The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Would that matter?”

  “The development of the two human embryos begins following a predefined time so that the two passengers will be ready to go when they reach their destination. Without the boost from the Triton station, Adam and Eve will grow up, get older, and eventually die, never having seen anything other than the blackness of space, locked for their entire lives in a two-bedroom house they can’t leave.”

  “That sounds awful,” Nick said. “Adam and Eve, was that your father’s idea?”

  Valentina nodded.

  “It seems that he was a bit...” What word could he use without offending his new boss? “... a bit ambitious.”

  “Megalomaniacal is more like it,” she answered. “But that’s just how he was. I loved him and would have done anything for him. The genes of the women on these ships are based on my genes, which he had technically altered and improved. But still, those Eves are all my sisters. I don’t want them to just waste their lives away.” With these words, Valentina’s cheeks reddened.

  This issue is really important to her. This isn’t about money, that much is clear. “I understand,” Nick said. “Isn’t there a way to stop the development, some kind of kill switch for the whole experiment?”

  “My father was too careful to let that happen. After his death, someone might have come up with the idea of sending out this death signal and destroying his legacy.”

  “How many of these ships are out there?”

  “A thousand have been launched. We expect a natural attrition rate of less than ten percent due to collisions and the like.”

  “So, in a few years, there will be human spaceships reaching nine hundred nearby star systems?”

  “Nine hundred systems with confirmed exoplanets in the habitable zone. Actually, my father had planned a second wave with ten thousand ships, but the whole thing has already attracted too much attention. The public doesn’t know yet, but there are very talented people working for the secret services. In the long term this would mean losing our autonomy, and I would like to keep RB in the marketplace as an independent player.”

  “You’re very smart, Ms. Shostakovna.”

  “Please... Valentina.”

  “You’re very smart, Valentina.”

  “Thank you. I am my father’s daughter. What else can I tell you about your job?”

  “How much time will I have on Triton?”

  “One month after your expected arrival, the laser has got to send out the boost.”

  “Okay. I take it you’ve thought of everything I’d need there?”

  “Yes, we’ve been preparing the flight for months. Triton is an ice moon with hardly any atmosphere. You’ll be getting a vehicle and, of course, appropriate spacesuits.”

  “Well, then I can’t think of anything else.”

  “You’ll be traveling alone, Nick. Is that okay with you?”

  “Yes. That’s what makes your job so attractive to me. I like traveling alone.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to be so entirely alone, I could offer you an HDS android from one of our employees’ workshops. The HDS models can be switched off at any time.”

  “HDS?”

  “Home, Defender, Sex. The android can provide every service and is visually difficult to distinguish from a human woman.”

  Nick felt his face turn red again. That would be the day! Now, with the chance to be alone for four years, and then sharing the cabin with someone? He thought about Alexa and knew for sure that he would never have the heart to turn this HDS robot off.

  “Thanks, Valentina, but that’s not necessary. I can cook pretty well, and I can probably do without a defender because of the lack of attackers in the middle of outer space.”

  “As you like. Should I perhaps still have Katharina come in? Just to have a look?”

  Nick shook his head. Then he remembered the state of his house. He really liked cooking, but found it challenging to clean up afterward. “Could we get a cleaning robot to go with me? I’ll admit housework is a struggle for me. But not one that’s anthropomorphic.”

  Valentina looked around the room, then got up and walked into one of the corners. She squatted down, opened a door, and took out a disk about 10 centimeters thick and 40 centimeters in diameter. She came back to the sofa with it and pressed a few of its buttons. Nothing happened.

  “This is Oscar,” she said, holding it out to him. “It’s a household robot. It cleans, washes dishes, and dusts.”

  Nick took it and pressed some of the buttons on the disk’s top, but still nothing happened. He turned the robot over in his hands and discovered four wheels that rotated 360 degrees.

  “You have to plug him into a standard power port for a while. He must have run out of power overnight. Yesterday he was still scurrying around in here.”

  “And he washes dishes, too? How does he do it?” Nick asked.

  “Oscar has an arm made of a sturdy, lightweight alloy that he can unfold from the disk if necessary. Don’t underestimate him. He’s not as universally useful as an HDS model, but he could take down an attacker.”

  “Luckily that won’t be necessary.”

  “Of course, Nick. I do hope that’s the case.”

  What does she mean by that? Are there possible attackers we haven’t talked about yet? But Valentina had just said it dismissively. His assignment seemed straightforward enough. Fly in, repair the AI, restart the laser, fly back.

  “I don’t want to keep you any longer. Will we see each other at the launch?”

  “No, that would draw too much attention. We’ll see one other again in four years, when I transfer the remaining sum to you. I wish you great success!”

  “Thank you, Valentina.”

  They stood up almost simultaneously and shook hands. Then Valentina left the conference room through the heavy door.

  Nick was tired but unable to fall asleep. He was thinking about old Shostakovich’s plans. What else might he have done in secret, with nobody monitoring his activities? Nick wasn’t particularly squeamish and had enjoyed his time with the Marines in his youth. There hadn’t been a war during his service period, but he wouldn’t have had any problem shooting enemies who’d had him in their crosshairs, or as ordered by a superior.

  But to cram 2,000 people into tiny spaceships and send them to other stars? What if it turned out the destination was uninhabitable? Just because a planet was located in a star’s habitable zone didn’t mean it would be a good place to live. Then, Adam and Eve would be doomed to carrying out their entire lives in a spaceship. If he didn’t fulfill his task, this would be the case for all 1,000 Adam-and-Eve pairs. Where did Shostakovich get the genetic material of the man? Would he have been crazy enough to use his own DNA? He should have asked Valentina.

  The door squeaked and Nick sat up. He dropped himself down next to the bed, just in case someone was coming for him. Then a dim light came on. He could see the intruder was a woman, standing naked at the foot of his bed, holding a hand over her mouth.

  It was Raissa. She was stifling a laugh. “You don’t have to run away from me,” she said.

  “You never know,” Nick said.

  “I heard you didn’t want the HDS android,” said Raissa. “I thought that was sweet. And then I thought I could be the last woman you’d hold before your long flight... unless you’re gay. Which is fine by me. I have a nice colleague, Pavel, he’s five years older than me, but he looks good. I’m sure he’d be happy to pay you a visit.”

  “I’m not gay, though there have been times I’ve wished I were,” said Nick.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a long story. But I would certainly like for you to keep me company.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve had such a charming invitation,” said Raissa, smiling.

  “I promise you that over the next four years I’ll always remember this last embrace.”

  5/31/2080, Vostochny Cosmodrome

  He really had to hand it to the Russian
s. If they had a plan, they’d get it done, no matter what. Just three days ago, the boss of the RB Group had woken him up. Now he was $1,000,000 richer and strapped into the reclining seat of a two-person capsule at the tip of an Angara rocket about to put him into Earth’s orbit. The seat next to him was empty, and a CapCom named Yuri was giving him instructions over his headphones. But it was really just information about the flight, since the rocket was controlled from the ground and he was just a passenger. He wouldn’t be his own commander again until he was back in a spaceship.

  A shiver ran down his spine. He’d really missed this feeling. On the VSS Freedom flights, they’d been launched from a plane. It had been 15 years since he’d experienced the mighty roar of a rocket engine. Now it seemed to move each of his body cells individually. It was incredibly loud, but yet such a dull, deep sound that he could still easily hear the beeping of the instruments from the cockpit. He could probably even have talked to his co-pilot if he’d had one.

  “Launch!” said CapCom.

  Nick felt the pressure in his stomach first, and then his whole body was pressed into the seat. He yielded to the acceleration. He couldn’t fight it anyway. Two, three, four, five g’s weighed on him, and for a moment he even had to endure six times the force of Earth’s gravity. But it passed and then came his reward, weightlessness. CapCom Yuri counted off the seconds. After about two and a half minutes, the first stage, and then the second, would have to be cast off.

  He closed his eyes. The pressure made reddish patterns dance on the insides of his eyes. This seemed to be associated with age, as he hadn’t seen it before. He was getting older, but when he came back, he’d still be under 50. But then he’d be a millionaire or the owner of a vineyard, and—if he economized and shopped around—maybe both. That would be a good idea, given that he would never get a job like this again.

  What had he promised Raissa? He would remember holding her. Now he was thinking of her firm breasts and the way she’d ridden him. And Rosie? Who? Nick laughed. He was held captive by the acceleration, but he felt free. And suddenly he weighed nothing. His heart was beating like never before.

  The spaceship where he’d be living for the next four years was called the Eve. This had been Valentina’s decision, probably in honor of her many sisters in space. It didn’t have a coupling device for the capsule he’d been in while reaching orbit, so extravehicular activity would be required to make the switch. Nick put on the spacesuit. The technology had long been standardized worldwide, but the RB model had convenient power boosters on the joints.

  A virtual user interface inside the helmet picked up the functions offered by the capsule now, and later by the Eve. This way, he could control the functions while he was wearing the helmet. He checked the oxygen and nitrogen levels in his blood and the values matched the specifications. As he looked at the inside door of the hatch, the helmet tracked his gaze. He stared at the lock and a virtual circle lit up around it.

  Okay, let’s do this! Nick set the lock in the crosshairs. The ring turned with a gorgeous display of colors. The designers had really outdone themselves, but he thought it took too long. He was tempted to turn the lock by hand in the old-fashioned way, but Yuri warned him against it. There was no need to cause the CapCom any unnecessary problems. Finally the door opened. Nick hoped they hadn’t equipped the Eve with such optical gimmicks. He climbed into the airlock, the air pumped out, and the way outside was clear.

  Below him was the Earth. It was huge and he was falling towards it. Nick thought of Wiseman, the realtor from the Freedom with whom he’d gone on the spacewalk a week ago. What was the date today? It was the 31st, so it had been eight days. Nick ended his fall by briefly closing his eyes and hanging the Earth up in his head. When he opened his eyes again and turned around once on his longitudinal axis, he was floating above the tiny-looking capsule.

  The Eve was waiting for him about 20 meters away. This ship would be his home for the next four years. If there were spaceship races—come to think of it, why aren’t there any?—the spacecraft would probably look like this one. The living area in the central axis looked like a long barrel. The ten DFDs, which looked like slender torpedoes, formed a circle around it. They mainly worked with the rare isotope helium-3, which was why they were so expensive to operate. To propel the spaceship they needed reaction mass, which was stored in an outer circle of ten tanks. Each engine had its own tank, but the tanks could also share their contents with each other.

  It was not a beautiful spaceship, but it was very special. No other spacecraft in the world could have kept up with it. Probes had reached higher speeds by cleverly building up momentum from planets, but thanks to its powerful engines and its relatively low mass, the Eve sped directly towards its destination. With this ship, reaching Neptune in two years seemed possible. The scientists’ numbers were one thing, for sure, but the sheer appearance of the spaceship gave Nick the reassuring feeling that all the prerequisites were there to fulfill this mission.

  “Nick? Ja shdu tebja.” I’m waiting for you.

  Oh! He’d forgotten about Taras, the engineer waiting for him in the Eve.

  “Iswini, ja pospeschu,” he answered. Excuse me, I’ll hurry. Nick steered his suit in the direction of the spaceship. It was farther away than it looked. The closer he got, the bigger it seemed. The DFDs were 3 meters in diameter by about 15 meters long, or about the height of a 5-story house. Nick approached the ship from the side, as was the rule, even if the engines were completely off.

  He estimated the dimensions of the spaceship. The inner circle with the engines must have measured about 60 meters in circumference and about 20 meters in diameter. The outer circle formed by the tanks was about 40 meters tall. The tanks themselves were shaped like pillows and were slightly curved so that they almost form a closed circle around the Eve. Nick suspected that the designers had arranged it so that the contents of the reaction mass tanks protected the individual passenger from cosmic radiation.

  Nick stopped before one of the tanks and touched its shell. It was rough, and it appeared to be made of metal. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to use carbon nanofibers for weight reasons? he wondered. He’d ask Taras. Nick squeezed through the gap between two tanks.

  The circle of fusion engines below didn’t look so impressive in comparison to the tank ring. Fragile struts extended outwards at 90-degree intervals. If the Eve had to fly in a planet’s atmosphere, these delicate struts would snap quickly, but in the vacuum of space there would no longer be any need to keep the tanks in place. Thick fuel lines were running along the four sector struts. They were placed so that the struts were located in front of them in the direction of flight, probably a minimal protection against micro-asteroids. Nick corrected himself—they were, of course, support lines. The fuel storage would have to be inside the DFD housing.

  Taras was waiting and Nick sped up a little. All of this for one astronaut—him! And who’d been the one to organize it all? Valentina Shostakovna. What power a CEO like Valentina had! But he didn’t envy her, because with all that power came so much responsibility—and loneliness. He’d been able to read it on her face. Did she have any real friends at all? But that didn’t matter. In the end you’re always alone. He had no friends.

  Nick flew between two DFDs. The Eve’s core was now in front of him. She looked vulnerable. It was strange, but for him a spaceship was always female. The Unity, the Eve. In the plans he’d gotten prior to the launch, the core had been called the ‘transport module.’ In fact, they were barrel-shaped modules hanging in a row. The rear twelve contained food and spare parts, and the front four were living spaces. He would spend the next four years in an area measuring about 80 square meters. That the Eve would never be weightless while traveling was a disadvantage here, because without gravity, he could have used the entire volume of the modules. But at least his bones, muscles, and joints would remain functional.

  “I’m over here,” Taras said in Russian.

  A round hatch ope
ned on the module that was fifth down from the bow.

  “You didn’t have to come outside to get me,” Nick said.

  Taras waved a hand. “I’ve just inspected the Eve and had to go outside anyway.”

  Nick reached him and took hold of a ladder.

  Taras pushed off and embraced him. “That’s the way we do it,” he said. “But we’ll have to forgo the fraternal kiss.”

  “A pity,” said Nick.

  “Come in. I’m jealous of you getting to take this journey. The Eve is a monster. I’ve never built such a powerful spaceship.”

  They floated into the chamber, and Taras closed the outer lock.

  “You’re the engineer?” Nick asked.

  “The designing was left to others. I am the site manager. I was up here from the first module.”

  “When did you start?”

  A red light blinked and the airlock filled with air.

  “Pretty much half a year ago. That was an intense time, I can tell you.”

  “Why don’t you fly yourself?”

  “I’d like to, my American comrade, but four years? No, my wife won’t wait that long.”

  “Ah, love is what stops you.”

  The red light turned off and a green light came on.

  “Yes, love and family. Very important. You can take the helmet off now.”

  Nick opened the helmet fasteners—first left, then right—to take off the helmet and let it float in the air next to him. Then he took a deep breath. There it was, that familiar smell, a mixture of machine oil and sweat, as distinctive as a new car smell. In spaceships, he had experienced this only once—when he entered the VSS Unity for the first launch.

  “People slept in here while we finished up with the Eve,” Taras said apologetically.