Rocket Dawn

by Richard Tongue

  “They’d have had to get closer.”

  “A lot closer. Close enough that something else might have gone wrong.” Reaching for a keyboard, he said, “It would give us a place to start, boss. Let me call up the data from the microsat. We might not have picked up anything visually, but we might have got something from one of the other instruments. It’s a big, refined, metallic mass. That ought to show up like a beacon.”

  “Murphy here. I’m picking up some scoring on the outer parts of the hull, down by the implosion site. Looks a little strange. Could easily be a meteor, though. If it was, there will probably be some fragments still inside.”

  “Be careful, Murph,” Knox warned. “Don’t go in yourself. Not with all that jagged metal around. Use a sample collector, and keep well clear of the opening.” Knox looked at the two camera pickups, and said, “Kat, that’s probably deep enough. We don’t need specific components. Just samples of wiring, conduit, electronics.”

  “There might still be records in here somewhere,” she protested.

  “After this long, they’ll have decayed to nothing. Maybe we’ll be able to bring the whole thing back some time, but for the present, you just get one quick survey. One question. Take a look at what’s left of the explosive bolts. Does it look like a normal separation, or did something go wrong?”

  “Wait one,” she replied, slowly working her way forward. “As far as I can tell, it looks to have been normal.”

  “That confirms your theory,” Knox said. “They intended to separate. The probe probably had enough power to make it back to Earth alone, without the booster to help it. Especially if they didn’t mind taking a while to do it.” He paused, then added, “There’s something else, as well. Even if it had drifted free, it would still essentially be in the same orbit. We’ve had a dozen observatories scanning near-Earth space since Daedalus was discovered, and there must be a hundred others around the world on the same project.”

  Nodding, Maxwell replied, “They’d have seen it.”

  “Almost certainly. Which means that we’re no closer to solving the mystery. What about the footage?”

  Grimacing, the engineer said, “It’s a place to start, boss, but we’ve got the whole surface to sweep, and we didn’t have any of the ultra-high-resolution shots. We’ve got enough to put together a pretty good map of the terrain, but we’re going to have problems with fine detail. I’ve got the computers running a sweep over all the data we did manage to gather, but it’s going to take time to work through it. Mission Control…”

  “No,” Knox said. “Any communications could be intercepted, and that’s as good as giving Hyperion the combination to the safe. They’ll be here in two days, and if we have trouble finding the probe, then they could easily beat us to the punch.”

  Maxwell nodded, looked at the display, and said, “Boss, is all this really that important?”

  “You know it is.”

  “No, I don’t. Right now we have a potential probe somewhere on the surface, and sure, it might be interesting to take a look at the materials, see what happened to them over the last half-century or so, but it isn’t mission critical, and we can get a lot of the information we’re looking for from that discarded booster stage. I know that Kat wants to find it, and I understand why, but we’ve got a lot to do while we’re here, and it’s not as if we’re going to be the last crew to visit this rock. If we find a place to plant the mass driver, Icarus Two will be along in eight months, and I understand NASA’s still planning its own expedition…”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Apparently not. I got it from Siegel during the last transmission. They’re back in training next week.”

  Shaking his head, Knox replied, “The Randy Bishop doesn’t know when to quit, does he.”

  “I guess not.” Knox looked at Maxwell, then said, “Let’s call it a hunch, if you want. I just have the feeling that there’s something connected to that probe we need to know about. We’ve got the contingency EVA time for a quick survey, and I intend to make use of it. At a pinch, all we absolutely have to do is the ground survey for the mass driver, and we can handle that with a couple of spacewalks. The geological analysis can wait if it must. As you said, it’s not as if we’re not going to have other boots on the ground.”

  “Whatever you say, skipper,” Maxwell replied, turning back to the secondary screen.

  “Got something!” Murphy said. “A fragment of rock. I’m pulling it out now. Definitely meteoric. Lodged in some of the wrecked piping. Come on, you bastard, easy does it.” Knox’s eyes were fixed on the screen as Murphy pulled out her prize, a small, dark fragment, triumphantly held in her hand. “There we go. A sample of the rock that wrecked this ship, however many years ago that was.”

  “Maybe,” Knox mused. “I want that analyzed as soon as you get back.”

  “What’s the rush, boss? I just solved the mystery…”

  “I want to know where it came from,” Knox said. “We’ve lost our microsat, possibly because of a meteor strike, and two orbital objects struck soon after our arrival suggests that local space might be a hell of a lot more dangerous than we counted on when we arrived. I want to be sure. That’s all. How are you two doing with your samples, anyway?”

  “Just about finished,” Murphy replied.

  “A few moments more,” Antonova added.

  “Make it quick. I want you both back home as fast as you can. A meteor can rip the guts out of a spacewalker just as well as it can a spaceship or a satellite. What else do you need, Kat?”

  “More electrical samples.” She paused, then said, “I’m working on the auxiliary guidance system. Small enough that I can bring it out in one piece, and it weighs no more than ten pounds.”

  Nodding, Maxwell said, “That’d be just about perfect, actually. Like the Surveyor camera Apollo 12 retrieved.” He paused, looked at his display again, and added, “Hey, I think I’ve got something. Right there. You see that crack in the crater, over by the north?” Knox looked at the image, then said, “That shape. Regular.”

  “If that’s some sort of rock, it’s a damned strange one.” Maxwell’s hands rattled across the keyboard, calling up the rest of the information gathered by the short-lived satellite. “Metal. Alloy. We’ve found it. Looks like the top section, the re-entry module. No idea about the rest of it, but that probably had the sampling equipment inside.” Turning to Knox with a beaming smile, he added, “There’s one mystery solved.”

  “At least in part, but look at that crack,” Knox replied, shaking his head. “It’s got to be at least eighty feet down, and there’s barely room to get down there, even without a jetpack. Look at all those protrusions. It’s jagged as hell. I’m not sure we’d get a drone down there, still less a person.”

  “We could excavate it, dig out a wider tunnel, I guess,” Maxwell said.

  “Not with the equipment we’ve got, and even if we did, we don’t have the time. I’m afraid this is one secret that Daedalus is going to end up keeping for a while longer. Maybe at some point we’d be able to run a proper dig, but not now.” He cursed under his breath, then said, “Damn it.”

  “I’d be willing to give it a try, Tom.”

  “I know you would, and if it was just me, I’d go myself, but the mission is too important to risk for a non-essential goal. As you yourself have pointed out.”

  “Yeah, sure, but I didn’t expect you to actually listen. That’s a new experience for me.”

  “You might want to consider talking sense on a more consistent basis, then.” Looking up at the monitor, he said, “Maybe we could send something down to take a look, lower a camera down on a line, maybe.”

  Grimacing, Maxwell said, “I don’t envy you telling Antonova she won’t be able to retrieve it.”

  “She’ll get over it. It’s waited here for almost seventy years. It can wait here in peace for a while longer yet, I reckon.” He looked up at the helmet cam, watching as Antonova triumphantly pulled her prized co
mponent free, waving it in her hands like a trophy. “Good work, Kat. Now come on home, both of you. I’ve got some good news and some bad news, and I want you both safely inside before I tell you.”

  “You’ve found the capsule?” Murphy guessed.

  “Come on inside,” Knox pressed. “And keep your focus, Murph. It’s dangerous out there.” Turning to Maxwell, he said, “Get some drinks ready, will you?”

  “I didn’t know we had any whisky on board. Though I suppose vodka would be better.”

  “Four coffees, Max.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to cut it, boss,” the engineer said, shaking his head. “She’s not going to like it.”

  “Probably not,” Knox said. “Let you in on a little secret? I don’t, either.”

  Chapter 20

  The faint hum of the air conditioner buzzed through the module, interrupted with a periodic gurgle from the water tanks, cycling through the pipes of the cooling system. Knox lay in his sleeping pod, loosely tethered to the wall, trying and failing to sleep. Spacecraft were usually noisy beasts, and any astronaut rapidly learned to cope with such noise, but this time, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t settle down to rest. He looked up at the clock on the wall, sighing as he saw that only two hours had passed since he’d turned in, four hours remaining before he could rouse himself again. The snoring coming from Murphy’s pod discouraged him from simply getting on with some work. His crew needed their rest. And so, in all honesty, did he.

  It felt strange to be wasting time with sleep, precious time that could be used teasing the secrets of Daedalus from the rocks outside, but he was enough of a veteran to know that he needed time to rest, to relax, even if he couldn’t sleep. He zipped up his back again, reached for a pair of headphones, and called up the entertainment systems, flicking through the films on offer, trying to find something appropriately mindless to distract his mind for a while, stop him from thinking.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the battered capsule, lying alone and forgotten at the bottom of that crevasse, as though waiting for someone to reach it. Antonova had taken the bad news surprisingly well, had instantly accepted that he couldn’t authorize any attempt to get to it, but that didn’t stop him from wondering if there might be some way to take a look inside after all. Perhaps they could pull it out, lower a cable and drag it, perhaps using the same trick he had used to access the supply module. There’d be a risk, but if they waited until they were about to leave anyway, they could even use the capsule itself, then a quick spacewalk to peer inside.

  That idea had possibilities. Assuming the structure could withstand the strain before being torn apart, but that was a risk they could calculate. Old satellites had been retrieved from orbit in the past, though none from interplanetary space. There had to be some sort of data for them to use, even if it was just theoretical. He reached for a keyboard, composing his request to Mission Control, when he heard a familiar noise from outside. The noise of a spacesuit hatch opening, someone climbing inside.

  “Stop!” he yelled, trying to get out of his sleeping bag, the zipper jammed. With a hefty tug, he worked it down, sliding out of his bag just in time to watch Antonova’s spacesuit hatch slam shut, a piece of string used to tug it closed. He glided towards the override controls, but before he could reach them, she’d managed to lock them out. He slammed his fist on the emergency alarm, the wailing klaxon echoing through the cabin, loudly enough to instantly rouse the rest of the crew.

  “What’s going on?” a drowsy Maxwell said, struggling out of his bag.

  “Kat’s going EVA. Probably to try and access the capsule. See if you can stop her.” He reached for his undersuit, hastily tugging it on, and said, “Murph, fire up my suit. I’m going to try and get her back inside.” Disabling the siren with the flick of a switch, he asked, “Any luck, Max?”

  “She had this planned to perfection,” the engineer replied. “There’s nothing I can do.” Reaching for a headset, he said, “Kat, this isn’t the answer. If you try and get down to that capsule, you’ll be killed.” Maxwell waited for a second, then said, “Come on, Kat, be reasonable.”

  Shaking her head, Murphy said, “She’s not going to reply, and she’ll have a good head-start. Just what exactly do you think you can do out there, Tom?”

  “Maybe keep her from getting killed. Stop her, if I’m lucky.” He slid into his own suit, his head smoothly gliding into the helmet as he flexed his fingers. “Make this the shortest prep session in history. The outer hatch is already open, and she’s heading over the crater.”

  Maxwell frowned, then smiled, saying, “I’ve got an idea.” He pushed over to the monitor station, tapped a control, and was rewarded with the image from Antonova’s helmet camera, showing her smoothly gliding across the terrain. “I’ve still got full telemetry. I can’t make her talk to us, but I can at least monitor what she is doing.” He paused, looked at the systems again, and asked, “Why hasn’t Mission Control called to ask what’s happening?”

  “Christ,” Murphy said, pushing over to the communications station. “Dead. Completely dead. We’re cut off. Looks like a software glitch. Not a virus, malware. I can restore to the initial defaults, load up the backups, but it’s going to take time to get them fired up.”

  “Give me a number.”

  “Twenty minutes, give or take. Then I’ve got to realign the dish. No wonder she isn’t replying. She can’t hear us. Which is presumably just what she counted on. I think you’ve found your saboteur, Tom, and she’s heading out across the asteroid now.”

  “Get the communications fixed as fast as you can,” Knox said. “Max, lock me in.”

  “Hey, wait a minute,” Murphy replied. “You can’t go out without communications. Anything might happen.”

  “You’ve still got the telemetry feed, and neither of you is to leave the ship anyway.”

  “What if you run into trouble?” Maxwell asked.

  “Then I run into trouble and I’ll find a way to work out my own salvation, but under no circumstances are either of you to leave the ship without a direct order from myself or from Mission Control. Is that understood?”

  “Come on, Tom,” Murphy replied. “You can’t seriously expect us to just sit here and watch while…”

  “I expect just that, Commander,” Knox interrupted. “Stay here. Fix the communications system. Watch what happens, and make sure everything is properly recorded.” Turning to Maxwell, he said, “Lock me in.”

  With a sigh, Maxwell replied, “Aye, sir,” and slammed the spacesuit hatch closed, sealing him into his suit. All the lights had turned green, and he released himself from the ship, kicking off from the hull to send him flying over the terrain, pushing against the ground with each bound to move him along, trying to catch up to the fleeing Antonova, now far ahead. She’d released her safety line, another rules violation, likely to prevent them simply reeling her back in before she could escape. Obviously, she’d planned her escape well.

  A red light flickered on Knox’s helmet display, the suit quickly losing communication with the capsule, isolating him completely from the rest of his crew. Only Antonova might be able to hear him, and he reached for his wrist controls, boosting his transmitter as much as he could, leaving no room for doubt that she would pick him the signals he was transmitting.

  “Kat, this is Tom. Nobody else can hear us. We’re isolated. If you turn back now, I’ll come up with some sort of cover story for Mission Control. It can be as if this never happened. You know how treacherous that crevasse is. If you attempt to go down there, there’s a good chance you won’t be coming back. There’s no point throwing your life away over this.” He paused, then said, “I’m not going to give you an order. There doesn’t seem to be much point. I know you won’t obey it in any case. I’m asking you to do the right thing, to do the sensible thing. Come back.” He shook his head, kicking onwards, racing towards the ravine.

  “I’ve got to do this,” Antonova belatedly replie
d. “There’s something else. More than you know.”

  “Tell me, then,” Knox said. “Hold on a moment and tell me.”

  “You tell me. What was the Zond?”

  “A space probe, from the late…”

  “No, no, what was it? What was it designed to do?”

  “It was a testbed for technologies for a manned mission to the moon.” He paused, then said, “My God.”

  She sighed, and replied, “It makes sense. It makes too damned much sense. Why else would everyone go to such lengths to keep it concealed, keep it hidden all these years? Why would they have risked sending it in the first place? Just for a flyby? They could have done that with a far less expensive probe, gathered just as much data. That probe had a man on board, a cosmonaut, and if my guess is right, his body is buried in that capsule.”

  Knox’s eyes widened, and he added, “There’s something else. Something you aren’t telling me. You wouldn’t be running off like this unless there was more to this story than that.”

  “I can’t tell you. Not yet. Not until I’m sure.”

  “What happened to your grandfather? The one who was the cosmonaut.”

  “He died. He killed himself.” She paused, then said, “I’m here. I brought a length of cable, and I’m throwing it down the hole now. It’s not quite as bad as it looked. I’m pretty sure I can get down in one piece, though it’s going to be a tight fit. I can see the capsule down at the bottom.”

  “Just what exactly is your definition of a tight fit, exactly?” he replied, changing the subject. A creeping suspicion had entered his mind, one that refused to let go, but he shrugged it off, hoping that he was wrong.

  “I can make it.”

  “We can make it.”

  “What?”

  “You aren’t going down there alone. If for no other reason than that if you are right, this is going to have to be fully documented. They’ll be arguing about whatever you find down there for the next hundred years as it is. We need two cameras, two witnesses, not one who might be biased.”