Jim 88

by J G Clements

  “I need a couple ships to land just outside the main crater, and assist me in lowering a drone into the hole via a cable. It’s my intent to lower a camera for a first look at what’s down there.” I thought about asking for a ship to remain above the hole, looking for heat signatures or signs of activity. But if a beam weapon became active in the hole, it might not be a good place to loiter. There was some radio chatter on who had enough cable and I think a couple pilots were rafting together to exchange stuff.

  It took less than an hour before I was joined by three helpers who gave me the business end of the cable: A small video camera …no propulsion system…with a light, a recorder and a transmitter. With no more ado, I left them holding the reel end and carried my end to the edge of the rim. Staying low, I gently let it slide into the hole, dangling it over the edge no more than a foot or two. Satisfied, I backed off about a hundred feet and signaled them to start lowering.

  The cable was stretched from several hundred yards up the crater wall, and it took a few moments before enough slack was released for the camera to descend. Over the edge it went and disappeared. I was just about to look at what it saw via the video screen on my arm when everything went wrong. With no atmosphere, you don’t hear any sound. Instead, the ground shook beneath my feet and I lost my balance. I fell heavily on my side, stunned.

  Normally, when you fall in a spacesuit you immediately look for leaks: If you have one you have very little time to fix it and until you do, nothing else really matters. But while I was checking for leaks, I saw the walls of the crater sliding toward me. Whatever had detonated, it had been strong enough to cause an avalanche, and all that material was heading toward me. I was now a loose object in a large funnel of sand. And worse, it really was coming at me from all directions. Depending on how deep the center hole was, it was going to be filled in with hundreds of tons of debris. And if I wasn’t quick, me.

  There was already squawking on my radio to grab the cable. The drone end had been blown off but there was enough cable near me to grab it, and almost before I got a good grip on it, they started pulling. As the rockslide passed under me, the reduced gravity allowed them to pull me in the other direction. I more or less could jump up a bit while they reeled me in. I was never much for fishing, but I think I know how the fish feels.

  Pulled as far as the outer rim, I was helped up and everyone was looking at my suit. This type of activity was not the sort of things suits excelled at, and everyone out here knew it. Once convinced I wasn’t going to deflate, both their attention and mine turned back toward the explosion. One of the three pilots who helped me had his eyes on the sky, and I instinctively looked up to see what it was.

  Several hundred yards up in the sky, there was a small mountain of debris that had been ejected during the explosion and was now on its return trip. In a few seconds, there was going to be a rainfall of rocks, both large and small. But with no atmosphere to blow it sideways, and the fact that the low gravity kept it up for such a long time, the planet had revolved a bit during that time. The effect of this was that all the debris was not falling back to the hole that it originated in, but about 300 feet toward one side. The planet had literally rotated under it while it was airborne. Once we understood that, we momentarily forgot about the explosion and concentrated on celestial mechanics.

  Looking back into the crater, the avalanche had stopped but there was no sign of the hole. Everything had slid down to completely fill it in, then mound it over. If we had been doing the fly-overs now, we never would have identified anything interesting here. It was pretty clear now why we’ve never found any Swarm mines. One of the pilots put his hand on my shoulder, and thru the suit radio asked what my next step was. I don’t think he meant it as a joke, but I momentarily was at a loss. Before I could finalize a plan, Captain Dubois was on the radio asking me for a report. There was no doubt he had heard about the explosion, but wanted to hear it first-hand.

  I pretty much knew what order to report stuff. “No one has been injured, but the crater was booby-trapped and it blew when we tried to lower a drone. Our guess is it wasn’t inside the rim by five feet before we set off whatever was waiting for us.” There was a pause, and I had the impression he was discussing this with someone.

  “Do you think it was a one-shot deal, or do you think if we excavated it we’d find anything?”

  “I think the explosion made a mess, but if there were any artifacts, we’d find at least traces of them. I can’t see how a secondary explosive device could still be intact down there.” As I thought about it, I amended it. “At least to some reasonable depth”. I eyed the amount of debris and made another guess. “The amount of ejecta would indicate that everything to a depth of thirty or forty feet got tossed out”. I knew that was subjective, but it was a good estimate.

  “It’ll take some time, but we can get you some equipment to excavate the site?” It was posed as a question, but I knew Dubois was hinting at what he wanted to do, and to be honest, I completely agreed with it. And it looked like he was willing to leave me in charge, which is something I wanted even more.

  “What sort of equipment can we get out here sir, and where would it come from?”

  “We’re asking the Beetles right now if they have anything in-system. I imagine they will but if not, we’ll get some from either the Ants or we’ll ask the Crekie. If the Beetles have anything, it’ll be a couple of days. What say we recall everyone and take a break?”

  I wanted to agree. The landslide had stopped some time ago, and there was virtually no trace of where the hole had been. I suppose I’d leave a drone here. Not that I expected anything to disturb it, but you could never tell if some device might still be functioning down there. “That’s fine sir. I’ll leave a drone and be along.”

  The pilots were walking toward their ships, and I was ready to head toward mine, when an idea struck me. Signaling the other pilots, I indicated that I was planning in taking a look at the ejecta. It was a short walk around the edge of the crater, then a short hike downhill to it. I immediately saw that there was more there than just rocks. In fact, I realized that I was looking at stuff that no human had ever seen before, and there was something really terrific about that. If only archeology had paid better.

  For starters, there were twisted pieces of metal in the pile. Some sort of sheet metal with no sign of paint. The periodic table of elements limits the choices you have for sheet metal, but the lack of paint was a dead giveaway that whoever had made the metal wasn’t worried about atmospheric corrosion. Raw metal in vacuum applications was pretty normal. I pulled some of it out, and after examining it, handed it to one of the pilots who had accompanied me. He was busy examining it while I kept digging.

  There was a lot of metal, but all of it was thin parts. I didn’t see anything thick or solid like a gear or a housing. I kept pulling things out and there was definitely a lot of non-metal artifacts, too. Some sort of plastic, but it didn’t look like plastic. I took a piece of it and tried to bend it. It was strong, and didn’t bend. With more force, it broke. I held it as closely to my helmet trying to see if I could find anything unique. My overall impression was that it was a ceramic material. Not glazed, more like a raw piece. It would probably be porous, but that may not be important in an application like this.

  There were bits of what I could only call wire. Strands of what looked liked aluminum, it was still covered by the ceramic material. The explosion had knocked a lot of the ceramic covering off, but it was enough to realize that whoever built this used ceramic as insulation for wire. Everyone was handing stuff to each other, and I gave the wire to one of the other Pilots.

  “I bet they use ceramic to insulate wire since they don’t have any real access to carbon-based plastics.” One pilot asked if anyone could find where two pieces of metal bolted together” I was slow on why he wanted to know that, but we all dug around a bit. There were a couple of parts that seemed to still be attached to each other. The impression was some sort of sheet m
etal cover that was still on a housing. “Take a look at this. There is some of the same ceramic material between the parts. They must have as much trouble as we have with parts welding to themselves.”

  One problem with spacecraft design was a phenomena of ‘cold welding’. The idea is, when two pieces of metal are in close contact in space, they can more or less spontaneously weld together. There is a lot more to it than that: Metallurgy, whether the pieces move a little so they can gall, temperature effects, but it’s usually addressed by a thin plastic washer to keep the metal parts separated. If these pieces were any indication, the designers solved it their way using ceramic coatings.

  We pulled out as much as we could, taking anything that looked man-made. Or alien-made to be more accurate. In less than an hour, we had several armfuls of items we wanted to take back to the Sisk. No doubt they could find out a lot more than we could. With everyones arms full, we all retreated to our separate ships, and several hours later were aboard the Sisk.

  Once on board, there was quite a bit of activity. Everyone knew that we found artifacts and were on hand when we docked. I had put all the material into some containers, and was carrying one as I entered the Sisk. It was late when we got back, and I didn’t expect much of a reception. But I was wrong: I was met by the Captain himself, and he took one of the crates from me personally.

  “Paul…this is great! These are the first Swarm artifacts that were not taken from a destroyed ship! Congratulations!” Then just like that, Captain Jake Dubois shook my hand. “Now go get some sleep. I’ll have the Chiefs look at this stuff first thing in the morning. Jake then handed the crate to a crewman who disappeared with it. I was about to take his leave, but Jake had a few questions. “Paul, do you have any idea on why the mine,” everyone had decided to call it a mine even though that had not be confirmed, “was located in that particular place?”

  I knew a good bit about geology, and as I’ve said, a good deal about archeology. “I’ve always heard that the bottom of a crater doesn’t have any material left from the meteor that made it. All that material gets ejected out to the crater rim. So, I guess they were interested in getting to the material of the planet, and this was a good deep place to start? Use the crater as a good start on drilling a mine?” I wasn’t at all sure I believed it, but that was the best I could figure out. Over the last day, everyone on board had become an expert on Craters.

  “Did you know that particular crater was particularly deep, but not as wide as it should be? It really was extra deep so you might be correct. On the other hand, our simulation shows that the bottom is also never in full sun, even though the sun this far out is pretty dim?” My look clearly indicated I didn’t. “But there’s one more thing. Sometimes, at the bottom of a meteor impact you’ll get a lot of melted or fused materials. If you think of it as an easy to obtain ore, it might make sense.”

  Our discussion was interrupted by an announcement. “Captain to the Bridge, Jim-88 sending radio message. Marked as urgent.” I knew, like everyone else on board, that he wasn’t due for a pickup for another two months. An instant later, I found myself staring at the empty place where the Captain had been standing.

  Ship’s time, it was around three in the morning when the signal came The Communication station had been double-manned for the last several months. While the surveys were being done on the ice giants, there was always a second crewman on station assigned to look for signals from Jim’s location. “Olly Olly Oxen Free”. The McKinsie Fleet personnel didn’t understand it, but the communications operator did and Jake almost laughed out loud. Without taking the time to explain, the operator signaled the crew on the Bridge. “Jim-88 requesting immediate pickup.” Having relayed the message to the Bridge, he continued to listen in to the incoming transmission. He listened a bit longer. “Jim-88 warns Sisk that there are Swarm in the area.” Looks of concern occurred over the entire Bridge crew.

  Continuing to listen, the radioman had a puzzled look on his face. “Jim-88 requests we do NOT reply,” the crewman kept reporting as fast as the communication came to him. “Requests rendezvous to his predicted position with all possible haste but without further communication.” The crewman continued to listen. “Message repeats, exactly the same. Recorded, I think.”

  Jake had beaten Sue to the Bridge by only a couple of minutes. Sue had a berth in officer’s country, just steps from the Bridge, but it was the Captain who had been summoned. Regardless, she had gotten there in time to hear the communication officer’s reports firsthand. Deadpan, she put a headphone on to listen directly to the incoming transmission. To her credit, she only listened, not interfering with any of the Bridge crew’s jobs. Jake had already sounded the ‘all hands on deck’ signal indicating that the ship was about to steam out of orbit.

  The communications officer had continued to listen, but as Jim requested, did not reply. “Message keeps repeating. Definitely recorded.” Then, abruptly. “The message has been discontinued.” Realizing that the rest of the Bridge crew didn’t understand what that meant, he embellished it. “The message was repeating, then suddenly stopped halfway through. Just went off the air.” He adjusted the gain, but shook his head. “No more carrier wave.”

  Jake was already prepping the craft to leave orbit. It would happen within five minutes. He looked over at Sue to get her reaction, but she was holding earphones to her head, and facing the bulkhead. Avoiding eye contact. Jake knew what she was thinking and left her alone with her thoughts. Pressing the comm button on his command chair he made a ship-wide announcement. “Attention Sisk. We are on a rescue mission to retrieve a member of the McKinsie Fleet. Intelligence suggests there may be Swarm in the area. Standby to leave orbit.” In less than five minutes they were out of orbit and steaming for the outer belt.

  Chapter 21. Ejection.

  Ceres Report: Moonlight

  I was worried about the amount of sunlight Ceres would get. But it’s about the same as the Earth at night with partial moonlight. Anyone on Earth who goes out during a full moon would have about as much light as I do. On the other hand, with a ten-hour day, it means there are five hours each day that I only have starlight. I can work outside, I just don't go too far from the ship until the sun comes back up.

  Jim was busy getting everything together and doing it quickly. The Swarm ship’s closest pass to him was less than four hours away, and he wanted to use that event as the trigger. He had to record a radio transmission, and set it to transmit it automatically, but aimed on a tight-beam ‘in-system’ so only the Sisk could pick it up. At least for thirty minutes. After that, the radio transmission would be beamed in all directions, including toward the Swarm ship. Jim was incredibly interested in what the Swarm did during each of those transmissions.

  Satisfied the radio would do what he wanted, he next had to make sure he had enough water in his suit for five or six days, which was the limit of the suit’s built-in power supply. Enough rations for the same time, and a couple extra energy packs. You don’t run out of oxygen in a spacesuit. You only ran out of energy to convert the spent CO2 back into oxygen.

  Everything seemed five-by-five, so he had one last task. Something that couldn’t be done as correctly or accurately as he wanted. He’d just have to wing it and hope it would be good enough. As slowly as possible, he cracked the valve to start venting the cabin’s atmosphere into space. Ideally, slow enough that it would not create a high-temperature trail of warm gas outside his ship. Or at least not one the Swarm would notice. But if it did, it would hopefully not be for many hours. Patiently, he watched the air pressure drop in the cabin, and as it reached zero, he was able to open the door.

  With one last look at the timer on the radio, he knew what he had to do next. Climbing outside over the hull of his ship…a ship mostly made of ice…he positioned himself with the bulk of his ship between him, and the Swarm. Jumping away from the ship wasn’t going to be hard. No, the difficult part would be to jump off the ship in the exact opposite direction from the Sw
arm ship. The idea was to keep his ship between himself and the Swarm for as long as possible. So with one last mental summary of everything he had needed to do, he gave himself a mighty heave, and jumped away from his ship at the highest velocity his legs would give him.

  His ship receded from him at a pretty remarkable speed. He had no way to measure it, but he hoped to be many miles away before the radio started sending messages. If he was correct, the radio was going to attract the Swarm. If he was wrong and it didn’t, it would confirm the current thinking that the Swarm didn’t use radio waves, and didn’t bother to detect them. Either way, he’d learn first-hand if what everyone thought about the Swarm was correct.

  He watched his ship for the next four hours, watched it recede almost out of sight. As long as he knew where to look for it, he could find it. His suit’s chronometer indicated that the first radio broadcast from his ship would be transmitting soon. That would be the tight-beam transmission toward the Sisk. In preparation, he covered himself with the blanket from his cabin. Dark colored, it wasn’t anything special but it would prevent any stray reflection of light off the shiny surfaces of his suit. He did not want to call any attention to himself.

  There was no visible sign the radio transmission was sent, so instead he just watched the Swarm ship. Still a long way off, he could find it only because he knew where to look. The slow and steady blink as it rotated along it’s axis was helpful: It was the only light in the sky that changed at all.

  As he waited, all the demons of self-doubt arose in his mind. Was this a good idea? Why abandon his spaceship at all? What if his suit malfunctioned in the next five days? Was there anything else he could have done? One by one, he quelled these doubts and banished them entirely from his mind. He had made a decision, put a set of events in motion, and now he only had to patiently wait for results. The idea of having regrets was completely alien to him.