by Kate Rauner
But not for years, Yash told himself. Better to concentrate on the domes today, and progress on the surface depended on progress in orbit. They lay their flat pads side by side on the low table and Yash called the Herschel.
Liam Westergaard answered. His wide chin, nose, and sloping eyes always struck Yash as too big for his face, and now he held his pad too close so they filled the screens, repeated three times.
"Liam. How's it going up there? Are you enjoying command?"
"Not my favorite thing. Hate being involved in other people's problems. But I give myself a turn piloting shuttles, so it could be worse."
"How's unloading progressing?"
"While you're all prancing around down there - yes, I watched the video feed - Tyra delivered the greenhouse dome. The surface stevedores are unfolding it now."
"I'd like to see what's happening," Fynn said. "Do you have cameras on the Herschel's exterior?"
"Better. On shuttles."
Their screens switched to a view from space. The Herschel lay longwise on the screen, neither Saturn nor Titan in the view. Two curved ring segments hung behind it, stationery in the Lagrange Point where the ship floated. The rotating station couldn't be assembled until all the domes were pulled from segments and all the cargo unloaded. A lot of work still to accomplish, but the thought didn't discourage Yash.
"You're watching the Demeter collect cargo from the greenhouse ring segment," Liam said. "Watching through the Hestia's cameras."
"You named the shuttles?'
"Sure. Ships gotta have names."
After signing off with Liam, Yash swiped through the schedule. "It was complicated origami to pack a dome into a curved segment. Each contractor had to figure it out for themselves."
Fynn frowned. "So each dome is packed differently? Isn't that inefficient?"
"We couldn't allow the contractors to talk with each other, or they'd have figured out something strange was happening onboard the Herschel."
"But, lessons-learned by one contractor weren't shared with the others."
"It doesn't matter, son. Liam said the greenhouse is safely on the surface. I want you to cut through with your own hands. That's a good way to see exactly how a dome is constructed. Until then, you've got three days of free time while the bots set it up."
Fynn opened the schedule on his sleeve display. "The power plant dome gets unloaded next."
Yash warmed to his enthusiasm. "Crew assignments will change, too, as each dome arrives. You can move straight to the methane power plant while others assemble the greenhouse interior."
After Fynn left, Greta smiled. "He always listens so intently to you, so seriously. Do you think he'll take any time off?"
"Maliah and Drew will see to it he gets some recreation." Yash hopped to the sofa and put one long arm around Greta's shoulders. "Are you angry with me?"
"Over what?"
"I didn't tell you we were journeying to Titan."
Greta snuggled against his side. "Oh, I knew something was up. Those continuing education classes I was sent to... They didn't make much sense for my earthly practice. But I thought we'd be moving to the Moon."
"Too close, the Moon. The mongrels are likely to overrun it soon with their hotels and mining operations." Yash sighed. "Holding you still gives me butterflies. Feel my pulse." He pressed her hand against his neck.
Greta sat up and pressed two fingers to his neck, feigning a stethoscope with her other hand to her ear. "Yes, you're alive alright."
Yash pulled her close. "We've got three days off, too, and you have a private room, right here."
"I'm a sucker for your patter. That, and your intensity. A two edged sword, intensity. Look where it got me. Titan. But I never could resist."
***
Fynn stood with a cup in one hand and a tea bag in the other. "Hey, where's the sugar?" A nearly-full tub of sugar packets sat on the countertop last night, and this morning it was gone.
Drew tossed his hash brown potatoes into a microwave and scanned the countertops. "There's no powdered milk to go in my powdered coffee either."
"We're going through milk and sugar too fast," Maliah said. "Doctor Tanaka took the tubs into the tower."
Drew frowned into his cup. "I might as well go back to bed."
Team members were scattered around, eating breakfast in small groups. Drew pointed to one table where a half dozen bleary-eyed teammates slumped over tea cups. "What's wrong with them?"
"Nothing serious," Maliah said brightly. "It's just the flu."
Drew's eyes widened. "What if it's an alien pathogen?"
Maliah poked a finger into Drew's chest. "Don't be ridiculous. Mom has diagnostic kits in the clinic. It's a simple, earthly, common cold."
Fynn spread his hands and stared into his palms. "We brought germs with us?"
"You've brought every virus you've ever had."
"I've also had every vaccination known. We all have."
Maliah shook her head. "That doesn't prevent every infection, and a virus can hide inside your cells for the rest of your life. Low gravity does something to the immune system. Viruses reactivate. Talk to Mom if you want, but it's nothing to worry about. Cheer up."
Maliah turned her back to the tables and reached into a pocket to pull out a handful of packets. "Sugar for my little brother, and powdered milk for my almost-little-brother."
Fynn set his cup down to dump in the sugar. "Hey, great. Where'd you get these?"
"Doctor Tanaka gave them to me." She raised her chin proudly. "He said he likes my work on the cybernet, that I deserve some special consideration."
"Now I can start the day off properly," Drew said, pouring two milk packets into his coffee.
Fynn gave Maliah a one-armed hug. "Anything I can do to say thanks, just let me know."
"Actually, maybe after we eat you guys can help me move something."
Fynn and Drew carried a bed out and Maliah took one of the two-drawer chests that fit in the tiny space between bunks. She led them to the tower, to the single door in the ground floor containing her cyber equipment.
Rows of shiny, head-high cabinets filled the room, leaving open space along one wall wide enough for the bed.
"Nice place," Drew said. "Get rid of the servers, and you could park three or four cars in here. If there were any cars on Titan."
They deposited their loads next to a desk and single chair, the only other furniture. Fynn rapped his knuckles against one of the cabinet racks. "Plastic?'
Maliah nodded.
"What's inside can't be plastic," he said.
"Spin-based quantum chips."
"What are they made of?"
Maliah's eyebrows tented. "Mostly silicon superconductors. Doped with some rare-earth metal ions. Why?"
"Just thinking about the future. The outer solar system is nothing but water and hydrocarbons. How will we ever replace this stuff when it fails?"
"Asteroids crash on Titan. The robotic mission left its transport ship in orbit, and it's been scanning the surface. It found some promising sites, I think, somewhere. But, really Fynn. Why worry about that now?"
"Well, I sure hope someone worried about it." Fynn wasn't dismissed so easily, even if she might be right. "It would be nice if these schedules and instructions told us the long-term plan."
"Forget about it. Let's turn my bed this way."
"You're going to sleep in the cyber room?"
Maliah beamed. "Oh yes. Doctor Tanaka suggested it. He said, since I have to maintain the net, I should have some privacy so I can work. Now, I know what you need to relax. A couple of the girls are teaching a new line-dance, something they created especially for Titan's gravity. Let's join them."
***
Fynn paused at the corner of the tower. Men and women in identical blue coveralls were forming three lines in the middle of the playing field, straight enough to make a barrack chief proud and facing a couple of flipped-over bins shoved together. With a leap that would be amazing on Earth, a
friend of Maliah's, Patrika, sprang to the top.
"Go ahead." Drew stroked his ginger mustache. "I'm not very graceful in this boot. Besides, I need to look something up." He skirted around the other side of the tower and headed for the men's barracks.
"Is his foot still numb?" Maliah asked.
"Yeah, but he doesn't like crowds much, either." Fynn rubbed the numb patch on his leg. It tingled along one edge, maybe a sign the nerves were healing. "That's why we always hang out at the edge of rallies."
"Well then, with him gone, we can take our place right in the center." She led Fynn into the middle line.
Patrika raised her arms, and everyone in line laid each hand on a neighbor's shoulder.
Patrika lifted one foot. "Begin with a walking meditation." Everyone on the playing field stepped to that side. Music played in Fynn's ear, a slow, steady beat. Step, step, step, and tilt heads the same direction, then reverse. The music grew louder. Patrika flexed her knees. Fynn stumbled, but as they stepped and swayed, his movements synchronized with the others. At a crash of cymbals, Patrika leaped, arching her back and pointing her toes like a magical ballerina. They all leaped.
Fynn gripped Maliah's shoulder and his heart pounded. It felt like he'd fall, but the return to the floor was slow enough to regain his balance. The lines broke apart, laughing. Fynn wasn't the only person startled by the leap. They tried again, faces set in concentration.
Over and over they repeated the dance, and chants of "Kin, Kin, Kin," added to the music. Moving together, moving as one, losing track of time. He was soaked with sweat when, on a huge leap, he got the take-off perfect. Titan gave him something Fynn never found on Earth. He was as light and graceful as any of them. He belonged with them and loved them all. They were Kin.
"I'm starving," Maliah said when Patrika finally dropped down to the floor. "We missed lunch, but I need a shower."
Watching Maliah cross the playing field, Fynn caught sight of Rica, glistening with sweat, with her pink hair bouncing in damp curls. He waved and she tilted her head in response, but joined the other women headed for their barracks.
Next time, he'd have to work his way into line closer to her. He headed to his own barracks and dropped down on his bed. Drew yanked an ear gel loose and sat up, knocking his foot brace off the end of the bed where he'd dropped it.
Fynn grinned, flush-faced. "Drew, I did it. I felt it. Kinship."
"You're not going all tribal on me, are you?" Drew flopped back against his pillow. "You smell rank, too."
Fynn hugged the feeling close as he walked to the washroom. Maybe he shouldn't worry after all.
Chapter 6
F ynn waited at the kitchen, keeping his distance from red-eyed Kin who were coughing or sneezing. He'd sent a message to everyone from his now-disbanded assembly crew about poking a hole through to the new greenhouse dome, inviting them if they were interested.
Drew was with him, tightening the straps on his foot brace. He was part of the maintenance crew now, and he'd been starting up utility systems. Today, Drew had his crew leader's permission to spend the morning carving through the greenhouse panel. Fynn breathed easily with his friend at his side.
Rica hopped out of a front-row unit in women's barracks beyond the kitchen. Stasis had preserved the pink color in her curls, and her coveralls were the same shade this morning, so she was hard to miss. Fynn called a greeting as soon as he saw her.
At the same time, Casper Schmid came around the tower, bouncing nimbly from foot to foot. "Thanks for inviting me. I was one of the Herschel's procurement agents and worked on domes, but I never got to visit a vendor. This is my first chance to see what the walls I specified actually look like." He might have just tumbled out of bed. His dark hair was tangled and he plucked at his coveralls to settle them across his broad shoulders.
He smiled at Rica as she fell in close beside him. Her light, bubbly laugh said she appreciated Casper's attention.
Ben Kaj came behind Casper. Ben was an Indus Archetype like Fynn but more caramel toned than coffee. He'd been quick and accurate assembling utility lines, and cheerful despite some lingering headaches from stasis. A good addition to the crew.
Fynn cleared his throat. "Thanks, guys. Did everyone view the instructions? Okay. Step one is to confirm the dome's hot air supply is operating. So I'm gonna check, if you want to come."
He led them past the women's barracks and clinic. Above the playing field and halfway up the wall, the air supply and return ducts pierced the dome. They shared a tunnel of layered plastic that connected to the nuclear reactor's dome.
Suspended in front of each duct was a white hoop, as thick as Fynn's arm and large enough to crawl through. These were fans, powered by impellers in the cylinders they hung from, drawing hot air in from the supply duct and venting the village dome through the return duct. The reactor sat in a smaller dome not far away, where its systems heated Titan's bitter cold nitrogen atmosphere, added oxygen electrolyzed from surface ice, and shunted the warm mixture to their habitat.
Fynn pointed at more fans hanging halfway up the dome wall, two in each quadrant. "See the fluttering plastic strips? That shows there's an airflow. We can also check the dome's temperature, which is measured at sensors on the dehumidifiers we installed." Fynn held up his left arm to show the sleeve display. "And there are a few cameras, so you can view the fans remotely."
Drew tilted his head back, staring up. "That's hot air from a nuclear reactor? Why aren't we dead from radiation?"
Fynn sighed. Drew was showing off. He knew the answer because they'd looked up the reactor design together. "The uranium core is sealed so air never touches it."
Fynn didn't describe the Stirling converter. It didn't matter what it looked like, since they'd never get near it. Only the surface robots with their hardened electronics could withstand the radiation, but even those decabots didn't mess with the reactor. There was nothing anyone could do if something went wrong. But nothing should. The Mars colony had used the design for years. That's what the instructions said.
"Let's move on to step two at the greenhouse." Fynn hung back behind the others to face Drew. He folded his arms across his chest. "Why did you bring up radiation?"
Drew leaned his weight on his good foot, crossed his own arms, and crinkled his nose in his intentionally cute smile. "So they'd appreciate how smart you are."
Fynn groaned and they hurried to catch up with the others.
The crew waited patiently for Fynn. He'd left a drum-shaped centrifugal blower, like an oversized hair drier, at the arch along with boxes of tools.
"The greenhouse dome's on the other side of this arch." Fynn leaned against the panel, which was twice his height and even wider. "The decabots outside have glued the new dome to our village dome."
Ben frowned at the wall. "I was a welder on the Herschel. Security never let me see any of the cargo. I understand metal, but plastic makes me nervous."
"I worked on dome procurement," Casper said. "The greenhouse is the same as the village." He waved overhead. "We're actually standing inside two shells nested together. Each one has nine layers of insulating foams, graphite reinforced stuff like bubble-wrap, and tear-proof silicones. The greenhouse's outer shell's been inflated with Titan atmosphere. Now the interior has to be blown up."
Drew pressed a hand to his chest. "Sounds as if it'll pop like a balloon."
Casper's eyebrows tented with concern but Rica patted his shoulder before he could answer. She gave Drew a steely look. "We all know what you mean."
"Oh. Good." Casper bounced on his toes, shifting his gaze from face to face. "Anyway, there's a stub, a sort of short tunnel, on the other side of this panel, made with the same layers. The decabots outside have glued a stub from the greenhouse dome to this stub. Now we have to cut a hole for the blower. If it works like the vendor on Earth reported, it'll be great."
Drew rested his braced foot on the blower. "This little thing? Why don't we cut the whole panel out?"
F
ynn sighed. "And you used to complain about cold drafts off the barracks windows in winter. It's two hundred degrees below zero on the other side of this panel. We've got to inflate the inner dome with breathable air before the stevedore can remove the panel."
Fynn unfolded a meter-long, sharp-tipped blade. "This is from one of our patch kits. And these." He pulled on a pair of insulated gloves with gauntlets reaching to his shoulders.
He dropped to his knees, pushed the tip against the panel, and slid backwards. After a few attempts, with Drew and Ben bracing him, he poked the tip into the panel at floor level, hacked deep into the sky-blue plastic, and pulled out a ragged-edged cube the size of his fist.
Casper dropped down next to him and took the chunk. "Polystyrene with an inner felt-coating. A honeycomb of interconnected cells to hold insulating air." He seemed pleased, squeezed it between his palms like an accordion, and stuffed the flat result into a pocket.
Fynn didn't weigh enough to stay in place as he worked, so with Drew and Ben bracing him, he continued to saw, leaning an elbow on the floor to get the right angle. Casper collected and identified each piece as he removed it, calling out closed-cell foam mats, tear-resistant silicones, and polystyrenes loaded with graphite.
Finally, Fynn sat back on his heels.
"Getting tired?" Casper asked.
"No. I'm done. Reached the last layer. Now we're supposed to twist the extension pipes together on the end of the blower and ram it through."
"Why can't the stevedore do it?" Drew was tired, or maybe bored, and whiney.
Rica answered. "The bot's designed for moving cargo and can't work close to the floor like this."
"Then why didn't someone send more robots?"
Fynn was tired too, and his arms ached. He wanted to be done. "Maybe because we're building a colony, not a machine shop."
Drew raised his hands in mock surrender.
Rica unrolled the blower's power cord and plugged it into an outlet in the dome's umbrella-rib a few steps away. It hummed to life, blasting out air through a fist-sized nozzle. She rummaged in the tool kit for the tubular extensions.