On the Shores of Titan's Farthest Sea

by Michael Carroll

  “You look a little tired,” the man said. “But it’s all going to be fine. You know that, right?”

  “I suppose so.” She glanced around. They were alone. She could have asked him where he had been, or what he had been doing just before he died, or what he was doing here, now, when everything seemed to be falling apart, but she was afraid he would disappear. Instead, she said, “I have been missing you.”

  “I know.” He smiled kindly at her.

  “What you were playing?”

  “It’s a flute, silly.”

  “I know that. I mean, the music.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “Da, very much.”

  “I’m so glad. It’s the ancient music of Kokopelli. Flute player of the Native Americans.” For one disorienting moment, his voice sounded like Troy Fel’s. That was odd. Kevin smiled and placed the wooden instrument to his lips. He winked at her and began to play again. Tanya wanted to say something, but her throat was dry and her lips didn’t seem to want to move.

  As Kevin turned to walk down the hall, down into the darkness, she could see wine-colored splotches and blisters across his back, burns from Titan’s frigid wilderness. And the burns on his back seemed to impart their chill down Tanya’s own spine.

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_33

  33. A Little Trip

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  There was a clarity to things when one was at the precipice, about to embark on something that seemed adventurous…or dangerous…or deadly. To Jeremy Belton, such times imbued life with a surreal atmosphere. Colors dazzled, sounds rang more sharply, smells held a richer aroma. Everything had a diamond-hard edge to it. That was how this day felt to Belton. It had a succinct quality to it. It felt lethal.

  His fellow passenger told him the trip would be easy—she’d read all about it—and undoubtedly it would be easier than the trips of the past. “You know, they say the earliest Titan explorers suffered terribly. Coming all the way from Earth, and despite the constant flow of nuclear thrust, their transit times stretched to years. They arrived exhausted and bored. Can you imagine all those countless protein bars and hours on stationary bicycles and treadmills?”

  How did she know all this stuff? he wondered. But he was too nervous to make good conversation. He let her go on about how from Mars, at the right planetary alignment, flight times to Titan could be cut down by over a third using Jupiter’s gravity as a slingshot. It was still a grueling trip. But with China’s Q’in nuclear propulsion, coupled with the new disposable ultra-high thrust trans-stages and various chemical additions to the bloodstream, Belton faced a trip of less than five weeks. To him, even this seemed daunting.

  He tried to relax into the couch, but his body kept bobbing around. He tightened his belts. His phone rang. The woman stopped her monolog. Saved by the bell.

  He tapped his ear. “Belton.”

  “How goes the adventure?”

  “Sanjay Rao, what timing you have. I was just thinking about you here as my nausea was increasing.”

  “It’s all going to be just a fond memory soon. No traffic to report, but Jeremy, keep an eye out. This whole business makes me nervous.”

  Jeremy lowered his voice. The woman was chatting up an attendant. “I’m telling you, this is the best way to do it. A nice, low profile civilian liner. Nobody will notice. Any word from our friends?”

  “We’ve dispatched a SWAT team from Ganymede. They will either be waiting for you or they’ll have things under control by the time you arrive. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Marginally. What would really make me feel better is a little more gravity. Looks like we’re on approach, so I’ll sign off.”

  “Good luck, space cowboy.”

  Belton gazed out the window of the little shuttlepod, but his mind was a few gazillion miles away at Saturn. Godspeed to the SWAT team, he thought.

  The massive transport loomed above him like a colossal mountain. It was nothing like the luxury liners that ferried passengers between Earth and Mars. The shuttlepod carried only one other passenger, the loquacious woman whose name was Jennifer.

  “It’s all brawn and no beauty,” Jennifer observed. Belton noticed the bolts, hatches and rails scattered across the metallic hull of the transport as it filled the windows.

  “No golden trim or ebony checkerboards here,” he said. “Those Mars cruisers wouldn’t dare show a bolt or maintenance hatch.”

  “May not be much to look at on the outside, but she’s pretty sleek on the inside,” the pilot chimed in. “Jupiter and Saturn passengers aren’t about tourist experiences; most are more interested in speed.”

  “Fair enough,” Belton said.

  The pod docked flawlessly to the side of the ship.

  “You’ve obviously done this before,” Belton told the pilot, trying to sound relaxed.

  The pilot gestured toward the opening hatch. “A few times. Right this way.”

  The entry was a little cramped, with low ceiling and a lip on the base of the door, but it opened out into a relatively spacious corridor. Railings along the walls accommodated the short orbital periods of near-weightlessness endured by the ship. The signs mounted on the walls, floor and ceiling could be read upside down as well as right-side up.

  The pilot led the two to the check-in station and said goodbye.

  “Welcome to the Starlight Queen,” an attendant said, placing electronic stamps on their wrist passport chips. “Please go to Medlab in preparation for flight. Have a nice trip.”

  “Thanks,” Belton said, already looking down the hallway with trepidation. “Time to get prodded and stuck, I guess.”

  “Yep!” Jennifer grinned as she pushed off and drifted down the corridor.

  It had been years since Belton had been weightless. He had done a trip to Phobos, just for fun, and another to Earth’s Moon. Both voyages involved fairly long periods of zero-G. He had forgotten how uneasy his stomach became.

  As he entered the Medlab, he glanced around. Jennifer didn’t seem to be there. He heard her voice near the ceiling. “Exhilarating, isn’t it?”“Oh yeah,” he said, forcing a smile.

  A skinny med tech with wayward black hair approached him. He spoke in a gravelly baritone. “Would you like a patch? Feeling any nausea?”

  “I’d love one,” Belton said with enthusiasm. As he slapped the little adhesive oval behind his ear, he felt immediately better.

  “Now,” the tech continued, “I need you both to strap into these couches. We’ll set you up with a transferrable I.V.”

  “Transferrable?” Jennifer looked at the bizarre contraption at each bedside. Multi-colored lines carrying translucent liquids snaked around and into a host of vials and tanks. It did not look portable by any stretch of the imagination.

  “All this mess is just to get you started. When you’re stable and happy, you’ll transfer to the passenger area, where you’ll plug in your packs.” The tech held up a small container the size of a daypack. Several nozzles protruded from its soft shell. “We’ll begin with mostly saline, introduce the drugs gradually. Now, Mr. Belton, if you’ll loan me one of your veins…”

  Initially, Belton felt no change. But as the tech was prepping Jennifer, Belton began to feel a flush drift over his skin. His ears became hot, his mouth dry. He began to experience something like an adrenaline rush. He took in a deep breath. It came out in ragged spurts. “Wow!”

  The tech frowned at him. “First time in high G interplanetary?”

  The passengers nodded in unison.

  “Did you watch your holovideos?”

  “Holovideos?” Belton said, his voice a little higher than normal.

  “Came with your tickets.”

  “I watched mine,” Jennifer said.

  Belton squirmed. “Teacher’s pet. I just thought it was…” Belton co
ughed. “…like a travel brochure.”

  The tech waved a finger at him. “It’s a primer. It tells passengers what to expect. You were very naughty. Don’t worry: the initial rush goes away quickly. I suppose you’ll want to know what’s in it, since you didn’t watch your holo?”

  Belton nodded.

  “The stress of our primary break from orbit is our main concern right now. The Q’in drive, coupled with our trans-stage, is strong enough to kill a human crew. So, we mix up this tidy high-gravity cocktail for all of us. It keeps us conscious and able to move, and it keeps our internal organs from freaking out. There’s also an anti-nausea regimen included, no extra charge. Make sense?”

  “It does,” Belton said, feeling more himself.

  “Questions?”

  The two shook their heads. The tech looked at Jennifer’s bedside monitor, then at Belton’s.

  “You guys are squared away. Let’s get you to the passenger arena.”

  Belton was disappointed in the so-called arena. It was small and rectangular rather than the spacious amphitheater he envisioned. The outer planet transport Starlight Queen—where did they get these names?—had a capacity of eight crew members and twenty four passengers. All couches were full. The berths were arranged in six rows of four each, with some type of console three rows in. Belton and Jennifer settled into their places. The tech slid their packs into a compartment on the side of each couch, just under the left armrest.

  And there they lay. The long minutes passed like molasses.

  A soft gong sounded.

  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome once again to the Starlight Queen. Our flight is about to begin. Dinner will be served after our initial acceleration, which should last for the next fifty minutes.

  Belton heard a faint noise from Jennifer. He glanced over. Her eyes were wide open and tears streaked her cheeks. So much for bravery. He reached over and patted her hand. Suddenly, a terrifying jolt shoved him into his couch. He began to see red, but the drugs kept him awake and aware. A full three seconds later, he heard the muffled crackle of the trans-stage, mingled with the soft whirr of the nuclear propulsion. They were on their way.

  © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

  Michael CarrollOn the Shores of Titan's Farthest SeaScience and Fiction10.1007/978-3-319-17759-5_34

  34. Somebody Told Me

  Michael Carroll1

  (1)Littleton, CO, USA

  Even when darkness came to Mayda Station, Saturn still cast a meager golden glow outside. At sunset, Saturn floated in the mist, nearly kissing the horizon, as a full globe. As night progressed, the great planet did not move from its perch low in the sky, but it marched through phases, from gibbous to crescent. When it had all but disappeared, it would be sunrise again.

  The golden giant’s glow scarcely penetrated into the galley. What had been a bustling, cheery eatery with aromas of brewing teas and hot dishes had fallen into a cavernous funk. It had brought on the silence—and ambience—of the grave. It was a great place, Tanya thought, for a conversation.

  Brian sat down next to her. He was a tall, gangly man with a cap of jet-black hair that seemed to disappear in the dim light, as if the top of his head had gone missing. A dim glow illuminated just the edge of his jaw from one of the few emergency lights still functioning. His circumspect expression matched the dismal surroundings. Though he always looked moody, his appearance belied a cheerful spirit. He raised a coffee cup to his lips, sipped, and let out a satisfied huff.

  “Where did you get that?” Tanya asked, eyeing the cup.

  “The console on corridor B still works. It just doesn’t heat anything.”

  “Cold coffee?”

  “Very. But it’s got cream and sugar and I’m just pretending about the temperature.” The tech shivered. “I borrowed this nifty little flashlite from Abby. Have you seen her?”

  “No. She is mystery woman.”

  “That she is. I like her. She’s got fierce eyes.”

  “Maybe because of her past, because her parents die? I think you can see people’s history in the eyes.”

  Brian raised his eyebrows. The whites of his eyes glowed in the darkness. “My parents died. Do I have fierce eyes?” He leaned toward her with a scary look and then they both laughed. “You get over things.”

  “I don’t think she ever got over hers. Something still there. When she talks about them she seems like she has unfinished things. I don’t know.” Tanya noticed that she was staring at Brian’s coffee. He noticed, too.

  “Want a sip?”

  “Sure.”

  In a lonely place, with the Grim Reaper scratching at the door, a sip of coffee could be a remarkably intimate gesture.

  “Spaciba,” she said absently. He simply nodded. “So how does thing look downstairs?”

  “You’re tired.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “When you get tired, your English goes to hell. So, how do things look? Not so hot.” He smiled at his little joke before his brows furrowed. “The reactor’s fine. But it’s missing a critical part.”

  “What missing?”

  “It’s a rather simple mechanical unit that transfers power from the nuclear source to the transformers and then on to the rest of the outpost.”

  Tanya could tell he was about to launch into something technical. “My degree not in nuclear engineering, and English is fourth language for me. Take it easy on a girl.”

  “Sorry. All that’s really happening is—well, most normal reactors put out heat, and that heat turns an assembly called a turbine, which translates that movement into electricity…eventually. Got it so far?”

  “Got it.”

  “So our new reactor is a little more direct than that, but suffice to say that we have plenty of power. It just can’t get out anywhere.”

  “So this important turbine thing just disappear? Just like that? Somebody must has, yes?”

  “Makes sense, of course. Somebody stole it, but to what end?”

  “How big this thing is?”

  “About as big as that microwave,” he pointed toward the nearby counter.

  Tanya remembered Troy running down the corridor with his bundle. “Can we borrow from Port Antillia? Even Kosovo/Taishan has a reactor, yes?”

  “Don’t forget our wonderful Ingermanson system. It’s been a joy to work on, and it’s incredibly efficient, but it’s…special. It won’t interface with that type of hardware. That’s what we get for being progressive.”

  “Where else do they have?”

  “Ingermanson reactors? There’s a brand new one on Ganymede that’s been on line without a glitch, and a bunch in the south of Mars are just about to get up and running. I’m afraid that’s as good as it gets. This time of year, there’s not enough wind for turbines. I have the guys working on a wave machine down on the beach. That might give us a little juice, but just enough to heat maybe one or two habs in the short term. It’s not much.”

  “Not enough?” Tanya asked quietly.

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Why can’t we call on backup? Satellites don’t take that much and we have emergency stuff in the—”

  “I know, I know. There’s something else just as disturbing. We’re also missing our entire equipment bay from the east mesa. All our satcom equipment. There are heavy rover tracks all over up there, and footprints. A whole lot of footprints.”

  “Who is doing this?” Tanya thundered in frustration.

  “No idea.”

  She looked down, and said, “How much time you think we have before—”

  Brian turned squarely toward her. She looked up into his eyes. In the dim light, they seemed like deep caves. “Tanya, I hate to rain on your little Russian parade, but unless we get help soon, Mayda Station is going to die a fairly rapid death. Without power to the pumps, Titan’s nice, chilly toxins are going to come seeping in. With the heaters down, the infrastructure will freeze solid, and it will take us with it.”

&n
bsp; “They say it is like falling to sleep,” Tanya offered hopefully.

  “If we’re lucky enough to freeze out. But if the seals fail first, we’ll be poisoned by the air, or we’ll get a nice mix of methane and propane with our oxygen and burn the place down, or we’ll just run out of oxygen. Either way, I’m not too crazy about it.”

  The last emergency light flickered, and Brian’s chin faded away. “This is what I call dark.” Tanya let out a long sigh. “Only one thing to do. Go to bed.”

  “Together? Are you proposing to change the moral landscape because the lights went out?”

  “In the dark, I cannot tell if that makes you happy or sad, but that is actually not what I was suggesting.”

  “Would you hate it?”

  Brian was sweet, but timing is everything. She was in no mood. “Do you not need to be working at beach, trying to save Mayda Station?”

  “But would you? Hate it?”

  “What I would hate is freezing to death after dying in methane/oxygen fire. You painted a posey picture.”

  “I think you mean ‘rosy,’ and I hope you’re being sarcastic.”

  “Rosy. Thank you. Now, get to working, and keep away from the sea beasts of Kraken.”

  (*)

  Mayda Station loomed out of the darkness, draped across the frozen landscape like a herd of gray, sleeping elephants. All the external floodlamps stared blindly into the darkness, their light quenched by the dwindling power inside. It was perfect. Troy backed the rover toward the warehouse hab at the west end, easing the trailer—with its precious cargo of his blue submersible—up to the door. Without power, he had to open the massive hatch manually. It was heavy, but he managed. His helmet lights filled the chamber with a blue glow. The walls and floor glistened with ice crystals. He dropped the trailer off inside, left the rover out in the fog, and ducked back through. He slammed the door, cycled the air, and watched the ambient temperature on his wristpad; the wall monitor was dead. He hoped it was warmer farther in than it was here, barely above freezing. But it didn’t matter, really. He would bide his time until they called him back or until things got really uncomfortable, and then he would leave for the warmth of the north shore.