndently from Mars, it would need as many eyes and ears as possible.
Daniel switched to the camera view. At first he was disappointed, because there only seemed to be a simple forward-facing camera. But he’d underestimated the programmer. He found he could easily switch between wavelengths with his fingers, and the selected magnification stayed the same. The fact that various devices came into play when he did so didn’t matter. He zoomed in as close as he could. 67P still wasn’t visible in the optical range, but the comet’s tail was glowing in infrared. Its nucleus, however, was exceptionally dark. It must be colder than the background. Was that even possible?
“This is exciting,” said Brandon.
The writer was looking over his shoulder. Should he tell Brandon he didn’t like him? But what if they were about to spend the last few days of their lives together?
“What’s so exciting about it?” asked Daniel, trying to sound disinterested.
“The cold coming from the nucleus. I can feel it.”
“Yeah, like sub-zero.”
“The temperature can’t go into the negative. But if I’m reading the scale correctly, then it’s below that of the microwave background.”
That meant nothing to Daniel, but he didn’t feel like listening to the explanation.
“That makes me think of a Bose-Einstein condensate,” said Brandon.
“Me, too,” said Daniel, although he had no idea what that was.
“I’m just wondering why it’s emerging here, of all places.”
“Yeah, that’s the question. Hopefully it’s not infectious.”
“Infectious?” Brandon looked at him as though he’d said something utterly stupid. But then his expression changed, the way Archimedes must have smiled in his bathtub.
“That gives me an idea, Daniel. Infectious... All the dark matter, if it really is spreading out as a Bose-Einstein condensate, is in its default energetic state. No matter the environment, it’s always a deep potential well. All free energy has to flow into it. ‘Infect’ is maybe not quite the right word, but it could be a comparable phenomenon. You’re a genius.”
Very funny. “You, too.”
Brandon had his eyes on Daniel, but he was gazing into the distance. “I know.” Was the compliment somehow not meant to be a joke? Daniel seemed to have a high opinion of himself.
“If you’re right—”
“I am right.”
“Okay, then, what does that mean for us?”
“We have to avoid getting in the way of the source at all costs. Otherwise we’ll end up like one of my female protagonists who wound up in a sea of methane on Titan and nearly died.”
“Wasn’t she wearing a spacesuit?”
“The best spacesuit won’t help you if the environment is so cold that all your body heat rapidly drains away.”
“You said she wound up in the sea, but survived. So she must have managed to get out.”
“Oh, well, it’s just a novel after all. Not reality.”
“Still. Maybe your idea applies here. Tell me, how did she do it?”
“To be honest, I can’t remember anymore. I can’t even remember her name, although I used it in several novels. That book was published ten years ago.”
“You’ve got no idea? What about writer’s creativity?”
“I’m not creative at all, even if that’s what everyone thinks. It’s the protagonists who think up the creative solutions.”
“Sadly, you’re the protagonist in this story.”
“Yes, that worries me, too, Dan. My characters are heroes. I’m just a lazy writer. In a situation like this, I can’t think of anything other than how to get out of it quickly.”
“That strategy doesn’t sound so bad. When the time comes, we should try it.”
August 31, 2026 – TU Darmstadt
Sixteen hours to go. He should have requested a slot at the supercomputer. Karl squirmed in his chair. He hadn’t seen Sylvia for days. She was either avoiding him because he’d hurt her feelings by moving into the hotel, or she was busy preparing the next Nobel Prize-winning paper.
“Are you coming?”
The email, from a nasa.gov address, contained nothing except this subject line. He dialed himself into Mission Control with the conferencing software. The room looked fuller today. The end was near, and NASA seemed to have deployed as many observers as possible.
A young NASA astronaut appeared on the big screen, and everyone in the room seemed to know him. It must be Daniel Schult, since he’d subscribed to his twitter feed @astroschult. Karl checked his phone. The astronaut was still tweeting every day. Was the Comms department behind that?
“Have Dave and Livia made contact again?” Daniel asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” MOM replied.
“That’s too bad.”
“We’re also pretty sure their message was meant as a warning not to rush to their aid.”
“Yes, I think so, too,” said Daniel. “Earlier, I was sending the same message on repeat, saying that we were coming for them.”
“Your message is still being sent out from the Lunar Gateway.”
“That’s good.”
“But that doesn’t mean you have to feel obligated to complete the mission, Dan. First there’s this warning from the Orion, then the German who’d prefer to cut the mission short...”
That’s not what he said. He’d prefer to cut MOM short.
“...and our experts are also taking a critical view. Even Chatterjee has revised his assessment.”
“That’s news to me, MOM. What’s he saying now?”
“He can’t guarantee that the SS1 will be able to maintain its course in any eventuality.”
“Well, who can? If an asteroid hits us, no one will care about our course anymore.”
“I think Chatterjee meant it more as a serious warning than an attempt at avoiding liability.”
“We won’t let that stop us, will we, Brandon?”
The camera angle changed to include an older man with thinning hair. That must be the author. Karl envied him a little. He’d rather see the hexaquark than get a Nobel Prize for the discovery. ‘Well, that’s stupid,’ Sylvia would say. ‘With the million you get for the Nobel Prize, you can buy a ticket and fly to your hexaquark. Then you can have the best of both worlds.’ She’d always been the more practical one.
“Brandon?”
The man flinched. He seemed a bit muddled. Hopefully he wasn’t a burden on the mission. “Umm, no, of course not,” he said.
“Ah, I see Karl from Darmstadt has just joined us,” MOM announced. The way she pronounced Darmstadt sounded funny. “Brandon, you asked to speak to him.”
The camera centered on the writer. Now he seemed much more alert.
“Yes, thank you,” he said. “I just wanted to verify an idea. I studied physics, but that was a long time ago.”
Karl cleared his throat. “How can I help?”
“We all thought you were the best person to answer the question,” said MOM.
“Oh, thanks, that’s kind of you. I’m listening, Brandon?”
“We observed the comet in infrared. The nucleus looks blacker than black.”
“Yes, we’re aware of that.”
“But there’s matter there, even if we don’t know what.”
“Correct.”
“This matter can only be as cold as it is if it’s in its default energetic state, and multiple particles can only reach this state if we’re dealing with Bosons.”
“Exactly. The particles can only be in that state with an integer spin. We call it a Bose-Einstein condensate.”
“Daniel here is asking me what that means for our mission.”
“That you should keep your distance, Brandon. It’s not possible to shield yourselves from energy loss. It’s not some kind of corrosive fluid that gold foil can protect against.”
“Thank you. That’s what I was afraid of. And can we somehow clear this mass out of the way?”
“Hmm... It
only seems to interact with other matter through gravity. So you can only influence it with mass.”
“Our ship is a total lightweight compared to the comet.”
“That’s right. But even if you had a heavier ship, it wouldn’t help, because mass always attracts. You could... Wait a minute...” Karl thought it through. Yes, that could work. “...it might be possible to shift the stuff a little to the side with high-energy radiation.”
“How high-energy?”
“As high as possible. Gamma, X-rays, if you can. The more energy the photons have, the larger the mass equivalent.”
“Do we have anything like that with us?” asked Brandon.
“Probably only in your books,” said Daniel. “In reality, spaceships aren’t equipped with gamma cannons and X-rays.”
“They’re not in my books, either.”
“But wait a minute.” Daniel’s head disappeared from view, then reappeared. “I can shift the optical reconnaissance spectrum into the terahertz range. That means we must have a terahertz lamp on board. Would that help?”
“I don’t know,” Karl replied. “There’s an awful lot of dark matter up there. But it can’t hurt to try budging it a little with the terahertz lamp. As long as you have enough energy for that.”
Daniel laughed.
“What is it?” asked Karl.
“I’ve been warned about that famous German optimism.”
August 31, 2026 – Lunar Gateway
“It’s pretty cramped and cold in here,” said Sophie.
“You should be glad. Up here, it’s way too hot,” said Yunus.
“I’d rather be sweating.”
“I’d rather be freezing.”
“Then go outside.”
“In a spacesuit, after a three-hour workout on the wheel? Then I’ll sweat even more.”
“Yunus? It’s me, Kenichi.”
They hadn’t heard from Kenichi for a while. “Hello, KK. Are you freezing, too?” Hopefully he was okay.
“I’m used to these temperatures. My family is from northern Japan. I was always cold in winter.”
The Dark Spring: Hard Science Fiction Page 20