The Precipice (Asteroid Wars)

by Ben Bova

  Dan strained his eyes. How in hell can he see craters on that black slug in this dim lighting?

  “They have no rims,” Fuchs went on, talking fast in his excitement. “Smaller objects have collided with the asteroid but they don’t make impact craters as they would on a solid body. They simply burrow into the loose rubble.”

  “Same as we’re gonna do,” Pancho said.

  “Our storm cellar,” Amanda added, glancing up at Fuchs.

  It’s our storm cellar only if he’s right, Dan added silently. If that chunk out there really is a beanbag and we can dig into it until the storm’s over.

  Aloud, he asked, “How long before the radiation starts to build up?”

  “Four hours, plus a few minutes,” Pancho said. “Plenty of time.”

  You hope, Dan said to himself.

  She established Starpower 1 in a close orbit around the tumbling asteroid, and then the four of them floated weightlessly down to the airlock, where Dan and Fuchs had already assembled six emergency tanks of air. As they wriggled into their spacesuits Fuchs begged to go out the airlock first, but Dan overruled him.

  “Pancho goes first, Lars. You’re still a tenderfoot out there.”

  Through his fishbowl helmet, Fuchs’s broad face frowned in puzzlement. “But my feet are fine,” he said. “Why are you worried about my feet?”

  Dan and Pancho both laughed, but Amanda shot an annoyed glance at Dan and said, “It’s an American expression, Lars. From their western frontier, long ago.”

  “Yep,” Dan conceded. “I learned it from Wild Bill Hickok.”

  Getting serious, Pancho said, “We can go together, Lars and me—whenever you guys are ready to stop horsin’ around.”

  “Aye-aye cap’n,” said Dan, touching his helmet with a gloved hand in a sloppy salute.

  Pancho and Fuchs went through the airlock and, once it cycled, Dan and Amanda. While he stood in the cramped metal chamber, listening to the air-pump’s clatter dwindling to silence, he heard Fuchs’s excited voice through his helmet speaker:

  “It’s like a sandpile!”

  Dan offered a swift thanks to whatever gods there be. Maybe we’ll all live through this, after all.

  With Amanda, he went through the airlock and then jetted the hundred meters or so separating the ship from the asteroid. It sure looks solid, Dan thought, staring at the black, slowly tumbling mass as he approached it And yes, there were craters here and there with no rims to them; just holes, as if some giant had poked his fingers into the asteroid.

  Then he saw Fuchs’s helmet and shoulders; the rest of him was in some sort of a pit. He’s digging like a kid in a sandbox, Dan saw.

  As he got closer, Dan saw that the surface of the asteroid looked hazy, blurred. Is he stirring up that much dust? Dan asked himself. No, it’s not just where Fuchs is digging. It’s everywhere. The whole surface of the asteroid is blurry. What the hell is causing that?

  “Are my eyes going bad or is the surface blurred?” he said into his helmet microphone.

  “Dust,” came Fuchs’s immediate reply. “Particles from the solar wind give the dust an electrostatic charge. It makes the dust levitate.”

  “That doesn’t happen on the Moon,” Dan objected.

  “The Moon is a very large body,” said Fuchs. “This asteroid’s gravity is too weak to hold the dust on the surface.”

  Just then Dan touched down on Haven. It was like stepping on talcum powder. His boots sank into the dark dust almost up to his ankles even though he came down with a feather light touch. Cripes, he thought, it’s like one of those black sand beaches in Tahiti.

  Dan turned and saw Pancho, long and lean even in her spacesuit, gliding across the asteroid’s dusty surface toward him.

  “Bring out the air tanks, Mandy,” Pancho said.

  Amanda soared weightlessly to Starpower 1’s airlock, then emerged again towing a string of six tall gray cylinders behind her. In her gleaming white spacesuit she looked like a robot nurse followed by a half-dozen unfinished pods.

  “Better start diggin’, boss,” Pancho said.

  Dan nodded, then realized that she might not be able to see the gesture. There wasn’t all that much light out here, and they had decided to keep their helmet lamps off to save their suit batteries.

  “We go with the buddy system,” Dan said as he unlimbered the makeshift shovel he had carried with him. “You and me, Pancho. Amanda, you stay with Lars.”

  “Yes, of course,” Amanda replied.

  It wasn’t quite like digging at the beach. More like working on a giant, black hunk of Swiss cheese, Dan thought. There were holes in the surface, tunnels that had apparently been drilled by stray chunks of rock hitting the asteroid. There was no bedrock, just a loose rubble of black rounded grains, the largest of them about the size of a small pebble. It’s a wonder they hold together, Dan thought.

  “Here’s a ready-made tunnel for two,” Pancho called to him. He saw her slowly disappearing into one of the tunnels.

  It was wide enough for the two of them, just barely.

  “How far down does it go?” Dan asked as he gingerly slid over the lip of the crater, careful not to catch his backpack.

  “Dunno,” Pancho answered. “Deep enough to ride out the storm. Better start fillin’ in the hole.”

  He nodded inside his helmet and took a tighter grip on his improvised shovel: it had been a panel covering an electronics console. They had to cover themselves with at least a meter of dirt to protect against the oncoming radiation.

  As he dug away at the sides of the sloping tunnel, Dan expected the gritty dirt to slide down into their hole. That’s what would have happened on Earth, or even on the Moon. But Haven’s gravity was so slight that the tunnel walls would not cave in no matter how furiously he dug into them.

  In short order he and Pancho, working side by side, had buried themselves as deep as their waists. Not enough, Dan knew. Nowhere near enough, not yet.

  “How’re we doing… on time?” he asked Pancho, panting from the exertion of digging.

  She straightened up. “Lemme see,” she said, tapping at the keyboard on her left forearm. Dan could see a multicolored display light up on her bubble helmet.

  “Radiation level’s not up much over ambient yet,” she said.

  “How soon?” Dan asked impatiently.

  The lights on her helmet’s inner face flickered, changed. “Hour and a half, maybe a little less.”

  Dan went back to digging, blinking sweat out of his eyes, wishing he could wipe his face or just scratch his nose. But that was impossible inside the suit. Should have worn a sweat band, he told himself. Always did when I went outside. Been so long since I’ve done any EVA work I forgot it. Hindsight’s always perfect.

  “Y’know we’re gonna need at least a meter of this dirt over us,” Pancho said, digging alongside him.

  “Yep.”

  “And then dig our way out, after the cloud passes.”

  “Yep,” Dan repeated. It was the most he could say without stopping work. His muscles ached from the unaccustomed exertion.

  It seemed like hours later when he heard Pancho’s voice in his helmet speaker. “How’re you guys doin’, Mandy?”

  “We’re fine. We found a lovely cave and we have it almost completely filled in.”

  “Once you’re all covered over it’s gonna degrade our radio link,” Pancho said.

  “Yes, I’m sure it will.”

  “Got your air tanks in there with you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Dan saw that their air tanks were still lying out on the surface, more than arm’s reach away.

  “Okay, keep your radio open. If we get completely cut off, you stay in the hole for fourteen hours. Got that?”

  “Fourteen hours, check.”

  “Time count starts now.”

  “Fourteen hours from now,” Amanda confirmed.

  “Have a nice day.”

  “We’ll see you in fourteen hours,” Fuc
hs said.

  “Right,” said Dan, silently adding, Dead or alive.

  To Pancho, he said, “I’d better drag the air tanks in here.” Before she could object he pushed himself out of the hole and soared up above the dark, uneven ground. Dan glanced around but could not find the shelter that Amanda and Fuchs had dug for themselves. They did a good job, he thought as he tapped his jet thruster controls to push himself back to the surface.

  The cylinders weighed next to nothing, but still he was careful with them as he slid them down into the pit. They still have mass, and inertia, Dan knew. I could break open Pancho’s helmet or spring her suit’s joints if I let one of these things bang into her.

  By the time he wormed himself back into the pit beside her, Dan was bathed in cold sweat and puffing hard.

  “You’re not used to real work, are you, boss?” Pancho teased.

  Dan shook his head inside his helmet. “Soon as we get back to Selene I’m going in for rejuvenation therapy.”

  “Me too.”

  “You? At your age?”

  “Sooner’s better’n later, they claim.”

  Dan humphed. “Better late than never.”

  “Radiation level’s starting to climb,” Pancho said, starting to paw at the sides of their pit again. “We better get ourselves buried or neither one of us’ll get any younger.”

  “Or older,” Dan muttered.

  Buried alive. This is like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, Dan said to himself. He knew Pancho was mere centimeters from him; so were the air tanks. But he could see nothing. They were buried under nearly a full meter of loose rubble, curled fetally, nothing to see or hear or do except wait.

  “… are you doing?” He heard Amanda’s voice, scratchy and weak, through his helmet’s speaker.

  “We’re okay,” Pancho said. “I’ve been thinkin’ we oughtta organize a square dance.”

  Dan suppressed a groan. That’s just we need, he thought, redneck humor. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. He hadn’t heard the term “redneck” since he’d been in Texas, long ages ago. There are no rednecks off-Earth, Dan realized. You don’t get sunburned out here. Cooked, maybe. Fried by radiation. But not tanned, not unless you sit under the sunlamps in the gym at Selene.

  He wiggled his right hand through the loose rubble encasing him and felt for the keyboard on his left forearm. By touch he called up the ship’s sensor display. They had programmed the suits to show the displays on the inner surfaces of their bubble helmets. Nothing but streaks of colored hash. Either the pile of dirt atop them or the radiation storm was interfering with their link to the ship. Probably a combination of both, he thought.

  “What’s the time?” Dan asked.

  At least he could talk with Pancho. Even if the radio link broke down completely, they were close enough to scrunch through the dirt and touch helmets so that they could talk through sound conduction.

  “More’n thirteen hours to go, boss.”

  “You mean we’ve been down here for less than an hour?”

  “Forty-nine minutes, to be exact.”

  “Shit,” Dan said, with feeling.

  “Take a nap. Best way to spend the time.”

  Dan nodded inside his helmet. “Nothing else to do.”

  He heard Pancho giggle softly.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Mandy and Lars. I bet they’re tryin’ to figger out how to get the two of them into one suit.”

  Dan laughed, too. “Maybe you and I ought to try that.”

  “Boss!” Pancho cried in mock shock. “That’s sexual harassment!”

  “Nothing else to do,” he repeated. “I can’t even jerk off inside this double-damned suit.”

  “I can,” Pancho teased.

  “Now that’s sexual harassment,” Dan grumbled.

  “Nope. Just better design.”

  Dan licked his lips. He felt thirsty, chilled, yet he was sweating. His stomach was queasy.

  “How do you feel, Pancho?”

  “Bored. Tired. Too jumpy to sleep. How ‘bout you?”

  “The same, I guess. Every part of me aches.”

  “How’s your blood pressure?”

  “How in hell would I know?”

  “You hear your pulse in your ears?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re okay, I guess.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Pancho.”

  “Go to sleep, boss. That’s what I’m gonna try to do.”

  “I thought you said you were too jumpy.”

  “Yeah, but I’m gonna give it a try. Close my eyes and think pleasant thoughts.”

  “Good luck.”

  “You try it, too.”

  “Sure.”

  Dan closed his eyes, but his thoughts were far from pleasant. Opening them again, he fumbled with his wrist keyboard until he got the suit’s radiation sensor displayed on his helmet. The graph was distorted by the curve of his helmet, and blurry. He tried to focus his eyes on it. Looks okay, he said to himself. Curve’s going up, but the slope is low and it’s a far distance from the red zone.

  Try to sleep. He was certainly tired enough for it. Relax! Think about what you’re going to do when you get back to Selene. I’d like to personally punch out Humphries’s lights. Dan pictured Humphries’s surprise when he broke his nose with a good straight right.

  Somewhere in his mind an old adage sounded: Revenge is a dish best taken cold.

  Punching in Humphries’s face would be fun, but what would really hurt the bastard? He’s tried to kill me. He may succeed yet; we’re not out of this. If I die he’ll move in and take over Astro. How can I prevent him from doing that? How can I stop him, even from the grave?

  Dan chuckled bitterly to himself. I’m already in my grave, he realized. I’m already buried.

  NANOTECHNOLOGY LABORATORY

  Charley Engles looked worried, upset. He nervously brushed his sandy hair back away from his forehead as he said, “Kris, I’m not supposed to let you in here.

  It was well past midnight. Cardenas was surprised that anyone was still working in the lab complex. Selene’s security people hadn’t bothered to change the entry code on the main door; she had just tapped it out and the door had obligingly slid open. But Engles had been working in his cubicle, and as soon as he saw Cardenas striding determinedly past the empty work stations toward her own office, he popped out of his cubbyhole and stopped her.

  “We got notified by security,” he said, looking shamefaced. “You’re not allowed in here until further notice.”

  “I know, Charley,” she said. “I just want to clear out my desk.”

  Charles Engles was a young grad student from New York whose parents had sent him to Selene after he’d been crippled in a car crash. Even knowing that he could never return to them once he’d taken nanotherapy, his parents wanted their son’s legs repaired so he could walk again.

  “The cameras…” Engles pointed to the tiny unwinking red lights in the corners of the ceiling. “Security will send somebody here once they see you.”

  “It’s all right,” she said, trying to mask her inner tension. “I’ll only be here a few minutes. You can go back to your work.”

  Instead, he walked with her as she headed for her office.

  “What’s this all about, Kris? Why do they want to lock you out of your own lab?”

  “It’s a long story and I’d rather not go into it right now, Charley. Please, I just need a few minutes in my office.”

  He looked unhappy, almost wounded. “If there’s anything I can do to help…”

  Cardenas smiled and felt tears welling in her eyes. “That’s very kind of you, Charley. Thanks.”

  “I mean, I wouldn’t be able to walk if it weren’t for you.”

  She nodded and added silently, And now that you can walk you’ll never be allowed to return to Earth.

  “Well…” he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just let me know.”
/>
  “Thanks, Charley. I’ll do that.”

  He stood there for another awkward moment while Cardenas wondered how long it would take Security to send someone to apprehend her. Finally he headed reluctantly back to his own cubicle. She walked slowly toward her office.

  Once Charley stepped into his cubicle, though, Cardenas swiftly turned down a side passageway toward the rear of the laboratory complex. She passed a sign that proclaimed in red letters AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. This was the area where newly developed nanomachines were tested. The passageway here was lined with sealed, airtight chambers, rather than the cubicles out front The door to each chamber was locked. The passageway itself was lined with ultraviolet lamps along its ceiling. Each nanomachine type was designed to stop functioning when exposed to high-intensity ultraviolet light: a safety precaution.

  Cardenas passed three doors, stopped at the fourth. She tapped out its entry code and the steel door opened inward a crack. She slipped into the darkened chamber and leaned her weight against the heavy door, closing it. With a long, shuddering sigh, she reset the entry code from the panel on the wall, effectively locking the door to anyone who might try to get in. They’ll have to break the door down, she told herself, and that will take them some time.

  By the time the get the door open I’ll be dead.

  Dan dreamed of Earth: a confused, troubled dream. He was sailing a racing yacht, running before the wind neck-and-neck with many other boats. Warm tropical sunlight beat down on his shoulders and back as he gripped the tiller with one hand while the boat’s computer adjusted the sails for every change in the breeze.

  The boat knifed through the water, but suddenly it was a car that Dan was driving at breakneck speed through murderously heavy traffic. Dan didn’t know where he was; some city freeway, a dozen lanes clogged with cars and buses and enormous semi rigs chuffing smoke and fumes into the dirty gray, sullen sky. Something was wrong with the car’s air conditioning; it was getting uncomfortably hot in the driver’s seat. Dan started to open his window but realized that the windows had to stay shut. There’s no air to breath out there, he said to himself, knowing it was ridiculous because he wasn’t in space, he was on Earth and he was suffocating, choking, coughing.