Casindra Lost

by Marti Ward

  “Acknowledged! At the moment, I am working with the data already collected, and trying to eliminate unlikely scenarios and test various heuristic strategies to understand how accurate a simulation is needed and how much I can reduce search space and time. Chaotic systems are notoriously difficult to predict. I don’t have sufficiently accurate data to assess what we could do with our present resources, so the best I could do is quantify the resources required for a brute force strategy. But these proposals are probably unrealistic even for Solar Command, while with optimally applied force it is conceivable we could divert them with our existing resources. But I don’t have the computational resources to properly analyze such a chaotic system, or rather given the resources I have it would take decades but we would probably have to act within a few months, a year or so at the outside.”

  “Understood. That’s of course why such systems are called chaotic – even very slight differences in variables at one point can lead to dramatic divergence in paths at a later point... What resources does Solar Command have available, and when would they be able to send them?”

  “There are two follow-on LETO missions being configured, and the Cavitrans and EmProbes they will each require may already be available. One LETO with the maximum complement of four Cavitrans will give almost twice the pushing power of ours, while two LETOs in standard two Cavitran configurations could distribute that stopping power. In either case, they should each bring a full complement of four EmProbes – and given they weren’t bringing other loads they could even double that, providing the required EmProbes are on hand.”

  “And once they send them, what are the transfer windows like?” Sideris asked.

  “There are no fast and efficient windows for getting from PTL4 to PTL3. An efficient transfer would take almost two years. A fast transfer would use a significant proportion of available fuel, and will always take a standard LETO at least 22 days at maximum burn – a low load four Cavitran LETO might reduce that to 15.”

  “So if they act immediately we could have as much as 20 month’s leverage, but that is not like any committee or command structure I know of, let alone Solar Command – which is both. But we are on the spot, and still have over a week before MD12 arrives at the Gate and we can even message them about the problem. We should have our own proposed solutions by then. We need to present a solution that is blindingly obvious and makes the timeframe clear, and will achieve timely action.”

  Al

  24 July 2077 04:44

  A flash! A brief blip in the sensor logs… Was it important?

  Since they’d been in New Eden’s orbits, gamma radiation had been increasing erratically – but the growth curve was now becoming clearly quadratic. Al had pumped more water around the Captain’s and the cats’ cabins for extra shielding, but although he had logged his reports and actions, it had not come up in his briefings with the Captain – they’d been focused on their tasks and experiments, and of course distracted by the Hildian asteroids.

  The most likely hypothesis was that the radiation was emerging from an approaching shockwave, a spread-out flare from an ancient and distant supernova. The so-called cosmic rays would include follow-on waves of beta, neutron, proton and alpha radiation, as well as waves of slower heavier ions that should present far less risk.

  Al did some quick calculations. The flash seemed to have originated from a minor planetoid at the edge of the system in a region equivalent to the Kuipers Belt. The results lay well within the confidence interval around his estimates for the shockwave, under the assumption that they were caused by a neutron wave. The nuclear radiation would then arrive in around 5 days 19 hours’ time, and would catch up with them even if they headed for the wormhole now at full acceleration. In the 24 to 48 hours prior to that they would be facing the peak of the beta radiation, although their EM-shield would offer protection against charged particles. It was the neutron wave that would be the problem, although the water shielding would help.

  With their Faraday and nanosilc screening, they seemed to have survived the onset of the gamma burst. He should restrict the crew to cabins today and hard seal them against the peak of the gamma burst that was about to arrive.

  Although his own core systems were so far unaffected, he was getting multiple errors and failures from many of the portside external sensors. He could have retracted them, but then he wouldn’t have known what was going on. He’d also lost some portside internal sensors and actuators too. That was bad! They had no way of shielding against the peak of the gamma radiation that was still to come, let alone the neutron radiation in just under a week.

  Al hoped the Captain would be able to solve these problems, with his chaotic lateral thinking…

  But he couldn’t contact him…

  For the first time, Al felt alone.

  Sideris

  24 July 2077 04:44

  Sideris had been dreaming about his flight with Simba, about his hunt with Simba, about all the rodent-like critters they’d captured – in the first week they’d captured as many as all his previous expeditions put together. Some new species too, he thought. He remembered Simba’s awe and fascination at the big bird she’d traveled in, the albatross. He’d only opened the wings wide for a few minutes, giving Simba a taste of supersonic gliding, and they’d been inside, of course. But the image they had was of the albatross flying high silhouetted in white against the dark clouds above.

  Sideris woke suddenly and contacted Al. “Al! Albatross! We are going to call VL1 Albatross – please program the nanosilc to display name as well as call sign…

  “Al? Why am I awake?” He peered at the time… “Did something just happen?” Before he had any response, the slider opened, but there was nobody there. He propped himself up on his elbow and could now see Simba and Samba’s heads peeping at him through the doorway. “Al? Why are the cats in my room?” Lifting himself up further he saw that the kits were there too. “Al? Why are the kits in my room?”

  “Al? Al? Why aren’t you responding?”

  For the first time, Sideris felt truly alone, until he felt the tribe of cats surround him and support him and encourage him.

  Sideris threw on his uniform and strode for the bridge.

  Simba

  24 July 2077 04:44

  Simba was reveling in the hunt! It had been another exciting day with a flight on the albatross. She was always impressed by it spreading its wings and stretching, shortly before swooping down to land. And in her mind’s eye she had seen it sweeping overhead, white against the dark clouds of dawn. She saw the three mouselike islands below, and wondered which they would visit today.

  But it was to the hunt that her dreams kept returning. It was a hunter’s nirvana. They were days she would relive forever… She had sniffed out so many different kinds of animals, bringing them all to white’n’gold, who mostly waited at the edge of the forest, the white albatross behind him. In the air, it had almost seemed as if he was the albatross.

  She caught so many animals that the captain kept having to go back to the albatross for more boxes – he always had more boxes. She’d even caught some birds! They would go into boxes too.

  She’d run and sneak and crouch and leap, using every trick she knew, chasing down any new scent she found. She wasn’t sure that any of the strange animals were good to eat… they smelled so different. White’n’gold wasn’t sure either, but he was always keen to collect the animals she laid at his feet, and put them in his boxes, and store them back on the albatross. Then they’d snack and siesta back in the albatross, and white’n’gold would allow her to select a shaft of sunlight to curl up in. Then they’d hunt some more; snack and siesta, then hunt some more… It had felt good to get the kinks out of the muscles, to be top predator once more, not just housecat and mother. She was leaner and stronger.

  But now Simba could taste and smell the prey animals even back home in her cage – it seemed that cold’n’senseless was using them to make her food more interesting. She would pul
l the handle in her cage and find a new flavor in her food – but one she recognized from the hunt the day before. Later the cold one would catch her, and draw blood with its thorn tube… and then cold’n’senseless would speak from the air to gray’n’gold, and gray’n’gold would be reassured…

  But now Simba was suddenly awake… with a sense of danger, something had happened, something was approaching. Samba was stirring too, and the girls. She stalked out carefully into the passage, every sense alert, the boys joining them from the other side of the corridor.

  Simba followed gray’n’gold’s scent to his day cabin and the door slid open for her. They paused at the door and looked in.

  He was talking, talking as he often talked to the cold one. But cold’n’senseless was not responding, and gray’n’gold was sounding worried.

  Simba moved over to lend him support, the rest of the pride following suit. He acknowledged her with a caress, and trailed his hand past Samba and the kits as he left the cabin, tribe in tow, through a slider opposite his bed that she hadn’t noticed.

  They emerged directly into the command space where Simba looked out on the stars and into the face of danger, at the sparking flashes in the distance. In the background, she could hear that gray’n’gold and cold’n’senseless had finally gotten to talk, but then they stopped to watch her.

  A shiver ran down her spine! Her hair was standing on end, her tail balancing as she considered how to get her family away from danger. She looked at the half illuminated blue globe below – would that be safe? She looked at the barely visible new moon ahead – normally even bluer than the planet below, a comforting presence like a big brother. But today it offered no protection. She looked over the other side, to the small dark jagged moon – that was where they needed to go. They could hide behind the fierce little brother.

  Sideris

  24 July 2077 05:00

  Sideris’s first thought was that what had woken him was danger related to the PTL345 asteroid clusters, one that was clearly going to bring a shower of meteorites at the least. Al had confirmed his worst fears, New Eden was likely to be bombarded by as many as four significant meteors, any one of which alone would be a disaster if it impacted the planet – it would affect the whole planet, one way or another. Even if one failed to hit, but skimmed through the atmosphere, it would still have a climatic impact.

  But that was not what had woken him!

  Al pointed out the residual sparking where a barrage of neutrons and protons had decimated a far out and previously unnoticed planetoid. Their pitiful nanosilc shielding had little hope when a whole planet the size of Earth or New Eden was experiencing reactions that were visible 15 billion kilometers away. Lesser flashes, invisible to the naked eye, were noted by the few ship’s sensors that still functioned, picking out a Kuiper-like belt of asteroids in ways their unassisted sensors could not have managed.

  Al was explaining that it would take 2 days for the waves to pass through this region and another 2 before the beta wave arrived, followed a day later by the neutron wave. But Sideris wasn’t listening – he was watching the strange reaction of the cats.

  Simba seemed to be searching for a place to hide – she raced across the bridge to yowl at the desultory moon Acerba, pawing at the viewscreen as if she was trying to clamber over it and hide behind it. Samba and the kits weren’t far behind, but Samba sniffed at the viewscreen, making no attempt to get through.

  But then Sideris realized Simba wasn’t looking at Acerba, trying to get through the screen, she was looking back at him showing him where she wanted him to take them, hide them.

  Sideris sat down and addressed Al as if he lurked within the screens that enclosed the command chair. “How stable is the L2 point behind Acerba at the moment?” He glanced across to the new moon ghosting the front viewscreen. Right now, this would suggest a tendency to be dragged out from behind Acerba, but in a week’s time the closer alignment of the moons will reduce the effect.

  “The L2 point is reasonably stable for the next 10 days, and steering thrusters will suffice for station keeping. However, Acerba’s orbit is not stable.” Responded Al.

  “What? Will it crash into New Eden? When?”

  “It is a complex four body problem. A competition between the planet and the primary moon… In general, such a moon could collide with either, or be pulled apart. Acerba is however relatively dense and the collision with New Eden seems most likely based on point cloud models. Estimated time to collision is approximately 42 million years.”

  “So that’s enough time to complete our mission, get the fleet here, and let them deal with it!”

  “Yes, there is a high probability that the fleet will arrive before then…”

  Sideris wasn’t sure that Al was aware of the latent sarcasm, but shrugged it aside. “If we orient the ship appropriately, we can position the LETO hull behind Acerba and gain additional spill around shielding by directing the Cavitran and reactor pods toward the shockwave.”

  “Yes. We would be protected by New Eden and its magnetic field, and by Acerba as well, and operating the Cavitran would provide additional protection against the beta and positron radiation, while the thorium fuel and reactor shielding and control rods would allow considerable protection against the neutron front, but this would still leave gaps. Moving Casindra will moreover prevent laser alignment with EMP-A, and our trajectory will pass through New Eden’s Van Allen radiation belt, which will further disrupt microwave communications – although radiation levels will be well within design limits.”

  “What about New Eden?”

  “There is a kind of van Allen belt that will provide shielding. Hydrogen, helium and water vapor in the atmosphere will provide additional shielding, but living organisms on the planet will still face significant exposure, and there will be a slight residual increase in background radiation.”

  “What proportion of living populations and species will survive?”

  “I do not have sufficient data to estimate those figures! The primary effect would in any case not be direct deaths, but genetic mutation and disruption of the ecosystem. This is similar to the effect of sun spots and solar flares. In the worst case, affected parts of the ecosystems can be expected to stabilize within a few years – but with our inadequate knowledge and lack of global sensors, we are unlikely to even detect such anomalies. At least 99% of individuals can be expected to survive and well over 99% of species, although increased mutations can be expected.”

  “Would the animals and I be safer on New Eden? Or would we be safer behind Acerba?”

  “In general, the planet would be safer as we won’t be completely shielded behind Acerba, and eventually the L2 point will lose its shielded position. However, there are other unknown risks on the planet, and my systems are at least as much at risk on the ship as you are.”

  Sideris hesitated a moment then gave the order. “Recall the Volcans at best speed, both here and at Ardesco, and show me a planar view of the Paradisi system, with the usual coding, including marking moons.”

  He nodded as the real-time map came up. “See if you can program the Ardesco EmProbe to take up station at the Paradisi-Ardesco Lagrange Point 1.”

  “Acknowledged! Recalling Volcans on New Eden. I’m still unable to contact EMP-A but will recall the Volcans at first contact. Post-recall course for the Ardesco probe EMP-A to Paradisi-Ardesco L1 will be programmed to auto-initiate at the end of the Volcan return window. I have also programmed a course for SS Casindra to head to New Eden-Acerba L2 – awaiting your command to initiate. You will be alerted once all Volcans have either returned or are overdue… But Paradisi-Ardesco L1 is not safe from the shockwave!”

  “No! I want you to program and lay in a course for EMP-A that scoops towards the sun and then heads towards PTL5 while maximizing protection from the shockwave, that is maximizing the time in Ardesco or Paradisi shadow and using the EmDrive to protect against charged particles. Also Casindra course initiation should wait till we’ve
established contact with Ardesco unless this would prevent reaching L2 before the neutrons hit – I am assuming we have sufficient protection against Beta radiation.”

  “Confirmed! But it would add over two years on standard transfer elliptics to pick up EMP-A, or a considerably larger fuel burn to make it significantly faster.”

  “I’m not thinking of picking them up – I’m proposing to direct EMP-A to PTL5 to act as an additional relay. Also make sure EMP-T plots a course that maximizes its time in the shelter of New Eden as it approaches, as well as configuring SECASM and nanosilc shielding for maximum EM-protection.”

  “Having an EMP at PTL4 and PTL5 would mean there was no time Paradisi could blackout our communications.” Al commented.

  “Yes… Assuming both EmProbes survive… Not to mention the Gate…”

  “That also assumes that the shockwave doesn’t introduce any new complications,” warned Al.

  “What about the other two EmProbes? How can we protect EMP-G and EMP-NE from the radiation, and in particular the neutron blast?” Sideris didn’t feel anything could be done to protect the gate array, but surely they could save the probes.

  “There’s not really anything for them to hide behind. They’re not near a planet they can shelter behind, and they don’t have the time and fuel to run to hide behind the sun – or to get back to us for that matter. The best we can do is orient them away from the shockwave at maximum acceleration, and veer them into the shadow of Paradisi as much as possible. The additional EM-field and the reactor shielding will help protect them. Once the neutron and proton fronts have passed, assuming they and their Level 2 AIs survive, they should then rotate and reverse the burns.”