The Beacon: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  She leaned forward in her pilot seat so that Peter could no longer see past her out the left window, and pressed buttons, turned switches, and tapped on the screen. Her movements were purposeful. She never hesitated while performing a perfectly rehearsed choreography. Francesca looked as if she had mastered it all before her first flight. She must be a born pilot. Who could know, maybe she’d be famous one day? He imagined her being the first person to explore an icy moon of Jupiter.

  He was fortunate that he got to watch her work directly. She’d given him the seat on her right. It was designed like a second pilot’s seat and was initially intended for a co-pilot. For cost reasons, the company had since dispensed with that role. The space shuttles were so reliable, and the flights so short, that a co-pilot would be even more bored than the pilots, who were probably already under-challenged as it was.

  There had been no discussion about space allocation. Unlike the passenger seats, there was no additional porthole in the roof. Peter had a good view to the front during takeoff, but he couldn’t see the sky. That was why none of the others envied him being allowed to sit in front.

  “Dear future astronauts,” Francesca addressed the passengers, “we will be launching shortly. Please make sure you have strapped yourselves in.”

  Peter adjusted the straps that stretched over his shoulders and hips. So far, this was the only difference from flying in an airplane. That was why he didn’t feel any excitement at the moment, only the growing hope of being able to fulfill his task.

  The hull of the VSS Astra jerked, and they moved backward. It was surprisingly quiet. Minimal vibrations indicated the four engines of the mother ship were already running.

  Peter turned around. The other passengers sat in two rows behind him. The three bachelorettes were talking across the center aisle, and the husband and wife were holding hands. The male couple had been seated one in front of the other. The one behind had a hand stretched forward onto his partner’s shoulder. The older of the two men traveling alone had his hands folded in his lap, his eyes closed. He seemed to be praying.

  The cabin was surprisingly spacious, probably due to the generously-distributed windows and the mirrored rear panel. From the outside, the space glider hardly looked bigger than a Cessna. Peter noticed more seats than side portholes, probably due to the subsequent addition of four seats to the VSS Astra. The hull design had been probably adopted from the older sister ships.

  “Take off in ten seconds,” Francesca said.

  Oh! He hadn’t realized they were going so fast already. The Astra sped along a wide, almost immaculate concrete runway that seemed to stretch to the horizon. But that was deceptive. Somewhere, far out there, it merged into the equally gray desert.

  Peter immediately felt the liftoff in his stomach. The noise grew louder, a mixture of wind and turbine noises. Francesca spoke into the microphone under her chin.

  He thought of the radio, trusting she hadn’t left it behind. The mothership pulled up more steeply, and Earth disappeared from his view. Soon they entered dense clouds, became enveloped in mist, and then quickly exited as if they’d been conjured into another world where a white sun shone out of a sky that grew darker by the minute. Peter leaned forward to admire the cloud layer, which reminded him of an alien city, full of residential towers and giant, exotic trees.

  Francesca didn’t seem to have an eye for all this beauty. Although she was almost as much a passenger as he was so far, she had to operate instruments and read off values. There was even a clipboard with an old-fashioned paper checklist on which she made entries from time to time. She carelessly put the pen down next to it. Peter reflexively reached to grab it so that it wouldn’t roll away, but the pen was faster and nestled on the underside of the checklist.

  “It’s magnetic,” Francesca said with a smile.

  Of course. They would soon experience weightlessness. A free-floating pen would be a hazard.

  “Launch preparation,” Francesca said. “Fellow astronauts, your seats will now move into launch position.”

  Peter looked back to observe what was happening and was surprised by his own seat, which slowly tilted backward. Of course, this should have been obvious to him. One of the women shrieked briefly. Above him, on the ceiling of the glider, a couple of screens activated. They showed curves and tables from which he could make no sense. Francesca calmly continued her work.

  “The radio?” he asked.

  “Under your seat.”

  “Thank you.”

  That was very reassuring. Nothing can actually go wrong now. The only thing that worried him was that the word ‘actually’ had crept into his mind.

  The force of their rocket motor pressed him into the cushions. The belts tightened automatically. Now the VSS Astra was on its own. Francesca had explained to them in training that their weight would double. Peter raised one arm. It felt like he had to move it through a viscous liquid. The acceleration seemed incredibly high to him, but when he looked outside the impression faded, and they might as well have been standing still, in midair.

  Only the sky kept getting darker. It was as if a storm front lurked up there, a dark danger. But what he wanted to protect the solar system from must still be light days away. The rest of the atmosphere above them, to which the refracted and captured sunlight gave its blue color, just got thinner and thinner, allowing the blackness of space to shine through.

  Soon he saw the first stars. He could already hear loud oohs and aahs. For the other passengers, who could see directly into the cosmos through portholes, the sight must have been even more fascinating.

  But he also benefited from his seat position. Their home planet lay before him. The Earth was no longer a surface, limited by an unreachable horizon. It turned into a sphere before his eyes, curled up like a tired cat. A strip, becoming narrower and narrower, separated the beings on its surface from the deadly vacuum of space, protected them from cosmic radiation and the eruptions of the sun, preserved them from galactic cold, balanced the different energy levels, and—ultimately—enabled life’s existence. His existence.

  A deep gratitude spread in his soul. He didn’t even know he could feel such a thing. It was an almost-spiritual feeling. This had to be the moment that most astronauts raved about for the rest of their lives.

  He looked at Francesca and saw a tear in the corner of her eye. Either the air was too dry, or she felt it too, even on her 99th flight.

  He didn’t ask her about it. It was too private.

  Much later came the moment of weightlessness. Francesca switched off the rocket motor when they had reached orbit. Everyone was allowed to unbuckle. Peter climbed to the back with the other passengers to float a bit, but it was not what he expected. For him, the feeling of freedom came from outside. The darkness of the cosmos fed it, as did the beautiful, blue-white-green globe below him.

  Weightlessness itself was merely constant falling, an endless ride in the express elevator. He could move in a way that was impossible on the ground, but that didn't make it any easier. Maybe it was a matter of getting used to it, but he had to be much more careful about how much momentum he gave himself, where his movements directed him, where he could grab something to stop or redirect himself.

  “Peter, would you come here?”

  He pulled himself forward, climbed headfirst over the back of his chair, and sat down.

  “Don’t buckle up,” Francesca said as he reached for the seatbelts. “Open the compartment under your seat, please.”

  Peter leaned forward, felt under the seat, and pulled on the handle his fingers found. A drawer of sorts appeared, containing a technical device. He unpacked it. His USB stick was plugged into one side.

  Francesca turned off her microphone and explained to him the buttons the device had. There were about 300, but he would only need a few.

  “I’ve already tuned it to 418 megahertz,” Francesca informed him. “You start the broadcast with this button here when I give you the signal. If for some reason
you need to restart it, you press here. And you can cancel everything with this button.”

  She had changed to a more confidential tone. Now they were co-conspirators with a common plan.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  He gave her a thumbs up. “All right.”

  “Mission control, unclear radar echo on standard orbit, changing orbit,” Francesca announced after reactivating her microphone.

  Peter didn’t hear the control center’s response, but right after that, Francesca told everyone to buckle up again. So Mission Control must have approved the maneuver.

  “Thrusters now!” said Francesca.

  First, the Astra turned until the tail pointed in the direction of flight. Then a gentle force—not comparable with the acceleration force during takeoff—pressed him into his seat. Finally, Francesca turned the nose of the glider back in the direction of flight.

  “Thank you. That’s about it,” she said.

  The seatbelt buckles rattled behind them. Shortly after that, smartphone cameras clicked, and the other passengers chatted in whispers. The three bachelorettes giggled.

  Peter remained calmly seated. He suspected his epic saga would soon come to an end—hopefully, the one he wanted.

  “Take a look!”

  Francesca pointed to one of the displays in front of her. A red dot could be seen, slowly moving into the picture from the left. She pressed a button and a green line appeared that seemed to cross the path of the red dot.

  “Is that...?” he asked.

  Francesca put her index finger to her lips. “Yes, that’s a satellite, quite a small one—a CubeSat, I think. But don’t worry, its orbit is well below our orbit.”

  “How far?”

  “Four-kilometers difference.”

  Hopefully, that would put them close enough. But he had no other choice.

  “Shouldn’t we get out of the way there?” he asked.

  “No, the object and its cross section are known. There are no surprises to be expected. That’s what we have the registration rules for. Only with unknown objects do we have to be very careful. The surveillance can always slip through something. With asteroids, you also never know if they’re traveling alone.”

  “That maneuver earlier... Was that an asteroid-like object?”

  “We’ll never know. There was no confirmation from Earth. Maybe someone will see that thing tonight as a shooting star.”

  “What a beautiful idea.”

  Francesca showed him eight fingers. Eight minutes.

  Peter took the radio onto his lap. From behind, no one could see what he was doing. The backrest was much too wide for that. Everything depended on him. He had to press a button at the right moment. Surely he ought to be able to do that? He moved his index finger to test it. It obeyed. Nevertheless, he was afraid that it might refuse service at the decisive moment. After all, nothing depended on it, apart from the sun’s continued existence and, thus, all humankind’s.

  Surely you are mistaken, Peter. Your whole theory is the result of a sick brain.

  And so what? he answered himself. Then at least I had a lovely trip into space.

  But if you are right, you must press that button without hesitation. You can’t do that. You’re totally overwrought.

  Yes, I can.

  Francesca showed him three fingers. The number inflated to three digits in his head in a flash. One hundred and eighty seconds. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, he counted along now. Briefly he closed his eyes, but the fear of suddenly falling asleep overtook him. He was sweating. Crap. It couldn’t be that hard to push that fucking button! He stared into the darkness until his eyes watered, but he didn’t dare wipe them with his handkerchief, because he’d have to reach into the pocket of his boarding suit to do it. What if the clock jumped and skipped ahead 60 seconds?

  It looked like Francesca was giving him the finger. This was getting serious. The red dot was already damn close. Peter preferred not to ask how fast it was. How fast they were. They were in free fall, but they were falling so fast that they were skirting the Earth and accidentally staying in orbit.

  Francesca raised both hands and held them so the other passengers couldn’t see. Then she folded one finger at a time. It was the quietest countdown he had ever experienced, and at the same time the loudest, because his heart was pounding to Francesca’s beat, which was dictating its tempo by the transition between two hyperfine structures of the ground state of cesium-133.

  The universe was strange. The smallest was related to the largest, and when Francesca’s little finger curled, his index finger pressed the button and a sense of calm swept through him.

  Peter needed two minutes to recover from the excitement. He just sat there, the radio on his lap, listening to the beeping of the instruments and the quiet conversations of the other passengers.

  “You’ve done well,” Francesca said.

  “Yeah? I don’t know.”

  “When will we know if it worked?”

  “After landing. I need to call SigmaLaunch, the launch provider. They monitor the orbit of the beacon.”

  “I meant your theory.”

  “Ah, whether it is true? If I’m right, we’ll never know.”

  “I feel sorry for you.”

  “That’s not necessary. After all, I have experienced space. That’s something. And I know what I saw in the telescope.”

  “Oh! I think I might... Shit!”

  Francesca hunched over and then stiffened up again. She held her right shoulder with her left hand, at about the collarbone.

  “What is it?” asked Peter.

  Only then did he notice the whistling. A strong draft of air moved past him toward the windshield. He heard excited shouts from the other passengers, and an automated voice spoke.

  “Pressure loss. Please put on your oxygen masks and fasten your seatbelts.”

  At the same moment, blue masks fell out of the ceiling. His dangled on a long cord to his right. The pressure loss must have had something to do with the whistling. He leaned forward and saw the hole. It was circular and about an inch in diameter. Beyond it was space. They must have collided with an obstacle, a very fast obstacle—perhaps a screw?

  Francesca tried to reach forward with her right arm but could not. A dark spot was spreading on her blue uniform at shoulder height. She was bleeding.

  “Should I call for help?” he asked.

  She grimaced and shook her head. “No one can... help us. You have to... seal the hole.”

  She was obviously in a lot of pain. Peter thought about the hole. It had an area of a good three square centimeters. The pressure difference was one bar, so they wouldn’t die right away. It would take until the air pressure in the large volume of the space glider hull had fallen by half... and there were definitely oxygen tanks that would counteract it.

  From behind, a woman leaned forward and waved her arms. “Do something! Now!” she shouted.

  Peter forcefully pushed her back.

  “Oh my God, the pilot is dead!” the woman exclaimed. “There’s a hole in her shoulder. And in her seat. I saw it!”

  “I’m still alive,” Francesca said. “Stay seated and keep your mouth shut.”

  The woman fell silent. A man intoned a loud prayer, but no one responded.

  “In front of me, the compartment in the footwell,” Francesca said.

  Peter unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned over, and felt for the compartment. There it was. He flipped it open and saw a medpack with a red cross, and a package with a tool symbol on top. He picked up the medpack, but Francesca shook her head.

  “First, the repair.”

  “Okay.”

  He tore open the repair package. A spray can lay at the very top, a hose attached to its nozzle.

  “Yes, that’s what you need,” Francesca said.

  He shook the can and leaned across the cockpit. The object had come in pretty flat, so it must have been in orbit. Some satellite or spacecraft with the same orbit must
have lost it. He held the end of the hose to the hole and pressed the spray button. Dense, gray foam poured out of the hose and stuck to the inside edge of the hole. The longer he pressed, the smaller the hole became.

  Then the spray can was empty, but the hole wasn’t closed. The remaining opening measured maybe half a centimeter. At least he had reduced the cross-section to one-fourth.

  “Do we have any more of these?” he asked, shaking the empty can.

  Francesca shook her head. “Not that I know.”

  Presumably, the engineers assumed that the spaceship would never survive this large a hole. But had he made it small enough yet?

  Peter reached into his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his face. It was a nice cloth fabric that absorbed moisture very well.

  Inspiration hit: Peter took one of the four corners between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it the way he sometimes did to clean sticky mucus from his nose. The twisted cloth was just the right size for the damage in the windshield. He moistened it with spit and fed the tip into the hole.

  The whistling stopped. He pressed the fabric more tightly into place.

  Francesca pointed to a roll of tape. He used several pieces to secure the handkerchief, although that was not necessary because the cabin pressure pushed the tip into the hole.

  “Thank you,” Francesca said. “We were lucky. Ten centimeters further down, and it would have hit the instruments.”

  “Five centimeters and it would have hit your lung.”

  “I’m expendable. Without the technology, the ship would have had a hard time finding its way home.”

  “Isn’t there a remote control?”

  “Yes, there is. At some point, they’ll probably fly these gliders without pilots. But for now, I’ve got Mission Control to take care of things. Thanks, Peter. It was a good thing I had you next to me, wasn’t it?”

  “Right now, we’re going to take care of your shoulder,” Peter said.

  “There’s not much to do there. It was a straight-through shot. I just need a painkiller.”