“I’m only asking because then I wouldn’t be needed here as a doctor,” Jonathan said. “I could pass my patient onto you and fly over to LISA, too.”
“I don’t need a doctor anymore,” Atiya said.
“We should still monitor your kidneys for a while longer,” Jonathan said.
“I could do that,” Michael said.
“I’ve got nothing against a little recuperation time under constant gravity,” François said. “So, someone could use my cabin too.”
“ARES isn’t going anywhere without me,” Judith said. “It’s my baby.”
“And I’d like to go along due to my interest in astronomy,” Giordano said.
“Astronomy? Isn’t this about the Earth?”
“I guess we’ll see, Mike. Maybe we’ll hear something from the Earth, but we might pick up signals from the merging of black holes or collisions between neutron stars.”
March 10, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Judith? Something important has occurred to me.”
“Yes, Yue?”
She liked the young woman. She must only be around 30. She must’ve been outstanding to make it onto the moon mission at that age. The Chinese space agency was known for its complicated selection methods. For a long time, only military personnel had been chosen, but exceptional talents from the civil sector had finally started to have a chance now too. Yue didn’t make a fuss about any of that, though. She simply did her job, thoughtfully and diligently.
“It’s about LISA.”
Judith’s cheeks turned red. “Lisa? You heard something from her?”
Yue looked at her in confusion. “Lisa? I...”
Of course. She slapped her palm against her forehead. “Excuse me, Yue. My mind was somewhere completely different. My wife’s name is Lisa.”
“Your... wife?”
“Yes, we have two sons. I haven’t heard anything from them since...” The corners of her eyes filled with tears.
Yue placed her hand gently on her shoulder. “That must be hard. I guess I’m lucky in that regard. I don’t have any kids, and my parents died when I was young. I grew up in a foster home and always pushed myself very hard to get away from there.”
“Looks like you succeeded.”
“Better than most. What are your sons’ names?”
Judith was very grateful that Yue didn’t mention her sons using the past tense. “Max and Peter. They’re... precious, but sometimes tiring, like all children can be. I wanted...”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Yue gave her a hug, which felt good. She hadn’t had a hug since the start of the mission. Physical contact had not been an option when she was the only woman on board. It could too easily have been misunderstood.
No, François was very physical. He hugged everyone. Maybe he was gay. But that was another stereotype. She should have talked with the others more, not just about work but also some honest conversations. Maybe they could have figured out why Michael was the way he was.
The thoughts distracted her. Judith broke away from the hug and wiped her nose. “Thanks, Yue. What did you want to tell me about the gravitational wave detector?”
“Only two satellites were launched. The third was supposed to follow in mid-2035.”
“So, it’s useless to us?”
“Not quite. The three satellites are supposed to form a right triangle. The most important is the detector at the vertex of the right angle, and it was already successfully installed. The two other vertices of the triangle only require precisely aligned reflectors. One of those is already in orbit. The second one is missing.”
“Understood. So, we need an additional mirror. Could we use the shell? Isn’t it a perfect reflector?”
“The mirror must be aligned exactly so that an incoming laser beam is bounced back to the transceiver. We can’t use the shell for that.”
“Could we build something?”
“We don’t need to. We have mirrors just like what we need in storage for the laser link.”
“So, what’s the problem, Yue?”
“We need the laser link for power so we can expand the base. We don’t expect any more fresh supplies from Earth.”
“Well, we don’t have anything like that on the ARES, if that’s what you were wondering. The dusty Mars atmosphere would make optical energy transmission too inefficient.”
“So, you need to convince Maxim that we need one of the mirrors.”
“Okay... And then?”
“Then we land on the shell and mount it there.”
“What? Why there? Wouldn’t that be impractical? The shell is rotating with the Earth, and the mirror would have to be constantly realigned?”
“The mirror can do that itself. But then we’d know its exact position in space. If we just put it somewhere in space, its path could change unpredictably. Or do you have an extra propulsion system?”
“Unfortunately, no. Okay then, good thinking, Yue, I’ll get you a mirror. Then we’ll start off for the shell the day after tomorrow. It will be very interesting to land on it.”
March 12, 2035 – Mars Ship ARES
The ARES was huge. The largest spaceship that Yue had ever traveled on before had been no larger than the Mars ship’s landing capsule. The space station that her homeland had built as something of a successor to the ISS had already been mothballed four years before she’d even made her first trip into space. She had completed test flights in the Tianhe module, a Dragon, and an Orion, but she’d never even seen an interplanetary spaceship up close before.
Judith showed her around. The American had quickly become something like a wiser, older female friend to her. She was everything that Yue would have liked to be—kind, but firm. She said what she thought, without hurting people. In contrast, Yue was often scared of upsetting everyone else by expressing her own opinions or desires.
It was a wonder that her work as the moon base’s administrator was going so smoothly. It was probably because the crew fit together so well. On the other hand, Michael, the ARES doctor, would’ve proven very difficult for her to deal with. All the better that he had preferred to stay on the moon and allow Jonathan to go along with her.
They passed through the lab and workshop and reached a series of storage rooms.
“This is just what we have to store under pressure and temperature control,” Judith explained. “Ninety percent of our supplies are outside in containers.”
“This ship is gigantic. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“You never went on the Chinese Mars ship?” Judith asked.
“That was my big dream, but I wasn’t good enough. I went on my first launch only after it had already departed.”
“Fortunate for us,” Judith said. “Otherwise, we never would have met.”
“Sometimes I think to myself that maybe just their communications have been disrupted, and that my four countrymen are still on Mars waiting to be rescued.”
“The images from the ExoMars probe very clearly show debris.”
“I know,” Yue said. “It’s just a hope. Just like I also hope that your wife is still alive, and Jonathan’s family too.”
“That’s kind of you. Now we should get back to the command center. I’m sure Giordano and Jonathan are waiting for us.”
Yue had an awful feeling in the pit of her stomach as she watched the moon grow smaller and smaller on the screen. The celestial body still looked gray and hostile to life, but it had become her home. She had even contributed to expanding it so that humans could live there. And that put the moon in a very exclusive position at the moment because Earth, which was half-lit by the sun from their current vantage point, no longer appeared to be habitable, and Mars, where the ARES was supposed to be headed, was not habitable yet.
But they would return. They only needed to land on the rotating shell and complete the gravitational wave detector. It was all very simple. The Europeans hadn’t done anything like it in more than 15 years, but it should al
l be done and completed in a few weeks. Yue smiled. She believed everything would work out, as unlikely as it all sounded. The force of the main engine pressed her deeper into her seat. Jonathan extended his hand toward her from a neighboring seat. She took hold of his fingers, which were warm and dry.
March 20, 2035 – Mars Ship ARES
The ship set down hard on the surface. Judith was happy that the computer had taken over the landing. She had watched it out of sheer curiosity. It had been about as easy as trying to thread a needle while riding on a swing carousel, plus having your seat spinning at the same time because someone next to you had wound it up before the ride started. If the ship had slowed down too much, they would have crashed. If they came in too fast, they would have bounced off to the side. But the ship’s landing algorithm had handled it all much better than she ever could have. It had repeatedly tested minimal changes in defined directions, learned from those tests, and then it had continued—or changed—its actions.
For the passengers, however, the process had been very stressful. They had been trapped in a confined space while the capsule lurched around like a robotic vacuum cleaner gone crazy. It smelled like vomit, but no one said anything. There was the sound of a bag rustling. The noise came from Yue’s direction, diagonally behind her. Judith bumped the ventilation system up a notch to get rid of the acrid smell. Her stomach felt very heavy, but she’d made it through without becoming nauseous.
She felt cold air on her right shoulder, causing her to pull her uniform jacket up a bit higher against her neck. The ventilation system was working very efficiently. Soon, the characteristic odor of machine oil and ozone spread throughout the command center again.
“So, everyone, take another deep breath, then Giordano and I will go outside. Do you have some numbers for me, Giordi?”
Giordano’s duty had been to monitor the external sensors. “Air pressure is minimal,” he said. “So, you better start the regular pre-EVA exercise routine.”
That was to be expected. At an altitude of 120 kilometers, the Earth’s atmosphere was already extremely thin.
“The temperature reading’s a bit meaningless, but I’ve got something for the surface. 120 degrees.”
That was also not very surprising. There must be friction between the shell and the thin atmosphere, as well as with the solar wind. So, they hadn’t expected the barrier to be cold. Their boots were rated up to 500 degrees, even to 800 for short periods of time.
“Do you have a spectral analysis?” Judith asked.
“Pure reflection plus some thermal radiation. Nothing about the material that makes up that thing,” Giordano replied.
“Pack a couple of sample collectors with our gear. Anything else?”
“The radiation load is not insignificant. Apparently, the Earth’s magnetic field is sticking tight to the shell, and the solar wind is following it. We shouldn’t stay outside for too long.”
“Could that cause something serious?”
“I don’t expect any immediate harm... You’re just increasing your risk of developing cancer, Judith.”
“I can live with that. I’ll start with the exercising. Yue and Jonathan, you should prepare the reflector while we get ready.”
Night came before Judith had ended her exercises. That was exactly how they had planned it, so that reflections off the shell wouldn’t blind them. Judith climbed down the short ladder and was standing on what looked like a movie set. In front of her and to the left and right, the surface appeared to extend to infinity. The moon was shining in the night sky above her and illuminating the stark scenery. The horizon looked far, far away. It formed an abnormally straight line that reinforced the impression of an artificial scene. What movie was being filmed here?
She scraped the surface with her foot. It was smooth, not like ice, but something like plastic. She stepped away from the ship. All she could hear were her breathing and the life-support system. She imagined her steps would make a hollow, dull, reverberating sound. Below her was a 120-kilometer-thick layer of air, with Lisa waiting on the ground for her return. Judith squatted and then went down on one knee. She wanted to put her ear against the surface. Maybe she could hear Lisa’s voice among the billions of souls down there hoping for rescue.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Giordano said via radio. “Our helmets’ material is much more sensitive to heat than our suits.”
Of course! He was right, and she stood up. She needed to be sensible. She had a task to complete. “Have you taken some samples, Giordi?”
“Already done. I took two close to the ship, and two farther away.”
“It looks very uniform all around,” she said, “I doubt we’ll get anything different if you take any more from a different position.”
“Well, we’ll only know that afterward.”
Giordano was clearly the scientist here. He sometimes came across to her as a good handyman, because he was always trying to fix and improve everything. She opened her tool bag on her belt and took out a hand drill. Then she squatted down and tried to drill a hole. The drill bit could not penetrate the shell. It must have an enormously high hardness.
One time she thought that she’d finally overcome the resistance, but when she lifted the drill, she couldn’t see any marks or damage. “I think we can set up the reflector now,” she said.
Giordano didn’t answer. He was walking away from the landing capsule in an eastward direction. He took out a tool, squatted down, and slid it back and forth on the surface.
“What are you doing?” Judith asked.
“Just a small measurement.”
She heard him humming a cheery melody. Apparently, the results were promising. “What were you measuring?”
“How the surface conducts sound. Walk around a bit, will you?”
“You’re measuring the sound of my steps?”
“Yes, you’re making the surface vibrate, and I can record the vibrations.”
“And what will that tell us?”
“How deeply the sound penetrates the material. And a minimum thickness for the shell.”
“That’s smart,” Judith said.
“Thanks. You can get the reflector from the airlock now.”
“On my way.”
They set up the reflector about 500 meters away from the landing capsule so that it wouldn’t be accidentally knocked out of alignment when they took off. The device was remarkably simple. It searched the skies for a signal from the LISA satellite and then constantly readjusted its mirror to point back at the satellite. Because the satellite’s position, which was placed at one of the Lagrangian points, and the reflector’s position were known, the distance that the laser beam had to travel could be calculated. Now, if a gravitational wave changed this distance, the satellite could detect it.
“Just a second... let me put some tape down first,” Giordano said.
“Adhesive tape?”
“Two-sided tape. It can be used anywhere. It’ll prevent the reflector from sliding around.”
“Why should it slide?”
“Never can be too careful, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Okay, then.”
Judith watched Giordano as he carefully affixed one side of the tape to the surface. “How is that even holding, with the surface being so smooth?”
“Adhesive power. Not even aliens can prevent that. Physics is the same for everyone.”
That was a reassuring thought. Together they lifted the reflector onto the adhesive surface. Then Giordano gave it a good push. “See? It’s holding perfectly.”
Judith bent down and switched on the reflector. It had a solar panel so it could charge its battery when there was sunlight. That way, it could operate for years without any external intervention. He hoped they wouldn’t need that long to receive some answers.
“Now all we have to do is activate LISA,” she said.
“Look at this,” Giordano called from the command center of the landing module.
Judith turned around. She was working on their launch preparations. “Can’t it wait?”
“It won’t take long, but you need to see this for yourself,” Giordano answered.
At the moment, Jonathan was bent over the microscope that Giordano had set up. Judith stood and walked across to him. Next to him was one of the sample containers that Giordano had filled from the shell’s surface. It was made of glass.
She lifted it and examined it. “Empty,” she said.
“Not entirely,” Giordano countered.
“This is crazy,” Jonathan said and made room for her.
The two had piqued her interest! She covered her left eye so that she could see better through the eyepiece. At first, all she saw was an empty, white wall.
“You’ve got to look at the edges. The thing seems to be constantly trying to get away,” Giordano said.
The thing? She concentrated at the edges of the slide. And there it was. It was... a flea? No, it rotated and rolled through her field of view. It was some kind of tiny machine, approximately spherical, with no apparent outer shell. Countless tiny tentacles appeared to extend outward in all directions from its core. It seemed to use the tentacles to move around. But where did it get its energy? And what was it made of?
“That is... crazy, really crazy. Have either of you ever seen anything like that before?”
“I assumed it was some kind of nanomachine. Those were being developed on Earth, although nothing nearly as advanced as that. It seems to be made from the same alloy as the shell, but I haven’t determined the alloy’s components yet. It must consist of at least one substance that doesn’t exist in our periodic chart.”
“A super-heavy metal?” she asked.
“Apparently there are still ‘islands of stability’ that our physicists haven’t yet found.”
“So, what is this thing doing here?”
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 16