by Bova, Ben
Titan Alpha followed the flowing stream toward one of the ice-encrusted seas that dotted the moon’s frozen ground.
9 JANUARY 2096: MORNING
Manuel Gaeta usually wore a sassy, almost insolent smile on his rugged face. After all, he had braved some of the most dangerous environments in the solar system and lived through them. He had made a living out of performing such feats.
But now, surrounded by Holly, Wunderly, Pancho and Tavalera, he looked wary, on guard. Kris Cardenas, sitting beside him, also seemed highly dubious.
They were out in the lakeside park on the outskirts of Athens, in the warm, never-failing sunshine of midmorning, sitting bunched together on a pair of benches that they’d dragged to face each other. Holly had chosen this spot in imitation of Eberly: no one could eavesdrop on them out here, she thought, and they could see anyone else approaching from hundreds of meters away.
“Let me get this straight,” Gaeta said slowly, trying to sort out what they were telling him. “You want me to let Nadia use the suit for a zip through the rings.”
“Not a ‘zip,’” Wunderly replied instantly. “I’m going to the rings to collect samples.”
Gaeta nodded cautiously. “Uh-huh. And you want me to train you.”
“And run the mission,” Holly said, “the way Fritz what’s-his-name did for you.”
“Von Helmholtz,” Gaeta murmured absently.
Cardenas interjected, “You want to fly the mission yourself, Nadia? Not ask Manny to do it?”
“No, I’ll go myself,” said Wunderly, with the complete seriousness of a woman who had made up her mind. “It’s my problem and I’ll do the job myself. But I need your help.”
“You’ll need more than me,” Gaeta pointed out. “More than one man controlling the mission. Fritz had six guys with him, remember.”
Wunderly turned to Holly. “Can you get me six engineers?”
Before Holly could reply, Gaeta said, “They’ve got to have experience controlling excursion missions.”
“And I’ll need someone to fly the transfer craft to the rings and then pick me up afterward.”
Holly said, “I can rummage through the personnel files and dig up a half-dozen engineers, I guess. But it’d mean taking them off their existing jobs.”
“You’re chief of human resources,” said Pancho. “You can finagle the files, can’t you?”
“It’s more’n that,” Holly replied. “I’ve got to do this without bringing it up to Eberly. If he gets a whiff of what we’re doing, he’ll shut us down like that.” She snapped her fingers.
Pancho smiled knowingly. “Midnight requisitioning. I’ve done that once or twice, over the years. You can do it; I’ll show you how.”
“Thanks,” said Holly, dubiously.
Gaeta looked Wunderly squarely in her eyes. “You know there’s a good chance that you’ll be killing yourself, don’t you?”
She nodded wordlessly.
Holly pointed a finger at Gaeta. “Manny, we’ve got to see to it that Nadia gets to the rings and back in one piece. It’s important. Vital. We’ve all got to get this job done, and done right.”
Gaeta shrugged his shoulders. “I still don’t think it’s worth the risk.”
“Listen up,” Holly snapped. “The whole future of this habitat depends on what’s in those rings. If there aren’t any living critters in there, we can mine the ice and make a fortune out of it. With that money we can build new habitats and allow our population to expand.”
“But if I find living organisms?” Wunderly challenged.
Holly spread her hands in a gesture of uncertainty. “Then we won’t generate the money to build new habitats. We’ll have to continue to restrict our population growth—which I don’t think will be possible for much longer.”
“Something’s gotta give,” Pancho muttered.
They all turned toward Wunderly. “So you all would like to see me fail, then?” she asked, her voice plaintive.
“No,” Cardenas said firmly. “I want you to find out what’s really in the rings, one way or another, and come back safely.”
The others all nodded, but Wunderly thought that there wasn’t much enthusiasm in them.
Urbain made his fourth call of the morning to Eberly’s office; like the first three it was answered by a recording of the chief administrator’s smiling face saying that he was busy and would return the call as soon as humanly possible. Checking his phone log, Urbain counted twenty-six calls that Eberly had not deigned to answer. He thought about going to Eberly’s office and knocking his door down, but he knew it would do no good. The man had made it clear: He would approve the satellite launches only if Urbain agreed to support mining the rings for their ice.
That I cannot do, Urbain said to himself disconsolately. Even if I wanted to, the ICU would get the IAA to issue an order forbidding it. I would be disgraced even more than I am already. Intolerable.
He closed his eyes and tried to picture his Titan Alpha alone and abandoned on the surface of Titan. Not abandoned, he said to himself. Never! I will find you, my creation, find you and bring you back to life. I swear it!
His reverie was interrupted by a knock on his office door. Almost glad of the interruption, Urbain called out, “Enter.”
He recognized the young woman who slid the door back and stepped into his office as a technician in the communications group: the wiry, nervous type; her lips were pressed into a thin line but her eyes focused on him as if her life depended on it.
“What is so important that you must come to my office instead of phoning?” he asked severely.
She looked startled, almost ready to bolt for the door. But she stood her ground and said, “I thought you would want to know this, sir.”
“Know what?”
“The storage capacity of Alpha’s memory core.”
Urbain gave no gesture for her to sit down, still she hesitantly went to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Instead of sitting, though, she grasped the chair’s back with both hands.
“Assuming that Alpha’s sensors have been operating at full capacity—”
“An assumption that may be quite incorrect,” Urbain interrupted.
The young woman gulped visibly, but then continued, “Yes, sir, I know it’s an assumption, but if it’s correct it leads to an important conclusion. Or maybe I should say a problem.”
“Conclusion? Problem? What are you talking about?”
“Sir, if Alpha’s sensors are working as designed, and if the central computer is storing the data they’re recording, then the core’s storage capacity will reach its limit in thirty-five more days. Forty days, tops.”
Urbain stared at her. “When the core memory capacity is reached, Alpha is programmed to transmit all data in storage.”
“Yes, sir. But since there’s been no data transmission at all from the vehicle, there’s no reason to assume that it will uplink all the accumulated data.”
He sank back in his yielding chair. “Then she will go into hibernation mode.”
“Exactly, sir. If Alpha can’t, or won’t, dump its accumulated data and clear its memory storage, then the vehicle will shut down all systems. It’ll be dead.”
“Not dead!” Urbain snapped. “In hibernation mode.”
“But sir, if it won’t respond to our commands and it enters hibernation mode, it might as well be dead. We can’t find it and we can’t communicate with it.”
Urbain felt his insides twitching, churning. His gut began to throb painfully. As calmly as he could manage, he dismissed his communications tech. Once his office door was safely shut once again, he leaned his head on his desk and closed his eyes.
There is nothing else I can do, he said to himself. I must find her before she goes into hibernation mode. Once she is asleep we may never be able to revive her. I must find her, save her!
He knew what that meant. With a sinking heart, he realized that he would have to give in to Eberly, support his contemptible scheme to mine
Saturn’s rings.
Either that or lose his precious Titan Alpha forever.
9 JANUARY 2096: EVENING
The observation blisters built into Goddard’s hull were well-known to be “make-out shacks.” Locked into one of the blisters, with its upholstered bench and carpeted floor, the lights down to their lowest so that you could see the heavens through the wide viewport of tinted glassteel, a couple could spend long romantic hours either gazing at the starry universe or exploring the universe within themselves.
Holly had made it clear to Tavalera that she wanted to be alone with him in one of the blisters because they could have a completely private conversation there, period. But as they entered the cozy nest and the heavy hatch swung shut behind them, she realized that there was no way that Raoul could keep romance off his mind.
Jeeps, she thought, I’d be cosmically disappointed if he didn’t make a play for me.
“Look at that,” Tavalera said, his voice hushed with awe, as their eyes adjusted to the low lighting level.
Saturn was nowhere in sight. Instead, beyond the thick viewing port they saw the infinite black of space strewn so profusely with stars that it took their breath away.
“There’s so many of them!” Holly breathed.
“That bright blue one there,” Tavalera said, pointing. “I think that’s Earth.”
She stepped up next to him, close enough to brush her shoulder against his. He slid an arm around her waist.
“I don’t remember anything about Earth,” Holly confessed. “That was my first life and all those memories are gone.”
“I remember it,” said Tavalera. “I thought I wanted to go back—until I met you.”
She melted into his arms and for long moments they were lost in each other. Then, as the habitat slowly rotated, Saturn rose into view, its broad gleaming rings flooding the compartment with light.
Holly leaned her head on his shoulder. “My god, but it’s beautiful.”
“Yeah.”
The wide flattened sphere of Saturn was aglow with streaks of saffron and soft russet. The rings were tilted so that they could see them in their full dazzling luster.
“You don’t see that on Earth,” Tavalera muttered.
“Guess not.”
He kissed her again, then led her to the plushly padded bench.
As they sat side by side, Holly asked, “Raoul, do you want to go back to Earth?”
She could see the conflict in his eyes. “Yeah, maybe someday, I guess.”
“It’s still your home, isn’t it?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “Would you come with me?”
“For a visit or to stay?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got a life here. I like working with Dr. Cardenas. I’m learning a lot. She says I could get a degree from the University of Selene.”
“In nanotech?”
“Yeah.”
“That would be great.”
“I couldn’t do nanotech work back on Earth, though. It’s banned there.”
“But you could get an engineering job.”
His face sank into a frown. “Big deal. I’d be just another engineer.”
“So you’d rather stay here?”
“With you,” he blurted.
Despite herself, Holly smiled at him. “Raoul, I don’t want to be the deciding factor in your life. That wouldn’t be fair to you. To either of us.”
“But you are, Holly. I want to be with you. I don’t care where it is, I just want to be with you.”
He leaned toward her to kiss her again, but she put a finger against his lips.
“What?” he asked, exasperation clear in his tone.
“There’s something between us,” said Holly.
Tavalera’s face clouded over. “Wunderly and her frickin’ rings.”
“It’s important, Raoul. Important to all of us.”
“Important enough to get me killed?”
“No! But—”
“But shit!” he snapped. “You think flying Wunderly to the rings is more important than us being together.”
“That’s not true, Raoul.”
“The fuck it isn’t.” He got to his feet. “You don’t give a damn about me, not for me, myself. You’re tryin’ to play me like a fuckin’ violin!”
“Raoul, no. Please!”
But he stormed out of the observation blister, leaving Holly sitting there alone, close to tears. What tore at her most was the realization that Raoul didn’t believe that she could love him, his rage at the thought that her only interest in him was to use him.
I do love you, Raoul! she called silently. I really do love you. But she knew that she had lost him, hurt his pride, ruined her one chance for a happy life with the man she loved.
Holly bowed her head and sobbed, all alone in the darkened observation blister.
Jeanmarie Urbain felt as jumpy as a schoolgirl. Her husband was still in his office, spending the evening as usual trying to work out a way to regain contact with his errant machine down on the surface of Titan.
The strain was killing him, she could see. Every morning he left their apartment wearier, tenser, after a few hours of tossing and moaning in his sleep. Every evening he returned to his office or the laboratories, working far past midnight to find a way to reach his silent Alpha. It’s as if I have a rival, she thought, as she stood before the bathroom mirror and clipped on her earrings. He loves that monster of a contraption. He spends more time trying to woo it back to him than he spends with me.
Satisfied at last with her appearance, she left the apartment and headed around behind her apartment building, down along the shadowy lane that led into the little clump of woods next to the lake. She felt furtive, nervous, and more than a little excited. This is an adventure, she told herself, as she passed the wide-spaced lamps along the curving path. An adventure. Keep your wits about you and all will be well.
Eberly had been cautious when she’d first phoned him and asked for a private meeting. Even in the phone’s display screen she could see the suspicion in his eyes. The man was handsome, there was no denying it. From all that Jeanmarie had heard of him, Eberly had no interest in women. Perhaps he is gay, she thought, although she had heard not a whisper to that effect, either.
So she dressed in a frilly sheath trimmed in black lace that was modest enough except for its décolleté neckline and walked determinedly toward her rendezvous with Eberly. In her hand she clutched a tiny beaded bag that held little more than her palmcomp. If Eduoard should phone from his office I can answer him, she told herself. If he comes home early and finds me gone, I can tell him I went for a walk.
Malcolm Eberly was more curious than worried as he strode along the shadowy path toward his meeting with Mme. Urbain. Why has she called me out of the blue? he asked himself. And asked for a private meeting, no less. No one else; just the two of us. A tryst in the dark of night. Eberly thought he knew the reason, but it seemed so out of kilter, so absurd, that he didn’t trust his own reasoning.
It can’t be, he told himself as he walked toward the dark woods by the lake. She’d never try to seduce me, not even for her husband’s sake. She can’t be thinking of anything like that.
Yet he found himself curious, eager, almost excited to see what Jeanmarie Urbain had to offer him.
10 JANUARY 2096: MIDNIGHT
It’s like an unending nightmare, Eduoard Urbain said to himself. He sat at his desk, head sunk between his hands, handsome silk ascot hanging loose and sweaty from his shirt collar, his pearl gray jacket tossed over the back of a chair.
Endless. Night and day I try to make something work and it is useless. It’s like one of those dreams where you are struggling to get away from something horrible but you can’t move. Your feet are mired in mud or sinking into wet concrete.
He banged a fist on his desktop so hard it hurt. “Why?” he demanded of the empty office. “Why won’t she speak to me?”
With red-rimmed eyes he reviewed the la
test reports from his staff. Alpha was still incommunicado, somewhere on the surface of Titan. She could not be located unless low-altitude satellites were put in place around Titan to search for her with infrared and radar scanners. And Eberly will not allow the satellites to be launched unless I agree to his scheme to mine Saturn’s rings.
Endless. A never-ending cycle of frustration. My career is in tatters; my life is ruined. I am already a laughingstock back on Earth. The news media are doing stories about my failure.
What can I do? Urbain asked himself. What choice do I have? Eberly holds all the power. If I don’t give in to him, I’ll never find Alpha, never have a prayer of regaining contact with her.
Urbain straightened up in his chair. Let’s look at this calmly, he told himself. Rationally. Either you agree to mine the rings or you lose Alpha forever. Or at least until some other group is sent out here with the personnel and equipment to locate Alpha and get her to begin sending data. By then you will have been replaced, sent home to Quebec in disgrace, a miserable failure, a has-been, a never-was.
No! Urbain told himself sternly. That cannot be allowed. If I agree to allow that miserable extortionist Eberly to mine the rings, I can locate Alpha and bring her back to life. Me, myself.
Wunderly will go berserk, but that is her problem, not mine. Besides, she will immediately appeal to the ICU and IAA. They will never allow mining the rings if Wunderly can show that Saturn’s rings are indeed biologically active.
Urbain glanced at the digital time display on his desktop screen. Exactly midnight.
Very well, he told himself, his mind made up at last. I will agree to Eberly’s ridiculous demand. Let him mine the rings, or try to. My first priority, my only priority, is to save Alpha.
With a grim smile he ordered the phone to call Malcolm Eberly, regardless of the hour.
Holly hadn’t wanted to ask Pancho for advice but there was no one else she could think of. After her disastrous breakup with Raoul, she rushed to her apartment and spent hours pacing, thinking, rerunning their meeting in her head, calling herself a fool, a blind idiot, to put Raoul in a bind like that. No wonder he walked out. He thinks all I’m interested in is to get him to fly Nadia to the rings. Stupid! Stupid!
