Kieran activated the console, and after some trial and error succeeded in setting the controls to manual—he would never have deciphered the routine for directing automated sequences. Inspection of the panel labels, a system identification chart and guide that he located with one of the screens, and systematic elimination of what was irrelevant brought him to the thruster startup, throttle, and direction controls, which he figured would be all he'd need initially. From the system guide, it seemed that the thruster system coupled automatically to the manual control stick. Great news! It meant that coordinating them would be pretty much like flying a basic trainer. He could worry about how to operate the radio when he was safely off Deimos, he decided. Thus resolved, Kieran stretched a hand toward the starter switches, flexed his fingers over them for a moment, stared out at the bleak landscape while he gathered his nerve . . . and then he released the Enable safety lock.
Everything went wrong within seconds of his opening up the throttles. The nose lifted okay—faster than he had expected—and starfield filled the windshield; but the vessel carried on turning until yellow-brown rock came into view again, this time from the top, and he realized he was looping completely over. Trying to correct somehow added a rolling component, making things worse. This was nothing like regular flying. As Kieran tried desperately to pull out of what was becoming a turning, inverted dive, the craft slewed sideways, adding another dimension to what had already become too convoluted a motion for him to follow. The horizon tilted crazily with rock and sky in the wrong places, rotating, rising, and sliding by all at the same time; then the metallic bulk of the Mocha's cargo module suddenly appeared, growing larger for a split second . . . before the rending crash came, and the jolt of Kieran's being thrown against his seat -harness—he might have been virtually weightless, but he still possessed mass and momentum—as the cavorting crew module slammed into it.
Kieran's senses came back together raggedly. He was practically upside down. One side of the module's nose was buckled inward, part of the hull breached, and the windshield shattered below canted control panels. Screeching sensations reaching him through the stick still gripped in his gauntlets told of metal tearing against metal as the thrusters continued driving futilely. Kieran reached out dully and cut the throttle, bringing stillness. Spray was vaporizing into the vacuum from a ruptured pipe. He didn't know what risk there might be of an explosion, but with his mental faculties still only half-functioning, his first instinct was to get out. He released the harness, fell lightly to the cabin ceiling, and clambered back over the door lintel into the access section. The airlock was angled downward, and with some awkward contortions he lowered himself out onto the surface, ducked from beneath the body, and stood up. The crew module had impacted against the far side of the cargo frame from the loading door and now hung partly entangled in it. Kieran tested his limbs, body, neck, and head warily. As far as he could tell, he was unharmed. There was still no sign of anyone else. But after what had happened, he could hardly pretend any longer that he wasn't here. He had no place else to go. Drawing a deep breath of suit air to prepare himself for whatever the consequences would be now, he glided his way in light, sailing bounds that barely seemed to touch the ground around to the ship's other side.
The loading door was open, but no one was outside. Kieran reached the ramp, cleared it in a slow bound, and stopped to peer in. There was nobody inside either. He entered to check behind and between the banks of containers and crates. Nothing. Mystified, he came back to the door and scanned the landscape as far as he could see. There was nobody anywhere.
The military shuttle bringing the Skyguards relief force arrived a little over four hours after Kieran's radio call came in at Lowell. A Major Sileski commanded the party, accompanied by Lieutenant Coombs, still chagrined somewhat after his experience but relieved to know that the news wasn't all bad. They found Kieran looking relaxed and grinning cockily outside the open door of the cargo module, which he had adapted into makeshift shelter from the Sun, now high.
"We were worried about you, Thane," Coombs said, giving Kieran a congratulatory pat on the shoulder. "Intelligence turned up some grim things about that bunch. They've got quite a record." He turned to survey the terrain and the ship with its partly detached propulsion module. The upturned crew module rammed into its other side would have been visible as the shuttle descended. "So I guess they got away, eh? Too bad—but there'll be other times. The main thing for now is that you're okay. I take it you were mixed up in that crash. Are you all right? No broken bones or anything?"
"I'm fine, sir," Kieran acknowledged. His grin broadened. "And you don't have to worry about other times. Everything's under control. They didn't get away."
Coombs looked puzzled. "What do you mean?" He looked around again. "Where are they?"
"Under confinement, sir. They should be coming over pretty soon. It takes about two hours. . . ." Kieran glanced at the readout on his arm panel. "In fact, they're due again just about now."
Coombs shook his head bemusedly. Major Sileski was equally at a loss. "What are you talking about, trooper?" he demanded.
Kieran nodded his head inside his helmet to indicate the direction behind them. "About half a mile away," he said. "You have to look up." It took them several seconds to pick out the specks, a couple of them growing lighter and darker as they tumbled in the sunlight, sailing slowly toward them above the horizon. "They've spread out a bit since the last time around," Kieran commented. "I guess you'll need to send a couple of EV mobiles up to fish them down with cargo nets."
For the five hijackers were in freefall around Deimos. It so happened that they had chosen that time to hold a conference in the open bay of the cargo module, when Kieran crashed into the other side. The impact was all it had taken to eject them with sufficient velocity to attain orbit. Fortunately, they were going round in the "short" direction, in which the surface of Deimos was almost circular and didn't intersect with their trajectory anywhere. Not that it would have done them much harm if it had—the impact speed would only have been eleven miles per hour. It was fortunate because it had prevented their getting their hands on Kieran.
"My God! . . ." Coombs gaped disbelievingly. "Are they all right?"
"They were the last time I checked," Kieran said. "You can pick them up on channel one twenty-six."
The two officers adjusted their radios. Strangled shouting that Kieran recognized as Ursark's streamed in as from above, the Mocha came into sight. "Don't think you're getting away with this! We've got your number, kid! NOBODY does this to me and walks! There's gonna be pay day! You'll find out! . . . I'm gonna send you straight to—"
Sileski was staring at Kieran in undisguised astonishment. "It's the most extraordinary display of initiative I've ever come across," he declared. "What made you think of it?"
"I was unarmed, sir. They were five. Where else was there to put them?"
The major still looked incredulous. "What's your name, son?" he inquired curiously.
"Kieran, sir. The guys call me Knight—on account of the initials."
"Hm." Sileski nodded approvingly. "The chess piece that makes complicated moves. Well, you've sure lived up to that. You'll go a long way."
Kieran did his best to look modest—not easy, given his present circumstances and state of mind. "Yes, sir. I think I've been told that today already," he replied.
WINDOWS
In hard science fiction there is a test that all writers must pass when constructing a future history—how do we get there from here? Jack McDevitt shows us not the first step into space, but maybe the first step back into space.
Jack McDevitt
The moon was big. It was an enormous gasbag of a moon, like the one Uncle Eddie used to ride down at the fair grounds, when she'd stand only a few feet away, watching it strain against the lines and then cut loose and start up. She used to wish for the day Uncle Eddie would take her soaring above the treetops, but he said he couldn't because of insurance problems and
eventually the gasbag went down and Uncle Eddie went with it. Janie thought of that last flight as she gazed at the foreboding presence dominating the night sky. The moon looked as if it was coming down. It was dim, dim as in dark, not at all like the bright yellow globe that rides the skies of Earth. It was a ghost moon, a presence, a thing lit only by stars.
"If there were more light," said the voice in her earphones, the voice that sounded a bit too cheerful, "it would look silver and blue. Its name is Charon, and it's less than a third the diameter of our moon."
"Why does it look so big?" asked Daddy.
"Do you know how far the Moon is from the Earth?"
Daddy wasn't sure. "About a million miles," he said.
"That's close, Mr. Brockman." The AI was very polite.
"I think," said Janie, trying not to sound like a know-it-all, "it's 238,000 miles."
"That's very good, Janie. Right on the button. But Charon is only twelve thousand miles away."
Janie did the arithmetic in her head. Multiply by ten and Charon was still only half, one-twentieth of the distance of her moon. "It's close," she said. She'd known that, but hadn't understood the implications. "It's right on top of us."
"Very good, Janie," said the voice. It belonged to a software system that was identical to the AI that had made the later flights, the Iris voyages, the Challenger run, the Long Mission, and the circumsolar flight on the Eagle. All the data from those missions had been fed into it, so in a sense, it had been there.
Its name was Jerry. Same as the originals. The onboard AI was always Jerry, named for Jerry Dilworth, a popular late-night comic of an earlier era. Daddy had commented how much the voice sounded like Jerry Dilworth, for whom Daddy had a lot of affection.
The sky was dark. This place never really experienced daylight. She wondered what it would be like to live where the sun never rose.
"But it does rise," Daddy explained.
"I know," she said. He meant well, but sometimes he just seemed to go out of his way to misunderstand her. Of course it rose, and for all she knew it might be up there now among all those stars, but who could tell? It was no more than a light beam.
She lowered her gaze and looked out across the frozen surface, past the Rover. A few low hills broke the monotony of a flat snowfield. It was lonely, quiet, scary. Solitudinous. Janie liked making up new words from the vocabulary list.
The Rover was the sole man-made object on the planet. It looked like a tank, with sensors and antennas aimed in all directions. The International Consortium seal, a blue-white globe, was stenciled on its hull.
"It's really much lighter than it looks," said Jerry. "Especially here, where the gravity is light."
"Nobody's ever been to Pluto, Janie," said Daddy. "It's very far."
Of course no one had been to Uranus or Neptune either. But never mind.
A bright star appeared over the hills and began climbing. "Do you know what it is, Janie?" Jerry asked.
She was puzzled. Another moon? Was there a second moon she didn't know about?
Daddy put his hand on her shoulder. "That's the Ranger," he said.
Oh, yes. Of course. Given another moment she'd have thought of it herself. "I know, Daddy," she said.
" . . . Orbits Pluto every forty-three minutes and twelve seconds."
The place felt cold. She pulled her jacket around her shoulders. This little stretch of ground, the hills, the plain, the snow, had been like this for millions of years, and nothing had ever happened until the Ranger showed up. No dawn, no rain, nobody passing through.
"Once in a while," said Jerry, "the ground shakes a little."
"That's it?" asked Daddy.
"That's the whole shebang." Jerry waited, perhaps expecting another question. When no one said anything, he returned to his narrative: "The snow isn't the kind of snow you'd see at home. It's frozen carbon monoxide and methane. . . ."
He went on like that for a few minutes but Janie was no longer listening. When he paused she touched her father's arm. "Daddy, why did the missions stop?" The magazines said it was because there was no place else to go, but that couldn't be right.
"Oh, I don't know, honey," he said. "I think it was because they cost too much."
"In fact," said Jerry, "unmanned missions are much more practical. Not only because it's a lot cheaper to send an instrument package rather than a person, but also because a lot more can be accomplished. They're safe, and the scientific payoff is considerably better."
"That's right," said Daddy.
"People can't go on deep-space missions without getting damaged. Radiation. Zero gravity. It's a hostile environment out there."
This was the reason Janie had come. To put her question to the machines that ran the missions. To get it straight from the horse's mouth. "Jerry," she said, "I can understand why you would like to go, but what's the point of running the missions if we have to stay home?"
She could almost hear Jerry thinking it over. "It's the only practical way," he said finally, "to explore the environment. But it's a good way. Most bang for the buck. And nobody gets hurt."
Daddy squeezed her hand.
"Seen enough, Janie?" the AI asked.
She didn't answer. After a moment the snowscape and the Rover blinked off and she was sitting with sixty or so people in the viewing room. Music started playing and the audience began talking and getting up and heading for the doors. A group of teens in front of her were deciding about going down to the gift shop for a snack. Somebody in back wondered where the bathroom was.
"That was pretty good," said Daddy.
They drifted out with the crowd. Janie had never been to Washington before, had never been to the Smithsonian. She'd done the virtual tour, of course, but it wasn't like this, where she could touch a coffee cup that had been to Europa, pass through the cabin of the Olympia, from which Captain D'Assez had looked down for the first time on the Valhalla impact basin. She could try on a suit like the one that Napoleon Janais had worn on Titan. And stand before the Mission Wall, where plaques honored each of the thirty-three deep-space flights.
They wandered down the shining corridors, lined with artifacts and images from the Space Age. Here was a cluster of antennas from Archie Howard's transmit station in the Belt, where he'd directed operations for almost a year until someone decided that mining asteroids wasn't really feasible and the whole project collapsed. And Mark Pierson's jacket, with the logo for Jupiter VI, the mission which had made it back leaking air and water while the entire world watched breathlessly. And a replica of the plaque left on Iapetus. Farthest from home. Saturn IX. August 3, 2066.
There were portraits of Yuri Gagarin, Gus Grissom, Christa McAuliffe, Ben MacIntyre, Huang Chow, Margaret Randauer, the whole range of heroes who had taken the human race out toward the stars over the course of almost a century.
"Are we ever going back, Daddy?" she asked.
He looked puzzled. "Home, you mean? Of course."
"No. I meant, to the moon. To Mars. To Europa."
Daddy was a systems technician in a bank. He was more serious than the other kids' dads. Didn't like to play games, although he tried. He even pretended he enjoyed them but she knew he would rather be doing something else than playing basketball with her. But he never yelled at her, and he encouraged her to say what she thought even if they might not share the same opinion. It was hard for him. She couldn't remember her mother, who had died when she was two. He studied her, and then looked around at the pictures of Luna Base, of a crescent Jupiter, of Deimos, of a launch gantry at the Cape. "I don't think so, darling," he said.
They were standing just outside the exhibition hall, which contained a mock-up of Mars Base. She could see part of the dome, a truck, and an excavation site.
"There's no point in people going," Daddy was saying. "Robots can do everything we can, can go anywhere, and it's safer."
"Daddy, I'd love to see Charon. Really see it."
"I know. We all would, love." She could tell he
had no idea what she was talking about. "The money that's been saved by not sending people out there has been put into doing real science. Long-range missions to the edge of the solar system. And beyond." He smiled, the way he did when he was going to do a joke. "Of course, I won't be here when the long ones get where they're going. But you will. You'll get to see pictures of whatever's at Alpha Centauri and, what is it, Something-Eridani. That wouldn't have happened if we'd stayed with the manned program." He waited for a response. "Do you understand what I'm saying, Janie?"
"Yes, Daddy."
Where, Janie wondered, was Hal Barkowski?
"He was something of an embarrassment," said Daddy. "I think they'd just as soon everyone forgot him."
Hal was the father of artificial intelligence. He'd been Janie's hero as far back as she could remember, not because of his work with advanced sentient systems, but because he'd been at Seaside Station on Europa when President Hofstatter, during her first month in office, cut off U.S. support for the international space program. The ships had been ordered home, everything and everybody, but Barkowski had insisted on staying at Seaside, had refused to come back even when the last ship left, had stayed and directed the machines until they'd broken through the ice. He'd sent the sub down into the ocean and kept reporting for seventeen months, but the survey had revealed nothing alive, nothing moving in those chilly depths, and eventually, when he was sure no one would be coming back to get him, he'd shut down the base AI, told the world that the president of the United States was a nitwit. And then he'd opened his air tanks.
"He thought," Daddy told her, "that he could bluff them. That he was too important, had won too many awards, that they couldn't just abandon him. I thought so too. We all did." He shook his head at the man's arrogance. "Didn't happen."
Cosmic Tales - Adventures in Sol System Page 7