by Allen Steele
Simone nodded, but didn’t say anything. Harker had no doubt that she didn’t much like the idea of surrendering the helm to Galileo’s AI, but it couldn’t be helped; the timing was too critical to be trusted to human reflexes. And since this would be the first time a manned vessel would go through the starbridge, no one was willing to take any chances.
As if we’re not taking enough already, he thought.
“If all goes well,” Lawrence said, “we’ll achieve hyperspace insertion at exactly twenty-one hundred hours.” As he spoke, the holo expanded again, this time to show Galileo entering the starbridge’s event horizon, depicted as a funnel-shaped grid, with the gatehouse floating beyond its gravitational reach. “We shouldn’t feel any major effects beyond some minor turbulence, but even then, we’ve been cautioned to have our harnesses securely fastened…”
“And our heads firmly positioned beneath our legs,” Arkady murmured. Everyone laughed out loud save for Lawrence, who glared at him. “Sorry, sir,” he added, unable to keep the smile off his face. “Small joke.”
“I hope it’s your last.” Lawrence looked away again, giving the others a chance to roll their eyes and shake their heads. Harker quietly sighed. Not a good sign.
Galileo entered the ring and disappeared. Lawrence tapped his pad again, and the starbridge, along with Earth and the Moon, suddenly diminished in size, vanishing into near nothingness as, in their place, there appeared a schematic diagram of the solar system as seen from a ninety-degree angle. The orbits of the major planets were traced by a series of concentric circles, with the inner planets all but disappearing within a tight halo close to the Sun and the outer planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune positioned at various places along its nether regions.
Far beyond the orbit of Neptune, there appeared a vast, elliptical loop, skewed at a forty-four-degree angle above and below the plane of ecliptic and, at its farthest point, extending deep into extrasolar space. A tiny black spot was located almost midway to the apogee of this orbital track, below the plane of ecliptic. Lawrence manipulated the holo, and it zoomed to reveal a small, off-white sphere, with another ring-shaped starbridge orbiting nearby.
“The jump shouldn’t take more than a second,” he went on, as the tiny replica of Galileo exited the second starbridge, “but once we’re through, we’ll be in orbit near Eris. At this point, we’ll be approximately forty-two-point-seven AUs from Earth…” He suddenly stopped, pointed across the room. “You have a question?”
“If I may.” Donald Sinclair had raised his hand. “Granted, this is an efficient use of KX-1”—he referred to the second starbridge by its official designation—“but, as I understand it, forty-two AUs is less than one percent of the distance we need to travel in order to intercept Spindrift. If that’s the case, why not engage the diametric drive earlier? After all, if we’ll eventually be traveling at ninety-five percent light-speed, we could cross the same distance in only a matter of hours.” He paused, allowing a fatuous smile to creep across his face. “Our ships didn’t do that.”
For a moment, Lawrence’s expression was one of bafflement. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. Oh, for the love of Christ, Harker thought. The poor dumb bastard doesn’t know the answer to this.
“That would be true,” Harker said, sitting up in his seat, “if we could achieve relativistic velocity from a standstill. But it’ll take Galileo three months to accelerate to one gee, using its fusion engine, before its diametric drive can reach full efficiency, and even then it’d have to work hard to escape the Sun’s gravitational pull. That’s something your ships had to deal with. But since we’ll be using KX-1, we can instantly put ourselves beyond the Sun’s gravity well so that it’s no longer much of a consideration. And since Spindrift’s course puts it beneath the solar plane of ecliptic, it’ll also give us something of a head start.”
“Exactly, yes.” Lawrence recovered his poise. “Thank you, Mr. Harker.” He pointed to the miniature Galileo, circling the minor planet. “We’ll spend a couple of days in orbit around Eris, deploying the drive torus and making a final check of all systems, before we ignite the main engine and depart for our rendezvous with Spindrift.”
Again, he touched his pad. The solar system shrank until only the orbit of Eris was apparent; far away, a dotted line traced Spindrift’s estimated trajectory. A blue line appeared between the two, showing Galileo’s flight path. “We’ll enter into biostasis shortly after that,” the captain went on, “and remain that way until we reach Spindrift at its closest approach, two light-years…”
“One-point-nine-nine l.y.’s.” This from Ramirez, who had been quiet until that point.
“Yes, right. By that time, we’ll have spent two years and one month in biostasis…”
“Seven and a half months,” Jones said. “Shiptime, that is, taking into consideration time dilation at relativistic…”
“Right. Yes, of course.” Lawrence was becoming visibly flustered. “But the ship’s comps will be preset to disregard this…um, effect…so when we reach Spindrift, the date will be January 7, 2291, counting three months for acceleration and three more for braking. Or at least so we estimate…”
“If all goes well,” Ramirez muttered.
“No doubt it will.” Lawrence touched his pad again, and the holo dissolved. “I believe that’s all for now,” he said, bending down to fold his pad. “If anyone has any further questions or concerns, I’ll take them in my quarters. Until then…”
He paused, looked around. It was almost as if he was taking into regard a roomful of strangers, none of whom he knew well enough to consider his friends, let alone teammates. “Thank you,” he said, then picked up his pad and, without a glance behind him, hurried from the room.
So much for the final mission briefing. Sinking back in his chair, Harker rubbed at his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. Around him, he could hear crewmen murmuring to each other. Someone made a remark that he didn’t catch—probably Arkady—that caused others to laugh. If he’d been in any other mood, he might have asked what it was. Yet just now, the mission itself seemed like some sort of practical joke.
Good grief, he thought, the man is such a fool.
A soft hand touched the back of his neck. He opened his eyes and looked up to see Emily standing behind him. “Hey, sailor,” she said quietly. “Buy you a drink?”
“Love one.” Then he frowned. “We’re going to have to wait a while, though. Can’t let him see us sneaking off to…”
“Don’t worry. I know the best place in town.” She looked around, making sure no one was listening to them, then leaned closer. “My quarters. Half an hour.”
A quick tap upon his shoulder, then she was gone. Harker watched as she left the conference room, admiring the graceful movement of her hips within her jumpsuit. Ah, well, he mused. At least I won’t be lacking for company these next few years.
Even if most of them would be spent asleep.
FOUR
JUNE 1, 2288—EASS GALILEO
From the distance, the Galileo was almost invisible; only the gunmetal grey bell of its main engine could be seen within the latticework of its dry dock. As the orbital transfer vehicle drew closer, though, the vessel gradually took on form, becoming an elongated spindle illuminated by floodlight arrays. Even so, the spacecraft remained toylike, its true dimensions not readily apparent until the OTV was only a hundred meters away.
“Galileo command, Charlie Victor two-ten.” Emily Collins kept her hands upon the yoke, moving it ever so slightly to fire maneuvering thrusters. “Requesting clearance for final approach and docking.”
A moment passed, then she heard Arkady’s voice in her headset: “We copy, Charlie Victor. We have you acquired. Proceed to docking at port four.” She was about to reply when she felt a gentle nudge at her left elbow. Not taking her eyes from the wedge-shaped window, Collins stole a sidelong glance at Jared Ramirez, sitting beside her in the copilot seat.
“Yes?” she said, tapping
the lobe of her headset to mute the wand-mike.
“Sorry to bother you, but…” Ramirez hesitated. “Do you think it’s possible that we might have a last look before we go aboard? After all, we’re going to be cooped up in her…it, whatever…for quite some time.”
“Yes, please.” This from Cole, seated along with the rest of the science team in the rear. “Of course, if the schedule is too tight…”
Collins checked the chronometer above her head. The countdown stood at T-minus five hours, nine minutes. The flight crew had arrived a little more than forty-five minutes ago; although they were preparing Galileo for launch, there wasn’t much for the science team to do between now and then except find their way to their quarters, stow their belongings, and wait. And although they’d toured the ship during training, this would be the last time any of them would see the outside of the vessel for many months.
“I’ll see what I can do.” Collins tapped her mike again. “Galileo, Charlie Victor two-ten. The passengers have asked for visual inspection of the vehicle. Requesting permission for flyby.”
Another pause, this time a little longer. Collins imagined Arkady turning to Captain Lawrence, repeating her request to him. She half expected it to be denied because…well, simply because…but then his voice returned. “Roger that, Charlie Victor. You have permission for a brief flyby, with the captain’s compliments.”
With the captain’s compliments. Oh, how grand! Collins could only picture the look on Arkady’s face as he relayed this; if he was smart, he’d turned his back to Lawrence. “Thank you, Galileo. Charlie Victor two-ten over.”
She muted the mike again, then inched the yoke slightly to the left, delicately negotiating a starboard turn that put the OTV on a parallel heading with the dry dock. “You got your flyby, Dr. Ramirez,” she said. “Better look sharp, because we’re only doing this once.”
“M’lady, you’re a princess.” Ramirez favored her with a dashing smile, then lowered his voice. “Captain’s something ofa…well, y’know…”
“No, I wouldn’t,” she said tightly, even though she could think of a dozen apt descriptions that would fit the diplomatic pause in his last comment. “And it’s my pleasure,” she added, even though she probably would’ve ignored his suggestion if Cole hadn’t seconded it.
The OTV was traveling alongside Galileo, moving from the stern toward the bow. One hundred thirty meters long, the vessel was a collection of cylinders of various sizes, with the propulsion module taking up nearly half of its length. Through the dry dock’s cradlelike trusswork, they could see ropelike umbilical lines running to ports along the sides of the enormous main fuel tank, containing deuterium and helium-3, just aft of the fusion engine. Like the rest of the ship, they were enclosed by plates faintly resembling hand-woven blankets: nine-millimeter beryllium shields, the first line of defense against interstellar dust, a nuisance barely worth noticing most of the time but potentially lethal at relativistic velocities.
“Not that I have anything against Captain Lawrence,” Ramirez said quietly. “It’s just that…well, I can’t help but notice a certain difference between him and Mr. Harker.”
“Is that so?” Collins kept an eye on the radar, carefully maintaining a safe distance between the OTV and the dry dock. “I hadn’t noticed.”
By then they were passing the service module. Forward of the reaction-control thrusters, two probes were mounted on either side of the hull: Larry, the lozenge-shaped vehicle meant for atmospheric entry, and its larger brother Jerry, a spherical robot designed for orbital reconnaissance. She had no idea why they’d been given these names, other than that they held some literary significance for their designers. Past the service module was the four-port docking module, the most narrow part of the ship. Her own craft, the Maria Celeste, rested belly-up within its cradle, her dorsal hatch mated with the air lock. She noted that the OTV that had transferred the flight crew from Tsiolkovsky Station had already departed, flown back by a harbor pilot who’d been waiting aboard ship for the crew’s arrival.
“You haven’t?” A dry chuckle. “I certainly have. Mr. Harker is…well, forgive me for saying so, but he’s obviously the more capable officer. Or at least that’s how it seems to me.”
“Not my place to say.” Although I completely agree, she silently added. By all rights, Ted should have been given command of the Galileo. He’d graduated at the top of his class from the ESA training center in Geneva, and his grasp of astronautics far exceeded Lawrence’s, who’d struggled through the four-year officer training program and was barely qualified to hold command-level rank in the astronaut corps. Yet Ian Lawrence was the scion of landed gentry, his father a peer in the House of Lords, while Ted Harker came from a working-class family in Wales. Since the UK had been the primary financial backer of the Galileo’s construction, though, Lord Lawrence was able to pull strings to make sure that his son was named as its commanding officer, despite the objections of those in the ESA who knew that Theodore Harker was far more suitable for the job.
Bloody class system, she thought. This ought to be Ted’s ship. Ian’s just a rich laird looking for something to add to the family crest.
She distracted herself by inspecting the concentric bulge that protruded from the hull just forward of the telemetry platform. The housing for the diametric drive, stowed until Galileo reached the Kuiper Belt. Ramirez stretched forward against his seat harness to admire it. “Very efficient engineering,” he murmured. “Have to admit, it’s an elegant solution to a problem…how to make the drive torus small enough to pass through the starbridge.” He looked back at her again. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“That’s because you haven’t asked one.” Before he could reply, Collins nodded toward the window. “There’s our home for the next four years.”
Galileo’s hab module was the foremost section of the ship: a drum-shaped cylinder, little more than forty meters long, with portholes and emergency hatches spaced along its four decks. At the end of its blunt bow was its deflector array, six conical pods arranged along a ring-shaped structure; it was designed with redundancy in mind, so that even if two more deflectors failed, the rest would continue to operate. Likewise, the module was connected to the rest of the ship by a slender neck; in the event of an emergency, the module could be detached, to survive on backup power and life-support systems until—at least in theory—the crew could be rescued by another ship.
Yet rescue was almost a moot point. Although plans were being made for the eventual construction of a sister ship, the Columbus, the fact of the matter was that if the Galileo met with disaster, a rescue mission was almost out of the question. Although the ESA had a small fleet of interplanetary spacecraft, none were designed to pass through KX-1. Indeed, Galileo’s first mission had originally been intended to be nothing more than a survey of the Kuiper Belt, with a flight to 47 Ursae Majoris being contemplated if that was successful. No one thought that its maiden voyage beyond the solar system would be to investigate an anomaly like Spindrift.
As they reached the end of the dry dock, Ramirez said something else, but Collins ignored him. Twisting the yoke hard to the right, she assayed a tight starboard turn that brought the OTV around in a 180-degree arc. Galileo lay dead ahead, the silver coating of its deflector pods catching the spotlights of her craft. She fired forward thrusters to decelerate, then gently coaxed the OTV forward.
“As I was saying…” Ramirez began.
“Not now, please.” She prodded her mike. “Galileo command, Charlie Victor two-ten. Flyby completed, resuming docking maneuvers.”
“Copy that, Charlie Victor.” Arkady again. “Clear for docking at port four. Wave as you go by.”
She grinned despite her nervousness. Maneuvering the OTV within the confines of the dry dock would be a tight squeeze; Arkady knew that her hands would never leave the yoke. “Wilco,” she replied. “Watch for my lights.”
The OTV slipped into the dry dock with scarcely twenty meters on either s
ide to spare. Emily chewed her lower lip as she let forward momentum do most of the work, firing aft thrusters only when necessary. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a figure floating within one of the broad, oval windows on Deck A; Arkady, watching her from the command center as she passed by. She stole a second to flip a toggle switch twice, causing her formation lights to blink a couple of times, then she put both hands on the yoke again.
Once she guided the craft past the forward mooring cables, she was home free. Emily rolled the OTV forty-five degrees to starboard, then pitched the bow ninety degrees to port. Charlie Victor was flying perpendicular to Galileo. When the docking module drifted into view, she fired another burst to brake her momentum. The designated docking port lay directly below her; a quick fire of the aft thrusters, and she moved toward it. Ten meters…seven meters…five…three…
A hollow rasp as the OTV’s docking probe slid into the collar, then its flanges engaged and there was a sudden thump as the OTV mated with the ship. Emily let out her breath as she reached forward to flip switches that would withdraw the probe and begin pressurization. “Galileo, Charlie Victor, we are home.”
“Confirm that, Charlie Victor.” Only this time it was Ted’s voice, not Arkady’s. “Nice flying there. You’ve always been good at this sort of thing.”