Future Vistas

by D. M. Pruden

  “How close are we to the rock?”

  “Main forward sensors are offline. At the time of the incident we were thirty minutes from contact.”

  He watched as the two kilometres of space rock grew. If their trajectory hadn’t been altered by whatever had hit them, they were on a collision course.

  “All the damage is in the front? Do we have maneuvering rockets?”

  “Affirmative; we have lateral and forward maneuvering capability.”

  “Is our rear sensor array still online?” Ben crossed his fingers.

  “Yes.”

  Excellent! “Do you still have navigation control or do we need to go manual?” While Ben considered himself an excellent pilot, he knew that some maneuvers were best left to the AI.

  “I still have control over all remaining systems.”

  Fantastic! “Activate maneuvering rockets to flip us around and use the rear facing sensors and rockets to slow us and set us down on the asteroid. Oh, and increase sensor sensitivity to maximum. We can’t afford another hit in the shape we’re in right now.” Ben hoped that the damage was minimal enough that he could execute a patchwork repair and get them out into the main space lanes for some help. First things were first, though; he had to stop them from colliding with the rock and any of its associated flotsam.

  As the AI executed the maneuver the rear sensors began to relay new data to the main computer system. Within seconds, warning lights began to flash and the AI announced, “Collision warning.”

  “Thanks, I know.”

  “That is not what I meant. There appear to be several small bodies orbiting the asteroid. Their movement suggests that they are self powered. One has a broken orbit and is approaching us.”

  “What? That’s not possible,” Ben knew, even as he said it that it was indeed possible. He needed more information to confirm his suspicions. “How big are they?”

  “Each body is spherical; four kilograms in mass and approximately twenty centimetres in diameter.”

  “Damn it! Smart mines! Why the hell are smart mines around this thing?” Ben recalled his youth in the Terran space forces during the Lunar revolt. He’d lost a lot of friends in those days when they came across supposedly derelict ships that had been booby trapped with these things. He unstrapped himself and pushed his weightless body towards the rear door of the cabin. “Time until impact with the smart mine?”

  “Impact in three minutes…mark.”

  Ben opened the door and entered the cargo compartment. He found the item he was looking for and removed it from the restraining harness.

  “Computer, open the cargo access door.” He pushed the large trucking engine towards the rear of the ship. Secured by a tether at the opened door, he watched in awe at the asteroid now completely filling his field of vision.

  “Computer, remote access trucking motor number 265B.”

  “Remote access established,” Gina’s calm voice announced.

  He pushed the motor out of the door and away from the ship with all of his strength, trying to keep the motor pointed away from the ship and prevent it from spinning more than necessary.

  “Time to collision with the mine?”

  “Collision in one minute, twenty-three seconds.” Ben prayed that the mine didn’t have a proximity fuse.

  “In twenty-seconds, fire the trucking rocket at full burn.” He hoped he’d done the math right and cursed himself for not getting the AI to do it for him. Old military habits died hard, even thirty years later.

  “Duration of burn?”

  “I don’t give a shit! Just get it away from us!” Ben announced as he closed the door and made his way back to the cockpit.

  As he entered the cockpit he saw a flash of light outside as the trucking motor ignited. He strapped himself into his seat and waited as it moved out of the sensor field.

  “It would appear that your gambit has worked, Ben. The mine has changed course. Without sensors, I can only project the mine’s impact with the motor to be in twenty-two-seconds.”

  Ben counted off the seconds silently, praying that his stunt really had worked. On the count of twenty-five a bright flash lit up the space somewhere to the rear of them, and Ben caught himself holding his breath. He exhaled loudly and relaxed for a moment before he remembered something.

  “Computer, have any more mines moved toward us?”

  “Negative. They appear to respond to maneuvering rockets or other energy output, as you demonstrated. We are at the moment under no engine burn, but we will have to fire a retro burst in another nine minutes if we are to soft land on the asteroid.”

  “They usually only respond to threats outside of a threshold distance, otherwise they would destroy each other. Wait until we get inside their orbit before we fire the retro burn.”

  “Please apply your restraints. I will begin the maneuver in eight minutes and fifty-three seconds.”

  As Ben did up the last buckle of the restraint the AI added, “You realize that we will not have any choice of landing location?”

  “Yeah, I know. Pray that it’s a good one.”

  “I am an AI. To whom do you suggest I pray, Ben?”

  Ben sighed and prepared himself for a rough landing. He took the time to puzzle over the mined asteroid. Did someone set up some old surplus mines to protect that body inside of their claim? It was certainly worth the effort given its potential value. Maybe it collided with another body and got bumped out of the claim. Too bad for whoever went to all that trouble. If he could get his ship repaired and stop it inside of his own claim, someone else’s misfortune might be his good fortune.

  ♢♢♢

  With nothing to do but wait, Ben’s thoughts wandered back to the events around Gina’s death. They were memories that he regularly tortured himself with whenever he found himself in a dark moment of his own making.

  “Computer, how does this body compare to the last transient to pass through here, twenty years ago?”

  “I do not have a complete log of that particular event, Ben. I have been locked out of those records. Why do you ask?”

  “This one just seems familiar, that’s all,” he replied, wistfully. A moment of silence passed.

  “I have accessed all published records for the year in question. There is only a brief reference to an asteroid of similar mass and trajectory in the transcript of your hearing before the Asteroid Mining Commission.” The Mining Commission determined he had been negligent in the death of his wife.

  “Do you know what happened that day?” he sounded more angry than he felt.

  “As I said, Ben, I have been locked out of those old records. You could give me the access codes, unless you would rather talk about it?”

  Ben let that question roll around in his head. Maybe he did want to talk about it. That damned rock that had just wrecked his ship had brought back all of the old painful memories; memories that he had never shared with anyone.

  “We had just returned to our claim after a year planet side with Natalie,” he started.

  “You and Gina?”

  “Yes, me and Gina.” His throat was dry and he tried to swallow.

  “You know, I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but Gina played a large part in her own death. She was the one that wanted us to nab the transient rock that had entered our claim.” That admission hurt. He felt like he was throwing Gina to the wolves, twenty years after the fact.

  “According to the record of the hearing, you took full responsibility for her death. It says that you sent her after the transient asteroid.”

  “That was because I was afraid that the insurance wouldn’t pay out if there was even a hint to suggest she acted on her own. Too big a risk it could be challenged as a suicide. As it was, I knew they were going to make an example of me. They had been trying to legislate for tighter rules for years. It turned out I was the poster boy for poor mining safety standards. Hell, there weren’t any standards then. By finding against me, the insurance could pay out and Natalie would ha
ve enough to be raised on Terra.”

  “But the finding against you meant that you could never return to Terra.”

  “The commission was going to make sure of that anyway. I just wanted to ensure that Natalie at least had a shot at a decent life; at getting her citizenship someday. She couldn’t do that if she were exiled with me out here. She was better off planet side, even if it meant she was a ward of the state. At least, that’s what my lawyer convinced me of.”

  “So what really happened, Ben?”

  “We had just gotten back; hadn’t even had any time to run full maintenance on either of our ships. We spotted a few strays drifting out of our claim, so we split up and started to catch and herd them back inside. I was working on fixing up a wonky trucking motor on one when she radioed me, all excited. She had spotted a transient crossing our claim. It was out of my sensor range, but the way she described it, it was a big M-class asteroid. She wanted to chase after it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I actually told her not to.” He smiled, “I hardly ever could say no to Gina. But that day I said no. She went ape shit on me, saying that I didn’t trust her and that she knew what she was doing and that I was holding her back. Something like that. I really don’t recall. I do recall that we argued about it for a good ten minutes over the radio. It felt weird, because we never really argued. She thought that getting that rock corralled within our claim could set us up for retirement. We could move to Terra, buy our citizenships and raise Natalie like normal people. In the end, I gave in. I should never have given in.”

  Ben sat silent for a long period, the AI waiting patiently. He licked his dry lips and continued.

  “We agreed that she would chase after the rock and I would follow as soon as I had finished my repairs. We stayed in radio contact. We apologized to each other for the fight, laughed at each other’s jokes and dreamt about how our lives were going to be changed. That part I remember very clearly. It was just before the radio went dead.” He fought to keep the tears under control, but his voice started to break.

  “I hurried back to the cockpit and brought on the scanners. She wasn’t there. I couldn’t find her anywhere, and she wasn’t responding on any channels. I must have pushed 80G’s to get to her projected position. She wasn’t there.” The now freely flowing tears detached from his eyelids and floated as droplets inside of his helmet.

  Ben sniffed hard to stop his nose from running and wished he could wipe his eyes. “I spent twenty days running search patterns. I couldn’t find anything of her ship; no debris; nothing. I only quit looking when my AI convinced me that I would die and leave Natalie an orphan if I didn’t stop.”

  “Ben, we are on final approach to the asteroid. We will need to make our breaking burn in two minutes,” the AI interrupted.

  “At first I tried to speak with Natalie every week. Then, every week turned to every month as she grew older and became less interested in regular visits from a man she had never met. When she was old enough, she learned of what had happened, and stopped taking my calls entirely. I still kept tabs on her. Old friends sent me news whenever they could…” his voice trailed off. Ben’s sadness over Gina was magnified whenever he thought about how Natalie’s life might have been if he had only done the right thing on that day.

  “Twenty-seconds to deceleration burn…”

  The announcement snapped Ben back into the present. “Ready with the grappling clamps? We only get one shot at this!”

  Unless they could activate the ship’s grappling actuators and secure themselves to the surface of the asteroid they would bounce off of it and be targeted by the mines.

  “I am aware of that, worry wart,” the computer responded, imitating Gina’s tone precisely. Ben marvelled for the thousandth time at how precisely.

  Twenty-seconds later Ben felt the reverberation of the retro burn, followed by a very anxious ten-seconds of nothing. Ben decided that nothing was very good.

  “Three of four clamps successfully deployed.”

  Ben realized he had been holding his breath and he exhaled. His eyes were sore and his nose felt stuffed from his tears a few minutes before. The immediate crisis averted, he took the time to get a grasp of his situation.

  “I need a full appraisal, please,” he requested calmly.

  “Hull integrity breached in multiple locations…” the ship’s schematic came up on his helmet HUD.

  “Breathable air mix depleted to one point eight seven percent. Insufficient to re-pressurize the ship and keep you alive for longer than twelve hours if damage can be repaired. I recommend you keep the suit on. You can survive for forty-six hours if I route the supply to your suit.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “Are you really going to be sarcastic at a time like this, Ben?”

  Ben grinned to himself. I guess she does understand sarcasm after all.

  The AI continued, “Communications array destroyed. Fuel cell damage. Fuel depleted to ten percent.”

  Shit. That really limits what we can do.

  “Is it enough to get us back to the main space lanes before the oxygen runs out?”

  “Negative.”

  Double shit! Then an idea struck him.

  “How about the trucking motors? We have three of them left, don’t we? We might be able to use them for propulsion.” It was a long shot. The trucking motors were low thrust ion engines.

  After an unusually long period of computation, the AI responded, “If we remain on this body, we can take the time to reconfigure the motors and disable the mines. Using the trucking motors in conjunction with our own remaining fuel we can launch and get to the main space lanes as the asteroid makes its closest approach; all with sufficient oxygen to ensure your survival. The problem will be communicating a distress signal.”

  Triple shit!

  “However,” the AI continued, “I believe that I might be able to reprogram the interface for the damaged forward sensor array to emit an old style radio signal.”

  That could work. “There are enough miners out here that still use outmoded tech. If we begin transmitting early enough, we might be rescued in time. Gina, I could kiss you!”

  “Ben, there is another problem that you need to know about. In running my computations for the use of the trucking motors, I needed to compute the use of this asteroid’s trajectory to carry us much of the way.”

  “Naturally. What’s the problem?”

  “To do so I needed to extrapolate the orbit of the trojan. It is on a collision course with Terra.”.

  “What? Say that again!”

  “This trojan asteroid is on a direct intercept course with Terra. Despite its size, due to its low albedo it will not be detected by the Terran defence net in time for them to destroy it.”

  It’s a goddam planet killer!

  Ben understood why the rock had been outfitted with smart mines.

  “This rock is a holdover doomsday weapon from the Lunar revolt.”

  “History records indicate the Lunar forces briefly experimented with asteroids as missiles,” the AI interjected.

  “Yes, I remember. They were mostly small carbonaceous chondrite rocks that had been towed into lunar orbit years before as part of a mining project. Some military strategist came up with the idea of fitting motors onto the things and sending them towards Terra. Fortunately the conflict ended and the Loonies stopped throwing rocks and started to play nice.”

  “Ben, this asteroid is different. It is a Jovian trojan and is massive. If it hits Terra, it would rival the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.”

  Someone went to a lot of trouble to find and push this rock into a planet crossing orbit. Just to make sure that nobody could interfere with it, the bastards gave it smart mines. Militarily, it was a brilliant plan. Somebody just forgot to turn it off after the war was over. Ben had no love for the planetary government that had exiled him to citizen-less poverty. But the people didn’t deserve such a fate. Natalie was on the planet. Tear
s again filled his eyes at the realization of what was going to happen.

  “Okay. We need to get off of this rock as fast as possible, get into the space lanes and transmit the coordinates and trajectory of the rock. With enough warning, they should be able to spot it and blow it away, right?” he asked, desperation plainly in his voice.

  Another long period of silence as the AI ran computations.

  “I’m afraid I can come up with no scenario that will allow us to do that successfully, Ben.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The original plan requires us to ride on this asteroid until we can effectively use our fuel and improvised radio. The asteroid will strike the planet before we get into the space lanes. The time to improvise a kluge for a radio transmitter will take the full duration of our time on the asteroid. We will also require the full duration of our time on this asteroid to disable the mines to allow us to escape and transmit the signal. There is no scenario I can compute that will allow us to warn anyone in time to stop the collision. I’m sorry, Ben.”

  The realization that Natalie and the twenty-billion other souls on the planet were doomed stunned Ben into silence.

  “Ben, did you hear me? Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” was all he could manage.

  After a long period of silence, Ben sighed heavily, as if he were trying to give back all of his breath to buy the world more time.

  “There’s no choice then,” he announced dully.

  “I am afraid not.”

  “I don’t think you understand. I have no choice about what I have to do.”

  “Ben, there is only one way for us to get off of this asteroid. We must follow the original escape plan. As Mars will become the dominant power, it would be best for us to make plans about…”

  “That’s not what Gina would have said!” Ben yelled.

  “Ben,” the AI replied softly, “I am not Gina.”

  “No, I suppose you’re not. But you’re the closest I’ve had to having her around all this time. For all of these years I have really been treating you as if you were Gina. I’m sorry.”