Oceanworlds

by J. P. Landau

  Yi saw Derya recoil and followed his gaze to Bacchus’ entrance. The panther has stepped out of the dark. Sergei would be almost unrecognizable to family and friends by now, his weight loss appalling. The blond beard and hair, no longer reined in by military duty, had turned him into a barbarian. His face was angular and the blue eyes protruding, reinforcing the semi-feral stare that made Sophia and Derya so uncomfortable.

  “Sergei. We were just speaking about you,” said James.

  “I heard,” said Sergei. There were long seconds of silence. “Aerocapture will save a lot of propellant and leave a healthy fuel buffer for the remainder of the mission.”

  “There are doubts … the maneuver is unprecedented … the question is whether it’s safe to attempt it with a pilot that is … impaired,” said James.

  Even as mere bystander Yi had given extensive thought—both in daytime reverie and nightmare format—to one of the most difficult and dangerous moments of the mission. Shackleton was approaching Saturn too fast to be gravitationally captured, even by the gas giant. To achieve Orbit Insertion, it would need to shed the excess velocity by either turning the spaceship and igniting the engines, or by aerocapture. The first would cost the mission an onerous 0.6 miles per second in propellant. The second was essentially fuel-free. Yet in the illustrious history of manned and unmanned space exploration, it had never been attempted. Had the Cassini robotic spacecraft done it upon reaching Saturn in 2004, 280 percent more science payload could have been carried. Hard to assess how many more breakthroughs might have come from what was already one of the most successful scientific missions ever—there’s a big catch, naturally: it decelerates via friction by doing a deep atmospheric dive. This makes it impossible to predict the exact particle density and thus braking rate, so real-time feedback and correction are essential. Decades of work and billions of dollars funneled through a few minutes of terror have kept the maneuver safely inside the theory books. As for Shack, to the many who think there are already too many risk factors in this mission, aerocapture is a siren song. Failure is not an option. One mistake is death. So much so that if it happened, the aerocapture would be done by Sergei with TiTus and James as copilots.

  “As for Enceladus, there’s no expedition without a pilot, and as commander James cannot abandon this ship. I’m going with or without you,” said Sergei matter-of-factly.

  “There’s still a few days to decide,” said James. “Propellant accounting was done with a standard burn insertion procedure, so we have the luxury of deciding. This won’t be a democratic vote. Agreeing is not committing. If anybody at any time has qualms about aerocapture, we abort.”

  Yi was astounded at James’ shrewdness. An elegant solution from a brilliant leader that may, just may, resolve the soul-searching in each of us—he’s betting on small actions dragging through big results, like organ donation campaigns back home. By changing the default choice from engine burn to aerocapture, the burden of convincing now shifts to the conservatives. It swaps the mental question from “Am I willing to sacrifice everything for fuel savings?” to “Am I willing to surrender an emergency fuel buffer for a low probability of something in Orbit Insertion going wrong?”

  If anyone else saw the trick, nothing was said.

  38 | The Ringed Giant

  August 30 2030. Day 1,171; 5 Days to Saturn

  After twenty-nine years passed on Earth—that miniature sibling far away toward the planets’ overlord—the giant logged one more loop around the Sun. Winter had settled in its northern hemisphere for the 150-millionth time, tilting up the most famed wonder of the Solar System, the rings of Saturn, into shadowing the north from sunrays and dyeing it a deep Neptunian blue.

  It was as if the pendulum of time had frozen into an immutable forever: this wintertime season would be interchangeable with any of those million others when the dinosaurs reigned supreme back on Earth. And yet, had someone put an ear to the railway tracks of time, she would have felt the hushed reverberations of change. Something insignificant in size and pregnant in consequence was approaching.

  Even from 4 million miles away, almost twenty times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, an omnipotent Saturn dominated the Observation Window’s field of view from the flight deck. Three-fourths of the orb was under the ethereal rings, shining in golden hues with such luminosity that the Milky Way veiled itself away. The surrounding darkness underlined Saturn’s magnificence while the inclined rings projected an upward halo crowned by Delphic blues and pitch-black, as if not even the Sun could reach its apex. On the left side, its own oval shadow cut unsparingly through the rings.

  With focused intention James could identify a few specks, sprinkled grains of salt around the gas giant’s waist, part of the entourage of sixty-two moons around its court. The time of avoiding Saturn to keep it outside of their awareness was over. Instead, like a bullfighter keeping the menace in between the eyes, both Observation Windows were constantly guarded by the crew.

  “I have never felt so unprepared,” said Sophia.

  “It grows in front of your eyes, like a movie in fast forward,” said James. There was no need to answer Sophia. Silence had become nodding.

  For three years Shackleton had been a ball rolling uphill as it escaped the Sun’s massive gravity well, ever losing momentum. But a month ago it finally went over the hilltop. Since then, it ran faster and faster toward Saturn. The invisible fight between titans has been won, for now, thought James. Returning to Earth will be a breeze. A gentle push to escape Saturn and then continuous acceleration as the Sun claims back its prodigal son. By the time Shackleton encounters the Earth our speed will be almost twenty miles per second, four times higher than when we orbited home the days after launch.

  “I’m terrified, Jimmy … for seven years I daydreamed for this to happen, now I wish we had more time,” said Sophia.

  “We’ll never be readier, Tweety. But I feel you … what gets me is Saturn’s indifference to our existence. It has been impassive for eons before life emerged on Earth, and it will be impassive for eons after life withers away,” said James.

  39 | Belinda

  September 4 2030. Shackleton’s Orbit Insertion

  KENSINGTON, LONDON

  This was the day when the Earth stood still. Warwick Gardens, the street right outside the building, should have been channeling dense traffic but was instead deserted.

  If I was superstitious, I’d say the signs are everywhere, thought Belinda. A spotless London night sky, a gracious Moon keeping itself offstage, and a very particular bright dot just high enough above the horizon to be gazed at—and the fox! Trotting over the old brick wall outside the window as she cleaned the dishes, stopping to check on her, then turning back the way it came. Which can only mean everything will be all right, she kept telling herself. Something that kept her distracted was imagining James’ address to the world in less than two hours. Compared to the ballet over a razor’s edge about to commence, the downside here bottomed out at global but sympathetic embarrassment. A man of lofty goals, he confided to her the aim for something visceral that moved people “to tears, something between Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot and Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy.’” But that first draft had, and I adore you, Jimmy, the oversweetness and literary caliber of a telenovela teaser. They had worked on it sporadically for months but progress was hampered by his procrastination. By the time they left Earth, James had become adept at public speeches but his old reluctance had crawled back.

  Belinda searched for Emma. She had stopped stealing “strawbabies” from Grandpa’s kitchen garden and was instead plucking “pedals” from his yellow begonias, somehow aware of the extra leniency tonight. She kept glancing back at the screen, anxious like her mother. Grandpa was glued to his Victorian-era armchair.

  The soothing voice of the veteran broadcaster explained, “… which brings us to the question of ‘surface.’ Here on Earth we step over it, but Saturn is made of gas. To calculate the distance of an object from the
planet, we arbitrarily set the ‘surface’ as the height from the core where the atmospheric pressure is equal to one atmosphere or bar, Earth at sea level. It works nicely for Saturn, because it happens to be around its cloud tops, which is the ‘surface’ we see when we look at pictures …”

  Belinda went outside into the garden. The neighborhood was quiet except for that same voice resounding from buildings all over. Orwell’s 1984. After years of abstinence, she took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “… salute our heroes and their families, including our very own Belinda and Emma Egger, looking up from somewhere here in London …”

  “Feels like the Blitz. Even Heathrow is at a standstill,” said John, her father’s upstairs neighbor for decades. He, Jane, and their whole family were on their terrace by a telescope. “Emma, come to check on Daddy.”

  Belinda would rather not but Emma was already running for the entrance.

  Saturn looked slanted, blurred, and impossibly far away through John’s telescope. With half the world gazing, it was public and universal yet somehow still wholly personal and intimate. Belinda closed her eyes to restrain the emotional swelling that was buffeting her. James, Sophia, and the others had initiated Orbit Insertion over an hour before. Whatever was meant to happen had already happened, its testimony traveling to Earth at the speed of light and about to reach NASA’s giant Deep Space Network dishes anytime now, and the world’s ears a few seconds after. But the speed of thought is instantaneous, I want you to know how much I miss you, Jimmy.

  To mitigate the worry, she focused once more on the measured voice narrating, “… Lord Kelvin, whose First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. What Shackleton has done is enter Saturn’s upper atmosphere to dissipate the excess energy in the form of speed by transforming it to heat …”

  For the many expecting a crackling prelude, including her, the transmission was sudden and clear. The first words stirred Belinda. Jimmy’s live, unedited voice was speaking to her in the ear, with just a slight echo, “If you were counting on a Kennedy-esque speech, you’ve waited three years too many. Images are worth a thousand words, but if you only have words really, four broken poets leave only one bard. Tweety—Sophia, I henceforth pass you the baton.” This wouldn’t make it into the history records but it still moved Belinda to tears. A minute went by before Sophia took over.

  “8:34 PM Coordinated Universal Time. Altitude 1,043 miles above Saturn’s 1-bar level. The mass spectrometer is detecting hydrogen and helium, meaning we have just officially entered Saturn’s atmosphere. Attitude control thrusters tested and ready to correct Shack’s orientation in case of frictional rotation. Velocity 19.2 miles/s … as we aren’t certain about the particle density increase as we skim deeper into the atmosphere, Sergei is doing real-time steering to control the angle of attack.”

  “8:46 PM. Altitude 820 miles above 1-bar level. Velocity 19.0 miles/s … I’m at a loss for words.” Sophia’s emotion-soaked voice trailed off and it took a while before she continued. “Nothing, nothing can ever prepare you for this … and, and nothing could begin to describe it. We are recording 16K video, but at 40 terabytes per hour it would take all our data transfer capacity years to share this footage. You’ll need to wait until it lands with us, one good reason why you may want us back … we are about 3,000 miles from crossing underneath the rings. That’s London to New York in three minutes. Things must be done quickly around here or the giant will swallow us … what from your telescopes must look like a featureless sepia wrap turns out to be an immense spherical cauldron of aimless labyrinthine tropical rivers and tributaries coexisting with unswerving highways of orderly traffic that … that become a succession of whirlpools and eddies in the clashing border between eastbound and westbound lanes … and, and then you realize it’s not the most intricate canvas ever painted because … because everything is kinetic, everything is flowing and spinning and shifting in front of my eyes—and in three dimensions! With Earths of gas cascading inward or Venuses of gas gushing outward, and also shadows the size of planets over some plains below, it makes you understand that everything, all we are seeing, is made from hundreds or thousands of vertical layers of pillowy clouds in a collection of browns and yellows and oranges …”

  “8:58 PM. Altitude 801 miles. The vibrations and shaking are very strong as Shack wrestles with Saturn’s atmosphere …”

  “9:01 PM. Altitude 807 miles. Yes, we are climbing back up. This may be the saddest moment of my life … I won’t ever again be so close to the hypnotic cloud tops of Saturn … Galileo, if you only were alive to witness … I hope one day within my lifetime some of those that follow will go deeper to unveil mysteries beyond imagination.”

  “9:11 PM. Altitude 813 miles. The twilight zone separating day from night is coming right at us. Once the Sun disappears behind Saturn, it will be a matter of seconds before we lose communication with Earth until we come out into the light on the other side …”

  “9:16 PM. Altitude 832 miles … I doubt there can be a more, what’s the word, rhapsodic sight anywhere in the Solar System … a softly hued Saturn, embraced by the shadows of its majestic rings. The Sun, a tenth of Earth’s, is behind the rings like a flashlight twinkling in the back of a patterned dark veil.”

  “9:19 PM. Altitude 851 miles … we have crossed into the dark side, but it isn’t very dark. The rings reflect and scatter more sunlight into Saturn’s nightside than a full Moon does on Earth. The moonlit clouds below extend limitless in all directions, it feels like you could rest a dozen Earths, nested like eggs in the dark gray cotton under us.”

  “9:21 PM. Altitude————thunderstorm—like X-rays reveali——planet insi———watch—in front——cloud decks much tall——”

  Belinda’s father put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her.

  40 | Parting Ways

  Three hours after Orbit Insertion

  IN THE SATURN SYSTEM

  The forty-four-day Main Mission to explore Saturn’s kingdom had hardly started and it was already t-97 minutes before separation. Frantic action flared up right after three years of lingering inaction. The whole crew was in the cargo area by the two SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, and fifteen feet away was the hatch, wide enough to let one of them out. All the epic symbolism of the first craft, James Caird—the very lifeboat Ernest Shackleton had sailed in to salvation—did not cross over to the second, emergency craft called the Dragon.

  James looked at Sergei and Derya, who were both in spacesuits. His old self craved to be in those boots. But there was never a way, he thought. Among Shackleton’s tenants, one of the pilots happens to be the commander—well, there used to be one way. This new breed of spacesuit required a tight fit between body and fabric. Sergei used to look like a Roman deity, the powerful thorax, deltoids, and trapezius chiseled into the suit. During the worst of his nosedive into the abyss it probably fit more like a tunic. Now, even after the intense diet to recover part of the lost fifty-seven pounds, it still didn’t look quite snug. This was a serious enough concern for Mission Control to order Sergei into two long spacewalks a few weeks before. The fear was that the potential lack of tension between skin and spacesuit could create swelling. That wasn’t only extremely painful but also risky. It turned out okay, I guess.

  “Derya, your heartbeat’s at 135 and you’re not even moving,” said Sophia. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Damn, people. I am about to depart to Enceladus and you keep giving me shit. Even Odysseus would have asked for two pairs of diapers and a barf bag, no? Some ticking should not only be expected but encouraged.”

  “Perhaps, but your comrade is embarking on the same sortie and is clocking fifty-five heartbeats per minute,” said Sophia.

  “Good for him. I’m surprised he even—hmm, yeah,” said Derya, censoring himself while taking a glimpse at Sergei.

  I’m surprised he even has vitals, James completed the phrase in his mind.

&
nbsp; As much as James wanted to stay, he needed to head back to the flight deck. The protocol was inflexible. For the coming forty-four days, someone had to be on the flight deck at all times—although except for an emergency, no human intervention would be required.

  He hugged the astronaut and cosmonaut, wishing them good luck one last time.

  “The bride has been waiting by the altar for years and you’re still running late. We’re at t-95 minutes. Clock’s ticking,” said James.

  “Well, you enjoy your dinner in Medellín tonight, okay?” Derya’s voice sounded high-pitched over the intercom, betraying his agitation. Bacchus that day mimicked the City of Eternal Spring, with its lush tropical rainforest, colonial architecture, and Botero statues. “Meanwhile, yours truly will be shoulder to shoulder with the Bear orbiting Enceladus, trying to figure out the least suicidal way to land Caird.”

  Shackleton had been captured in a highly elliptical orbit: it would skim the ringed planet before stretching out multiple times the distance between Earth and the Moon, then fall back towards the giant to start again. The spaceship had become another moon of Saturn and without intervention it would continue doing loops until the end of history. But if by any chance you thought this carries a whiff of improvisation, you’ve got the wrong impression, pal, thought James. Every minute of the mission had been precisely plotted since 2026. Every second of the mission is a highly choreographed dance. That was the beauty and power of Newton’s child, orbital mechanics. This is how we know decades in advance the exact minute when an eclipse will happen anywhere on Earth.