The Next Continent

by Issui Ogawa

  Mount Fuji loomed above them in the thin blue of sunrise. The volcano’s summit was dusted with a crown of white that had not been there the day before.

  Sixth Continent’s Gotenba Ground Support complex, an expansion of the Multidozer Command Center, had started operating the previous summer. In the early years of the project, spacecraft tracking had been handled by TGT’s Tsukuba Space Center, but eventually they would have to track multiple spacecraft in addition to supporting Sixth Continent itself. Tsukuba clearly would not be able to cope with all that traffic. GGS would be responsible for ground-based tracking and serve as Earth’s link with the base.

  Shinji rarely had a chance to return home. He was too busy shuttling between GGS and TGT headquarters in Nagoya. He swung his feet to the floor and put his arms through the sleeves of the lab coat he wore every day. He looked again at Fuji with its cap of snow.

  “Did you get me up to show me this?”

  “Of course not. Actually, there’s good news and bad news. What do you want to hear first?”

  “Give me the bad news. I always eat the stuff I don’t like first.”

  “Dozer 6 is down. It’s not responding to commands.”

  “Uh-oh. Let’s get to the control room.”

  “Wait, we should wake up the others too.”

  “Let them sleep. The dozer isn’t going anywhere.”

  There were half a dozen staff sacked out in the lounge. Shinji hushed the young controller and guided him into the corridor.

  The center was quiet at this hour. Once the base was manned, these halls would be humming round the clock, but for now there were few personnel. The men’s steps echoed as they traversed the long corridor.

  “Dozer 6…That’s the unit laying cable from the far side of the crater.”

  “Right, Dr. Tai. That will give us nearside power throughout the sun cycle.”

  “So what’s the good news?”

  “We connected the cable to the farside array before we lost the signal. It happened when number 6 was on its way back through the crater.”

  “Interesting.”

  The three controllers on watch at their monitors looked up as Shinji walked into the room. Nothing critical was in progress, so younger technicians from TGT and Gotoba were manning the stations. These three did not yet have much experience. They seemed relieved to see Shinji.

  “Sorry to roust you out so early, Dr. Tai. We thought about contacting Tsukuba, but we weren’t sure if this was important enough to disturb the flight director.”

  “When you’re not sure, that’s the time to contact the most senior person you can. But let me take a look. What’s the problem?”

  Shinji was a materials specialist, not an aerospace engineer, but his invention of TROPHY had made his genius widely known. One of the young controllers began explaining the problem.

  “Dozer 6 didn’t send an emergency signal. If its power cable had broken, it should still be responding with power from its fuel cell. One minute the signal was there, the next it was just gone.”

  “What about frequency displacement?”

  “Frequency displacement?” The controllers looked at each other, caught off guard.

  “The transmitter is potted in a block of acrylic. You could drop a dump truck on it and it wouldn’t stop working,” said one of the controllers.

  “Yes, but what about temperature? If the chips are subjected to a drastic ambient temperature change, the transmission frequency could shift. It’s 220 below in the shadow zone.” Shinji looked around at the blank faces staring back at him. “You didn’t think of that, did you? Try a recovery based on that assumption. The signals go through a repeater at the top of the nearside crater rim. Try tuning the repeater to find the dozer.”

  Somewhat doubtfully, the controllers began varying the repeater frequency. After a few minutes one of them shouted, “Got it! There’s number 6’s status signal!”

  “Great,” said Shinji. “How’s it doing?”

  “Green straight across. The AI’s already guiding it to the near side.”

  “Then it didn’t even need your help, did it?”

  The controllers sighed with relief. “Sorry,” one of them said to Shinji, looking apologetic. “This was such a minor problem. But how did you figure it out so quickly? This isn’t your specialty.”

  “NASA ran into the same thing with Mars Pathfinder. It’s not so unusual—hold on. Maybe there is a bigger problem.” Shinji scratched his head. “The dozers are designed for that kind of environment. A transmission issue must mean the insulating shield is damaged.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “Not much. Dozer 6’s generation doesn’t have sensors to pinpoint an insulation breach. The only thing you can do is keep that dozer out of the shadow zone. The temperature outside the crater’s only fifty below.”

  The controllers exchanged nervous glances, as if they expected to be held responsible for the damage.

  “I wouldn’t get too concerned,” said Shinji philosophically. “We assumed we’d lose one or two machines during Phase One. Phase Two will start in plenty of time to get people on scene. Then we can do all the repairs we need.” Shinji smiled. “Listen, why don’t we get some breakfast? It’s on me.”

  The controllers looked sheepish as Shinji touched the commissary’s extension. “You got the farside array hooked up. Now we can operate throughout the month. Let’s celebrate. Hello? Yes, can we get steak and eggs in the control room? For five. Yes, charge it to me.”

  In a few minutes, the room was filled with the aroma of hot coffee and Kobe beef. Shinji distributed the plates himself—the controllers had been up all night.

  “We’ve got at least five years ahead of us. We should celebrate every little milestone.”

  We’ve got a long way to go, he thought as he poured himself some coffee. There were a huge number of challenges to meet before Phase One would be complete.

  More solar panels to install. GPS satellites to put into lunar orbit for more precise positioning. Further spacecraft development and testing, including translunar injection, landing, and return to Earth. Electrolysis of water from permafrost. Generation, liquefaction, and storage of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. Space suit development and delivery of temporary habitats. Only after these hurdles were cleared could people begin living and working on the moon—the start of Phase Two.

  That was not all. The Turtle landing “trucks” would have to return to lunar orbit using fuel synthesized on the surface, where orbital refueling drills would be run with the Titan X tugboat. Add experimental concrete production using a solar-powered kiln…

  There was so much to do that parts of the project were already behind schedule. Phase One had been scheduled for completion by the end of next year—2031—but problems with the development of Apple had delayed them by six months. Phase Two now looked likely to begin in the spring of 2032.

  Shinji sipped black coffee. The largely empty control room was filled with the sounds of quiet conversation. Now it really begins. We’ll have to make sure there are no more delays. I’ll practically be living here.

  He was looking forward to it. Once Phase Two was on track, the lunar tug was operating, and people were traveling to the moon, Ryuichi would deliver on his promise: Shinji would be going into space too.

  Eighteen months to go. For now, Shinji relaxed into the peace that surrounded him.

  MOUNT FUJI RECEIVED another dusting of snow. It melted, leaving the dark slopes naked again. At night, like a dragon, a procession of lanterns—climbers making the ascent to greet the rising sun—zigzagged up the mountain’s massive bulk. Snow fell again. On the plain below the mountain, small white shapes moved to and fro. Dozers evolved and were shipped out, and the next generation evolved further. Tilt-rotors came and went from dawn till dusk. GGS had countless visitors. Some stayed for weeks.

  Snow closed the trail up Mount Fuji; no lanterns snaked around the mountain. Spring came to the volcano, and the stream
of visitors swelled to a flood. Huge satellite trucks topped with parabolic antennas stood in rows outside the Ground Support complex. Broadcast engineers scanned the skies outside their uplink trailers. The energy was palpable, like a high summer festival out of season.

  May 2032. Japan’s first manned spacecraft, Apple 7, was about to blast off for the moon.

  The focus of attention for the media camped at GGS was a young man and a younger woman. This was history in the making—the first humans to pay a second visit to the moon.

  The disheveled engineer who would ride into space with them attracted hardly any notice.

  [2]

  “IS THERE A problem?”

  Tae blinked anxiously. She floated across the capsule to the pilot, who was staring bleakly at the environmental control panel. He nodded.

  “The habitat module’s CO2 scrubber isn’t functioning properly. The absorption filter might be partly blocked.”

  “Does this mean we can’t go to the moon?” Tae paused, then rephrased her question. “Are we going to survive?”

  “We’ll be okay for at least a day or two. But even with the filter running flat out, we’re generating more CO2 than the scrubber can handle. Eventually it’s going to get hard to breathe.”

  “Can you calculate when that will be?”

  “I already have. The problem isn’t so much the amount of time as the number of people aboard. With six people, the CO2 will rise. Five or fewer, and we can probably maintain safe levels.”

  “So we do have a problem.”

  Three other passengers in the habitat module—Sohya and two engineers from Gotoba—looked worried. The sixth passenger, seated near a window, seemed remarkably unconcerned. “What’s the problem? All we have to do is skip every sixth breath.”

  “Shinji…” Sohya floated over and gave him a playful slug in the arm. “This is no time for joking. You’re having too much fun!”

  Shinji looked up sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m kind of giddy right now. First time in space.” He consulted his wearcom. “Let’s think this through rationally. We’ve got three more hours to TLI. Either we fix the problem or we head back to Earth. There’s no reason to panic. Gotenba’s working on it as we speak.”

  Shinji’s casual manner seemed to defuse the tension. I’m glad we brought him along, thought Sohya. They were orbiting at the same altitude Ryuichi had reached in Apple 3. But this mission was going all the way to the moon.

  Like Apple 3, Apple 7 included the four-meter diameter habitat module and the conical core module with its heat shield for reentry. Beneath the core was the descent module, resembling an insect with three landing struts. This module would take the core to the surface and, with its small engine, return it to lunar orbit.

  The stack was perched atop the second stage of Eve XVIII, which would carry out the translunar injection burn. In a few hours, another Eve would launch with the return module. With a rocket engine, fuel, and life-support supplies, the return module would make its own way to the moon, where it would wait in orbit to dock with the core and take it back to Earth.

  Something else would travel with them to the moon: Xiwangmu 6. With support from Jiang, TGT had convinced the Chinese government to sell the module. A week earlier, an Adam rocket had carried it into space. Now it was orbiting Earth, still attached to Adam’s second stage, waiting for the signal to head for the moon.

  Xiwangmu 6 could accommodate three crew members. The manned phase of Sixth Continent would begin by landing the habitat module on the moon. For Sohya and his two Gotoba colleagues, this was the beginning of a journey that was scheduled to last three months.

  WITH PUBLIC ATTENTION riveted on the ambitious mission, having a CO2 scrubber fail first thing out of the gate was poor timing. The pilot, Toshiyuki Yamagiwa, and GGS examined and rejected a number of possible solutions to the problem.

  Flight Director Hibiki, surrounded by his controllers, murmured, “How did we end up with the same problem as Apollo 13?”

  Apollo 13 had suffered an oxygen tank explosion on the way to the moon and was forced to return without landing. During the struggle to survive in their crippled spacecraft, the astronauts had faced a series of problems. One was limited scrubber capacity, a problem they’d solved by modifying scrubbers from the command module and installing them in the lunar module, which was used as a “lifeboat” to bring the crew home.

  “We’re going to get slammed for not learning from experience,” one of Hibiki’s controllers said with a pained look.

  “This isn’t quite the same scenario,” said Hibiki. “There’s nothing wrong with the scrubber. Something’s keeping it from doing its job.”

  The controller went back to his monitor. He suddenly groaned. “One of Gotoba’s crew says he missed a handkerchief just after launch. I bet it’s lodged in the scrubber intake.”

  “A handkerchief?” Hibiki was incredulous. “What are they doing letting stuff like that float around? It could go right into the filter!”

  “Unfortunately, yes. The cabin airflow is designed to drive floating particles toward the scrubber intake—dust, hair, drops of perspiration. Stuff you don’t want accumulating and interfering with breathing. A handkerchief is something else. They know passengers will play games in zero G, tossing small objects around. The intake is protected with a grille, but it obviously wasn’t configured to stop a thin, deformable foreign object. That’s going to have to be fixed.”

  “So why don’t they just pull it out?”

  “The air line snakes around the support ribs on the inner skin of the module. It’s a single unit. Saves weight. They can’t poke a rod down it, and they can’t take it apart.”

  “Can’t we detach the scrubber canister and hook it to an improvised air line, like they did on Apollo 13?”

  “Not possible. Apple’s scrubbers use heat-regenerated metaloxide sorbent material. No need for replenishment, but unfortunately it also means the canisters can’t be swapped out without special tools, which of course they aren’t carrying to save weight. Unintended consequences again.”

  “Apollo 13 still applies,” said Hibiki. “There’s always the core scrubber.”

  “The core can only provide life support for six crew for twenty-four hours. That includes CO2 scrubbing. But it’s a week to the moon and back.”

  “All right, that’s enough.” Hibiki clapped his hands. The control room fell silent. “We’re about out of time, people. We’ve got a decision to make. Getting the scrubber back up to full power is either going to be difficult or it’s going to take a long time. The chances of getting that accomplished before TLI are pretty much zero. The only other option is to use the oxygen candles.”

  “But that will put us in Emergency Mode.”

  “That’s what it’s come to. We go to the candles, or we abort. Either way, we’re not in a nominal operational posture.” Hibiki turned to the Capsule Communications officer. “Tell Apple 7 it’s their call.”

  Aboard Apple 7, the mood after Capcom delivered its message was grim.

  “Emergency Mode…” Sohya shook his head.

  “It’s like a new ship springing a leak before it’s out of the harbor,” said Shinji.

  “Well, I bet I know which option we’ll choose,” said Sohya. He looked at Tae. In a situation like this, the decision would be hers. “Use the candle and continue the mission, right? Aborting wouldn’t be good for Sixth Continent’s image.”

  “Well, yes,” said Tae at length. “I’d like to avoid that if possible.” She seemed to be pondering. “Whatever we do, we don’t look good. Even if we continue, the world will hear we went to Emergency Mode. I’d prefer a third option.”

  “And that would be?”

  “EVA to Xiwangmu 6.”

  There was a long silence. Yamagiwa stared at Tae in mild bafflement. He wasn’t sure if she was joking or just foolhardy. “EVA isn’t in the mission profile. If you want to advertise to the world that we’re in trouble, that would probably be the best way to do it
.”

  “On the contrary,” said Tae. “We’d just be moving up the field testing of our Manna space suits. We were going to test them on the surface, but we should prove they’re just as useful in zero G.” Sixth Continent’s Manna suits had not only been optimized for easy locomotion on the moon; they also looked chic, courtesy of the noted Italian designer Tae had recruited.

  Yamagiwa frowned. “There’s no air lock in this module. If one of us EVAs, we all have to suit up. There’s no time for that.”

  “Exactly. So one of us goes into the core through the top hatch, seals it, puts their suit on, and exits by the side hatch. No one else has to suit up.”

  “But Xiwangmu is thousands of kilometers away.”

  “We do the EVA when we rendezvous for TLI. After that, whoever goes to Xiwangmu is just along for the ride. It’s completely automated, no piloting skills required. I’ll go if you want. There’s a lot about Xiwangmu I don’t like, but I’m sure I’ll be comfortable with all that space.” Tae smiled and pointed to the comm button. “Go ahead and ask Flight.”

  Yamagiwa looked skeptical but began contacting GGS. Tae saw Sohya’s face. She frowned. “You think this is a bad idea.”

  “Sure do—it increases our risks without being absolutely necessary. The oxygen candle is safe and available, and everything else proceeds as planned. I can’t see the point of an EVA.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not pointless. We trained for this in the neutral buoyancy pool. There’ll be a tether too. It’ll be easy.”

  “We’ve had one-twentieth of the training NASA astronauts get.”

  “Our suits are twenty times better. What do they call the outer shell, electroconformable? It’s hard till you hit a switch, then gets really flexible. Way softer than those stiff Krechet M suits we used at Kunlun. I was so excited when we got them!”

  Sohya was suspended from a handhold on the cabin wall. He leaned closer to Tae. “I’ve noticed something about you. Whenever you start talking like this, it means you’re blowing smoke. You know this is dangerous, don’t you? But it’ll be good publicity, so to hell with the risks. How does that scan?”