by Ginger Booth
20
The Pono moon colonies of Mahina and Sagamore started out with similar advantages and disadvantages.
“Time to talk to Gossamer, I think,” Sass declared to Abel and Benjy in the bridge. They’d just finished maneuvers to place them on the track the other skyship advised for rendezvous. With all their dodging and random acceleration shifts, they needed to recalibrate the navigation.
Captain Lavelle responded on video, once their tight-beam located his ship amongst the rings, in which they were no longer resident. That felt strangely liberating to Sass. For over 60 years, she’d lived in those rings just as much as the moons and the damn rocks that just hit her ship.
“Captain Collier! Good to meet you at last!” Lavelle said heartily. “Text messages are so limiting.” He eyed her shape in its pressure suit, but not in an insulting way. Merely a mild flirt. He was a good-looking middle-aged man, fit and swarthy, a touch of silver gilt in his hair.
Sass missed that on Mahina. So few men there, or on the orbital, looked hale and hearty at the prime of life. “And you, Captain Lavelle. Call me Sass.”
“Pierre,” he reciprocated. “I guess you want a course correction.” He keyed that in and provided the numbers. Abel applied them. “I see you’re still suited up. No problems, I trust?”
“We hit too many rocks at once on the way out,” Sass confessed. “My chief engineer is impressing the hell out of me. I’m eager to hear your tricks to avoiding this problem in the future.”
“Yeah, that’ll ruin your day,” Lavelle returned, scratching his ear. “Any of them iron?”
“That’s the working theory.”
Lavelle nodded, eyes dancing. “Tell your gunner to prioritize iron. Smaller diameter is still a big threat.”
“I should have thought of that.”
He shrugged. “Live and learn. And you lived!” He laughed. “Well done.”
Sass nodded acknowledgment. “We were wondering. Does Hell’s Bells have an automated gun interdiction, like Mahina Orbital? We can’t deal with the holing threat 24/7.”
Lavelle nodded emphatically, then shrugged. “No, but we’ve got you covered. Give us a call when you’re two hours out. I’ll move the Gossamer off from Hell’s Bells, and insert you between us. Then we’ll teach your guns to cooperate with ours. And we’ve got a big old asteroid to our back. You’ll be safe.” He smiled saucily again. “From the rocks. Any more pretty ladies?”
“A few. Not all in the market for companionship. Though I might be.” Only fair to flirt back.
He grinned. “Look forward to meeting you. Lavelle out.”
“Space pirate, Ingersoll called him,” Abel commented.
Benjy was still fidgeting with sensor settings. “Womanizer, for sure. That was smart about the iron rocks, though.”
“I think he’s kinda cute.”
“Clay, tell me some good news,” Copeland begged over the intercom, still gazing sadly at the crack where deck met bulkhead.
“I was kind of hoping for your help. Doesn’t sound like I’m going to get it. Seitz, could you –?”
“Seitz, stay put,” Copeland ordered. “Clay, he’d need to rig an airlock to get out of the engine room. Or kill the garden.”
“Whoops.”
“Clay, have you ever pulled decking?”
“No, sorry. I’ve seen it done, though.”
“Close enough. Come to my cabin. Griffith, you stay there.”
Copeland clambered off the floor. He grabbed a handful of bedding and debris and mercilessly piled it onto his own lower bunk. His own array of tools, equipment, and spare parts lived there in meticulous order. The visual chaos was due to no two objects having the same size, shape, color, texture, or even thematically related. Benjy’s chaotic day bedding, toys, and schoolwork could neither improve nor degrade its appearance.
Cortez chipped in, and within seconds Copeland yanked the spring lock, slapped the fold-down bed up against the wall, and locked it again. “Stand over there.” He pulled a utility blade to tease up a bit of gasket between the plates, there to make sure dust got swept up instead of sifting into the engineering space.
“Copeland?” Clay said. “There’s a puddle down here. Dripping from near your room.”
“Not directly under Benjy’s bed?”
“Eli’s workroom.”
Copeland quickly double-checked. Eli’s cabins held pressure, two rooms plus the bathroom between. “Good catch. Come on up.”
“Is there anything I’m supposed to be doing over here?” Griffith whined.
Wilder barked at him so Copeland didn’t have to. “Yeah, keep quiet until Copeland can get to you.” The two men happily traded insults. Copeland tuned them out, and taught Cortez to peel gasket strips.
Clay arrived and hung on the door. In pressure suits, the three took up enough room for five people, rather more than the small chamber could comfortably fit.
“Swap out.” Copeland directed Cortez into the bathroom, and Clay into the cabin. “This isn’t hard, just faster with two.” He pulled two hefty S-hooks from his belt tool pouch, and passed one to Clay. He also extracted another utility grav generator on a suction cup, set it to minus 1 to cancel out the ship grav, and stuck it in the middle of the floor plate closer to Eli’s lab. “Like this.” He demonstrated how to snag the corner of the 2-meter-square steel floor plate with the S-hook. Pivoting on the far edge, they pulled it up, then Clay shifted it onto the catwalk.
“How’s it coming, Copeland?” Sass inquired.
“Wilder,” Copeland ordered. Sergeant chatterbox was on a roll fielding the engineer’s communication chores. Copeland tuned them out, set his grav to a quarter, and did a one-arm push-up along the thin rim of floor next to Eli’s wall, holding out his gaslight with the other hand.
Of course the hole was under the other deck plate. He pointed. “Pull that plate solo, if you could, Clay.” The engineer found another contortion, something like a yoga downward dog posture, hips in the air, to give him vantage under Eli’s workroom, then cast around with a flashlight. No luck finding the leak. Stepping gingerly down onto the struts below the pipes and ducts within the between-decks, he crouched inside the deck to look again. Nifty. “Well, at least it’s a slow leak. Two meters out of reach though.”
“You found the hole?” Clay asked.
“I found the drip,” Copeland corrected. “The hole in the hull is under that plate you’re pulling.”
Clay got the floor up. Copeland kept that plate in the room to lie on, set askew. Cortez gummed up a patch plate for him while he did the honors repairing a square-ish hole behind an air duct. Damage to the duct itself was that rare opportunity to use duct tape as its name implied.
Copeland hung his helmet on his extended left arm, propping him against the bulkhead.
“Copeland?” Clay asked. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah. There is no path from this hole to that drip. Dammit.”
“Ricochet,” Cortez suggested.
Clay was more of a thinker. “Question. If this cabin is pressurized, and Eli’s cabin, the floor must be pressurized. How could water drip to the hold?”
Copeland hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. “Thanks for cheering me up there, Clay.” He scrabbled around and stuck a flashlight along the path the projectile seemed to have taken from hull through ductwork. “What glorious fun. The leak is under the bathroom.” He sat up with a huff and sized up Cortez, who wriggled under his regard. “I can’t fit under there in a pressure suit. That’s gonna have to wait.”
“Shall we pull up the floor for you?”
“Nah, there’s a room-sized drip pan under the showers. Pull the floor to either side of it, though, close as you can get. I’ll go forward and find that other hole in the hull. Griffith? Headed your way.”
Copeland made it halfway down the ladder into the hold before it hit him. “Dammit, it’s subliming. Seitz! What are our water levels?”
“Water? We were full – Oh. Down a quarte
r. That’s a fast leak.”
“Yeah, and it’s escaping into space!” Copeland hung torn on the stairs a moment. Hull integrity was still top priority. Even if it was falling out of the pipes, at least he’d keep the water if it didn’t fly out the hole in the hull. He resumed trotting down the ladder. Jogging across the cargo floor, he spotted a fist-sized rock, and scooped it up. The heft and hue certainly looked mostly-iron. Its size suggested a big obvious hole. And Clay was smart. So why…?
He popped smoke, a mustard yellow this time. It dissipated fast, as the size of the rock would suggest. The billows drew through the forward bulkhead, right about mid-decks, the level of the catwalk.
Air vent. The duct cover was missing on the air vent. The hard-boiled mechanic wanted to sit down and cry. That sucker must have gone straight through the main fan, at just about the worst location in the ship to get at.
Copeland switched to the command channel. “Cap, got a minute?”
“For you, always. How can I help?”
“Biggest rock blew through the forward fan. We’re losing water out the hole, a quarter of our tanks already. Wilder’s people can’t walk walls. Fix the pipes first, or plug the hole?”
“Stay on the hole,” Sass advised. “Eli can help Clay on the leak. Anyone in hydroponics knows pipes. Kassidy can walk walls with you. And Copeland? I’ve never been so grateful that my engineer is a fantastic mechanic. Keep up the good work.”
“Thanks. Don’t hit any more rocks.”
Sass laughed. “That’s affirm.”
Kassidy was in her pressure suit, out of her cabin, and by his side within minutes. Griffiths stood below to tote away debris as the two flies on the wall dismantled the duct work and main fan and handed stuff down to him. Once the main fan – complete wreckage – was out of the way, Copeland finally had access to the largest hole in the hull, and plugged it. A brief pressure test failed. With the giant hole out of the way, he found two more pinholes nearby. The fist-sized rock must have splintered on impact.
Copeland monitored with half an ear, and gave suggestions as needed. But Eli seemed to make the right calls under the berthing shower. Cortez crawled between decks, her bulky air tank replaced by an air line Eli cobbled together for her. Wilder applied his gift of gab to keep lonely Jules entertained. She talked him through supper preparations. They’d have a great dinner waiting for the crew when pressure was restored at last.
He’d need the energy to finish fixing all this.
21
So why then did Mahina rise to prominence and Sagamore forever remain a poor relation?
Copeland arrived last to the galley for supper, served a mere two hours late this evening. He leaned tiredly into the door frame and dumped his pressure suit in the ungainly pile on the floor. Everyone was keeping life support close at hand for now.
Sass spotted him and rose with a toast. “The man of the hour! Get him a glass of wine!”
Eli and Clay rose to escort him to the table. He begged off wine in favor of water. He had plenty of work left to do. “All in that’s coming in?”
Sass replied, “Benjy’s on watch on the bridge. Seitz?” No sooner did she say his name than the MO engineering tech trailed in sheepishly to deposit his helmet and suit. The captain nodded a welcome smile to him. “We were about to toast a job well done! Thank you to everyone for pitching in. And especially to our chief engineer and mechanic extraordinaire, John Copeland!”
“Hear, hear!” The crew drank the toast and banged the table in applause.
Copeland was already wolfing down food.
The captain offered, “Need me to pitch in after dinner, Copeland?”
“No, ma’am. Sar. This’ll take days. But Seitz and I’ve got it from here. Limiting factor is fabricating the parts. Computer, seal galley. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Sass assured him, as the door closed and a slight hiss announced the pressure seal engaging. “Don’t hesitate to ask for help. From anybody.”
“Will do. And another toast,” Copeland proposed. “To a great crew. This could have been a disaster. I thank you for level heads and willing hands. Eli, Clay, brilliant work on the plumbing. Kassidy, I swear you’re made of rubber. But watch out, Cortez is coming up on you for agility! Jules, fantastic feed using Wilder as your hands. Wilder, we finally found a good use for your mouth, huh? Well done. And Seitz? Quit feeling guilty about being stuck in the engine room. I put you there because it’s the most critical spot. How could I risk the guy who’s going to run the fabricators for days? The captain and brilliant bridge crew, too. To all of us! ”
That toast got even wilder applause.
Sass let everyone subside into happy over-eating for a few minutes. They were all famished from the stress of the day and the late meal. “What’s the damage, John? Bottom line.” Copeland hated his first name. She didn’t use it often, only to soften an exchange, put them on an equal footing.
He waited to swallow a generous mouthful, then said, “Computer, display tank levels.” A bright column chart lit up the large wall display they usually defaulted to the camera view from the bow. Copeland shook his head. “Lost a quarter of our water before I realized a little drip meant a hell of a lot of water sublimed. Sorry, cap.”
She shook her head slightly. “Too many things coming at you at once.”
“You were right about that. When I’m overwhelmed, asking for your decision works a treat.”
“You would’ve made the same call,” she assured him. “You were just too close to it and harried at the time. You had extra hands, yet everything seemed to need you personally all at once. But no one else could disassemble the ventilation system under pressure and fix that hole. You did great.”
“Are we OK with only a third of the water?” Abel asked.
“Not dying, not thriving,” Copeland replied. “That much is gonna hurt. Not the safety margins I’d like. We can crack water for oxygen. So, not obvious, but that’s our oxygen reserves, too.”
Sass gave a swooping nod. She’d forgotten that wrinkle. “We’ll have to buy it from Hell’s Bells. With something.”
Copeland offered, “Worse comes to worst, we can collect water ourselves. Like 98% of these rocks we’re dodging are water.”
“That doesn’t sound safe,” Abel argued.
“Hell, no,” Copeland agreed. “Just saying for bargaining purposes. If they ask a ridiculous price, laugh at ’em. Hell’s Bells probably throws away a thousand times this much water per day as mining dross.”
“Aha!” Abel exulted. “Good to know.”
Sass smiled at them both. “I’m proud of you today. All of you. Benjy too. The accident wasn’t his fault, just bad luck. And Clay, I’m finally available to help with that data analysis. Granted, I’ll be sitting watch in the bridge 8 hours a day. But you’re welcome to join me.”
In many ways, after that dramatic beginning, the trip from MO to Hell’s Bells was the happiest time the Thrive crew ever had together. Christened by fire, their camaraderie was strong. Everyone pitched in to get the work done, and appreciated each other like never before.
Jules tuned the galley view screen to show a breathtaking panorama of the rings spreading out as though they drove a glittering highway leading to a magical realm behind the stunning swirling ball of the gas giant Pono. Sometimes moons drifted into view. Some weren’t even named.
That first night the trio of guards volunteered to sleep in the auto-doc and draped along the slide, to give Copeland and Seitz more room to work on the reconstructed bathroom. Cabin doors hung open while ventilation was offline. Sass’s cabin and the galley provided spare latrines for the dispossessed. Plumbing restored and berthing put to rights, the engineering crew took a well-deserved long sleep before rebuilding the ventilation system.
The cargo hold got wet. Copeland had a wet vacuum for that. So long as it didn’t sublime out into space, all water went safely back into circulation. A dozen people couldn’t all shower at the same time, but t
hat was hardly roughing it.
Sergeant Wilder came up with rules for a good game of switching channels on the comms, until even Copeland could reliably get the right channel while his mind was three kilometers deep in a technical challenge while directing a handful of helpers. Eli shared the same problem. They were both too damned good at concentrating.
Wilder found a new vocation after serving as Jules’ waldos to prepare supper. To Jules’ amusement, not one of the urbs on board knew how to cook. They were creche-raised, never lived with their families, always fed by cafeterias and restaurants. As kitchen help, Griffith and Cortez soon developed a morbid fear of onions, and jumped to wash any toilet, floor or laundry – anything but chop vegetables. But Wilder and Jules grew close.
Cortez proved to have a flair for video editing, and became friends with Kassidy. Nobody greatly liked Griffith, but no one minded him either. He was happy as a clam in the hold pumping iron. Seitz was anxious to a fault, and worried about everything. But even he gradually relaxed a bit in constant companionship with Copeland’s easy-going manner.
Copeland adored his Ganymede engineer’s journal and listened to it rapt while he worked long hours. Soon everyone hit up Clay for their own personalized selection of Ganny diary to listen to. The romantic allure of those strangely altruistic midwives of the Mahina colony colored their days and gave them plenty to talk about.
22
Did the Ganymedes favor Mahina with more of a technology assist than Sagamore?
Sass sat sideways in the pilot seat, staring blankly out at the ribbon of ring curving to Pono beneath her. She listened to the journal of a nanite tech on the medical team.
She chose this one for its dates, starting in Ganymede orbit and including the pickup in the Adirondacks.
Shauntay was born only a year before Sass, and barely 50 miles away, in Springfield Massachusetts. Brilliantly gifted, she was selected early for MIT, relocated to Vermont, then selected at 18 for the third wave of settlers for Ganymede while Sass struggled to make ends meet as a new mom. This was before the star drive was invented, so the girl was 21 by the time she arrived on Ganymede. That three years shrank to only five months or so for the trip back to Earth.
