Alder's World Part One: Mass 17

by Joel Stottlemire

  He turned away from the table. Pilton picked up after a long pause. “So that’s it then. I don’t want to do anything hasty. Alder says we’ve got some time. Let’s talk this through.” He went on but Alder wasn’t listening. Elana had risen and come over to him.

  “Good job.” She whispered, sliding and arm around him and gripping him tightly by the waist.

  He sighed. “Someday we’re going to reach a point in our lives where you tell me good job for doing something I enjoyed doing.”

  “I hope so.” She smiled up at him. “It had to be you Sam. You don’t ever try to sell anybody on an idea. You just say it like it is. It makes hard things easier to hear.”

  The conversation about the plans was continuing around the table but Elana led Alder to the observation port. There were waving sheets of sparks in the darkness. “Do you see those little sparks out there Sam? I know those are specks of dust hitting the shield. I know there are more of them than there were a week ago, but it doesn’t tell me anything. It’s just a fact. When you tell me there will be more and more of those sparks until they overload our system, I believe you. Facts won’t save us Sam. Belief will save us. And you make people believe.”

  Sam nodded. “It’s easier being a scientist.”

  Elana’s response was cut short by Captain Pilton. “Alder? Alder? You said you’d done the math. Some of the crew are wondering, does that mean you know our likelihood of survival if we attempt the landing?”

  Alder ducked his head as if ducking the question. “It’s just a guess sir.”

  “But you know the odds? You can give us some idea?”

  Alder hesitated but everyone in the room was fixed on him. “Sir, when you asked me to run a test of all the solutions on the table; waiting for rescue, attempting to leave orbit, only one showed any significant odds of success and that was landing.”

  “But the numbers Alder. What were the numbers?”

  “Mbaka fully reviewed my…”

  “The numbers!”

  Alder cleared his throat. “I predict a 20% chance of success with a margin of error plus or minus ten percent.”

  Old Friends

  Elana could have had her office designed any way she liked. Back on League Prime during the years of endless discussions and analysis of every detail of the Duster’s design, she more than any of the other staff had been given free rein to design her space. While all of the medical staff were qualified to speak about psychological health with any of the staff, Elana was expected to know, understand, and steer the mental competency of hundreds of the most brilliant minds in the galaxy as they faced years of unpredictable challenges. All of the science of the last hundred years had not replaced the roll of intuition in the job of psychologist. Elana’s job was to understand and shape how people felt about the universe around them.

  She had chosen an open, slightly shapeless space, a little more than three meters on a side. She’d had it colored in light blues mostly with some greens and reds. The shape was controlled slightly with balls and tendrils of hand blown glass. It would have been gaudy if not comfortably lit. The impression as she and Com Tech Reilly sat facing each other was that they were in the secluded corner of a larger space. Whether it was the window booth of a cafe or an underwater grotto you could never be sure.

  Over time, her urge had been to darken the colors. She felt, as much as anyone the strain of the ridiculously long flight. She’d started telling Pilton that they needed to turn around after year eight; only in private, of course. She was tired. The crew was tired. The ship was aging. Again and again he’d asked. “Will they still follow me?” Every time he’d listened earnestly to her reply, assured her that he’d turn around before the morale situation got critical, and gone right on pushing further and further out. “Just think how elated they’ll be when we turn back.” He’d say to her. “We can relieve any pressure in a moment by announcing we’re headed back.” And so they’d gone on and Elana had kept the colors at the same bright, steady hue in her room.

  The silence between her and Reilly was lengthening. Reilly was a very predictable woman who made her bi-annual psych appointment with one of the other doctors every six months and went back to her post in communications. There had been a lot of extra visits to the psychologist, or the tanks recently, but it didn’t seem in profile for Reilly. Elana let the silence stretch. Reilly was petite with black, straight cut hair that was slowing being infiltrated by single bright white strands as the years passed.

  “It’s funny you know.” Reilly started at last. “You wouldn’t think that you’d be thinking about the past at a time like this. It feels strange; everyone talking about what day we’re all going to die like that’s the most important thing but…” She drifted off again, distracted. “Did you know Carol and I were friends before the ship?”

  “Yes. I remember. University of Antarctica wasn’t it?” In Elana’s line of work you always said, “I remember” and not, “I looked at my notes before you came in and saw that you and Carol Pakerson went to the same school.”

  “Yeah. Only snow skiing left on Earth.” Reilly grinned ruefully.

  “You were listening on the radio when she died.”

  Reilly didn’t respond. She looked away. “Carol wanted to go to deep space so bad. Telling her she was going to get eaten by space bugs would not have slowed her down. Even as a freshman she’d drag us all up to watch the transit platform whizz over. It was in a transpolar orbit and would fly over every ninety minutes. Sometimes, if they had a big load coming up from Earth, they’d drop that thing down really low. You could see all the spars and solar panels. The one around Earth is something like six kilometers across. It looked like some kind of ant whizzing by above the aurora. It was really something to see.”

  She paused again. There were tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. “Some nights it was just she and I. I used to follow her everywhere. My mom had died just a year or two before I got there. I guess Carol was kind of a big sister to me. Anyway, we’d lay up there, on the platform over the air control tower wrapped in thermals, our breath steaming, waiting for that stupid platform and she’d tell me about deep space; just stuff she’d read. She used to go on about every new planet that anyone found, didn’t matter where; ice ball around Tenni, lava soaked hell planet somewhere else. I don’t think I’d ever thought about going into space before Carol. My mom was a power plant technician. Back then, it was still a big deal even to go to the moon. People only went up for honeymoons and vacations.

  “Anyway, when Carol found out about the Solo project, she put in for a transfer to League Prime that hour.” She scowled. “I can’t even remember agreeing to go with her. I just was there somehow, submitting my paperwork. I didn’t have any family closer than Carol so I guess it made sense. We finished our degrees out there and were first in line for candidate selection. ‘We’re going on the first ship kiddo.’ She told me. ‘The very first ship.’ She was like that. She said we’d get on the first ship headed for deep space and here we are. Except.” Her eyes teared up fully and her face changed. “Except she’s not here. She’s dead and it just me. I just came because she told me I should. I don’t want to be here anymore. Everyone keeps talking about fix this and do this so we don’t die and I keep thinking, ‘I don’t care. This is wrong.’” She met Elana’s eyes for the first time, tears streaming down her face. The years had shed off of her and she was a lonely, teenager again. “I don’t want to be here. I want to go home. Please, can’t I please just go home?”

  Divisions

  There was no argument. Well, there was a lot of argument; cold weld, or fusion threading; unpowered stress loading or pressure fields. There were hundreds of arguments everyday about every aspect of the task ahead but none, not one, about whether or not the landing was necessary.

  It made Alder uncomfortable. Part of the scientific process was rigorous examination of the evidence, occasionally even a painful public vetting, but no one had questioned him. They came to him
like he was some sort of prophet. “Alder, if we route the plasma conduits directly to the hard point, will it improve our odds?” “Alder, will the weight distribution negatively impact our chances?”

  He kept waiting for someone anyone to corner him, berate him for his stupidity, and give a dozen better options. Even a dozen worse options would have been better than this. Why didn’t anyone even try?

  At least they were busy. Thirty days had just vanished. It seemed like there were more tasks than people. The remains of the gamma ray pulse generator and a couple plasma wave guides had been jury rigged into a working nuclear fuel enrichment furnace. New control software was being written for the strange flight they were about to take. Everywhere, struts were being taken down from here and welded in place there. Someone had gotten the bright idea to make mesh harnesses for the livestock. Alder was sure some of the crew were getting more sleep than he was, but it sure didn’t seem like it. Everyone seemed to be everywhere at all hours. They all had to be exhausted. If he had to put a number to it, Alder would have guessed that Ronald Midbits was probably getting more sleep than any three of the crew.

  Alder rounded a corner in the Engineering Bay headed for Mbaka’s pod and slowed. He had requested a meeting with Mbaka but Assistant Security Chief Fisher and two of the engineers were between him and the door. They were posed as if expecting him. The two lower ranking men turned to Fisher who spoke. “What’s up Alder?” He was tall with light brown skin and a broad angular body. Although he was over 40 he read much younger. He was smiling broadly but his normally laid back manner held and undercurrent of tension.

  “I’m looking for Mbaka, D’Ray. Can I help you?”

  Fisher’s smile held. “No man, no help needed. We were just wondering if you were planning on coming to the meeting tonight.”

  Alder crossed his arms and planted his feet. “What meeting would that be D’Ray?”

  “It’s nothing. Just some of us are thinking about the future, you know. We just want to talk about things.”

  “Tallen wants to talk about things.” Alder corrected. While Tallen was still theoretically Chief of Security on the ship, Pilton had allowed him to return to duty, he was making a very poor secret of his intention to try and wrest control of the crew. Pilton’s stake had fallen precipitously among the crew and Tallen seemed intent on exploiting the gap.

  “He’s got some good ideas, man. You should listen to him.”

  “Look D’Ray. With all the forms of communication on this ship, there’s no good reason for you and Tallen to be sneaking off to have these meetings. If you’ve got an issue take it to Pilton.”

  Fisher shook his head ruefully. “There’s some folks on this boat aren’t too happy with Pilton right now. We’ve been following him for more than a decade and look where it’s got us.”

  “Further into space than any human before?”

  “No man. Into a busted ship that we’re going to be lucky to get out of alive.” Fisher changed gears. “All I’m saying is that Pilton was picked for space, you know, discovery and all that. But things have changed. Life on the planet is going to be rough. We’d just like to hear your opinion. People listen to you.”

  “And I listen to Pilton.” Alder glanced back and forth between the three. “Do any of you have anything actually useful to talk about?”

  The three shuffled awkwardly. Ensign Feldt, the smallest of the three finally broke the silence. “Yeah. Muuk ordered more than 10,000 feet of some kind of water proof paper be made. That’s a lot of carbon. What do they want paper for?”

  “They’re making printed copies of every blue-print in the ships library, a lot of the rest of the library too.”

  “But why?” The other engineer asked.

  “We’re concerned about what will happen when the computer’s fail.”

  The three men blinked. “The computers could fail?”

  “Sure. They’re optical computers. Optical computers fail. Even the solid state components won’t last forever. We’re likely to be on the surface a long time.”

  There was a pause. “Wow!” Feldt shuddered. “Man, I can’t even imagine life without computers. That’s like pre-history. Like 20th century stuff.”

  “Or earlier.” Alder pushed his way between the three. “You should start working on the idea. I expect the whole system to fail around the eight minute mark.”

  “What eight minute mark?” Fisher asked.

  “Eight minutes before impact; maximum re-entry stress. That’s when we’ll break up, or be computerless if we live. Excuse me.” He slid through the door and out of sight of the men.

  Mbaka’s pod was more like a small factory than an office. No less than four 3d printers lined one wall, two plastic injectors, one laser lithograph, and one fusion micro-assembly. There were two assembly bots and a half dozen work stations.

  “Alder. What took you?” Mbaka called from behind a stack of monitors.

  “I ran into Fisher recruiting for Tallen’s revolution.”

  “Oh. Well. I suppose that kind of trouble is to be expected.” Mbaka had risen gingerly to his feet with the aid of cane. At seventy-five, Mbaka was by far the oldest crew member. His left eye had drifted steadily to the side over the years revealing a sclera dyed yellow by the brown of his skin. The wrist on his left side was as stiff as that side’s leg, the result of an electrical accident in year four. But his voice was firm and his disposition bright. “A lot of the crew were pretty unhappy with Pilton before he went and got us into this mess.” He gestured at a chair and Alder sat. “Now that we’re stuck here, there’s bound to be a fuss.” He had sat back down and was fishing in a small refrigerator under his desk. “Need a drink?”

  Alder nodded and Mbaka produced two brown bottles. While alcohol was not permitted onboard, Mbaka and his crew produced an unfermented malt beverage made with hops that had somehow been found growing in the bio-dome shortly after launch. It had been so long since Alder had had a real beer that he could no longer remember if M-Brew was a good knock off or not. It was heavy, sweet and had a fruity aroma.

  “Myself,” Mbaka said, after a long draw on the bottle, “I had us figured for dead from the start.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, it was clear from the beginning that Pilton was glory mad. I never knew a glory hound who had the sense to quit while he was ahead. I figured he’d get us out here and do some damn fool thing to get us all killed.” He took a drink. “To be honest, I didn’t think it would take him near this long.”

  “If you were so sure Pilton was going to get us killed, why did you join on?”

  “Did I ever tell you about my Rosie?”

  “Your wife?” Alder scowled. “Died of something. Some kind of palsy wasn’t it?”

  “No. I mean, did I ever tell you about Rosie?” Mbaka said with an emphatic gesture.

  “I guess not.”

  “Most evil woman who ever lived. A stone around my neck day and night for thirty-four for years.”

  “You married the most evil woman who ever lived?”

  Mbaka waved dismissively with his good hand. “You know how it is. I was a young post-doc, she had these huge breasts. We started arguing the day after the honeymoon ended; weird stuff; why didn’t I like her friends, how come I didn’t remember her favorite brand of toothpaste. The first few years, I thought, ‘we’ll learn.’ She was young, I was young, but no, year after year she went on like that. One year she’d have an affair. The next she’d run my bank account straight into the ground. The whole time she’d tell me it was all my fault. It turned out she was half crazy and not very bright. I mostly stayed at the university. If she’d have been smarter, I might have divorced her. As it was, I didn’t know what would become of her so I just took it. My father was from Africa, real Africa back on Earth; didn’t hold with divorce. I could have moved. I could have started over. I just couldn’t see explaining to my father that I was too selfish to take care of that awful woman. Finally, after thirty-four years, s
he died, and it wasn’t any palsy either. You remember that fad a while back, clear skin?”

  “Yeah, supposed to make your skin so translucent you could see the subcutaneous fat.”

  “That’s the one. What a fifty-five year old black woman wanted with see through skin I’ll never know but it got her, blood clots. Anyway, at the funeral I said my goodbyes and went looking for the first ship headed out. Here I am.”

  “So you don’t care if we make it?”

  “You remember that binary star system we passed in year six, the one that that was ripping that gas giant apart?”

  “Yeah, I remember. The planet had been captured from somewhere. Tidal stresses were shredding it and only the core was still holding together.”

  “That’s the one.” Mbaka joined back in. “The whole rest of the planet was strung out like cotton candy around the two stars; violent as hell. Twenty million kilometer long bolts of lightning ripping through the corpse, some of them tying right up in the coronas of the stars. Well, one night while we were there, I went and got one of the rooms up out of sight of the ship. I stayed up all night just watching that poor planet. Twenty million kilometer long bolts all night. Sometimes the surface of the suns would get all spiked up like a plasma ball before a bolt tore loose. I thought about Rosie and my father and I decided I was doing okay. My father was long dead by then but I felt like I’d honored him by taking care of her. I’d honored her with my patience and I’d been rewarded with the best light show in all of space and time.”

  Mbaka’s voice trailed off and Alder found himself staring vacantly at his empty beer bottle. He glanced up and found Mbaka’s wandering eye fixed on him.

  “I’m guessing though that you didn’t come down here to listen to me talk about Rosie.”