The Dark Spring: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  Three, two, one, landing. First his feet touched the ground, then his hands. He absorbed the momentum, bending at his joints in a way that no machine could do, and tried to transfer the momentum of his forward movement into his body. But he didn’t quite succeed. He could already feel it before his belly reached the ground.

  Shit. He needed something to hold onto, but there was nothing. The gloves were too stiff, and he didn’t have enough strength in his fingers. He simply couldn’t grip the small bumps on the ground. He could already feel the reflected momentum. It was an irrepressible force, as though the comet was throwing him off, or as though he had springs in his ankles and wrists. He bounced back up. There was nothing he could do. Just the same way as he had landed vertically, he now flew back out into space. His feet scraped the ground briefly, and then up he rose.

  Brandon had to laugh. It was crazy. A highly developed human couldn’t do what the little machine, Philae, had managed 12 years ago. What now? The comet’s mass was not enough to pull him back down. Maybe he’d end up in orbit around 67P. He’d be the most peculiar moon in the universe. His books would be forgotten in a few decades. But in 50 years they’d still be asking on quiz shows about the name of the man orbiting as a moon around Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Is his name a) Churyumov or b) Little Gerasimenko or c) Mitchell or d) 67P-b? Extra points for getting his first name right. And every six years, telescopes all over the world would include the strangest comet with the human moon in their observation programs.

  But he was probably moving too fast even to stay in orbit. The comet would have to have already released a lot of dark matter to have enough attractive force. He’d simply suffocate as 67P slowly disappeared from view. Running out of air was supposed to be an unpleasant death. He had no desire for a long, painful struggle. Maybe he’d be better off simply pulling the helmet off his head.

  “Got you!”

  He felt someone grab his shoulder and pull him down.

  “What—”

  “I guess you underestimated your momentum?”

  Brandon nodded. How had David even reached him? Then he saw the thin safety line that Livia was pulling in. “That was close,” he said.

  “No, it only looked that way. We were easily able to catch you. You weren’t far away, so Livia simply threw me up to you,” explained David.

  “What if I’d been moving faster?”

  “Then we’d have come and got you with the SAFER.”

  David pointed to the ground next to Livia. There was a backpack with armrests.

  “We have to get up to the ship somehow,” said Livia. “The SAFER has its own jets. I sit in it with Dave behind me on a long leash.”

  “You wish.” David laughed.

  “No, it’s true. You’re my lapdog. You’ll see.”

  “You’re still cracking jokes,” Brandon said.

  “It wouldn’t make things any better if we didn’t,” David replied. “But I can imagine you got quite a fright just now.”

  “I was already writing my obituary in my thoughts and was about to pull off my helmet.”

  “Hey, it’s not time to die yet. Remember that. It’s only over when it’s over.”

  “Thanks.” That was easy to say when you were on your way back to your life. No, that was unfair. He’d wanted this.

  “We’ll continue on our way, then,” said David. “The ship won’t wait.”

  “Say hi to Earth from me.”

  “We will. Thank you for doing this. I swear I’ll read all your books.”

  “That’s nice. If you find a mistake—” ‘Send it to me,’ he almost said. He always said that when a reader contacted him. But there’d be no one left to correct the mistake.

  “—I’ll overlook it,” David finished his sentence.

  Brandon turned around, afraid he might cry. Goodbyes were always shit, but goodbye forever—he didn’t even want to think about it. “This way, I assume,” he said.

  “Yes. It’ll take you about an hour,” said David. “Wait. I have to give you something. I almost forgot.”

  Brandon turned back.

  David put a device with a small screen into his hand. “Location device,” he explained. “It functions within radio range of the capsule. It was intended for finding our way back to the lander on the moon. But that excursion won’t be happening now.”

  Moving around on the comet was unbelievably complicated. The biggest problem was the low gravity, the second was the thick layer of dust, and then there was the darkness. Daniel had given him a kind of ice pick—a long rod with a hard metal tip and several barbs. He had to keep ramming it into the ground. And in most places the roughly eight-centimeter dust layer prevented him from seeing the surface at all. Dirty snowball, that was a good description.

  The ground, below the dust, was primarily composed of ice with dust frozen into it. The ice was as hard as stone in the coldness of space, but there were plenty of cracks and nooks in which he could anchor his rod. It was clear that 67P had alternated—for millennia—between being warmed while near the sun and then cooled when its orbit swung out by Jupiter. Volatile substances had outgassed every time it approached the sun, leaving behind karst-like structures, which were then covered by dust. Brandon had to be vigilant with every step.

  And yet he was making good progress. The irregularity of the structure meant he had to stay alert. It was by no means boring. He couldn’t even afford the luxury of thinking about the Earth or Jenna, except at those moments when he realized the comet’s challenges were preventing him from dwelling on everything he’d left behind.

  Would he leave behind any trace?

  He was no longer going to be the most peculiar moon in the universe. He ought to go down in history as the savior of the Earth, but it was a rescue that wouldn’t be likely to make it into any history book. Brandon wasn’t throwing himself in the path of some danger that everyone could understand. He wasn’t blowing up a dictator or discovering a cure for cancer, he was preventing something that could, potentially, happen in the future. Humanity would forget about that the day after tomorrow... if anyone was even aware of it.

  “Brandon, is everything all right with you?” Daniel asked over the radio.

  “Yes, the location device says another six hundred meters.”

  “David and Livia are on the ship now. Everything went smoothly for them.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “In case you’ve changed your mind, I’ve worked out that we’ll be close enough for you to contact us for about another hour.”

  “But nothing’s changed, has it?”

  “No, my friend. But we could alter the comet’s course together.”

  “And die together? No thanks.”

  “Think about it. It might be more fun to face the end as four than to die alone. And the spaceship’s resources will last a lot longer than the capsule’s.”

  “I can’t accept that. You all have at least thirty years left to live. You’d be exchanging that for a few weeks. No, that wouldn’t be fair. And if I was going to reconsider, I should have done it earlier.”

  “Do you want to reconsider? I could come down there on my own.”

  “No, Daniel. I know you’re a little world-weary, but I can take care of this myself.”

  “If you say so. You have the utmost respect from all of us for that.”

  There was the capsule up ahead. It was artificial, but here in this rugged landscape of crevices and cliffs, it almost looked organic. Brandon stopped and looked at it. The back section was partly caved in, and the thruster was sticking up as though the Orion had crashed straight into the bare rock.

  Easy does it. He couldn’t let his concentration waver. The dust layer was thin here, and soon he’d be passing over bare rock. It was as black as night. Even when he shined the light on it, it didn’t glisten, although it was predominantly ice. That must be due to the cosmic radiation from the sun and from space that had been blasting 67P for billions of years, roughening all its surfaces.
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  He shoved the rod into a crack, moved forward a little, stabilized himself, and then pulled the rod out. And so it went on. Anchor the rod. Forward. Pull out the rod.

  But then the tool jammed. Brandon looked across to the capsule. It was less than a couple of hundred meters away. Would he make it? It was too dangerous. He leaned on the handle with all his weight, but it wouldn’t budge. Wait a minute. He didn’t weigh anything, but momentum was still mass times speed. He clipped his line onto the rod and kicked it as hard as he could. The rod moved sideways, and the crack it was jammed into widened.

  The ground was free of dust here and well lit, so he noticed immediately that the crack was continuing to grow. He pulled himself to the left and right. He could see it expanding! 67P wouldn’t be the first comet to rupture while approaching the sun. Hopefully he hadn’t just accelerated the process! It wouldn’t help the Earth if he could only divert half the comet with the capsule.

  Shit. He followed the crack a little way. It ended after about 200 meters. That was good. He had to tread carefully.

  “SpaceShip SS1, can you hear me?”

  “Loud and clear,” Daniel replied.

  “Good. I’m at the capsule now.”

  “That was quick. You still have four hours before you have to trigger the first thruster impulse. So you’ve got time to go inside and rest for a while.”

  “That would be pointless.”

  “Do you just want to stand around in the dark?”

  “No, I’ll go to the spring.”

  “The spring?”

  “Where the dark matter is supposedly coming from, the cause of all our problems here. I’ll kick its ass, and then we can all fly home.”

  “I’m glad to hear you’re still in good spirits.”

  “But seriously, I want to take a look at it.” He’d only had the idea a moment before he told Daniel about it. He felt like a protagonist in one of his books. His characters, too, often had sudden epiphanies and altered their plans.

  “It could be dangerous,” said Daniel.

  “I’m a physicist. Dark matter only has an effect through gravitation.”

  “How can you be so sure? Have you seen dark matter before?”

  “No, but that’s the definition.”

  “What if the stuff doesn’t adhere to your clever definition?”

  “Then it’s not dark matter.”

  “And you’re dead.”

  “Nonsense. What do you think’s going to happen?”

  “It could pull you in so that you can never escape.”

  “That only happens when you cross the event horizon of a black hole. We’re definitely not dealing with a black hole here. And I’d notice if I suddenly became heavier.”

  “Fine. But what if something unexpected happens and kills you? Then you won’t be able to start up the thruster.”

  “That would be very unfortunate. But nothing’s going to happen. I promise I’ll be careful.”

  Yeah, it was a stupid plan. Daniel was right. But the risk was very small. And if he was going to die here, then he at least wanted to have seen something no one on Earth could ever see.

  He climbed cautiously over a hill. To avoid damaging the comet, he wasn’t shoving his rod so deeply into the cracks anymore. 67P was a dirty snowball, but it was also a raw egg with a delicate shell. The comet’s age made it more unstable.

  Brandon stood on the ridge of the hill. A kind of crater stretched out in front of him. The wall directly below him was alarmingly steep, but he couldn’t fall here, even if he wanted to. The wall cast a shadow that he now pierced with his spotlight.

  There it was. Philae, the three-legged data collector that had first alerted the Earth to this new danger. Pity he wasn’t familiar with the technology. It was weird that the probe had reestablished contact after such a long time. Daniel was right. The dark matter spreading out here must have more than just a gravitational effect. There must be secondary effects that recharged Philae’s batteries. Some kind of radiation.

  Of course! The energy hadn’t found its way magically into Philae. He could see the lander below. Solar cells, which transformed photons into electrical energy, were all the way around its body. Philae was standing in shadow, accidentally—a problem with the landing. That meant it hadn’t received enough energy. But now something else was irradiating it. Photons weren’t only present in the optical range. Every other type of radiation was also made up of them.

  So the spring must be somewhere near here. Brandon scoured the crater with the helmet lamp. There was nothing to see other than a few small blocks that looked like stone but were made of ice. It was just him and Philae—all alone. He couldn’t find the spring.

  He looked up at the sky and saw nothing but blackness. The stars were gone. The sun was just a faint spot, as though thick clouds were passing in front of it, but the comet had no atmosphere, and therefore no clouds. A shiver ran up his spine. Brandon crossed his arms protectively in front of his chest. Then he turned off the helmet lamp.

  It took him a moment to notice the difference. This crater was a magical place. When it was lit up, it was dead. But when there was no light it slowly came to life. First, the black took on color—a subtle, deep red. Then came the movement. The dark red was pulsing. It transformed the crater and the stones in it into something living, because the red wasn’t evenly distributed. It ran in ropey spirals out from the center of the crater, reminding him of Kraken tentacles. But this animal had no body. Instead, Brandon could make out a spot of total black—pure nothing. That was the spring! He was standing in the pool that had formed around it

  What exactly was he looking at? It wasn’t sorcery. The human eye adjusted to darkness and activated specialized photoreceptors, and those rods are color-blind. So it must be his brain that was adding the deep red as it processed the signal. Only one thing was certain—his eyes were being hit by radiation. Maybe it wasn’t so safe here after all. Didn’t they say radiation sickness made you see a red glow? He’d better turn back.

  But where was the radiation coming from? From the spring? It didn’t look like it, because nothing was darker than the spring itself. It must have something to do with the attractive force of the dark matter particles. Was he seeing a kind of bremsstrahlung? The comet was relentlessly bombarded by cosmic radiation, consisting of electrons, among other things. If these were decelerated gravitationally, they had to release the excess kinetic energy somehow—as radiation. That would mean the concentration of dark matter was highest at the point where the red glow was most intense.

  Maybe it would be smart to take a sample—or would it be the biggest mistake of his life? In science fiction novels, samples like that contaminated entire planets. But the problem was how to collect the dark matter. If it only responded to gravity, then it couldn’t be contained by solid walls. He needed a potential well, something heavy that bound the foreign particles to itself. But how was he supposed to transport something like that? It wouldn’t want to let go of his gloves, either.

  He bent down, ran his hand over the ground, and found a pebble. He picked it up and threw it into the middle of the crater. The stone flew through the night, invisible. The bremsstrahlung undulated. He took a sample collector from his tool belt, filled it with some coarse dust, and put it back. Even if it was just ordinary matter, the scientists might be able to learn something about the dark matter spring from it.

  He really should be getting back to the capsule. He looked at the clock on the multifunctional device. He still had a good hour before he had to press the button. He took one last look at the crater. If the dark matter couldn’t be contained by solid substances, then why did this spring appear to be anchored to 67P?

  It couldn’t just be a hole in the mantle of the universe. That would have long since swept the solar system from its path through the Milky Way. The spring must have a material basis, something that bound it to the comet. Could it be a tiny black hole from the beginning of the universe? That was up to the rese
archers to figure out.

  He had to get back to the capsule.

  “I’m back,” he said.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Daniel.

  “You’re still on radio duty?”

  “Actually, we’re all following what you’re doing down there.”

  “I see. You want to be sure.”

  “The Earth’s existence is at stake, after all. We’re your backup.”

  “Thanks. That takes a little pressure off. But I can’t press the button too late.”

  “You’ll have a few seconds’ leeway each time.”

  “Good to know.”

  The conversation fizzled out. Brandon was thinking about the spring. If he could close it, he wouldn’t need to die here, and the comet would no longer pose a danger to Earth. What had the scientists reported? Incredibly low temperatures, below that of the cosmic microwave background, which no one could explain. What did it have to do with the spring? The scientists described it as a symptom, an accompanying effect, possibly brought about by the shielding effect of the dark matter.

  What if the symptom was actually the cause? If, for some reason, a defined space suddenly appeared in the universe out of nowhere, then everything in its vicinity would immediately be sucked into it to equalize the concentration. But then they’d see a well here into which everything was flowing, not a spring that something was flowing out of.

  What if there was a relationship between the dark matter, which saturated the entire universe as a Bose-Einstein condensate, and the equally homogenously distributed background radiation? Wherever the background radiation was lacking, the dark matter distributed throughout the universe would detect a hole that it would try to fill. But because there wasn’t a lack of dark matter there, but rather a lack of microwave radiation, it filled and filled the hole and then emerged here. A dark spring was born.

  He wanted to discuss this with the scientists on Earth, but there was no time. They still had time for an experiment, though. They could try to close the hole so the dark matter could no longer escape from it. KK had a contract with the burger chain. Brandon could still remember how proud he’d been when he presented his space burgers.