“What the hell?” Tenn said. “We didn’t have another shift scheduled. What’re you guys doing?”
Aspasia’s voice came back over the radio. As usual, her tone conveyed her disapproval of the universe and all its inhabitants. “Aiello called us up at the last minute. They want a re-scan. Looks like you guys screwed up.”
“Horse maneuvers,” Seth replied. “No red lights at all.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, bucko.” Aspasia took a moment to bring herself to a dead stop. “Pretty sure I didn’t volunteer to do this all on my own. Take it up with Aiello.”
“Weird,” Tenn muttered.
“Uh, I don’t suppose there’s any chance they’re rescanning because they found something?” Ivan couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice.
“That’s certainly an alternative explanation.” Aspasia grinned at him, her face clearly visible through the helmet. “But I’m going to go with my theory.”
As Aspasia, Will, and Raul began setup for a full deep radar run, Ivan and his crewmates jetted back to the Astra. No one said anything, even the normally opinionated Tenn Davies keeping his own counsel.
* * *
“All crew to the common room.”
The unscheduled announcement over the P.A. made everyone look up. Ivan’s stomach clenched. He turned to Seth. “What now? Are they going to extend the tour again?”
“Well, we’ve only scanned the first rock. Okay, the first two, but the runt hardly counts.Normally, they wouldn’t make any pronouncements until we’d gone through this entire group.” Seth paused. “Damn, sprout, could you be right?” His voice rose at the end of the sentence, in a kind of unconscious plea to the gods of chance.
“An unscheduled general meeting is either really, really good news, or really, really bad,” Tenn commented as he walked up to their table. “Nothing’s particularly happened lately that could be bad, so my money’s on a positive scan. How positive is the question.”
Since Ivan and Seth had been in the common room already, they refreshed their coffees and continued what they’d been doing—working on a correspondence course in Ivan’s case, and listening to an audio book in Seth’s.
The rest of the crew arrived in short order, including those who had been asleep. The buzz of conversation and debate rose in volume as each person arrived. Opinions were split on the probable reasons for the summons—about half of the crew shared Tenn’s opinion, the other half speculating that a creditor had panicked and called in their note. A palpable aura of both anxiety and anticipation settled over the crew lounge as they waited for the bridge officers to make an appearance.
Finally, the captain walked in, followed by the first mate, Dante Aiello, and the geologist, Cirila Heinrichs. Although she was technically crew, Cirila’s specialty required her to spend a considerable time with bridge officers.
Everyone looked at Aiello, trying to read his facial expression. But Aiello was paying an extreme level of attention to his slippers, so no help there.
Captain Jennings stepped to the front of the group and surveyed the crew for a moment. Then he did something captains of ships almost never did. He grinned unabashedly. The expression was infectious, and within seconds everyone was grinning back, despite nothing having been said.
“Ahem,” the captain began, “We seem to have some positive results. Rock number one in this group, serial number AN2138.14, has multiple nodes of high density, along with pronounced magnetic reactivity.”
“That means ferrous materials,” Seth whispered to Ivan.
“I will, as is my duty, caution you all not to count your chickens until the samples have been taken and the cores assayed.”
“Assuming it’s positive, what are we looking at?” Raul Alfaro asked.
Captain Jennings looked over at Cirila, then back at the crew gathered in front of him. “Ms. Heinrichs has given me a preliminary summary of probable elements and tonnages, which is just a list of numbers. And, I reiterate, based only on the deep radar results, which are not definitive. However, to put it in perspective—if this plays out as the numbers seem to indicate, each and every one of you will be able to buy your own mining ship. Cash.”
The noise level in the room rose to a roar as the crew reacted to this pronouncement. A mining ship cost about the same as a Boeing 797 Super-Jumbo. Granted, nothing had been said about being able to afford to run the thing, but still…
Ivan caught a glimpse of Tenn quickly wiping what appeared to be tears from his cheeks. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might not be the only crew member with a reason to need a good result. Tenn’s earlier reluctance to mock him about the loan from Seth started to make sense.
But that was a mystery for another time. Right now, Ivan had to deal with the realization that he had, on his very first tour, accomplished everything he’d set out to do. Debts would be paid, houses would be bought, and the kids would get the head start that he’d missed and they so deserved. And his family would never have to worry about finances again. Ivan’s vision began to blur, and he had to perform some cleanup of his own.
“There’s something else,” Cirila said into the riot of conversation. All sound cut off as everyone turned to her, faces registering sudden worry.
“There’s a satellite circling AN2138.14—we’ve been calling it Baby Rock—which has an anomaly of some kind. We detected a compact node of a density that would place it in the transuranic range.”
“Is that even possible?” asked one of the crew.
Cirila shook her head. “No, which means it’s bad data.”
“So there might be nothing there?” After the initial elation, this was almost unendurable.
“No, there’s something there, physically. The readings on AN2138.14 are all within specs. I’m not suggesting equipment fault.” Cirila looked at the captain, then back to the crew. “I’m just saying, we need to be cautious.”
* * *
Loveliest of all women, love of my life—
We’ve hit pay dirt! The big one!
They don’t have specifics yet, but the word ‘big’ keeps floating around. Also, ‘rich’, ‘wealthy’, ‘holy sh…’ (Don’t let the kids read that).
I doubt we’ll stay out for the full tour. I will probably be back within the month. Start thinking about Christmas. And about where we want to retire.
Love,
Ivan
Tallying Results
Lita Generus had no problem making eye contact today. The captain smiled at her across the table and raised his coffee mug in salute. She grinned back.
“I guess we’ve made break-even,” he said.
Generus snorted, and Cirila Heinrichs laughed out loud. Normally her laugh was mildly annoying, but today, nails on a chalkboard would barely register.
The bridge officers sat around the conference table in the captain’s Ready Room, several of them nursing coffees. Heinrichs, despite being halfway down the long side of the table, seemed to dominate the group as every other person in the room was turned to face her.
The captain put down his mug. “All right. Enough suspense. Status report, Ms. Heinrichs?”
Heinrichs made a show of getting comfortable, lining up her tablet on the table, and moving her mug to just the right spot. She grinned at Generus when the latter made a growling sound.
“I can only theorize that this chunk must have been a core fragment of some planetoid that formed in the early solar system. Most of the silicates and other surface comps are late accretions. It’s very possible that, under the top layer, this rock is an almost solid chunk of metal.”
She paused to look around the desk. “Besides the expected iron and nickel, we’ve got a significant smattering of rare earths and a really strong showing from the platinum group.”
“No gold?”
“A little bit, sir. But with all this other stuff, the industrial conglomerates will be very interested. They tend to bid faster, with fewer cond
itions and less concern about market saturation. I think we’ll get a better, quicker sale than we would if the precious metals specialists were in charge of the bidding.”
Jennings nodded. “Excellent. We’ll need hard numbers for the auction, of course. Let’s get the core samples done as soon as possible.” The captain looked at the first mate.
Aiello smiled. “I predict much less grumbling than usual. As soon as Cirila has the detail maps done, sir, we’ll get started.”
“Ah, before I forget. Mr. Micoroski, deep sky scan?”
“No ships in the area, sir. The Sino-Soviet ships aren’t especially stealthy.”
Jennings nodded. “There hasn’t been an incident since the Free Fall, but why take chances? Do at least one more full scan before we send in our claim. And make sure we’re using the latest encryption when we do send it.”
Paydirt
A feeling of holiday pervaded the ship. Ivan’s eyes widened as he looked over the crowd gathered at the airlock.
“We need to name it,” someone said.
Seth turned to the onlookers and grinned. “Tell you what, why don’t you poor rubes work on that while we’re out there digging for gold?”
He was met with several biologically unlikely suggestions for methods of storing gold, but they included no undertone of rancor. The chance of such strong readings being false positives ranked slightly higher than finding a leprechaun sitting on the gold. But only slightly. The atmosphere was one of jubilation, and everyone was giddy with the possibilities.
Even Tenn was swept up in it. He slapped Ivan on the back. “Let’s go get ’em, sprout.”
They cycled through the airlock to find the scooter waiting. Aspasia Nevin came in close and paid out a towing line. Tenn took shotgun as senior crew member, and the others attached their safety harnesses to bights on the line.
With exaggerated care, Aspasia took flight for AN2138.14.
* * *
“Seriously, Seth, it should be right over there.” Ivan glanced back and forth from the heavens to his heads-up display. The anomaly, by his estimate, was less than 200 meters away, in the small rock that orbited this much more massive asteroid. Probably lightly buried under the dust and gravel that inevitably accumulated in hollows over geological time scales.
“Don’t care, sprout. The anomaly might or might not come to anything. This clump below us, if it proves out, will allow us to each retire anywhere the hell we want. You see where I’m going with this?”
“Straight down?”
“Yeah, like that. And if you could find the time to come over here and help, I’m sure the whole crew would appreciate it.”
Ivan sighed and, with an effort, set aside his curiosity. He grabbed the piton gun and spent a few seconds estimating distances. Then he laid down a pattern of anchors that would allow Seth to take several core samples from different angles.
Seth set his drill in roughly the right area, then attached it to several pitons with cables on the drill casing. Small electric winches tightened the cables until the drill was held securely against the surface.
Seth consulted Cirila’s diagram for a few moments, then adjusted the drill’s angle. A quick double-check, and he pressed the Start button.
The drill made short work of the task, extracting a long cylinder of asteroid material. The mechanism ejected the cylinder out the back end—a process that was the butt of many jokes—and Ivan carefully sleeved the core and labelled it.
As soon as they gave the all-clear, Seth repositioned the drill for the next core.
In less than two hours, they had a half-dozen long cores extracted.
“These don’t even go halfway through the node,” Tenn commented. “And if that isn’t iron ore on the end, there, I’ll eat it.”
No one needed to add anything. Mining crew knew what different ores looked like. They had to, for this job. The deep radar was only good for the overview, not for the eyes-on-the-ground evaluation.
Bundling the cores turned out to be more of a chore than expected, though, because other crew members kept getting in the way. Every time Ivan and Tenn tried to sleeve a core, someone was there, poking at it, trying to identify the ore.
Finally, Tenn lost it. “Fucksake, you jackasses. We’ll be out here forever if you don’t back off. And by the way, I’m pretty sure there are more people here than are on-shift. Since when do you volunteer for work?” Tenn placed his hands on his hips and surveyed the crowd. He was probably glaring, but it lost something in a space suit.
“C’mon, Tenn, we’re just trying to—”
“Deep radar readings showed iron, nickel, platinum, palladium, and osmium. You heard the lady. What’re you gonna do? Lick it to lay your claim?”
Tenn got some chuckles, and the group broke up to make room. Ivan and Seth were soon finished sleeving and labelling the samples. They wrapped the tubes with some bungees and Seth held up the end of a tow cable.
Aspasia grabbed the bundled cores from Seth, attached the clip to the scooter, then shot toward the Astra, showing nowhere near as much care this time.
“Hey, Spazzie,” Tenn called to her over the common channel, as she disappeared rapidly into the distance. “Feel free to splatter yourself over a random rock. More for us.”
There was no response, but the jets cut off abruptly.
Seth turned to Ivan. This far out in the solar system, the helmet autoshading hardly kicked in at all, so Ivan could clearly see his happy grin.
“Okay, sprout, we’ve got some time until Cirila completes her assay. Feel like checking it out?” Seth inclined his chin upward. There was no doubt what he was referring to.
Checking it Out
Seth couldn’t help chuckling to himself. The sprout was like a puppy, with his eagerness and fresh-faced curiosity. Seth tried to remember if he’d ever been that energetic. Probably. But each tour wore a little bit of the edges off you. Especially the disappointing tours, where you came back empty handed, a half year of your life gone with nothing to show for it. You returned from those with a little bit more of yourself ground off, a little bit more of the shape of you missing. After a while, you became like Tenn—just a walking, talking lump of cynicism and fake boredom.
But today was a good day. Today was for adventure and dreams. Seth could almost hear Ivan vibrating with excitement.
“Okay, sprout, let’s go. I’ll lead.” Seth reached for his jet controls.
They were about to launch themselves, when Tenn broke in. “And where do you think you’re going?”
Seth turned to face him. “Just a short flight to Baby Rock. No big deal.”
“This could be an alien artifact,” Ivan exclaimed. “Actually, what else could it be?”
“A lot of things, sprout. Get’cher knickers under control. Deep radar isn’t foolproof, or they wouldn’t need us. Plus it was Robinson running the gear, and he’s not very good.”
“Oh, hah hah, Davies.” Even Tenn couldn’t ruin the air of celebration. And truthfully, his tone was lacking the usual hectoring. It was almost as if he considered it his duty to throw an insult or two.
“Transuranics, she said,” Ivan replied.
“Instrumentation error, I say. Tell you what, sprout, let’s put some money on it. I say it’ll be some castoff piece of human equipment, maybe with a shielded casing. How much are you willing to put up?”
Ivan chuckled. “Fine, Tenn. You’ve been trying to get me to gamble this whole trip. Today’s your lucky day. But money’s irrelevant, now, so how about you taking kitchen duty the whole trip back against my desserts the whole trip back?”
Tenn hesitated for a moment. When he replied, his voice was friendlier than Seth could remember ever hearing. “Well, okay then. Turns out the sprout has some balls. You’re on, Ivan.”
The crew had been gathering around during this exchange, sensing the drama. The collective mood, already euphoric from the impressive core samples, continued to spiral upward
, fed by the friendly competition.
“Well, let’s go look then,” Tenn continued. “I have to admit, I’m curious too.”
There were mutters of agreement from the other crew members.
Seth shook his head slowly. “Damned party crashers.”
He waited for everyone to get ready, then said to the group, “Follow.” With that, he activated his jet pack and headed for where his heads-up indicated the Baby Rock should be.
The group got to the rock in less than a minute. It was barely twenty meters across, vaguely lentil-shaped, and virtually motionless in space.
“Weird that it has hardly any rotation,” Ivan said.
Seth agreed, but knew that orbital mechanics produced many odd situations. This was no worse than most, and convenient, truth be told. They wouldn’t have to worry about being tossed off the rock by centrifugal force.
“So now that we’re here, what are we looking for?” someone asked.
“Good question. Is Cirila’s scan online?” Seth flipped through the available images on his suit’s heads-up display even as he asked the question. It took only a moment to find the right graphic. “Should be right at the bend in the lentil shape. The lowest point, gravitationally.”
“Probably not a coincidence,” Tenn replied.
Ivan jetted over a few meters. “That’s about here.” He unhooked his collapsible shovel and assembled it. Without waiting for consultation, he began digging.
“Whoa, pardner,” Seth said. “You sure you want to dig down to a lump of uranium?”
“Transuranics, she said.” Ivan looked up at Seth, emphasizing the first word. “Which is patently impossible. So I want to see what we—hello…” Ivan looked oddly at his shovel.
“You hit something?”
“Yeah, and it did not feel at all like rock. It gave a little, like it was flexible.”
The Singularity Trap Page 5