Relax, Boris. Everything will be okay. He sent his mind on a trip through his body. Muscle by muscle, he sent a directed thought to release the tension, and the pain slowly ebbed with each release.
Inertia hadn’t defeated him. He had fought to a victory by giving in and not fighting at all.
4804.4
Aren’t we halfway to Titan yet? Boris looked for Jupiter on the screen, but he was out of luck. Jupiter was still in the worst position, far behind them. In contrast, Saturn never appeared to move from its spot, orbiting as far away from the sun as it did.
It was one of those rare moments when he and Jenna were together in the cockpit, shortly before the end of his shift and the start of hers. She was busy studying the rail gun in the rear part of the command center. She wanted to understand its construction, she explained to him. It had been enough for him that Anna had reassured him that the rail gun would be the perfect tool to move the damned asteroid off its current path.
“Owww!” Jenna exclaimed suddenly.
What had happened? He spun around because, out of the corner of his eye, he’d seen her come flying toward him. He released his restraining belt to catch her before she hit the window. But in doing so, he gave himself a jolt of momentum upward and started floating toward the ceiling. It probably would have been better if he had first thought about why Jenna was sailing freely through the cabin. He reached and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her toward himself. She pushed off the ceiling with her right foot. Coming from above him, she wrapped her body halfway around his. They softly impacted the floor and bounced back upward.
Why was it suddenly so difficult to find a handhold to stop their motion? It didn’t even seem that Jenna was trying to grab onto anything. She held on tightly to his shoulders, her left leg wrapped around his waist. Boris also stopped trying to land anywhere. They kept drifting through the command center, now and then bouncing off an obstacle and changing direction, like a ping-pong ball that had been thrown randomly across the room. It was a game that was only possible in zero gravity.
Yet it was not a game, but something much more. It felt like some kind of seriousness that he had never experienced before. It was something like when they had glided off of Doom Mons, but now together and with their eyes closed. It was like diving into a methane lake, but together in the same spacesuit. It was as if they were sharing the last reserves of oxygen, without any hope of rescue, yet facing whatever was coming hand in hand, together and drunk with happiness.
Breathless, they remained on the floor. Boris no longer cared which of their tangled limbs belonged to him. Jenna sorted them apart, explaining everything as she went. Your hand, my forearm. My thigh, your foot. Only then did he realize that she wasn’t actually saying anything at all. She was simply looking at him and stroking the hard skin of his lower arms now and then with her fingers. He lost track of time again, until he noticed that Jenna was shivering. He got up, took giant, leaping steps, retrieved a blanket, and wrapped it around her shoulders when he returned. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek and stood up.
“The computer turned off the engine,” she said. She was back to acting businesslike again.
“Yes.”
“That’s the sign.”
What did she mean by that? “The sign?”
“The sign we need to turn the ship around. Now we need to start braking.”
“Ah, yes, okay.”
And that was that—back to the everyday routine. The previous minutes—or had it been hours?—faded into memory. Whatever had happened between them, nobody could take that away. But the chance of it ever happening again seemed remote.
“So, that’s it,” Jenna said. “What would you think about taking a little spacewalk, just for fun?”
“Don’t we have to brake?” He was thinking that, if they didn’t want to shoot right on past their target, the braking phase would have to be just as long as the time during which they accelerated.
“The system gives us forty-two minutes. We’ll be flying at maximum velocity during that time.”
“Then sure, let’s take a walk,” Boris said.
He was first to climb out of the airlock located immediately before the last section of the ship. Boris started by clipping his safety line to a hook on the ship’s hull, before he helped Jenna climb out of the airlock, too. She stood up next to him.
Here, the shuttle’s hull was shaped more or less like a fat, round pipe. So even though Jenna’s feet were next to his, their upper bodies pointed off away from each other. She was tilted over from his perspective, and he had the urge to hold onto her to keep her from falling down.
“Come on, let’s go to the front,” he heard her say, her voice coming to him via radio in his head. She pointed toward the bow of the shuttle, which tapered to a point from the outside, too.
Boris moved on all fours toward the front. It was the fastest way for him to move in zero gravity.
“Funny way to move,” Jenna said. “Where did you learn that?”
“Just now. It seems to be the best way to use the handholds arranged all over the hull.”
“I just noticed those, too.”
He sat on the nose of their vehicle. It was so narrow that he could straddle it comfortably. Most likely there were antennas or other sensors inside.
Jenna tapped him on the shoulder. Then she sat down behind him but stood right back up. “Hey, let’s switch,” she said. “I can’t see anything back here.”
She pressed their safety line into his hand. Then she jumped up over him, and he pulled her back down, like a balloon on a string, until she landed right in front of him.
“Just like I planned,” she said.
“I roped you in.”
“Oh-ho! Don’t you think highly of yourself?” she said with a laugh.
It was a fabulous laugh. Nobody laughed as beautifully as she did. That was nonsense, of course. He knew it couldn’t possibly be true, but he still chose to believe it.
“That thing there in front of us must be Venus,” he said. He put his arm around her stomach. He could feel her, even though she was wearing a spacesuit.
“I think it might be Sirius,” Jenna said. “Venus is always somewhere close to the sun, and that’s behind us.”
“Somehow I just wanted to invoke the love goddess,” he said.
“Ah, I knew it. Well, I’m not going to make it that easy for you.”
“Fair enough. But that’s not Sirius. It’s Saturn,” he said.
“Oh! Yes, you might be right. I can’t remember ever seeing Saturn so small.”
“Maybe not consciously, but it’s been accompanying us this entire time, out there among the stars. Have you never looked back to see it? Our home is still there.”
“Home? What is that? Isn’t the Earth our true home? Blane is very similar to me, even though there are five thousand orbital periods of genetic engineering between us.”
“More similar than I am, is that what you wanted to say?”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I’m only asking myself whether Titan is really a home for us, or whether we only talk about it that way so intensely to convince ourselves it is.”
“What does ‘home’ mean to you, then?” Boris asked.
“I don’t know. Methane lakes, thick, brownish mist, deserts of ice granules—that’s what I’d always imagined. But Blane talked about fields of grass, warm seas, and blue skies. I’d like to see that someday.”
“Me, too,” Boris said. “But isn’t it people who make a place into a home? People who speak your language, who understand your thoughts and feelings?”
“Maybe. But isn’t part of home also repetition and boredom? Like it’s not possible to relax without boredom.”
“That’s an interesting thought. So, how will things be when we’re back on Titan? Will it be boring?” Boris unconsciously tensed his muscles. He’d better relax. Otherwise, Jenna would notice how important this question was to him.
“I don’t know,”
she said. “I don’t want to make any promises to you that I can’t keep.”
She’d understood his question. That was good. She hadn’t said what he’d wanted her to, but there was still room for hope.
Jenna leaned back. Boris held them both in place. Together they looked out at the stars. The universe could be a beautiful place.
4804.12
“I’ve got it!”
Boris floated next to Jenna to get a better look at the screen. “Where is it?”
She touched the screen and zoomed in to a particular area of the sky. A stone appeared out of the darkness. It was the first three-dimensional radar image that they’d obtained of their destination. The cosmic pebble was slowly rotating about its axis.
“Actually, it looks rather sad,” Jenna said.
She was projecting from the asteroid’s history. Approximately 15 million years ago, a different asteroid must have collided with it, if the astronomers’ theories were correct. This collision produced almost 250 smaller objects, called the Koronis family. Nearly all of them were still on their original orbits in the asteroid belt, but (158) Koronis had lost its family and would soon lose its life, too, if things went according to the will of the unknown power currently controlling it.
“I’m afraid it’s going to have to get used to being alone,” Boris said. “But at least we’ll save its life.”
“If the plan works.”
“It will work. We only need to produce a tiny deflection.”
“And what if Koronis then readjusts its trajectory?”
“Then at least we’ll know that our method worked. Then we’ll just have to generate a stronger magnetic field shortly before it would impact Titan. A magnetic sail can only react so quickly, at least in principle. It would buy us the time we needed.”
“I wish I shared your optimism,” Jenna said.
My what? Optimism was not something anyone had ever attributed to him. In contrast, his sister had always complained about his pessimism. The long-term closeness to Jenna must’ve scrambled his moral compass.
“Still too loose.”
Boris repositioned Jenna’s jetpack. “You can’t control it properly with it that loose.” He reached under her arm and pulled the strap tighter. “That’s better. Or is it cutting into you too much now?”
“No, no, it feels good,” she said.
“We don’t have much time. When the radar indicates one hundred meters to go, I’ll give you a sign. I’d still prefer it if you stayed here, though.”
“We’ve already gone over this, again and again.” Jenna lifted the second rail gun. “If your weapon fails, you’ll need a spare. And you can’t transport two weapons and also steer.”
“I could come back,” he replied.
“The shuttle would have already flown past Koronis. It’d cost too much time and fuel.”
She was right, but he still had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Anna would tell him he was giving in to his pessimistic outlook. Everything indicated that their plan was well thought out. What could go wrong, apart from (158) Koronis possibly having no magnetic field at all? That would mean all their theories were wrong, but they wouldn’t be in any danger at the moment. Nevertheless, he felt a powerful sense of foreboding.
He pushed his goggles over his eyes. “One hundred and twenty meters to go.”
Jenna landed on the asteroid just in front of him. It was a strange sight. In the light of his helmet lamp, (158) Koronis appeared to be made up of a vertical rock wall, and from his perspective, Jenna was standing on it at a 90-degree angle, without any force of gravity pulling her down. Even though it had a diameter of 35 kilometers, Koronis didn’t have enough mass to produce sufficient gravitational force. Jenna was standing, using her jetpack to press herself against the wall. Boris engaged his jetpack and did the same.
“Magnetic field confirmed,” Jenna said.
He tried to catch her eye through the helmet visor, but she was still watching the sensor’s display in the rail gun’s handle.
“The value is almost identical to what we measured on Santa,” she explained.
“So, it really is a magnetic sail.”
“Or something we’ve never even imagined before.”
“I guess we’ll see pretty soon.”
Boris pressed his rail gun against the ground. It didn’t matter where they generated their magnetic field—this place was just as good or bad as any other on the surface. They had deliberated over whether it would be worth it to drill a hole into the asteroid. But that was something they could always make up for if the deflection generated at the surface turned out to be too small.
“Ready to overload the coils,” he said.
“Do it,” Jenna said.
He moved the lever that activated the continuous firing mode. Should he say something dramatic? He might never have an opportunity like this again. He realized that was silly—it was just a simple test. The only danger was that the rail gun would explode in his face. He pressed the trigger and held on tight. The weapon vibrated, the tremors transferring to his body. Then it was over. The display on the handle showed an error message.
“The coils burned out,” he said.
Jenna nodded. That had been the plan. So far, so good. Whether it had actually knocked the asteroid off its dangerous trajectory, they wouldn’t be able to measure for a little while longer. Then the rail gun began to vibrate again. He looked at the display, and the error message was still there. The vibrations weren’t coming from the weapon—the asteroid itself was vibrating. A thin dust layer formed above the ground, and a few small stones work themselves loose and jump upward by themselves.
“Did you feel that?” he asked.
“This can’t be good,” Jenna said. “I think we set something off.”
The vibrations increased. The dust was already enveloping them. A warning flash lit up inside his goggles, indicating a fast-moving object was coming toward them. Boris saw it—a stone hurtling toward Jenna’s helmet! Quickly he swung the rail gun toward it. The rock struck the gun, shattering both into pieces.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Boris yelled. “Right now!”
They activated their jetpacks at almost the same time. Boris looked for the shuttle. It had already flown past them.
“Forget about the shuttle,” Jenna shouted. “Just get away, as far away as possible.”
She was right. He moved closer to her. They were flying through a dense cloud of dust. The asteroid seemed to be ejecting its dust coating. The small grains were flying significantly faster than the two of them with their jetpacks. Without his goggles, all he was able to see would have been dust all around him.
“We’re too slow,” he said.
“Wait. Hold on to me, tight!”
What is she thinking? Jenna moved the spare rail gun into firing position and pointed it behind them, opposite their direction of motion and toward the asteroid, which was invisible in the dust. He clutched at her jetpack. Suddenly he was jolted forward, his jetpack hitting him in his chest, knocking the wind from him.
All at once they were flying considerably faster.
“Again,” Jenna said. She fired the rail gun again, and the recoil accelerated them.
Looking at the grains of dust, Boris could estimate how fast they were moving. They briefly flew out of the cloud of dust, but then it caught up to them again. There must have been an explosion underneath them, and a powerful one at that.
“Hold on,” Jenna warned.
Then she fired several times. The projectiles left the rail gun’s barrel at high speed, and with each shot they received another surge of momentum in the opposite direction. How many bullets did this thing have? They would never have gotten away from the explosion using just their jetpacks. Jenna kept shooting. She was shooting for both of their lives.
Boris let go of his rail gun. It was useless due to the burned-out coils. They needed to shed mass to be able to escape from the explosion faster. What about his jet
pack? They needed something to be able to get back to their shuttle later.
Their spaceship wasn’t programmed to move to safety in the event of an explosion. It had probably already been struck multiple times by asteroid fragments that had been transformed into shooting missiles. He shed his jetpack while Jenna continued to fire the rail gun. They had to get away as quickly as possible.
If they survived this explosion, then they could worry about what to do next.
4804.13
They floated alone between the stars. Words were pointless, so neither of them said anything. They had survived the explosion of (158) Koronis. Super. The asteroid was no longer a danger for Titan. Excellent. Mission accomplished, they could say. They could be proud of all they’d done, even if everything hadn’t gone as planned.
What did it matter if their shuttle had also been destroyed? It didn’t respond to their locating transmissions, in any case. And how important for the course of history was the undeniable fact that they would suffocate and freeze to death within the next 24 hours? It didn’t matter at all.
It was true—the prospect of their imminent demise was unpleasant. Suffocation was not a pleasant way to die. When it came time, they would have to talk about how they could shorten their suffering, but until then the situation had produced a considerable amount of clarity that he had never felt before—they were together. Clinging to each other, they drifted through the blackness.
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