by E. R. Mason
“Wherever it is, how long will we be gone?”
“That’s open-ended. We’re going to Mu Arae, a moon in that system called Tolkien Minor. I need you to find out everything you can about it.”
“Okay, but what are you gonna do about you-know-who on the couch there. He’s in no shape.”
“I’m working on that. Go get your shower and sleep. And watch yourself. Bad people are after Danica. I don’t want them taking any friends hostage before we have time to get out of here.”
“Switching to stealth mode in my mind. I’ll check in regularly.”
We went to Catherine as she stood doting over Patrick. R.J. said something reassuring to the patient, then headed for the door.
I called to Catherine, waved her over, and quietly asked, “How long before he can travel?”
“He’s still feeling far better than he really is. As long as he’s monitored regularly and the drugs adjusted, he’s okay. Without me I’d guess he could travel in a week or so. With me he can travel now.”
“A week? No sooner?”
“What’ve you got going? Tell me.”
“I need to take him someplace far away to check on some leads about his daughter.”
“How far would that be?”
“Six trillion miles.”
“No problem. When do we leave?”
“You? Spaceflight? You ever done that?”
“What the hell? It’s not rocket science.”
“Actually, it is.”
“You think I can knock your ass off the track at one-eighty and I can’t sit in a spaceship?”
“You have a point. But you can’t go. We don’t know how long we’ll be out there.”
“I’ll clear my schedule.”
“We get out there, you won’t be able to change your mind.”
“Have I ever seemed uncertain about anything?”
“Just me.”
“No, I’m certain about you. I don’t trust you completely.”
“But you’re willing to fly with me.”
“This little talk is getting annoying. I’ve already gone flying with you, Flash. I’ll take my PAV and pick up some things for the trip, and get some extra medication for my patient. Once more, when do we leave?”
“So you’ve made my decision and that’s it?”
“That’s a good way of putting it. When do we leave?”
“As soon as the formal flight plan is approved. But some of us don’t know they’re going yet.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Nope. It’d only be problem if I told them they couldn’t go.”
“My kind of people. I’ll break the news to the patient.” She turned away and returned to Patrick.
I found Danica in the kitchen washing dishes. “We’re leaving for the Mu Arae star system as soon as the formal flight plan is approved.”
“Oh, thank God. Where is that?”
Chapter 10
Over the next twenty-four hours my place became a way station for satchels, luggage, and numerous decorative bags containing recent feminine purchases. Any normal person would have thought we were going on vacation. The mood, however, was quite the opposite.
I had fought with myself about calling Wilson. Need finally overcame guilt. To my surprise, he was good to go. Jeannie was taking some new-wave three-month sabbatical for modern women approaching marriage. Separation from the betrothed was prescribed. It all sounded like a dumb-ass idea. Wilson seemed too glad to be going.
The plan was to launch at dawn. Ship’s stores and expendables were replenished and ready. Wilson and R.J. made several trips delivering the baggage. Danica was not allowed out of the hex-plex. No one slept, except Wilson.
At 04:00, R.J., Wilson, and a disguised Danica took Catherine’s PAV and dropped into the VAB parking area. A very short dash across an open patch of lawn put them inside the SPF and into the Griffin hangar in less than a minute. Catherine and I walked Patrick to a rented floater limo and made the trip by land.
We silently loaded into Griffin while still in the hangar. At 05:00 a ground crew of three showed up with a tug. They opened the bay doors and pulled off the ground power cables. We sealed up while being towed out. They positioned the spacecraft on the apron, waved us ready through the flight deck windows, and drove away. Starlight was fading in the night sky, the predawn haze just beginning to distort the horizon.
After hatch checks, I returned forward and was pleasantly surprised to find Danica had allowed me the left seat. The power-up procedure had already been completed, filling the cabin with Christmas tree lights and busy display monitors. I found the right place on the checklist and joined in. Systems were all sound until we reached the very end and began switching on external telemetry. Almost immediately there was a master alarm, and a red flashing symbol on the collision avoidance system monitor.
“Damn, it’s that same interference with the aft-facing radar arrays, Adrian.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting to use Griffin so soon. There wasn’t time to even think about it.” I twisted back to look at R.J. and Wilson. “You guys, can we climb to insertion and ride out just one orbit safely?”
Wilson responded. “We’ll have ground coverage all the way, Adrian. There’s really no danger of being hit from behind by anything.”
“We’ll need to talk about it en route,” added R.J. “I have the rundown on the Mu Arae system that you asked for. There are considerations.”
I looked at Danica. “If memory serves, Orbital Traffic Control doesn’t monitor this. They’re not seeing our "no-go," are they?”
“Nope. All it takes is a manual one-step bypass command and the autopilot and flight director computer will be happy.”
I gave a sigh and nodded to her. “Okay. Let’s do it then. You want to type that in for me, Dan, and then let’s call in and tell them we’re ready.”
R.J. cut in. “Oh no, I think I left a sprinkler running at your place, Adrian.”
Danica shook her head. “R.J., that’s not funny anymore.”
As she typed in the override commands, I keyed my mike. “OTC, Griffin is ready for direct departure.”
“Griffin, continue to hold, expect clearance momentarily.”
“Griffin holding on the apron.”
Danica said, “Override command accepted, Commander. All green to the sequencer.”
“Let’s skip the hold at twenty feet and turn right into ascent attitude. Catherine, are you paying attention back there?”
“Every now and then you ask really dumb questions, Adrian,” came the reply.
“How is the patient?”
“Asleep in his bed, all strapped in.”
“Liftoff in just a minute. Standby.”
“Exactly what else would I do back here?”
Danica covered her boom mike with one hand and leaned over toward me. “She seems to get the better of you quite often.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Griffin, OTC. Cleared for launch at your discretion.”
“Griffin cleared for launch. Thank-you.”
With a quick look around the cabin, I tapped in the engage command and Griffin rose gently off the tarmac. At twenty feet, the gears clunked up into their wheel wells, and the OMS engines kicked in and sank us back in our seats as the spacecraft nosed upward. With terrain racing by below, I watched the spacecraft lock onto the flight plan departure line on the primary navigation computer, as the altitude readout scrambled digits trying to keep up.
“Passing through eight thousand, Adrian,” said Danica. “Ship’s pressurization has taken over. Hey! The new gravity system just switched on and is in self-checks. Oh, that’s so cool.”
“R.J., how’s the CAS looking?”
“All rear-looking transducers continue to have interference or distortion intermittently, Adrian. There’s no improvement, but it hasn’t gotten any worse, either.”
Danica glanced over. “Well, we expected that. Leaving FL100. OMS cuto
ff counting down.”
The night sky returned in all its splendor, eclipsed by Earth’s cloud-covered blue horizon arc. There seemed less coronal haze this time, allowing stars to be seen scattered along the barrier between Heaven and Earth. It is invariably a silent moment in the cabin of any spacecraft. There is nothing more mesmerizing than those first moments on top.
Satisfied we were in the proper orbit to hurtle ourselves in the direction of the constellation Ara, Danica and I went into parking checklists to be followed by break-orbit checklists. The guys behind us had it a lot easier.
“Engineering station A is complete, Adrian. Am I cleared to move freely about the cabin?” asked R.J.
“B-station also complete,” added Wilson.
I twisted around to look back at them. “You guys better check on Catherine and Patrick.”
Wilson had already unstrapped and stood. “Holy crap! There be gravity here. This is so weird!”
“Wow! I keep wanting to grab on to stuff,” added R.J., and the two of them began guffawing and shoving each other.
“We had this all the way back from Enuro, but I still can’t get used to it,” joked Wilson, as the two of them disappeared back toward the airlock.
As we continued our checks, I looked over at Danica and found Catherine suddenly leaning over between us, staring out the front portals.
“You doin’ okay, Cath?”
“I am speechless,” she said. “For the first time in my life.”
“My gosh! It must be the end of the world,” I replied.
“You see so many pictures and videos of this, but they’re nothing compared to the real thing. I have to keep pinching myself.”
“You have about thirty minutes to enjoy what’s below, then we’ll be strapping in to leave.”
“I can’t wait.” She smiled, and left to try the habitat view ports.
Danica laughed at me. “You really know how to show a girl a good time.”
We slung around Earth, and when the countdown timer hit zero the OMS fired once more, kicking us out of orbit, followed by a big boost from the stellar drives. We watched Earth quickly shrink away on our rear-facing cameras. There were oohs and aahs from Catherine, sentiments rarely heard. With final checklists complete, we went into single-pilot mode, with Danica opting for the first shift.
I took a moment to enjoy the blanket of stars so far ahead of us, and then tried to sound casual. “So tell me, what are the chances of Mr. Blackwell getting access to a ship and coming after you?”
“Getting access to a ship? Chances are good. Remember, the man was an off-world importer-exporter. Finding out where I am? Not so good, I think. Catching up with us if he did? Nobody’s as fast as the Griffin. It would take him a while. But there’s one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
“The man has connections. It’s always possible he might have a way of getting word out to the wrong people that there’s a bounty on me.”
“How does a maniac like that get out of prison?”
“Out early on good behavior. Remember, all of this could be in my head. I could just be neurotic or something.”
“You ran off with a prototype PAV, and not a single report was made to the authorities. You’re not imagining this stuff, believe me.”
“I’m really sorry I dragged you in, Adrian. Really.”
“Like I said before, I want in. My contacts weren’t any help except to tell me not to let you out of my sight, which means they know something’s up but are not in a position to do anything about it. They’ve got something going on with Blackwell, but it must be very high level stuff. In the meantime, we’ll just keep our eyes open and stay locked and loaded. You going to be alright?”
“There’s no place I’d rather be.”
For only the second time after an orbital departure, I had to lift myself out of the seat, rather than float from it. As Wilson had so aptly phrased, it felt weird. After an uneventful walk-around inspection, I joined my compatriots at the conference table. R.J. was hammering away at his little laptop. Wilson was throwing cashews in the air and catching them in his mouth. Catherine was twisted around in her seat by the bulkhead, still looking out.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, now that we’re under way, let’s see if we can try to put things in perspective a bit.” I reached over and tapped the intercom. “Danica, would you put the conference table on monitor and sit in with us?”
“I see you,” was the reply.
R.J. looked up from his laptop. Wilson continued casting cashews into the air, paying attention in between catches.
I opened my mouth to speak but was interrupted by a beeping from one of the engineering stations.
“Incoming message,” said Wilson.
“Hold that thought.” At the A engineering station, a flight approval form scrolled across the screen. It validated crew members' certifications, all except Catherine's. She was listed as a civilian passenger. It also designated the trip as "NENR," Nasebian Emissary Not Required. It meant Nasebian representatives had reviewed the flight plan and again decreed oversight unnecessary. It surprised me, and left mixed emotions.
Back at the conference table, I remained standing, opened my mouth to speak, and was again interrupted by a different form of beeping from an engineering station.
“Video communication,” said Wilson as he tossed another nut in the air.
I tapped the controls on the conference table and brought the message up on the main habitat monitor. Immediately an extreme close-up of Bernard Porre appeared on the screen. There were moans and other guttural sounds.
“Commander Tarn, what a surprise to be in contact with you again so soon. Your flight plan took us all a bit by surprise this time. We are somewhat at a loss at how quickly your trip was processed and approved. I can only think those at the higher levels must find allayment in the thought of your being several trillion miles away. Oddly enough, the Nasebian high council has also decreed that a Nasebian emissary is not required for your little trip. One would think they would be the most concerned of all. But enough of these mundane courtesies.”
“Given your excursion is classified as private, the agency would like to request your scans, imagery, and ship’s logs as you are able to provide, if you have no objections. It is a standard request intended to enrich data compilation on file for the Mu Arae system. Any SID related information would also be very much appreciated.”
“As you know, Mu Arae is quite a dynamic environment and is outside the boundaries of any governing body, marshaled only by local, non-recognized groups. We have very little information on the many mining operations and shipping conglomerates that operate there. Perhaps, if you do surmount the obstacles that lie ahead in this latest of your irregular quests, you may be able to fill in some blanks for us.”
“We await your data expectantly. Porre out.”
I cleared the screen and rubbed one side of my face in exasperation.
“The man is such a delight,” said R.J.
“Yeah, nothing like a subspace message while en route to let everyone know where we’re going,” added Wilson.
“It’s all encrypted, isn’t it?” said Catherine.
“Yeah, but so was the enigma stuff in the big war, and they didn’t have a galaxy of spies,” complained Wilson.
“Being a bit melodramatic, aren’t we?” said R.J.
I held up one hand. “R.J., let’s give Porre’s message the attention it deserves and go on to the important stuff. Can you give us your rundown on Mu Arae and Tolkien Minor?”
“Mu Arae, big star exactly 50.5 light years from Earth, or 15.51 parsecs. It has a parallax of 64.47, a radius 36% greater than our sun. It’s helium enriched, giving it an even greater gravity ratio. Spectral type G31V-V. You could say it’s a hotty.” R.J. looked up from his laptop as though he expected laughter. There was none.
“Anyway, that particular sector is so rich with asteroids, planetoids, rogues, moons and other stuff, it’s a haven for mi
ning colonies and prospectors. There are so many various races involved, no one particular race has been able lay claim to any of it for fear the others would band together and take action. For the most part, they leave each other alone. There is no military or police organization, just local marshal or constable types here and there, and they answer to no one in particular.”
Catherine said, “Not a tourist haven, I think.”
Wilson added, “It’s the Old West in space.”
R.J. continued, “So anyway, the place we’re going, Tolkien Minor, a moon of Mu Arae-E, the outermost planet in the system, a gas giant by the way. It’s a stopping-off point for anyone who dares. It’s got a gravity of 1.1 of Earth’s so we’ll all be heavy. There’s no atmosphere at all, but there’s a little bit of hard-to-get subsurface water. The place had large gold deposits so huge that electronic dome installations were set up for mining. When the gold ran out, those outposts were abandoned, but because of its central location and with so much prospecting in the area, it became like a way station for everybody and anybody. The topography is mostly gray, rocky desert. There’s not much other information. That’s probably partly why Bernard Porre is interested. There’s local law only, which is governed by anybody who can pay the most, if you get my drift. Maybe Wilson’s old west analogy is not such a bad comparison.”
“Sounds like a pretty iffy place,” said Wilson.
“But it does sound like a place one could get information about bad people,” said Catherine.
“What about the landing, R.J.?” I asked.
“Strictly pick your own spot. The electronic domes are all public now. Don’t expect any ground crew assistance. Do not leave the keys in your spacecraft.”
“I’ll hand out sidearms to everyone before we set down. Obviously there’ll be no solo trips by anyone.”
“There’s one other item that we seriously need to consider, Adrian,” said R.J.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“The problem with the rear-looking radars. We’re going into a sector so busy with solids, we’ve got to have the rear-looking radar or we’ll get something rammed up our…”