by Peter Damon
“The lure of scrap metal,” Robert suggested, forcing a smile and a laugh. Michael used to love telling the story about him in Bert and Martha’s home, the dogs and their pristine sitting room.
“There’s got to be more in it than that. How many went up with him?” Sam asked.
Robert counted in his head. “Over forty,” he realised.
Sam nodded. “No, there was something more,” he judged.
Robert reviewed what he knew, and what he’d heard. A man inspired to make more of himself and his family. What could be more universally appealing than that, he wondered?
“By the way,” Sam told him, standing as he prepared to move off. “BBC reports that the Prime Minister is considering a posthumous knighthood for him.”
August 24th.
Michael had not wanted the ceremony recorded, but Oliver had been insistent, and the British travellers didn’t seem to mind. The cameras were always there anyway, recording everything as a matter of course.
They gathered first in the docking bay to say goodbye to him, murmuring a soft farewell and touching the steel plating of the SUV in which he sat.
Michael felt as awkward as the twins looked, and stayed close to them, feeling oddly out of place and not knowing how much of the ceremony was gypsy tradition, and how much they were making up themselves because of the unique environment they were in. Whatever the case, it had the makings of becoming the funeral ceremony for all spacemen henceforth.
The SUV looked little changed from its neighbours, even if the twins and the travellers had been over it for the last two days, making alterations, testing them, then making sure the vehicle looked as pristine as possible.
They made their way to the lounge to watch the screens as the SUV was operated by remote control out into space.
Don and the others were in the control-room, quietly checking the feeds from the vehicle, their excitement at the forthcoming trial muted by it also being the funeral pyre of their most esteemed spaceman.
“What exactly are we going to see?” Michael asked Chas Brewer, for once not needed in the control-room.
“Well, hopefully, not a lot,” he smiled.
“So you’re sending Frankie, where exactly?” Michael asked.
“He’s going to travel through space-time using just gravity,” Chas explained, and smiled at Michael’s perplexed look.
“We’re going to make that SUV so heavy, that it punctures space-time to go beyond. Where and when, we don’t know. It’ll be like going through a black-hole,” he explained.
“But, won’t that crush him?” Michael asked.
Chas shook his head. “Just like we use HYPORT in a dual way on an everyday basis, first to create our own gravity field, and then to operate against or towards other fields to generate movement, we will use HYPORT to create a sphere of normalcy within the SUV, while producing extremely strong gravitational forces outside the SUV. This will cause it to drop from our space-time into another, without harming the inside of the vehicle.”
“And you don’t have to super-cool HYPORT to do that?” Michael asked.
“No longer. The testing the students did before they left gave us quite a lot of information actually. But we decided to keep it to ourselves, just in case,” Chas explained, touching the side of his nose.
“And, go!” called Don from the control-room.
The image of a button was pressed, and the SUV, with Frankie inside it, disappeared.
+++++++++++++
In the silence that followed the SUV’s departure from space-time, Chas’s communicator emitted a loud buzz that he quickly answered, blushing at the intrusion.
He listened for a moment, his eyes widening. Then he was up and running, crying out excitedly as he left the large room.
Intrigued, Michael followed him down to the control-room to find Don, Chas, Pavel, Matt and the twins all talking excitedly, hands waving and heads turning as they spoke rapidly among themselves, sometimes turning towards Leanne who was still scrutinizing her control-table.
“What?” Michael asked her, figuring he would not get anything understandable from the others.
Leanne continued to work her board while answering him. “As far as I can make out, communication with the SUV continued after it was drawn into its gravity-well,” she explained as she again tried correlating her figures.
“How?” he asked, perplexed.
“How indeed!” Don cried, turning to face him. “Gravity affects matter, and with size of the gravity-well we dropped the SUV into, no laser signal should have been able to travel out of it, and yet, Leanne claims, it did.”
Michael turned to back to Leanne. “It was only a nanosecond or so, but it was there!” she stressed.
“You can communicate with an object sent to another space-time,” Michael murmured, the implications hitting him.
“See? Even Michael understands the import of that!” Don cried to the others.
+++++++++++++
The people in the lounge were subdued that evening, inclined to form large groups rather than small ones, and talk less frequently, more than happy to sit and ponder on the frailty of life than to discuss what the next day might bring. Michael felt the interloper, moving between the groups, nodding to the odd traveller who caught his eye, murmuring a greeting and offering condolences before moving on.
He came to a group formed mostly of spacemen and women, seated with their partners but silent, remembering the man who was no longer with them.
Michael nodded and held up his cup of tea. “To Frankie’s memory,” he offered.
“To Frankie,” they murmured, holding up their own glasses and cups.
Michael savoured the lukewarm tea, hesitating to speak, and yet needing to. “It will take quite a bit to fill his place,” he suggested.
There were nods around the group, some glancing towards one another in agreement, but none giving him a hint as to who the new leader was going to be.
“How do you choose Frank’s replacement?” he asked. “I mean, is it most senior, or closest family member. Oldest male?” he queried. “I mean, you don’t fight for it, do you?” he asked, trying to be jocular about it.
“It’s a family decision,” Mickey told him, glancing towards him.
Michael nodded. “Will that be made soon?” he asked. “Only, we have some decisions to make. You know Frankie held 24% ownership of all this, don’t you?” he queried.
Mickey and the others nodded, but it was Maddy who stood up to shuffle past him. “We know. And it’ll be me making those decisions for the spacemen,” she told him, walking on towards her room.
“For the spacemen. And the travellers; what of them?” he asked.
Mickey stood to follow Maddy. “There are no travellers on board,” he told Michael. “Only spacemen.”
+++++++++++++
Gail sat quietly on the bed where Juliet lay and held a cup of soup out to the Hydroponics professor. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured, looking with anguish at the older woman.
Juliet nodded, still in shock.
“I’m not sure if this is the time to tell you,” Gail murmured.
Juliet blinked and looked up at the young doctor. “What?” she asked.
“You’re pregnant,” Gail told her gently. “Three to four weeks,” she added as Juliet stared up at her with widening eyes.
September 6th.
GAIS was the first to see it, more than two weeks before any of the other telescopes, even those in space.
The University team informed USSTRATCOM at their base in Omaha, Nebraska and continued to monitor the space-time anomaly they now knew was Freedom One as it left the Asteroid Belt and began to circle around the sun on its way towards earth.
USSTRATCOM alerted General Mears, who immediately telephoned Joanna Bradworth, leaving a message for the Chief of Staff before he left to fly down to the Edwards Air Force Base, the take-off point for astronauts going to the new space-station.
Joanna received the messa
ge while the General was still in the air, and contacted the Phoenix Project Manager, David Brookes, at his offices in Cape Canaveral.
As a result of their brief conversation, David alerted NASA’s Mission Control Centre in Houston and requested use of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System sitting in geosynchronous orbit, to begin sending requests for information from the incoming spaceship in the hope that they would answer, and tell earth what they intended. He then revised his project plan, getting on the phone to the suppliers in order to bring forward the production of the additional modules for the new space-station.
September 20th.
Optical telescopes, tracking the closest of the incoming asteroids, noted a shadow crossing the distant object. Within hours they confirmed first sight of the Freedom One spacecraft, the news making headlines across the world.
Using GAIS the Americans had already been alerted to the location of Freedom One, and that a sudden burst of gravity had caused the asteroid to begin slowing, a prelude to dropping behind earth where, caught by its gravity, it would become an additional, if somewhat small, moon, or large satellite.
For Joanna, it was confirmation of her stance, and a great relief to her. Meanwhile, the rest of earth would have to wait until the optical telescope confirmed the change in the asteroid’s velocity. America was unwilling to admit that it had a technology capable of tracking the British spaceship and the use of gravity to promote movement.
Not that their more aggressive schedule for launching additional elements of the new space-station had gone unnoticed. The Telegraph’s Space Correspondent, a man whose history included a brief stint on the ARC, was once again pushing for greater transparency on matters pertaining to outer-space, reminding everyone of their obligations to the UNSA, even if everyone recognised that the outer-space treaty, and the authority it had spawned, were dead.
What truly mattered was that America would be up in space when the ship returned, with a new spacecraft capable of generating its own propulsion. Yes, it was slow, but it didn’t run out of power, just as long as the fuel cells on its outer surfaces continued to receive sunlight. This was a major advance in space travel. It was also a stark reminder of how far in advance the British were, the thought bringing a shake of Joanna’s head as she reviewed the latest reports.
The new modules for the NSS would increase habitation to 12, and they had twenty men and women in training, most of whom were continuing to gain flight experience on what had been the highly secret XB40-B, until that Telegraph correspondent had published full details, including pictures.
Joanna found herself shaking her head yet again. She would dearly love to know where the man had obtained his information. So far, neither the FBI, CIA, nor the Air Force itself, had been able to find out.
Their clandestine efforts in Russia were continuing a pace. There had been another fire at one of the Russians research laboratories, an unexplained fire the reporting of which had been suppressed by the Russian authorities. As far as the Americans could see, the Russians continued to believe that such fires were the result of their experiments, and not interference from foreign agents. She worried about how long such a subterfuge could continue and made a mental note to question the Secret Service on the topic. She hoped they weren’t relying on just this single ploy.
+++++++++++++
Maddy, kneeling beside one of the drilling rigs, looked up from where she was working. Another three teams were out on the asteroid, drilling core samples that would provide a much more detailed analysis of the large rock. Freedom One hung 500 metres away, the large doors to the front and back open as vehicles came and went, taking samples back into the craft and bringing further tools and drilling pipes to the asteroid.
The sun, low on the asteroid’s near horizon, had grown in size, but earth was still too small for her to pick it out among the other celestial bodies in the surrounding sky.
There was a difference between floating in space beside the earth, and floating in outer-space, she reflected. The first was astonishing, the second was extremely humbling. Although science told her that space was infinite, what that meant to her personally didn’t truly strike home until she had floated in free space, far from mother earth, facing nothing.
“Actually, it’s never nothing,” Thomas had told her later that day, as Maddy had tried expressing her feelings, a rare thing for the ex-gypsy.
“There is so much out there, much of it just raw energy,” David added, nodding in sync with his brother.
“Did you know, the hull of Freedom One actually rose by 1 degree Celsius on our trip out, just as a result of the friction of matter against it?” she was asked.
She didn’t. It made her wonder how many particles were actually passing through her as she pondered the vastness of the cosmos.
September 27th.
Allan took Freedom One to within 500 metres of their target asteroid and opened a channel to the crew. “Ship’s at a stand relative to the rock,” he informed them. “Working parties are free to depart.”
Matt, sitting at one of the other control tables, tapped at an app, and the HYPORT tugs sped off from their home on the outer hull to position themselves on the bare rock.
Samuel coordinated the forward loading bay, checking equipment and chatting calmly with the crews as they prepared for another rapid bout of drilling. They only had a five day window on this piece of rock, before they had to move to the next.
When the control lights confirmed the tugs’ status as green, Matt invoked the next app, and watched critically as the asteroid’s velocity was reduced and its course slightly altered to come within earth’s gravitational influence and be swept into the dance with it. He watched its speed and direction coincide with their predictions, turning green on his board, and nodded his satisfaction. “Speed and heading on green for earth,” he told Allan.
+++++++++++++
Pat Schroder stood beside the table in their quarters, a fist pressed to her mouth as she watched the monitors in front of her, aching with worry.
“Pat; she’ll be alright,” Glen told her comfortingly, moving across to put his arms around his worried wife.
“I don’t think she’s ready,” she told him sharply, taking her knuckles from her mouth.
“She’s the most over-trained spaceman on board,” he told her, continuing to use the male title for all the travellers, irrespective of their gender. “She’s passed every test given to her. They’ve spun her around in zero gravity, had her bouncing off the walls to land on tiny coloured circles, tested her time and time again on emergency procedures for suit and mask malfunctions, when one has yet to occur,” he explained patiently. “Maddy has even got her using one of the nitrogen guns.”
Pat was silent, unable to repudiate any of what Glen was telling her. Truth was, she couldn’t understand how anyone could go out into space wearing so little, and certainly not her little baby.
“What if a meteor hits her?” she asked plaintively.
“Darling , it won’t,” he sighed, praying to his God that one wouldn’t.
On one of the three screens they were watching, Leanne could be seen standing in front of their daughter, watching Diane put her helmet on. The teenager pushed her head back to seal it under the joint on her suit before running her fingers forward, easing the seal over the rim of the large helmet. She did it well and easily, a sign of many hours of practice.
“I’m green,” she confirmed, the heads-up display cycling through the start-up procedures to confirm her readiness for space.
“Alright. Vacuum first,” Leanne told her, the woman standing chest and head above the American teenager.
A claxon sounded and a bright orange light flickered around for a few seconds, then the air was voided from the rear dock, and Leanne continued to watch Diane for any sign of distress or undue nervousness. “Paul?” she asked over her system’s communications.
“She’s fine,” he told her, monitoring their vital signs from his surgery.
<
br /> “Doors then please,” she called.
Like an iris, four panels slid smoothly aside leaving the two spacemen standing in the open-sided room, staring out at space.
“In the green,” Paul repeated. She was excited though, her heart-rate jumping upwards. But it wasn’t excessive.
Leanne smiled down at her charge and held out her hand. “Shall we do this together?” she asked.
Diane stared out of the door and took a deep breath. She grinned and nodded, holding out her hand for Leanne to take it. Together, with a loud whoop of excitement, the two of them ran for the lip of the dock, and flung themselves off the edge and into outer-space.
“God!” Pat gasped, clinging to Glen as she watched the second monitor catch sight of the two of them out in space, and begin tracking them.
“There, see? She’s loving it,” he pronounced proudly.
She was; bending her legs to do a summersault, then straightening to spread her arms, welcoming space into her life.
This was excitement at a level the girl had never experienced before. Leanne let her submerge herself in it, and let the initial excitement die away a little. Almost everyone found outer-space to be exciting when they overcame their initial fear and dived out into it. But then, with a little time, came the added awareness of just how exposed and fragile they were. You could almost feel space on the other side of the five millimetre thick material. Leanne waited, letting that realisation soak into the teenager.
Diane fell silent to let herself float among the stars. Arms and legs spread to encompass space, she let her body slowly turn, the better to face the emptiness all around her.
“Alright?” Leanne asked.
“Fine,” Diane nodded. “This is just, so awesome,” she breathed, looking out on infinity.
“She’s green,” Paul told Leanne.
“Can we have a toy now, please?” Leanne asked of the ship.