Come In, Collins

by Bill Patterson

  “You know the difference between a fissile isotope like uranium-233 and a fertile one like thorium-232. We can't make a bomb out of thorium—it won't chain-react. But we can make one out of U-233. It's a problem, though. Mighty Thor is designed to be as difficult as possible to make U-233. So, we're going to do an end run around it.

  “We've been calling the stuff in the reactor pipes 'thorium salt, right?”

  Bubba looked surprises. “Yeah. It isn't?”

  Vito laughed. “When we first make it, it is. But on its first pass through the reactor core, some of the thorium gets whacked by a neutron from a fissioning uranium atom and becomes thorium-233, which decays to protactium-233. Then we wait a month, and half of that turns into uranium-233, which is what we want. Now, we generally leave the salt alone, let all the neutrons have their day in the sun, and everything works out—which is what the reactor is designed to do. Oh, we sparge off the xenon, which would suck up all the neutrons, but other than that, everything just pumps away, happy as a clam.”

  Bubba nodded. “But we're gonna mess with that.”

  “Right. But we're not going to touch the main pipes. We're going to add a few more. Add about six pipes in a hexagon, surrounding the main feed pipe, and pump pure thorium salt through the core once. It goes into a tank, stays hot, and after about a day, all of the thorium-233 has become protactium. We separate it out, probably through fractional solidification, and set it somewhere to chill out. We take the rest of the thorium, remelt it if we have to, and send it through again. In about five weeks, we've got our U-233.”

  “I'm guessing we can't do it in one big run, right?”

  Vito laughed. “Oh, hell no! It's gonna be a whole lot of glass bottles of fluids. Fifteen kilos of U-233 will go boom. We have to be veeeeery careful.”

  Vito got up. “I've got to figure out the piping, Bubba. I want you to see about getting some glass bottles.”

  Bubba nodded, his mind spinning.

  ***

  “Well, the possibility is there, McCrary. I'll have to go look in the design manuals to see if we can do it with Mighty Thor,” Vito said. “Some reactors can do it, others can't. It all depends on the neutron flux in the core.

  “This is vitally important,” said McCrary. “I am of the opinion that another large moonquake will end the Collins as a viable colony at this time.”

  “I'll get you your uranium. How are you going to get it up to the impactor?”

  “First things first, Mr. VonShaick. Get me my weapon.”

  ***

  Six weeks later, Bubba found himself trying to lathe a simple cylinder while in a spacesuit. Even with automation to assist, he found it a nearly impossible task as, time and again, the tool slipped out of his gloves, or the visor interfered with clear vision, distorting the view. Finally, he had enough when a flying tool nearly pierced his suit.

  “Vito,” he called while he was undergoing decontamination. “This is completely unacceptable. But I have some ideas that might help.”

  In about half the time that it would ordinarily would have taken, McCrary had his warhead. The necessary sphere and rod were gleaming, finely-polished pieces.

  ***

  “Oh, damn,” said Billy as he examined the latest debris plot. Bouncing radar off the Moon continuously allowed the observatory to build up an ephemeris of the various chunks of orbiting debris. Since they could only reliably track the debris when it was above the horizon at the edge of the Moon, it took quite some time, and some finicky calculations, to match returns to debris chunks and determine their orbits around the Moon. But the computer labeled this one as a high priority, and Billy saw it when he first came in that morning.

  “EN-27,” he said, when he briefed his advisor later that morning. “It's about two hundred meters long, has a period of about three weeks, and is going to crash into the Moon almost on top of the Collins in nine to twelve weeks.”

  “That's terrible,” said Doctor Circe. “Anything we can do?”

  “Not really,” said Billy. We know they're alive, and we know that they can both see and zap smaller debris—the laser lines show that. They've got to know about this hunk of death coming right at them.”

  “What are they going to do about it?” the doctor wondered.

  Billy joined him. What, indeed?

  ***

  “I understand Mr. Cranford was responsible for this,” McCrary said, while he examined the pieces housed in a lead-lined glovebox.

  “Yes, sir,” said Vito, nervously moving the pieces away from each other. “I'd like to separate these a bit,” he said.

  McCrary chuckled mirthlessly. “Of course. In fact, you can put them back in their storage positions.”

  Vito quickly locked the two objects in their mounting brackets. Once the cases were locked, he sighed. “I never liked being around the actual materials, especially without shielding.” He sat back in his chair. “Now, how are we going to get them up to the impactor? There isn't anything around that can make the trip.”

  “You forget there's still OTV Sandy.”

  Vito stopped dead, stunned. “Sandy? That's our last chance of ever getting home!”

  McCrary nodded grimly. “I know. But if you think about it, if this travelling shovel of death impacts and shakes us apart, it really doesn't matter if Sandy's around or not. We'll never recover.”

  Vito stared at McCrary, decision trees flickering through the mind of the nuclear physicist. He balled his fists, then turned and slammed a table so hard he actually rose off the floor with the reaction.

  “McCrary, you're right again, damn you. Well, we're stuck here for the duration, I guess. I'll make you a nuke, and you can use it to vaporize our last hope of ever getting back to Earth.”

  “That's all I ask, Mr. VonShaick. Thank you.” McCrary turned and left.

  ***

  The damage to Sandy was pretty bad. That is, if one thought of it as an Orbital Transfer Vehicle destined to transport people and cargo to and from Earth orbit. The damage done when The Event debris rained down on the unprotected spaceship was concentrated on the upper portion of the spacecraft—the crew and navigation area. The functions that most interested McCrary—propulsion and steering—were concentrated in the lower section of the craft, which had not suffered as much damage.

  Of course, the proposed use of Sandy did not pass unnoticed.

  “They're going to maroon us here on the Moon!” screamed Irma, when she heard of McCrary's plans. “We won't ever get back to Earth!”

  “We won't get back there in any case. Have you seen the sheer amount of orbital debris?” asked Marcel.

  “It doesn't matter! As long as we have Sandy, we have hope. Once it gets vaporized, we'll have none. And that's another thing—I don't like the idea of McCrary running around with nukes. What's to stop him from lobbing them at Earth?”

  Marcel looked at her oddly. “Uh, the same thing that forces him to use Sandy. He needs Sandy's engines to lob one nuke about fifty miles up. There's no chance he'll be able to lob another nuke all the way to Earth. There's just one rocket engine on the Moon, and that's in Sandy.”

  “What about those aluminum engines we used to put on the ShelterCans?” she asked. Irma had once worked in the shops that tested the innovative engines that burned powdered aluminum in a stream of liquid oxygen to adjust the trim of the ShelterCans that Collins flung up to the Chaffee. “For that matter, what about the Flinger?”

  The Flinger was the series of steel hoops that formed a linear induction motor that tossed ShelterCans towards the Chaffee using electromagnets, eliminating the need to build bulky rocket motors and tankage.

  A sizable group of Irma and Marcel's followers had gathered by now, attracted by the commotion as well as friends notifying them.

  “I hear that there's about a year's worth of work needed to get the Flinger back up and running. And that's if the debris quits raining down. Did ya hear about that Moondog getting holed when one chunk of rock drilled in ten mete
rs behind him? Almost didn't make it back to the Collins.”

  “All the more reason to preserve Sandy. There's no way we'll ever repair the Flinger and get it operational without killing a few people. Do YOU want to be part of a work party for it?” she asked. A room full of shaking heads answered her.

  “Well, then the only thing to do is insist that the spacecraft get under cover, to preserve it, then we'll have to work on it when the time allows.

  Oddly enough, McCrary agreed. To the moving part. The craft was towed into one of the nearby garages that could hold pressure, where a waiting horde of workers attacked it. They weren't fixing it, they were stripping off the upper pilot module.

  To say that Irma Huertes was angry was a little like saying the sun was bright. The reality was so much more.

  ***

  “Horst, I need Sandy done yesterday. What's holding it up?”

  “Slowdowns of all kinds, sir. There's no pattern, or I would have fixed it before. Some are silly—they couldn't get the lock doors to close properly, so we had a delay in repressurizing the garage. Another time, one of the Moondogs claimed his helmet had been stolen, and he couldn't work on one of the exterior projects. And just today, it seems that all of the screwdrivers on the project were swapped out for ones of a different type. Some are straight, some are for Torx head screws. The problem is that we need Phillips head screwdrivers, and all of the Phillips ones are gone.

  “I think I detect a pattern here,” said McCrary. “Huertas, I think.”

  “I'm certain. Chief, when are you going to do something about that woman? It's not like she's pinching desserts in the chow line. If we can't get Sandy ready, we might as well cash it in soon. Don't they get it?”

  “Apparently not,” said McCrary. “But they have their rights.”

  “Dammit, McCrary, this is no time to go soft. We're on a war footing here, whether you act like it or not. Besides, we're given Navy Ranks, and there's a long tradition about the brig and the lash.”

  McCrary looked at Horst in slight amazement. “You'd descend to whipping Ms. Huertas?”

  “No, sir, and you know I wouldn't. What I am saying is that if you decided to pull rank on anyone with this project, I, for one, will support you completely. People like that Huertas woman seem to think that her rights give her the license to act irresponsibly. We need every man-jack here just to keep on living, much less build wealth.”

  Horst paused a moment for breath, and McCrary jumped right into the thread of discussion. “Horst, I think you are protesting just a little bit too much. First, I have been ignoring Huertas' request for Sandy for weeks now. Good thing, too, otherwise it wouldn't be available now, when we need it so desperately.

  “Second, I know just how far I am willing to let her go. She's up against that limit now. I will not allow her to jeopardize the Sandy-shima operation. In fact, if you'll open the door, she'll be just getting here.”

  Horst, surprised, turned to the door just as two loud raps sounded on the thin partition.

  “Ms. Huertas, before you present me with your latest complaint, when are you going to let me continue setting up Luna's first ICBM?”

  “I protest, in the strongest possible terms, your appropriation of UN property. You will destroy it in a nuclear explosion of limited usefulness, and positively maroon all of us here for the rest of our lives.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. We've been over this for at least a week. Well? Have you found anything else we could possibly do to help the situation?”

  Irma squirmed slightly under his firm, open gaze. She shook her head briefly.

  “Well, in that case,” said McCrary, “it seems like we should protect ourselves as much as possible. Sandy will continue to serve as the rocket stage that brings the U-233 bomb to its target point. I will thank you to return all of the Phillips-head screwdrivers as well, before I have to conduct a station-wide search that will undoubtedly discover your group's stills and marijuana farms.”

  Irma gasped, but quickly understood the implied bargain. She punched her commpad briefly, messaging the location of the screwdrivers to McCrary.

  “Stop the sabotage and slowdowns, or I will ensure that you will be cleaning out the algae tanks for the rest of your natural life. Are we clear on that?”

  Horst widened his eyes. He had seen McCrary angry before, but this was the first time he had seen the man so close to the edge.

  “Clear, oh King,” she said, before whirling on her heel and stomping out of the office. At her first footfall, though, the stomp propelled her into the ceiling. She recovered, looked behind her to see the men's heads down, studying their tablets.

  Someone Set Up Us Da Bomb

  UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, January 11, 2083, 2019 EDT

  Throughout the Collins, crew were glued to their screens, slaved to the signal broadcast from Operations. McCrary sat in the command chair, watching the countdown from above. His people were the best possible in their positions, and they knew it.

  “Last pass before launch, Commander,” said Peter Brinker. As the most senior Lunar Operations Controller, he had the honor of leading the launch team.

  “For the last time, I'm not the Commander,” muttered McCrary. “Commander Lee is still with us, even if he is under the weather at the moment.

  In Sick Bay, Jeng Wo Lee smiled in the dark. His brain was slowly healing, and Doctor Kumar took him off the intensive care list. His skull still had stitches where Doc Kumar had sewn his scalp back together. The swelling of his brain had decreased to the point where they could reset the pieces of his skull, wire them together, and fill in the remaining holes with titanium salvaged from some wrecked equipment. He had been briefed by McCrary of the upcoming mission and fully agreed with the necessity and aims of the program. He had also met with a delegation from the minority protesters to let them know his feelings. They agreed to allow the launch to happen without incident.

  “Range confirmed, McCrary. New course data being fed into Sandy.”

  “Detonation twenty meters out?” he asked. “We don't want to shatter the damn thing.”

  “Agreed, sir. All of the parameters are recalculated. Perilune will occur twenty kilometers northwest of our location, altitude fifty kilometers. The nuke will hit it at perilune. If we get a fizzle, the impactor will drill in within the next four orbits, sometime in the next three months.”

  “Thank you, Peter. Continue the countdown.”

  The team had a launch window that was somewhat longer than one would think. However, since the battered OTV was designed with enough delta vee to go from Low Earth Orbit and land on the Moon, its engines were more than a match to place a nuclear device fifty kilometers up in the sky. If necessary, they could hover it over the point of closest approach for up to five minutes to catch the tumbling bit of Moon crust at the right time.

  It made for some flexibility in the launch team. If they didn't launch at the beginning of the window, they had the option for at least three more shots before the window closed. Then they would have to wait for the three-week period of the huge chunk of debris to arc out from the Moon, reach the highest point of its orbit, then fall back to the Moon to whip over the Collins once again.

  Some of the more spiritually minded among the crew tried to figure out the accident of celestial mechanics that caused the impactor to cross above the Collins on its way to its closest approach. Some recalled the Angel of Death from the Old Testament. Although there was not a priest or minister among the crew, they spent a lot of time in their quarters. One of the Moondogs had uploaded an electronic Bible to the main computer. Within a week, every crew member, even the most hard-core atheist, was perusing it. Not everyone was praying, of course. Some of them were looking up the passage McCrary quoted the day the Moon exploded. Others were looking for signs that the end of the world was upon them. Others, though, read it from the beginning, as a sort of 'bucket list' item—something to do before one died.

  For if Sandy did not deliver the bomb to
the predetermined spot, the remaining three months of the Collins before impact would be a race to secure the colony from a second round of disaster. Many did not think they would survive the experience.

  ***

  Billy continued his observations, concentrating on the spectra from the vaporizing blobs. There were so many now that Moonbase Collins must have deployed more lasers. People from all over the world stayed up nights to watch the light show that went on twenty-four/seven. It was even visible, sometimes, in the daytime, particularly at new moonrise, when the sky was still semi-dark.

  In fact, sometimes, it was difficult to collect the right kind of observations. The best spectra was of the cooling off of the vapor cloud just after the laser shut off—but that was often marred by the light of another laser directly in the field of view.

  Billy thought about EN-27 and fretted. He could not see any way out of the dilemma for the Collins and her crew. Another couple of years, perhaps, and they could risk a ship up to the Moon. But what would they send?

  “What if they massed all of the lasers on the impactor?” asked Doctor Circe during his next conference with Billy. “Would that make a difference?”

  Billy had already worked out the figures. “On the best shooting days, when the sun is directly overhead and they've got power to burn, I count over one hundred lasers firing. Now, if they could turn all of them onto EN-27, it would not make a difference. The low point of its orbit takes it over the horizon around Collins within five minutes. Even with one hundred gigawatts blasting into the chunk, it's not going to move it very much at all. Maybe they'll get another month or two. But that's it. In the meantime, all the little crap will be peppering them. It's a choice between a hundred small bullets and one big cannonball. They're going after the bullets.”

  He had read some of the biographies of the people up there, and found it hard to believe that they were content to just sit up there and take it. They had to be working on something. But what?