by Dan Eaton
Christine sighed and said, “Do you think he did it?”
“I’d like to think he didn’t do it, unfortunately, I can’t prove he didn’t do it and can’t prove he did. Fun times, hey?”
Christine took a sip of her coffee, “Fine, either he did it or he didn’t. We need to move forward with our plan and keep Bryce under watch. If someone is always watching him then he can’t get into mischief and if something does happen while he is being watched then that proves someone else is doing it. How many people in this place have a grudge against the Chinese?’
I was at work, taking ten minutes to do a job that should have taken me a minute when I heard Veronica’s voice come through the headphones and ask, “Are you going to tell me about it or are you going to keep wasting my time while I have to wait for you to get through with that?”
I looked up at the nearest monitor and said, “Sorry, Veronica. I had an argument with Nina today and it’s dragging on me.”
“So what happened, she catch you talking with Myra?”
I said, with more heat than intended, “Not a lot of chance of that happening is there? Myra thinks I’m guilty as heck. She won’t even look at me.”
I slammed the wrench I was holding, down on the workbench and looked off into the corner. Anywhere but into the camera where Veronica could see how hurt I was by Myra abandoning me.
“Easy there, kiddo. From what you’ve told me about Myra, it doesn’t sound like she would just drop you like that. She may need to hear it from you about what you did or didn’t do, though I don’t think she’s the type to just turn her back and wash her hands of you. If she’s good enough of a friend for you to get this upset, she’s good enough of a friend to give her the benefit of the doubt. I know it’s hard, however, give it time and at some point you’ll know what really is happening with her. Don’t jump to conclusions and act out on them, making things worse than they are now.”
The last time Veronica gave me advice about Myra, well, it’s not that I didn’t listen to her as much as it was easier to let things slide until they blew up in my face. What she said about Myra, this time, was true, and it made me feel better to know that maybe I just didn’t understand what I was seeing from Myra. It gave me a little hope and I said, “Thanks, Veronica. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that you are right and wait to see what happens.”
“Great, so what’s the story with you and Nina?”
I let out an exasperated sigh and said, “She got all bent out of shape over me talking to Meadow. After what happened in the classroom, the only kids I’ve got left to talk to are Nina, Ananyu, and Adam. I’d played Gogo with Meadow a couple of times and although at first she thought maybe I had written on Yang’s desk, she finally decided that it didn’t seem like me and she’d give me a chance. Nina and I were eating lunch today and while Nina was off getting a refill, Meadow sat down to talk to me. She apologized for doubting me and we were just talking when Nina came back. Nina blew up and caused a big scene in the cafeteria. She yelled at Meadow for trying to steal her boyfriend and then at me for being too trusting of an idiot. Meadow got up, called Nina a bitch, and walked off, though not before flipping off Nina. Nina just stared at me for a second and then stormed off in the opposite direction. Ananyu came along about then and headed off to see about Nina which left me sitting there in the cafeteria all by myself. I’m supposed to lay low and not be in public places by myself so I headed back to the school. I had just walked in the door, when Sam shows up, not thirty seconds later, and pulls me into Miss Gayle’s office where she interrogates me about how I got from the cafeteria to the school and then chewed me out for being out by myself. Like I had a choice in the matter!”
Veronica stared out at me from the nearest monitor and chewed her lip.
Finally, she said, “Man, you’ve had quite the day. I’d take off early and go have a beer.”
I couldn’t believe what she said and replied, “Veronica, I’m only fifteen. I’m not allowed to drink.”
“Sucks to be you,”
We both started laughing. It was stupid and not really that funny, yet I couldn’t help myself. When I laughed myself out, I asked Veronica what she thought I should do.
“Well, first off, I’d send Meadow a message apologizing for the mess in the cafeteria and thanking her for still being your friend. Then you should talk with Nina and apologize to her.”
“What!, How come I have to apologize? Nina’s the one who stunk up the place.”
“You apologize because you’re the one that was talking to another girl. You’re probably Nina’s first boyfriend and she’s feeling unsure about herself. You made her feel insecure by talking to Meadow even though I’m sure that’s not what you intended.”
I just sighed and said, “Sometime, this whole girlfriend thing seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth.”
Last year, Christine and my dad had taken our class out to the accelerator job site. Well, actually it was a trip to the crater rim overlooking the job site. When we had visited they had just completed work on the ramp road that would be used to ease payloads down to the floor of Peary crater where the transshipment facility was located. The transshipment facility was just starting construction and Adam had asked if we could return for a tour of the facility when it was completed. With the crisis over the summer and work stopping until the monitors had arrived, it took a lot longer than Dad was expecting before he could invite us back to look at the completed transship facility. Miss Gayle hadn’t been with us last year and had been eagerly awaiting the day we could go. Dad finally gave her the go ahead and today we were going to go see the new facility.
Miss Gayle led both classes from the school to just outside the Lunar Vehicle Bay where we met up with my dad. He ushered us into the bay where we were met with a surprise. There was a new transport sitting there waiting for us. The vehicle sat a little lower than the old transport and was supported by multiple tires that looked like they were capable of roving over the raw lunar terrain and not just roaming the paved roads. It was longer with the cabin area split between three separate pods that were connected by a flexible coupling. We boarded by the rear door and found another difference. Each of the comfortable seats had a five point harness which would keep you in the seat no matter how rough the ride got. Miss Gayle and my dad walked through the cabin and made sure everyone was firmly buckled in. The bigger carrier let everyone have a window seat. Dad walked back to the front and grabbed a microphone while the driver started up the rig and maneuvered it out through the airlocks.
Dad said, “Welcome to the tour today. For those of you that missed the last one, I’m Bryce’s dad, Desmond Burns. We’re on our way out to a point on the Western rim of the crater wall that overlooks Peary crater, the site where the linear accelerator is being built. For now, just enjoy the ride and I’ll have more for you when we reach our destination.”
After exiting the last airlock, the bus traveled up the ramp leading up to the surface and then hung a right at the top to get over to the road leading to the west. From my seat in the rearmost pod, it was a little weird seeing the other two pods bending up when we started up the ramp and then down again when we hit the top. It was just a further sign of how flexible the vehicle was. Once the vehicle was lined up on the west road, the driver opened the throttle and we were soon cruising along at eighty kilometers per hour. That was twice the speed of the old transport, though it still felt completely safe on the paved road. This was the first trip outside for the freshman class and they were mesmerized by the lunar scenery. The bus sped along and we soon passed both of the emergency shelters we had seen the last time and shortly after that the driver started slowing down. The warning sign for the beginning of the ramp road flashed by and soon the driver surprised the older class by pulling up next to a squat structure on the rim of the crater. I had expected him to pull onto the ramp road to take us down to the base of the crater.
Dad stood up again with the microphone and said, “You olde
r kids are probably wondering why we didn’t pull onto the ramp road and take it down to the bottom. We could do that, however, we found using the road for transporting people was delaying construction so we came up with a faster way to get to the bottom and back up again. Make sure your five point harness is still fastened because we’re about to go over the edge.”
While Dad was talking, I noticed a robotic arm holding a cable had swung out from the structure and fastened the cable to the rear of the transport. With a final check that everyone was still fastened in securely, the driver goosed the engine and we plunged over the precipice. Okay, maybe plunged is a little strongly worded for what happened but one minute we were sitting nice and comfortable on level ground and then the next the driver eased us over the edge and we were on a thirty five degree downslope with the five point harnesses being the only thing keeping us in our seats. There had been a couple of squeals from people as we went over the edge.
Dad came back on the microphone and said, “I thought you’d get a kick out of that. The transport is capable of handling this slope just fine by itself, and there’s also a cable now attached to the rear of the vehicle to provide additional stability if we need it.”
Looking behind us, I could see that what they did was very similar to the solution they came up with to get the ice mining gear down to the bottom of Whipple crater. They paved a path straight down the crater wall. Instead of the smooth sintered stone they used on the roads, I could see these stones were finished with a rougher surface to give the bus wheels more grip. Then they established the structure at the top to attach and handle the cable used to stabilize the transport if needed. At the bottom, was a similar structure that handled attaching/releasing the cable. The trip down the slope took about three minutes at a leisurely sixteen kilometers per hour. The trip via the ramp road would have been around 45 minutes with the speed restrictions on the ramp. I could see why Transcor had invested in this new system and was wondering if maybe a little Earththink had gone into the design of the ramp road. The lower lunar gravity made a direct trip up and down the steep slope much more feasible than it would have been on Earth.
Dad was just the guy to pose the question to so I said, “Dad, can the cable system be used for the payloads instead of the ramp road?”
“We have some concerns about trying this with some of the largest payloads, although for the smaller things, we think we’ll be using the cable system instead of the road.”
When we reached the bottom, the transport pulled up to the terminus structure and a robotic arm swung out to remove the cable. The driver then pulled forward and to the right before coming to a stop giving us a view out towards the western expanses of Peary crater. The mottled appearance the crater’s floor had given from the rim of Whipple’s crater now resolved into a gently rolling landscape sprinkled with smaller impact craters. There were dark areas towards the southwest that were permanently shadowed. High along the rim walls there were peaks where the Sun always shown. It was down here on the crater floor that the transport’s drive wheels and flexible design would really prove useful. After giving us several minutes to gawk, the driver pulled the vehicle on further to the right and headed for the smaller airlock entrance that was inset to the crater wall. The transship facility had been buried in the crater wall to provide shielding from the temperature extremes and radiation. To our left, a larger airlock structure was intended to handle payloads and then after a gap there was a similar airlock with the actual accelerator track extending beneath it.
Once we passed through the airlocks, we found ourselves in a vehicle bay that was similar yet far larger than the one back at the habitat. There were at least six other transports similar to the one that brought us plus a couple of larger vehicles that were obviously being used in the construction of the track and exploration work. There was a strong hint of the spent gunpowder smell I associated with lunar dust and I noticed that one of the larger vehicles was getting a wash down to help control the dust.
We all gathered next to the transport and Dad said, “Welcome to the Peary Linear Accelerator Transship Station or PLATS for short. We are in the Vehicle Bay, which can currently hold up to eighteen vehicles, depending on the size. The bay and attached airlocks were formed from a barrel vault built from sintered regolith blocks and then sealed with an aluminum skin. This vault stretches about two hundred meters into the crater wall and in addition to the vehicle parking includes space for vehicle maintenance on the far end.”
It was cool being in the vehicle bay. The high ceiling combined with a bay length over two football fields long gave an impression of openness that you didn’t find back at the Habitat other than the main cafeteria which was far smaller than this.
My dad noticed the enjoyment we were having just being in this big room and said, “I can tell you guys are enjoying the space in here. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the Payload Preparation Room. If you like this room, you’ll love the next one.”
With that, Dad lead us across the room to one of the pass through corridors that connected the two barrel vaults. The view in the Payload Preparation Room took everyones’ breath away. The room was fifty meters wide and the ceiling was at least fifty meters tall. The room stretched off into the crater wall for two hundred meters and, other than a few crates and the overhead cranes was empty.
Miss Gayle summed up everyones’ feeling when she looked at my dad and just said, “Wow.”
We all gawked at the space for a while and then Willie asked my dad a question I had started wondering about myself.
He said, “Mr. Burns, why is this room so big? The payloads the accelerator are going to handle aren’t that big are they?”
Dad looked back at the room for a second and then answered Willie by saying, “Wilie, there’s three reasons we built it big. The first is this is the first transship facility for an accelerator ever built. We have some guesses, but we don’t know for certain how much space we need. Someday, products from here may be shipped all across the solar system. How much room does that take? The second reason we built it big is that real estate is cheap on the Moon. With cheap energy available and autonomous robotic tunnelers it doesn’t cost that much more to make it bigger and we’re not bound by as many stability concerns like NLH is up on the rim, so why not? Finally, this place gives some redundancy to the living spaces at NLH. Should some calamity befall NLH, we could house the entire population here if that was needed.”
Dad led us across the great hall and along the far wall. The space between the Payload Preparation Room and the further Payload Launch Room had been tunneled through with smaller barrel vaults. Nearest the outer wall, was a good sized room that held the launch control room and administrative offices. Following that, was a tunnel for the payloads to pass from one bay to another. The next vault held the computer center and the remaining vaults, except for the last were given over to power storage for the accelerator. The last vault contained a cafeteria and bunk rooms. My dad had used the bunk rooms on several occasions when he’d been working long hours and the new transports hadn’t been running yet.
I noticed Jocelyn was staring at the power storage vaults when she finally asked, “Excuse me Mr. Burns, but is that all the power storage for the accelerator? I would have thought you would need more.”
Dad answered her by saying, “We use a distributed power system with capacitor farms located every ten kilometers along the track to power the actual accelerator. The storage you see here is the feed storage that charges all of the capacitor farms during the charge cycle which currently can take between two days to a week depending on how much sunlight we can harvest. Once the accelerator is operational, we’ll be ramping up our energy collection so that eventually we can recharge twice in a day.”
There were some equipment and lines on the floor near the cafeteria that looked suspiciously like someone had been tinkering around trying to figure out how to play basketball on the Moon. I was just about to walk over and investigate it fu
rther when Willie piped up and said, “Mr. Burns, can we go look at the Launch Room now?”
Willie had been fascinated by Dad’s project from the beginning, so I gave the mysterious equipment one last look and joined the group as Dad led us through the payload pass through tunnel and into the Payload Launch Room. It was another mostly empty, huge room. The most prominent feature were twin metal solid rails that spanned the floor from the airlock door to about half way towards the rear of the chamber. The rails were spaced about 2 meters across and looked to be about twelve centimeters by twenty in rectangular cross section.
As the group gathered around the rails, Dad said, “Here’s the start of the accelerator track. The payloads will be mounted to chassis here and then loaded onto the rails. The chassis have removable skates to let us move them around on this unpowered section of track. When we’re ready to launch, the chassis with payload will be moved thought the airlocks and out onto the powered section of track. There, the chassis will be magnetically levitated and the skates will drop off and be collected. Then it’s just a matter of Launch Control doing some final checks and then initiating the launch sequence.”
“Come on, and I’ll show you the first chassis and payload we intend to launch.”
He led us over by the far wall where a metal contraption sat squatting on the floor. It basically consisted of bright yellow end-caps that had metal skids on the bottom and then a low bulkhead wall. Slung between the front and back bulkheads were some adapter beams that were securely holding a large metal box.
Dad said, “This is a chassis with a load attached. In front and back we have the end caps. On the front of the cap, there’s attachment points for the maneuvering modules. These come in different sizes based on the payload. They’ll be attached once the unit with payload leaves the airlocks. We felt it would be safer to handle the units out in the vacuum rather than risk an incident inside. On the payload side of the cap we have various mounting points to attach a wide variety of payloads. In this case, we’re using a standard six meter shipping container we’ve loaded out to weigh exactly one metric ton. Finally, you’ll notice that on the top, bottom, right, and left of the bulkheads, we had mounting points. These are the same mounting points the CLT-SB use. Once the chassis is in orbit, a CLT-SB will hook up with the chassis and deliver it to the final destination.”