Isaac looks up. “Maybe there’s ice in the system they can mine. Low-gee moon or belt object.”
“Needs to be refined to a specific concentration of deuterium and tritium,” Hitoshi replies. “They said they chose Sao because the ocean content is right.”
Isaac thinks. “How about speeding up the technetium decay rate? Molecular caging can accelerate decay.”
“Yup. Sorry to be the raincloud here, but even if we could print up and build everything, best case increase is three percent. We’d need to speed it up at least twenty-seven percent to meet the deadline.”
“Oh. That’s impossible. Breaks physics.”
“Right.”
James says, “Can they bring their ship down to the surface?”
“We asked,” Lin says. “They said it’s too massive to jump into a gravity well without coupled jump points. It’s not designed for atmospheric entry and won’t survive a descent.” Lin pauses. “So, I’m thinking we should focus on how to get the ice up off the surface.”
James motions towards the screen. “Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”
“Right,” Hitoshi says, pointing at the diagram of the ice block. “We’ve got twelve ice blocks and slats massing two hundred and forty-three million kilos.”
“If we just bring one at a time,” Lin says, “that’s just under twenty million kilos.”
“What’s the launch thrust needed to get twenty million kilos into orbit?” James says.
Lin taps her panel. “Depends on the launch vehicle configuration. Air resistance will factor into it, but at least twenty-four meganewtons.”
“How much thrust can one of their Stars produce?” James says.
Lin squints thoughtfully. “You know, we haven’t asked them that yet.”
“Well, when they were chasing us over Janus, we were winning,” Hitoshi says. “So I can guess it’s ten to twenty kilonewtons. That means you’d need a couple of thousand stars to lift one ice block.”
James quirks his head. “Do they have a couple of thousand Stars?”
Hitoshi shrugs. “I dunno. We’ll add it to the questions list.”
“What’s Promise’s lift capacity?”
“You know one of these ice blocks is a quarter-kilometer long, right?”
“Indulge me.”
“Fourteen-point-eight meganewtons. Going to need a couple more engines.”
James scratches his chin.
“How much does the Star ship drink per day?” Isaac says.
Lin says, “You and I are on the same wavelength, Isaac.”
Isaac nods. “Don’t need to give them a full tank. Just enough to get them to the ring repair time, right? Smaller ice block will be lighter.”
Lin looks over at James. “When we asked them about ice consumption, they said their ship has three hundred days of ice when full. It means each slat depletes by thirteen centimeters per day.” She taps on her console, and a calculation spins up. “Right now, they run out of ice fifty-four hours before the ring is repaired. Fifty-four hours of ice is thirty-one centimeters. That brings it down to just under four million kilos.”
James raises his eyebrows. “Promise could lift that, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” Hitoshi says, “but you can’t just duct tape the ice to the ship or even just assume you can attach it by the slat. The slat seems functional, not structural. We’d have to build some kind of support caging to attach the ice to the ship and add all of the mass from that into our calculation. The caging will weigh at least a few times as much as the slat.”
“Is that something you could design?” James says.
“Yeah, it’s not hard to design, but we can’t make it. It’d be a quarter kilometer long.”
Ananke says, “Perhaps the Stars can build it. Their facility already manufactures slats that length.”
Hitoshi bobs his head. “True.”
“Do you want me to ask them?” Ananke says. “I can do it while we’re working here.”
James says. “Go for it, Ananke, and add all the questions from Hitoshi’s list.”
Ananke says. “I’m contacting them now.”
While she focuses on the Stars, Hitoshi says. “You know we’d have to do twelve planetary descents and lift-offs to get all of the slats up?”
“Yeah,” James says. “Concerns?”
“It’s a lot of risks. Something fails in the caging or shifts in the ice assembly, and Promise could break up mid-flight.”
“Yeah. We’ll have to talk risk mitigation once we have something more baked.”
Ananke looks over from her science station. “The Stars have responded. The minimum ice block thickness they can make is one hundred and two centimeters. The filament mesh is embedded in the ice to that depth and will be damaged otherwise.”
Lin is typing quickly on her console. “So if we use that thickness, we’re down to one point one four million kilos. Promise could lift that if you exclude the frame.”
Ananke continues. “They’re saying that they do have the ability to fabricate a frame for an ice block. I’m asking them now about the lift thrust of a Star and the number of available Stars.”
“Hopefully, they have some high-tech alloy,” Hitoshi says.
“They are guarded about their capabilities,” Ananke says, “but they did respond that a Star produces sixteen-point-eight kilonewtons of thrust. Their answer about the number of Stars is a bit confusing, but I think it is because the word we have for Star both means them and their craft. I think they have more craft than crew. Their available crew is forty-eight.”
“Is there no one staffing their surface facility?” James says.
“Unclear,” Ananke says. “It may be automated.”
“Okay,” Lin says. “The Stars can manage eight hundred kilonewtons of thrust. Not even close.”
James nods. “Ananke, tell them we’ll need their help designing the frame and that it will need to be as light as possible and attach to Promise. We’ll contact them when we’re ready to discuss it. We still have to figure out a way to lift it, but we’re working on it.” He looks over at Isaac. “What was the other idea you had before, Isaac, about molecular cages?”
“Oh, right,” Isaac says. “Can speed up nuclear decay with a molecular cage. Only three percent, though.”
“That’s three percent less time they’ll have to go without ice.”
“Right.”
“Can you tell them how to make one? We’ll take every percent we can get.”
“Oh, uh…yeah. Never told an alien how to do science before. Should be interesting.”
James glances at all of the equations and diagrams on the screen. “Well, we’re not there yet, but it feels like the start of something. Let’s talk the cages with them and see where it goes.”
The orbital ring is a massive silvery structure hanging just two kilometers off Promise’s starboard bough through the Canteen's windows. A few of the u-shaped Stars glide in lazy loops around its circumference, their hulls occasionally flaring red from Luhman-light. One kilometer above the ring, the ice-caked cylinder ship is a motionless sentinel with a dozen Stars buzzing around it. Sao’s dark oceans and wispy clouds spin far below.
Promise’s crew is assembled here, with most people holding drinks. They’ve been talking all day, and everyone’s a bit hoarse. The aliens have assigned Stars to specific crew members, and Ananke has been translating for everyone. Hitoshi’s Star has been discussing the engineering of the ice frame. Isaac has talked the molecular cage science and also information about their respective worlds. James started the day with his Star, but as topics strayed to culture, he tag-teamed in Ava. This is her dream, and she’s the exobiologist.
Hitoshi is in front of the Canteen’s media screen, presenting. “I never thought I’d say this, but I think I actually talked too much science today. So, Lin and I have been working out the ice frame details with our starry friend. My Star assures me that they can make a four-gigagram frame capable of su
pporting the ice and surviving an orbital launch, which, I’d just like to say…is freakin’ nuts. That’s some adamantium-level superhero metal right there. When I asked them what kind of metal that was, they just said, ‘That’s what our ships are made of.’ Oh, of course, that clears it up. When I asked them what their ships are made of, they said, ‘The same thing as this ice frame.’ I’m not sure, but I think I got the sarcastic Star.”
“Do you need to know it for the design?” James says.
“It’d be nice to check their work, but, seriously, it’s something we can’t make, so what math would I even use on it? They’d tell me something like it’s forged in the heart of a neutron star, and I’d be like, yeah, I got nothing for that.” Hitoshi takes a deep breath and exhales. “Sorry. Still getting used to having a Star for a lab partner. So, anyway, I’ve worked out where all of the load-bearing points are on Promise’s belly and gave the Stars specs to build the attachments. We’re going to have to land Promise on Sao, wheel out Betty II, have her cut into the hull, and build all the connection points. It’ll use up all our titanium printing up our end of the connection, but, assuming we live through this, we can always go back to Neso and farm titanium from its beaches.”
“Right. Nice thinking.”
“Now for the messy part,” Hitoshi says. “The Stars can make a single cage in five days. The cage will burn up on re-entry if we try to bring it back down after an ice run. So, that means we need to do it all in one trip.”
James raises his eyebrows. “How are you going to that?”
“The slats are actually heavier than the ice. There’s no way to pick up all twelve of them. Instead, we’re going to put twelve times as much ice on just one slat. That sounds like a lot, but it’s only three point six meters of ice. So that big boy plus Promise will mass thirteen million kilos.”
“And then Promise can lift it?”
“Not a chance! You’ll be able to take off, but you won’t be able to make orbit.”
“Huh.”
Hitoshi holds up his index finger like Sherlock making a point. “And this is where Lin’s idea comes in.” He looks at her expectedly.
Lin does jazz hands. “The Stars!” She smiles. “There’s forty-eight of them, and if they work together, they can produce one meganewton of thrust. So we add anchor points on the ice cage for the Stars. Then we all point in the same direction and say ‘punch it, Chewy!’”
James seems a little surprised. “That’s bold.”
“You up for forty-eight Star co-pilots?” Lin says.
“This should be interesting. We’re going to have to find a way to coordinate them all.”
“Yup. One of them is going to fly ahead of Promise and talk via our forward strobes. It’ll coordinate all the other Stars. Kind of like the coxswain on a rowing crew.”
James squints. “They’re going to let us land and do the Betty stuff?”
“Yeah. It’s actually why they let us come down to the ring. They’ll tell us when.”
“How long do we need for the Betty modifications?”
Hitoshi says, “We could start printing the parts now. Probably a day and a half on the ground to do the hull work. The Stars also have to do some modifications of their ship to distribute the ice all from one slat position.”
James shakes his head, chuckling. “That’s a hell of a plan, guys. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, boss,” Hitoshi says.
James looks over at Isaac. “Okay, Isaac. How’d you make out?”
Isaac finishes his sip of water. “Oh, good. Stars already know how to make molecular cages. They never developed the process for boosting decay rates. Surprising. Not hard to explain, though. Three percent boost saves them about eight hours. Not big, but it helps a little. More interesting part is where they’re from. So, they don’t want to say precisely, but their star is a red giant. That means it’s probably Arcturus or Gamma Crucius, unless it’s really far away. Their home is a binary planet with a nitrogen atmosphere and a temperature near freezing. Probably was much colder when their sun was younger because habitable zone expands when a star turns to a red giant. They’ve been starfaring for nearly a thousand years, and they are searching for life like themselves. Their home is becoming too warm, and they are looking for other planets.
“Did they say if they met any other species?” James says.
“They said they met many. Most were hostile or uninterested. Really fascinating. I had many questions, but they are very suspicious, it seems, and didn’t want to talk too much about themselves. I told them what Earth was like, and they were skeptical about how life could evolve there. You know, when they say life, I think they mean sentient life like them.”
“Yeah, I got that vibe.”
“Hope they tell me some more tomorrow.”
James nods. “Okay, Ava, you’re up.”
Ava’s eyes light up. “I don’t even know where to begin. They live on binary planets, and the Stars evolved on both worlds. The Stars in one world are different than the other. When I asked them what they looked like, they wanted to know if I was asking about their bodies or themselves. I think they consider their exosuits their bodies, and what we’ve been seeing are their exosuits. They get the idea that we are inside exosuits, but when I showed them a clothed person, they thought it was just another exosuit. Finally, I ended up showing them an image of a naked man and woman, which strangely made me think of the Pioneer 10 gold plaque with the naked humans waving hi. After a bit of discussion, they accepted that these were humans. This is how we got on the binary planet topic because they then wondered if the man and woman were different humans who evolved on different planets. That got us on the topic of gender, and they were lost at that point.”
“Did they ever tell you what they looked like?” James says.
“They said they don’t have a shape, but they have a structure. To another Star, they look like music.”
James squints. “Music?”
“This part’s a little confusing, but the Stars don’t hear sound. So when they talk, they can talk visually through light bursts or electrically through manipulation of fields. They can see light from soft x-rays through near-infrared, and they can sense and manipulate nearby electric fields, even flipping qubits. It’s almost like telepathy. They can reach into each other’s minds and flip states.”
Ananke says, “This is how they could see me from outside the ship. When I felt them, they were flipping qubits.”
“Yes! It seems likely. They said their base form — it’s not body…it’s a word we haven’t translated yet — emits near-ultraviolet light in patterns that are unique to their form. The Stars like light patterns and describe making non-word patterns for enjoyment. That’s music! So the Stars look like music to each other. There’s another word for their electrical sense that is different than the word look. When they use that sense, a Star is like a fingerprint. The Stars don’t have names at all in the visual language, but the electrical language has unique signatures.” She pauses. “I told them about human music and how humans communicate with sound. The Stars’ word for sound is just vibrations, but they understand how humans might find patterns as soothing and call it music. They’re also interested in our ability to communicate with radio waves. They can’t see radio waves with their senses, but they have technology that can. They can’t produce human sounds, but they can produce radio waves.”
“Interesting,” Willow says. “We have to decide if we’re going to teach them written or spoken English based on how we’re encoding it in radio. That’s assuming that we pick English.”
Hitoshi groans. “My brain just melted at the thought of a Star speaking English to me.”
Willow adds, “Japanese might be easier. Their structure is similar.”
“Not helping,” Hitoshi says.
“Other than that,” Ava says, “we’re still learning about each other. I would really like to understand their social structure and what type of society they have. I
have so many questions. The Stars are also curious, in a guarded way. For every ten questions I ask, they ask one, but they are asking. Overall this whole day has been surreal. I can’t believe that we’re really here doing this.”
“Great work today,” James says. “This is one of those days that people will read about in history books. I can’t say how proud I am of all of you. It’s going to be a hell of a week. Looking forward to what tomorrow brings.”
26
Descent
As Promise rockets through Sao’s troposphere, dark clouds engulf it and buffet the ship. Charcoal-gray fog streaks past illuminated by the twin cones of the ship’s landing lights. A lightning burst flickers brilliant green, momentarily silhouetting the shadowy asterisk-shape of the Silver Star flying in the clouds ahead of them. As the lightning fades away, hints of the Star’s red rod lights glow like embers in the fog.
“A little like something from a horror movie,” Hitoshi says.
“Now, now, Hitoshi,” James says, sliding his hand along the pilot’s controls. “We’re their guests.”
“It does sound cheerier when you say it that way.”
Isaac says, “Distance to site, twenty kilometers.”
Promise breaks out of the clouds into a landscape of snow-capped gray mountains. The Star glides ahead of them. Even from this distance, they can see the tower rising like a volcanic cone, a pale blue beam emanating from its tip. The misty haze of the shoreline fades into the purple light of a rising sun. The massive sphere of Luhman 16B dominates the entire eastern horizon, its violet tiger stripes glowing against iron clouds.
As Promise descends, the chain of offshore facilities swings into view. Each is an immense hexagon rising out of the ocean like a mushroom with a cavalcade of ocean water pouring over each side. The ocean foams and roils where the discharge churns. With the bridge screen set to low-light and enhanced UV, the ocean platforms are aglow, almost like a fountain, the deluge and top structure illuminated in blue.
Bernard's Dream: A Hayden's World Novel (Hayden's World Origins Book 8) Page 24
