More Tales of Pirx the Pilot

by Stanisław Lem

  “By double zero, you mean a velocity of fifty-two kilometers per second?”

  “Correct, Your Honor. At 1100 hours I went off duty, but since the perturbations required constant course corrections, I simply traded places with the chief pilot; from then on, he piloted and I navigated.”

  “Who told you to switch?”

  “The CO, Your Honor; it was standard procedure. Our mission was to get within safe distance of the Roche limit on the rings’ plane, and from there, practically orbital, to fire a series of three automatic probes, to be guided by remote control inside the Roche. One probe was to be injected into the Cassini Division, the other two were for tracking the first. Shall I elaborate?”

  “Please do.”

  “Very well. Each of Saturn’s rings is composed of small meteorlike bodies, the ring widths reaching thousands of kilometers. The satellite, once placed in orbit inside the Cassini Division, was to monitor the perturbations in its gravitational field and the interaction of the ring particles. To stop the satellite from being thrown by the perturbations onto the outer or inner rings, we had to use satellites powered by low-thrust ionic engines in the .20-.25-ton range. The two radar-equipped ‘guardians’ were to keep the third satellite, orbiting inside the Division, on course. The satellites were equipped with on-board computers for course corrections and rocket control, with enough thrust to keep them orbital for a couple of months.”

  “Why two monitors? Wouldn’t one have been enough?”

  “Definitely. The second ‘guardian’ was to serve as back-up, in case of a malfunction or a meteorite collision. Circum-Saturnian space—rings and moons aside—looks empty from Earth, but in fact it’s a junkyard. That’s why our mission was to maintain orbital velocity—nearly all of Saturn’s particles revolve on its equatorial plane at primary cosmic velocity. This reduced the chances of collision to a minimum. We were also equipped with meteorite deflectors, which could be deployed manually or by a servo-mechanism hooked up to the ship’s radar.”

  “Did you personally consider such a mission difficult or dangerous?”

  “Neither, sir, provided we kept to our trajectory. Circum-Saturnian space has a bad name in our trade, worse than Jupiter’s, though it sure beats Jupiter for accelerating.”

  “What do you mean by ‘in our trade’?”

  “Among pilots and navigators, sir.”

  “Astronauts, in other words?”

  “Affirmative. Well, a little before 1200 hours, we’d almost reached the outermost ring—”

  “On its plane?”

  “Yes. The densimeters were showing high particle density, about four hundred microcollisions per minute. We entered the Roche zone above the rings, as programmed, and prepared to launch the probes from our orbit, now almost parallel to the Cassini Division. We fired the first at 1500 hours and jockeyed it into the gap, I was in charge of guidance. The pilot helped by maintaining minimal thrust, locking us into almost the same orbital velocity as the rings. Calder was doing a great job, giving just enough thrust to keep the ship properly trimmed, to keep her from cartwheeling.”

  “Besides yourself and the chief pilot, who else was in the control room?”

  “The whole crew, sir. The CO sat between Calder and myself, his chair positioned so he could be closer to the pilot. Seated behind me were the two engineers. Dr. Burns, as I recall, sat behind the CO.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention; I was too busy. Besides, it’s hard to see over a pilot’s high-backed couch.

  “Was the probe visually inserted?”

  “Not only that, sir. I was tracking it on video and with the radar altimeter. After checking its coordinates, I decided it was situated well enough, more or less in the center of the gap, and told Calder I was ready.”

  “Ready?”

  “For the next probe launch. Calder fired the sledge, the hatch opened, but the probe wouldn’t eject.”

  “The ‘sledge’?”

  “The hydraulically driven piston that ejected the probe from the launch bay once the hatch was opened. There were three, all mounted aft, to be fired in rapid succession.”

  “So the second satellite never left the ship?”

  “No, it got jammed in the launcher.”

  “Please tell us exactly how it happened,”

  “The sequence works as follows. The outer hatch is opened, the hydraulics are activated, and as soon as the clearance signal comes on, the servo-starter is fired. The starter self-ignites after a hundred-second delay, so there is always time to abort in case of a failure. Once the small solid-fuel booster is fired, the satellite takes off on its own fifteen-tons-per-second thrust. The object is to clear it from the mother ship as fast as possible. When the booster burns out, an ionic engine, remote-controlled by the navigator, fires automatically. In our case, Calder had switched on the servo-starter as soon as the satellite started to clear—and when it suddenly stalled, he tried to shut down booster ignition, but couldn’t.”

  “You’re positive the chief pilot tried to switch off the probe’s servo-starter?”

  “Yes. He was yanking on the abort switch, but it kept flipping back. I don’t know why the starter ignited. But I heard him yell: ‘Jammed!’”

  “Jammed?”

  “Something jammed back there. With half a minute to go before booster ignition, he tried a second time, raising the pressure; the manometers were on maximum, but the probe wouldn’t come unjammed. He fired the piston again and we felt it hit like a hammer.”

  “Was he trying to blast it out?”

  “Yes, sir. It was bound to destruct anyway, due to the sudden build-up of pressure. By the way, that showed a lot of savvy—we might have had a spare probe, but not a spare ship.”

  “The witness will refrain from embellishing his testimony with such flourishes.”

  “Well, anyway, the piston didn’t free it. Time was running out, so I yelled, ‘Buckle up, everyone!’ and fastened my seatbelt as tight as it would go. A couple of others yelled the same. One of them was the CO; I recognized his voice.”

  “Will the witness kindly explain his actions?”

  “We were orbiting above a ring—at almost zero thrust, in other words. I knew that once the booster fired—and it had to, since the starter was on—we’d get a side reaction and start tumbling. The jammed probe was starboard, facing Saturn, which meant it had to act as a side deflector. I was all set for some somersaults and centrifugal force, and knew the pilot would have to compensate. There was no telling what might develop, so I decided it was better to play it safe and buckle up.”

  “Are we to understand that as the copilot and navigator on duty, you had your seatbelt undone?”

  “Not undone, sir, just loosened. They’re adjustable. When a pilot has his seatbelt buckled all the way—or, as we say, ‘to the hilt’—he has little freedom of movement.”

  “The witness is aware that a slackened or otherwise improperly fastened seatbelt is against regulations?”

  “Yes, Your Honor, I knew it was against regs, but it was common practice.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s been allowed on every ship I’ve ever flown.”

  “The commonness of the infraction doesn’t make it less wrong. Please continue.”

  “As expected, the satellite’s booster fired. The ship began to rotate on its transverse axis, and we were simultaneously, but gradually, deflected from our orbital path. The pilot compensated with side thrust, but it didn’t work.”

  “And why not?”

  “I wasn’t at the controls, but my guess is that it couldn’t be done. The probe was wedged in the open launch bay, leaking fumes, and the backwash made for an unstable emission. Because of the fluctuating impulses, any correction through compensatory thrust resulted in a lateral swing, and when the booster burned out, we went into an inverse spin. It took the pilot a while to regain control, once he realized the booster had cut out but that the ionic engine was still r
unning.”

  “‘Cut out’?”

  “The pilot couldn’t be sure of engine ignition, not after trying to force-eject the probe. Maybe he meant to disable it; in his place, I’d have done the same. As it turned out, after the booster died the ionic kept functioning, and again we had a side deflection, of about a quarter ton. It wasn’t much, but enough to make us tumble. At orbital velocity, the slightest variability in acceleration can upset your trajectory and stability.”

  “How did the crew react?”

  “Quite calmly, sir. Everyone was aware of the risk: an ignited booster inside that jammed launch bay was like a hundred-kilo bomb. If it had exploded, it would have ripped our starboard side wide open like a tin can. Luckily for us it didn’t, and the ionic engine, minus the booster, was rendered harmless. Oh, yes, there was one complication: the automatic fire extinguisher started dousing number-two launcher. Our luck, too, because the foam—foam is useless against ionic—started spuming from the open hatch. Some of it was sucked up into the probe’s exhaust, causing the thrust to choke. The pilot finally managed to shut down the fire-alarm system, but for a few minutes there, we were buffeted around, not too bad, but enough to destabilize us.”

  “Who tripped the alarm system?”

  “The thermocouple, sir, when the temperature jumped more than seven hundred degrees in the starboard hull. It was the heat from the booster.”

  “Were any commands or instructions given by the commander?”

  “Not a one, like he was sitting tight, waiting to see how the pilot would handle it. Basically, there were two options: either to break away and fly back up to the ecliptic—to give up, in other words—or to try to launch the third satellite. To quit meant to abort the program. Caught in the drift, without a ‘guardian’ to correct its course, the probe already in the Division would be pulverized in a matter of hours.”

  “Wasn’t that a decision for the ship’s commanding officer to make?”

  “Should I answer that, Your Honor?”

  “The witness will respond to the prosecutor’s question.” “The CO could, have ordered the maneuver, but he didn’t have to. Article 16 of the Deck Operations Code gives the pilot the right, in certain situations, to assume the duties of the ship’s CO. Situations demanding split-second decisions, for example.”

  “But in this particular instance, the commander was able to give orders, since the ship was neither accelerating, in which case the g-force would have precluded giving any oral commands, nor in any imminent danger of break-up.”

  “Shortly after 1500 hours, the pilot applied compensatory thrust—”

  “The witness is being evasive. Will the Tribunal admonish the witness and bid him answer my question?”

  “Gentlemen, I’m supposed to answer questions, but the prosecutor didn’t ask a question. He was offering his own personal commentary on the situation aboard ship. Am I, then, to comment on his commentary?”

  “The prosecutor will kindly address the witness with a question, and the witness will oblige by cooperating to the fullest.”

  “In view of the circumstances, ought not the commander to have made a definite decision and relayed it to the pilot in the form of a command?”

  “The Code doesn’t specify—”

  “The witness will address the Tribunal.”

  “Yes, sir. The Code can’t possibly project every on-board situation. Impossible. If it could, the crew would have only to memorize it and there’d be no need for a commander.”

  “Your Honor, the prosecution objects to such facetious remarks!”

  “The witness will provide an answer to the prosecutor’s question, brief and to the point.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. In my judgment, no, the CO could have waived such a decision. He was there, he sized up the situation; if he kept quiet, it meant he was abiding by Article 22 of Deck Operations, relying on his pilot’s discretion.”

  “Your Honors, not Article 22, but Article 26, which deals with the waiving of command in dangerous situations, is relevant here.”

  “Your Honors, the situation aboard the Goliath endangered neither the ship nor the crew’s safety.”

  “The witness, Your Honors, is being deliberately uncooperative; instead of helping to ascertain the truth, he is trying, per fas et nefas, to exonerate the accused, Commander Pirx. The situation on board the Goliath definitely falls within the purview of Article 26!”

  “Your Honors, surely the prosecutor can’t double as an expert witness.”

  “The witness is out of order. The relevance of Article 22 versus Article 26 will await a separate ruling. The witness will describe the next sequence of events.”

  “Calder never said a word to the CO, but I saw him look his way several times. Meanwhile, the probe’s thrust stabilized, making it easier to control the ship. Calder now decided to move away from the ring, but when he didn’t ask me to plot our return flight, I figured he meant to complete the mission. But as soon as we crossed the Roche limit, at approximately 1600 hours, he signaled maximum g-load and tried to jettison.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning he shifted to maximum thrust, then blasted full power astern, then full ahead. A three-ton probe at full acceleration weighs about twenty times that. It should have popped out of that bay like a pea from a pod. With a leeway of sixteen thousand kilometers, Calder repeated the maneuver, twice, but with the same results. The bursts only increased the angle of deflection. Probably due to the sudden boost in acceleration, the satellite, now more jammed than ever, changed position, so that its exhaust fumes were deflected against the partially open hatch and escaped into space. The blasts were as wicked as they were risky: it was now a safe bet that if the probe ever jettisoned, it would take a fair amount of the hull along with it. So it looked like either a repair job out on the hull, or a tow back to Base.”

  “Didn’t Calder try to shut off the probe’s engine?”

  “Couldn’t, sir—the steering cable was disconnected. There was still radio control, but the probe sat in the very mouth of the launcher, screened by the bay’s metal housing. We’d been on the outbound leg for roughly a minute, and I thought: He’s decided to abort after all. He maneuvered around for a ‘star fix’—you know, aiming the ship’s nose at a star and then alternating thrust to see if the star remains fixed on the screen. It didn’t check out, naturally; our flight characteristics had changed, and Calder tried to juggle the numerical values. By trial and error, he found the right thrust level, which straightened the deflection; then he reversed course.”

  “Was the witness aware at that time of Calder’s real intent?”

  “Yes—I mean, I had a hunch he was still planning to launch the third probe. We went back down the ecliptic, away from the sun. Calder’s stick work was flawless. You’d have never guessed he was piloting a ship with a sort of extra, built-in, side engine. When he asked me to compute the course corrections, flight trajectory, and steering impulses for a third launch, that cinched it.”

  “Did the witness comply?”

  “No, sir. I told him I couldn’t, not before reprogramming. I requested more flight data—I didn’t know from what altitude he wanted to inject the last satellite—but he didn’t answer. Maybe his request was his way of telling the commander what he was up to.”

  “He could have told the commander outright.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to think he was stuck and needed help. Or he just wanted to prove himself by showing up his navigator—meaning me. But the CO didn’t bat an eye, and Calder kept right on course. That’s when it started to look hairy.”

  “Will the witness be more precise?”

  “Touch and go, sir.”

  “Your Honors will note that the witness has just confirmed what he was reluctant to admit earlier—namely, that the commander, consciously, with premeditation, decided not to intervene, as it was his duty to do, thereby exposing the ship and its crew to inordinate risks.”

&
nbsp; “Not so, Your Honors!”

  “Kindly refrain from arguing with the prosecution, and confine your testimony to the actual chain of events. Why did you deem it a risky operation only after Calder had reversed course?”

  “Maybe I expressed myself badly. It’s like this: in such circumstances, the pilot should have consulted with his commander. I certainly would have, especially since the original program was no longer operant. I thought that Calder, seeing as the CO was giving him a free hand, would chance an insertion, keeping a safe distance from the ring. The distance made a successful launch iffy, but it was still possible—and safe. At low velocity, he did in fact request a course projection for the satellite, allowing for a lead of one to two thousand kilometers. I wanted to help him, so I started plotting; it turned out that the tolerance was more or less equal to the width of the Cassini Division. This meant there was a fifty-fifty chance that the probe, instead of being injected into the proper orbit, would be pulled inside, toward the planet, or outside, smack up against the ring. I worked out the results for him—for lack of anything better to do.”

  “Did your commander read the data?”

  “He must have; the display was centrally located, right above our consoles. We were cruising at low thrust, and I had the feeling Calder was in trouble. If he backed out now, it would mean he had miscalculated, that his intuition had failed him. Up until he reversed course, he could have argued it wasn’t worth the risk. But, then, he’d already shown he could control the ship, despite the changed flight characteristics, and his subsequent moves made it clear he was going ahead with the maneuver. We were gaining on the ring—to give us a better shot at it, I thought at the time, in which case he should have already been braking, not boosting the thrust. Only then did it dawn on me that he might be up to something else. In a flash, everyone was clued in.”

  “You mean the crew realized the gravity of the situation?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Someone behind me, sitting astern, said, ‘It’s been sweet.’”