The Clouds of Venus: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q. Morris

  “What do you mean?” asked Erik. Are they going to leave me out here so that the ship will not be damaged?

  “It was an exercise,” Charles said, “and you passed—you solved the problem.”

  Erik felt hot. He couldn’t believe it. “Are you saying there was no solar flare?”

  “Correct, Erik. And the cabin couldn’t be reeled in because I activated the magnetic brake on the rods. Nuria and Ethan couldn’t see that.”

  “That was a shitty exercise—you made me endure mortal fear here!”

  “Would it have been realistic otherwise? You have to be trained in working as a team now and then.”

  “Charles, I almost shit my pants,” Erik said.

  “Man, take solace from the fact that I shit my pants,” Ethan admitted.

  Tough-guy Ethan, admitting that he had been afraid? That impressed Erik. “Thanks, Ethan.”

  “Thank you, Charles, for not assigning me the victim’s role. I would never have thought of the AV,” Ethan said.

  “Yes, good job, Erik,” Charles said in praise. “Now come on inside. To celebrate the day, we’ll have a real whiskey from Earth.”

  “By the way, Chuck Norris was only scared shitless once in his life,” Ethan said. “The first time he saw himself in the mirror.”

  February 24, 2079, Venus Air

  “This is not a drill,” echoed through the spaceship. “This is not a drill.”

  Erik looked around in panic. He was sitting alone in the control center. Where are the others?

  “Immediately enter rescue capsules,” the computer said. “This is not a drill.”

  He unfastened his seatbelt and floated toward the ceiling. His back was wet. The rescue capsules. Of course! The others would be there already. Why didn’t they take him with them? The straps on the three seats were fastened. Why would his colleagues get up and fasten their seatbelts? Something is wrong here. He pushed off and dove through the open hatch into the workshop. It smelled like oil, and nobody was here, either. And there were no rescue capsules. Of course. Venus Air didn’t possess such a thing.

  Erik slapped his cheeks. It’s got to be a dream. He woke up and shook his head vigorously.

  “It’s okay. Calm down,” said Nuria, who was hovering above him. “You must have been having a crazy dream.”

  “You’re right about that. Our ship had a breakdown. You had all gone somewhere.”

  “Oh, that must be aftereffects of yesterday’s drill.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You shouldn’t be sleeping in the control center, but going through the computer logs,” Nuria said with a wink.

  “That’s soooo boring,” he said with a loud groan.

  “We take turns. It’s routine, but routine—”

  “—ensures the survival of the astronaut. I’m still familiar with the saying,” Erik said.

  “Massey was right.”

  “Yes, Nuria, I’ll continue.”

  He immersed himself again in the computer’s records. It noted every small change in course, every correction of the spaceship’s position in space, every short-term power reduction of the engine. Although a machine, Venus Air was so complex that it reminded one of a living being—and a living thing did not exhibit the same around-the-clock level of performance. As long as certain thresholds were not exceeded, the machine compensated for everything. But now and then it was advisable for a human being to check these interventions. Erik was looking for patterns that may have escaped the computer’s notice, ones that pointed to major defects—or to a small disruption that might be on the cusp of becoming a real problem.

  He had to focus on endless tables, which usually just described how smoothly everything worked, and which amounted to pretty much the most boring activity on board. Erik would rather have cleaned the toilets, but Nuria did not want to trade with him. Now and then he could not stifle a yawn, even though his little nap had done him good.

  April 13, 2079, Svobodny

  The door moved to the side with a hiss. Anastasia picked up her travel bag and got off the train to an empty platform. Had the FSB evacuated the station because they were expecting her? No, nobody knew that she was here. The train had been almost full, but who wanted to go to Svobodny anyway? After all, one could be at the Chinese border in three hours, where huge markets awaited visitors from all over the Amur region.

  She pulled the mask over her face. It was far too cold for this time of year, and a stiff breeze made her eyes water. The unusually long winter was a blessing for her, because it was keeping the ground frozen for quite a while longer. She wandered toward the exit and passed a stinky toilet. Nevertheless, she remained standing there, because here she was protected from prying eyes by a poster column. Old, half-shredded pieces of paper advertising the summer circus, concerts in the Municipal House of Culture, and a travel agency called Tala-Tur hung from the column.

  She pointed her communicator toward the train’s baggage car, which was hooked up behind the passenger cars. The device vibrated in her hand. Anastasia smiled, satisfied. The electronic seals on her luggage were intact, so she could safely collect the boxes. She went briskly to the luggage car. She had seven minutes left before the train departed, assuming it was on schedule.

  Anastasia knocked, and a fat man wearing a train uniform opened the door. He looked disappointed. Had he hoped she would forget her luggage? The man checked her reservation on his communicator with an annoyed look and also asked her to produce her ID. He then pushed her boxes to the edge of the car, but made no move to help her unload.

  “That’s awfully heavy,” he said, theatrically grabbing his chest where his heart was.

  Groaning, Anastasia lowered the heavy boxes onto the platform. If only she had worn the exoskeleton!

  “What’s in the long box?” the railway employee asked.

  “A work of art,” replied Anastasia. “The matching metal frames are in the other three boxes.”

  “And what is it called?”

  Instead of interrogating me and blowing your tobacco breath down my neck, you could come down and help me! “Caught in Space-time,” she said.

  Three minutes left. The conductor would not wait, because she had not tipped him. “I can’t picture that,” said the fat man.

  “It’s a uniformed man on a steel cross, into whose body someone hammered large nails,” she said softly.

  “That...” The word stuck in the man’s throat.

  At least now he would let her work in peace.

  The train started moving as she was lifting the last box onto the platform. She began to stumble but just managed to regain her balance.

  The fact that the boxes were so heavy had a practical advantage—nobody could steal them on the fly. Important, because Anastasia had to briefly leave the platform. She walked in front of the building to look for the reserved taxi.

  The company had kept its promise. There was only one car in front of the station, a WAS-2929—a brand-new electric SUV. Someone waved to her. She waved back and turned around. Five lanky teenagers were sitting on the windowsills of the station building and smoking roll-your-own cigarettes.

  “Hey, lads, there are seven boxes on the platform, I need them to be placed in the car there. Ten dollars for each box.”

  The boys immediately jumped up and sprinted toward the boxes. For good old American dollars you still got almost anything you wanted here in far eastern Russia.

  Anastasia approached the car, which looked sturdy—Russian technology, mated with Chinese electric motors and Indian batteries, no doubt. However, it was painted white. In the long winter here, that was probably the best camouflage.

  “I hope the vehicle is well maintained!” Anastasia said to the car rental agency employee.

  A tag reading ‘Maxim, Tala-Tur’ hung from his lapel. “Yes, the car was in the garage only last month,” he said.

  He handed her a mini-tablet and she signed as Maria Shumanovna. “Well, then, I hope the vehicle doesn’t have
to go to the garage every month,” she said.

  The employee laughed. The five teenagers arrived, panting, with the first boxes. Maxim looked skeptical, because some boxes landed on the cushions of the back seat. She would have to pay extra for any damage. “Um...” he said, “if you don’t get into an accident, it won’t be due for the garage until eleven months from now.”

  This was ideal. It meant that the changes she would make to the car would remain undetected for a long time.

  “Maxim, your tag is hanging crooked,” she said.

  “I’m Nikolai. Maxim is my brother.” He checked her reservation. “Would you go out with me, Maria from Sevastopol?” he said, laughing at her provocatively.

  No, my lad, then I would have to kill you afterward.

  “Thanks. Next time,” she said, laughing too.

  “You’re missing out on something! In Svobodny, I’m the biggest attraction!”

  He did have guts, and he was quite attractive for this provincial nest. She was tempted to take him with her. When was the last time I had some fun in bed? But then she might really have to dispose of him after that. She did not need any additional trouble.

  She paid the boys, seated herself in the driver’s seat, and drove off.

  On the outskirts of Svobodny she stopped at a spot that was difficult to access. She must replace the tracking device, which continuously recorded the position of the rental car. It was almost 60 kilometers to Tsiolkovsky—and Vostochny spaceport. In a few weeks Peter would try to flee from her in a spaceship launching from that location. She would thwart him.

  It was time for her to wear her work clothes. She put on the protective suit and wore regular clothes over it.

  Fast, but never faster than the legal speed, she drove toward Tsiolkovsky. Just a few days ago, she learned that Tsiolkovsky would be declared out of bounds even earlier than with all other launches. The Trans-Siberian Railway took at least three days from Novosibirsk to Svobodny. But she had arrived just in time—prior to the institution of the security measures. Otherwise she would never have made it this far. Once those measures were in place, all access roads would be checked regularly.

  With the help of maps and satellite imagery, she had chosen a good place to execute her mission. She would hide the equipment no more than a kilometer away from the location. She would eventually have to park the car somewhere, but the exoskeleton sewn into the protective suit would help her bring the boxes with their deadly contents to their destination.

  Caught in Space-Time. The railway man’s face had taken on such a stupid expression when she’d said it, but the title of her alleged work of art described quite well what she was planning. She just had to wait, a challenge as patience was the quality in which she was most deficient.

  May 17, 2079, Tsiolkovsky

  Anastasia was sitting in her hotel room in Svobodny. It smelled musty, and in some places the wallpaper was peeling from the wall. But nobody here was interested in her, and that was especially important now.

  For two days the sky above Tsiolkovsky’s spaceport had been cloudy, so she had not been able to get any usable satellite photos. But it finally cleared and new ones came in. Anastasia compared them with the older pictures.

  In the meantime, the last of her computer loopholes had been sealed.

  “Damn!” she yelled, kicking the table, which hit the wall hard. Tea poured across the tabletop and splashed as far as the wallpaper.

  “Quiet!” shouted a male voice from the neighboring room.

  “Kiss my ass!” she hollered. The outburst did her good. She ran her fingers through her hair. Then she poured the tea from the saucer back into the cup. With the palm of her hand, she swiped the rest of the tea from the tabletop onto the carpet. Yes, kiss my ass, everyone!

  If only she had struck Lazarev with greater precision! He was the only one capable of sealing such a large area with the limited resources that were available to the FSB, even though technically he had no authority here.

  But she would not give up. She pulled the table back toward herself and studied the photos again. She drew lines, let the software show distances, and made some calculations. The only thing suitable for her purposes was a solitary hill, but the forest around it had been cleared. Was that deliberate—a trap? Lazarev was waiting for her, guaranteed, and he would let her in to spring his trap.

  Anastasia zoomed the picture. Shrubs and small birches grew in the open area, telling her the forest had been cleared quite a while ago. So, the clearing project had nothing to do with her.

  She studied the positions of the guns. She counted seven around the rocket’s launch site. Which areas did they cover? She let her program make a forecast. Ha! Anastasia hit the table with a fist and smiled. At the end of the open space was a blind spot that extended to the protective forest, a swath that the neighboring positions could not cover, and it was at least five meters wide.

  Anastasia stored the information regarding how to get there on her helmet computer. It would lead her to where she needed to go. She quickly checked the roadblocks and found that they had not been relocated—at least one constant on which she could rely.

  And what if Lazarev was deliberately leaving the swath open to lure her there? She dismissed the thought. Everyone made mistakes, even the intelligence officer.

  Anastasia left the hotel wearing a big backpack. She got on the electric, off-road motorbike that she had borrowed just the day before. Maxim, no, his name was Nikolai, had tried to ask her out again—and she had refused, again. Would he ever find out how lucky he’d been? She had already prepared the vehicle yesterday to drive noiselessly and not to record any position data, and the equipment was already in its hiding place.

  Anastasia avoided the major roads and drove over forest paths to bypass the security points. She was jostled quite a bit, but it was fun. She rode her motorbike like a cowboy on a bucking bronco and hid it in a dense bush shortly before the finish. Then she took off the clothes she wore over the camouflage suit, put on the facemask, and entered stealth mode.

  She felt exhilaration spreading throughout her. “Peter, I’m coming!” she growled.

  In the meantime, the sun was rising. She’d been waiting for that. It was still much darker than expected, and the air smelled of moss. Anastasia was happy to hear an owl’s greeting in the distance. She switched on the residual light amplifier. The forest path curved to the right, and she spotted a barricade about 200 meters away.

  Just as I thought, Anastasia mused. But only two uniformed men were keeping watch. She walked back a hundred meters. Left, or right? Left. Her suit protected her from emitting sound, heat, or light. But it wasn’t 100 percent foolproof, so it was better to take a long detour. She still had plenty of time. Anastasia oriented herself with the help of the helmet display. It showed her the way and warned her of branches that she must not tread upon, so as not to disturb the silence of the forest. She disappeared into the darkness.

  She reached her hiding place less than an hour later. She ate and drank, realizing that food hadn’t tasted this good in a long time. She wiped her mouth and hands and stashed the remaining food in an odor-proof fashion so that a hungry bear wouldn’t find it. She had brought provisions for three days. It was essential to plan her retreat, even more important than planning the details of the attack, because if it succeeded—and at this point she no longer doubted it—Vostochny would resemble a frantic henhouse. Afterward, it would be better to lay low for a few days.

  Now, on to the grand finale! She took the big box from its hiding place. The exoskeleton helped make the box seem quite light, even though it contained a guided rocket with a launcher. In order to leave no tracks, she only moved across frozen ground. The helmet display indicated the route. If she strayed from it, a beep would warn her. Piece of cake.

  She pulled down the corners of her mouth contemptuously. Even Peter could have done this.

  Four hours later, everything was in place. Anastasia set up the launch ramp in a depr
ession just below the top of the hill and pulled the camouflage cover over it. She would only push the ramp to its final position shortly before the launch.

  She felt good, although she was tired and sweating heavily despite the exoskeleton. At least she would not freeze, given the suit’s ability to reduce the amount of heat she radiated. She lay down under the camouflage cover and fell asleep with a relaxed smile.

  May 18, 2079, Vostochny Cosmodrome

  They had been in Vostochny for two days preparing for their space flight. Now all the preparations were complete, they were wearing uncomfortable spacesuits, and were waiting to be picked up.

  “I’m scared!” Maria said, looking directly at Peter.

  “Me, too,” he confessed. “But everything will be fine, and one day we’ll tell our grandchildren about our adventures.”

  Maria smiled weakly. “I don’t fear the journey itself, or the tasks we will need to perform, but I am afraid Anastasia might be planning something.”

  “Valentina has assured me that she has greatly reinforced security measures. I trust her.”

  Maria seemed to relax a bit. “Where is Katarina?”

  “She’s flying with us as luggage.”

  “Doesn’t that make you uncomfortable, after you practically remodeled her?”

  “A little,” Peter said. “But she agreed. Hopefully, not just because I redesigned her modules for sensitivity and tact.”

  “What was the problem with the module?”

  “Dushek almost perfectly optimized Katarina’s consciousness core. I only made major changes concerning secrecy and privacy, and minor changes with regard to sensitivity and tact.”

  Valentina entered the room. “It’s time to go!” She held the door open for them and motioned for them to leave the room.