The Last Dance
Page 1
PRAISE FOR MARTIN L. SHOEMAKER
“Martin Shoemaker is a rare writer who can handle the challenges of dealing with future technology while touching the human heart.”
—David Farland, New York Times bestselling author
“Martin Shoemaker’s ‘Black Orbit’ is a more conventional Analog adventure, and a very good example of such . . . A really solid story.”
—Rich Horton, Locus Online
“[‘Bookmarked’] is an exceptional example of how to discuss deep moral and philosophical issues while maintaining a tight narrative that brings the reader along. This story will be added to the required readings for my SF classes.”
—Robert L. Turner III, Tangent Online
“In ‘Brigas Nunca Mais,’ Martin L. Shoemaker presents one of the best tales in the issue. A framed narrative about a love relationship told through the voice of the groom at a wedding on board a space ship, this tale delights by featuring dance as a central image and metaphor . . . A very enchanting story.”
—Douglas W. Texter, Tangent Online
“What I did particularly enjoy [about ‘Murder on the Aldrin Express’] was the excellent character development, and the heart and emotional depth brought to the story by its romantic aspect.”
—Colleen Chen, Tangent Online
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2019 by Martin L. Shoemaker
“The Aldrin Cycler: A Foreword by Marianne J. Dyson” © 2019 by Marianne J. Dyson
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542007986 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1542007984 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781542004312 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1542004314 (paperback)
Cover illustration and design by Mike Heath | Shannon Associates
First edition
To Colonel Buzz Aldrin,
who convinced me to tell a story about a Mars cycler;
and to Tina Smith,
who convinced me there was more to the story.
CONTENTS
START READING
THE ALDRIN CYCLER
A NOTE ON RANKS IN THE SYSTEM INITIATIVE
1. THE INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE
2. RACING TO MARS
3. MODUS OPERANDI
4. WORKING OUT
5. BEDSIDE MANNERS
6. NOT FAR ENOUGH
7. THE ROAD TO RECOVERY
8. MURDER ON THE ALDRIN EXPRESS
9. GRAND GESTURES
10. BRIGAS NUNCA MAIS
11. UNDER PRESSURE
12. MUTINY ON THE ALDRIN EXPRESS
13. THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GALE
14. AN IMMODEST PROPOSAL
15. EX PARTE COMMUNICATION
16. THE LAST DANCE
17. SÃO PAULO
18. PLENARY POWER
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
It’s a damn express train. Oh, I don’t mean it’s fast; I mean it goes from point A to point B on a fixed route, no stops in between. Then it circles around and goes back. I’m glad it’ll take us to point B, but it never even stops at either end to explore. This prototype will only make one loop before it goes in for redesign; but they’re already working on her sister ship, the Aldrin, and that one will be a giant express train from nowhere to nowhere, never stopping. What kind of captain worthy of the title would want duty like that when there are worlds to explore?
—Captain Nicolau Aames
THE ALDRIN CYCLER
FOREWORD BY MARIANNE J. DYSON
The Aldrin Express derives its name from Buzz Aldrin, whom most people know as the Apollo 11 astronaut who walked on the moon alongside Neil Armstrong in 1969. Not as many people know that Aldrin was the first astronaut with a PhD (from MIT), and his doctoral thesis was “Guidance for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.” NASA selected him because of this expertise. The other astronauts soon nicknamed him “Dr. Rendezvous” as a result.
Aldrin’s orbital mechanical skills were needed when the radar failed during Gemini 12. Aldrin did the calculations in his head while Jim Lovell piloted their ship during a rendezvous in Earth orbit. If a similar failure had occurred in lunar orbit, he could have helped Armstrong rendezvous with Mike Collins in the “mother ship” while out of touch with Mission Control.
After Apollo, Aldrin joined a chorus of space enthusiasts promoting plans to explore and settle Mars. Addressing one of the major obstacles to sustaining a settlement, he applied his rendezvous skills to the problem of the recurring fuel costs of transporting people to and from Mars. (Fuel typically accounts for 85 percent of the mass of a rocket.) He discovered a way to significantly reduce this cost by utilizing a circulating orbit and regular “gravity assists” from Earth. He described this plan, later named the Aldrin cycler, in “Cyclic Trajectory Concepts,” published in 1985.
The Aldrin cycler reduces the cost in two ways. First, the mass of the transit habitat with its radiation shielding, recycling life support systems, communications equipment, and so forth is launched once and reused. Every reuse saves at least four supersized rockets’ worth of fuel.
Secondly, like grabbing a pole to swing around and change direction, the cycler takes advantage of Earth’s gravity instead of using fuel to travel from Earth to Mars. These opportunities occur every twenty-six months near the time, called opposition, when Earth is passing Mars. (Mars is then overhead at midnight, on the opposite side of Earth from the sun.)
Once on the orbital “track,” the cycler never stops. To get on board, personnel and their luggage ride a “taxi” flight to rendezvous and dock with the cycler as it flies by Earth. About five months later, the cycler flies past Mars. The passengers get back in their taxi and ride it to Mars. A taxi from Mars might also deliver supplies or crew to the cycler during the flyby.
The cycler then continues outward past Mars’s orbit (at 1.5 AU) to about 2.3 AU (where 1 AU is Earth’s distance from the sun). It slows down and “falls” back toward the sun. It crosses Mars’s orbit again on the way back, but Mars has already passed through that intersection and is not there.
As the cycler crosses Earth’s orbit, Earth’s gravity pulls the spacecraft toward it and speeds it up. The cycler then swings around Earth and changes direction back toward Mars—not using any fuel.
While passing by Earth, another group of passengers can taxi to the cycler. Aldrin wants this “outbound” cycler named Armstrong, after Neil.
The crew that rides the Armstrong to Mars must wait thirty-one months for it to fly by Mars again. Thus, they would be gone from Earth for the five-month trip to Mars, the nearly thirty-one months spent on Mars, and the twenty-one-month return to Earth, for a total time away of about four years nine months.
Alternatively, a second “inbound” cycler (which Aldrin would name Conrad, after Apollo 12’s Pete Conrad) can be launched so that the flyby of Mars occurs when the cycler crosses Mars’s orbit on its way inbound. The Mars crew would only have to wait twenty-five months on Mars to catch this cycler, and the trip to Earth would again be five months. Their total time away drops to about two years eleven months.
&nb
sp; Crew serving on the outbound or inbound cyclers would return to Earth every twenty-six months with a flyby of Mars either five months or twenty-one months into each tour.
The Aldrin cycler is especially well suited to transport people and delicate items that can’t be exposed to high acceleration, radiation, extreme temperatures, vacuum, or isolation during the long trip to Mars using other options. This cycler’s primary drawbacks are that the flyby velocity at Mars is on the high side and the trajectory requires periodic corrections (at aphelion) to account for Earth and Mars not being in the same plane. Thus the search continues for orbital solutions that lower the rendezvous speeds (reducing taxi fuel requirements) via more gravity assists or increasing the flight time and using more cyclers. And maybe someone will figure out how to open a wormhole—but that’s another story.
Before we hop on the Aldrin Express, I’d like to thank Martin for the invitation to “ride along” on this trip to Mars. Ever since we met at the 2013 WorldCon in San Antonio (just as “Murder on the Aldrin Express” came out in Analog), it was obvious that we shared a passion for space and an appreciation for Buzz’s vision of human settlements on Mars. I expect our five-month trip to Mars will literally fly by as we continue to discuss and explore a wondrous future in space.
Marianne Dyson is an award-winning author and a former NASA flight controller (the topic of her memoir, A Passion for Space). Her recent children’s books include Welcome to Mars: Making a Home on the Red Planet and To the Moon and Back: My Apollo 11 Adventure coauthored with Buzz Aldrin. See www.mdyson.com for more information.
A NOTE ON RANKS IN THE SYSTEM INITIATIVE
Many of the characters in this book serve in different branches of the International Space Corps chartered under the System Initiative, a future international space program built from the preexisting programs of the member nations. As a new service, it has its own rank structure, inspired by but different from the ranks of contemporary and historical services. To help the reader understand the chain of command, here are the ranks used in all branches of the System Initiative.
Enlisted Ranks
T-1 T Trainee
E-0 R Recruit
E-1 SR Spacer Recruit
E-2 SA Spacer Apprentice
E-3 SP Spacer
E-4 AS3 Astronaut 3rd Class
E-5 AS2 Astronaut 2nd Class
E-6 AS1 Astronaut 1st Class
E-7 CAS Chief Astronaut
E-8 S CAS Senior Chief Astronaut
E-9 MCAS Master Chief Astronaut
Warrant Ranks
B-1 BN1 Bosun 1
B-2 CBN2 Chief Bosun 2
B-3 CBN3 Chief Bosun 3
B-4 CBN4 Chief Bosun 4
B-5 CBN5 Chief Bosun 5
Officer Ranks
O-0 MID Midshipman (Officer trainee)
O-1 ENS Ensign
O-2 LTJG Lieutenant Junior Grade
O-3 LT Lieutenant
O-4 LCDR Lieutenant Commander
O-5 CDR Commander
O-6 CHF Chief
O-7 CAPT Captain (Commandant for ground posts)
O-8 RDML Rear Admiral
O-9 VADM Vice Admiral
O-10 ADM Admiral
O-11 FADM Fleet Admiral
Some of the incidents that follow predate the System Initiative, and some of the characters in this story serve in other forces outside the Initiative, so there may be some exceptions to this table.
1. THE INSPECTOR GENERAL’S OFFICE
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PARK YERIM, INSPECTOR GENERAL IN THE SYSTEM INITIATIVE
28 MAY 2083
“Can I get you anything, Inspector Park?” Matt asked.
I shook my head and came to my senses. I had been staring too long at the gray-brown door with the freshly painted sign, black letters on white: “Inspector General Park Yerim.” This still seemed like a dream, a running-and-hiding-but-you-can’t-escape dream. I had been feeling fight-or-flight urges ever since I had arrived on the Aldrin a week ago, escorted by Admiral Knapp, Admiral Morais, a host of other officers, Rapid Response troops from the Admiralty, and a pile of legal orders.
But the ache in my shoulder, hanging on nearly two weeks after I had bruised it, reminded me that I wasn’t dreaming. I turned to Matt Harrold, my new assistant, sitting at what had been Chief Carver’s desk just a week ago. Back when Nick Aames had been captain of the Aldrin, and my office had been his office, Anson Carver had been his second-in-command. He had occupied Aames’s outer office as a buffer between Aames and the rest of the world. Now that I was de facto in command, Matt had been assigned to be my buffer. I hoped he was up to the task.
“Soju?”
“Excuse me, ma’am?” Matt’s face was blank.
“It’s a Korean rice liquor,” I said, missing the sweet hint of anise and the soothing effect of the alcohol. “I haven’t had good soju since I left Seoul.”
“I don’t know if the ship has any soju. Would vodka do?”
Matt was still too new to recognize I was joking, in my cynical way. Like me, he had been selected more because he was available than because he was the best person for the job. When the Aldrin had swung through the Earth-Luna system at her high departure velocity, only a few stations and ships had been in position for rendezvous. So the System Initiative had crewed our mission from whoever happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And so I found myself, barely three years in the Inspector General’s Office, presiding over the biggest tangle of political and commercial and military interests of the decade: the investigation and possible court martial of Captain Nicolau Aames. I had, according to the Initiative, plenary powers to straighten out this mess; but I had no idea how. Soju wouldn’t help, but nothing else would either.
“No, Matt, I’m fine. There probably isn’t any good vodka on board either. Can you see if the ship’s stores have anything for my shoulder? It’s still sore from my collision on Farport. And something for a headache too. I’ll be in Aames’s— I mean, my office.”
In the one-quarter gravity from the Aldrin’s spin, my feet still felt heavy as I crossed through the outer office. Like much of the ship, the bulkheads of the room were a sickening gray brown. When Holmes Interplanetary had owned this ship, the bulkhead color had been an interesting choice: ochre, the color of the Holmes logo. When the System Initiative had taken over the ship, they had repainted everything in government gray; but the orange shade bled through, giving everything a muddy color.
And then I entered “my” office, and the tone turned even darker. Aames had painted his office walls black, and all the trim was either black or gray. The carpet was dark gray, almost black as well. His chair was a navy-blue web, almost the color of my IG uniform, on a dark aluminum frame. Even his desk, a typical command desk with a touch display nearly three square meters in area, stood on a single black pillar. The recessed lights in the ceiling added to the glow from the touch display. Together they overpowered the faint light from the window.
That big picture window taking up almost the entire wall behind the desk. Aames had established his office in the rear ring of the Aldrin, along the rear wall, so that he could have that window. And that view: the Earth and Luna, each in three-quarter phase as the ship sped on its way to Mars in its cycler orbit. As the Aldrin slowly spun in space, the twin planets rotated in and out of sight twice per minute. Some might find that motion unsettling. I found it hypnotic. The only calming experience I had had aboard this ship. I stood at the window, staring at home, and I wished I were back there: Luna, Earth, Farport. Hell, any post but this one.
But wishing wouldn’t change things. Staring wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I turned away from the window and looked at the office. Along the spinward wall was a small sink and a shelf with glasses, wide plastic bulbs with narrow mouths to prevent sloshing over in the low gravity. I poured myself a glass of water, holding the glass antispinward of the faucet head to compensate for the Coriolis effect that curved the stream. I was careful to stop at the full line,
or the water would spill out even with the tall neck.
I sat in the command chair and set the glass in a coaster molded into the desk’s frame. The desk display was filled with virtual piles of my documents. Off in one corner was a cluster of notes from Aames’s command, all neatly ordered. The office, like the desk, had been immaculate when I had assumed command, and I tried not to disturb anything more than my investigations required. I didn’t feel comfortable putting any of myself into this room; I was only a temporary occupant, and either Aames or a new commander would reclaim it eventually. The sooner, the better.
Aames hadn’t put much of himself into the room either. Besides the dark decor, the only personal touches were a battered old blue reader sitting on the desk—must’ve been older than me—and the hand-painted sign on the second door, the one in the antispinward wall. It was a bright-blue rectangle painted on the black background; and in very neat white lettering, the sign read: “São Paulo. Keep out.” That was the door to Aames’s cabin, where he was confined to quarters, pending the results of my investigation. The source of all this trouble was fewer than eight meters away. That door had never opened once since I had moved in to this office.
Forward of this ring were nine more identical rings, a stack of rings rotating on a central core. Each ring was sixty meters in radius, four decks deep with each deck measuring ten meters across. There was an outer cargo deck for storage and shielding, a main deck, a middle deck, and an upper deck. Each ring was divided into numerous cabins and passageways, so that the one large space became many small, even cramped, spaces. And over time that space filled up; every so often, the Cycler Consortium added another couple of rings in a complicated orbital rendezvous. The addition of the G and H Rings in the last cycle had brought the total usable deck space to twenty-seven acres: roughly the deck space of six old wet-navy aircraft carriers. The Aldrin was practically a city in space.
And of course, in the latest Earth approach, the Consortium had added the brand-new I and J Rings; that seemingly simple engineering feat had unfolded into the mess that I was privileged to clean up.