The Chara Talisman

by Alastair Mayer

  “Mounting brackets, perhaps. But not power connectors that could hold up to the current.” She unplugged the data cable from the wreck. “Or do you have some inch-thick superconducting cable in all that gear you brought?” She handed the terminal back to Carson, then turned and slammed the hatch cover closed with a fist. “Damn it!”

  “Do we really need three warp modules?”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t there any redundancy? Can’t we warp with two?”

  Jackie was quiet for a moment. In theory only one module was needed to generate an Alcubierre-Broek bubble, but only in theory. “It’s not that simple. You need at least two to balance the Finazzi instability, although two doesn’t give you much margin of error and you have to go slower.”

  “How much slower?”

  “Ah, speed would be square root of two-thirds,” Jackie thought for a moment. “About eighty percent, call it four hundred cee. We would get more range powering just two modules instead of three, but that’s not the only problem.

  “The warp fields have to be arranged symmetrically, radial symmetry around the axis of travel. The Sophie is configured for three, if we only power up two we’ll shoot off at an angle and end up who knows where. Just like if one is loose.”

  “Could it be recalibrated? Take short hops?”

  “No. Not reliably and that would reduce our effective speed even more.” Jackie picked up her wrench and toyed with it, rotating it in her hands. “I don’t suppose the settlement on the south continent would have anything useful.”

  “The Mennonite colony? They don’t even have a radio. I suppose we could fly there and ask. I think it would be a waste of time, but if it’s our only choice . . .”

  Jackie looked at the wrench in her hand, then back to the wrecked ship, then at Carson. “There is another possibility. Marten won’t like it.”

  “What’s that?”

  “At one time Mitsubishi considered an option on these Sapphires to have four warp modules, to add reliability and speed. It was never very popular, the speed increase wasn’t significant and the extra power consumption cut the range. But the hull was built with the mount points in place.”

  “Wait, are you saying we could reposition the warp modules?”

  “In theory, but I’ve never done it. We’ll need to open up all the paneling. We can leave the dorsal module where it is and move the lower port module down to the ventral mountings.”

  “So why wouldn’t Marten like it?”

  “With just two diametrically opposed modules we can’t bias the warp the way we can with three. It will be absolutely symmetrical.”

  “Does that mean--?”

  “It means no artificial gravity. The whole trip will be in freefall.”

  “You’re right. Marten’s going to hate it.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “You want to do what?” Marten shouted when Carson told him.

  “You’ll survive. Would you rather be stuck here?”

  “You could come back for me with a working ship.” He raised a hand to forestall the protest. “No, never mind, that wasn’t serious. I wonder if you could put me in the traumapod for the duration.”

  “Oh come on, Marten, it’s not that bad. You know you get used to it.”

  “For a couple of days of in-system travel, maybe. And it’s more ‘learn to tolerate’ rather than ‘get used to’. But yes, I suppose I’ll manage.” He sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable. “What do we need to do?”

  “Well, first we’re going to fly back to the Mennonite colony. In a pinch Jackie says we could the work ourselves, but she’d rather have a few extra hands to help with some of the heavy lifting.”

  “That’s the other side of the planet. I don’t suppose we’re staying in atmosphere for that?”

  “Sorry, that would take too long, and it’s not really the kind of flying the Sophie’s designed for. No, we’ll be doing a fractional orbit. About forty-five minutes, only twenty of that weightless.”

  Marten sighed again. “It’s a good thing we found that pyramid, otherwise I’d really be regretting I ever came on this trip. So, you said that’s the first thing. What else?”

  “Oh, then you’ll need to clear your gear out of your berth. We’re going to take the walls off and pull up the floor.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The work took several days, but less time than Carson had expected. The ship was designed to facilitate repair, with morphic fastenings on the panels that let the whole panel be removed or replaced with the touch of a button. Jackie spent more time on re-routing and checking the power and control cabling than it had taken them to unmount the heavy warp module from its original position and secure it to the mounting points beneath the floor panels.

  “What about the alignment?” Carson asked. “If it’s not exactly parallel to the ship’s axis, won’t we end up nowhere near our target?”

  “If they’re badly aligned, yes. One AU per arcsecond of misalignment per parsec. But these babies,” she patted the module she was connecting a cable to, “are self-aligning as long as they’re correct within a tenth of a degree. Once I get this one locked down I’ll run the calibration. The modules will send signals to orient themselves with each other, then use the data to compute the timing offsets in the Higgs generators.”

  Carson looked at her for a moment. He’d understood each word, and thought he had an idea of what she meant, but . . . “Okay, good. I’ll leave you to it. How much longer, do you think?”

  “The warp drive will be ready to go by this evening. We’ll still need to reassemble the paneling but that should only be a few hours. Unless there’s a glitch we can depart tomorrow morning.”

  “Wonderful.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Everything secured for takeoff?” Jackie double-checked with her passengers. “All loose items secured? Tray tables and seat backs in an upright position?” She did a quick walk through of the cabin to confirm it, she had already done the outside walk around and the cabin hatch was secure. She got affirmative responses from Carson and Marten, and went forward to strap in to the control chair.

  As she started flipping switches and pressing buttons on the control panel, prepping the ship for takeoff, Marten asked: “So, where is it we’re going?”

  “Oh, did you miss that conversation? Carson wants to report in to Ducayne, but a straight run to Alpha Centauri is past our range from here. There’s a star, Lalande 21185. It’s a red dwarf two-thirds of the way there with an ice plutoid we can refuel at.”

  “Ah. Are we going to hide the Maguffin there too?”

  “Undecided.” Carson joined the conversation. “I’m still of two minds about that. Ducayne will want it as soon as possible, but by taking it down to Sawyer we risk it being hijacked—”

  “But Hopkins is dead. He blew up his ship.”

  “I don’t think he was working alone.”

  “Well no, he had a half-dozen henchmen with him.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” said Carson. “He implied that he already had a customer for the gizmo, that that was specifically what he came for, not just ancient pottery and stonework. Whoever sent him is very likely watching for our return.”

  “Ah, so potentially we could be jumped any time after arriving in the system.”

  “Right. But that’s not the only reason not to take it to Sawyer, either. Do we really want to bring this alien gizmo of undetermined power—and demonstrated destructive capability—down into a city, or even a heavily inhabited planet? And if Ducayne’s tempted to test it, I’d just as soon he did it off world somewhere.”

  “Another very good point,” said Marten.

  Jackie had only been half listening; she had talked about it with Hannibal earlier, and was finishing up the preflight checklist. “Okay, gentles, everyone strapped in? We’re about to lift.”

  There came the sound of the thrusters powering up. The ship lifted a little, settled while Jackie checked the final pre-takeoff items.
“Okay, lifting!” They felt gently pressed down into their seats as the Sophie quickly ascended to a few dozen feet above the ground, then, still rising, began to transition to forward flight, pushing them back in their seats now as the ship accelerated forward and Jackie pulled back on the stick, pitching the Sophie upwards as it leaped for the sky.

  Chapter 35: Snowball

  Lalande 21185

  They came out of warp in the outer reaches of the Lalande 21185 system. The ship was on a night time cycle. Hannibal and Marten were asleep in their bunks and the cabin lights were dim, but Jackie was at the controls for the break out. She checked a few readings on the control panel, the data display on the computer. Everything seemed proper. She dimmed the lights all the way down and turned on the window. Jackie wasn’t prepared for what she saw and gasped in amazement, then let out a quiet “Wow.”

  After admiring it quietly to herself for a few minutes, she thought to wake the men up. She brought up the cabin lights and turned off the window, then sounded the usual morning wake-up call. Oops, better have the galley make coffee, she thought, and told it to do so.

  A few minutes later, Carson and Marten were gathered in the cabin with Jackie, wondering just what was going on.

  “What’s the emergency?” asked Hannibal.

  “Oh, no emergency, or I’d have used the emergency wakeup and you wouldn’t be floating there sipping coffee. No, there’s something outside I thought you’d like to see.” She started to dim the cabin lights.

  “Outside? What?”

  “Look.” She turned on the windows.

  There were a few moments of silence, then a couple of subdued “wow”s and “that’s amazing”s as they all took in the scene again.

  Lalande 21185 was a bright spot against an almost black sky, but the eye-catching feature was the enormous, glowing comet trail that spiraled out from a tiny bright dot near it. It circled, or spiraled, around the star three or four times before it broadened and diffused and the fuzzy-edged laps around the star began to blend together, forming a larger and more nebulous disk that covered a good thirty or so degrees of viewing angle. As the disk faded toward black at its outer, ill-defined edge, a distinct circular gap could be seen in it.

  “That’s fantastic!” said Carson. “What causes it?”

  “This star has a gas planet in what’s called a ‘torch orbit’ around it. It’s so close it orbits in a couple of days, and the star’s heat is boiling its atmosphere away. The stellar wind trails it out just like a comet’s tail, but the orbit is so fast you get the spiral effect until it’s diffused out.”

  “Sure is pretty. But it can’t last long, can it?”

  “No, probably only a few thousand years, we’re lucky to see it. I’ve been to other stars with torch planets, but they’ve lost their atmosphere long ago and there’s only a gas halo left. This is the first spiral I’ve seen.”

  “What is the gap?” asked Marten, pointing out the window and making an elliptical motion with his finger.

  “There’s a small rocky planet further out in the system. That will be its orbit. Its gravity is scooping a lane clear. This system has a couple of Jupiter-sized planets too, but they’re too far out to see.”

  They watched, admiring the scene for a while longer, then Carson said: “All right, where to from here? You said there was a place to refuel?”

  “Yes, near the edge of the gas disk there’s an ice planet.”

  “What’s so nice about it?”

  “What? Oh, no, I said ‘An. Ice. Planet,’ not ‘a nice planet.’ Technically though it’s only a plutoid.”

  “Oh, right, of course.”

  “Here, let me switch the windows to infrared.” So saying, Jackie touched a control the view out the window changed, the spiraling disk broadening out and blurring, and covering a larger part of the visible sky. Beyond where the original, visible-light disk had faded out, another gap could be easily seen in infrared. “Okay, that’s our ice world’s orbit. I need to locate it and lay in a course. The galley’s open if you want breakfast.”

  Marten didn’t seem enthusiastic. “No thanks, I think I’ll go back to my bunk and strap in. I’ll eat after we land, to celebrate the return to gravity.” So saying, he pushed off in that direction.

  Jackie shook her head. “Poor guy. I thought he was getting used to zero gee.”

  Carson shrugged. “It’s mostly the transitions. He manages all right if it’s prolonged. He’s been okay on this trip since the second day out, but putting up with it is tiring for him. Anyway, I’m for breakfast.” He turned toward the galley. “Want anything?”

  “No thanks. After I work out the course maybe.” At that, Jackie pulled herself into the control chair, strapped in, and started tapping out commands on the computer panel.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Landing on Dirty Snowball—as they’d dubbed the ice-covered worldlet formerly known only by an index number in a database—was easy enough, and even the one-tenth gee surface gravity was enough to make Marten happier.

  “I’m going to suit up and get the refueling under way,” Roberts was telling the others. “Carson, you need to figure out what you want to do with the Maguffin.” Jackie already had her vac suit out and started to don it as she said this.

  “Can’t you do it all from inside?” ask Carson. “I thought the refueling probe was automatic.”

  “It is, but I like to check it when it deploys. I also want to check the landing gear to make sure it didn’t freeze into the ice.”

  “Oh, okay. That sounds like a good idea.”

  “That’s why you’re paying me the big money.”

  It was a lightweight suit, not intended for major surface explorations. The basic suit was more for emergency decompress use, with additional layers as needed. There were gecko boots and pads for working outside the ship in free space, and surface boots, the traditional “moon boots,” for walking around on a body’s surface. Jackie slipped a pair of these over her suited feet, then shrugged on the life support backpack and connected its hoses and cables. She pulled her helmet over her head and latched the neck ring, then ran through the suit checklist on her heads up display. Everything came up green except pressure; she still had her gloves off. She tugged those on and secured the wrists, double checked the pressure seal, then grabbed a pair of outer gloves in her left hand. She would put those on outside. She keyed the suit’s external speaker. “Okay gentlemen, I’ll be back soon. Don’t go anywhere without me,” then stepped into the airlock and closed the inner door.

  She ran through the suit checks once more, checked the airlock inner door seals, and started the airlock cycle. She could feel her suit inflate slightly and stiffen as the airlock vented. The airlock pressure reached zero, and she opened the outer hatch.

  The ground beyond thirty or forty meters from the Sophie looked like dirty sea ice, or a glacier. It was a lot of ice, with large cracks and crags, and covered with layers of dust left behind when the ice around it evaporated in sunlight and vacuum. Near the Sophie, though, everything was shiny white and smooth. Her hot exhaust had melted and vaporized the ice and blown away the dust, and water vapor had refrozen and settled out as a fine snow after the engines shut down.

  Jackie walked over—carefully, but the ice was too cold to be slippery—to a landing pad and examined it. There was a dusting of ice crystals on it and the bottom was embedded in the ice, but she this didn’t worry her. The Sophie would melt and break that in a few seconds when it blasted away. The cleared, polished white area around them might be an issue, though.

  “Carson, this is Roberts” Jackie called the ship over her suit comm. Then felt a bit silly. Who else would it be?

  “Yes Jackie, what’s up?”

  “If you’re thinking of burying the Maguffin out here somewhere, you might consider how you feel about having it at the center of a great big white bull’s eye.”

  “What?”

  Jackie explained the surface phenomenon around the ship.

>   “Oh, I see.” Carson turned on the windows. “Yes, I really do see. Okay, I’ll think about that while you’re setting up the refueling. Aside from that, how does it look?”

  “No problems. A little bit of ice around the foot pads but nothing Sophie can’t handle. Let me get started on the fuelling, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “All right, Carson out.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Roberts continued around to the aft end of the ship where the ice boom was stowed. She opened a panel to expose a keypad, then tapped in a control sequence on the large buttons with her gloved fingers. The boom extended out, unfolding and telescoping until it was a good thirty feet from the rest of the Sophie, its heavy business end resting on the ice. Roberts gave it a quick visual check, then, satisfied, stepped back to the panel and keyed in another sequence. Around the head end of the boom jetted a brief cloud of steam, quickly freezing to ice crystals, as the head melted its way partially into the ice to ensure a good seal. The red light on its top started blinking, warning anyone nearby that the boom was now in operation.

  Underneath that head end dome, a narrower pipe began extending from within the boom, a ring of steam jets around its edge melting a tunnel into the ice. The steam pressure forced the resulting liquid up into the pipe, where it was pumped back through a filter system and into the Sophie’s tanks. The process would create a great void under the ice, leaving enough surface thickness to maintain the seal with the head end. At least, that was usually the way it worked. Sometimes a crack or defect in the ice would cause a blowout, and the whole boom assembly would have to be moved to a new spot. It would have been much easier to refuel from a stream or lake, but those were hard to find outside of terraformed planets.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Jackie sequenced herself back in through the airlock and entered the Sophie’s cabin, removing her helmet and shaking out her hair as she did so. “We’re fueling.” They could hear the pumps. “It will take a couple of hours to top off the tanks.” She put the helmet down and sat to take the moon boots off. The gloves were already off. “So, Carson, any ideas?”