Paul became more fidgety by the minute, checking his watch more frequently as time went by. His behavior was driving Capie crazy.
“Something wrong with your watch,” she finally asked in a sarcastic tone.
Her husband flinched and grimaced, biting his lower lip before answering. “In a few minutes, we’ll be crossing the orbit of Mars. And still no word. I wouldn’t have believed that it would be this hard to find one really large mountain-sized rock on Mars!” Paul sighed and looked at her. “Do you mind if I open a magical viewport and look at the planet? We’re nearly as close as we’re going to get on this course.”
“Sure. I’d like to see it too.”
Snapping his fingers, the standard midair display appeared, this time with the planet Mars in the center of the image. The left side was in total darkness, the right in full daylight, with the eastern edge of the Argyre Planitia emerging from the terminus.
“You should text them again,” Capie urged him.
He nodded, pulling the phone from his pocket. “At this range, the delay is much shorter, only ten seconds there and back but still too long for a conversation.” He held the phone up close again. He was so rattled that he couldn’t think of a single appropriate sci-fi quote to use in the situation. “Daneel, please! How’s it going?” Hitting the send button, he waited for an answer.
It took nearly a minute before the phone chirped, quoting from Deadpool, “‘House blowing up builds character!’”
“What’d he say?” Capie asked as Paul opened the text.
“It’s from Daneel 1. He says ‘No dice at Tharsis or Elysium, Dad. We’re on the northeast rim of Hellas Planitia, checking out the mountains in the region. So far, it’s no go here either but there are more mountains to be checked. Sorry that this is taking so long. We’re aware of the timing. We’re going as fast as we can. I wish there were other options but none I can think of. We can’t even beam you out at the last moment, like Kirk in “The Doomsday Machine.” Sorry, Dad.’”
They were silent for several moments. Finally, Capie stirred, pushing herself through the air over to the kitchen and getting a bottle of water from the fridge.
“What was that part about not beaming you out?” she asked as she worked the twist cap off. With a spell, she kept the water in the bottle until she could properly drink it.
“We can’t portal off the ship,” Paul explained as he lowered his head. “Even just the two of us because we have too much inertia. And then there is the problem of air, or rather the lack thereof. Given a little more time, we might be able to solve that problem. But the difference in momentum, between us and the planet, is almost guaranteed to kill us, if we tried to portal down to Mars. Scotties can do it. But not us fragile humans.”
“Oh. I see. So we just wait?”
Paul nodded slowly. “No other choice that I can see, no.”
Ω
Daneel 2 was in a total quandary. For the life of him, he could not choose what to do next!
And there was so little freaking time left! By his calcs, the Sirius Effort was past Mars now, heading for the asteroid belt and the outer planets. At the moment, it was still in range and could be stopped, if he or Daneel 1 could just find the right rock!
And that was the rub. He had checked the two largest mountains in the northeast corner of Hellas Planitia, both of which had been supreme disappointments. And Daneel 1 had called to report the lack of success of two more candidates that he had been investigating.
That left two large mountains in the region yet to be checked: Tyrrhena Mons to the far north on his radar plot and the unknown mystery mountain not in his database. According to his best guess, the anonymous mountain was at the southern end of the Trinacria Region, at 27°S, 93°26’E. And it was far larger than some of the other mountains he had visited. Why it wasn’t in his database was a mystery. Go figure!
Time. As in not enough of it. He could check Tyrrhena or ‘John Doe’ Mons but not both. And Daneel 1 was on his way to check out another possibility, a small mountain—really more of a hill—not far from Anseris Mons.
It was up to him. Mom and Dad’s lives were on the line here and it was all up to him.
Of course, it might all be academic. It was possible, perhaps even probable, that both Tyrrhena and John Doe were a bust too. In that case, there truly was no hope here.
In total desperation, he created two small portals, the other ends of which were within a foot of the summits of each of the two mountains. Then he created two magical arms and hands. Reaching through, he sort of achieved a quasi-physical contact with both mountains. Close enough for government work, that is.
Of course, he understood that this was not a suitable method to vet the mountains in question. It was altogether possible that the end points of his portal were adjacent to minor rocks, one or both of which were perched on top of a monolithic mountain.
No doubt about it, quick and dirty it was. And given how poorly the day had gone and how much jeopardy his parents were in, Daneel 2 was expecting little to come of his experiment.
So when he touched the two mountains, the unexpected shock quite literally knocked him out of the air, collapsing all of his magical spells. The impact with the Martian soil jarred his circuit boards and he rolled down a slope into a boulder.
“Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “That actually hurt! So that’s what pain feels like! The Normals can keep it!”
Ω
It didn’t take long for Daneel 1 to figure out that the small mountain was not what he was looking for. A deep scan of the bedrock was not required. One quick look on his part was all that was needed.
They were almost out of time! Daneel 2 had mentioned two large mountains to the east of Daneel 1’s location. Likely he would need help checking them.
“Daneel 2? I’m on my way to help out,” he said over the wireless link.
Oh-oh. The wireless link was down! No signal at all!
“Daneel?!” he screamed but he knew it was pointless, without a link.
He opened a portal to the northeast, 250 miles away. And charged through it.
Ω
“Daneel! Oh, fret, the wireless link is down!” screamed Daneel 2 as he floated back into the air, restoring the anti-dust bubble around him. “No time for troubleshooting right now!” And he opened a portal, storming through even before it was fully stabilized.
Ω
Daneel 1 was absolutely frantic as he raced through the air.
Daneel 2 was not responding to his calls. It seemed unlikely that anything could have happened to him. After all, he had the chutzpah!
A glance at the time told him that there was only ten minutes left until the Sirius Effort was out of theoretical range. Ten minutes!
His duty was clear. Mom and Dad came first. Assuming that he could do anything about it in the time available. Afterward he would look for Daneel 2.
A quick spell for a radar display. There, a large mountain off to his left. Gee, the thing was humongous! Over a hundred miles wide with a plateau on the summit that was nearly 20,000 feet above the terrain!
There wasn’t time to check the database for a name. He opened a portal and shot through it.
“Wow, what a mountain!” he exclaimed, as he emerged from the other end, roughly a hundred feet above the summit.
And then, a flicker of motion drew his immediate attention.
It was Daneel 2, cresting the summit at the southeastern edge, slowly coming to a landing a hundred or so yards from the edge.
“Daneel!” Daneel 1 shouted, as he dove in that direction.
But Daneel 2 did not respond. At least not until Daneel 1 came within visual range of his webcam. Then he blinked in shock, waving back at his brother.
“What’s wrong with your wireless?” Daneel 1 asked, feeling highly relieved that the other Scottie was still alive.
Daneel 2 pointed to his ears and then shook his head. Instead, a news ticker began scrolling across the bottom of his display.
/> “Took a fall. Wireless damaged. Touch John Doe Mons here. Go ahead.”
Looking perplexed, Daneel 1 extended a magical hand and made contact.
The results absolutely stunned him speechless.
“Oh, my…wow!” he muttered.
The news ticker started up again with a new message. “Microportal Dad. Tell him. Warn him. Then do it!”
Daneel 1 nodded, still stunned. The mountain below him was one solid rock extending well down into the crust. The power available was—well more than they needed! In fact, it gave him an idea.
Using the mountain to draw on the power of Mars, he reached out into space, easily finding the Sirius Effort, already more than a million miles past Mars. Zooming in, he opened a microportal into the cabin space on Deck 3, forming a holographic image there.
“Dad! Mom! We found one!” he announced with a huge smile on his face. “Get yourselves strapped in, fast! Standby!”
“Daneel!” shouted Paul with great relief in his voice. “Wonderful news! We strapping in now! Ready for deceleration!”
“Right, Dad! But I’m changing the plan a little. You’ll see in a second. Standby! And…Now!”
A mere thousand miles ahead of the Sirius Effort, a large portal opened up, more than 300 feet in diameter. Less than two seconds later, the ship raced through it, dead center…
And then emerging from the other end, two million miles closer to the sun but still heading outward at the same speed.
Paul studied the display, perplexed, his mouth slowly falling open in shock. Which gradually faded as he realized why Daneel 1 had used a portal.
“Oh, I see,” he muttered, with a smile. “You’ve moved us back along our track. Now you have time to decelerate us at your leisure.”
“Yes. Daneel 2 and I discovered that sudden changes in momentum can have some serious side-effects. I’ll tell you about that later! Get set, I’m going to slow the ship down and put it into standard orbit. Oh, and get out your DVM and o’scope, Dad. Daneel 2 is in need of some repairs. Nothing serious, so don’t worry. He’s just lost his wireless card.” Daneel 1 grinned even more widely. “Frankly, I’m not sure I don’t prefer him this way.”
“Oh, thank God!” breathed Capie in relief. “We made it after all!” Then she gave Paul an inquisitive eye. “You can fix Daneel 2’s wireless problem, right?”
“‘Easy as cake, dear,’” he managed to say with a straight face, quoting Maxim from 2010: The Year We Make Contact.
“So many men, so little aspirin!” Capie muttered under her breath with a scowl.
“Did you say something, dear?” Paul asked, tilting his head to one side.
“You need to stay strapped in, dear,” she said, smiling sweetly and pointing at the couch.
FOUR
Spacecraft Sirius Effort
“Standard orbit” around Mars
Saturday 5:24 a.m. EST
November
The previous evening, the two Daneels—using John Doe Mons as a very powerful amulet—successful bled off the kinetic energy of the Sirius Effort, transferring it to the planet Mars and then, with the use of portals, placed the ship in a fairly high and stable orbit.
After the ‘fun-filled’ activities of the day, Paul had declared a rest break, allowing several hours to recover from the stress of the emergency.
The next morning, after a simple breakfast, Paul convened a meeting with everyone present, including the mirror woman too.
“Are we landing today, Cradle Robber?” Capie asked, holding one of the wall-mounted straps. “I’m ready for some gravity again, even if it is only one-third of Earth’s.”
“Not quite yet, Child Bride,” Paul confessed, shaking his head. “There is the little matter of the landing struts. They hold the ship upright when we land. At least, they would, if we had them.”
“Oh! I take it the explosion damaged them,” she guessed.
“One of them is in fair shape. The second one is pretty badly mangled. And the third one is in small pieces halfway to the asteroid belt by now.” He sighed. “Fortunately, we have spare titanium stock in storage. With the Daneels available to do EVA, we will work on that today and get them repaired.”
“What do we do once we land, Dad?” Daneel 2 asked.
“Mom and I need spacesuits,” Paul answered, pursing his lips. “We have some of the materials that are needed but not all. We’ll need carbon, quite a bit of it—say a ton or more. Most likely you will find that as amorphous graphite, sometimes associated with mica or quartz. We will also need tungsten or better yet, palladium. And sulfur or preferably selenium.”
“Wowee, Dad,” whistled Daneel 2. “All that for spacesuits?”
“These won’t be the typical spacesuits. Nothing like what the astronauts wear.”
On his LCD screen, Daneel 1 smiled and shook his head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“There’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you, CR,” Capie asked with eyebrows raised and her head tilted to one side. “Just where do you plan to stay while we are on Mars? You’re not thinking about John Doe Mons, are you? Not with all of those dust storms there, right?”
“Dust storms?!” said Ariel-Leira. “Ugh! About dust storms to me nobody anything said!”
Paul chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t worry, Ariel. We aren’t landing at John Doe Mons. Oh, sure, it would be really convenient to have that mountain as a neighbor. But with Hellas Planitia right next door too? No thanks. No, there are lots better places to go. And we don’t have to live next to a monolith. A portal gives us access from anywhere on the planet. So, in theory, we can stay anywhere on Mars.”
“Approve I,” the mirror woman said with a huff.
“Good, that was what I was hoping you would say,” Capie commented. “Yes, and I’ve thought about this, quite a bit,” she said, with a faint smile. “I want a home above ground, one with a nice view too. And I know just where I want it to be.”
“You do?” Paul asked, raising one eyebrow in surprise. He hadn’t realized that she was planning that far ahead.
“The best view on Mars is of the Valles Marineris.”
“Of course,” he concurred, briefly nodding. “Perfect! The Grand Canyon of all Grand Canyons in the entire solar system. One of the chasmas?”
“Yes, the Coprates Chasma, I think. Along the north wall, on the edge of the Ophir Planum.”
He nodded. “From there we would have an excellent view of the chasma, all the way to the floor and all the way to the far southern wall. How big is it?”
“40 miles wide and 6 miles deep.”
“Wow!” said Ariel-Leira with a wicked grin. “Please, prime window spot I want!”
Paul smiled. “I think that can be arranged.” Then he turned back to his wife. “You know the stats better than I do, oh daughter of an astronomer!”
Capie hugged him. “You know what they say about a house. The three most important considerations are location, location, and location. It will be a great location for our home, Gathol.”
“Gathol? Oh, yes, of course. Edgar Rice Burroughs. I forget which book. But Gathol was a city set on a high mountain. Seems appropriate. Then so be it,” Paul responded appreciatively. “I suggest that we get ready after lunch to take us down on a reentry glide path. I’ll get Daneel 1 to plot it for us.
Ω
“Coming up on deorbit burn in three minutes,” Daneel 1 said from the cockpit. “Standby for RCS burn to flip the ship in thirty seconds.”
“RCS?” Capie turned her head to ask Paul, with a puzzled look on her face.
Capie and Paul were strapped into their seats on Deck 3 watching a midair display in front of them. On the screen was an over the shoulder shot of Daneel 1 in the cockpit, where another midair display in front of the Scottie showed the curvature of the Martian surface.
Paul grinned sheepishly. “I told him that he could use a Space Shuttle re-entry timeline. The, uh, RCS was the Reaction Control System. They were small rocket m
otors used to turn or flip the shuttle when it was in space.”
Capie snorted. “You’re such a nerd! And a bad influence on the boys!”
“Tell him you,” Ariel-Leira said, giving her full endorsement.
“Well, that’s going a bit far, don’t you think?” protested Paul.
From the cockpit, Daneel 1 could be heard muttering to himself, as he studied a holographic control panel in front of him.
“‘Now, landing thrusters…landing thrusters, hmm. Now if I were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?’” he chanted, quoting Londo Mollari from a Babylon 5 episode.
Capie gave Paul an accusing stare. “You were saying?”
“I, uh…”
“Five…four…three…two…one…firing!”
The cockpit display changed, the surface of Mars falling away as the ship began to flip over. After nearly another thirty seconds, the surface of Mars reappeared, only now it was at the top of the display.
“Maneuver complete. Standby for deorbit burn in two minutes.”
“No thrusters. No engines either,” Capie grumbled. “Why did we flip over? What was the point?”
“Well, hey, it’s the first manned landing on another planet, not counting the Moon,” Paul protested. “They’ve earned the right to play a little.”
Capie’s eyes rolled heavenward. “I shudder to think then, what Daneel 2 is doing down at John Doe Mons. He’s supposed to be our backup.”
“I have a hunch he’s playing the part of Houston Control,” Paul guessed with a wry smile.
“Figures!”
Daneel 2 chose that moment to appear on the cockpit display. “Stand-by for energy transference to John Doe Mons. Mom, don’t worry. This will be a controlled re-entry all the way down. No aero-braking, no aerodynamic heating, no shock waves, and no high-gee loads. Daneel 1 and I will simply decelerate the ship linearly until it descends to the surface.”
The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War Page 4