by Jerry
Uber ran a diverse portfolio of businesses on Earth. Package delivery, autonomous transport, data archived in DNA—all hugely profitable.
NSLAM was an indulgence, a pet project of Pace’s. He was a space nut who wanted a presence out here at any price. So far, Sergei knew, that presence had bled oceans of money, and not a few lives. But now governments were signing on to underwrite the core mission of cleaning up space debris—enough to have launched a second hab.
All four crew turned out to greet Pace and his pilot: Boyle, Sergei, Kiyoshi, and Sheila. Kiyoshi and Sheila had coupled a few weeks into the shift. Sergei liked Kiyoshi; he was a jazz fan, and had hipped Sergei to Kenny Barron. Sheila, the hab medic, was a petite Canadian blonde with chiseled features. She looked like Vera in her youth, which put Sergei off getting to know her. She’d cropped her hair close to keep it from floating in a halo around her head. Sergei himself shaved his; he hated their no-rinse shampoo.
Their visitor had a weasel’s face: dark straight hair in bangs, pinched cheeks, thin sloped nose, pointed dimpled chin, eyes slanting slightly upward. About Sergei’s age, but he looked younger.
Fantastic! Fantastic! I’ve been in space before, but only suborbital. I had to see this for myself.
Welcome to NSLAM Hab One.
You must be Sergei. Chief Boyle tells me you’re the most experienced astronaut here.
He wasn’t looking quite at Sergei. Sergei guessed he was wearing augmented contacts with a headsup display, clocking Sergei’s vitals and recording everything.
Sergei dialed back his English to a cute and unthreatening level.
You gather data on me.
Of course.
Right now. In real time. What don’t you know already?
Ah, I see. Well . . . how you are. I don’t know that. How are you?
Sergei put on a blank look, but it didn’t approach the blankness of Pace’s.
Pace smiled thinly. It’s what humans do, Sergei.
How would you know? Sergei almost said, but didn’t. Pace’s headsup probably picked up the subvocalization; his smile twitched.
Boyle grabbed a stanchion. Let’s show you around.
I’ve got work, said Sergei.
Join us later, Sergei, said Pace. I brought some goodies from Earth.
He had indeed. The six of them gathered in what Boyle quaintly called the “mess hall,” a multifunction common space packed with gear on every surface—left, right, up, down. The “mess hall” housed some hydrator nozzles and a fold-down table with bungees and velcro to secure plates and feet. It was seldom used. They tended to dine separately.
Pace had brought Kobe beef tournedos in vacuum pouches and a bottle of wine. Sergei would have preferred fresh vegetables.
2013 Napa cabernet sauvignon, Pace said. Heitz Cellar, Martha’s Vineyard. A wine like this you don’t want to suck out of a bulb.
His pilot passed a case, and Pace drew out six glasses and an opener. As he applied the opener to the bottle he let the glasses float. Their cross-section was tear-shaped.
An old NASA guy designed these glasses. The shape creates surface tension to hold the liquid in. Neat, huh?
Pace held one of the glasses while a trigger on the opener let compressed nitrogen into the bottle and forced wine out the spout. The wine sloshed but stayed put in the glass. He drifted glasses one by one to their recipients, lifted his own to his nose, let it twirl slowly while he inhaled. Sergei guessed he’d practiced all this in suborbital.
Enjoy. I want to thank you all for the incredible job you’re doing up here. NSLAM is now the most trusted actor in near-Earth space. It’s all because we stepped up to do something about the Kessler Effect, and you’ve all executed flawlessly.
Sergei wasn’t sure he believed in the Kessler Effect, that a cascade of debris could destroy satellites to produce more debris to destroy more, et cetera. Noisy disaster movies had been made about it, but if it was truly happening, it was proceeding so slowly that only spreadsheets detected it.
The oven chimed. They all bungeed in and began to eat. Sergei had to admit it was pretty good.
So let me tell you why I’m here. It’s not just to sightsee. I want Sergei to do me a favor.
Hm?
You know Vanguard 1?
No idea.
Launched by the U.S. in 1958. Still in orbit, though long defunct. It’s the oldest human thing in space.
And?
I want it for my collection. I’d like you to steal it for me. He smiled at the others.
Why not use drone?
I don’t want to wait for a drone. I want to take it home with me tomorrow.
Sergei shrugged. Let me run numbers. He returned to his tournedos.
Pace was crazy, but that didn’t bother him. Everyone in the world was crazy, no exceptions. One managed one’s condition in more or less socially acceptable ways, according to one’s capacities and resources. He’d once blamed the situation on the overwhelming complexity of modernity, yadda yadda, but he’d come to believe the condition was ancient and fundamental.
His own way of coping involved these long months off-Earth. Pace’s, well, who could say. He knew Pace was a believer in the Singularity—the omega point at which machine intelligence was supposed to reach a critical mass and become self-sustaining and independent of humans. To Sergei that was bonus crazy. But Sergei had a parallel notion about what happened to money, when you put enough of it in one place. These guys were as separate from normal humanity, and as alien, as AIs were supposed to be. But they weren’t the intelligence: the money ran them.
The mission looked doable. A Hohmann Transfer would take a little over an hour to reach Vanguard’s orbit at its apogee. Changing orbital planes was, as always, the bitch; the delta-v budget for that alone was almost four kilometers per second each way. That’s why they almost never ran crewed missions like this.
Kestrel One was the only vehicle with enough thrust. It was scarily minimal, about three meters in diameter and four meters long. The forward half tapered to a blunt point. The rear half was for fuel. It would never have passed a design review at any national space agency. Among other shortcuts, it had no life support, relying on the astronaut’s spacesuit instead. Sergei figured the suit’s eight hours would be enough, but he’d take extra oxygen, in case. Kestrel was docked at the propellant depot orbiting behind them. He programmed it to dock with Port Two after fueling itself.
The tricky bit would be locating his tiny target once he got into its orbit. He had its orbital data, but in TLEs, two-line element sets. The format was archaic. Futile editorials periodically appeared inOrbital Debris News calling for an overhaul of the system, but it was too entrenched.
The TLEs were tailored to a general perturbation model that was accurate to a kilometer at best. He’d have to get in the neighborhood, scan with radar, then grab it. That’d take how long?
He wanted sunlight for that, so he adjusted his start time. Coming back, the two orbits weren’t so good for rendezvous. He’d have some stay time.
There were other, non-orbital considerations, but they weren’t really his. Kestrel would be picked up by ground radars, but the radars were almost all managed by NSLAM, and the company’s manifests were private. If anyone happened to ask what he’d been doing out there, which was unlikely, the company would make something up.
OK. What does this thing look like? How big?
I’ll show you.
Pace popped the latches of a Pelican case. The released force spun the case in the air. Pace steadied himself against the wall and got hold of it. From die-cut black foam he drew a small metal sphere, then plucked six thin rods about half a meter long from the case and screwed them into the object’s threaded bushings. Finally he drew his hands away and let the small thing float between them. He tapped a vane and the model slowly spun, a silvery seedpod.
Very small.
Pace gazed past it and his eyes twitched. Six and a half inches in diameter, three and a half pounds. Kh
rushchev called it the grapefruit. It was the first of four Vanguards, sent mainly to test the launch vehicle. It’s the only one still in orbit, brave little guy.
Why is this grapefruit so important to you?
You kidding? It’s historic.
How so?
Know anything about space law? Once upon a time, the sky was “free.” After aircraft came along, it was said that a nation “controlled” its “airspace.” Then satellites came along. They crossed all airspaces. There was no legal regime. The U.S. knew the Soviets would object to a military satellite, so they crafted Vanguard, a very public “scientific” mission with no military objectives. Except for establishing the precedent that space was beyond national boundaries. I want this little guy hanging in my office to remind me how elegant that strategy was.
There was a lot Sergei could have replied to that but he controlled himself, and said, I need to launch in twenty-four hours, when Vanguard is in best position relative to us.
Pace reached out and stopped the model’s slow spin.
Take this with you. When you’ve got the real thing, insert this back into its orbit.
They were over Australia in daylight when Kiyoshi stuck his head in.
Dobroe utro, Sergei.
Ohayou gozaimasu, Yoshisan.
English was the lingua franca, but they’d each learned a few words of the other’s tongue as a formality, to show respect. It didn’t hurt that Sergei had already picked up some Japanese from Izumi.
Sheila and I need a flight plan to Hab Two. They’ve got some problem with their water recycler. We need to bring a spare.
Both of you?
Boyle says as long as I’m using fuel, Sheila should come along and give them a checkup. Here’s our launch window.
Yoshi showed him a tablet.
OK, I’ll upload a flight plan.
Spasibo.
Douitashimashite.
Same time window as Sergei. Leaving Boyle and Pace and his pilot alone on the hab.
Sergei watched the hab dwindle against the ocean, positioned between Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. He could see Pace’s vehicle, docked at Port One, surprisingly big, as big as the hab itself.
One kilometer out, he yawed and started the transfer burn. Thrust was about half a g. It felt good. How he would welcome gravity when he went down! And fresh air and blue skies. After four and a half minutes, he ended the burn as Kestrel passed over the Sahara.
He’d be over Petersburg in fifteen minutes, this time in daylight. Summer was coming to the Northern Hemisphere. He’d relish the long days, the white nights, of Helsinki in July. Izumi and he had been together for almost two years, though he’d been in space most of that time. She was a few years older than him, had been married once, to a Finn. She worked in IT for a comprehensive school. She was also a singer, classical and cabaret. They’d met in Petersburg at a concert. Shostakovich string quartets.
He didn’t know where it was going, the two of them, or where he was going, solo or not. He had a sometimes-piercing dread that one day soon she was going to lose patience with him.
Hell, he was losing patience with himself. His smell in the spacesuit was rank. Water was too precious up here to use for washing, especially clothes. When they grew too foul, they were thrown out. He changed his socks and shorts about once a week, his shirt about once a month. They were past due. So was he. The self was too much with him.
He was now over Vladivostok. He’d gained almost four thousand kilometers in altitude and the Earth was palpably smaller. South across the Sea of Japan was Kyoto, Izumi’s birthplace. She’d taken him there once, for a week. They visited Ryoanji temple one morning, arriving very early, before it opened, to avoid the tourists. It had rained in the night but the day was sunny, the road vacant. They hurried past an old woman on their way. Black birds stared at them from the roof of the locked gate. The old woman caught them up, and she looked to them in concern: What time is it? She was the gatekeeper, worried she was late.
Over the South Pacific, in darkness now, he burned to shift his orbital plane into Vanguard’s. Ten more minutes of welcome gravity, its force steadily increasing from half a g to over a g as the ship burned fuel and lost mass. When it ceased, he checked his bearings. He was now in Vanguard’s orbit.
But nothing was out there. Lots of nothing. More nothing, and more nothing. Then S-band radar bounced back from something about two kilometers ahead of him. He burned briefly into a lower orbit to phase up on it. At one hundred meters’ separation, he burned back up to stationkeeping. There: a point of light drifting against the stars. After long, fussy minutes of edging up, he had it, closed the arm on it, and brought it into the bay. Mission time: 3 hours, 39 minutes.
It wasn’t tarnished or pitted, but the metal bore a slight patina, weathered by solar radiation and micrometeor abrasion. He cupped it in his gloved hand. It was that small. He felt a mild revulsion at the thought of handing this storied thing over to Pace.
But he secured it, then loaded the imposter into the bay and launched it. He checked his position against the hab’s, and ran both coordinates through the flight computer. He’d have to stay for forty-two minutes until ship and hab were aligned.
While he waited he played the second Shostakovich string quartet through his suit’s phones. It was what he’d been hearing when he first saw Izumi, two rows in front of him in the shadows of the concert hall. That elegant profile. He’d studied the shape of her left ear as she moved so slightly her head.
This quartet had been his father’s favorite. Sergei could see him seated at the north-facing window with his cello between his knees, practicing in the pale light, occasionally stopping to mark the score.
The final chords resounded, an angry but halfway resigned lament against the shortness of life, its futile complications, the thwarting of joy.
Sergei checked the flight computer. It was time. He watched the countdown, then burned for two minutes as thrust climbed steadily to over two gs. His heart labored.
Another hour passed in silence as the ship followed its new trajectory to the lower hab orbit. The curvature of the Earth’s limb slowly flattened, and the Moon, half-full, rose above it.
It stared at him and its glory pierced him. The intricate Sun-Moon-Earth system was best felt from here.
Something hit.
Blyad!
The vehicle jolted. Or maybe it was him who jolted. He thought he’d heard the hit—a faint crack, something you might hear underwater.
For a moment the world was pure falling. A crowded emptiness. Millions of specks streaked through this vastness of orbit. Thoughts in a void of unmeaning. Subatomics in a space of forces. In that maelstrom, once in a great while, two specks collide: a neutron lodges in a nucleus, and changes its nature.
In the center of the window was a pock: an irregular, finely terraced crater about five centimeters across. Sunlight raked it into fine relief. The particle, whatever it was, had vaporized on impact. A little larger or a little faster and it would have continued straight through his visor.
He smelled the sharpness of fresh sweat over his stale miasma. At least he hadn’t shit himself.
The rest of the way back his eyes were on the radar. Not that he would see anything coming before it hit him. It was just magical thinking.
But as he approached the hab he did see something. Four bogeys, faint echoes, inconsistent returns, in parallel orbits.
Kiyoshi stopped by.
I heard. You okay?
Ah, yeah. You know.
Kiyoshi did know. He’d almost run out of oxygen on an EVA. How are they on the other hab?
Kiyoshi frowned. Their water filter was fine. Sheila ran her tests. They’re all good.
Sergei shrugged.
Two pointless EVAs in one day. You could have been killed.
I’m fine. Arigatou gozaimasu.
Beregi seby.
He thought that would be it. It wasn’t.
Sergei, my friend. May I come
in?
In one hand Pace held two of the tear-shaped glasses. In the other was a bottle: Talisker 18 Year.
It wasn’t worth getting upset over, but it annoyed him. Pace didn’t need to parade his research.
I want to thank you. I heard you almost got centerpunched out there.
Sergei watched the glasses float while Pace scooped whiskey into them. Now he was almost angry. As far as he was concerned, it was over. What more did Pace want? He meant to keep his mouth shut, but he saw that sunlit pock in the glass again, heard that distant crack, felt himself jolt. He wanted to make Pace jolt.
You launched something while I was gone. You and Boyle. Four objects.
Pace looked at him with interest. Why yes. Yes we did. It was awesome.
Why send me away?
Pace regarded him carefully through the lenses of his headsup. What was he reading there? Sergei’s pulse, BP, skin temperature—what else was he tracking? Pace was like a windup toy that never ran down. It was tiring. Sergei didn’t want to be sitting here drinking with him.
Well, I truly did want my Vanguard. But I also wanted my objects off the registry. If you were onboard, you would be the one to record them.
What are they?
Pace seemed to think about this.
You know about the Outer Space Treaty. Bans nuclear weapons in outer space. I mean, this goddamn piece of paper is from 1967, but nations still take it seriously, or at least they have to seem to. But we’re a private company. That piece of paper means nothing to us.
United States company. Subject to U.S. jurisdiction.
Listen to the space lawyer! No no. They were launched into space by an LLC doing business in the Maldives—which is not a signatory to the treaty.
Maldives? Practically underwater.
We built a seawall and shored up our island.
Why not put objects into orbit direct from Earth? Why from space?
Maldives are still a UN member. They’d have to register my objects with the UN. The fucking UN! Isn’t that quaint?
They register your launch?