by Carl Derham
*
Following four days travelling, playing games and learning more about the universe, everything was ready on board the ship. The Graviton Generator had been sparked into life, safely contained within a force field. It was throbbing away in anticipation of its task. It would be linked in series to six booster stations positioned around the asteroid and would create a negative gravity field around the rock that would in effect render it weightless. The rock could then be disposed of as one would discard a pebble that had become lodged in the sole of a shoe. Robbie had briefed Oli on the procedure. They planned to land on the rock, Oli and the drone would fix the Generator in position, and then they would fly around the rock, dropping off the booster stations as they went. Robbie hadn’t yet decided what to do with the asteroid once its progress had been halted. They would probably dump it into the sun, which could swallow thousands of similar objects without so much as a belch.
“Have I got to put on a spacesuit then?” asked Oli, longing to go outside the ship and bounce around like a balloon at a children’s birthday party.
“No Oli. The Annenians developed a far more efficient form of EVA.”
A small flap opened on the control panel and Oli leant forward to see what it contained. As he looked in, the light reflected off a silver ring; very plain looking, with no diamonds or any other kind of stone. Just a plain silver ring. Robbie explained that the ring generated an impenetrable field around the wearer and created an atmosphere of any required constitution for as long as the ring was worn. It also created a highly localised gravity field when required, at the feet of the wearer. So he would be able to walk on the asteroid as though he were taking a stroll through Regents Park. The force field protected the wearer from all known hazards and some that were mere theories. One Annenian student of medicine had lost a game of Gabble and as a forfeit, had to walk through the corona of a neighbouring star wearing just the ring and a toga, which was actually the preferred attire of the Annenians. The student emerged from the star with a cold.
“Does it have a name?” asked Oli.
“Like everything Annenian,” Robbie explained, “there is no literal translation, but the best approximation that I can find, would be Go-Ring.”
The Annenians never fought any wars as they found them rather pointless and did their utmost to avoid any form of conflict, but if they had been dragged into any kind of confrontation, the rings would have made them invincible. The wearers were impervious to all things that could harm them. No bullets, lasers, rockets or even Celine Dion records could penetrate the shield around the wearer. Pardy had hopped off her perch onto the control panel and was eyeing the ring with a birdlike desire for shiny things.
“It looks a bit big for you,” said Oli. It even looked too large for Oli’s bony fingers. He began to wonder how big these Annenians actually were. Unable to accept no for an answer, Pardy held out a claw expectantly. Oli picked up the ring and slid it over her claw so that it was resting around her ankle like an over-sized message on a carrier pigeon. To their amazement, the ring immediately shrank to become a perfect fit around her tiny ankle. She could barely feel its presence and she tapped her claw on the control desk to see if it was loose, but it had contracted to form a perfect fit.
“Is it working?” asked Oli, not seeing anything that would indicate an impenetrable force field.
“Yes, Oli. Try to hit her.”
Oli gave a little flick with his right hand. It was like flicking a lump of rock and he shook his hand to discard the stinging pain. Pardy didn’t move.
“Is that the best you can do?” said Pardy, dancing around the panel like Mohammed Pardi, curling the ends of her wings in, beckoning Oli to try harder. Oli gave her a gentle slap on the side of her body.
“Ouch!” he yelped.
Pardy started to taunt him by dancing in front of him and calling the parrot version of ‘Na na na Na na’, which by some strange quirk of fate was ‘Na na na Na na’.
Oli, nursing his stinging fingers, decided that he was convinced.
“I want to go for a walk outside the ship,” he said, reaching out to take the ring from Pardy’s claw.
“I want to come too,” said Pardy.
“Okay,” said Robbie, “but stay on Oli’s shoulder. We only have one ring, and if you jump off, the field will be broken and you really will be the first parrot in space.”
Pardy held out her claw and as Oli pulled the ring it expanded and slipped off easily. He placed it on his right hand index finger and it immediately shrank to fit. Robbie directed them to the second cargo room on the right of the corridor, where there was a hatch leading to the roof of the ship. In his excitement to step into the void of space, Oli forgot about the doors for the first time in a while.
Psst.
“Woa!”
“Quark,” (parrot for woa!)
When they entered the cargo bay, the door closed behind them and a hatch slid open in the ceiling, revealing the universe in all its glory.
“Stand directly below the hatch Oli,” said Robbie.
Oli moved over to the middle of the room and looked up into the void. Then a portion of the floor, the same size as the hatch, began to rise. In no time, Oli and Pardy were standing on the roof of the ship.
“Wow!” said Pardy.
“Double Wow!” said Oli.
The nano-drones had cleaned all the parrot droppings from the top of the ship and it was gleaming, even in the jet black of interstellar space. The distant stars glistened and reflected off the hull. He moved his left foot a few inches without taking it off the surface and was surprised to find that it felt exactly the same as walking inside the ship. As he became more confident with the ability of the ring, he took larger steps until he was walking normally. He went for a little stroll to the front, bow, or whatever it was they called the sharp end of a spaceship and sat down on the end with his feet dangling over the edge. He’d developed a keen trust for Annenian technology and wasn’t in the least bit worried. But he could tell from the grip of Pardy’s claws in his shoulder that she wasn’t letting go for all the seeds in Pardu. They sat there for over an hour, looking at the stars. The brightest was directly ahead and he assumed that must be the sun. It was the size of a ten pence piece and seemed to be growing all the time. He could make out some of the constellations that he knew, although one or two of them had changed shape slightly due to their change in position. Even considering the immense distances to the stars, the ship was travelling so fast that he could perceive some movement if he looked at the same area for a minute or two. The closer stars would appear to move across the more distant ones. For a visual treat, Robbie had altered their course slightly to take them within a few million kilometres of a star. He cut the graviton generator and coasted through the system at sevral times the speed of light. Within the space of thirty seconds it had become the size of a football, then it was along side and thirty seconds later they'd left it behind, narrowly avoiding a gas giant planet, similar to Jupiter but purple.
“Wow,” said Oli. “I take it that wasn't the sun, then.”
“Correct Oli.” Robbie's voice appeared from nowhere.
“Can you hear us out here then Robbie?” asked Oli, relieved that he hadn't joked with Pardy about their synthetic friend.
“Yes Oli,” came the phantom reply, “When you wear the Go-ring, you are directly connected to the ship.”
As they sat there marvelling at the clarity of the universe around them, they talked about their own worlds. Oli explained to Pardy how Humans have a real problem with getting along together, but that it was still an exceptional place to be. He told her about clubbing, playing drums in the band and surfing the waves in Cornwall. She talked excitedly about her family and her work. She worked in the public library records department and so her knowledge of the Annenians was extensive. She’d read reports on the genetic alterations carried out on Hamans, but never thought that she would actually get to meet one, let alone sit on the roof of a
space ship hurtling through space with one. They sat for a while longer in silence, taking in the view and the weirdness of it all. Finally, they decided to go back inside. They descended into the cargo bay and walked silently back to the control room. Oli sat down and Pardy jumped onto her perch. Not a word was said for five minutes. Then Robbie couldn’t take any more.
“Did you enjoy that?”
“Oh yes!” they both said in unison.
“We will be arriving in the earth system in twelve hours,” Robbie said. “I suggest that you both get some rest before then.”
Oli went to his room and dreamt about surfing, as usual and Pardy went to her perch and dreamt about flying, as usual. She loved to take to the air but now she had flown where no other parrot had ever flown before. She couldn’t wait to tell her mum.
When they awoke, the sun was glowing in the middle of the screen, about the size of a tennis ball. But what caught Oli’s eye was the colourful marble sized object just off to the right.
“That’s Jupiter,” offered Robbie, anticipating Oli’s question.
“Can we go and have a look?” asked Oli, leaning excitedly on the control panel.
With that, the ship banked, the sun moved to the side of the screen and Jupiter began to grow and grow. It took a few minutes, travelling at a relativistic speed before they were hurtling around the equator of the vast gas giant. They passed close by the moons of Io, Ganymede and Callisto. Then Robbie slowed the ship down for a closer look at Europa.
“There’s life on this moon,” said Robbie, “but not as we know it,” he continued, in a mock American accent much to Oli’s amusement. “Fancy a closer look?”
He didn’t really have to ask. Oli was hardly likely to say; well actually Robbie, do you mind if we pass on this other worldly experience and get back to London? As they flew over the surface of the moon, Oli marvelled at the mountains of ice and the deep fissures, as though a great axe had split the surface open for mile upon mile. They came in to land on a great icy plateau that stretched to the horizon, which was occupied by the northern hemisphere of Jupiter. Oli asked Robbie to hold it there for a minute to enable him to take in this unbelievable sight. Everyone had seen the photos sent back from the Voyager space craft and from Hubble, but Oli was the first Human to actually see Jupiter from the surface of one of the many moons that are held in orbit by its massive gravity well. He pulled his camera from his pocket and took a photo of the mind-blowing sight.
Robbie engaged the Matter Transform and they descended through the three kilometre crust of ice. After about five minutes, they burst into an ocean of crystal clear water. Robbie turned on the lights allowing them to see into the featureless distance. The gnarly underbelly of the ice disappeared into the darkness. They descended vertically into the abyss and Oli began to wonder how anything could live in such a forbidding place. After several minutes, Robbie announced that they were five kilometres below the icy surface. Oli could now see the bottom of the ocean. It was like flying over a forest of huge trees but as they descended further, it became clear that the trees were columns of rock, taller than the highest skyscraper and tapering to a narrow point. As Robbie took the ship into the middle of the monolithic forest and slowed to a crawl, Oli could appreciate the surface of these distorted cone-shaped edifices. To his surprise, they were alive with small shimmering creatures. The water around them was itself shimmering with the heat being generated at the base of the cone by the volcanic activity bursting through the crust of the moon.
The creatures, none of which were larger than Oli’s hand, swarmed around the surface of the rock tower. They were all different shapes and sizes. Some had rows of legs that scurried for purchase on the jagged rock. Others were just blobs of slimy-looking flesh that wriggled their way through the hot water.
Every now and then one of the creatures would flash a bright display of coloured light. Then as though in response, another nearby would radiate the same impressive display and add a few of its own illuminations. As Oli’s eyes became accustomed to the surroundings, Robbie dimmed the lights and the entire rock forest lit up in a magical wash of colour. With the outside lights and those in the ship turned off, the full extent of this light show became apparent. The tiny creatures were creating so much light that the rocks around them became visible in the ambient glow, and as the light reacted with the shimmering heat, the whole forest seemed to sway in time to an inaudible symphony. Oli found himself swaying along to the ghostly ballet, quite lost in the magnificence of it all. The ship was stationary but Robbie was zooming in on various creatures and then zooming out to take in the whole scene.
“So you see Oli,” whispered Robbie, not wanting to disturb Oli’s enjoyment, “life comes in all shapes and sizes. These creatures have been around for considerably longer than Humans. They’ve adapted to this harsh environment and would not survive anywhere else.”
Robbie left Oli and Pardy alone for a while to sway with the forest then slowly backed the ship away from the seabed so that they could take in a more expanded view. There must have been billions of the creatures lighting up the entire seabed as far as the eye could see. As they moved further away, the light became dimmer until the screen couldn’t register anything, and Robbie slowly turned the lights on.
“That was truly outstanding,” sighed Oli, slumping back into the seat with Pardy, equally astounded on his shoulder. “Thanks for that Robbie. That one’s gonna be lodged in the old memory banks for a while.”
They left Jupiter and its moons and headed straight for the sun. At this time, the earth was behind the sun as viewed from Jupiter. Oli was slowly getting his head around the orbits of the planets, but it was a little too three-dimensional for him to totally understand. The Sun was occupying most of the screen now. The radiation shields meant that Oli could look directly into it and watch the arcs of plasma bursting from the surface. He’d seen the very same images on the internet, but it could never have prepared him for the real thing. They had breakfast whilst watching one of the greatest spectacles in the universe. Oli opted for an Annenian bean bun with lashings of golden syrup. Pardy had some dried fruit and seeds. As they finished their breakfast, the sun slipped off the side of the screen and Oli felt a warm glow as he did when he regularly returned to his beloved Cornwall to go surfing. His eyes were glued to the screen looking for signs of Earth when out of the black, in a flash, appeared a huge rock, filling the entire field of vision. He nearly fell off his seat and the lukewarm Annenian Karfee slopped into his lap.
“We’re here!” announced Robbie, feeling rather proud of his extra cautious approach to the asteroid. He’d come in at close to light speed but at the last second had slowed to 220,000 kilometres per second.
“You don’t say,” said Oli, wiping the Karfee from his crotch.
They were positioned just fifty metres above the middle of the rock looking along the surface. It was massive. A smooth rocky landscape disappearing into the darkness of space. The surface was dark grey and had been marked by the impacts of thousands of small objects as it had silently wandered through the solar system for hundreds of millions of years. The stars were rising over the edge of the rock as it continued its repetitious rotation. The drone appeared in the doorway of the control room and as Oli turned he jumped a little. I never used to be this jumpy, he thought. He guessed it must be all the way out stuff that was going on. He convinced himself that any one would have been slightly frazzled in his position.
“I’m going to land here Oli. Go with the drone and help position the Graviton Generator.”
Oli followed the drone to the first cargo bay, where the device was sitting on a tripod stand. The top of the stand had a bar through the middle, protruding either side to provide a carrying handle. Oli slipped the ring on his finger and stood by the stand. The door opened and the gangway extended to the surface of the rock. They carried the Generator onto the dusty surface, walked a little way from the ship and set it down. The drone used a gun that appeared from it
s chest to bolt the legs of the tripod to the rock. Oli was looking around admiring the view as the asteroid rotated. Just then, a familiar but very small, blue and green object appeared on the horizon. It was no bigger than a one penny piece, but it still looked fantastic. He couldn’t wait to get back and go clubbing.
As Oli disappeared into Oli world for a while, the drone finished securing the Generator and returned to the ship.
“Are you coming Oli?” Robbie’s voice sounded from nowhere in particular. Oli took a quick picture then dragged himself away from the view and re-joined the ship. They took off and headed to the far side of the rock to position the first of the six booster stations, then continued to the next point to repeat the operation. One and a half hours later, they were securing the final station. The drone fired the bolts into the three legs and they turned to face the ship, but it was gone.
“Robbie?” inquired Oli. As he searched the starlit void above, he caught a glimpse of the ship shooting across the space in front of the asteroid.
“It would appear,” said Robbie, “that the clever little monkeys have fired ten nuclear warheads at the asteroid. I have no idea what they believed they might achieve by this. I’m going to have to detonate them in space.”
He explained to Oli that he and the drone would survive the blast with their force fields, but if the unprotected graviton generator was destroyed this close to Earth, it could quite possibly alter the orbit of the Moon. The warheads were only a few thousand kilometres from the rock, but travelling at sixty thousand kilometres per hour, they would be there in no time. Each warhead had a different detonation code, so Robbie had to fly alongside each one, connect with it and detonate it manually. Oli watched as the sky lit up every few seconds. The first wave of miniscule pieces of shrapnel hit the asteroid throwing up tiny plumes of dust, which gently floated back under the weak gravity. Each explosion was celebrated with a “whoop” from Oli. He’d counted eight detonations when the ship became visible as a tiny pin-sized light moving across the sky. Robbie had only five seconds to detonate the final two warheads and, in a split second of calculation, realised that this was not going to happen. Oli took a deep breath as the ship appeared to grow and two smaller lights appeared either side of it.
Robbie was hurtling towards the asteroid with the two warheads, either side of the ship. If he cracked the code to detonate one warhead, then the other would impact the asteroid almost exactly where Oli was standing. The other missile was heading directly for the Graviton Generator. In a split second he turned left and knocked the warhead spinning passed the asteroid, then a quick flick to the right and he connected with the other one.
Oli saw a flash across the sky as the second warhead, spiralling out of control, missed the surface of the rock by barely fifty metres. He followed the path of the rocket as it span off into space and when he was certain that the danger had passed, he turned to see where Robbie was. He nearly jumped straight out of his shoes as he saw the vertical roof of the ship, barely one metre above the booster station. Oli punched the air, let out a ‘whoop’ and slapped the roof of the ship, which was within easy reach.
“That was a tad close,” said Robbie, as the ship turned to face away from the asteroid and shot off into space again.
“I’ll just go and detonate those last two warheads. I don’t think we want them orbiting the solar system as a time-delayed greeting for future generations.”
Five seconds later, there was an explosion in space, shortly followed by another. Robbie returned to the asteroid and collected Oli and the drone. He then took the ship a couple of hundred kilometres away. Oli was watching the screen and he could see a bright pulsing light on the surface of the asteroid, as the Graviton Generator sparked into life.
“There,” said Robbie, “the asteroid is now weightless; we can dispose of it as we wish. I was thinking that the easiest solution would be to lob it into the sun.”
“I’ve had a better idea,” said Oli. “Is it too big to put into a stable orbit around the earth? You know, like a second moon.”
Robbie did a quick calculation of mass to gravity ratio and concluded that it would be able to orbit the earth inside the orbit of the existing moon. Not too close, or it would have an influence on the tides of Earth’s oceans. He didn’t think that people living near the coast would appreciate that too much.
“We could put it into a stable orbit at 290,000 kilometres from Earth Oli. I’ll set its course in the opposite direction to the moon and make the orbit eight percent slower, so that once a year there will be a double full moon. Also,” he continued, obviously excited by the prospect, “once every five years, the asteroid will pass in front of the moon, causing a total eclipse.”
“You really are a bit of an artist at heart, aren’t you?” said Oli.
“I do think that we had better inform the President of our plans,” said Robbie. “The rock is about to accelerate towards the planet. It may cause the poor chap to pop a cork.”
Pop a cork? thought Oli. My boy’s coming along just fine.
Robbie moved the ship to a position, two hundred metres above the asteroid and connected a towing beam, usually used for towing rubbish barges into the Annenian sun.
