Tears of Selene

by Bill Patterson

  “But their laser operates at a frequency that is absorbed by Earth's atmosphere,” said Gus. “That's the only way that UNSOC would let them operate.”

  “True, but during the detonation, there is a high probability that short-lived fission and fusion nuclei will fluoresce in frequency bands that can pass through the atmosphere, delivering laser energy onto the surface.”

  “That sounds really low-probability to me,” said Gus. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, and it's worse. I am briefing you from least danger to greatest.”

  “Reverse order. OK. Keep talking.”

  “The laser may weaken the debris so that it calves into five to ten large pieces instead of hundreds of little ones. The energy remaining will eject those pieces on trajectories of their own. The pieces will be too large to laser, and may not be nukable in time.”

  “Wow,” said Gus. “What if they don't laser it at all?”

  “The debris will most likely remain in a single large piece and hundreds of smaller ones, and head off into a different orbit that does not intersect the Earth.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Highly recommend they do not laser this piece. There's more.”

  “Agree with your recommendation. More means worse. Go.”

  “CAPCOM, there's a high probability that this debris will send several high speed fragments in the general area of Perseus. In addition, they will be less than eight hundred kilometers from the blast when it does occur. I recommend we let them know about the special danger. That is all.”

  “Understood, Astrogation. Give my best to Nellie the computer and thank you for your report.” Gus stood up. He was a short, bald, and rather round person, and controllers joked that their leader was a mushroom. Gus leaned over his console to look at the floor below.

  “Everybody, listen up. Tricky one here. I'm calling Commander Daniels to get her up to speed on this. You know how she wants answers when she gets in, so here's what I think she'll want to know.

  “Weapons, I need a good range of solutions, not just of weapons to be used, but also where the debris will be and how far away Perseus will be at detonation. Liaison, let us know which country's missiles we're going to use. Comms, find out if there are any blackout periods between us and Perseus. Security, get ready to close up the kaserne. This might be used by Mister Fun to attack. Everyone else, get ready to be called on. And for the love of God, take ten to clean up your work area! Looks like a pack of hoboes are living in here!”

  He switched channels. “Comms.”

  “Comms here,” said Celene, her sweet warm voice derailing Gus' thoughts for a second.

  “Sorry about the reference,” he said.

  “I am flattered that you care. That you all care. I've done nothing to deserve it.”

  Gus felt the pull on his soul. “We all care, Celine. You're one of us. Our sister. You've been upstairs, hell, you brought half of us back with your piloting.”

  “You did too, as CAPCOM.”

  “What I did was nothing. What you did was spectacular. You and John and Panjar and even, God forbid, Eddie Zanger. Never forget. Now, here's what I need you to do.”

  “Message already queued for Perseus, all I need is your OK to send. Heading is NUKE-CLOSE, and a special addendum that asks them not to target this piece of debris.”

  “Perfect. Send it. And get me Commander Daniels.”

  “Here you go. And Gus? Thanks. From John and I.”

  Gus found himself blushing like a schoolboy. To a man about to celebrate his thirtieth wedding anniversary, it was disconcerting to realize how much he was affected.

  ###

  Mick Donovan read the screen idly, then pulled himself closer. He reached back with his foot to snag the stool, which Newton’s Second Law had propelled away from his body. He changed channels to the Commander's circuit, and leaned on the Alert signal.

  “Commander Standish.” The calm voice of the alternate commander of the Mars Expedition slowed Mick down a little.

  “Sir, we are in receipt of a NUKE-CLOSE message. Detonation to occur, wow, that's funny, seventy-five minutes minimum, ninety minutes maximum. Giving us a lot of time.”

  “Doesn't decrease the danger. Get on the blower, get all the EVAs inside. I'll call…who's outside right now?”

  “Horst has the stick, sir. Circuit four-alpha-six.”

  “Four-alpha-six. Get them headed indoors. This ain't just one or two floaters. We've got full workcrews, remember. Move it.”

  Mick got to work. He even thought ahead enough to tip off the next shift's leader. That earned him an extra bulb of beer.

  ###

  Garth was moving slowly through the sewage system, wearing a scuba tank and mask that he 'liberated' from a sporting goods store. There was some oxygen in the air in the slimy pitch-black tunnel, but the level of hydrogen sulfide and other such fumes would have knocked him out within thirty minutes. Garth had exactly forty-five minutes to find an exit inside the kaserne, turn around, and make it back downhill before his air ran out.

  The hardhat and mining lamp were a stroke of genius, he had to admit. It didn't take more than a couple of times catching one's balance on a tunnel wall before the hands were too slippery to hold anything. He would have dropped a flashlight ages ago.

  The chugging sound was getting louder, and Garth dreaded what he was going to find at the top of the slope. The floor of the tunnel disappeared and a round pipe presented itself, unspeakable filth cascading out of it to run down the slope of the tunnel he just finished climbing. A sewage pump station. Just like the map he studied predicted. This was a twenty-five meter lift. Garth carefully flashed his helmet lamp in all directions, including straight up to see the round eye of the manhole cover directly overhead. There, on the wall, was a series of metal hoops embedded in the concrete: a ladder. Garth carefully edged over towards it and climbed downward in the dark.

  Celine and that black bastard were going to pay dearly for putting him through this.

  ###

  “OK, Lima, I'm going to need your eyes. Let me know how far up I am and look around to make sure I'm not going to hit a big rock or something.”

  “I'll do what I can, Alex. Our passenger is still out, by the way.”

  “Just wonderful. OK, rockets to full fire in twenty seconds. I'll need you to give me reports every five seconds or so after they fire.”

  “Wilco.”

  The computer counted off the seconds before the optimal height above ground, then smoothly increased the thrust of all rockets. Alex knew this was it—Lunar Lander for real! He felt the Disco respond to his inputs, and marveled at the control that twenty-plus rockets gave.

  “One thousand, I guess.”

  “Roger.”

  Not bad, thought Alex. Radar gave twelve hundred meters. It was going to be really important below one hundred meters, but he wanted Lima to get into the groove of reporting every five seconds.

  “Still looks like a thousand. I'm not any good at this height.”

  “Roger.”

  Alex slid the master control downward, and the pumps slowed the amount of liquid oxygen sent into the combustion chamber. The Disco palpably sank underneath them.

  “Three hundred!” The panic in Lima's voice was too real to have been faked. Alex smiled. The way to win at Lunar Lander is to swoop down to the surface, then blast with maximum thrust until your downward speed hit zero, right at the same time your height above ground hit zero.

  “Roger.”

  “Two hundred!”

  Alex slid the control upward to maximum thrust, and felt the Disco respond with a surge that surprised him. The height above ground stopped dropping so quickly, and even began to rise.

  “Fucking Travis,” he muttered.

  “One fifty, and we're maybe rising a bit,” said Lima.

  “Compensating,” said Alex, and slid the control back downward, but slowly. The Disco again sank towards the Lunar surface.

  Another
minute went by, with Lima dutifully reporting height, which decreased steadily.

  “Twenty. Ground looks smooth, no boulders in front. Rubble pile ahead about one kilometer, better kill that forward speed.”

  “Already doing that. OK, you can stop reporting, Lima. I've got this.” Another few seconds, and the solid thump of landing struts against Lunar rock thrummed upward to shake the main plate.

  Alex slapped the Master Arm off, and the computer shut down the engines. “All out. This train is out of service. No passengers.”

  Alex pulled his suit boots out of the special hold-downs that kept him from being bucked off the plate, unhooked the safety tiedown from a metal hoop on his belt, and stepped away from the controls.

  “Need a hand, Lima?”

  “You could say that,” said the old machinist. “Here, take her off of me.”

  Alex looked inside the faceplate at the face of Maricella Bombara. “She looks like she's sleeping. O2 levels are fine. Sensor on the ear is green.” He flipped open the window on the front chest computer. “Got a pulse, brainwaves. I don't know what's wrong.”

  “Lay her down on the deck. Let's spread the shade and rig the Disco for overnight,” said Lima.

  Using the exact same equipment as Travis used a year ago, but with two helping hands, the Disco was covered, and the RTG started dumping its waste heat into the reflective tarp, thus keeping the Disco warm to counteract the cold Lunar night.

  Lima stood up from pounding in the last stake and said, “I'll go in and flip her radio on, so if she wakes up, we'll hear her call. Meet you back of rocket twelve. I want to see what that stupid thing did.”

  “You and me both,” said Alex, walking around the wide circular plate towards the offending rocket. He wasn't very close when it was clear that the rocket would never thrust again. “Blew the combustion chamber. Outward, thankfully. I think we can salvage the LOX.”

  “Please do so,” said Lima. “I'll go see how the ore concentrator is doing. I sure hope our geologist wakes up soon.”

  ###

  Lisa was intent on the problem at hand. A ninety meter piece of debris, far too large to be vaporized by the Perseus' lasers but small enough to be weakened by them, was racing in towards Earth. A piece that large would survive reentry and ruin a lot of people's days.

  “V-max?” she inquired.

  “Eight point three kps at Entry Interface,” replied Astrogation.

  “High.”

  “Commander, we traced this piece's orbit back. It was one of the original high-speed fragments blown off, but oddly enough, one that wasn't blasted to powder by Event forces. It has had only a couple of interactions with the Moon and Earth, all of which warped its orbit towards the ecliptic. It started out fast, then got faster as the Moon and Earth's orbit changed underneath it. As a result, it's almost at escape velocity. It's a shame we can’t just flick it over and say goodbye, but it's headed straight towards Earth and we can't move it sideways enough.”

  “Damn shame,” said Lisa. “Well, let's get the solution cranking. Time to launch?”

  “T minus twenty minutes, and holding. Awaiting Commander's selection of intercept profiles,” said the event controller.

  “Profile seven, please,” said Lisa.

  “Confirm Commander has selected profile seven,” said the controller.

  “Confirmed,” said Lisa. From now on, the launch was in the hands of the crew. She could go back to Shep and fool around, but the thought never crossed her mind.

  The controller locked in the solution, then commanded the computer to execute. A large timer sprang to life, giving the real-time numbers until launch, and that special rocket-jock time of T-something, with holds and other distorting things built in.

  “It's like the two minute warning,” muttered Lisa. “Game's not over in two minutes, more like twenty.”

  “Ma'am?” queried the event controller, his face turned towards hers.

  “Sorry,” Lisa said, firmly clicking her microphone off.

  A low snicker swept through the room.

  Lisa thumbed the transmit button. “As if none of you ever left your microphone on, ever. Carry on, people.” She turned her microphone off as the control room burst into laughter.

  The selection of a missile went smoothly. Out in the plains of Nebraska, a siren went off. Cattle bolted from the pastures around the missile silo farm, running off kilograms of valuable meat while the cowboys chivvied them into a proper herd, raced back for the stragglers, and got the jugheads moving away from the imminent danger.

  Missiles had been flying out of these silos for the past five years. It still rattled the old-timers, who thought it was the start of World War III, but to the young men who worked the cattle range, it was just another hazard to be dealt with.

  “T-three minutes to launch and we are in a two minute hold for tracking confirmation.”

  “Comms, status of Perseus?” asked Lisa.

  “They report all secure, lasers off, all facilities buttoned up. No traffic trans-Lunar. EVA on the Moon, but they are in little danger.”

  “From us, maybe. Besides, their own lasers would handle any debris from this. Thank you, Celine.”

  “Yes, ma'am.” A yellow light began flashing urgently on Celine's console. For a minute, she didn't remember what it was.

  “Commander.”

  “I see it. Give me Security.”

  ###

  “What? Where am I?” Alex heard a soft female voice in his headphones.

  “Maricella?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hang on. You're on the surface, out in the Procellarum. I'm siphoning out some LOX and I can't leave until I'm done. It will be a couple of minutes.”

  “Why is it so dark?”

  “You're under a tarp. Just hang on in there. Lima? You catching this?”

  “On my way, Alex. Maricella, this is Lima Donnelly. I'm hopping over to you right now.”

  “Okay. I feel so foolish.”

  “Tell us what's wrong. Are you diabetic? That's the only thing we could come up with.”

  “No. I just haven't slept for a couple of days. Last thing I remember is the rockets starting up, then I'm suddenly here.”

  Lima got to the side of the Disco closest to where Maricella must be, and unfastened the tarp from the holddown.

  “Just hold on there, ma'am. Let me take a look at you,” he said. He peered through her faceplate, then checked her vitals via the chest-mounted repeater. “Seems okay, Alex. Are you woozy, ma'am?”

  “Call me Mary, both of you. Look, as best I can tell, I just passed out from lack of sleep. Otherwise, I'm fine. The cobwebs are clearing out now.”

  “All right, if you say so, Mary. Let's get you out from under there. How are you doing, Alex?”

  “Fine. Got the LOX out of twelve. I'm refilling the ones I used as sustainers—they’re dead empty. I'll unload twenty-four as well when I'm done. Gonna take me another hour, why don't you to go do whatever rock stuff you have to do? I've got to prep the Disco here for emergency takeoff.”

  “Emergency?” asked Mary, her eyes round.

  “Standard procedure,” said Alex. “Something may require us to blast out of here, like an incoming piece of debris. You won't want me screwing around with siphoning LOX at that point now, will you?”

  “I guess not. Thanks for a good flight, Alex. I'm sorry I missed it.”

  “That's all right, we've already spent your fare on booze and playmates. Go have fun with Lima now.”

  ###

  John Hodges was in the garage to the Operations building when Celine reached him. They had worked out just what they were going to do if and when they were attacked, depending on where everyone was. In this particular case, they did nothing, since there would be no place safer than the Control Room of the operations building. John used his pass to slip inside and sit just outside Lisa's office.

  “Come on in, John,” Lisa said. “Nothing super Top-Secret here.”

  �
�Thank you, Lisa.” John moved into one of her comfortable conference chairs. “I saw Celine on the way in. I know better than to hassle her when she's on duty. So, you think this is it?”

  Lisa looked at the sensors. “No, I think it's a dry run. Garth needs to know the lay of the land, and I don't think anything can be so bewildering as a sewage line. Everyone thinks it's a big tunnel with a little stream at the bottom.”

  “Oh, hell no,” said John. “One of my first jobs was running one of those tethered robots down the system in Newark, New Jersey. It was awful, and we were on the surface and upwind. The tunnels are usually a third full. Every twenty feet, there's some feeder tunnel gushing crap at you. Worse when you passed one of the large buildings. Continuous flow.”

  “I can imagine,” said Lisa.

  John looked at her oddly. “You say that all the time, but I don't think you can really imagine this. Do you know the worst times to do these kinds of inspections?”

  “Football season at halftime?”

  “Close. Remember, this was in the downtown area. Sundays were the best time to do inspections—places were empty. We worked weekends twenty-four hours a day. No, the worst times were nine in the morning, and again around two pm.”

  “Breakfast and lunch?”

  “Two hours after. We called it the coffee effect. Ugh. I wonder…what if the entire kaserne flushed at once right now?” John smiled at the thought.

  “Big wave, and that's it. But it would tell him that we were onto him.”

  “He might get that message when none of the manhole covers lift up.” John looked at his fingers. “Of course, nobody really understands how heavy the damned things are.”

  “Hundred and fifty kilos, I hear.”

  John snickered. “Right. Now, lift that while standing on a ladder rung that's made of a piece of reinforcing steel, your hands slippery with crap, and after climbing uphill in a toxic atmosphere.”