Dead Men Flying

by Bill Patterson

  “So am I,” said John. “Next time, he's fertilizer.”

  Dead Men Crawling

  Mars Expedition, Enroute to Mars, December 14 2082, 2045 GMT

  Month by month, the image of Mars grew in the forward sensors of the men of the Mars Expedition, while Earth and the Moon grew smaller. The crews of both the Burroughs and the Bradbury stood watch, worked on various schemes to get back home alive, and tried to guess when the Earth authorities would finally catch the fugitive UNSOC Director-General, Subraman Venderchanergee.

  Over time, the staff at JPL was bolstered with some of the UNSOC controllers, freshly released from the interminable investigations. JPL, long used to controlling their own remote probes and landers, was ill-suited to being Mission Control to a remote manned spacecraft. All of the UNSOC teams filtered into Pasadena, California as the weeks passed. True, there was little to do at the moment, but there was an enormous pile of mission documents for the controllers to read, understand, and memorize.

  It was not all tedium, though. There were still packages en route from the Moon, left over from the days before the destruction of Moonbase Collins.

  ***

  “Commander, we've got a momentum transfer slug coming in a week.” Benjamin Zabor, Astrogation, alerted Commander Standish. “We need a small course correction.”

  “How small?”

  “We need another two point seven meters per second outbound, and a second point three four in declination. The slug has more than enough momentum to effect this correction.”

  “What happens if we don't correct?”

  “At this distance, without correction, we risk contact with the Martian atmosphere. We're programmed to cross in front of Mars in a powered deceleration maneuver. If we don't increase our outbound velocity, we'll get there too late and skim very close to the disc of Mars and quite possibly drill through the upper layers of its atmosphere.”

  “I see. Set it up, both pro and con, and Commander Smithson and I will review it. When does it come by?”

  “Six days, seven point five three hours from now, sir.”

  “Good, thank you.”

  ***

  The crews of both spacecraft were belted in. The arrival of a momentum slug from the Collins was always a violent event. The concept was relatively simple: the Flinger on the Moon launched a large mass of iron towards a predicted point in space. When the iron got to the spacecraft, a smaller version of the Flinger would slow, stop, or even fling it backwards, and the resultant momentum would show up in a changed velocity vector for the spacecraft.

  The Burroughs, Bradbury, and their two engine sections dangled from cables connected on a large central steel ring, and the entire assembly spun like a merry-go-round. The centripetal acceleration gave the crews about three tenths gravity and stabilized them in space. The Burroughs and Bradbury would be at the twelve and six o'clock positions, while their respective engine sections were at the three and nine o'clock spots. The large steel ring supported a cone of identical rings, all strung with superconducting wiring, oriented in the direction of their travel. The series of rings and the magnetic field that the superconducting wiring produced together formed the motor that stopped the slugs of iron.

  It seemed overly complicated, but there was a reason for the madness. Some form of artificial gravity was required for the Marsmen, otherwise their bones would break when they landed on the Red Planet, having wasted away en route. Spinning a spaceship was the obvious answer. The problem with spinning a conventional cylindrical spacecraft was the enormous radius required. Cylinders had to be at least thirty meters across in order to keep the gravitational gradient (max gravity on the floor, weightlessness at the center of rotation) gradual, lest the astronauts pass out when standing up.

  A better solution was to dangle two spacecraft at each end of very long, strong cables. This way, the rotational speed could be far slower, and the gradient so gradual as to be unnoticeable.

  But this meant there was no way to propel the spacecraft once launched. In-flight resupply was already designed into the mission, and the braking web was part of the essential systems. Firing momentum transfer slugs so that the expedition assembly could have some mid-course correction was an obvious side benefit.

  ***

  “Forty seconds. Alignment to slug trajectory nominal,” said Benjamin Zabor. He lived for these events; as an astrogator, he was the one in charge of keeping the entire rotating show on course.

  “Thirty seconds. Magnetic field at required strength. Slug telemetry reports field detection. Riding right along the centerline.”

  Jeff Gatson wondered how they would manage to adjust momentum once the train of cargo and slugs ran out.

  “Twenty seconds. Trim motors on the slug have been safed. Stand by.”

  “Five, four, field interaction detected, one, contact!”

  A swaying motion gripped everything in both spacecraft. Despite a thorough lockdown throughout both ships, overlooked loose items crashed to the decks. As the mass dampers took effect, the sudden lean in the Earthward direction eased off. The entire crew leaned opposite the direction of travel.

  “Inertial platforms stabilizing, results integrating,” said Benjamin over the intercom. “Initial results show the course correction was successful. The array has changed direction and velocity appropriately. Internal accelerometers have returned to pre-encounter values. The maneuver is over.”

  Jeff gladly popped out of his harness and went to go check on the status of the Burroughs' two halves. Scott, in the Bradbury, did the same.

  Commander Smithson huddled with Benjamin. “How many more of these slugs do we have in the pipeline?”

  “Three, sir, but I'll double-check. There are also seven packages of various masses that we'll be capturing. Thorium and LOX, I believe. Their momentum additions have already been pre-calculated in our final course, so there's no problem in capturing them.”

  “Except for the crew that have to scramble out there to secure them. Every time someone goes out there to manhandle cargo, I'm on pins and needles. If they get flung off the ring, there's nothing we can do for them.”

  “I understand, sir. Still, we need the thorium for surface operations.”

  Even though solar power could work for smaller probes like rovers on the surface of Mars, the energy needs of human occupation were at least two orders of magnitude larger than solar cells could provide. The lack of volatiles and the impossibility of transporting chemical fuels for two-plus years of occupation left only one source of concentrated power: radioactives.

  RadioThermionic Generators (RTGs) for electricity were just barely possible, but the mass difference between dozens of RTGs and a fully operational Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, or 'Lifter' was so close that the mission designers decided to go with the Lifter. Left on the Martian surface, it could safely simmer at a low level without human intervention until the next Mars Expedition arrived.

  Commander Standish understood the Lifter's most basic operation—the real genius for the reactor was asleep on the Burroughs, and his understudy was part of the Bradbury awake crew—Duane Bebeau.

  “We need all of that thorium, sir,” he told Commander Standish. “Oh, we'll get by on the surface with what we have now, but we're going to need to convert the thorium to uranium to fuel our onboard RTGs for the return leg. With our supply chain disrupted, this is all we're going to get, and I'm pessimistic enough to grab everything we can.”

  “I agree with you, Duane. The old Army adage. Eat whenever you find food because you never know when your next meal will happen. Don't worry, I'll strongly recommend that we pick up every package coming our way.”

  ***

  Within six weeks, the final momentum transfer slug was processed and the pipeline was empty. The crew stood their watches, researched everything possible about their ships, and ran endless studies. The same three options remained: attempt a return to Earth and risk certain death, land on Mars and maybe survive while hoping for r
escue from Earth, or figure something else out that could get them back home while protecting them from the gauntlet of whizzing Lunar debris.

  Around and around the same track their brains went. They were too personally invested in remaining alive to be bored, but as the list of possible solutions dwindled under the harsh light of reality, a certain fatalism began to overtake the crew.

  Christmas and New Year's were celebrated in a subdued manner, even when each commander produced a stashed bottle of champagne to celebrate the dawning of the year 2083. They had five months to go before they dismantled the array and hooked the ships back together for the orbital insertion burn. The decision was due at that time, and nobody knew what it would be, not even the commanders.

  Fate chose Donovan, Ragesh's friend and fellow radio tech aboard the Burroughs, to be the first one to think he was losing his mind.

  Separation Anxiety

  UN Building, New York City, December 15 2082 1430 EDT

  Lisa Daniels cooed into the phone. “They're letting me go for the weekend, Shep.”

  “Friday, too?”

  “Friday, too. Mrs. vanDerHoog is a far more enlightened leader than Subby ever was.”

  “Any more leads on him?”

  “Nope. The controllers' testimony was corroborated. He went into his office, locked the door, and nobody's seen him since.”

  “If ever there was a case for a crowd-sourced investigation, this is it.”

  “It's that way already. You should see the volume of calls flooding in to the UN.”

  “I'll bet. Still, he's no longer our concern. Maybe a meteor will get him.”

  Lisa laughed. “That would be poetic justice. Okay, get the kids over to Aunt Erin and whip me up a batch of lasagna.”

  Shep deepened his voice. “I hear and obey, O Master.”

  They laughed as they broke the connection.

  ***

  Subby was not a happy guy. For the past six months, he managed to stay a step ahead of the baying mob hunting for him. He ran first to Canada, simply because the United States citizenry were so eager to capture him for the lucrative award sum offered by several organizations but, surprisingly, not by the UN. His own country revoked his diplomatic status, which removed any diplomatic immunity he’d enjoyed for most of his life.

  He adopted a simple but effective disguise—a surgical mask and a hat. Most people turned away from someone in a mask. If they did look hard at him, all they remembered was the light green paper mask. They missed other things that would identify him.

  Facial recognition cameras were another matter. He was morally certain that should any spot him without a mask, the police would be on his tail in ten minutes, even with all the damage the Internet had suffered.

  Now he was in a bandit clinic in Hyderabad getting his face laundered. His hand reached for his face where the intense, fiery itching had subsided until it had become merely endurable. As his fingers brushed the bandages, he could hear the constant chuckle of Doctor Gao.

  “No, don't do that, heh heh,” the plastic surgeon said. “You keep picking at the stitches, you'll get them infected, or pull them out, or make a scar. Heh heh. Then you'll be back, heh, and I'll operate again, and we'll have, hee hee, this discussion again. Over and over. Heh heh, more money for me. Go ahead and scratch, Mister Ex, and I'll see you again and again.”

  Subby growled and let his hand drop. He didn't have the money left for a do-over. The doctor had made some fairly radical changes in his appearance. His jowls now sagged with injections of abdominal fat. Gao laughed as he slid the needle into Subby's IV line.

  “Pain medication? Ho, ho, no, can't do that—it would interfere with this special mixture. This will fire up your melanocytes and send them into overdrive. Your new name is Patel, and you've got to look the part. You're going to get medium dark, Mister Ex. If we give you something for pain, then you'll end up getting melanoma. Ha ha. I don't think you want that!”

  Subby ground his teeth together. Patel! He was a Chanergee-a Brahmin! Patels were the commoners, the serfs. Now he was going to lose that fine tan complexion that was the pride of the Chanergees and become a dark-skinned peasant.

  Still, it had to be done. He had to blend in with the crowd. He watched the news at night. He knew that the UN was flooded with tips, including video and digital pix, of every light-skinned Indian who even faintly resembled him. The crowd wanted its red meat, and he was the lone source.

  Damn that Lisa Daniels! Damn her and all of those traitors in Operations! UNSOC was a finely-tuned machine, once he got rid of that faction supporting the previous head, Natalya Koshevsky.

  UNSOC generated huge service fees, and he was deft in distributing a portion of those throughout the chain, ensuring their silence. As long as the money kept flowing, they were happy. Then the Moon exploded, and all of his carefully constructed money gushers dried up and blew away.

  A sudden glare in the sky beyond the window heralded another incoming chunk of Moon rock. He looked intently at the sudden shadow at his feet, turning to keep his back to the glare, and only after it died out did he chance to look at the ragged cloud of dust, high in the sky before rapidly moving away from the window. He remembered the surveillance videos in other cities, showing people being sliced apart by shattering glass when the sonic boom blew through.

  A distant boom shook the window. Good. At least it wasn't a window buster. The news kept warning about them, and so far, Subby had managed to avoid them, but his luck was going to run out some day. He found the remote and increased the volume on the television.

  “...bolides are increasing, both in number and in brightness, severity of shock wave, and fragmentation. We expect to see even larger rocks impacting the Earth within the next couple of months.

  “Doctor Langlade, what can be done about this menace? At all levels, including the citizen watching this right now.”

  “It's really unfortunate, Mary. For the really huge rocks, a hundred meters and up, I suspect that governments will continue to use nuclear weapons to alter their orbits to keep them away from Earth. It's the moderate stuff, rocks fifty meters or so, that present the greatest danger. They are too small and numerous to waste a missile on, but will survive reentry all the way to the ground. There's a three out of four chance that one of them will hit an ocean, and we must be prepared for the tsunamis that will result. But when they hit the land, there will be craters up to a mile wide, down to the bedrock and perhaps beyond. For those, governments have no answer.”

  Subraman snorted. You don't plan for those. Your number comes up, you get back on the wheel and reappear on Earth as something else. A big chunk of falling Moon rock would solve his problems quite well, actually. But Subby didn't feel like dying just yet.

  His fingers brushed the bandages again and he growled at the memory of the ever-jolly Doctor Gao. Two more weeks of waiting and healing before he could escape back into the world.

  ***

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was grim. “There are, basically, two choices, Mr. President. We either abide by the UN Weapons in Space treaty and lose Seattle, or we fire an ICBM at it in the next two hours to kick it into a flyby orbit. There are no other choices.”

  A page handed the Science Adviser a note. He opened it, looked at it briefly, and grimaced. The President looked askance at him.

  “It's worse than just losing Seattle, I'm afraid. The latest projection has the rock hitting close to Mount Rainier. I've just been notified that if that happens, not only will the mountain lose its glacier, but it will probably be stimulated into eruption. Think Mount St. Helens, only this time with Seattle, Tacoma and British Columbia all in the affected area.”

  “Casualties?” asked the President, softly.

  “Complete destruction. Seattle would resemble that town in South America that got buried in mud back in the 1990s. Millions of dead, and loss of both cities.” The Science Advisor ran a finger around his collar. “A choice between that and continental EMP is
no choice at all. And every minute we spend here talking about it brings the nuclear explosion that much closer to Earth.”

  The three floating heads looked at the President for his reaction. The Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, the Premier of Russia, and the President of the European Union all awaited the United States' lead. The US, after all, would be the first one affected.

  “And you are all in agreement?” asked the President of the other heads of state. “You will not react to this firing as a provocative attack? There will be no counterstrike? Even if we err and this rock fails to clear the Earth?”

  All three nodded their assent. The Chinese added, “If it will make you feel any better, my scientists assure me that we will have to make similar decisions in the next five days. We must act now, and act together.”

  “And the UN treaty?” asked the President. “There will be an uproar.”

  “There will be one regardless of what we do, Mr. President,” said the Russian Premier. “Frankly, I am tired of these little countries trying to push us around with this 'international diplomacy'.” The European President spluttered at that, but the Russian was insistent. “We need action, not smooth words. We, the four spacefaring nations, must act, and act now. I say launch and be damned what the bone-rattlers say.”

  Again, all three were in agreement. The President looked around the Cabinet table to be greeted with more nods. No one disagreed.

  “Gentlemen, we must have close cooperation during these times. Stay in touch, and we’ll do the same.” The heads nodded again, then faded from view.

  Taking a deep breath and sitting up straighter in his chair, the President turned to the Secretary of Defense. “Mr. Cannel, you are hereby directed to deploy whatever weapons in the United States arsenal to divert or destroy this piece of debris, and all other oncoming debris that form a clear and present danger to the states and territories of the United States of America. Priority of effort will go to the States, then Territories and Possessions, then to Allies, and finally, to the rest of the world. We will not be able to divert them all, but I want to see us trying our damndest. At no time will the arsenal fall below a level that will leave us without retaliatory strike capabilities. Any questions?”