by T I WADE
It was easier for Saturn Jones on the return leg, but she was irritable; the heavier gravity was getting to her. She wanted more food, and was happy to sleep while Jonesy was debriefed by Ground Control.
Since there were enough ground crew to unload and refuel the shuttles, after debrief, he joined a healthy and still sun-browned Allen Saunders and a pale white Michael Pitt in the pool. The beer was cold, and life was good again.
“They had the nets out of our shuttle in twenty minutes,” Allen stated as a very pale and weak Jonesy slid into the warm water; it was easier to move in water than the gravity outside.
“Are the diamonds being flown out?” he asked. “I missed a bit of the briefing up in America One before we left, I needed sleep.”
“We weren’t told what was happening up there,” Allen replied. “I was told by Ground Control during yesterday’s debrief. It seems that the president is arriving the same day you return with Asterspace’s load. The government has set up a secret base somewhere with hundreds of American and international diamond cutters, cutting machines, and diamond polishers. Some of the air force guys think that it is inside Area 51, which is secure enough for such an operation. Their reasoning is that there has been a huge amount of new air traffic into Area 51 over the last couple of weeks. Jimmy Stillshot, who used to work with me back at Nellis, is the Air Force Colonel in charge here on the airfield; he is the person I was talking to.”
“Sounds like a big operation,” Jonesy replied enjoying his cold Bud.
“Gee, Jonesy, have you seen all those stones we are bringing back, besides the big ones? Hundreds, maybe thousands in each canister!” Allen replied.
“Did you tag your stone?” Michael Pitt asked, staying in the shade of the pool change rooms.
“Oh crap! I had better go and tell the guys, which one is mine. Just when I was thinking of a fresh beer,” Jonesy replied. He got out, gathered his dressing gown around him, sat back in his wheelchair and shouted for the nearest security guard to wheel him back to the hangar SB-III was in.
“You can’t come in here, sir,” stated one man on the group of security guards outside the hangar. He certainly didn’t recognize the astronaut in his dressing gown. As soon as Jonesy, in his usual demanding tone, informed the security guards of his rank and that he was the shuttle’s pilot, he had one of the hangar security guards wheel him in.The Shuttle’s top cargo doors were opened, and the second net was being lifted out by a small mobile crane. There were already a dozen long tables set up and cases of what looked like plastic lunch bags. Jonesy knew that each diamond would be weighed, sorted, recorded, and sealed in a bag.
“I hope you have some big bags. Many of those rocks won’t fit into a sandwich bag,” he said as he was wheeled up to an Air Force Major, head of security.
“And who the hell let you in here?” the Major replied, signaling the guard pushing Jonesy to about-face and exit the hangar.
“I suggest you stand at attention when you see me, Major and hold your trap until you know who you are talking too,” Jonesy admonished. “Hey, Gary, come and tell this bristling piece of brass who I am,” he shouted to one of the dozens of white coated scientists watching the unloading procedure.
“Hi, Jonesy, I nearly didn’t recognize you either,” laughed Gary, one of the Ground Control crew as he ran up. “Major, this is Air Force General John Jones, Chief Astronaut with Astermine Inc. He just flew this bird in a couple of hours ago.”
The Major immediately saluted. Jonesy smiled at him, and asked Gary to take control of his chair and push him to the rear of SB-III.
“Gary, I lifted these four nets up from the moon myself. In the lower net in the rear hold, you will find one lonely separate really big diamond. It is big; big enough to break your foot if you drop it, so don’t. That baby is mine. Actually I’m personally handing it to the president as payment for my Gulfstream, you know, my new toy?” Gary smiled nodding, he knew Jonesy well. “Anyway I want it cleaned and giftwrapped in plastic so that I can officially hand it over to him. I don’t like being in debt to the government, and even though they will get the stone anyway, at least I’ll feel that I don’t owe them anything. I found it, packed it, and transported the mother all the way down here.”
Gary nodded. “Are you sure I will know which one it is?” Gary asked.
“Easy,” Jonesy replied. “It’s the only lose diamond in that net, and the biggest one here. It is at least three times bigger than anything we have brought down to date. It is this big…..” and he placed his right hand horizontally against Gary’s belt buckle. Gary’s eyes widened, and he whistled. “Ryan know about this?” he asked.
“Yep, I explained it to him up in America One, and he just smiled. All these diamonds are going to be cut down to size; all as small as marbles so that the Chinese can’t use them to cut lenses for any long distance lasers. Gary, you know about the new laser lenses don’t you?” Gary nodded. “My diamond is so damn big that even an elephant couldn’t wear it on its finger.
“Maybe it could fit on the finger of a dead chicken?” laughed Gary and that made Jonesy smile and nod his agreement. “Remember, these diamonds are still radioactive Jonesy. Maybe you should ask the president for his new diamond to be stored here for a couple of weeks after you officially hand it over, at least until it is able to be manhandled. He might want to put it in the Oval Office or something.”
Chapter 14
The two official visits
Three days later SB-III took off into space again with Jonesy piloting and Allen Saunders the co-pilot. Allen was excited. This launch was totally different from what he was accustomed to. He had already completed 200 hours on the SB-III simulator and knew every second about the launch, except for the agonizing back pain at 100,000 feet. This launch really hurt, and he couldn’t understand how little Saturn Jones could handle it.
Michael Pitt and Max Burgos accompanied them on the flight; they were going to spacewalk the transfer of cargos. The Nano-Silicone had not yet arrived, so Jonesy took up a ton of one hundred pound atmospheric air tanks and the same amount of helium tanks, which had arrived just days earlier.
On their third orbit at 100 miles altitude, they reconnected with Asterspace Three. In the next seven hours they exchanged the now weightless tanks—tied in groups of five, placed the four nets into SB-III, and readied for a one-orbit reentry. Max and Michael were to refuel Asterspace Three and fly her back to America One, still in orbit around the moon. She was needed to haul up more diamonds from the crater.
Ryan had informed the president of the exact time of each reentry; Jonesy could see both Air Force One aircraft on the apron as they descended through a sparse cloud layer at 10,000 feet, just over a mile from the target.
“Six thousand feet… speed 370 knots…30 knots too fast, releasing air brakes at 50 percent for two seconds,” Allen reported. Three thousand feet altitude, 12 hundred feet to target, 290 knots, brakes away.”
They came in fast and the parachute blew out the back. As Jonesy passed the apron entrance he could see the president and two Secret Service agents watching them from the upper staircase of the first jet. SB-III swept by the entrance and the usual two vehicles followed the shuttle as it came to a halt, well over a 1,000 feet from the end of the runway. With this new engine configuration and half the original cargo weight, the stopping power of the parachute was more evident.
Thirty minutes later the crew of two was helped out of the side hatch in the shade of the hangar. The president, NASA Administrator Bill Withers, and FBI Director Joe Everson were there to welcome them along with scores of Secret Service and the air force personnel assigned to the airfield. Jonesy noticed that the hangar had been cleared of tables and the diamonds from the last reentries were gone.
“Welcome back to Earth, General Jones, General Saunders,” said the smiling president as both men saluted. They shook hands and Jonesy looked around for Gary, who had been given explicate instructions of what to do at this precise time. Gary w
as standing next to a trolley, which held a round shape covered by a blanket; he held a Geiger counter in his other hand.
“I have a gift for you, Mr. President,” Jonesy said. “A friend will roll it over on a trolley. You can’t touch it but you can look at it, from five feet away.”
The president nodded, and two Secret Service agents walked over to Gary who was wheeling the trolley forward. The agents stopped the trolley, peeked under the blanket, and asked Bill Withers to join them; then they ordered Gary to turn on the counter. Its steady noise filled the hangar. Bill discussed the safety factors of the gift and then allowed Gary to move forward, stopping him ten feet from the president, who was looking at the display of safety with his usual calm smile.
“It seems they think you are endangering my life, General Jones,” smiled the president. “Too big for a bowling ball?”
“It’s a just payment for the gift you gave me: the aircraft, papers, and everything, Mr. President,” Jonesy replied.
Only a few scientists had seen the diamond and everyone gasped as the blanket was pulled away to reveal the naked rough diamond, the biggest diamond anybody had ever seen. It was big, and even though rough and unpolished, it had an aura of power around it. The ceiling lights bounced off the rock streaming the hangar with beams of light.
“Oh my god!” exclaimed the president. He was shocked at what Jonesy had brought back for him. “How many carats is that?” he asked Gary; in his white coat, he appeared to be the only person who could answer that question.
“We estimate it to be 290,000 carats, Mr. President. It is approximately 170 times the size of the diamond Ryan and Astermine gave you in Washington before it was cut and polished. It has minute flaws in several areas, but the color is as good as the other diamonds.”
“And that diamond’s value was over a billion dollars?” the president asked. “Does that make this diamond worth as much as I think?”
“Not my place to guess, Mr. President, but I believe this one diamond is worth more than any one man’s worth on this planet,” Gary replied.
“I found it on the moon’s surface, loaded it into SB-III, and brought it down. Is that good enough to repay my debt to you and the U.S. Government? Like most Americans, Mr. President, I hate owing a debt to the government.”
The president turned to Jonesy, still smiling from everybody’s reaction. “I believe your gift to the country more than repays the $50 million for the aircraft,” he replied smiling at the now relieved older man. General John Jones was so American!
The president didn’t stay long. He did ask that the diamond be airlifted to Washington once it was polished. He wanted it placed in the Oval Office, where it would serve as a temporary reminder of the day the country’s debts were repaid by a group of adventurers who just wanted to go to space.
In a short speech to the group in the hangar over a glass of champagne, he said he was proud to be an American, and even prouder to soon be the president of a completely debt-free country. A proud and smiling General John Jones, serving as a proxy for Ryan, stood next to the president; the speech was recorded by Joe Downs for a future media airing, when the country had actually paid off its debts.
***
Ryan, Igor, and many of the crew orbiting the moon in America One managed to watch the recorded feed from Nevada, several hours later. Ryan smiled at the gasps elicited by Jonesy’s gift. It looked pretty grand down there and he was pleased that his Chief Astronaut’s idea had gone over so well. Ryan enjoyed the president’s simple speech but relished the idea that within a few weeks he would be away from all the pomp and ceremony for a long time.
VIN watched the ceremony twenty-four hours after the others. He and the mining team had filled all the canisters they had, and they were all due for a two-day rest period. They had now completed much of the extraction, finding the same black graphite shards two feet under the deepest diamonds, and were waiting for Asterspace Three to return with the nets from Earth inside her cargo hold.
***
Twenty-four hours later both SB-II and SB-III were refueled and ready. A day earlier, a C-17 transporter out of Nellis Air Force Base had flown in and collected all of the diamonds to transfer them to a secret location. The Ground Control team in Hangar One followed it on radar. The C-17 airlift was protected by two of the F-35s now on the airfield; it never rose above 2,000 feet and disappeared in the direction of Area 51, twenty minutes after takeoff.
Early the next morning, Bob Mathews piloted the Dead Chicken into the air to launch SB-II, for the shuttle’s second to last launch in its old configuration. Time was running out for the Dead Chicken, which all base personnel had grown very fond of.
Jonesy and Maggie launched themselves and Saturn two hours later with the first two tons of the new load of Nano-Silicone bound for America One. This should have been SBII’s last first-stage rocket launch, but Ryan had paid a fortune for the rest of the year’s production—20 tons of the new Nano-Silicone—if the company could fulfill the order that quickly. Six tons had arrived at the airfield aboard a German transport aircraft. SB-II would be needed for this one extra launch. SB-I would be ready for its test flight when Allen Saunders returned with Jonesy and, like SB-III, would be able to haul up two tons at a time.
Once in formation in their first orbit they blasted out en route to the moon. Three days later, both craft docked at their ports on America One.
Ryan congratulated Jonesy for managing to pay off his debts. The Jones family felt physically strong again. It was surprising how time on Earth strengthened the body.
The Joneses decided to tour the ship with Captain Pete, Ryan, Allen Saunders, and a few others to see how the build was progressing. It would be a long walk with much to see.
The whole upper level cylinder corridor system they had stayed in was now complete. There were three accommodation cylinders including nine family units and four single person cylinders, separated by four storage cylinders. The storage cylinders had a corridor and four storage rooms where hundreds of items were stowed in bins and on shelves. The rooms looked more like bulk food warehouses than supermarket shelves. This area of the ship contained all the dried food stocks.
The mid-level had a biology/chemistry lab in the second most forward cylinder behind the chicken breeding station. The third cylinder was the rabbit breeding station and then four cylinders of plant and animal feed storage cylinders.
The cafeteria was located in the middle of the upper level of cylinders in front of a kitchen/refrigerator cylinder; a walk-in freezer took all of the cylinder space on the upper level. A corridor to the side enabled the crew to pass the cold areas.
Behind them were two medical storage cylinders with two single unit accommodation cylinders on either side. The lower level accommodated the hospital/surgery cylinder, hospital ward, examination rooms, testing department, medical storage cylinder, and a cylinder for biology lab tests and storage. The last three cylinders incorporated the mechanics’ workroom, testing center, chemistry lab and an area for scientists to work on projects.
The build team had three more accommodation cylinders to go: a gas production unit of two cylinders, and a third cylinder for various other labs, or work centers to make up the 42 cylinders in all.
“In two more months, except for the accommodation cylinders we don’t yet need, we will be complete; the entire team will be able to go back to future design and production experiments,” explained Ryan. “Let’s go to the cafeteria for lunch.”
After lunch the main team of astronauts, VIN, and Igor met in the Bridge. “So, Mr. Noble your thoughts on the diamond mining please?” Ryan asked.
“We are over halfway,” VIN replied. “We have enough canisters and nets, now that the returning ship replaced the 70 empty canisters. Since both shuttles arrived with the second load of nets and 50 new canisters of Silicone, we should have enough to complete the mission. Ryan, how much of the graphite do we need to bring up here once the diamonds are on their way back to Earth?”
“I would say that if you could fill the two Astermine craft to the brim that should be enough to compensate for the amount of Silicone we will have up here. That should give us at least eight tons of graphite to bond 20 tons of Silicone. The graphite can be stored in the cargo holds of the two crafts since all the expendable freighters will store the Silicone. By the way, I have delayed the launch of the last European freighter full of liquid fuels until we return to Earth’s orbit in a week. Captain Pete, when is the best time to depart for Mars?”
“We will return to Earth orbit in a week; the crew needs three weeks to remodel SB-II, and to complete the lasers. Mars’ orbit will begin to extend farther away from Earth and the sun in two months and nine days. If we leave in four weeks, that will give us a journey of five months and twelve days. For every 24 hours we delay after that, it will increase travel time by 48 hours. Once we are on the move, for every 20 minutes of added burn time, we can deduct a week from our travel time, which in my view is total waste of fuel. Longer burn, faster cruising speed.”
“OK. We have four weeks, to get every diamond out of that crater. Regardless of the amount we give to the government, I want to store at least 50,000 carats of the larger diamonds to replace the initial amount we gave to the country. This will be a spending reserve to offset inflation in the event my paper money becomes worthless. We will also look for other precious metals to offset any costs we as a crew might incur in the future, or for the future of our children. We will have a complete crew meeting after we leave orbit for our journey to Mars. Everyone knows his job, so team, let’s all keep to the schedule. VIN, I will be returning with you and your team; I want to say I walked on the moon. Is there room for five craft?”
“Not in the third crater,” responded VIN. “We have just enough room for four, compensating for the blast possibilities; but I’m sure a window view on the actual moon’s surface will be better than down in the darkness where we are working. Once we have four of the craft down around the crater we can load them up one at a time, and they can fly up to the surface to join you. Max, Peter, and I can bring up a load and fill your craft while you check out the vista. Then, Max and Peter Smith can fly you down, and that will give Allen Saunders a few days’ rest.”