by Scott Baird
Becker found her an hour later in the same conference room, sitting with her head resting on the table, her face a mess of mascara and tears. After a brief conversation, he sent her home to rest and told her he would call her with news about Nelson’s progress on Titan.
8 – Titan Landing
Nelson was strapped into the pilot seat again, now wearing his flight suit.
“Target will be achieved in one minute. We have a slight overshot on our trajectory curve, so NASA recommends we be ready to fire additional retrorockets manually for a last-minute readjustment.”
“I'm on that, Ferd. Keep it on my screen.”
“I can handle that automatically, sir, if you—”
“No, thanks, I'll handle it. Just make sure the retrogrades are primed, please.”
“Certainly. The check is complete and all systems are ready. We are entering orbit around Titan in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, advise slight adjustment nose left...”
Nelson gently fired the directional thruster, and a burst of bright flame pulsed from the front of the Magellan, slowing the ship and edging it slightly to the left. “Beginning roll maneuver.” He slowly cranked the joystick in front of him and the ship turned so that Saturn's yellowish, overcast moon appeared directly above him out the cockpit window.
Nelson stared at it in awe. No human had ever seen it with the naked eye at this kind of range. He was officially in uncharted territory now.
“Stable orbit achieved, sir. Taking thrusters off-line.”
“All right, Ferd. Tell me everything I need to know about Titan.”
A small flood of infrared images of Titan's terrain, taken by the advance probe several days earlier, appeared on the console's main screen.
“These are images of the northern polar region, sir. It's covered by numerous lakes of liquid methane and ethane. The closer shot shows the area most likely to contain the signal's source. The probe pinpointed it to within four square kilometers near the lake called Punga Mare. When you get through the atmosphere you should be able to hone in on the signal with a greater degree of accuracy.”
“Punga Mare, huh?” Nelson replied. “So are these the ice flats I'm looking at now? Might be a good place to land.” A series of still images of white patches spread across the surface of Titan had appeared on his screen.
“That's correct. The ground will be reliably solid near the ice flats, although we have high confidence that the lander will handle a liquid landing in any event.”
“But the signal is probably coming from solid ground, right? If I were leaving an artifact for someone to find, I'd fix it firmly to a geographic point. The ice flats don't ever melt, do they?”
“Surface temperature on Titan is stable at negative one hundred seventy-eight degrees Celsius.”
Nelson whistled. “Negative one-seventy-eight? So I should keep my suit zipped up for this one.”
“That will be required for survival on Titan, sir.”
“Yeah. So, four square kilometers isn't exactly a small search grid. Even if we reduce that to one kilometer once I get down there, I might be hunting around for a while if the transmitter doesn’t have a giant antenna sticking up. I'm gonna say that our best bet is to land in the middle of the grid and spiral out from there to have the greatest chance of finding the source quickly.”
“That is a reasonable plan, sir, although it doesn't allow for complete coverage at a hundred percent accuracy.”
“Yeah, but it'll get the job done quicker. How long is our window open for Neptune?”
“Ideally, six hours. After that we'll have to dip into reserve fuel to catch up.”
“Right. I want that fuel for later. There's no telling what we'll get into farther out in the solar system. So this time around let's hit it quick and be back up before the window's gone.” Nelson searched through additional screens on the console, putting numbers together and forming a detailed plan in his head. “And if I can land right at the edge of a methane lake, I can save time refueling the lander. Just drop a line into the lake instead of waiting for methane air extraction. Is that feasible, Ferdinand?”
“Yes, as long as impurities remain under six percent in the lake.”
“We won't know that until I'm down there and get a hose into the liquid. But if it works, it could save me an hour while I'm out searching. Definitely worth a shot. How close are we to the Titan entry window?”
“Twelve minutes, sir.”
“Okay. Any change in the signal?”
“Still transmitting at regular intervals.”
Nelson busied himself at the controls, but was interrupted a moment later by a notification on the console.
“Sir, we have a received a video transmission from Mission Control.”
“Play it, Ferdinand.”
Director Becker's face appeared on the monitor. “Congratulations on your safe arrival at Titan, Commander. This is a landmark of human exploration. Of course we're all watching closely and very excited for the landing. Abigail wanted me to convey her congratulations as well.”
Becker went on, talking about the importance of the mission and the scope of media attention they were getting for it. But Nelson's mind lingered on that last line. Where was Abby? She had been playing chess with him earlier, and although they'd only been able to get a few moves in before he had to prep for the landing, she had seemed in good spirits.
He had to put those thoughts aside, however, as the landing procedure began. Several minutes later, the X-57 Lander portion of the Magellan, where his cockpit was located, detached from the body of the interplanetary spacecraft and began to descend toward the moon's surface.
Ferdinand's voice came through even though Nelson was now physically disconnected from the processing stacks that housed the A.I. It was slightly rougher with static around the edges, but still clear enough to hear easily. “Commander, as you may recall from briefings, we anticipate data relay issues during the landing and on the surface. The lander is equipped with its own onboard A.I., named Neil, which will engage while the lander is detached.”
A new voice chimed in, clearer than Ferdinand's. “Hello, Commander Nelson! This is Neil.” It was a spunky girl's voice. Definitely not Abigail's, but Nelson was sure she had chosen the voice. It wasn't something Becker or the lead engineers would ever do.
“Uh, hello, Neil. I wasn't expecting you to sound so... enthusiastic.”
“It's for morale, Commander!”
“Did my wife program you?”
“In part, yes.”
Ferdinand's voice now sounded stodgy in comparison. “Our comms link is degrading. Neil will... things from... on.”
The X-57 began to shake as it entered Titan's atmosphere, and the view out the window was slightly obscured by super-heated air.
“We've lost contact with the Magellan, sir,” Neil chirped. “Entry velocity and atmospheric conditions will continue to make it difficult to establish a connection until we return. But the turbulence we're experiencing is well within acceptable bounds, and all systems are nominal!”
The lander's A.I. sounded like she was having a great ride. Nelson rolled his eyes. “Thanks. Just let me know if anything goes wrong. And please keep a map of the landing zone on my screen.”
The map was updated live as the ship moved toward the surface, and a video of the terrain below was overlaid on top of it, taken from a belly camera that used enhanced imagery manipulation to cut past the blast of fiery atmosphere.
“Give me a visual target just west of Punga Mare, on the shore line.”
A red targeting reticle appeared on the map.
“Okay, time to slow this down, Neil. Engage the landing cycle and prime the VTOL thrusters, please.”
“Roger that, Commander! Priming VTOL's now.” The A.I. made it sound like she'd never had an order she wanted to follow as much as this one, and he knew she'd sound like that every time. It was going to grate on his nerves. He wondered how Abby had convinced the engineers it was a
good idea to make Neil so peppy. Morale, indeed.
“Almost in target range. Firing retro thrusters manually...”
The X-57's thrusters thundered to life, rapidly slowing the ship as it raced toward the shiny lake on the planetoid's yellowish surface. These were powerful rockets, a far cry from the gentle ion thrusters that propelled the larger ship through the vacuum of space.
“Two hundred meters to target, sir,” Neil said. “VTOL engines are primed and ready to go.”
“Engage VTOL's.”
“Copy that! VTOL's engaged!”
A set of Vertical Takeoff and Landing rockets fired just as the lander came within dangerous proximity to the ground for the speed it was falling at, and the g-forces pushed Nelson into his seat hard.
“One hundred meters to target. Slowing... descent rate ten meters per second.”
Nelson edged the joystick forward, sliding the ship closer to the water. He wanted to be able to get the fuel hose into the lake without picking the ship up again. Lifting off from ground took the most fuel, and he didn't want to waste anything.
“Fifty meters... forty meters... thirty meters to target.”
The barren terrain of Saturn's moon grew bigger on the screen in front of him. The lander tilted up slightly to engage its VTOL's as it came in at an angle, leaving only clouds of methane gas visible out the cockpit windows.
“Twenty meters. Slowing descent to three meters per second. Ten meters.”
The X-57 flattened out and gracefully came to a standstill, hovering just off the surface of the shoreline.
“Landing gear is deployed and ready, sir.”
“Okay, let’s set her down, then,” Nelson gasped, surprised at the force of the landing on his body. He should have engaged the retrorockets sooner or let Neil handle the descent, but he wasn't about to cede that much control to the machine.
Nelson could both feel and hear the crunch as the lander settled onto the yellow-tinged ice flat, its broad feet coming to rest on the frozen gravel underneath. In the distance he could see brown, rocky hills breaking up the horizon. Beige clouds swirled around the ship and overhead, obscuring the sky where he knew the Magellan waited in orbit.
“Touchdown. We have touchdown on Titan!” Neil resounded.
“Yes, we do,” Nelson replied with a sigh.
9 – The First Beacon
Suited in full astronaut regalia, Nelson stepped out of the lander craft onto the surface of Titan. His breath collected on the transparent globe in front of his face, obscuring his vision slightly with each exhalation. The suit quickly adjusted to the frigid external temperature and circulated additional air to the helmet so that the moisture disappeared.
The view was incredible. Directly ahead was a vast, perfectly flat lake of liquid methane. The low sunlight glanced off its surface at an angle that made it look like a shimmering field of light. Around its edges, the white ice spread out even flatter, until it rose in uneven jags to the rocky outcroppings that marked the beginning of the hilly terrain. One particularly sizable mountain in the distance held Nelson's attention as he tried to gauge its elevation.
“The signal's source is north-east of your current position, sir.” Neil, ever-present in his head and dying to be helpful, didn't seem happy with the long silence.
“Just taking in the view, Neil. It's the first time man has set foot on such a distant rock, you know. You’ve got a robotic cousin lying around here somewhere, but for us humans, this is a first.” Nelson hefted the bag of tools that hung from his suit, and took a few steps. The gravity was low, but sufficient to hold him down. If he recalled correctly, it was slightly less than Earth's moon, and an image of the Apollo astronauts bunny-hopping in the old moon-landing videos made him smile. He was well aware that his every move was being monitored, however, and every second of the video being recorded through his suit cam would be scrutinized by the entire world the moment it arrived at Earth, some hours hence. So he carefully walked forward to the lake, trying for an efficient grace in his movements. He had an alien artifact to discover.
Holding up a locator device, he passed it back and forth to see where its indicator pointed. It showed north-east, just as Neil had said, but the direction indicator wavered as he moved it. “All right. I'll get the fuel hose in, take a few samples from this location for the scientists, and then head out.”
“Copy that, Commander.”
It was the work of a few minutes to uncoil the fuel hose from the side of the lander and drop it in the liquid. It was made of a composite far more durable than rubber, and jointed so that the lake wouldn't flash-freeze it on contact. Its built-in sensor confirmed that impurities in the lake were at an acceptable level, and Neil initiated the process to recombine the methane into usable fuel that would replace almost everything spent on the landing.
Nelson set off across the ice flat, following the lake's edge. He carried a hard sample case along with his tool bag and locator device. After moving away from the lander a few hundred meters, he stopped and turned around in a circle. “No sign of any giant radio antennae or artificial structures,” he said. “But the locator says I'm getting closer, so I must be headed in the right direction. In fact, the estimate is less than a hundred meters.”
Neil responded, but not with a perky comment on his progress. “Sir, communications with the Magellan were reestablished for a brief period, although they're out again at the moment. But a data packet transmitted from Ferdinand indicates that a sizable storm is approaching our location from the east, with high winds.”
“Okay. How high? Is it gonna knock me over?”
“Unlikely, sir! But the winds will bring rain off the lakes that will limit your visibility and raise the risk of combustion around the X-57 lander. It may impede our takeoff schedule.”
Nelson recalled from briefings that although Titan’s atmosphere lacked the oxygen to make all of its methane catch fire, venting gases from the lander craft could combine with gaseous methane in the area immediately around it and cause a small flash-fire or explosion. Nelson couldn’t risk damage to the exterior of the lander, especially not this early into the mission. But he also didn’t want to be delayed on Titan and miss his window.
“Time of arrival?” he asked.
“Seventeen minutes.”
Nelson kept moving, eyes on the locator device in his gloved hand. “I'm getting close, Neil. Real close.”
He turned to the right, then back to the left, and heard a low beeping tone from the indicator. He looked up, facing directly out into the giant body of liquid methane. To the east, a towering wall of yellow clouds was fast approaching. “Oh, no,” he muttered.
“I didn't copy that, Commander.”
“The signal is coming from the middle of the lake, Neil.”
“That makes sense. Punga Mare takes up about sixty-eight percent of the land area in the target region, and—”
“I wasn't planning on getting wet,” Nelson interrupted. “Any idea how this suit will stand up to submersion in liquid methane?”
“It's designed to withstand the vacuum of space, sir. As long as you don't rupture it on a rock you should be okay. Be advised, though, that you'll sink much more quickly in this lake than you would in water on Earth, and you'll have a harder time swimming. But the good news is that the low gravity should allow you to climb out again easily.”
Nelson considered his options as he gazed at the lake's shining surface. “I don't suppose we have any way to get a look at the topography of the lake's floor? See how deep it gets?”
“No, sir. Not from here. The liquid seems to have blocked our probe's initial survey of the terrain.”
“Okay. Just gotta take the plunge, I guess.”
“Good luck, sir.”
With the disquieting knowledge that if he ran into trouble in the lake, the nearest person that could go in after him was over a billion kilometers away, he took a step into the liquid. It pooled around his boot, but he couldn't feel any sloshing. The thin
liquid seemed to move out of his way as quickly as he pushed his foot forward. Taking a firm hold on his locator device, he started walking slowly and carefully, probing for any sudden drop-offs.
There were none. The lake was only inches deep, and fifty meters out into it there was still no variation in its floor. The locator flashed rapidly at him.
“Neil, the locator says I'm right on top of the signal, but I don't see anything.” Nelson looked all around, wondering what he was missing. It would be awfully embarrassing if he was standing right next to some obvious sign and just hadn't noticed. They would replay that clip for years to come, with generations of schoolkids laughing at him.
He took a few more steps, purposely disturbing the liquid's surface so he could see more easily. The sunlight filtering through the clouds was dimmer than on Earth, but still lit up the lake with a glare that would have pained him if he didn't have his helmet's solar shield in place.
Suddenly, he stopped and reached down into the liquid. There was something just under the surface of the lake, something rounded and out of the ordinary for this flat terrain. His heart beat faster as his gloved fingers closed around it. The exterior of the baseball-sized object was smooth. He tugged and the object came out of the ice crust under the liquid without much resistance. Methane flowed off of it, revealing a simple geodesic sphere made from a rippled material that was slightly iridescent.
“Neil, I think I found it. Yeah, I found it!”
“Fantastic, sir!” Neil responded warmly. This was followed quickly: “The storm is coming in fast, sir. Please return to the lander immediately.”
Giving the sphere one last look, Nelson tucked it into the transport container he had brought, and stooped again to fill a sample vial with liquid from the site. Then he turned and hurried back the way he had come. The clouds moving in from the east were darker than before, and were visibly closer. Judging the speed of the storm against his own speed, Nelson realized he might not make it.