The second problem was supplies. The Epsilon was woefully under-stocked with fuel, food, water… everything. There was only enough coolant fluid to run the air-conditioning system for a few hours a day and, so little power that we’d have to alternate between running the air filters and the cabin’s heater. Curt set up a four-hour cycle for those two, but the cramped ship began to smell of scared, un-showered human bodies almost immediately.
Mom wanted Kiri and I to use the two hibernation modules. Her plan was to put us to sleep, and then wake us up when we safely arrived somewhere. It seemed a good idea for saving food and other supplies, and the two modules were of the latest design, almost as efficient as the sleep modules aboard the Aldebaran.
But there wouldn’t be enough charge in our crappy electrical system to run even basic heating or air filtering if the hibernation systems were powered up. Mom, Dad and Curt would all die from the cold or from CO2 poisoning while Kiri and I comfortably slept. In the end, we filled the two hibernation modules with spare gear and stashed them in the lower equipment bay.
From the beginning, we ate small amounts, rationing carefully. Mom took charge of our consumables, charting out a regimen which she hoped would provide nutrients for many months. I helped do the math and portion up the packages of food, boxes of juice and sips of water.
By the end of the second day, Dad had figured out a route. We were mercifully close to a large solar system with at least four big gas giant planets, and several rocky bodies closer to the star. He found a trajectory which would use the gravity of the outermost planet to pull us closer. It was a long shot, but the route would gradually make it possible for additional burns to slow us into an orbit around this far-flung giant, maybe even land on one of her moons. We took a vote and unanimously decided to head for the great blue gas giant.
By bedtime on the third day, we were a pretty well-organized little crew, all things considered. Back on her feet – figuratively, of course, as we couldn’t mimic gravity – Kiri was well occupied with household chores, creating partitions which would give us a little privacy. Contention and jealousy erupted almost immediately. Mom and Dad, straight-forwardly enough, laid claim to the largest space, towards the back of the capsule among storage units and cupboards. Curt was given the cockpit to himself but he said he hated it; in the zero-G there were too many things to bang against, and he complained of bruises. He wanted the mid-section, which was big enough for two, and we nearly came to blows over it. Kiri put her foot down.
Curt hated Kiri from the start. She was not from our family – or even our planet – and Curt is, at root, a misogynist, a racist and a total cunt. He hates the relationship she and I had together, nascent and beautifully innocent as it is, regarding her as any cave-man would: Kiri as a competitor; Kiri as an interloper, as an unwelcome extra mouth to feed, as a divisive influence, as a home-wrecker, as a pointless, intransigent dyke.
Once Curt relented and returned to the cockpit, we rigged up a big comfortable sleeping bag and taped it to the capsule’s wall, snuggling down together against the cold. Kiri manufactured a hood out of spare fabric, the better to keep out prying eyes, and we soon found a lovely routine of kissing each other to sleep.
MET 3 years, 7 months, 11 days (10th day aboard the Epsilon)
We’re on a long cruise course which will swing us round the blue planet – which will soon need a name – in about a hundred days’ time. I have felt, since the beginning, that we will be in bad shape by the time we get there; Mom and Dad have already had one major fight, which left her crying and disappointed, and left him stewing and resentful. I’m not even sure what it was about. Kiri let off some steam, too, yelling at Curt about leaving the bathroom messy; he’s not careful with the hose attachment, and in zero-G his urine droplets just get everywhere.
Mom and Dad had none-too-quiet make-up sex the next night. There is absolutely no privacy here, and it gets us all down.
MET 3 years, 9 months, 3 days (32nd day aboard Epsilon)
Curt has been glued to the radio without much success. We did get a fragmented radio burst transmission ten days ago. Mom started crying with relief, but prematurely; a rescue team based eight light-years away had been dispatched but were heading in the wrong direction, probably chasing one of the big blocks of wreckage from Aldebaran in the belief it was a residential compartment. Our tiny transmitter was barely able to lock on for long enough to issue a reply using a sub-space transmission burst which sapped the Epsilon’s battery power to almost dangerous levels. We’ll find out next year whether they got it, and are coming to get us.
We’ve been working flat out. Dad has a strict regimen of preparations charted out, and we’re completely focused on getting ready for landfall. The computer had run every kind of approach simulation, and it knows that time is of the essence. We have very limited fuel and need to get ourselves on safe ground, and close to some kind of water supply, before capsule life falls apart. That has limited us to two choices, both of them reasonable but neither perfect.
There is a small, inner moon of the blue planet; we could be there in about a month. Any faster, and we’d risk having insufficient fuel to lift off again… although Dad thinks we should just hunker down and wait for rescue. There isn’t much gravity but there should be water ice which we can extract. Dad’s working on a method.
Then there’s the big moon. It’s about a fifth the size of Valaan, so it’s hardly huge, but the gravity is pretty attractive after all this zero-G. Better still, its surface is carpeted with ices of nitrogen, water and carbon dioxide, all useful for an embryonic, accidental colony like ours. The problem is the solar heating. Even so far from its parent star, the moon sports impressive geysers which shoot nitrogen ice - and maybe also chunks of rock - miles into the sky. I’m sure they look amazing, but they could coat the solar panels we lay out, reducing our electrical power and forcing us to shut down systems for part of each day. We could also be hit by falling debris which might puncture the capsule, or whatever shelter we’re able to build.
Curt has applied his engineering knowledge in useful ways. We now have a helper robot which can zip around, building things. It’s basic but it works, as we found when we sent it outside to clean accumulated dust from the capsule portholes. It can also build other robots, if so instructed, and Curt is spending impressively long hours on designs and concepts which will keep us alive on whatever lonely, frozen rock we land on. He’s useful, but he’s still a complete son of a bitch. Kiri spotted him trying to spy on us, more times than I could count, and on the most recent occasion, three nights ago, kicked him right in the nose. I don’t think it’s broken, but he seems to have given up, at least for now.
We had just enough electrical power to leave the cabin heaters on for a few hours last night, so Kiri and I took the chance to get naked in our big, floating sleeping bag. Her lovely olive-brown skin against mine was the best thing I’ve felt in months.
MET 3 years, 9 months, 23 days (82nd day aboard Epsilon)
A tiny bit of good news, and then some seriously unreasonable bullshit.
We got a sub-space transmission from a relatively nearby deep-space station. They said that they lacked an appropriate vessel to actually come and get us, but that they could send a supply package which would keep us going for several years. Dad was ecstatic; Mom started crying again. Curt was briefly frustrated that he’d not need to show us his new robotic experiments, which he promised could build us a shelter out of Triton’s own ice-crust, but once he got over that, he was as happy as I’ve seen him in weeks.
Then, a day later, Dad pulled an emergency depressurization drill in the middle of the night. It was hugely uncalled for. Before we could move, Curt zoomed into our quarters and shone a flashlight right at us. Whether he was desperate to make sure we were OK, or desperate to see us both naked, I’m not sure. We were struggling into our spacesuits, groggy and terrified. Kiri fumbled her helmet, which whizzed across the tiny cabin in zero-G and bounced off my skull like a ba
seball bat.
Had this been a real situation, the four hypoxic, frozen, suffocating survivors would now be dealing with an unconscious crewmate and another who was absolutely hysterical. Mom had to sedate her again.
I had a headache for the rest of the day, and spent much of it on my back with my eyes closed, trying to stop things spinning. Zero-G is hard enough when you’re not concussed.
95th day on board the Epsilon
(Who cares how long the ‘Mission’ has been going. They’re all dead and we’re orbiting a frozen ball of gas).
Mom and Dad have stopped speaking to each other. They had an argument so fierce that no amount of make-up sex would have put things right. At root, they disagree on how to partition our resources. Mom believes that Dad is being too cautious, and that we risk vitamin deficiencies and dehydration because of inadequate rations. Dad insisted that she’s relying too much on the supply pod which might be on its way to us, and that we have to be self-sufficient.
It was one of those arguments you could see coming. People who have been married as long as they have tend to argue about the tiniest things, but then while the argument worsens, I always notice that the tiny thing has been forgotten, and instead they’re arguing about some decade-long theme in their relationship. The classics are, “You don’t listen!” and “You never admit when you’re wrong!” My folks’ go-to topic during an argument is “You’re too soft to be an interstellar colonist!” Dad can be very bitter when he attacks Mom like this, accusing her of basically risking the collapse of our tiny colony and the deaths of us all. No mother likes to be accused of endangering her children.
Honestly, some days I conclude that the joy I experience with Kiri is the one thing keeping me sane.
As a welcome counterpoint to this tense and ridiculous stand-off, the Epsilon’s on-board computer carried out three flawless burns of our single engine, and I’m delighted to report that we’re in orbit, albeit with a crazily high apoapsis. The computer wants us to check the spacecraft for damage, and then it’ll carry out two more burns, firstly to somewhat circularize our orbit, and then to bring us onto a course which will intercept our new home. It’s in a weird, retrograde orbit – it goes around its planet backward – so the computer is working overtime to compute us a survivable approach.
103rd day aboard the Epsilon
We’re approaching the moon. Inarguably, the mood is a little better, but tensions still lurk beneath the surface. I’m trying to ignore them and just enjoy the little victories.
In the final analysis, our secondary option – the tiny moon closer to the planet– was deemed just too small, and we all need the gravity of its larger cousin. We have rudimentary maps of the big moon’s surface, but this shitty capsule lacks even an imaging radar or photographic package, so we’re coming in pretty blind. Dad is nervous and totally focused. Mom is helping as much as she can, but their arguments have left her physically bowed by her depression.
Kiri and I decided to turn up the heater and have hours of guiltless, unrestrained sex, given that this night might be our last. The chances of crashing during this risky, lashed-together, best-as-we-can-tell landing procedure are pretty fucking high.
The emergency supply package arrived on the surface a few days ago – God knows what kind of engine it must have had, to have crossed light-years in just a few weeks – and we’re aiming to land as close to it as we can. Dad’s got a trajectory which approaches our landing site from the opposite side, so there’s no risk of damaging the precious container with our roaring engine exhaust. He really seems to have it figured out. Next, he just needs to fix a badly broken family, repair his relationship with his wife, control a perverted, delinquent son and provide emotionally for two scared teenage girls. All while fighting off the cold and the lack of resources, dealing with the uncertainty of rescue, struggling with interplanetary radio communication, and worrying about unpredictable geysers shooting tons of ice and rock into the air over our heads.
If we land safely, we have a chance. If we are forced to abort, we go into a new and unpredictable planetary orbit. If our trajectory doesn’t swing us straight into the planet’s atmosphere – which would not be survivable – we would either bail out onto a ring fragment, finesse a long, long transfer orbit to intercept another moon, or simply run out of food, experience gradual oxygen starvation, and die.
I’ve had my fingers crossed for about three hours, and they’re starting to cramp up.
2nd day after Landfall
I’ll just hand it to him: Dad pulled off a perfect landing.
Three months of preparation, and he nailed it, first time. This was a great family moment. Mom was calling out altitude with Curt checking off fuel stats; all was crisp, efficient communication. Dad jettisoned the heat shield as we approached, as the moon’s atmosphere is little more than a wisp and there was no need to carry the extra weight into this difficult landing. He steered us with great care and focus, using Epsilon’s paltry radar to judge our altitude. We were all in our suits, buckled in tight, and awaiting a crunch which might split the ship apart. But in the end, our touchdown was an abrupt but tolerable bump.
For ten seconds, no one said anything. Then there was an outpouring of relief and happiness like nothing we’d known since before Aldebaran was blown to pieces. The sense that we had achieved something together was absolutely wonderful. Just for the record, ours was the first known landing in this remote system. We’re the very first family ever to explore here! We hugged, all five of us, for a long and precious moment.
Although everyone was just dying to get outside and stretch their legs, Dad made us wait. After resting for a few hours, he and Curt got ready to go EVA. We readied the airlock and sent the little robot walker outside to clean nitrogen ice off the portholes, initially so that we could watch the EVA, but also to get our first view of the moon.
The surface is weird. It’s like a giant ice sheet which has been fragmented, cleaved and upended to form a jumble of chaotic shards and boulders. Everything is tinged slightly pink-purple, an effect of something called ‘tholins’, which are complex chemicals found on icy surfaces, created by sunlight hitting nitrogen. It seemed very cold and very empty, and I felt glad I wasn’t going to be the first to venture out there.
Dad and Curt put on every piece of clothing they could find – thermal underwear, t-shirts, sweaters, jackets and wooly hats – and then squeezed into their spacesuits. We spent a long time checking their life support hoses and making sure they had enough coolant and air. We kept reminding them to take it easy, and not to try to run or bounce, but just to walk steadily.
Outside, they took ages to get used to the gravity, and felt leaden and uncoordinated, but they got the hang of it. Kiri and I held hands, watching as they waddled steadily towards the distant canister. Perfect though Dad’s landing was, when there are billions of miles involved, ‘close’ can mean almost anything; they had perhaps a mile round-trip to complete, and were all nervous watching them progress across the ice.
Curt fell over first, landing heavily on his knees and needing some help to get up. Mom wanted three of us to make the canister traverse, but Dad had refused; having one injured or hypoxic companion to assist was a big enough problem, he argued, but two casualties would mean disaster.
It was daytime on our moon when we arrived. One of the nifty things about our landing site is its location; our moon keeps the same face to the planet all the time, so even when the sun sets and things get a bit darker, the planet’s own brilliant blue radiance gives us enough light to get by with. Watching the two of them, their white suits gleaming in the alien light, was amazing. Even romantic, especially with my hand in Kiri’s
They reached the canister and radioed back. “We’ve hit the jackpot, ladies!” called Curt, excited as a schoolboy. Dad was more pragmatic.
“This is going to be heavy. We may need to make several trips, unless we can fashion a cart of some kind.” A good idea, but impractical in the chaotic ice terrai
n; it would have tipped over a hundred times before they reached Epsilon. They’d have to bring it all back the old fashioned way.
Kiri was buzzing with excitement. “Think of the new foods we’ll have,” she said. “Maybe bags of grain, to grind up for making bread and pasta.”
“I’m just looking forward to some shampoo and soap,” Mom confessed.
I was equally practical, but my focus was privacy. “They said there would be shelters we can attach to the hull,” I remembered. “I can’t wait to have some space to ourselves.”
The radio crackled into life once more. “OK we’re moving again. Curt’s got two big oxygen tanks so we can purge the capsule air, and I’ve got the shelters. There’s a lot more here – food, water, clothes and some equipment – but we’ll start with this. Get ready to open the airlock when we’re back.”
The newfound sense of shared purpose was priceless, and we were able to relax for the first time in months, watching the two unpack the big, metal canister and selecting the right equipment to haul across behind them on improvised rope harnesses.
Once they were back, we quickly began stowing the first elements of our cargo. The shelters are just ingenious. Requiring no more than an hour’s inflation from our air hoses, they formed broad, tall spaces with ceilings almost as high as Epsilon was tall. When all five were inflated, they formed a roomy, pentagonal exoskeleton which Curt and Dad quickly bolted to the outer hull of our trusty capsule. They were wonderfully spacious after our long confinement; a crappy motel room has more living space than Epsilon. Once the flooring tiles were pushed into place – we all helped with that, as the pressurization was complete and we could begin to breathe the faintly plastic-flavored air – we had hundreds of extra square yards of living, sleeping, working and storage space.
Clarion: The Sequel to Voyage (Paul's Travels) Page 2