Titans

by Niall Teasdale

  The evening meal was a subdued affair. Everyone was concerned. Everyone was afraid that they might be next, or that they might not. What if they were left alone? What if everyone else died in some horrible manner, and they were the only one left in a big tin can orbiting an icy moon on the outskirts of the solar system?

  ‘Do you have more news on the comms system?’ Mercy asked, more to break the silence than for the information.

  ‘Yes. Not exactly good news, but news,’ Sophia replied. ‘The surge fried one of the main junction boxes for power distribution to the main electronics bays and the breaker at the other end in the engine pod. As best I can tell, the breakers saved the electronics, but they’re all blackened lumps of plastic and metal. I’ll have to cut them out.’

  ‘That was quite a surge,’ Joe said.

  ‘Yes, it was. Here’s the bad part. I have spares, but not enough. One will have to go into the engine pod, otherwise we get no power on the main line up here. Again, we can be thankful that they created a redundant pathway to the auxiliary systems and ran it along the opposite side of the ship. That leaves me with four breakers to fix at this end, but only two available spares.’

  ‘Couldn’t you take power from the backup line to power the main one?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Again, they ran it down the other side of the ship. Getting cable across from one line to the other would be problematic. And I don’t have enough cable rated for that kind of current.’

  ‘Might I suggest that the clever design was not quite as clever as they thought.’

  ‘You might. And in my depressed state, I might not decide to punch you in the face. So, we can have the main computer back, backup comms and sensors, or main comms, or main sensors. Yes, main comms and sensors are on separate circuits. Please don’t say anything, Nick.’

  ‘I shall refrain.’

  ‘Technically,’ Mercy said, ‘we can manage without the main computer. The auxiliary is just as powerful, and it can access main sensors for flight control. I think main comms and sensors would be the best use of what we have.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t argue over it. I don’t think there’s a good solution either way. I could use a mate to help me in the engine room. Nothing too technical. Just a helping hand, really.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Joe said. ‘The basic course is worked out. We’re a little behind for an optimal brachistochrone transfer, but we’re close enough and we have the fuel. I’ve nothing to do until we firm up the departure date.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Mercy said. ‘It can wait for tomorrow to start. I’ll help at this end when you get to it.’

  ‘Looking forward to it,’ Sophia said. And then the silence fell again.

  24th December.

  Theia’s engine room was in zero-G and, just in case, Sophia and Joe were in pressure suits with emergency helmets on hand. Theoretically, there was no risk of depressurisation, but given how things had been going recently, they were taking no chances. Besides, Joe was happy since the pressure suits used for internal work were tight, counterpressure designs and he appreciated Sophia’s figure in hers. And no one had turned up dead overnight. That last part was a major plus.

  ‘Okay,’ Sophia said once they were in front of the panel hiding the breakers. ‘We get this off, chisel out the burned-out breaker, clean up the socket, and fit the new one. Shouldn’t take more than all day.’

  ‘Oh, great,’ Joe replied. He could not quite muster enthusiastic displeasure; an entire day watching Sophia moving around in that suit was not going to be a terrible chore. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Reactionless driver. To start.’

  ‘Okay.’ With his boots magnetically locked to the deck, Joe bent down to open the toolbox he had carried from the forward section. It was gentlemanly to do so and required almost no effort given that most of the trip had been in microgravity. Opening the box, he reached in for the gun-like driver, nudging an adjustable wrench as he did so. It was not much of a push, but the wrench began to float off into the room anyway. Joe ignored it for now and straightened up to hand the driver to Sophia.

  ‘Thanks. Now get the wrench back before it collides with something it shouldn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ As Sophia turned to the task of unbolting the panel, Joe turned to reach for the wrench. Between the lack of gravity and his feet being nailed to the deck, his hand skimmed past it as it sailed further away. ‘Damn,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Stupid piece of…’ He trailed off as he felt an odd tingle in his fingers and saw a blue glow surrounding his gloved hand. A very similar glow formed around the wrench and, on its own, it reversed its flight and sailed into his hand. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Something wrong?’ Sophia asked, not turning around.

  The lightshow was gone. There was no evidence of anything strange happening aside from the fact that he was sure he had missed catching the wrench, and yet it was there, in his hand. He shook his head. ‘No. Nothing. I got the wrench. I am a successful wrench-wrangler.’

  Sophia giggled. Joe could not remember hearing anyone make the slightest of happy sounds since this had all started. Pushing thoughts of delusion or magic aside, Joe turned so that he could watch Sophia work. A day of watching her breasts push against her suit was enough to make any considerations of impending madness a minor issue.

  ~~~

  It did not take a day. Joe got a couple of hours of boob watching before the job was done and it was Mercy’s turn to watch the engineer work. Except that they were both in jumpsuits now. The jumpsuits hugged your figure somewhat, but they did not quite have the same effect as the vacuum suits. Not that Mercy was thinking about that anyway.

  ‘That surge really made a mess,’ Mercy observed as Sophia used a drill to cut away the third of the fried breakers. They were in part of the forward core, once again in zero-G. The breaker box was fitted behind a wall panel in the main corridor, just ahead of the junction leading out to the drum.

  ‘It’s like we got hit by a lightning bolt,’ Sophia replied. ‘I want all of them out in case they’re causing a short. The surge managed to actually melt the contacts. And the heat was enough to denature a thermoset plastic.’

  ‘My chemistry isn’t up to understanding that.’

  ‘Well, neither is mine, but it takes a lot of heat. We got lucky.’

  ‘If we’re considering this lucky, we must be in real trouble.’

  ‘Uh huh.’ Sophia paused to put a bit more pressure on the abrasive drill bit and the breaker popped free, floating away from its socket. ‘This one won’t be so bad. If whatever hit us had struck somewhere in the engine, we could be stuck out here permanently. If it had hit the fuel tanks for Pallas… Well, that stuff’s a bit more than just explosive. It could’ve ripped us apart.’

  ‘There’s a cheery thought.’

  ‘It didn’t happen. One more to go. Uh, still nothing from Earth?’

  ‘Not a peep. Either our signal isn’t being picked up, or we’re not picking up a reply.’

  The work progressed. Mercy was mainly there for company and to make sure that Sophia did not electrocute herself. There was no room for both of them to work on the panel, so Mercy watched while Sophia did her job.

  It took a couple of hours, but Sophia fitted the last of the replacement breakers around the middle of the afternoon. Mercy reached down to close the toolbox and came to a sudden stop. ‘I thought there were only two replacements left,’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Only two.’

  ‘Then why is there a third here?’

  ‘What?’ Sophia turned and looked down. ‘I only put two in there. There were only two to put in there.’ She reached down and plucked the mysterious part out of the box. She looked it over, frowning. ‘It looks real. It looks completed. It’s obviously not one of the damaged ones because–’

  ‘They don’t look like breakers anymore.’

  ‘Right.’ Turning, Sophia slotted the third breaker into place. ‘I’m not sure I want to question this, but this isn’t possib
le. I was just wishing there was another one to get the computer powered up, but I knew there wasn’t. Now there is. I mean, I was thinking I could make one if I had the right tools. I know exactly what’s needed. I could just about draw the plans, if I could draw. I suck at art.’

  ‘Apparently, God heard you.’

  ‘I don’t believe in God. Or miracles.’

  ‘No,’ Mercy said. ‘Neither do I.’

  ~~~

  ‘An experiment,’ Nick said. His voice was calm, even if he did not look especially calm. ‘I want you to focus your mind on that mental schematic of a breaker switch you have in your head. Think of nothing else. Make the image as strong as you can possibly make it.’

  Sophia closed her eyes, a little reluctantly, and did as he asked. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just keep your mind focused on that image. Feel it in your hand. Feel the smooth plastic. Feel the weight.’

  Sophia’s fingers curled. ‘Okay…’

  ‘Don’t try to make it real. Just know that it is–’

  A soft, golden glow appeared around Sophia’s fingers. It swelled, flickered, brightened again, and then vanished. ‘Wow! I’ve never been good at this imagining-things thing, but this feels real.’

  ‘Open your eyes, Sophia,’ Mercy said.

  Sophia opened her eyes. For a second or two, she just stared at the device of plastic and metal in her hand. ‘That isn’t possible.’

  ‘And yet,’ Nick said, ‘it happened.’

  ‘But it’s not possible.’

  ‘Uh…’ Joe said.

  ‘Joe?’ Mercy asked. ‘You have something to add before I declare us all unfit to continue the mission due to mutual insanity?’

  ‘Well, when we were back in the engine room, I almost lost a wrench. I reached for it, missed, a-and then there was a blue glow, and the wrench came back to me.’

  ‘Telekinesis,’ Nick said, shaking his head. His fist slammed into the break room table, making everyone jump. ‘Why can’t I have a superpower?!’

  ‘Damn it, Nick, this is serious,’ Mercy said.

  ‘It certainly is. I want to be able to teleport. That would be great. I’d never be late for another meeting.’

  ‘You’re taking this far too lightly.’

  ‘I’m not, but why do you say that? The laws of physics appear to have been rewritten. Sophia can create objects out of thin air. Joe can move things with his mind. Yes, it’s all insane, but we’ve been frozen in time for almost half a century, we watched plasma form from nothing inside a metal box, we’ve seen people die in ways which should not be physically possible… Why shouldn’t we have gained some form of extraordinary power from what’s happened? How is that stranger than anything else we’ve seen? I’m still annoyed that it hasn’t happened to me.’

  ‘Well, I seem to have missed out too,’ Mercy pointed out. ‘Or we could be late developers. Or I’m having a long, unpleasant dream, and I’ll wake up at some point to find that it’s still twenty-one oh-three.’

  ‘Late developers? I like that.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Well, I guess I should fit this spare we don’t have,’ Sophia said. ‘Then I’ll go down to the engine room and start powering everything up.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mercy said. ‘Take Telekinesis Boy with you. Once we have comms back online, we’ll try sending a louder message to Earth.’

  ‘I am growing increasingly pessimistic about a reply,’ Nick said.

  Mercy sighed. ‘So am I, but we have to keep trying.’

  27th December.

  Everything that could be checked had been checked. Christmas Day had come and gone unnoticed as Theia’s remaining crew did everything they could to be sure that they would make it to Earth if they started.

  There was still nothing from Earth. In fact, a concentrated survey of radio emissions had revealed nothing at all. No broadcasts of any kind could be picked up. They were not worrying about that too much at this point. They were a long way away and their antenna was not designed to pick up Earth-based radio of that kind.

  The main cockpit had six seats and four occupants. There was not really much point in Nick sitting at the communications console, but Mercy had wanted everyone there when they left Titan. She was sitting at the sensor console, Sophia was at engineering, and Joe was, of course, in the pilot’s seat. They were ready. It was time to leave.

  ‘Engine status?’ Mercy asked.

  ‘Everything is green,’ Sophia replied.

  ‘Confirm course settings.’

  ‘Course laid in,’ Joe said.

  ‘Okay. Well, this isn’t how we planned to leave Titan, but… Initiate, please, Joe.’

  Joe tapped a button on his console and… ‘It’s still an anti-climax,’ he said.

  ‘Engine ignition confirmed,’ Sophia said.

  ‘We’re accelerating,’ Mercy said, examining the readouts from the ship’s accelerometers.

  ‘Just not very much,’ Joe said. You could not call Theia slow. With full fuel tanks and no worries about decelerating, she could attain over four million kilometres per hour. Her zero-to-sixty figure was, however, pitiful. She managed less than five centimetres per second per second, so sixty miles per hour would be reached in about thirty-three minutes. A sports car she was not, but she had awesome mileage.

  ‘We’ll watch things for half an hour, just to be sure,’ Mercy said, ‘then the computer can take over.’

  ‘What’s our ETA?’ Nick asked.

  ‘We should arrive around the twenty-fourth of April,’ Joe replied. ‘We’ll definitely be in orbit on the twenty-fifth.’

  ‘And then we find out what we’re going home to.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mercy said. ‘Then we’ll know.’

  Part Two: The Broken World

  Exploration Vessel Theia, Earth Orbit, 25th April 2152.

  ‘Kessler syndrome,’ Joe said, looking at the radar display. ‘It has to be. There are basically no satellites in low orbit, but there is a lot of junk.’

  ‘There are no satellites functioning at all,’ Nick observed.

  ‘That is also true, but there was a catastrophic breakup in LEO which has resulted in that debris field. I guess the wave made a mess in orbit at least. Aiming for a higher orbit was probably a good move.’

  ‘Not unexpected,’ Mercy said. ‘Considering what happened to us, I was expecting some bad reactions in space here. If we’re going down, it’s unlikely that that field will pose a substantial risk to Pallas. What’s worrying me more is that I still can’t raise anyone down there.’

  ‘And it’s very dark,’ Nick added. ‘Fifty years, and there are very few lights showing on the night side. Before we left, it was hard to find a part of the planet not showing lights at night.’

  It was true. From several thousand kilometres out, Earth looked much as it had, except that the dark side was dark. In the sunlight, the world was a patchwork of blue, green, and grey. There were still cities down there, and forests and oceans. The same was presumably true on the night side, but the lights which should have been illuminating the cities were not visible.

  ‘Are you getting any radio signals?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘I’m seeing signs of something going on, but it’s all low-amplitude stuff.’

  ‘So, there is someone down there.’

  ‘Unless I’m just picking up automated signals. We’re going to do a survey. We have the equipment to map Titan, so we should be able to do a reasonable job of finding out what’s what down there.’

  ‘Rather more easily,’ Nick said. ‘Titan’s atmosphere makes visual analysis of the terrain impossible. We should be able to get excellent visual evidence even from here.’

  ‘Cloud cover allowing, yes. Joe, put us in a polar orbit. We’ll scan as much ground as we can today and see what we’ve got in the morning.’

  ‘In the morning?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I have a bad feeling. I’d rather put off finding out how screwed we are for as long as possible.’ />
  26th April.

  ‘And the results are?’ Nick asked. He was standing over Mercy who was sitting at the sensor console staring at the data collected since they had arrived in Earth orbit.

  ‘They’re… kind of weird,’ Mercy replied. ‘And bad. They’re kind of bad.’

  ‘That’s both not encouraging and not useful.’

  ‘Yes, well… We got some radio noise. Not much of it had the power to make it intelligible and it was all amplitude modulated, which makes it harder. We did get this.’ Mercy tapped some keys and static came out of the bridge’s speakers.

  ‘… three-delta check… to report… acknowledge three…’ The words were barely audible and interspersed with more white noise.

  ‘It sounds like a patrol checking in,’ Mercy said.

  ‘Isn’t that good?’ Sophia asked. ‘If someone’s patrolling… I mean, the police are still operating, right?’

  ‘Police and military radios don’t use amplitude modulation,’ Joe said. ‘Someone is patrolling, but it’s unlikely to be the police.’

  ‘Unless AM broadcast is all they have available,’ Nick said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Mercy agreed. ‘That suggests things down there are pretty messed up. AM radio is easy to make more or less from scratch. Digital is not. As far as lights showing, well, there were some in New York.’ She pushed an image to the main screen. ‘It’s not exactly the New York we’re used to.’ The image showed mostly black, but there were patches of light. It was essentially impossible to tell that it was New York City unless you already knew it was that area.

  ‘Individual buildings or neighbourhoods have lights,’ Nick said. ‘No streetlights, just the areas around some buildings.’

  ‘There are a few other areas that look similar. Moscow has a few patches. London.’

  ‘Paris?’ Joe asked.

  ‘No,’ Mercy replied, ‘but then we got this image in daylight.’ The black New York view was replaced by a daylight one which showed what looked a lot like an impact crater surrounded by ruins. ‘There are a few of these scattered over Europe and North Africa. I think that wave dragged some big rocks through with it.’