Silent Sun: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

No two launches are ever the same. Artem could not remember sitting in a sealed spacesuit on the launch chair. He had strapped Sobachka next to himself, inside her own suit. She was making subdued sounds, almost more like a cat. Of course she had noticed something was different. There was no air in the capsule. It hadn’t made sense to fill it with air because he had to set up the currently-folded shield first thing upon reaching orbit. The shield was here in the capsule with them because it was too large to fit in the airlock.

  It had been a nerve-racking piece of work to even get it up here. He had only managed because Irina had helped him. The shield was folded up tight, but that only made it smaller, not lighter. And the capsule entry was fifteen meters high, and at the top of a metal ladder.

  “Base camp calling Artem, ready to go?”

  “Looking good. What’s my name, by the way?”

  “Artem?”

  “Not me! The ship. Does it have a name?”

  “RU3ADX.”

  “That’s the registration.”

  “We don’t have anything else, RU3ADX it is.”

  “Let’s stick to ‘yacht’ then.”

  “Understood, Artem. Yacht ready for take-off?”

  “It still is.”

  “You are now cleared for take-off.”

  “Thanks, Mikhail.”

  “Enjoy your flight!”

  “Will do.”

  Artem sat up with a groan and opened a screen across his legs. He launched flight control. The piloting was done by an app. Artem tapped ‘Start.’

  “Welcome, Artem. I am pleased to fly you to your destination.”

  Artem was spooked. Who had installed this junk on the yacht? He hit ‘Cancel’ a few times in rapid succession.

  “Artem calling base camp: Who installed this stupid AI?”

  “Headquarters insisted on it. They don’t want to lose the ship if you get grilled by accident.”

  “Did they say it that way?”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “Assholes, all of them. I hate AIs and they know it. I have yet to meet an AI that wasn’t a smart aleck.”

  “Artem, I am no smart aleck,” interrupted the voice from the computer. “But I know what you are trying to say and I understand you.”

  “You copy that, Mikhail? It’s starting already. Under these circumstances we need to abort.”

  Artem heard a suppressed laugh over the radio speakers. Was somebody pulling his leg? But when the answer came, it was dead serious.

  “Sorry but aborting is not an option. We have orders to not let you return to base camp.”

  Damn, this couldn’t be true. They had pulled a fast one on him and he couldn’t even be mad at them. They were just executing orders.

  “AI? What is your name?”

  “I am an AI of the Watson type. You can name me any way you like.”

  Great, a bootleg copy, he thought. American suppliers had not been allowed to supply software to the Russians for a long time now. Why did they decide to provide me with a Watson anyway?

  “Choose a name yourself.”

  “I prefer ‘Computer.’”

  “Perfect. Computer: Energy!”

  “Activating Warp 1, Captain.”

  Artem smiled. Nice touch, at least the AI knew something about classic science fiction.

  Acceleration pushed him into his seat. He yielded to the sensation. It was a nice level of pressure. Mercury was not as strong as Earth. One g, the Earth rate of acceleration, was entirely sufficient to take off. It was almost like coming home... where he would never be again. Inside the spacesuit, he was shielded from the noise. Only the vibrations reaching him through his seat made him sense the hydrogen flames that lifted him into the sky.

  The spaceship was spewing steam. It was almost paradoxical. He was spraying water over a desert without any hope of anything growing as a result. Mercury couldn’t hold the water. It would be hit by solar winds, be split into hydrogen and oxygen and ionized, with the pathetic residue floating through space forever.

  Sobachka whimpered. Acceleration had to be incomprehensible for her. Could she even remember her time on Earth? She had been with him for seven years now. He had no idea how she wound up in space, as he had found her in an empty asteroid mining base. Maybe her previous owner had committed suicide. That happened sometimes. Not everybody was made to drift on a minuscule piece of rock through the empty vastness of the universe. If bad news was added to the mix—maybe the partner on Earth had found somebody new and one could not do anything but wait—then panic reactions sometimes ensued. Artem was grateful to the unknown person that the animal had at least been given a chance to survive.

  The pressure had leveled off. The yacht seemed to have reached a solar orbit.

  “Computer: Status?”

  “Perfect, Artem. I was able to bring fuel consumption quite close to the theoretical minimum.”

  “Just close? Next time we want to go below minimum.”

  “That is physically impossible, Artem.”

  The AI voice showed no sign of impatience. Artem knew that he had no hope of annoying the AI, and he was not sure if that was good or bad. It robbed him of a bit of fun, at any rate.

  “Almost done, Sobachka.” He stroked her back. Then he stood up but left her strapped in. He didn’t want her to go on a spacewalk during his next operation. Artem floated over to the airlock. It was easy to open, since there was no air on either side. He floated inside and opened the exterior hatch, too. Now he had to shove the folded shield through the opening. It was possible, he had proved that while bringing it in. This time he had no help, but on the other hand, the shield was now weightless.

  In its current configuration the shield was a stack of plates, each one shaped like a honeycomb cell. Every plate had one edge connected to the next plate in series. He lifted the first plate from the stack, causing the next one to flap out, followed by the next one in turn. It was like a paper streamer, only the streamer was about as wide as the hatch. He directed the first plate into the hatch and followed it inside the airlock. At zero gravity this was almost child’s play.

  Now out to space with it, he thought as he pushed it outside. The second plate followed—he just had to give it the right push. There was no rush. A huge streamer started floating out of the airlock, progressing at a snail’s pace. From afar this had to be an interesting sight, as though the ship were a decorative egg with its top hinged open while it was slowly pushing a long worm out from its interior.

  To avoid losing the ‘worm,’ he fastened the last plate to a bracket on the outside of the ship. Then he ordered the AI to start working. Radio signals initiated the process to start the nanomachines that would reorient the streamer of plates into the intended configuration.

  Artem watched from the airlock. It was like magic. The streamer twisted and turned in a pre-programmed dance. First, the end connected to the beginning of the worm to form a ring. Then the ring morphed into a large spherical unit, only to contract again as plates turned and edges connected with one another. The structure became flatter and flatter until it resembled a large, relatively-thin, rectangular bar of chocolate. Sensors on the outside surfaces registered the orientation relative to the sun. Tiny impulse jets fired in concert until rays from the sun hit the center of the ‘chocolate bar’ on the perpendicular. The AI used this time to maneuver the spaceship into the shade provided by the newly-formed shield. The process was all wrapped up by four anchor pieces coming out from the hull and snapping onto the shield to hold it in place during their long mission.

  Artem moved back inside, shutting both airlock hatches behind him.

  “Computer: Restore atmosphere.”

  The cabin, appearing much larger now that the shield was outside, slowly filled with air. Initially everything was very cold, immediately creating a damp film on all smooth surfaces. At two-thirds of normal pressure, Artem removed his helmet despite a warning from the system. The air was amazingly pure—the ventilation had removed all bad
odors. It reminded him of the smell right after a summer thunderstorm, due to the residual ozone from the freshly-generated oxygen. Artem unstrapped Sobachka and let her out of her suit. She sniffed him curiously. She probably was reacting to so little sweat seasoning the air. Then she took off, floating through the cabin while furiously wagging her tail.

  He gave her ten minutes because he enjoyed watching her so much when she was happy. But they did have to get going. He called her and she landed elegantly in front of his feet, like a real space dog.

  “Computer: Our destination is the alien object in the photosphere.”

  “I know.”

  “Can you bring us there?”

  “Of course.”

  “Please do that.”

  “Understood. Please sit down and fasten your seat belts.”

  Artem sat and strapped himself in, holding Sobachka on his lap.

  “How long will the braking phase take?”

  “My calculations show about ten days under standard Earth gravity.”

  “Computer: Energy!”

  This time the push and pull came a bit sideways. The AI turned the ship so that the engines pointed forward and could brake efficiently. Artem turned his chair against the direction of flight, managing to finish the move just in time. Now gravity was aligned with their target, with the AI hitting the brakes and each passing second bringing them closer to the deadly heat of the sun.

  May 16, 2074, Solar Explorer

  The accommodations were atrocious but the view was amazing. Alain was reminded of the vacations in Brittany. He and his wife had stayed, young and poor as they were, in a cramped room with a grumpy Breton landlord. But the view from the dunes onto the sea had been spectacular every time. Now he was looking out through the bullseye window that was in the top third of the domed command module.

  Solar Explorer—that name had been set jointly after take-off—was coasting silently through space, engines off. It was a brief respite after enduring the acceleration needed to get from orbit to escape velocity. Alain was familiar with the numbers but they were hard to wrap his head around—11.2 kilometers per second, or 40,000 kilometers per hour. That was the speed required for them to overcome Earth’s gravitational well.

  The moon was 380,000 kilometers away. But it continued to orbit Earth while they had become one of the sun’s satellites now, like planets, comets, and asteroids. There were lots of inhabited satellites out there, and over 100 asteroids had mining camps. But nearly all the action was between Earth’s orbit and somewhere in the main asteroid belt. Mankind was still far from colonizing the solar system in any meaningful way.

  Alain kicked off and drifted down. He aimed for his own chair, but a stream of air from the life support units altered his course. He grabbed hold of Amy’s chair.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  The commander gave him a friendly look. She was a bit younger than he was, but he had great respect for her. She didn’t look busy so he decided to address her.

  “Amy, why didn’t anyone revisit the Enceladus entity?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied, “but that is fine by me, to be honest. The being is too strange. And humans are simply too quick to destroy things they don’t understand. We nearly were there—it almost happened.”

  “I understand.”

  Amy was probably right. Unfortunately it was a reason to worry. In one or two hundred years someone would fly to the Saturn moon of Enceladus again. If mankind had not changed by then, they would most likely endanger the alien intelligence. Not a concern right now, no, they had more important things to worry about right now. Sometimes Alain was quite glad that he would only see a small part of the future. He pulled himself into his chair, strapped the belt on, and unfolded the computer across his knees. He had a top position at stake in the sunspot research project.

  They met for meals at a small table in the rear third of the room. Today, their first day, saw Callis as their cook. He brought the food packs up from the lab where he had been busy heating them. The food reminded Alain of his military service. Vacuum-frozen food, stirred with water and heated. Good enough to feel full, but taste was mostly achieved by liberally adding salt and pepper out of a special shaker.

  Each of the others seemed to have a personal strategy. Callis used ketchup. Amy had brought wasabi, a Japanese hot radish paste. Heather was the garlic person. She had a supply of concentrate in storage. Alain was curious how that might affect the atmosphere. He estimated there was little risk of such things overpowering the omnipresent smell of machine oil.

  They all concentrated on their food. Alain found himself wishing for a Calvados after the meal. He had brought a bottle, but that was for celebrating a successful mission.

  Amy moved her plate into the air behind herself and pressed a button underneath the table. Jets in the tabletop created a fog of water droplets that served as the screen for the 3D projection of a solar orbit from a projector in the wall.

  “Here is our trajectory,” she said, introducing the image.

  “We are still close to Earth.” The blue planet blinked.

  “That’s right, Alain, but we no longer belong to Earth. Our orbit is around the sun, our target. At 30 kilometers per second we have a stable orbit. The idea is to turn the circular orbit into an ellipse. The aphelion, the spot farthest from the sun, would be our launch from Earth orbit. And the closest spot, the perihelion, will be so close to the sun that we can comfortably investigate the object in all of its detail.”

  “That would be called a Hohmann transfer, right?”

  “That’s the idea, Alain, yes, with a classic Hohmann transfer taking 68 days just to get there. Thanks to our powerful DFD we can cut corners. For that we need some hard deceleration first. Braking brings the perihelion closer to the sun. If we don’t do anything, gravity will sling us back to Earth orbit automatically.”

  “We could also brake again at the perihelion for a tighter orbit around the sun, right?” asked Alain.

  “Correct,” Amy responded. “Whether we do that will be decided once we have had a chance to check out the alien object.”

  “Is it likely that it is so boring that we will want to go back without delay?”

  “We don’t know enough to answer that. There might be any number of reasons for immediate return. As the commander, I am in charge of bringing us safely back home. We might find out that the object itself is dangerous and we should stay away.”

  An interesting objection, Alain thought. He had always harbored hope that highly-developed technology would go with equally highly-developed ethics, but mankind was busy proving the opposite.

  “Even if we get this close to the sun just once and the object is a useless and non-functional relic—our mission will be a resounding success,” opined Callis.

  The others queried him with puzzled looks.

  “Just think about all the information we will be bringing from the sun’s atmosphere! Nobody has gotten that close, ever. The data we record will keep generations of specialists very busy.”

  The bunk is the perfect size, thought Alain. If he stretched his legs, his toes would just barely hit the floor. He wore his jumpsuit. The ship was set to 21 degrees day and night so he didn’t need any sheets. There were little jets around his head, supplying fresh air like in a commercial airplane. He switched them off. His little cabin was quite comfortable—he just had to avoid the comparison with lying in a coffin. The missing lid being replaced by a fiber screen helped a lot. And all kinds of engines and machines humming and thrumming made so much noise that he didn’t have to worry about somebody snoring.

  A hand touched his shoulder. Alain turned his head to see the commander.

  “Are you alright?” she whispered.

  “Everything is perfect, thank you.”

  “If there is something bothering you, a problem, you will come and see me, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know, it is quite normal to have issues. I worry more about
the people who think they don’t have any. Often they have the biggest issues of all and nobody can help them.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Alain. “Right now I really am doing fine.”

  “I am pleased to hear that,” said Amy.

  Alain was touched by how well the commander took care of her team. He fell asleep surprisingly quickly.

  May 17, 2074, the Yacht

  If he just weren’t so curious! Artem kept trying to resist the urge to check the sun on the display. It was so illogical, far too early to be able to detect any changes. And the alien object would be invisible to his instruments until they got a lot closer. That didn’t leave anything but the routines of fixing meals, keeping fit, and cleaning house.

  He was able to spend lots of time with Sobachka. She enjoyed his attention thoroughly, since the workload in the past weeks hadn’t given him much time for her. Yet he kept returning to the display. The compulsion was there, since he knew the sun had a secret, and he was waiting for her to reveal it.

  A warning from Earth had made things even more exciting. NASA, so they said, had launched an international expedition of their own with a solar exploration ship. That wouldn’t be any concern to him, since they had to travel three times as far and his lead was comfortable.

  If the information from the Ark was correct, the NASA ship was equipped with some kind of fusion drive, one called a DFD. His yacht only had a conventional drive, forcing him to follow conventional routes. His route had 14 days to go. To be faster than good old Hohmann he would need three times the fuel. So far the others did not know about him. But if they found out, they could go all out and overtake him. What options would that leave for him? He could also cut corners. That would bring him in quicker, but without any hope to return—not attractive at all.

  Artem swiped his hair aside. He should have had it cut one last time on Mercury. He did not even have a mirror with him. He decided to ignore the competition for now. If they did anything special, headquarters would be sure to get in touch and let him know.