by Richard Penn
Lisa decided to call the people here “colonists”, as “prisoners” or “victims” would prejudge the issues and sounded bad. An internet feed gradually came through, and the adults among the colonists began catching up with news from the outside, searching down family and friends who had lost them years before. Specific queries took up to an hour, because of cache misses and link congestion.
Stjepan had found some injured people in the farm tunnels, and was helping Flo Dekker to treat them. Sou and Tommy began the process of trying to separate sheep from goats, sending women and a few men (at Flo’s nod and with Candy’s approval) to the hangar, setting up an informal jail for the rest at the children’s hostel in the farms. The surviving trusty from the farm and a few other prisoners in the hangar were also taken to jail.
There was some discussion whether to reopen the tunnels and the base of the ship, but Lisa decided to keep everyone in the hangar, setting up bunks and screens to make it more liveable. She preferred to have everyone under her eye, at least until things were better organized.
Lisa received a message from judge Krawczyk, saying that a presentation had been put together, and asking her to play it for everyone. She collected Candy, Flo Dekker, Sou, Shani and a couple of the women who seemed to be taking charge of things, and arranged them at a table under the screen, called for attention and began the message. Minah had set up a screen at the mining colony, and was showing the same recording there. Shani translated into childish Chinese.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. My name is Brunon Krawczyk. I have the great honour of being the chair of the managing committee here at Terpsichore, which is a station a few light-minutes from you. They have asked me to speak to you on behalf of all the people of this colony.
‘Firstly, let me say how sorry I am for the terrible conditions you have endured, and assure you that everything will be done to track down the people responsible and bring them to justice.
‘Secondly, I would like to congratulate Sergeant Lisa Johansen and her team for their amazing job, rescuing you from that situation and driving off the people who were treating you so badly.’ There was applause for this, at both ends of the call.
‘Thirdly, I would like to welcome you to our community. You have all become citizens of Terpsichore, with all the rights and obligations equal to any other citizen, retroactively. Those of you who face charges should be aware that you are subject to the justice of the courts of Terpsichore, and our police force will be dealing with you on that basis. Welcome, friends.’
‘Finally, I have a message from Chief Inspector Njenga in Phobos. Thank you, and I will see you all soon.’
Krawczyk’s image was replaced with the familiar profile of Delila Njenga, resplendent now in a police dress uniform, something Lisa had never seen. Lemon yellow like her own knitted jumpsuit, this one was nattily tailored with lapels and wings. In place of the blue LED’s Lisa used when eeling through the corridors were sparkling blue jewels. Lisa was proud to see her boss wearing the purple Navy armband, just like hers.
‘Friends, I am Chief Inspector Njenga of the Belt Federation Police. I was responsible for sending Sergeant Johansen and her crew to rescue you. I am proud to say that she has done an exemplary job, achieving more than we could possibly have expected.’ (Except maybe catching the bastards, Lisa thought). ‘We in the police and armed forces of the Belt deeply regret that you were held captive for so long and in such conditions. Major changes are being made in the management of the Belt, to prevent this kind of evil act occurring again. Also, every effort will be made to track down the men who abused you and bring them to justice.
‘When this crisis was first brought to our attention, a naval cruiser, BNS Beowulf, was dispatched with all speed to try to help you. The actions of Sergeant Johansen and her team have made this unnecessary, and the cruiser is being deployed elsewhere.
‘The colony of Terpsichore has agreed to offer you all full citizenship, and we will move you there as soon as possible. We hope that you will become full and happy members of that community, and appreciate their generosity.’
The public message ended there with more applause. There was a private one for Lisa, which she played in a corner of the room, leaving the senior women to sort themselves out for now.
‘Lisa. Well done! I am so happy you have survived unhurt, and with all your team intact. You should not blame yourself for the escape of Soon and his perverts, you separated him from his reactor, and that was the prime mission. And saved the prisoners. I was particularly impressed by your ability to make a detailed plan and then toss it out when a better one appeared, and to listen to your team while keeping charge.
‘Speaking of the ship, and I’m sure this is furthest from your mind at the present, subject to a few charges and taxes and so on, that ship is now yours, under the ancient prize laws. Hornblower or no, that is the law. In theory, it belongs to the federation, but you have a lifetime lease on it, we get to pay for its upkeep. 50% to you, 10% each to your crew. You are the first private owner of a nuclear ship outside the Mars or Earth system, if you can believe it.
‘I can’t promote you any further, you haven’t even passed the exams for the rank you’ve got. I can and will get you a medal, though you’ll have to get it cast up yourself. Maybe you can knit one, with your newfound skills.
‘I am afraid you are in for a new bout of media celebrity, even more intense than last time. You must not let the pundits and dogmatists get you down – there will be howling criticism for every single move you made. Just remember that quieter and better qualified folks are backing you all the way.
‘There will be inquests for everyone who died, under Terpsichore law as you heard. There will be a war-crimes trial as you predicted, but I expect that to be thrown out in a preliminary hearing. Neither the Navy nor the Police are undertaking any disciplinary action, and frankly that’s all that counts – civilians can bleat, but this is a military matter.
‘Priorities now – get some rest, secure that ship of yours and work out a plan to get it, and your new colonists, back to Terps. I will remain in touch with you from now on. Out.’
Lisa recorded a brief reply, and went to tell the others the news.
They arranged for two of the older colonists to become interim governors of the mining colony, allowing Lisa to reassemble her crew aboard Dancer. The mine turned out to contain a rich vein of rare heavy metal, which had been financing a lot of the criminal gang’s enterprises. The colonists and the miners were each assigned a share in it, so that they entered Terpsichore not just as ordinary citizens but as shareholders, like most of the senior people there.
It was agreed that packing large numbers of people into Dancer was impractical and unsafe, but the engineering works at Long Chuanbo were not up to building a proper transport, so the plan was made to sail Dancer back, to build a transport at Terpsichore. Dancer needed to go back because they still had the only spare RTG from Terps. For now, with regret, Lisa had to split up her team. She did not want to leave the colony entirely self-governed. So just she and Stjepan set off for the journey back, only two weeks now Dancer was underloaded. It was a kind of honeymoon for them, although they didn’t plan to actually marry until everyone was back at Terps. A good chance to study as well, Lisa for her sergeant’s exam (though she also wrote literature essays for Shani to mark) and Stjepan for emergency surgery, more gory simulations.
Once they got there, the hold had the building of the transport well in hand, ready for the trip back to Long Chuanbo. As well as space for the colonists to return, it would carry equipment and engineers to get the nuclear ship flying. People were also going out to replace the children working in the mine and the farm tunnels. Lisa planned to fly the transport, with Stjepan as medic and second in command.
Lisa sat in the bar with Stjepan, Friday night fish and chips, watching the darts tournament. One of the boys had discovered old videos of Morris dancing, but it was turning out more acrobatic than authentic in th
e low gravity.
She used her phone to cancel the rental on her flat and arranged for some boys to carry her stuff to Stjepan’s. They kept the office near the hospital, though. Lisa’s mother had repainted the sign, using some of Tommy’s drawings as a guide. Alongside a picture of their planned new ship, it said ‘BNS Dancer - Privateer.’
Author’s Note
This is a book about the future colonization of the solar system, presenting a vision of a future in which people live outside the Earth as a matter of course. I have tried to make it as practical as possible, with no super-strength materials, warp drives and other fantasies. Indeed, this reality is mostly a low-tech one. People in space habitats need to build everything for themselves with available materials, to be independent of supplies from Earth, so they choose the simplest and most accessible technology.
The key stages in this scenario are:
1) The Near-Earth Asteroids are exploited by manned mining colonies, bringing ice and essential heavy materials into orbit around the Earth and Moon, and returning rare metal and minerals to Earth.
2) A technology is developed to live in space using only materials found there. Stations are built of asteroid metal, powered by nuclear reactors, and covered with plastic greenhouse tunnels that provide food, treat waste and clean the air.
3) Ships built using these techniques travel regularly to Mars, establishing similar colonies there using material mined from its moons, Phobos and Deimos.
4) Surface colonies are established on the Moon and on Mars, using mostly local materials. These are supplied by the space colonies, but take a less active part in the expansion into the Belt.
5) Several times each year, asteroids pass by Earth and Mars, close enough for ships to match their speed and land on one. Once aboard, they can refuel using the ice and minerals found there, and use this to hop off as the asteroid passes a main belt asteroid. This provides a two-stage route to the belt without having to carry all the fuel, water, air and food needed along the way, but it means that travel to a new asteroid takes several years. I am using the term transit asteroid to refer to these.
I have mostly developed this for my own amusement, but would like to see more fictional stories set in the environment, and serious discussion of the realism of the model. I am not an expert in any of the science and technology here, and I would welcome the attention of such experts, to debate the practicalities and maybe present a more accurate vision.
Richard Penn
Narrowboat Delta Vee, 2014
Update
In this second edition, I have added illustrations to the body of the book, removed footnotes, cleaned up some formatting issues, made adjustments to some of the text, and added a few lines about asteroid dust, now known to be more hazardous than I had thought. If anyone can spot science errors in either the story or the glossary, I may issue another revision later. Science, unlike other belief systems, learns from its mistakes.
Richard Penn
Near Fazeley Junction, 2015
Glossary
Air Machine
A relatively small device which sits in a room and keeps the air breathable. The Dark Colony story assumes that such a device can supply air for one person for some days, supplied only with electricity. The device has a voice interface and is capable of testing air as well as treating it. About the size of a sewing machine. Hums. See also Fuel Machine, Ice Machine.
Airlocks
A pair of hatches with a room in between, capable of being pumped down to vacuum. Relatively rare in station and ships; most external doors are designed for a boat to dock, rather than for a person to go outside in a spacesuit. The hold has large airlocks at each end, designed to accommodate boats. Boats do not have airlocks; in the event that a person needs to go outside, they put on a suit and pump down the air in the entire boat.
See Hatches, Hold, Spacesuits.
Ambulance
A small but relatively high-powered boat intended for rescue and patient transport. Unlike all the other boats, the ambulance has an airlock, allowing it to capture people in spacesuits or rescue bags. Painted lime green like everything medical, and based at the hospital on the station.
Asteroid
Any of millions of rocks which circle the sun, ranging from a few metres in size up to hundreds of kilometres. Made up of varying combinations of rock, metal and ice. See Near-Earth Asteroids, Terpsichore, Local Group, Asteroid Belt.
Asteroid Belt
The wide region of the Solar System between Mars and Jupiter with thousands of rocks (asteroids) ranging in size from worlds about 600km across down to kilometres and smaller.
‘At’ Mars, ‘On’ Earth, ‘In’ Phobos
These terms are used differently in the context of the story than in present-day astronomy. ‘At’ means ‘orbiting,’ so the Moon is ‘at Earth’ for example. People need a quick way to refer to this, as it would be important in everyday conversation. ‘In the Earth system’ is too ponderous. ‘In’ is used in the way ‘on’ is presently used, in relation to a moon or a planet, emphasising that habitats are always under the surface for radiation and impact protection. Exceptions: ‘on Earth’ and ‘on Vesta’ because colonists do live on the surface of these bodies.
Bags, Bubbles
See Rescue Bags
Barge
A large container, weighing about a tonne empty, able to contain tens of tonnes of material. The form of the barge depends on its cargo. Grain needs to be kept under pressure in spherical inflatable bubbles. Ice or rock are carried in metal mesh barges, like gabions.
As the name suggests, a barge has no motor; it is launched by a tug at the start of its half-ellipse economy orbit, and caught years later by another tug at the end. As with all boats, the size is limited by the need to get it inside the hold for repairs.
Barge orbits are chosen for safety to intersect the asteroid if not caught by the tugs. Loose barges that continue around the solar system for years would not be popular.
Belt
see Asteroid Belt
Blob
One of the fighter boats constructed to travel with BNS Dancer. It is built almost entirely out of plastic so that it is inconspicuous on radar, with the fuel and oxidiser tanks wrapping around the rocket motor. Everyone hates to use it, because it is vulnerable to strikes by small rocks and could break apart if not driven carefully.
BNS Dancer
See Dancer
Boat
A small vehicle intended to fly in space. The distinction between a boat and a ship is the same as on Earth’s waterways. Ships are meant for long journeys and large numbers of people, boats are not. See Scooter, Tug, Bus, Shuttle, Barge, Gig and Blob.
Bus
A simple low-powered boat like a scooter, but with an extended cabin to carry more passengers. This one is used between the station and the hold, and runs a commuter service.
Calendars and Clocks
I have not accepted the Mars calendar and clock which are currently in use, because I think they have fundamental flaws. Changing the length of the second in unacceptable, it is a basic engineering unit. So to make the Mars day (‘Sol’) come out to twelve hours of sixty minutes, I have sixty-two and some fraction of seconds in a minute. People will seldom come across this in everyday life.
Similarly, the idea of a year with forty-two months seems unwieldy. I keep twelve months to the year, but each one has either 55 or 56 sols in it. As a result, months are not used in everyday speech to refer to a length of time, but the more standardised week is used instead. I am counting Mars years from the day that the Viking probe landed on Mars, the first time anything useful was on the planet. That makes the story begin in Mars-year 44.
Some asteroids are on Earth time and others on Mars time, which makes for some confusion. Surface clocks on Mars use time zones as on Earth. All clocks in space are coordinated, Earth clocks to GMT and Mars clocks to Sinus Meridiani, zero longitude there.
When the team are working in Earth
time, as is usual at Terpsichore, their colleagues on Phobos get up half an hour earlier each morning.
Can
See Habitat Can.
Chemical Fuel
Some combination of fuel and oxidiser, used in chemical rockets, but also in rotary engines similar to the ones which burn petrol and air on Earth. The same fuel is used for heating in smaller space buildings such as the hold. It is assumed that it can be made from ice and other widely-available materials, using energy from either RTG’s or nuclear reactors. The obvious choice is hydrogen and oxygen, but there would be storage problems with these. Hopefully something more stable can be produced easily.
Chemical Rocket
The engines on all the small boats, the bus, and small-scale ships like BNS Dancer. I envisage something similar in principle to the German V-2 rocket, which burned ethanol and hydrazine. The V-2 rocket lifted a one-tonne payload against 9.8m/s2 of gravity, a thrust sufficient for a large tug to stop a 40-tonne barge at 220 mm/s2. The assumption in the book is that these engines can be built in space (in the hold, anyway) from locally-mined materials. Even if there are small parts which need to be imported from Earth (the fuel pump impeller, perhaps, or the throat), it would still be a practical proposition. With a mass ratio of 10, a delta-V of 8 km/s is attained.
