The drive took longer than five hours because they ended up driving around a crater that looked flatter on satellite imagery than it actually was. It was way past midnight, Earth time, when they finally arrived at the setup site. The sun stood higher now, due to them being further south.
Artem decided to take a longer break before setup. He had to get Sobachka out of her suit. The passenger cabin of the Rover supported an atmosphere when sealed. The vehicle had enough oxygen in its tanks to create a breathable atmosphere. Artem removed his helmet and took a few deep breaths. Everything seemed to be okay. Next he freed the dog of her packaging. Her fur was completely damp. He made a mental note to check her cooling status more regularly. Thankfully she did not seem the worse for it, jumping around happily and shaking herself from head to tail. He played with her for a good while, fed her, and finally ate something himself.
Then he lay down on his back and looked up into the sky. The dome over the rover was darkened and the sun was reduced to a pale spot. Here on Mercury he was three times closer to the sun than on Earth, but that didn’t make this star any friendlier. Here the sun wasn’t the life-giving mother, it was searing and hot like death. He was glad that the RB base camp was mostly underground.
Sobachka’s whining woke him in the morning. He sensed her need, but unfortunately there was no way to take her for a walk. He had to relieve himself into a container inside the rover, too. For the dog, he spread one of the canine diapers she normally wore in the spacesuit. After breakfast they put in playtime. She kept looking at him with those brown eyes. There was such an unconditional love in them that it pricked his conscience that he was unable to return it just as unconditionally. But it went without saying he would give his life for Sobachka.
Then it was time to suit up. First he prepared the dog for vacuum, then himself. He let the pumps suck up the atmosphere and the last remaining air hissed out as he retracted the dome. Now all that remained was to return the seats to their upright positions to restore the convertible look.
He had to install the receiver prior to their return. First he examined the surface. According to the technician, no special care was necessary—make certain it wasn’t near a fissure, and clear any major rubble. The receiver would determine its position and inclination automatically, and software would calibrate things accordingly. The unit wasn’t even a typical dish, making it easier to manufacture and transport. A solar panel provided energy. At night it could not operate, simply because the necessary batteries had not been available on the short notice allowed by the scheduling of this project. Setup was to happen as quickly as possible since the sun would set in 70 days, and it would not rise again for another 88 days.
Artem wired up the components. His arm pad told him which plug went into which socket. The technician had prepared that amazingly well, especially considering that he was working just as alone as Artem. He made a mental note to ask the technician where he had learned all that. The receiver would communicate with all the other receivers in a distributed wireless network. The results would be aggregated across all the stations and then sent to base camp together.
Done.
“Sobachka, come, we’re leaving,” he called out. Nothing happened. He swiveled an anxious three-sixty, looking all around. The dog was nowhere to be seen.
“Sobachka!” His voice betrayed a touch of panic. He needed to keep his wits together. Then a stone rolled into sight from behind the rover, followed by Sobachka. She was busily moving the stone toward him with her front paws. He went to meet her, picked up the stone, and showed it to her.
“Good job, Sobachka,” he commended her while patting her back. He calmed down, his racing heart slowly normalizing.
The return to the crater went a little quicker. Artem thought about driving all the way around but then he would miss an experience he had been excited about since yesterday. He stepped up to the crater wall and looked down. He only could see the very first part of the cliff where the post with the pulley sent the carbon nanotube line out and over the edge and down to base camp.
“Base camp, do you read me?”
“Artem, are you back?”
“Looks like it. Just to make sure, you don’t have anything on the line yet?”
“Nope. We have been waiting for you.”
“Great, see you real soon then.”
“What do you mean? The rover will take at least two hours.”
“Yes, the rover will take that long. Artem over and out.”
His plans, however, were not the business of anyone at base camp. They would just try to forbid them. But what should he do with Sobachka?
“Sobachka, come to the rover.” He tried to call her to the vehicle but today she refused despite loving to sit on the passenger seat.
“Okay, so you want to come along?”
She started turning in circles like crazy. That seemed to be a ‘yes.’ Artem grabbed her suit and attached her to his spacesuit with a lifeline. Then he lifted her onto his backpack where she was comfortable holding on with her paws. He used a second line to secure her just to avoid trouble from any exuberance on her part. Then he attached a short lifeline to his own suit. He added a carabiner to the other end and moved up to the post with the pulley. Next, he hitched the carabiner onto the transport line that went down to the base camp. He took a couple steps for run-up and then jumped over the cliff into the darkness, like diving into a deep lake. Everything was eerily silent but not for long, as he shouted out loud and Sobachka added her howling to his.
April 23, 2074, Pasadena
“Heather Marshall?” The man in uniform gave her a friendly smile.
“That’s me.” She handed over her ID. He looked at the picture and compared it to her.
“You look much younger in reality,” he stated matter-of-factly, no trace of a compliment. He’d made her day, but she didn’t say anything.
“Welcome to the JPL,” said the guard. “Your vehicle knows where your host is expecting you?”
“Yes, all is perfectly prepped.”
“Have a nice stay then and please sign out with me. If you need a guide to Hollywood my shift ends at six.”
She laughed out loud. The guy had to be at least fifteen years younger than she was.
“Sure,” she said, and quickly pressed the button to bring the window up.
She could hardly believe she was in California so suddenly. The day before yesterday her boss had gotten in touch about that odd story, asking for her part in it. She had readily admitted sending the Frenchman the data instead of leaving José to take the blame. That had gotten her the assignment to visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory headquarters to find out whether the JPL solar probe could have been sending false data.
Her contact, a certain Callis John, was the overall project manager for the solar probe. Callis was his first name—she had asked about that to make sure. The car knew the location of his office. She lowered the window again as soon as the guard post was out of sight, and enjoyed the pleasant breeze. JPL headquarters was nicely arranged. The office buildings weren’t new anymore, but they spread across a park-like area with old trees and green spaces.
“You have reached your destination,” the car informed her. “I will inform our client. Would you like to leave feedback about your experience?”
“No.”
“Have a productive day. Use the code ‘NEXT’ for a 15% discount on your next ride with our fleet.”
Heather unfastened the safety belt and the door took the cue to open automatically. She got out in front of a flat building that reminded her of a bungalow. She noticed big boxes on the roof, probably air conditioning units. The door closed behind her and the car started beeping to inform her of its imminent departure. A moment later a longhaired man stepped out of the building and walked to meet her. He was dark-skinned with a neatly trimmed beard.
“I’m Callis. It’s nice to have you here, Heather,” he said, holding out his hand. His handshake was firm but comfortable.
“M
y pleasure to be here.”
“Would you like to freshen up, or should we get to work right away?”
Heather started thinking. She would have preferred to go straight to the hotel where her luggage was waiting. No hunger yet, she was still recovering from the airline sandwich that had ballooned by about 500 percent while chewing and still felt like a stone in her stomach.
“Work first,” she decided.
Callis cocked his head ever so slightly. “Great attitude,” he said, but his voice didn’t fully match the statement. It was only yesterday that Steve had warned her that Californians had a laid-back work attitude.
“Not sure how long I’ll be able to keep going, but I’d rather just get started.”
“Understood. I thought somebody might be coming soon. But I was expecting NASA administration to send someone over.”
“I hope I am not getting in your way.”
“No. We are in a transition phase right now, no pressure. The next big project won’t start for about six months. But let’s talk inside.”
Callis went ahead to open the door for her. It was cold in the building and she put on the cardigan she had been carrying draped over her arm.
“I’ve gotten used to that by now,” said her companion, who wore only a white T-shirt with his jeans. He was in front of her so she could admire the muscles standing out on his back.
Now that she was inside, the building seemed much larger than it had appeared from the outside. They walked for several minutes along hallways lined with posters and scientific works. Very obviously, work related to space travel had been going on in this place for more than a century.
“I’ll show you the clean room first,” said Callis as they entered a small locker room. “We need to change here.” Callis grabbed a one-piece white lab coverall out of a locker and handed it over to her. “I guess ‘change’ is the wrong word—just put this on over your street clothes.” He went over to another locker, picked out a suit, and got into it under ten seconds.
Meanwhile she was having a hard time finding the right sequence to the zippers.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“Please.”
He pulled the edges of the material together in a few places and suddenly the zippers worked as they were supposed to.
“Please come along,” he said. Moving to a door at the back of the locker room, he pressed a button. The door opened and they entered some kind of an airlock.
“Do we get disinfected here?” she asked.
Callis smiled. “No, this isn’t a biological lab. The airlock helps us keep the clean room under higher pressure. That keeps out the dust.”
Another door opened into a room the size of a gym, except the ceiling was not quite that high. It was somewhat colder. The floor had stripes of different colors. The room contained desks that held space-tech items in varying conditions, silver and gold glittering everywhere. Callis strode forward with purpose and she had to make an effort to keep up.
“Here we are.”
They stood in front of one of the many desks. Is this supposed to be the solar probe? Heather had checked photos before she left on the trip. The thing in front of her didn’t look anything like the photos.
“Everybody is disappointed at this point,” said Callis. He had read her expression correctly. “You see, in those pictures you mostly see the heat shield. That shielding is way too expensive to keep it around our copy of the probe. This desk only has the probe itself.”
“This probe is no different from the probe that fell into the sun?”
“No different at all. That is critical to such a mission. Every command sent to the original must be tested on this one first. And the copy needs to be perfect for that.”
“That also goes for all the instruments, I guess?”
“Of course. You are probably interested in the telescope, mostly?”
“Sure. Do you think it is possible that it might produce artefacts in the recorded images?”
“Anything is possible. The instrument went through rigorous testing before launch and nobody noticed any artefacts, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“What does that mean for our problem, Callis? We have recorded images with odd lines on them. How do we find out if they are real?”
“I could detach the recording module from the probe, but that won’t help much. The telescope was built for use outside Earth’s atmosphere.”
“Could we test it in a vacuum chamber?”
“All the electronics around will give you so many emissions that you will be buried under artefacts. There is only one real solution, as far as I know.”
Suddenly Heather wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear the next sentence. She had an odd feeling come over her, a sense those words would have something to do with the future—and not just her future, but that of mankind. She shivered. She really needed to collect herself. She had never had anything weird like this happen to her before. As though saying a few words out loud could change the future!
“And that would be?” she asked.
“You need to take the probe into space and have it take pictures of the sun.”
“Ha-ha.” Heather imitated a laugh. That was the best she could do because it wasn’t funny, it was downright crazy.
Callis gently laid his hand on her shoulder. “You’ll handle that alright,” he said.
“We’ll talk about that later,” she answered, “once we have tried everything we possibly can do on Earth.”
“Okay,” said Callis. “The full routine?”
“The vacuum chamber, that’s the least we can do.”
“Got it. Yes, a space trip is expensive. You don’t get that until you have exhausted all other possibilities.”
“Um, there is a misunderstanding. I am not doing a space trip.”
Callis put his hand over his mouth.
What could be so amusing? She just had a simple assignment. She’d take care of it and then it would be back to Hawaii.
“I am sorry. No offense intended, but I know how things like this play out. You don’t want to see it, but those artefacts have been stuck on you. You aren’t going to get rid of them until the issue is solved.”
“We’ll see about that.” She crossed her arms decisively. She never did anything she didn’t want to do. Well, mostly… Okay, only sometimes, to be honest.
“We’ll do the chamber test now. Do you want to be part of it?”
“Do you need me? If not, I wouldn’t mind driving to the hotel.”
“I’ll handle that on my own. No problem, Heather. It will take me three or maybe four hours. We’ll have the results by morning.”
“I am sorry to burden you with the extra work.”
“No problem. As I said, we don’t have that much going on right now. It’s perfect timing.”
“Great, see you tomorrow then?”
“If you could make it here at nine?”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll leave you now, Heather. Have a good night. The building will guide you out.”
“See you tomorrow, Callis.”
Her host entered something into his phone. A green arrow popped up in the flooring.
“Just follow the arrow,” said Callis.
Heather started walking. She was somewhat excited and not sure why. At the exit of the clean room she turned around, but Callis was busy detaching the telescope from the probe.
April 24, 2074, Pasadena
“Do you have any idea how late it is here?” Heather looked out of the window. The sky was dark, as dark as it possibly would get over Los Angeles. She put the call on speakerphone and laid down the phone.
“Very sorry about that, Heather,” said her boss, “but I am getting a lot of pressure from above. You got our institute involved in this. The media wants to know what we have to do with it, and the community of astronomers isn’t sure whether to pity us or envy us. I need your confirmation that there is nothing to this story.”
“I am
working on it. When you call me in the middle of the night, it doesn’t make it go any quicker.”
“But we need clarification as quickly as possible. Speculation is running rampant in the media. Have you seen the online editions yet?”
“I had work to do, and that didn’t give me any time for reading.”
“When will I get an update from you?”
“I can’t tell yet. Right now we are testing the camera of the duplicate probe.” We? she mused. Heather felt a twinge of guilt because she had left Callis to do the work.
“That’s good. I am expecting you to stay on top of this all the time. There is no room for failure. When do we get results?”
“Tomorrow, well, that is today.”
“Ahh, that’s better.” Her boss sounded relieved. “I can work with that.”
“Boss, one more thing.”
Best to brief him now.
“It is possible that the results won’t be decisive.”
“Whaaaat? What does that mean?”
“The solar telescope is built to operate in space. Down here it could be flooded by interferences.”
“Could be?”
“That is what we are looking into.”
“I am hoping that it is a non-issue.”
“The project leader of the solar probe thinks it is unlikely to work here.”
She heard nothing but breathing from the other side for an entire minute. She hoped her boss wasn’t having a heart attack.
“Heather?” he finally asked in a surprisingly soft voice, “I’m relying on you. If the test on Earth doesn’t work out, you will need to take it into space. I will get you the next available spot.”
“Boss!” Now it was her turn to be speechless. “You can’t do that! I am an astronomer!”
“There will be no discussion. You got us into this mess. Either you solve the problem or you can pick up your papers tomorrow. And I will have you investigated for misuse of public funds. You had no authorization to pass on those pictures. Now go back to sleep.”
Silent Sun: Hard Science Fiction Page 5