by Scott Mackay
“I’m communicating on a private link,” she said.
“Acknowledged,” he said, initiating his own reciprocal private link. “How’s the air?”
“We’ve got thirty minutes before we move into the pod.” she said. “I’ve been looking at the data from site 19. The gravitational device?”
“Yes?”
“Kevin still has me hooked up to all the deep-space observatories,” said Claire. “Remember how I told you the artificial gravitational field produced at site 19 extended a full AU, 93 million miles?”
“Yes?”
“It actually goes much further than that. From that point, it arches. The sun’s trying to pull the gravitational field into an orbit, and that’s why I missed this. But I’ve tracked it out a lot further now.”
“Why would the field arch?”
“Because it has a gravitational center just like a planet, and other gravitational forces act against it. That means the sun is trying to pull it into an orbit, just like it would a planet. The field extends all the way to Highfield-Little.” She paused, waiting for him to acknowledge Highfield-Little, but the name, though familiar, at first drew a blank from Cody. “Highfield-Little,” she repeated. “The rogue planet entering our solar system.”
Cody searched his memory, and slowly, bits and pieces fell into place. He remembered news of Highfield-Little three or four years ago but nothing much since that time, just occasional updates from various news providers about its progress; how, like an overgrown comet, it was going to drift through the solar system, missing all the planets, and finally tumble into the sun, nothing more than a spectacular light show for amateur astronomers who had the proper sun filters for their telescopes.
“I’ve heard of it,” he said.
“I’ve done some digging,” said Claire. “Into old news articles. They have a great news file up on the Conrad Wilson. You want to hear a little about it?”
“Sure.”
“Just let me get it up on the screen here … yes … here it is.” He heard Claire take a deep breath. “It says here it was first spotted six years ago by a couple of amateur astronomers on Mars, comet-hunters Charles Highfield and Rebecca Little. They thought it was a comet at first because it exhibited all the signs and eccentricities of a cometlike orbit. But as they continued to observe, they realized it a had a mass thousands of times greater than an average comet. Other astronomers quickly confirmed their findings. They went on to discover spectrographic readings suggestive of a full-fledged atmosphere composed mainly of nitrogen and oxygen. Rogues are rare. There’ve been only sixteen recorded cases so far and they’re all light-years away from Earth. This is the first one in recorded history that’s ever been trapped by our sun’s gravitational well.”
“So why are the Meek aiming their device at it?” asked Cody.
“I’m not sure,” said Claire. “Right now the rogue’s coming down at an angle toward the orbital plane of Saturn. The gravitational field projector hits it dead-on. The farther the gravitational field travels the stronger it gets. I’ve checked all the orbital trajectories, and guess what? If Highfield-Little maintains its current trajectory, it’s not going to fall into the sun after all. The Meek are maneuvering Highfield-Little with the projector at site 19. They’ve somehow harnessed the grav-core, hooked it up to the apparatus at site 19, and are using it to alter Highfield-Little’s orbital path. Current calculations have it dipping below the sun’s south pole, swinging up and around the sun’s equator, then its north pole, then heading back out into space at a greatly increased speed. Its mass and trajectory suggest it will never return to the solar system, that it will keep going until it gets attracted by another star’s gravitational well.”
Cody began sweeping again, thinking this over. “Why are they trying to maneuver this thing if they’re just going to toss it out of the solar system? And what exactly is it? I’m not sure I know what you mean by rogue planet.”
“It’s a planet that wanders through the galaxy free from the gravitational pull of any star. I’ve accessed some interesting articles on the CW’s more scientific downloads. In the case of Highfield-Little, what we have is an Earth-sized planet ejected, by some force, gravitational or otherwise, from an embryonic solar solar system maybe two billion years ago, before its star’s increasing heat had a chance to blow off the rogue’s atmosphere. As it began its travels through the galaxy, with no sun to hold it in an orbit, it cooled, and its atmosphere condensed to such an extent that it formed a greenhouse effect strong enough to trap the heat produced by the radioactive decay in the planet’s interior. Highfield-Little’s warm. It has its own furnace. It might be dark because it has no sun, but it can support life, and in fact, it has life, according to the latest data, the kind of life that doesn’t need light, what you find around volcanic vents at the bottom of the sea, or under Europa’s ice pack.”
“So why are the Meek towing it with their gravitational field device?”
“Because I think the Meek want to move there.” Cody stopped sweeping, caught off guard by the idea. Claire continued. “They could conceivably live there. Especially because they seem to subsist on marrow, which grows without light and in even the harshest conditions. They don’t like the light. They could subsist there at first, but then diversify their diet through the use of an ever-expanding infrastructure of agricultural lighting. Like they’ve done in the Forest of Peace and Understanding. Highfield-Little has lots of internal energy. It wouldn’t take much to turn that energy into light, and to power whatever other apparatus they might need for agriculture.”
Cody paused. The idea was startling, daring, and he could now see what Buster meant when he said that Ceres was a means to an end. Highfield-Little was real estate for the taking, and Buster was using Ceres as a down payment.
“So Buster’s really going to make a try for it?” he finally said.
“It certainly looks that way,” said Claire. “But he’s taking a risk.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve been looking at the data,” said Claire. “Especially the temperature counts as Highfield-Little draws closer to the sun.”
“Where were the first temperatures recorded?”
“Out beyond Neptune,” said Claire.
“And what were they there?”
“They varied. That’s because the planet’s orbit runs on a perpendicular plane, is going to follow the sun’s meridian as it approaches perihelion, not its equator, and is tilted on its axis at 33 degrees. Accordingly temperatures in the southern hemisphere ran around 17 degrees Celsius, while in the northern hemisphere they sank to just below the freezing point. You have that atmosphere keeping the heat in.”
“An oxygen atmosphere?”
“An oxygen atmosphere.”
“And 17 degrees even out beyond Neptune?”
“But getting warmer. Here’s where the risk comes in. The rogue’s going to get hotter as it transits the sun. Maybe too hot for human survival. The heat will drastically affect Highfield-Little’s weather, particularly because it has such a big ocean.”
“It has an ocean?”
“One continent, one ocean, and one inland sea.”
“And signs of life,” said Cody, wanting to make sure he had heard her right.
“Signs of life,” she said. “Flora. Molds and fungi, stuff that can grow in the dark. At least that’s what certain trace gas readings indicate. The jury is still out on fauna.”
“So what do you think Buster’s going to do?” asked Cody. He checked his oxygen readout: 4 hours, 45 minutes left. “Land on the planet as it leaves the solar system?”
“No,” said Claire. “As it transits the sun.”
“When it’s close to the sun?”
“Yes.”
“He can’t be serious,” said Cody.
“I’ve run some computer models on it. It looks like they’re maneuvering the orbits of Ceres and Highfìeld-Little for the express purpose of effecting a rendezvous. Here on Cer
es, they have fourteen of their eighteen nuclear thrusters left. I’ve entered the locations of all thrusters on a computer, their relative output, asked the GK as well as the CW to come up with a firing sequence, given the known orbital trajectories of each body. Guess what? In order for Ceres to achieve rendezvous with Highfield-Little, she needs a total of eighteen thrusters, four of which have already been fired. My computer model indicates step one in the sequence is the simultaneous firing of thrusters 2, 7, 9, and 13, which they just did. Four thrusters altogether. They’re not headed to Earth, Cody. They’re going to rendezvous with the rogue.”
When Cody tried to raise Axworthy, Azim told him the commander was currently in communication with the Engineering Section, that the Engineering Section had run into a snag repairing the landing carriage of the unmanned explorer. Cody swept quickly while he waited. But the harder he swept the more oxygen he used, and by the time the holo-image of Axworthy appeared in the upper right corner of his visor his current-rate-use indicator showed less than two and a half hours of oxygen left.
“What’s going on with the unmanned explorer’s landing gear?” he asked Axworthy.
“Three of the load-bearing mechanisms are locked, frozen into place. Engineering Section’s working on replacements but it’s going to put them behind.”
“A lot?”
“They don’t know.”
The two men fell silent. Axworthy floated before him, transparent, in unreal electronic hues.
“Any word from Vesta City?” asked Cody.
“No.”
“Did Claire show you her data?”
The holo-image of Axworthy frowned. “She did,” he said. “I’m thinking it over.”
“You haven’t told Vesta City yet?”
Axworthy’s frown deepened. “As much as I trust the actual observations she’s made, I’m not sure I completely agree with her interpretation. I don’t see how Buster can mount a full-scale exodus to the rogue. We’ve scanned Ceres dozens of times. For a full-scale exodus he’d need thousands of landers. Big ones. We’ve detected no evidence of any landers anywhere. We’ve done a complete computerized axial tomographic inspection of Ceres, we’ve analyzed it layer by layer, and while at first some of the data was misleading, shrouded in their so-called technology of invisibility, our technicians have been able to break through all that, and they haven’t found any landers. So I don’t think they’re going to land. Especially if the rogue’s going to heat up like a barbecue coal as it passes the sun.”
“I think you should tell Vesta City that under the circumstances a strategic strike doesn’t make sense. I firmly believe the Meek don’t have designs on Earth.”
“That might be so,” said Axworthy, “but it doesn’t change the basic equation. They’re running off with our asteroid. True to type, I’m afraid. Vesta City’s not going to let that happen. If the Meek reestablish the normal orbit, Vesta City will be willing to negotiate with them.”
“But maybe they don’t have the means to establish Ceres’s traditional orbit anymore. They’ve used up four of their thrusters.”
“No. They do. We’ve analyzed sites 1 through 18. If they’re all indeed thrusters, Azim says all the Meek have to do is fire thrusters 4, 6, 10, and 17, in that order, and Ceres will climb back up to its usual orbit.”
“But can’t you at least tell Council what Claire thinks?”
“Cody, I’ll send Council the facts. After that, they can make up their own minds.”
By the time Cody and Ben finished cleaning off the extra solar panels, they both had 45 minutes of air left in their tanks. They descended to the control room of the Actinium Oxygen Production Utility.
With his air running out, and the prospect of death looming large in front of him, Cody found his thoughts drifting to Christine. He keyed up the panels and got them working. Luckily, the orphans had not wrecked any of the controls in here. One memory in particular kept coming back to him, from the trip he and Christine had taken to the James Cook Coral Reef Habitat. Ben sat down with Claire’s laptop and interfaced with the antique software. Claire’s software ran through a half-dozen conversions before the two established a compatible link. As the computers did their conversions, Cody’s coral reef memory persisted. Cody was in the water floating above a colony of rose-colored coral. Through the gemlike water he saw Christine swimming toward him. She wasn’t wearing a diver’s mask. She preferred to dive without one. Her hair floated like a cloud around her head.
Ben got up from the laptop and rested his hand on the large antique breaker switch.
“Here goes,” he said.
Cody felt far away from it all. He felt the nearness of death. He couldn’t stop thinking of Christine. Christine swam up to him and smiled. Angelfish swam by behind her. She beckoned. She wanted to show him something …
Ben closed the breaker switch. The kilowatt bar graph indicator on the screen began to climb. Ben left the breaker switch and watched the bar graph intently.
“It’s reached the fail-safe,” said Ben.
Cody shook Christine from his mind. He didn’t exactly panic while he watched the bar graph hover at the fail-safe point. He just felt overwhelmed by an acute sense of stasis, as if time stood still. Yet time ticked by second by second in his visor readouts. Twenty-five minutes of air left. He checked the atmospheric pressure in the control room. Less than a hundred millibars. Newton’s air was all but depleted.
“It’s not moving,” said Ben. “What’s wrong? If we don’t get at least 30,000 kilowatts out of that thing—”
But Ben was interrupted by Axworthy. Cody saw Axworthy’s holo-image in his visor. “Any luck with the OPU?” asked the commander.
“The bar graph’s not climbing beyond the fail-safe,” said Cody. “It’s stuck at 20,000 kilowatts. It’s almost like the fail-safe is holding it back. We can’t engage the system until it climbs above the fail-safe mark.”
The holo-image of Axworthy seemed to crumple. “Oh,” he said. He looked positively gray. “Then that’s too bad,” he said. He looked like a man who had just been told he had an incurable tumor. “Because I just received more rotten news from the Conrad Wilson. They have to replace yet more load-bearing units on the unmanned explorer before they can safely land it down here. It’s going to take them another two hours. By that time we’ll all be dead, and the Wilson won’t have the fuel to stay in orbit anyway. Our only chance is to get the OPU working again and, if Council doesn’t order the Wilson to strike strategically, hope a rescue ship comes for us at a later date.”
Cody thought of Deirdre, of Jerry and Claire, of all the security recruits in that small antiquated oxygen pod, their air slowly running out.
“We’re down to our last 25 minutes here,” he said. “It looks like this might be it, Kevin.”
“Cody,” said Ben, “Cody, it’s going up now. It’s reached 21,000.”
“Did you hear that, Kevin?” asked Cody.
“I heard. Keep working at it.” Axworthy’s face looked a little more hopeful now.
“So there’s still no word from Council?” asked Cody.
“They still haven’t decided,” said Axworthy. “They’re voting right now. By the way, I’ve been looking at the municipal street plan. There’s a Security Detachment Office just down the way from where you are, on the corner of Niobium and Morse. If it gets to be fifteen minutes, and you still haven’t got the OPU working, I want you both to go down and check it. Like Lulu says, they kept emergency oxygen supplies in all these old places. I know most places must be fairly picked over by now, but you never know, you might find something. The way I see it, the Meek wouldn’t go much for the oxygen tanks, since they don’t breathe the way we do. They might take a few tanks for lab use occasionally, but other than that … it’s worth a try. If things get too tight, and you can’t make it, or if Council orders the Wilson to strike after all, you’ve always got your chloropathoxin. I’m glad we had the extra units on hand. It’s a much nicer way to go. A lot of pleasan
t dreams. Better than dying in the vacuum. And definitely better than being fried by gamma radiation.”
The bar graph continued to climb, reached 22,000 then 25,000 kilowatts. Monitors showed robots in the oxygen pit running diagnostic tests on themselves, gearing up for work. The transom-valve panel indicated flow led directly to the main auditorium. They now had fifteen minutes of air left in their tanks, but they stayed despite Axworthy’s urging to the contrary. The bar graph reached 26,000 kilowatts. The microwave converter, using Claire’s program, was targeting perfectly, sending current out to the oxygen mine, then sending a portion of it back to the utility. The bar graph was just reaching 30,000 kilowatts when something went wrong with Claire’s targeting program.
“What happened?” asked Ben.
“I don’t know,” said Cody.
They checked the outside monitors, quickly zeroed in on the microwave monitor.
The microwave dish swung wildly in the direction of the open-pit oxygen mine, its waves generating energy hot enough to melt rock. Cody watched the monitor as the beam slammed into one of the massive earth-moving robots. The piece of machinery exploded into fragments.
“Turn it off, turn it off!” he cried.
Ben leaped up and broke the connection. The bar graph quickly sank to 20,000 kilowatts, sticking at the fail-safe for a few seconds, then dwindling away to nothing. The panels and monitors died, and the targeting program went off-line. Cody listened to his own heartbeat, his own breathing. Biofeedback monitors on his visor indicated a rise in both. It was dark. It was quiet. And they had failed.
“What are we going to do?” asked Ben.
Cody checked his meter. Eleven minutes left.
“Let’s look for oxygen.”
As they walked quickly—not running; running would just deplete their oxygen faster—down Morse Street to the Security Detachment Office, Cody was surprised to see how much the marrow had come back to this outlying area of Newton, making its encroachment quickly from the neighboring suburb of Planck’s Constant. The buildings in this area of the city were war-torn, bricks and mortar blown away from the underlying girder supports, lying in piles everywhere, strewn all over the street. The scene of dreary wreckage popped into relief in his guidelight beam, small circular snapshots of the end of the world, snippets of a nightmare rendered in the wan glow: a few charred skeletons over there, an overturned hovercar black and gutted on the sidewalk, and, of all things, a frozen horse in a lane lying on its side, emaciated, mummified, the insignia of the CDF Mounted Riot Squad tattooed in blue and white on its chest. Everywhere else, impenetrable darkness, not even any glow-moss out here, like he was inside the stomach of a giant beast.