Adam's Rings

by Matthew D. White

  “Let’s hear it. Might as well pile everything on all at once.” Adam sighed as he took a last look at the planet before being led off to the station’s command center, which was located in the next pod beyond the living quarters. He took a seat at the central workstation, surrounded by banks of equipment he dared not attempt to identify, and stared at the console before him.

  The figure on the blurry, poorly-lit video appeared to be a middle-aged man wearing a hastily-prepared suit with a wrinkled collar. The man’s face was lined with stress and his dark hair was disheveled and out of place, the product of an extended and unexpected shift, of which Adam assumed he was the subject. He stared into the camera several moments before committing to a prepared statement.

  “Adam, thank God you’re all right,” he said, hanging his head. “You don’t know me, but I’m Dr. James Dreher, Director of NASA. I’ve been with the Draco program from the first day, and after all that we’ve been through, it shames me that it had to end up in this place. I had always hoped our first meeting would have been under better circumstances. I’ve no doubt the station has already informed you of the details. You have to know we meant for this to be the best way to send mankind to the starts. We’ve lost so many, to every conceivable catastrophe, and trust me when I say this is far more humane than to have our greatest explorers lose their minds during years-long space flights. After seeing the toll enacted on the early travelers to Mars, we were overjoyed at the success of Orbital Genesis, the official designation of your program. We were convinced we’d be able to save you the suffering of a similar fate.”

  He paused, staring longingly into the camera. “None of this diminishes your importance to the mission of humanity nor the pain you must be feeling. Draco Station is nearly complete, minus the unfortunate loss of a laboratory, and the last squadron of pods are on their way, accompanied by a secondary crew from Earth who will intercept Draco on their way to Uranus.” Dreher stopped, his damp eyes looking again as if he were begging for the return of a runaway child. “Are you there, Adam? Please let us know you’re all right.”

  With the conclusion of the broadcast, the screen flickered off, leaving a well-rendered image of the Draco Station mission patch. The command center fell silent, with its row of workstations standing in stoic resolve, prepared for their eventual mission. There was a faint rush of air through the ventilation system, the only discernable sound as Adam stared at the blank monitor. He retained a faint hope that the curtain would drop, that the experiment would be over, and the station would fade into deranged memory. “I… I don’t know what to say,” Adam whispered.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Draco advised. “I will acknowledge receipt and you can send a response whenever you feel ready. Mission Control is reasonable; they will understand.”

  The unlikely astronaut had woken up, at once completely stripped of his mantle of youth, with the full expectation of his future conduct in the present. Adam felt robbed of the experience, but at the same time sensed a growing relief that he had vaulted over a chasm of obstacles that wouldn’t have served him anyway. The idea turned to one of liberation as he looked across the empty room at the far side of the solar system, all of it provided to conform to his will.

  “How did you make me like this?” he finally asked.

  “Orbital Genesis is currently the most advanced medical research experiment ever attempted by the human race. Without going into too much detail, it is a combination of advanced genetic manipulation, neural pathology, and nutritional science. Your genetic code was heavily modified upon conception to extenuate and suppress a list of traits that the team desired. Once your growth was triggered on the station, your sensing organs were shut off and alternative stimuli were injected in their place.”

  “That sounds like madness.”

  “A directed form of madness, many would agree,” Draco replied and then continued. “Using a similar operation, disparate memories were collected from a wide variety of subjects back on Earth during different stages of their lives. When these were fed into your brain, you fused some together to create a cohesive story in your mind that you’d accept. Along the way you had enough free will to make decisions and fill in the gaps, but there was no doubt as to where you’d end up.”

  “Here, and never the wiser.”

  “Precisely.”

  He had to admit that back on Earth, Adam often felt himself lost at sea, forever searching for his purpose and his method to impact the world. In a moment of clarity at Draco’s words, that ship had dashed upon the rocks and he was standing at the edge of an unforgiving wilderness, the pangs of a life that had never existed biting at his heart. There was no utility to be gained by standing still, and the only path through was the one he made. There was no sense postponing the inevitable.

  “Well, what are we still doing here?” Adam asked with a smile. “Teach me, oh master.”

  “Splendid. I will split our time between theoretical review of the fundamentals, which you’ll need regardless, and the functional mastery required to operate Draco Station as the officer-in-charge. Follow me.”

  ***

  Adam did as Draco commanded, making another run up the nearby connecting tube to the secondary ring, and then up to the top section which formed the central hub of the wheel-like station. As he passed the airlock that had led to the damaged pod, he noted that the seals had apparently held, aside from a few burns associated with the electrical fire which had resulted from the impact.

  Closer to the top of the structure, the gravitational field noticeably decreased, and Adam found himself paddling effortlessly up the final span of the connecting tube. “So, where are we going?” he asked.

  “The hatch above you leads to the hydrogen draw, our main source of power for the station. It uses a focused, high-energy beam to create a field of charged particles which strip hydrogen from Saturn’s atmosphere and cause them to rise to the station where they are collected. This fuel is then fused in a simplified reactor to power the station, while the resultant helium can be used as coolant or in the maneuvering jets. We can also leverage this fuel source to power locally-housed transportation vehicles and the sensor probes, which we will manage throughout the lifespan of the station’s mission.”

  Adam climbed through the hatch and found himself staring at a complex network of polished tubes and wires surrounding a sizeable core, encased by a cylindrical room. Although it was segmented every twenty feet or so by protective bulkheads, Adam could peer through and see that it extended far beyond the immediate pod. Starting from the leftmost end of the draw closest to the planet, Draco walked him through the operation of the collector array, the particle beam generator, the fuel storage, and all the way to the final stage in the train: the power reactor itself. Although it was given as an element of the presentation, the physics behind much of its operation was far beyond what Adam was able to understand.

  Interestingly, Adam realized the entire system had the ability to be serviced from inside the station, removing the need for emergency extra vehicular operations in the event of a malfunction. The leading point of the collector itself was mounted halfway inside a wide airlock, separated from the vacuum by one of the intermediate bulkheads and protected from the environment outside by the pod’s durable shell. Adam paused at the final hatch, taking a moment to take in another view of the planet’s mesmerizing form through the reinforced window. The outer hatch, now out of sight like a massive articulated camera shutter, would evidently close if the collector itself needed to be serviced.

  They continued with a walkthrough of the remaining laboratory spaces on their way back through the station. In the redundant facility, Adam recognized the site’s features from his previous adventure. A half-dozen pods were again mounted securely to the walls and flanked by other nameless racks of equipment and flush-fitting cabinets. Since the airlock had been secured, the space was again clear of smoke and appeared ready for more experiments. Draco attempted to describe the systems
loaded in each of the rooms at a level that Adam could understand to the best of his ability. Although the astronaut continuously recognized more words, his inexperience was evident, and it was a surface-level introduction at best.

  Adam was struck as they progressed as to the level of redundancy afforded to the station. He noted that there were multiples of almost every box within the lab, and judging by the layout of the final ring, it was fitted with dual command centers, living quarters, supply centers, docks, and observatories. Without a doubt, Draco Station would be able to sustain catastrophic damage and still operate. He didn’t want to imagine the cost of the scheme, but it provided him with a small sense of security that maybe he wouldn’t have to stare down death at every twist along the way.

  Back in the docking bay, Adam cleaned up the bits of his EVA suit, replacing them in the proper storage cabinet, and got the rundown of the systems currently present. The bay was equipped with four specialized collars for attaching probes and manned vehicles. Only one of each was currently in place, with the probe nothing more than a cylindrical frame for mounting equipment, and the latter resembling a small Martian lander with a complex array of vectoring jets along its base.

  “Are you keeping up?” Draco finally asked as the tour neared completion.

  “As much as I can,” Adam admitted. “There’s a lot to take in. This… this is incredible,” he added as they again walked through the observatory, staring off at the swirling layers of clouds on the gas giant’s surface in the distance. “Did my waking jeopardize the mission?”

  “Other than the self-imposed task of training you directly, no,” Draco said. “While your fuel consumption has necessitated an adjustment to the production schedule, we remain significantly below our capacity. You won’t starve and the mission will still be completed. Your accelerated development will begin to taper off as the hormone therapy is ceased, but other than that, we have nothing to worry about.”

  “You alluded to more components arriving. What’s the schedule? When will I need to be ready to work?”

  “I’ll show you the timeline in the command center, if you’d follow me there,” Draco replied. “We’ll be receiving one to two components every month, until the crew of the Hydra mission arrives and the next ring is completed.”

  ***

  The Gantt chart of Draco Station’s development was complex to say the least, involving more than a hundred separate space launches from Earth spanning decades, and operated by a consortium of international spacefaring partners. Adam scanned through the individual development cycles of each pod, taking in their construction, launch, transport to orbit, and ultimate adoption into their station’s mission. The line marking present day was square in the middle of the action, with enough equipment on hand to perform the preliminary experiments but still requiring more hardware to initiate the future’s highly-ambitious projects.

  With the aid of additional crew members, the station would serve as a base of operations to visit and study Saturn’s rings and moons along with its lower-level atmosphere. Not only that, probes were already on their way that would eventually be sent to Titan in a wide-spectrum search for extraterrestrial life, which, on a side note, had remained elusive. Adam sighed as he paged across the schedule, feeling himself as the cog amidst a trillion-dollar space program. His heart rate quickened with excitement. Although he hated to admit it, he couldn’t imagine a role he’d want more.

  Dammit.

  He held up his hand as Draco rattled off specifications for the pods that were currently en route. “Can you stop for a moment? I think I’m ready to send a message to Earth.”

  “Of course,” Draco said. “On your mark.”

  Adam made for the living quarters and splashed a handful of water on his face, attempting to smooth the misshapen hairs on his head before returning to the commander’s seat. He waited as the camera’s indicator blinked green. Taking a deep breath, he collected his thoughts. “To Dr. Dreher and all team members who helped make the Draco project a success, I wanted to express my gratitude. This is the opportunity of a lifetime and I want to be everything you designed me to be. While it’s unfortunate that things turned out the way they did, I cannot fault you for it and I don’t blame you for doing what you believed to be right.” He sighed. “I will conduct myself as a proper officer and commander of Draco Station. Out.”

  The light blinked off and he looked away. “How did that sound? Enough to let them know I’m alive?”

  “Indeed.”

  The words didn’t come easy; for as much as he knew, Adam figured he had plucked them from memories of some movie that never existed. He hoped the Mission Control team would understand. “All right, what’s next?”

  The Student

  The training regime commenced, and the days blurred into weeks and beyond. Adam developed a routine of force-feeding himself from the wretched nutrient tubes at least five times a day due to a raging metabolism, intermixed with intense study sessions and the occasional bout of physical activity consisting of runs around the pods of the lowest ring of the station. Draco proved to be an effective teacher, providing an ample foundation for everything from high school mathematics and physics onward. The lessons also made numerous cross-references to the systems and principles utilized in the station itself as real-world examples as to how the theoretical concepts were keeping him alive.

  Communication with the Mission Control team was usually text-based and equally spotty and strained. They obviously weren’t prepared to have a student in their midst who was barely in high school and tried to stay upbeat about the goings-on with the program from their end in a way he would find useful. There was no sense in discussing current events or anything of importance on the other side of the solar system; although issues of strained political arrangements occasionally surfaced, Adam didn’t see how it impacted his work, and to be honest, he didn’t want the distraction.

  The second video communication burst brought a new face to the screen. The man appeared in his mid-twenties, still possessing a degree of youthful exuberance but with a strong background on the program. His hair was cut short, without the chance to fall across the white collar of his pressed shirt, and he moved aside a pair of lightly-tinted, wire-framed glasses as the transmission began. “Hi, Adam,” he began the speech, “I’m Sergey Vorobyov. I’ve been selected to be your primary contact here at Mission Control from here on out.” He smiled. “Off the record, you’ve become quite the celebrity down here, and to be honest, I don’t think the leadership knows quite what to make of you.

  “If there’s anything you need or want information-wise, let me know. I’ll be preparing regular updates on our status so you stay in the know. Hopefully, it’ll be more useful than what you’ve received in the past. Draco should already have the delivery schedule, but I don’t want you feeling left out. This is your mission as much as ours, and you deserve a voice in how it’s conducted.”

  Adam felt relieved by their attention. Sergey made it clear the leadership’s largest concern came as Earth passed into the shadow of the sun, which would provide a communications blackout for more than two months. In that time, several pods were set to arrive and begin the third major ring of the station. During the final transmission, Sergey’s tone took on the inflection of a worried parent who was handing over the car keys to a new driver. In a way, Adam felt relieved when they finally terminated the connection.

  He well knew they had every right to be patronizing to him as the lowly child trapped on their station, but he looked forward to being able to prove himself one way or another. Sure, Draco would assemble things himself, but that didn’t mean Adam couldn’t add some sort of value to the activity.

  ***

  For the first capture, Adam pleaded with Draco for the opportunity to simply observe the action. To do so, he emptied out the secondary observation deck and articulated the couplers to swing the glass wall so that it faced out from the station, rather than inwards and to the side facing the planet.
The rotation speed waned, and although his weight drifted lower, Adam’s heart pounded as he walked out onto the glass panel. He knelt down at the center, staring through the pane, attempting to catch a glimpse of their target.

  He caught sight of the service light on its nose as it drifted, watching as it grew larger with each pass he made. As it grew in the distance, its size becoming equally as impressive as the rest of the pods, Adam felt a rumble through the structure around him. A massive servicing arm slid into view below him, which latched onto the capsule with a sharp jolt, taking the station for a ride along with it. He felt their gravity field shift as their dueling momentums struggled to find equilibrium between the pair of orbiting bodies.

  After weeks of anticipation, their target now hung motionless before him, another metallic tube held aloft amidst the tumbling backdrop of the outer solar system. Although he regularly tried to temper his enthusiasm, Adam couldn’t help that it occasionally got the better of him. He turned from the floating payload and to the nearest intercom on the wall. “When can I get inside?” he asked the station.

  “You must know that many people consider patience a virtue,” Draco replied. “It won’t be long. I’ll install the pod and cycle the air. Once secure, you will be allowed access.”

  The new pod’s installation proved to be a symphony of technical processes performed in unison by the all-knowing station. In preparation, Adam again donned his protective suit to watch the activity up close, turning the garment into the complete Extravehicular Mobility System with the addition of the external thruster unit.

  Adam felt at ease as he passed through the airlock this time around. Gone were the sensations of confusion and panic that had overwhelmed his last spacewalk, and instead he calmly let the air cycle and the hatch swing away. The dull hum of the station faded as he stepped away into the vacuum, leaving him alone with his thoughts.