by T I WADE
Both Astermine spacecraft tilted forward steeply, and gently pushed into the dense clouds of floating stones, like feeding whales. They were only several hundred feet off from the rear of the asteroid managing a twenty second sweep before Jonesy ordered Maggie to turn about face and at the same altitude head back into the cloud and away from the asteroid.
By the time both craft had reached the edge of the cloud, and their second run, VIN told them that it was like a snowstorm; the whole of the interior of the cargo hold in Astermine Two glittered like it had just snowed.
He placed the canister inside, Maggie closed the doors and Jonesy did the same. VIN’s time was done, his fuel was spent, and he pulled himself towards the docking port, his strong arms drawing him along the cord.
As he entered, he looked towards the asteroid. There were far fewer stones than before; they had caught at least half of everything floating in the area and now the stones themselves were beginning to be pulled back to the massive fissured rock still the size of the Empire State Building.
“Jonesy, I’m exhausted,” admitted VIN an hour later, and after he had entered Maggie’s craft and she had helped him off with his helmet. “My heart nearly stopped back there. I reckon we have more diamonds than South Africa and De Beers all put together. Maggie’s cargo hold has a couple of thousand and so must yours.”
“I’m looking back and I’m sure many of the stones will fall back to the asteroid,” replied Jonesy. “The rock hasn’t broken up; it’s just looking all ripped up and has large cracks everywhere. The whole rock could just break up into billions of pieces. I saw the beacon we left. It’s in a crack and still beeping. Let’s go home. Maggie, follow me; I’m programming my computers to map our way home. A great idea kid! Maggie once again we have loose items in our cargo holds, so fly carefully. No hard breaking if we meet any traffic lights out here.”
Chapter 6
Meanwhile, back on Earth
A few days before the asteroid spat out its diamonds, Ryan watched as the shuttle could be seen for the first time in the afternoon’s summer sun glinting over the western horizon.
This incoming flight carried his third cargo of space treasure. The shuttles were still on a ten-day schedule and this shuttle’s next launch would be the maiden flight of Asterspace Three into orbit. Once his third spacecraft turned on its Cloaking Device and headed towards the sanctuary of Ivan, he could begin VIN’s idea of using both shuttles to start a faster cycle of five-day turnarounds.
The day before, Bill Withers, the former Director of NASA, had arrived at his airfield in his RV with his dog, and they spent the first day discussing tactics for the radioactive waste mission. Bill suggested that Ryan develop his own containers to carry the radioactive material into space; under its new management NASA would take much longer. As Bill was leaving, the president had let him know that disposing of the waste was now a low priority; they were much more interested in initiating their own space mission to mine the riches that would make the president and the government rich.
NASA’s change of direction was all due to Ryan’s first load of treasure, which he had turned over to government agents who would legally disperse the metals. He said that he wouldn’t give them one rock without some sort of pre-payment and asked for $200 million—his fuel bill for the next ten launches into space. NASA gave him a bank deposit of $100 million for the iridium and rhodium. The Federal Reserve deposited another $100 million into his account for the platinum.
Ryan invited a dozen metal analysts from universities in Nevada and California, as well as two government departments, to record and study each rock before a federal armored vehicle arrived from Las Vegas to cart the treasure away. The first cargo of rock Jonesy and Maggie brought from space on the day his shuttle landing went viral on YouTube and hundreds of television channels around the world, was weighed just over 3.5 tons. The treasure, comprised of thousands of small rocks, stones and pebbles, needed to be weighed, analyzed and packed into steel cases. The ground crew had a second Magnetic Metal Analyzer, the same as the one VIN lost on the asteroid, and its findings were accurate enough for the survey team to not have to actually touch the rocks, just monitor them on conveyor belts going through the much larger and more accurate machine set up in a special building for this task.
The space rocks were taking a week to become safe to touch. Off-loaded outside in the sun and wind, and under guard, the radioactivity was quickly dissipating thanks to the earth’s tough atmosphere. The first 3.5 ton load of platinum, iridium and rhodium was valued by the team at a few thousand over $173 million.
Ryan had allowed a “60 Minutes” team of cameras and reporters to spend two days completing a news story on the first treasure. It would air that Sunday night.
He told the TV crew that the rocks came from a tiny three-mile square area on the moon which they found by a lucky mistake. In response to questions about how they found this treasure trove, Ryan explained that they found what seemed to be a new crater on the far side of the moon and decided to investigate. This story kept the telescopes focused on the moon and far away from his traveling craft, and the actual place his treasures had been found.
The second load arrived ten days later. All three television crews again were invited to the landing and arrived early to watch Michael and Suzi glide onto the hot runway.
Joe Downs asked Ryan how much each load weighed, how much had actually been mined, and how it had been done so quickly.
Ryan explained that he had robotic spiders that worked through a transmitting computer program from inside the unmanned spacecraft. He told live television that they swept up all loose rocks with a system about the size of a large house vacuum cleaner. The debris moved up on internal conveyor belts and ejected into the silver canisters being held by other robots. They had literally swept the area clean of lose rock.
He told the crews that his robots had picked up about thirty tons of rock which were taken to a holding site on the other side of the moon. He had an unmanned robotic spacecraft which entered earth’s orbit and transferred about three to four tons of treasure into the shuttle’s hold so that the shuttles on a test flight could reenter with the goods.
This live transmission caused the futures price of platinum to immediately drop by 17 percent, rhodium by 40 percent and iridium by 11 percent. Ryan understood this, and also knew that the markets would rebound because the government would want to halt future deliveries which would weaken the market even more.
The president and his men were now working on a plan to control this influx into the markets. The world knew that thirty tons was about to arrive, but nobody knew about the diamonds yet. Any large quantity of diamonds could devalue the world’s diamond market and destroy companies, not that Ryan worried much about De Beers or other diamond dealers. But, even Ryan did not yet know that 70 percent of his crew’s second journey to DX2014 would be pure white diamonds, of a hardness and quality rarely seen in earth diamonds.
For the second time, the MMA analyzed each rock from the second cargo and arrived at a lesser value of $143 million due to the devalued metal prices. His scientists had accurately predicted that after a few days in the sun and wind the metal lost much of its radioactivity and was safe to transport. The same federal armored vehicle arrived to transport the cargo to Las Vegas.
Now Ryan was waiting on the apron for the third shuttle to arrive. It was a typically hot, dry summer day in Nevada, and the sun glinted on the silver body of the incoming shuttle a dozen miles away. This time there was no film crew to watch its arrival. The media’s attention had shifted to a large invasion of Syria by Turkey and other more important stories—a welcome break for Ryan who was able to escape receiving the world’s attention for a time; it kept the vultures away.
He honestly believed that humans could live together peacefully. To prove this point, he wanted to leave earth with a group of men, women, and children and live in peace within the close confinement of a space ship for an extended period of tim
e. He had discussed this theory and others with several professors around the world; many had agreed that his life’s dream could be a real test to see if many of their theories were also correct. Ryan only had a couple of mentors, and Professor Stephan Hawking was one of them. He needed to remind himself to send his mentor the promised invitation. Then his thoughts brought him back to the present.
He had watched the same shuttle, Sierra Bravo 1 go up into space ten hours earlier loaded with eight more aluminum panels; it was flown by Michael with Kathy, who was now ready for space flight. Suzi was a passenger this time, returning to her experiments in space. She loved it in space, her unresponsive legs were no longer a hindrance to her in Ivan, as she could float everywhere in the Beer Can, never wanting to clamp on the magnetic shoes. Her new metal lower body “legs” could be worn when necessary, but now she loved the freedom of floating.
Suzi was also a few weeks away from finding out that she was pregnant.
The shuttle, as planned, met up with incoming Sierra Bravo II completing its second orbit; the Cloaking Devices were switched over and the shuttle used its hydrogen thrusters to blast out of orbit and towards Ivan. The incoming shuttle completed its third orbit and then reentered over the Chinese coast.
The new space ship was growing. Michael, who had to fly as well as control the robotic spiders that were welding the panels, had been joined by one of the scientists to help him. He needed more men, but the Beer Can had only enough sleeping capacity for six. As soon as the first area of America One was habitable, the crew up there would be increased.
Michael’s new assistant, Fritz, had just completed the spacewalk drill back in Nevada. Fritz Warner was from the European Space Authority and joined Ryan’s team with the first group of Europeans he had employed. Fritz was in Ryan’s main group of thirty-six, then a young and brilliant robotics engineer in charge of designing the robotic spiders. He had always wanted to travel into space; he was part of the mining and welding programs and now was trained in spacewalking to help Michael run the space ship’s welding operations.
The second cube was nearly done. Two more loads would complete it and get the third cube started. Included in the next load was the second of the two docking ports to be installed on the first cube, which would seal two of five open holes in the panels. The other three holes were thick sliding silicone see-through doors to be sealed inside the three projecting cylinder corridors.
The first load of oval cylinders were to be flown up in three launches; these cylinders—the walkways to the rest of the spaceship—would be welded into place around the three door holes to finally seal the cubes from outer space.
These first three oval cylinders were forty feet long, nine to ten feet high and fourteen to fifteen feet wide. After they were welded directly onto the cube’s outer walls, Michael and Fritz would fill them with sealed canisters from Ivan and cargo from the holds of the spacecraft: large equipment, machinery, trees, plants, soil and hydroponic necessities for the first cube. Finally, the three cylinders would be sealed off from space to enable the introduction of air pressure, the necessary gases, and ceramic heaters; all necessary to keep the trees and crops alive until they were ready to move through the sliding door to the completed cube at the cylinder’s other end.
When the first cube was ready, dozens of cylinders of pure oxygen, nitrogen and the other gases needed to sustain life would be floated into the cube and opened. Then the lighting system and artificial gravity running through the center of the cube would be turned on. The power systems were already connected to the nuclear reactor’s control system which was on the cube’s outer wall. The reactor had been placed on the underside of the cube, in-between the three-foot thick aluminum landing legs.
“Boss, you have a message from Astermine One. I think you might want to read it,” said a smiling scientist who walked up to him as the shuttle flared and touched down on the runway. He was extremely proud of the pilots flying his fleet. They were the best.
Ryan returned to the coolness of Hangar One as the tractor hitched up the Silver Bullet at the end of the runway. Everything was going according to plan.
“Just give me a minute,” asked Ryan, his eyes not yet accustomed to the inside darkness after the bright sunlight outside.
Ground control, located outside of his office in Hangar One, consisted of five rows of six computer terminals per row, each terminal manned by one person. Like any space control center, each of the terminals monitored the six most important life supports of each craft in space. Row five was empty, as Asterspace Three was still on the ground. In front of the computers and his office, was a large screen which displayed a large map of space surrounding earth.
The farthest corners on the large screen on the wall showed Mars and Venus. There were many white lights on the 60 by 40-foot screen, mostly showing the thousand or more pieces of space junk the computers needed to steer all Ryan’s craft through. From low to middle space orbit was the worst and the computers used the hydrogen thrusters of each craft two or three times to angle the craft away from dangerous objects in their paths.
All the shuttles had the same entry and exit points into orbit, and this meant that the same paths were now followed within a three to five mile window all the way to Ivan. Unfortunately, much of the junk was moving in varying orbits; these were the dangerous pieces.
Every few minutes red lights lit up where incoming signals were received from the two beacons now on the most forward parts of DX2014, as well as two blue lights showing the two mining craft. Ryan noticed that he could now see a tiny space between the two red lights, and an even larger space between the monitors and the blue lights of his two craft. They were already returning to earth; the mining mission must be over.
Ryan sat down in his seat, higher than the thirty computers in front of him and studied the map. One green light showed the shuttle climbing out of earth’s orbit at an altitude of 4,000 miles and at 23,000 miles an hour. An orange light showed the beacon on Ivan far higher than the exiting shuttle. The shuttle was still moving in a lengthening orbit as it had one more orbit to go before heading directly to Ivan, which was stationary on the screen in its geostationary orbit.
“They have left DX2014?” Ryan asked.
“Da, I gave them permission to return twenty minutes ago,” Igor the control officer replied. “A message was sent from DX2014 that the new rock they call “Diamond One” is breaking up again. Mr. Noble said that they were seconds away from being swallowed up by a new fissure opening up on the surface. Their hydrogen fuel usage has been high and they are already on the reserves we added to this flight, so I’m bringing them home.”
“Sounds good. They will reach Ivan in what, five days?”
“Five days seven hours; fifteen days ahead of schedule,” replied the scientist. “The latest message from Mr. Nobel states, ‘Diamond One exploded, a fissure of diamonds erupted from part of the rock. Mr. Jones, flying Astermine One, saw the diamond river on the broken rear side of rock. Diamonds blew out of the crevice like a cloud, so we opened the roof doors to catch the cloud and carefully moved through for two collection runs. We captured a good amount of the floating stones. I looked inside one cargo hold; it looks like fresh snow. We have a lot of diamonds, so we are coming home. Suggestions needed on how to clear them out of the holds. There are many loose stones, thousands in each cargo hold.’ End of Mr. Noble’s message.”
Ryan sat there silent for a second. “They have a ton of diamonds aboard each vessel?” he asked the man in the white coat.
“Plus those big ones and all those others in the canisters. I’m sure this cargo will make the first load look like chump change,” the scientist replied.
“Igor, get somebody to find me Bill Withers. He should be in Hangar Three. I need to figure out what to do with all this stuff.”
“One more thing,” the scientist stated after getting off the phone. “This Diamond One rock is going to pass pretty close to earth because of the change in direction
caused by the explosion. Its new direction looks like it could pass in between earth and the moon in about five weeks.”
“Give me its coordinates; I need to get the Astermine craft well away from it so that Hubble won’t pick them up looking in that area of space. I will pass its position to Hubble and they can start tracking it. This might be bad. Joe,” he stated to his other control team leader “could we be the reason DX2014 broke up?”
“No way, Boss, that rock is big. I don’t think two flies on a wall of a house could push it down. The report from Mr. Jones a week ago stated that smaller asteroids hitting DX2014 are probably the cause. It could have happened a month or so before we first arrived, or a million years ago. But trying to understand the minute vibrations they were detecting on the first trip, I would say that something hit that rock within the last several years, and it must have been a meteor, or asteroid from a volcano on another planet. I bet the black rock they told us about is pure carbon and some of the diamonds could be from the insides of a gigantic volcano out there somewhere. My understanding is that a diamond deposit this large must be from two massive rocks hitting each other and causing unbelievable pressure in the region of impact. Mr. Noble also stated that they saw a third crater within the second crater, which means that the impact area had been hit again by a smaller rock, maybe dislodging the surface area and allowing our team to see the diamonds. I would guess that it is a trillion to one possibility that three rocks could impact in the same place, but the team believes that the strong gravitational pull in this one area caused the third rock to hit inside the second crater. Mr. Noble told us that the gravity had decreased by 30 to 40 percent on their last landing. These circumstances lead me to believe there is no way that we could have had anything to do with this breakup.”
