by Samuel Best
“Ms. Bishop!” said a friendly voice. She turned as Noah Bell approached her desk, his hand outstretched. “Hell of a job, getting that beast off the ground. Hell of a job.”
She shook his hand, smiling because he was smiling.
“We’re just getting started, Mr. Bell.”
“How’re we looking up there?” he asked.
“We’re square,” she answered. “Everything’s in the green.”
“Perfect,” he said, looking up at the display wall with a smile. “Absolutely perfect. Did you ever think we’d get this far?”
“Many others have,” Kate said.
Noah’s smile widened. “Ah, so you’re a pragmatist.”
“Someone has to be,” she joked.
“Well, between you and Frank, I think we have that covered. The rest of us can dream freely.”
Commander Riley’s voice broke in over the room speakers.
“Mission Control, this is Explorer One. We are settled in and headed for our rendezvous with the International Space Station, over.”
Noah clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he shouted to the room. “Let’s build a spaceship!”
Three hours later, Explorer traversed an orbital path at an altitude of 249 miles, directly in-line with that of the ISS. The tapered nose of the bell-shaped command module led the rest of the craft, pulling behind it the cargo hold, operational systems, and orbital engines.
Jeff and the others would have floated out of their seats if they weren’t strapped in. He let his arms drift up slowly, enjoying the weightless sensation.
He sat in awe, staring out the window at the blue curvature of the Earth. The surface of the planet rolled steadily beneath him, revealing the African continent, and a few seconds later, the dark blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean. A faint blue glow emanated from the surface, fading to black as the atmosphere thinned. For the most part, the weather was good, with hardly any cloud cover.
“How we doin’?” Riley asked. He and Ming were kept busy running post-launch checks and preparing the vessel for docking.
Jeff studied his own control panel – green across the board.
“Everything normal,” he said.
“Echo that,” added Gabriel.
“Good,” Riley said. “You boys sit back and enjoy the ride.”
A pinpoint of golden sunlight flashed in the distance above Earth – a reflected glint from the space station’s photovoltaic arrays. The station rapidly grew in apparent size as Explorer I approached, resolving into a sprawling mechanical dragonfly stuck in the blackness of space.
“Fire stabilizing thrusters,” Riley said.
Ming set a dial and pressed a sequence of buttons on her console. “Firing.”
Three forward-facing thrusters in the nose popped on, and the craft slowed noticeably.
“We’ll be in docking range in three minutes,” Ming said.
She cut the thrusters, and Explorer I orbited the Earth in silence at 17,200 miles per hour. Like the International Space Station, it would see a sunrise every ninety-two minutes if it held its current speed and trajectory.
“I’ve been trying to get onto that space station since I graduated from college,” Gabriel said. “Every project I ever completed was supposed to get me one step closer to a contract. But I never received the nomination from my country. Six other Brazilians have been up here, but not me, and I am left wondering why I was chosen for this particular mission.”
“Don’t doubt yourself,” Jeff said. “We’re headed to Titan because we earned the right to be here. This mission didn’t need the other six. It needed you.”
Gabriel turned to face him. “I have to wipe a tear from my eye, but I can’t touch my face.” He tapped his helmet.
Jeff shook his head, smiling. “I only said it because I’ve felt the same way.”
“Me, too,” said Ming. “Yet here we are.”
“Silva, if you’re feeling like you don’t deserve to be here,” Riley said, “I’m sure there’s a spare bunk on the station.”
Gabriel leaned to the side to get a better look at the space station through the window, then he frowned and settled back into his seat.
“You know, up close it doesn’t look like much,” he said jokingly. “I can stick with you guys for a while.”
Noah and Frank retreated to a darker corner of the operations floor to carry on a hushed conversation, mercifully leaving Kate to do her job without the immediate pressure of two bosses standing right behind her.
She tapped a camera feed on her small transparent monitor and flicked it upward to send it to the display wall. It showed an empty corridor inside the International Space Station. Above it, a separate camera feed looked past the nose of Explorer I as it approached the ISS.
Kate was consistently impressed that anyone who spent more than a day in the station didn’t go crazy from the clutter. Wires and pipes ran into and out of the walls, onto which had been secured objects ranging from camera lenses to infrared thermometers. The combined effect of such organized clutter was that one felt like they were floating inside a giant computer, where the circuitry crowded every available surface.
Cosmonaut Alexei Orlov floated into view of the camera feed inside the station. He wore a white polo tucked into gray sweatpants and white running shoes. In the wall behind him was a small porthole window showing only the darkness of space.
“Good morning, Kennedy,” he said with a thick Russian accent.
He crossed his arms, casually drifting in the middle of the corridor. He was in Nauka laboratory, the Russian segment of the station, and all the labels and instructions plastering every piece of equipment were in his own language.
“It’ll be midnight here soon, Alexei,” Kate said.
He grinned and ran a hand over the dark stubble on his shaved head, then he yawned.
“Of course,” he said. “We just had another sunrise. Very hard to keep track, you know?”
“I hope someone told you to expect visitors.”
“Visitors?” he asked. “Up here? But is so boring! Of course they told me. I wear my best pair of sweatpants.”
He pushed away from a wall with a gentle tap of his toes and drifted to a monitoring station secured to a pipe.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “They are soon here.”
Kate scratched her scalp and adjusted her headset microphone. “Is the engine prepped for their arrival? We’re trying to get the crew members in and out quickly so they’re less of a burden on your resources.”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry. Everything is ready. I give them a few hours of air, no problem. But I am also happy to move giant engine bomb quickly away from my nice space station.”
Kate smiled. “Thanks, Alexei.”
“Okay bye-bye,” he said, wiggling his fingers at her.
He tapped a button on his monitoring station and the feed switched over to an exterior view of one of the station’s photovoltaic arrays.
Kate yawned and rubbed her eyes.
Rick tapped his desk with the eraser end of his pencil. “Do we talk to Alexei instead of the Americans because Russia’s still upset they didn’t get a spot on Explorer?” he asked.
“They lost a huge bid to the Chinese,” Kate said. “Of course it’s still a sore spot. Making Alexei our representative on the ISS is a minor concession thought up by someone in Public Relations.”
“You mean, just in case we need to ask Russia for any more favors.”
“Exactly. Alexei works well with everyone. It’s the least we could do.”
“Hmm,” Rick said thoughtfully. “Ever wonder if his superiors told him not to tighten all the bolts on the antimatter rocket?”
Kate put her hands on her hips and stared at him. “Does your mind always leap to conspiracy?”
“Whenever I smell one, you bet it does.”
“Honestly…yes, the thought had occurred to me, but not seriously. Alexei hasn’t had direct acces
s to the crew module or to the antimatter engine. The only way to get past the American segment of the ISS to the crew module is to spacewalk from the Russian side, and someone would have noticed a cosmonaut on an unscheduled walk. And besides, you of all people should know what the experts say about conspiracies.”
“The chance of success drops as the number of conspirators rises. But still,” Rick insisted, “it would just take a single pissed-off cosmonaut with a wrench to ruin everything. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Well, say it elsewhere. Let’s keep things positive, shall we?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” She turned to face the display wall. “Now let’s get them docked so I can go home and try to sleep.”
Jeff leaned forward eagerly in his seat to get a better look at the space station through the narrow window as Explorer I approached.
Eight rotatable, rectangular blades stuck out from the 106-meter-long truss, four on each side, covering a total span of 73 meters from top to bottom. The elongated truss was an industrial-looking amalgam of external robotic equipment, cylindrical labs, and critical station components.
The delicate station spun slowly on its primary axis, sunlight glinting off the eight blades of its solar array.
“Thing’s the size of a football field,” Jeff said, shaking his head in disbelief. “You don’t realize how big it is until you get closer. Incredible.”
As the space station rotated, it revealed the entirety of what would become Explorer I’s crew module and the attached Thermal Antimatter Propulsion System.
“It’s longer than the station!” Gabriel said in awe.
“You didn’t read the specifications docket before we left?” Ming asked as she adjusted her controls.
“Of course I did, it’s just…it’s hard to imagine until you see it up close, like Jeff said.”
“There’s a better view,” Riley said, smiling.
The station rotated, and sunlight hit the docked engine full-on, illuminating the 120-meter-long cylindrical caboose of Explorer I.
“Now that’s sexy,” Gabriel said.
“Looks like a donut on a stick,” Ming countered.
The ‘donut’ housed an internal centrifuge that caused the first third of the craft to bulge wider than the main cylinder, like a snake that swallowed a soda can. The crew module and science lab were inside the centrifuge. It would spin slowly as the crew headed for Titan, offering them a percentage of Earth’s gravity.
The rear two-thirds of the craft extended back from the center of the centrifuge like a long tube, terminating at a gold, cone-shaped engine wash shield. Inside the long tube section were the inner workings of the antimatter drive and a majority of the ship’s systems.
“Lieutenant,” said Riley, “take us in.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
Ming’s hands hovered patiently over the controls. The space station grew to fill the command module window.
She tapped a few buttons, and Explorer I gently spun on its axis, syncing with the rotation of the space station. There was no sensation of physical movement, only visual confirmation via the narrow command module window that they had changed positions. Jeff felt as if he were watching a television show.
“Explorer One to ISS,” Riley said into his headset microphone. “Requesting permission to dock. How’s it going in there, Alexei?”
“Your engine is waiting for you, Commander,” Alexei replied. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Good! I hear Dolan has pizza.” He let out a deep belly laugh.
Jeff said, “That was supposed to be a secret.”
“I have many ears, Jeffrey,” said Alexei. “No one brings pepperoni without my knowledge.”
“Two-second retro booster fire,” Ming said, “in three, two, one.”
The space station slipped out of sight in the window, and what was considered the front of the crew module segment of Explorer I slid into view. Ming positioned the command module a few meters from the front of the longer section of the craft, then slowly backed up to it.
“Looking good, Explorer,” Frank said over the headset.
Jeff didn’t like hearing the director’s voice nearly as much as Kate’s. It always sounded like he was waiting for something to go wrong. Edgy, Jeff thought. That’s the right word for it.
Riley watched a small monitor on his control panel. The video angle looked past the orbital engines on the back of the command module toward the docked crew module. Ming aligned the crafts perfectly, and the orbital engine at the back of the bell-shaped command module glided into the hollow sleeve at the front of the crew segment. With a soft bump, they came to a stop.
Riley turned three key buttons on his control panel. A red light blinked off. A second later, a green light next to it illuminated.
“Seal is good,” he said. “Mission Control, we have successfully linked with the crew module and TAP System.”
“We read you loud and clear, Explorer,” Frank said. “Great work, all of you. Get some shuteye and we’ll talk to you in a few hours.”
“Copy that, Canaveral. Explorer One, out.” Riley unbuckled his safety harness and turned as he floated up from his seat. “Who’s ready to get out of these suits?”
“Not me,” Jeff said. “I like sitting in a soggy adult diaper.”
“You’d think they would have a better system by now,” Gabriel said.
“They ran a contest for it a while back,” Ming said, “to see who could come up with something better.”
“And?”
“The only thing they got was a more absorbent diaper.”
“Genius,” said Gabriel.
“Commander,” Jeff said, “I don’t really have to make pizza right now, do I?”
Riley sighed. “No, Dolan, you don’t have to make pizza. We’ll be fine with rehydrated beef cubes and chunky protein smoothies. Right, gang?”
“Oh, yeah,” Gabriel said without enthusiasm. “My favorite.”
“Good,” said Jeff, ignoring the sarcasm. “You’re going to thank me later.”
“Come on,” said Riley. “Let’s get inside. Four hours of sleep doesn’t sound like a lot, but we need as much as we can get before our departure window closes in the morning.”
Jeff unbuckled his harness and felt full-body weightlessness for the first time since he boarded the spacecraft. The desire to tuck his legs up to his chest and spin end over end was too much to resist.
“Just like the circus,” Gabriel said as he floated up from his own chair. He tapped Jeff’s boot to keep him spinning.
Riley shook his head as he grabbed a handhold on the side of a seat and pulled himself closer to the floor. Jeff’s elbow bonked his helmet.
“Oops. Sorry Commander.”
“Okay, okay,” said Riley. “Let’s hold off until the adults get through the hatch.”
Jeff grabbed the top of his seat and stopped his spin. He and Gabriel floated peacefully while Riley unlocked the floor hatch and swung the lid inward.
“Ladies first,” said Riley, gesturing into the opening.
“Thanks,” Ming said. She floated past Jeff and went headfirst into the passage that ran next to the orbital engines, connecting the command and crew modules.
Riley followed after her. A moment later, his helmeted head reappeared.
“Don’t spin too long, boys. It is possible to get dizzy in space, and you don’t want to get sick in those suits. Not after you did so well on the first leg of the trip.”
He disappeared into the passage. Gabriel grinned at Jeff.
“Two snack rations for the longest spin,” he said, tucking his knees to his chest.
“You’re on.”
The headlights of Kate’s old Mustang passed over the front of her apartment building as she pulled into her parking space. Her ground-floor unit was attached to a three-story vacation rental, which made for loud summers and a messy front lawn. If she wasn’t a workaholic and didn’t spen
d most of her time at work, she would have looked elsewhere.
She cut the engine, and suddenly all her energy flooded out. It had taken zealous focus to stay awake on the twenty-minute drive to her apartment.
Kate sensed her bed inside, waiting for her. She picked up her purse and grumbled, realizing most of its contents were still spilled across the passenger’s seat from when she had hunted for her security badge that morning.
A project for the morning, she decided. She scooped up her phone and got out of the car.
There was no gentle breeze that night, only a stagnant stickiness that glued her blouse to her skin as she climbed the steps of her small porch. Calling the night air of Florida cool in the dead of summer was like saying being a mile away from the sun wasn’t as hot as touching its surface.
Her car’s headlights illuminated her hibiscus bushes and red front door. She fumbled with her keys and locked the car with the fob. The headlights cut out, and something moved on her porch.
She gasped and dropped her phone in surprise as a dark figure stood up against the porch railing, only a few feet away.
Kate groped blindly for her purse, realizing too late she had left it – and the can of mace she carried – uselessly on the passenger’s seat. Her keys rattled as her shaking hands struggled to find the one that opened her front door.
“Please, Ms. Bishop!” said the figure urgently. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Her hands shook uncontrollably and she dropped her keys. The figure stepped toward her and she stepped back instinctively.
“My name is Michael Cochran.”
Kate began to creep sideways, planning to leap over the bushes and make a run for it. The man took another step toward her. Light from a street lamp hit his tired, frightened face. He was probably in his early thirties, with thinning hair and a shadow of beard. An oversized coat swallowed his thin frame. He gripped the coat shut with white-knuckled hands.
“Please listen to me!” he said. “It’s about Noah Bell’s antimatter drive.”
She stopped moving. Unsteadily, she asked, “What do – what do you know about that?”