Silent Sun: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  Shostakovich acquired the best brains for the RB Group to ensure the technological advantage of his company. But his scientists could decide for themselves, within limits. They did not have to support unethical behavior. His arms and legs did not have that choice. If his hand strangled somebody, his fingers had no way to refuse orders. The creator’s society would only work if all members adhered to similar and very high ethical standards. Artem cherished the thought. It was comforting in a way. Maybe the continued evolution of a species does include learning from mistakes of the past after all.

  Artem stood up and looked around. He was on an empty level whose golden floor reached far into darkness. Above him, too, there was darkness wherever he looked. Watson had claimed he was immortal, but right now he had the distinct impression he would die from hunger if he didn’t get some food very soon. There had to be a way to solve the issue. If he lived inside a simulation, where nothing was real in the first place, then maybe there was a way to modify his surroundings in a way that would uproot the laws of physics that rule in his old world.

  He simply had to learn to work magic.

  June 1, 2074, Solar Explorer

  Humans were rather odd, no doubt. They were floating in front of a sphere of plasma in an environment that was 5,000 degrees. They were sharing the orbit with a huge alien space station that preceded them by a few hundred kilometers. And instead of walking, they floated through their flying omnibus and recycled their excrements through tubes and air holes. Despite all that, Heather felt caught up in routine. It wasn’t bad. On the contrary, she had less reason to get excited and she had made her peace with the circumstances. She had even learned how to ignore Alain’s snoring until she managed to fall asleep. And she no longer felt irritated during a shower, or the process that simulated a shower, if somebody was beyond the thin fabric screen, working on a project in the same room.

  She wouldn’t have minded living in this routine forever, but she knew that their time up here was limited. So she meticulously finished one assignment after another from the pipeline filled by busy colleagues around the world. Alain was an indispensable helper. Once he had even been able to repair the mechanism that pushed the telescope around the solar shield. As an EVA was out of the question in this environment, he had repurposed a six-legged robot for the operation. He had shrugged and mumbled something about nothing being beyond the skills of an engineer.

  “Heather,” Alain called for her just as she had been thinking about him, “it could be that we have a problem.”

  “Just a minute, I need to grab my clothes.”

  “It could be too urgent for that.” It had to be urgent to cause Alain, who was always polite and reserved, to put it that way. Heather let the overall hang and sailed into the lab with a push, wearing nothing but underwear. Alain didn’t comment about her dress. He just pointed at a screen as she arrived.

  Heather floated toward the screen. Alain had enlarged a section of the solar surface. There was an oval that was a bit darker than its surroundings. That was interesting—it indicated a solar flare in the making. Magnetic field lines that had so far been hidden under the surface would soon break through and eject an incredible amount of matter.

  Heather checked the scale. The field was gigantic. Sometimes the surface calmed down again. Heather couldn’t help thinking of an unborn child that was kicking, and sometimes resting, in the days before it would be born. But if this sunspot were to erupt, it would be one of the biggest eruptions she had ever witnessed.

  “Fascinating,” she said. Then she remembered how urgently her presence had been requested. Alain had not called her without reason. She looked at the coordinates. And it became evident why Alain had decided to inform her instantly.

  “Amy,” she called up into the command module, “we have a problem.”

  “Very vigilant indeed,” she said, her way of thanking Alain. Better not to imagine the consequences of missing the advance signs of such an eruption.

  “What’s up?” asked the commander as she floated down toward them. No comment on Heather’s state of dress from her, either.

  “Something drastic is coming our way,” said Heather. “Look here.” She turned the screen so Amy would have a better view.

  “Sorry, I just see a spot.”

  Heather turned the screen back. The spot had already changed. It was clear that incredible forces were conspiring to open up the solar surface.

  “That spot will turn into an enormous protuberance very soon. I have never seen anything like this in my career.”

  “Does it endanger Solar Explorer?”

  “It will hit us. I can’t tell what the ship might withstand.”

  “Can we get out of its way?”

  “Likely it is too late. The material will be ejected from the sun at hundreds of kilometers per second.”

  “So it will reach us a minute after the explosion at the latest. We can’t evade it,” Amy stated in a calm voice.

  How can she stay so composed? thought Heather. “The spot is more than 7,000 kilometers wide. If that is the thickness of the protuberance, it will get us no matter what we do, even if we accelerate laterally at maximum thrust. We probably have about half a minute.”

  Heather had frightened herself by what she had just stated. Her hands started to tremble.

  Amy reacted instantly. “Computer, we need all available energy on the passive screen. Any other suggestions?”

  “I am concerned about the DFD. The enclosed helium could be in danger if we are hit by a strong external magnetic field,” said Alain.

  “Alain is right,” added Callis. “We can’t put all the energy in the passive shield.”

  “Thanks,” said Amy. “Computer, the enclosed helium has top priority in the energy distribution.”

  Heather imagined the scenario of the plasma cloud and its embedded magnetic fields hitting the ship. A certain level of radiation would hit them all. Given enough energy the passive shield could protect them, but without the helium-3 they would lose the fuel for their return flight.

  “Then everybody should prepare for impact now,” said Amy.

  “That isn’t necessary, we won’t notice the protuberance hitting us,” responded Heather.

  “Understood,” said Amy. “Well then, let’s just wait it out. We can’t seem to do anything better. Or does anyone have ideas, the crazier the better, that we can put into action in the remaining seconds?”

  Nobody reacted. Heather started biting her nails. She had trained herself out of that habit at the age of 13. The upcoming catastrophe had to be her fault. The commander had wanted to return long ago, but she had insisted on additional pictures when they had more than enough to satisfy all the solar astronomers in the world. Callis had also voted to stay, but probably just because of her.

  “I am so sorry,” she blurted. The others turned and gave her an odd look.

  “What are you saying?” asked Alain.

  “It is my fault. I should not have insisted on staying longer.”

  “That is enough now, Heather. I had decided to stay at least two additional orbits. I am the commander and nobody else is responsible for the ship. And we won’t even begin to discuss whose fault it is. Nobody could have predicted this phenomenon.”

  “Amy is right,” said Callis, “and you know that more than anybody else. The solar surface is gigantic, and it is extremely improbable that a protuberance would eject right below us.”

  The lights in the module flickered.

  “Well, the sun has a sense of drama,” said Alain, trying a timid laugh, but nobody joined in.

  Solar Explorer was surrounded by a cloud of particles that broke against the passive magnetic shielding like a gigantic wave in a stormy ocean. Radiation in many wavelengths was buzzing through the ship. Many of the charged particles were guided around the ship, but some hit the hull. The plasma torn out of the sun by the arcing magnetic field wasn’t particularly hot, nor was it dense enough to even see anything outside. One c
ould only watch it with telescopes operating in the X-ray, UV, or IR bands. It was a horrible feeling. Heather would be flattened by an invisible tsunami without even noticing it. She was a live example of Schrödinger’s cat—either dead or she had survived. Yet they wouldn’t know until somebody took a look.

  Then things went dark. Somebody had opened the box with the cat. Heather bit on her lips.

  “Don’t worry,” Amy said out loud so that all would hear her. “We’ll get the system back up in a few minutes.”

  A few warning lights came back on. Most blinked in a hectic red pulse, but there were also a few steady green ones. If Heather extrapolated the warning-light situation to the condition of the ship, they were as good as dead.

  Something rattled rather loudly, followed by a crash. The noise was below her.

  “No worries, I just connected the batteries of the emergency power supply,” said Amy. “Just a few seconds now.”

  Of course. Instead of being scared stiff, Amy had taken action. Heather vaguely remembered the lecture by the head of security on their departure. Under the floor of each module there were batteries that would power things in the event of an emergency. Some of the red lights switched to green. The commander’s display came to life. LED panels in the walls brightened up. Could it be that all wasn’t lost yet?

  Heather turned around. Amy was still busy in the sub-floor space of the module. Callis wasn’t there. He was probably busy connecting batteries in the other modules. “What can I do, Amy?”

  “The computer is running again. Why don’t you see if you can get a status report? We need to know what damage the protuberance has caused.”

  Heather floated to the commander’s seat, strapped herself in, and pulled the display into position. The main computer had not finished rebooting. Finally the prompt came up and she entered her password to log in.

  The status report was surprisingly positive. Not one microgram of fuel had been lost. Their helium-3 had been perfectly conserved. Life support was flawless. A sensor for magnetic fields had burned out, but that they could do without. The personal dose of radiation for each crewmember was well within limits, and no repercussions to their health were to be expected.

  “This sounds pretty positive,” reported Heather.

  “So we won’t get radiation sickness?” asked Amy.

  “The protuberance was 7,000 kilometers thick, but it was so fast that it took less than seven seconds to pass through here. That made the overall dose for each of us very manageable. Your life expectancy will hardly have been reduced.”

  “I have been overdosed already, as far as radiation is concerned,” said Amy. “And what about energy?”

  “Wait a minute.” Heather scrolled through the report. Then an entry startled her. “The DFD shut down, in the middle of the tidal wave.”

  The drive didn’t just supply the thrust for their motion, it also generated the electricity for Solar Explorer. It kept running on low power even, when it was not needed for flight purposes.

  “Where did the energy for the helium-3 enclosure come from?” asked Amy.

  “From the buffer batteries. They kept up for 3.2 seconds. Then they were empty. That must have been when the lights went out.”

  The buffer batteries stored surplus energy as it became available from the drive. This allowed the drive to be operated more efficiently, while providing a safety net that had just prevented them from losing valuable fuel.

  “And fortunately the wave passed through right about that time,” said Amy.

  “Yes, that’s what it looks like.”

  “But why are we running on spare batteries now?”

  “An excellent question.” Heather looked for the log at the end of the report. It listed the order in which ship components had restarted. “It looks like the DFD did not start up again.”

  “Let me guess,” said Amy, “the failure traces back to the external motor of the DFD.”

  Heather searched for the component Amy had mentioned. The commander was right. “How did you know that?”

  “I was in a similar situation nearly 30 years ago. I remember the exact day because it was so dramatic. It was November 15, 2046. We had repaired the coolant circulation of the DFD, but it still refused to restart. The external motor had run out of propellant!”

  Heather clicked through to the external motor and checked its status. Dang.

  “This time there is enough propellant. I am sorry to say it is the central coil—it must have been overloaded by the protuberance, and melted down as a result. The fields will have induced extraordinary currents. But why does the DFD need a separate motor. Can’t we do without that?”

  “The combustion chamber of the fusion drive needs about two megawatts so that its magnetic coils can sufficiently compress the fusion matter. Once the engine is running, those two megawatts come out of normal operation. But until the process starts we need a different current supply, and the external motor handles that. I would have thought that they surely would have managed to resolve this critical problem in the last thirty years!”

  “Maybe it is because they have been using the DFD in the Ark. They always had two megawatts from somewhere on the Ark,” said Callis. Heather was glad to hear his voice. “All clear on the other decks,” he added.

  “One might almost think we got away lightly,” said Amy. “Alain, would you join us, too? Then I can summarize our status.”

  Three minutes later they drifted into the command module. Amy went for her command chair. Heather, having finally ducked into her cabin to don her overall, stuck to the ceiling like a spider, watching the scene from above.

  “I will keep this short,” said Amy. “The protuberance has damaged the external motor of the fusion drive. That is why we can’t restart the DFD.”

  “What does that mean for us?”

  “Wait a minute, Alain. Without the DFD we will run out of energy very soon. That will have three consequences. I have sorted them by priority, the least important first. That is life support. In ten to twelve days we will suffocate.”

  “Why so late, if I may ask?”

  “The spare batteries, Callis. Each provides enough energy to maintain life support for about four days. I have stretched that a bit for one or two days extra.”

  Amy seemed to enjoy coloring the bleak future with devastating details. Heather’s gut cramped uncomfortably.

  “Couldn’t we restart the DFD with electricity from the spares?” asked Callis.

  “Good suggestion, but unfortunately they don’t provide sufficient power. They don’t release their energy fast enough.”

  “I know the definition of power.”

  Was that a trace of belligerence in Callis’ voice? That was a new trait Heather had not witnessed from him before. But then again, she had never been in such a dramatic situation before.

  “I am glad you do. Let’s look at the second problem.”

  “The helium enclosure,” guessed Alain.

  “Exactly. We need energy to conserve our precious fuel. My estimate of surviving problem one simply ignores problem two.”

  “You are telling us we won’t get back anyway?”

  “Yes, Callis. Ten to twelve days of life support includes switching off power to the helium-3 enclosure. Without the helium we won’t get back home, but who knows if we would manage that with the helium. For now we live a little longer.”

  “I could do without those days,” said Callis.

  “We don’t need to decide that now. I just wanted to explain the situation. If we don’t give up the helium-3, we will suffocate in five or six days.”

  Heather could not believe it. Amy was talking about their impending demise as though it was an appointment with the dentist, inconvenient but quite feasible.

  Amy continued. “The third problem is the most serious. At the altitude we are from the sun’s surface, the ship is being slowed down quite noticeably by the solar atmosphere. If we don’t get the DFD going, we will drop below the photos
phere in a few days. The sun will swallow us, right down to our very last subatomic particles.”

  “Fantastic outlooks we have there,” commented Alain.

  Heather chuckled—from terminal madness, she figured. If she had a wish she’d pick scenario number three. What could be more glorious for a solar astronomer than to sink into the sun?

  “Thank you for your assessment of the situation,” said Callis. “I guess it is realistic, but it does not cover our options for action. The first thing would be to get the external motor going again.”

  Amy looked at him as though he had suggested something completely crazy. “It is located on the outer hull.”

  “I know that. I will go out and repair it.”

  “You are crazy,” said Alain. “You will be fried out there in no time. But while you are on the mission, please install a couple solar panels to solve our problems one and two. We should have enough sunlight up here for that.”

  June 1, 2074, Solar Orbit

  The pleasing aroma of fresh coffee woke him up. Artem bolted to his feet. Sobachka yipped as she fell down from his chest in the process. Apparently she had made herself comfortable there for the night. She growled—his sudden move must have scared her. Then she, too, noticed the change. There was a low black table right next to Artem, with white linen and a burning candle in the middle. Bread, sausage, and cheese were beautifully arranged, and a silver plate and cutlery were waiting for him. The biggest temptation however was the large cup that was sending fragrant steam rising into his nose. Artem could not help himself; he knelt before the table, took the cup and held it directly under his nose. How long had he gone without real coffee! And what coffee it was! It smelled of quality, strong and bitter. Artem tried it. No sugar, no milk, exactly the way he liked it.

  “I hope everything is to your liking.” The voice came from behind. Artem nearly spilled his precious coffee.