The Singularity Trap

by Dennis E. Taylor

  * * *

  Spin-down took a half hour, and for the crew it consisted of nothing more than listening to the Mad Astra make odd groaning sounds. To Ivan’s ear, it sounded like the ship was being slowly torn apart. However, none of the other crew were reacting, so he did his best to look relaxed and unconcerned as well.

  Shortly after the noises died away, the P.A. announced, “Spin-down complete. Prepare for turnover.”

  Shuffling sounds accompanied a general checking of buckles and seating positions. Seth looked over at Ivan and smirked. “Here’s hoping your stomach is thoroughly acclimated. You might want to hold onto a barf bag just for kicks.”

  Seth was right. This was the last test for a noob. The Astra would have to reverse her orientation in order to use the engines to decelerate. The maneuver wasn’t especially dangerous or difficult with the hab ring spun down, but required the crew to be strapped in for the duration. During the maneuver, the slow rotation of the entire ship in an unaccustomed direction generally left people with a slight, undefined queasiness. And the protracted duration of the event sometimes produced a surprise reaction in stomachs that had no experience with it.

  Ivan compared the symptoms to a low-grade sea-sickness, but managed to avoid any need for the barf bag.

  “Deceleration begins, fifteen seconds.”

  This announcement brought sighs and smiles from the crew. They would have one-tenth gee during deceleration, then would spin up the hab ring once they arrived at their target location.

  The engines fired up, decelerating the ship to slip into an orbit consistent with the asteroid belt objects in the area. In four hours, the Mad Astra matched the average orbital velocity for objects at this distance from the sun.

  The hab ring would be spun up next, but there were also jobs to do. And no reason to sit around waiting. The crew gathered in the on-axis lounge, awaiting orders from the bridge. With no thrust, they were in zero-gee, but it still beat being strapped into an acceleration couch for hours.

  Ivan settled himself onto a bench and locked his legs underneath to anchor himself. Several crewmates joined him at his table, but no one attempted conversation. Everyone just wanted this part to be over as soon as possible.

  In short order, the intercom blared forth Dante’s voice. “Crew, prepare for spin-up, ten minutes. Pritchard, Robinson. Beacon deployment. Hop to it.”

  The two men straightened up, taking care to not go floating off, and launched themselves toward the exit. Seth whooped as they set off. “They wouldn’t deploy the beacon unless there’s something in the area worth looking into.”

  “So they found something?” Ivan’s heart beat faster at the thought.

  “Well, they found something, as opposed to empty space. Or gravel. The beacon indicates a valid working stake, and warns off any other ships. But if it’s all carbonaceous chondrite, it’s not worth diddly. Next step will be a deep radar survey.”

  Ivan remembered most of this from his training, although at his level, they didn’t go into a lot of technical detail. The courses concentrated more on what the bridge crew would want you to do, and how to do it, and less on why or how it worked.

  They arrived at the cargo hold and grabbed pressure suits. A small voltage caused the fabric to expand, allowing them to easily don the suits. They dressed, checked each other’s fit, then turned off the trickle charge. The material of the suit immediately contracted, providing the required pressure to counteract the vacuum of space, without the associated risk of an air leak. The suit material was also very slightly porous, so that sweat would evaporate into space rather than pooling in the suit.

  Gloves, boots, backpack and helmet all snapped onto no-fail connectors. It was supposed to be impossible to get it wrong, or have a bad seal. No one, of course, wanted to test that assumption, so all EVAs involved a buddy-check.

  Ivan and Seth inspected each other’s setup once more to ensure proper fit and function. Then they moved through the airlock into the zero-pressure section of the hold. Ivan thought he felt his skin press more tightly against the suit fabric.

  “Over here,” Seth said over the radio, and motioned to one end. Ivan followed him, paying extreme attention to his jet-pack controls. The technology had improved immensely since the early days of space flight, and control was now far more intuitive, but you still didn’t want to make a mistake in a small space with hard metal boundaries.

  Seth came to a floating stop beside an object that looked something like an old-fashioned marine buoy, about six feet in diameter and twenty feet long, generally cylindrical. The beacon would expand to twice that length once in space, as it deployed its antennae.

  The beacon was secured to the bulkhead by a series of metal straps. Seth pointed to the far side of the device. “Releases are on that side, Ivan. Start from the top, free each one as I say to, okay?”

  “Got it.”

  It took only moments to work down the restraints and free the beacon. Seth worked a panel and a scissors lift slowly extended the beacon from the wall.

  “Open the hold door, Ivan.”

  Ivan went blank for a second, then looked around and spotted the control panel on the far wall. Feeling a moment of embarrassment for the brain fart, he pushed off and drifted over to the panel. He attached the carabiner of his leash to the nearby stanchion, scanned the directions printed beside the panel, then worked the controls.

  Slowly, majestically, the hold doors swung open. Despite himself, Ivan was entranced by the view of open space with no planets or man-made objects anywhere to be seen.

  Too entranced, as it turned out. A mocking comment from Seth brought him back to reality. “Whenever you’re finished looking at the pretty lights, Ivan, I’d like to get this done.”

  “What?” Ivan spun around in place, coming up against the end of his rope. He rebounded at the sudden tension, and found himself being slowly wrapped up in his tether. Untangling himself, Ivan glared at Seth, his face hot.

  Seth grinned back. “For the price of one dessert, I didn’t see anything.”

  Ivan growled, then waved a hand. “Fine. I hope it’s tapioca.” He grabbed his line and hauled himself to the bulkhead, where he grabbed a handhold.

  Seth spared a glance to make sure Ivan was secured and out of the way, then announced, “Launching beacon. Stay clear.”

  Seth worked the controls, and the beacon began moving out of the hold, propelled by attitude jets. Ivan alternately watched the beacon and a readout on the panel until the beacon had reached the desired distance from the ship.

  Their job complete, Ivan closed the hold doors and they returned to shipboard. Seth pressed the intercom and reported completion.

  “Thanks, guys,” Dante responded. “Beacon is now doing self-check. We’ll activate it as soon as we’ve finished our sweep. And we’ll be in business. Hab ring is still in spin-up, so head back to on-axis Commons and park it.”

  The task had been a simple one, but interesting, and had kept Ivan’s mind busy. Now, with only more waiting ahead of him, he resumed brooding about the financial situation. He knew that the crew would vote for the captain’s plan. The alternative would be devastating for everyone. The odds, on a nine-month tour, would be in their favor. But with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ivan acknowledged that odds only meant maybe.

  Three months of missed pay, owing that money to Seth, on top of possibly losing most or all of his share, would be all but impossible to dig his way out of. Ivan blinked rapidly to keep his vision clear as he trudged back to the common room.

  Being an Asteroid Miner

  Three weeks later, the mood in the ship was considerably gloomier. Twelve asteroids of significant size had been scanned, none of which contained enough ore even to cover the costs of the trip. Just the same, they’d extracted what they could find, and sent it on a homeward trajectory with a beacon attached. Enough of those small strikes could still add up.

  Meanwhile, the crew had voted for t
he extended tour, and it was beginning to look like the extra few months would be necessary.

  Conversation in the crew area was desultory and heavy on short sentences. People sat by themselves and stared into their cups. Even the never-ending poker game had begun to suffer from poor attendance.

  Ivan looked up as Seth entered the room, the man’s gait too slow and plodding for half-gee gravity. Seth sat down across from him, and Ivan raised his cup in greeting.

  “We have four rocks we can check from this spot before we have to move the ship again,” Seth said. “You and I will be humping the deep radar rig around next shift. Tenn will be controller.”

  Ivan rolled his eyes in at the thought of working another shift with Davies. The man had decided for some reason that sprout wasn’t an adequately demeaning nickname, and had spent the last several weeks trying to come up with a new one, many of his suggestions scatological in nature. Ivan assumed it had to be out of boredom and stress, because there was just no reason for that level of antagonism. Unless it was his refusal to join the interminable poker games.

  He checked the time on the wall display. “Guess I’d better go get ready. Meet you at the lock.” Ivan nodded to Seth and headed for his quarters.

  Crew quarters were located in the hab ring. The ship schematics referred to them as staterooms, but no one who saw one would ever think to use that word. The rooms were about the size of a first-class double-bunk cabin from the age of passenger trains. Upper and lower single bunkbeds could be folded into the wall to make room for a bench seat. The fold-out table could accommodate two people, as long as they liked each other. Storage under the seat was adequate for the basic necessities appropriate to crew. A small sink and mirror inset into the wall completed the accommodations. Toilets and showers, however, were in a common area central to the crew quarters.

  Ivan was pretty sure the captain and senior offices rated something larger, but didn’t expect to ever get a chance to confirm his theory.

  A quick clean-up with a sponge ensured that he wouldn’t smell up a space suit too badly. Then into the standard shipboard outfit, and it was off to the main airlock.

  * * *

  Seth and Tenn stood waiting, both having already donned their suits. Ivan never failed to be impressed at how quickly the veterans could handle things that still made him feel like a thumb-fingered idiot.

  He dressed as quickly as he could, consistent with safety, then submitted to inspection.

  “All good,” Tenn said. “You’ll make spaceman, yet.”

  Ivan glanced at him, uncertain. For Tenn, that was so mild a jibe as to almost qualify as a compliment.

  They piled into the airlock and Tenn activated the cycle. Ivan could feel the tension of the suit fabric as the air pressure dropped to zero and his flesh tried to expand. Like the jet packs, the suits were a significant improvement over the walking tombs used during the dawn of space travel. Intelligent environmental controls, electro-contractile materials, and electrostatic/magnetic shielding made the modern spacewalk, if not actually safe, at least tolerably routine.

  The deep radar pod drifted a hundred meters from the Astra, having been moved into position by the previous shift. The three jetted over to it and took up their stations.

  “First target,” Tenn announced when everyone was ready. He gave a set of vectors, and Seth and Ivan scrambled to line up the equipment. The asteroid, an unimpressive rock in a nondescript area of the belt, hadn’t been tagged with a beacon, so was considered a virgin. After scanning it, they would fly over in a two-man scooter and attach a beacon—to broadcast either the rock’s failure as a source of riches, or its status as a staked claim. A message to the central registry would obviate any temptation by other mining ships to replace the beacon with one of their own. In the modern era, any group known to have attempted such tactics would be blacklisted so thoroughly that they’d never be able to use public toilets, let alone conduct business outside atmosphere again.

  Once given the target, the A.I. was able to maintain a lock on the asteroid. A confirmation request flashed on Ivan’s console and he entered an affirmative.

  The deep radar pod emitted a series of pulses and listened for the echoes. By varying the frequency and pulse lengths, it built up a picture of the interior of the asteroid. The densities of different materials would indicate the probable composition, then sample drillings would confirm any flagged masses. The deep radar was nowhere near infallible, but it saved a lot of time by ruling out the total duds and indicating good candidates for sampling.

  Ivan was tasked with ensuring that the pod didn’t drift during the analysis. The possibility was remote, given the presence of the A.I., but if it did happen it would invalidate an entire day’s run. Seth monitored the results for each scan, and ordered a follow-up if required. This latter job was as much art as science, and no one would trust it to an A.I.

  * * *

  The scanning run complete and their shift over, the three headed back to the Astra. Four hours in a space suit was about as much as a person could handle. Beyond that, many people started to experience increasing itchiness. No physiological reason for it had ever been found; it just seemed to be one of those things.

  In the shower, Ivan cringed as Seth did his back-cracking thing again. Sarcasm didn’t help, and anyway Seth didn’t seem to be doing it just to bug people. Ivan flexed his arm a couple of times. His old elbow injury bothered him occasionally, but at least it didn’t make noises when he moved.

  Raul, Will, and Aspasia entered the showers, looking as if they’d just finished a marathon.

  “Bad day?” Seth said to them.

  “Core samples,” Aspasia replied. “Aiello had us drilling Rock 4, just in case the deep radar scans were off.”

  “And?”

  Raul shook his head, expression downcast. “If they were off, it was in the wrong direction. We found some ore, but I doubt it’s going to prove out to anything worth filing a claim. We’ll use the mining robots to extract the ore, and send it back home with a beacon attached. Unless we were to find something else in the area…”

  Ivan pressed his lips together, but said nothing. He repeated his wife’s statistics like a mantra. Too soon to give up; as many as three tours on average; too soon to give up…

  * * *

  A week later, they’d finished prospecting all the rocks in the area, and the news was in. Aiello didn’t have a good poker face at the best of times, and announcements weren’t the best of times.

  He took a long, slow look around the common room. “Sorry, guys. We’ve checked them all, and there’s no shine. We’ll be moving to another spot as soon as astrogation has found a good clump of rocks worth visiting.”

  Aiello stood there for a moment longer, then shrugged and left.

  Ivan balled his fists on the table and put his forehead down on them. Logically, they weren’t even halfway into their tour. It was far too early to give way to despair. As usual, logic didn’t help. And anyway, to do three tours, they’d have to at least find enough to pay for this tour.

  His dinner sitting like a lump of coal in his stomach, Ivan said to Seth, “I’m going to turn in. Write a letter to the family…”

  Seth nodded, and Ivan headed for his room. The gravity seemed to have been turned up to Jupiter standard, sucking his feet into the carpet with every step.

  Hi, love,

  Well, we haven’t struck it rich, yet. But it’s very early in the tour, and no one seems concerned. I’d like to hit the earlier of your projections, rather than the later, though. I’m looking forward to retiring to the French Riviera—or what’s left of it.

  How are Josh and Suzie? Do they ask about their dad? Tell them I’ve learned to fly. I can fly from one end of the ship to the other, down the middle. It’s great fun.

  Ivan leaned back from the keyboard. He couldn’t bear to send an honest email, but had trouble thinking up the words for something upbeat. He stared at the note for sev
eral minutes, then reached over and saved the draft. He had until tomorrow morning, anyway. To keep costs down, the Mad Astra only connected to SolNet once a day, to send and receive updates.

  With a sigh, he put everything away and prepared for bed.

  Trying Another Location

  The move to the new location was virtually identical to the first one, except for a noticeable lack of bounce in people’s steps. Ivan, once again, was first up on deep radar duty.

  The target of the day was a large, vaguely peanut-shaped rock, with a smaller sibling in close proximity. The two rocks had so little relative motion and spin that Ivan couldn’t tell initially if they were just passing by, or were in some kind of mutual orbit.

  “Target’s locked,” he announced. Seth took up position, and Tenn worked the controls. Another boring four hours, watching radio waves propagate.

  Ivan followed Tenn’s occasional instructions, and otherwise let his mind drift. If he turned his back on the deep radar unit, the only item in the universe was the Mad Astra, floating in the distance. The sun glinted evenly off the oval of the ship, broken only by the four fusion nacelles around the stern. Mars was currently on the other side of the solar system, but Jupiter could be picked out with ease. It didn’t quite show a disk, but at this distance it glowed almost as brightly as the moon from Earth.

  “Take your time, sprout, it’s not like we’re on duty or anything.”

  Ivan jerked as he realized that Tenn had been talking. “Um, sorry, what?”

  “Sleep on your own time, noob. Which will be soon, actually. Shift’s over, as soon as you can see your way clear to signing off the unit.”

  Nodding, Ivan reached for the console and logged out. He gave a thumbs up to Seth, who typed a few rapid commands, then pushed away from his seat.

  And with that it was end of shift, finally. Ivan, Seth, and Tenn did a quick post-shutdown inspection, then gathered to jet back to the ship together. Ivan was surprised to see three space-suited figures approaching.