The Precipice gt-8

by Ben Bova

  When Dan awoke from his troubled sleep the solar storm had passed. Pancho was in the wardroom when he shambled in, bleary-eyed.

  “Top o’ the mornin’, boss,” she said cheerily, hefting a mug of steaming coffee.

  “How’s the weather out there?” Dan asked, heading for the juice dispenser.

  “Clear and calm, except for a few rocks we should be passin’ by this afternoon.”

  That made Dan smile. “We’re at the Belt.”

  “Will be, by sixteen hundred hours. Right on shedyule, as Mandy would say.”

  “Good. Great. Where’s Fuchs? We’ve got to make some course adjustments.”

  Ten minutes later the four of them were seated around the table in the wardroom.

  “I want to get a metallic nugget first,” Dan said.

  Fuchs lifted his heavy shoulders slightly. “The metallic bodies are more heavily concentrated towards the outer area of the Belt.”

  “So we go to the outer edge of the Belt,” Dan replied, “and search for a lump of iron. We can pick up the stony and carbonaceous rocks on the way back.”

  “We’ll have to go more than four astronomical units, then,” Amanda pointed out.

  “No one’s gone that far before.”

  Dan said, “We’ve got the supplies for it. And the fuel. Everything’s running all right, isn’t it?”

  “No major problems,” said Pancho.

  His brows rising, Dan asked, “What are the minor problems?” She grinned at him. “The coffee’s pretty awful. A couple of li’l maintenance chores to do. You know, a cranky pump, one of the fuel cells is discharging when it shouldn’t. Nigglin’ stuff. Mandy and I are takin’ care of it.” Amanda nodded. Dan looked from her back to Pancho. Neither woman seemed worried. Well, he thought, if the pilots aren’t worried, no reason for me to sweat. “The sensor suite is in perfect working order,” Fuchs volunteered. “I’m already recording data.”

  “We’ll have to do the turnaround maneuver soon,” said Amanda. Gesturing vaguely toward infinity, Dan asked Fuchs, “Have you picked a destination point out there?”

  “A general area only,” he replied. “The outer Belt has not been mapped well enough to pick a precise asteroid. Most of them are not even numbered yet.”

  “Have you given Pancho the coordinates?”

  Fuchs’s face colored slightly. “I gave them to Amanda.”

  “I’ve put the data into the nav computer,” Amanda said quickly, looking at Pancho.

  Pancho nodded. “Okay. I’ll go check it out.”

  “Onward and upward,” said Dan, rising from his chair. “We’ll be breaking distance records, if nothing else.”

  “Four AUs,” Pancho muttered, getting to her feet also. She headed for the bridge. Dan followed her, leaving Amanda and Fuchs still sitting at the table.

  Pancho slid into the pilot’s chair and tapped on her main touch-screen, the one showing the hunk on the beach. Standing behind her, Dan saw the navigation computer program come up over the muscles and teeth. But Pancho was looking at one of the smaller screens, where an amber light was blinking slowly.

  “What’s that?” Dan asked.

  “Dunno,” said Pancho, working the screen with her fingers. “Running a diagnostic… h’mmph.”

  “What?”

  Without turning her head from the display screens, Pancho muttered, “Says there’s a hot spot on one of the superconducting wires outside.” A jolt of alarm surged through Dan. “The superconductor? Our storm shield?” She glanced up at him. “Don’t get frazzled, boss. Happens all the time. Might be a pinhole leak in the coolant line. Maybe a micrometeor dinged us.”

  “But if the coolant goes—”

  “The rate of loss ain’t much,” Pancho said calmly. “We’re due for turnaround in six hours. I can angle the ship then so’s that side’s in the shade. If the hot spot doesn’t go away then, Mandy and me will go EVA and fix the leak.” Dan nodded and tried to feel reassured.

  STAVENGER THEATER

  Kris Cardenas marveled at the crowd’s willingness to leave their comfortable homes and jam themselves cheek-by-jowl into the cramped rows of narrow seats of the outdoor theater. A considerable throng of people was flowing into the theater. It was built in the Grand Plaza, “outdoors.” Exactly one thousand seats were set in a shallow arc around the graceful fluted shell that backed the stage. Even with three-dimensional interactive video and virtual reality programs that were nearly indistinguishable from actuality, people still went to live performances. Maybe it’s because we’re mammals, Cardenas thought. We crave the warmth of other mammals. We’re born to it and we’re stuck with it. Lizards have a better deal.

  There was one particular mammal Cardenas wanted to see: George Ambrose. That morning she had phoned the Astro corporate office trying to find him, only to reach his video mail. Late in the afternoon he returned her call. When she said she had to talk to him in person as soon as possible, and preferably in a public place, George had scratched at his thick red beard for a moment and then suggested the theater.

  “I’ve got a date comin’ with me,” he said cheerfully, “but we can get together in the intermission and chat for a bit. Okay?”

  Cardenas had quickly agreed. Only as an afterthought did she ask what the theater was playing.

  George sighed heavily, “some fookin’ Greek tragedy. This date of mine, she’s a nut for th’ classics.”

  Usually the theater was sold out, no matter what the production might be. In the days before the greenhouse cliff, when tourism was building up nicely, Selene’s management invited world-class symphony orchestras, dance troupes, drama companies to come to the Moon. Now, most of the performances were done by local amateur talent.

  Medea, performed by Selene’s very own Alphonsus Players. Cardenas would have shuddered if it had mattered to her at all. Still, the theater was fully booked. Only Cardenas’s status as one of Selene’s leading citizens wheedled a ticket out of the system, and she had to go all the way up to Doug Stavenger for that. He smilingly admitted that he wasn’t going to use his.

  She barely looked at the stage during the first half of the performance. Sitting on the aisle in the fourth row, Cardenas spent most of her time scanning the crowd for a glimpse of George Ambrose’s shaggy red hair.

  When the first half ended, she trudged with the slow-moving throng along the central aisle as they chatted about the play and the performances. Cardenas felt surprised to see so many gray and white heads among the theater-goers. Selene is aging, she thought. And very few of our people are taking nanobugs or other therapies to stop it. Finally she saw Big George, like a fiery beacon bobbing head and shoulders above the others.

  Once past the last row of seats, most of the crowd scattered to the concession stands spread among the plaza’s flowering shrubbery. A maintenance robot trundled slowly along the periphery of the crowd, patrolling for litter. George was at the jam-packed bar. Cardenas hung back, waiting for him to get his drink and work his way out of the crowd. When he did, he had a plastic stein of beer decorated with Selene’s logo in one hand and a skinny, hollow-eyed redhead on his other arm. She was pretty, in a gaunt, needy way, Cardenas thought. Nice legs. The drink in her hand was much smaller than Ambrose’s. Big George spotted Cardenas and, leaving his date standing by a flowering hibiscus bush, walked toward her.

  “Dr. Cardenas,” he said, with a polite dip of his head. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got to get a message to Dan Randolph,” she said. “As quickly as possible.”

  “No worries. Pop over t’ the office tomorrow morning. Or tonight, after th’ show, if you like.”

  “Is there some way I could talk to Dan without coming to your offices? I think I’m being watched.”

  George looked more puzzled than alarmed. “You could phone me, I suppose, and I’ll patch you through to the radio link.” He took a pull from his stein. “Can we do it tonight?”

  “Sure. Right now, if you like. I wouldn’t mind
an excuse to leave this show. Pretty fookin’ dull, don’tcha think?”

  “Not now,” she answered. “That would attract attention. After the show. I’ll drop in at friend’s place and call your office from there.”

  For the first time, George showed concern. “You’re really scared, are you?”

  “I think Dan’s life is in danger.”

  “You mean someone’s out to kill ’im?”

  “Humphries.”

  George’s face hardened. “You certain of that?”

  “I’m… pretty sure.”

  “Sure enough to want to warn Dan. From a safe place, where the phone won’t be bugged.”

  “Exactly.”

  George took a big breath. “All right. Instead of all this pussyfootin’ around, you come with me after the show’s finished and I’ll put you in an Astro guest suite. That way I can protect you.”

  Cardenas shook her head. “That’s kind of you, but I don’t think I’m in danger.”

  “Then why th’ cloak and dagger stuff?”

  “I don’t want Humphries to know that I’m warning Dan. If he knew, then maybe I would be in trouble.”

  George thought that over for a few moments, a huge red-maned mountain of a man towering over her, scratching his head perplexedly. “All right,” he said at last. “Back to Plan A, then. I’ll go to the office after this fookin’ show and you call me there. Okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. Thank you.”

  “Sure you don’t want some protection?”

  She considered his offer for several heartbeats, then said, “Thanks, but I won’t need it. And I’ve got my work to consider. I can’t run the lab from an Astro guest suite.”

  “Okay,” said George. “But if you change your mind, just holler.” Martin Humphries was reclining in his favorite chair, watching a home video of his own performance, when the phone buzzed. Irked, he glanced at the console and saw that it was his emergency line. He snapped his fingers, and the wallscreen lit up to show the woman he’d sent to follow Cardenas. She was a nondescript clerk from Astro Corporation’s communications department who needed extra money to bring her younger sister up from the ravaged ruins of Moldavia. “Well?” Humphries demanded.

  “She talked with George Ambrose and then went back to the show.”

  “You have video?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well let me see it,” he snapped.

  The woman’s face was replaced by a slightly jittery video of Cardenas talking earnestly with Randolph’s body-guard, that big Australian. “They went back to the show together?”

  The woman’s face reappeared on the screen. “No, separately. He had another woman with him.”

  Glancing at the digital clock on his desk, Humphries asked, “When does the show end?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Stupid cow, he fumed silently. Aloud, he commanded, “Stay with her. I’m going to send a couple of men to pick her up. Keep your phone on and they’ll home in on the signal. That way, even if they don’t get there before the show’s over they can find you — and her.”

  “It is not allowed to keep the phone on during the performance,” the woman replied.

  “I don’t care what’s allowed and what isn’t! Keep your phone on and stay with Dr.

  Cardenas or I’ll have you shipped back to Moldavia!”

  Her eyes widened with sudden fear. “Yes, sir,” she said. Sullenly.

  “How’s the leak?” Dan asked.

  He’d been fidgeting around in the wardroom for hours, trying not to pop into the bridge and bother the pilots. But a leak in the superconductor’s coolant scared Dan. Without the superconductor they could be fried by the next solar storm.

  So when Amanda left the bridge, Dan asked about the leak.

  She looked surprised at his question. “Leak?”

  “In the coolant line.”

  “Oh, that. It’s nothing much. Pancho will go EVA after turnaround and patch it.”

  “Just Pancho?” Dan asked. “By herself?”

  “It’s only a tiny leak,” Amanda said lightly. “Pancho decided it won’t need both of us out there.”

  Dan nodded and got up from his chair. “Think I’ll go aft and see what Fuchs is doing.” If I just sit here I’ll turn myself into a nervous wreck, he added silently. Fuchs was back in the sensor bay, humming tunelessly to himself as he bent over a worktable strewn with parts from an infrared scanner. “Did it break down?” Dan asked.

  Fuchs looked up at him, a pleased smile on his broad face. “No, no,” he said. “I decided to upgrade its sensitivity so we could get better data at long range.”

  “We’re going to turn around soon. You’ll have to get all these loose parts stowed away safely or they’ll slide off the table.”

  “Oh, I should be finished by then.”

  “Really?”

  With a glance that was part surprise at having his word questioned, and part pride in his abilities, Fuchs said, “Of course.”

  He bent over his work again, stubby thick fingers handling the delicate parts with the precision of a well-trained mechanic. Dan watched him for a while, then quietly left the man to himself. As he started back to his privacy cubicle, he saw Amanda heading along the narrow passage toward him.

  “Going to help Pancho suit up?” he asked. “I can—”

  “Oh, there’s plenty of time for that,” Amanda said brightly. “I thought I’d pop in on Lars for a few minutes and help him get prepared for turnaround.” Dan felt his brows inch upward. “Something going on between you two?” he asked.

  She looked genuinely surprised. “Lars is a complete gentleman,” Amanda said with great dignity. “And even though you may not believe it, I know how to behave like a lady.”

  She brushed past Dan, chin high, radiating disdain.

  Dan grinned at her retreating back. Something’s going on, all right, even if Fuchs doesn’t know it yet.

  TURNAROUND

  On my mark,” Pancho’s voice came through the intercom, “turnaround in thirty minutes. Mark.” Dan sat up in his bunk. He had just drifted to sleep, it seemed, after staring at the compartment’s overhead for what had felt like hours. We’re well inside the Belt, he thought. The ship’s working fine. We’re heading for the outer reaches to scout around for a good, solid M-type body. And there’s a leak in the coolant that keeps the superconductor cooled down enough to maintain the magnetic field around us that protects us from the hard radiation of solar storms. Sounds like the house that Jack built, he said to himself, trying to shake the feeling of foreboding that plagued him. He grabbed a fresh pair of coveralls and marched to the lav. I need a shower and a shave, he thought. And you need to get that leak fixed, a voice in his head reminded.

  He wished it didn’t bother him so much. Pancho wasn’t worried about it; neither was Amanda.

  Damned good-looking woman, Amanda, he thought. Even in loose-fitting coveralls she’s dynamite. Better make it a cold shower. The only tricky part of the turnaround maneuver was that they had to shut down the main thrusters. Not the fusion reactor itself; the procedure was to kill the ship’s thrust during turnaround, and use the reactor’s exhaust gases to turn the ship by venting a fraction of the exhaust through maneuvering jets set into the sides of the propulsion module.

  Dan headed up to the bridge after his shower. Both pilots were in their places. No music was playing.

  “All systems ready for turnaround,” Amanda murmured. “Check, all systems go,” Pancho replied.

  Standing behind their chairs, Dan asked, “Where’s Fuchs?”

  “Prob’ly still in the sensor bay,” Pancho said, “playin’ with his toys.” Amanda frowned slightly as she touched the comm screen. “Turnaround in five minutes,” she announced.

  Glancing over her shoulder, Pancho said, “Boss, you oughtta find a chair.” He scowled at her. “I’ve been in micro-g before, kid.” Before you were born, he almost added.

  He could see Pancho grinning in her re
flection on the port in front of her. “Okay, you’re the boss. Footloops on the deck and handgrips on the overhead.”

  “Aye-aye, skipper,” Dan said, grinning back at her.

  “Thrust cutoff in two minutes,” Amanda called out.

  “Two minutes. Check.”

  When the main thrusters cut off, Dan felt completely at ease. The feeling of gravity dwindled away to nothing, and he floated off the deck slightly. Grabbing one of the handgrips, he hung there and watched the pilots working their touchscreens.

  “How’s Fuchs doin’ back there?” Pancho asked.

  Amanda tapped the central screen and it showed Fuchs strapped into the fold-up chair in the sensor bay, looking a little pasty-faced but otherwise okay. “Maneuver thrust in two minutes,” Amanda said.

  “Check,” Pancho replied.

  Dan worked his feet into the loops on the deck without letting go of the overhead handgrips. The maneuvering jets fired and he felt as if somebody suddenly shoved him from one side. He remembered from childhood his first ride in a peoplemover at some airport: he’d been standing facing the doors, and when the train lurched into movement he’d nearly toppled over sideways. Only the grownups crowded around him had prevented him from falling.

  “Phew,” Pancho said, “this bird turns like a supertanker: slow and ugly.”

  “You’re not flying a little flitter now,” Dan said.

  “Turn rate is on the curve,” Amanda pointed out, tracing the curve on the touchscreen with a manicured fingertip. Her screen’s background showed the white cliffs of Dover.