“Look!” Lyle pointed to the left of the connecting station. Just visible in the light was the first of the self positioning swings that would take them from the elevator all the way to the Moon. It was yet another impressive engineering sight, and they could see a car was attached to the end of a carbon nano tube cable - the cable itself only visible a short way up. Between the elevator station and the swing car there was a walkway of approximately one hundred feet. This was their first vision for the transfer they would need to make via space walk and it invoked yet another surge of anxiety.
“Please be seated and engage your restraining harness,” the holographic hostess said. “We are about to dock. Please ensure you take all belongings with you when disembarking the elevator car. Thank you for traveling with Space Elevator Corporation.”
Jenna and Lyle prepared to depart the car a little relieved to be free of its confines after the near five-hour trip upwards from Earth. The door then opened leading onto a small reception area, behind it a traveler’s lounge. Without any other options, they took to the lounges and reclined for some time as they waited further advice.
“This is elevator control,” an automated service announced. “All passengers for transit to the Moon are now required to make way to the transit area for space suit fitting. Passengers for descent to Earth are advised the next car will depart in twenty minutes.”
“I guess this is it,” Lyle said getting up and offering a helping hand to Jenna. There were no other people visible about the station and for a moment they felt very alone.
“Ah…only two today. Greetings I am Electro your space suit specialist.” A robot assistant greeted them at the door to the space suit fitting room. “Please follow me for space suit fitting.”
“Corny name,” Lyle said as he watched the robot closely. “Do you know much about these things?”
“Just a little,” Jenna replied. “Not really my area of expertise, impressive though.” Electro lead them down a short passageway and into a room about the same size as the passenger section of the elevator car. “I am here to service all of your fitting requirements. Your personal details have been forwarded to me prior to your arrival ensuring a proper fitting.”
“Proper fitting?”
“Yeah, apparently before they had the likes of Electro during the initial testing phase of the elevator, someone was taken seriously ill due to an inappropriate oxygen mix in the suit.”
“How can that be?”
“Something to do with the nano technology some of the trans-human types use to maintain health. Apparently during the testing incident someone was given a highly rich oxygen mix that did not go well with the nano receptors connected to their Telomeres, um…DNA strand ends. They ended up with a condition similar to the bends ocean divers get if they surface too quickly.”
Within twenty minutes both of them had been fitted with space suits and they were then relocated to the departure section airlock to await departure advice. The airlock was an imposing sight - a doorway to space. Never had they confronted anything like it before and they both began to feel that after this mission, they would never have to again.
“I suppose we need to get used to this,” Lyle said. “From here on in it is going to be a lot of passageways and airlocks.”
“And space suits.”
“Proceed into airlock,” came the command. They stepped into the airlock after the internal door opened, Lyle going first. When they were seated the internal door closed automatically with a hiss and their space suit environmental controls took over. They looked at each other through the visors of their space helmets – Lyle forcing a slight smile. Another much louder hiss was then heard as the external door opened and the airlock atmosphere dissipated. Through the round opening they could see the lighted walkway stretching out to the waiting swing car. It looked much further than one hundred feet.
“Proceed,” came another command, audible through their helmet communications system.
Lyle took the first tentative steps pausing a moment at the doorway threshold. Jenna was right behind him keen to stay close to Lyle, as beyond lay the expanse of space, vast and black. A few distant stars came into view as they both proceeded beyond the door onto the walkway, the only glimmer of light coming from the expanse. To the sound of their own breathing and with fast beating hearts, they began the transit. Magnetised soles in their boots ensured they could make steady unfaltering steps whilst holding handrails on the catwalk like walkway. Their life line was a tether of fine nano tubes ensuring they would not drift off into space. Silhouette against space they slowly made their way across.
The Earth loomed below them adding to the enormity of the scene, its welcoming blue atmosphere unreachable. Nearly every instinct inside of them was rejecting this walk. At the halfway point they paused for a few seconds and looked down at the Earth. “Makes me dizzy,’ Jenna said, their first communication since leaving the airlock. “Let’s keep going.” Slowly they continued with the spectacle of the live planet below. Both were tempted to gaze upon its wonder as they maintained composure on the narrow walk way, for a moment marveling at the view, and then switching back urgently to focusing on their steps. When at last they had nearly reached the doorway into the airlock for the swing car, they had felt as if had been an eternity spent on the walkway, but it had only been five minutes. Sensing their arrival, the airlock door automatically opened as soon as they arrived, and both of them immediately went inside relieved the space walk was over. Once inside, the outer door clamped shut and another hiss emanated from within the airlock chamber indicating it was filling with pressurized atmosphere.
“Please remain in you space helmets. Do not remove your helmets until airlock exit.” The two of them finally relaxed from their walk sufficiently to look at each other and smile. A minute later they were inside the swing car and instructed to remove their helmets only. It was standard procedure to remain in the space suits for the entire swing journey to the Moon.
“Phew,” Lyle said as they took up seats and harnessed themselves for the oncoming transit.
“You’re telling me! I know the view is amazing but hell on your heart. Mine felt like it would leap out of my throat.”
“Yeah, mine too.”
Drawing on the moment and need to relax after the walk through space, Lyle joked jabbing Jenna in the ribs through her space suit, “Let’s get swinging then.”
She laughed and cast him her best smile. She loved this man. He was such an inspiration and seemed so solid to her. Since meeting him on descent from Space Station Internationale, she had grown very fond of his ways, his steadfast approach to life, his caring, his open mind, and of the excitement she felt just being around him. An unlikely place as it was inside a space swing car to feel such things, but she knew it did not matter where or when she felt this way, she truly loved him.
The wait for the next stage of the journey was not long and the pair were soon again on their way. Travel by this method was smooth and without interruption as each swing ended in an automated exchange with the next swing car attaching to the next enormous pendulum like swing, prior to detaching from the previous. There was no artificial gravity this time, so they were restricted to remaining harnessed in their seats during the twelve-hour transit. Lyle did experience a considerable amount of time allowing his arms to float s a consolation to not entirely experiencing weightlessness.
“They keep these things in place using some of the best fusion thruster technology we have,” Jenna said after Lyle asked her what she knew. “A quarter of a million miles is a lot of space to cover and each swing covers just under twenty thousand miles, thus massive lengths of carbon nano tube are required.”
“How do they construct such lengths?”
“Rapid manufacture. Each length can be churned out somewhat like an old-fashioned pasta maker, to use a simple analogy. Ingredients go in one end and the tubes come out the other. It is all done in space at the scientific section of the space station. As they
develop better methods for doing this, we will see a lot more of it made. The biggest market for the tubes is in tethering smaller asteroids to the larger asteroids where operations bases are located.”
“Wow. A bit like three dimensional printing then!’
“Yeah wow,” Jenna mimicked, happy to see Lyle’s enthusiasm for knowledge about her work. “It all began early in this century. With resources on Earth rapidly running out, the first private mining exploration companies scouted the potential of asteroids for mining using probes and robots, and they hit a bonanza. Back in those days even a small asteroid could fetch billions in value for its rare and common minerals. With a lot of money behind them, development soon escalated and full-scale mining operations began not long after. But it was not until there had been a few horrific collisions resulting in many deaths that companies looked into the tethering idea, which was then also used for these swings.”
“So your involvement…”
“Propulsion systems for both the mining equipment and for controlling the automated ships sent to secure the tethers to the space rocks. This also extended to a new type of robot far more advanced than those pioneering models. Before I came on the scene it was very much a hit and miss affair. The ships and robots were too slow. It simply took them too long to both accelerate and decelerate. They needed a new drive system and fusion propulsion was the answer. In fact, I was one of the leading scientists to work on this and actually achieve something. Others had experimented before my time, but reliability was too weak for deployment on any scale. An algorithm I developed lowering the fusion temperature was the break through, so in a way, the success of this entire thing was largely from my insights. It was not until I discovered a way to limit quantum phasing inside the fusion chamber to limit heat and develop the propulsion further that it really began to be used.”
“Gee, you are clever. I had better keep a hold on to you!”
“No need Lyle. You have me, I’m not going away.” Jenna grabbed Lyle’s hand and held it tight whilst maintaining a deep look directly into his eyes. He felt the same and was glad she was holding his hand, even though it was a gloved space suit hand.
The car continued to swing though space carving invisible arcs in the darkness. With each swing the Moon grew larger and larger and faster than they realized the passage of time to be, they arrived at the transfer station for the flight down to the Moon’s surface. A small shuttlecraft was docked to the far side of the station and as they sat down inside, its’ round portal windows offered them a view neither of them had ever seen. Up close at this distance, the Moon was indeed a heavenly body, so much larger and awe inspiring than the small disc they were used to in the Earth’s sky.
“Take a look out to your left,” the shuttle pilot told them as they craft turned away from the station and began descent. They both looked out of the same window with their cheeks touching, where they could see the distant blue Earth shining vividly against the inky blackness. It looked small and fragile floating in the vast expanse of space and in this moment, they both felt a little humble. Within ten minutes the pilot told them to prepare for landing on Luna One - the first base to be built on the surface. It was a sprawling yet orderly array of buildings some two miles across, linked via transit tubes to carry people and machines.
Chapter 25
“Attention citizens.” A global wide announcement was being made. “Due to the recent events involving nuclear detonations in America, the authorities believe it is necessary for all citizens to be assigned personal identification chips for security purposes. Contrary to previous advice detailing the gradual phasing in of ID chips, it is now considered imperative for all citizens to have the identification technology now in the best interest of personal safety. Your local office of authorities will advise via holographic message when you are required to attend your local hospital for chip injection. Do not be alarmed, you can rely on the authorities to provide all you need to feel safe and comfortable as you go about your daily lives.”
“What a load of propaganda rubbish! Who is going to buy that?” John was upset. “Lucky we sorted out Jenna and Lyle in time. I thought it was still too early but the authorities must be further ahead in this game than I realised.”
Raynie and Jake had been at the cabin for a few days, spending their time relaxing and talking. This news quickly smothered most of comfort they had gained, now presenting them with the prospect of actually engaging the technology John and Ryan had built.
**********
Agent Eight was happy. It was rare for him to be happy - so often fraught with anger as he was. Deep down inside he could feel it beginning to well up and dissipate his happiness, not that he cared for a second. Soon he would disperse all the hatred he could muster and in his warped sense, it thrilled him. Part one of his plan was underway, and soon parts two and three would ensure his dreams of depravity would be realized.
His happiness had not been real though. It was not the happiness most people experienced and shared with each other, no, it was a false happiness he took as the real thing, more a passive aggression invoking his disingenuous half smile. His face was incapable of the expression like other people when they felt good about life. It was not a scarred face, quite the opposite, bland and mostly featureless, and the type of face one could quickly forget. But when he had his way, they would never forget, and it was about to happen.
This buoyed him to be ever more diligent in tracking down those bastards he had lost in San Francisco. And that bastard who knocked him out – well he would get special treatment. He rubbed his arm where his own ID chip was inserted - grateful in his own way it was there. He suddenly felt the urge to insert chips now in anyone he saw. ‘The sooner the better,’ he thought, ‘give them to me and I’ll do the bloody lot!’
“Agent Eight, report to your superior officer,” came the call over the Broadcomm, being the system developed for Agent communications. ‘Bloody Broadcomm!’ he was distracted from his thoughts, something he never took the slightest liking toward. ‘What is it?’ He left his station and made his way to Superior Officer One’s office. When he arrived, she was also in what appeared to be some type of happy mood.
“Things are looking up,” she said. “It appears as though what we have trained for will soon become a reality. Do you think you are ready Agent Eight?”
“Yes, I am ready. I have been ready for a long time.”
“Hmm…I know. I have a new objective for you, as we have some information even you might find interesting.” Again the condescendence, he hated it, and he hated her.
“What is it?”
“A lead.”
“What lead?”
“Information we have only today obtained.”
“About?”
“About your assailant.”
This made him even angrier, “what about the fu…um him?”
“Now mind your language, you are speaking to a woman you know.”
He gave her a cold glance. He saw her as a designation, a faceless designation who was merely a superior through rank but never of mind. He hated her purely because she was his superior and had been condescending to him. Regardless, he would hate any superior or any person, his malice not confined to determining sex or race or status. Even those he pretended to like and who could help him service his own need for status were subjects of hate.
“You have been sent a data file, study it. Find out who it is we are dealing with. Do it properly this time or forget it. You know what is at stake and you had better control the situation with a lot more thinking…” she trailed off looking at him and infuriating him. She wondered for a brief moment if he could carry out this objective without failure. “Go. I have had enough of this for now. There are many other issues to deal with.”
‘Incredible!’ he thought as he left the office. His mind was trying to deal with the concept of how she had looked at him. He knew what she had been thinking. ‘How dare…bloody incredible! How dare she.’ He was almost be
side himself with total anger. His body felt it, and he was breathing it. He even began to sweat it and swear about it. It began to physically twist him, its’ taste bitter in his mouth. At the edge of control he realized where he was going and calmed a little, instead just focusing again on hate. Drawing a deep breath, he walked directly out of the building and took an official vehicle before he drove away.
He drove fully on manual at speed taking the old streets. He continued on until he had reached the outer areas of the city, and then further up into the low hills giving way to the distant mountains. It was then more than two hours later when finally he decided to park, his rage spent. He sat there hardly moving, staring at the reflection of the Moon in the lake. By morning he was asleep dreaming nightmares, when the first light from the sun chased the stars away as South Lake Tahoe awoke to a grey dawn.
A few passersby looked at the vehicle parked by the lake. It was clearly unusual, with its striking design setting it aside from the types of vehicle the public could own. Slightly larger, it had similar features but additional panels indicated something else. It held a sense of power and mystery, and a formidable look where it was difficult to distinguish between window and solid panel. It had six wheels, not four, and they were larger than the average vehicle. Only the machines built for off road had larger wheels, and it looked like it too could go off road. They could not tell if anyone was inside and perhaps they did not want to know. People left it behind moving on - its dull luster giving them an uneasy feeling. By midday it was gone. No one really saw it leave nor did anyone see where it went.
First Light: Book one of the Torus Saga Page 27