Torino Nine

by Mark Anson

  For a moment, Mordecai’s composure faltered, then he recovered it swiftly. ‘The asteroid was certainly a threat – if you don’t believe me, you can use your own navigation computer to run the trajectory calculations yourself. I don’t know if it warranted a Torino-nine rating, but that wasn’t my decision. I see from reading my mail that the deflection was a success.’

  ‘Yes, it was. And we sustained casualties in the attack.’

  ‘Yes. I was very sorry to hear about Lieutenant Petersen. And the injuries to Captain Garcia and his crew.’

  ‘You don’t think that maybe USAC could have mounted a mission out here on its own, and just kept it quiet? That way, people wouldn’t have been killed and injured for the sake of a – a deception?’ She could feel the anger rising within her. Christ, she had just about sacrificed her whole career for this.

  ‘Captain, please – the detailed mission plan was not up to me. I might be the expert on the Ulysses, but I am not in command of USAC. I am sure the decisions were taken for valid reasons. I understand your anger, but these are questions you need to put to your command structure, not to me.’

  ‘You must have known about it, though,’ Collins said quietly.

  ‘Yes. Which was why they put me into stasis before the mission, so that there was no chance I could inadvertently endanger the mission. As it was, I could have been killed myself, in my stasis chamber, when the Las Vegas was hit.’

  Clare regarded him carefully. She didn’t trust him; that was for sure. But his story sounded plausible. And despite her misgivings, she was just as intrigued to see what the mysterious object really was. She and Collins were in a unique position to find out what had happened; every other captain in the fleet would willingly have changed places with her to have a chance of commanding the ship that found the Ulysses.

  ‘Okay doctor, I’ll buy your story.’ Clare sat back and pushed her meal tray away. ‘I don’t like the way you were revived before we were, and I don’t like the way we were deceived over the threat from the asteroid. But we seem to be here, and I guess we’d better make the best of it.’

  ‘Thank you, captain. I will do my very best to make sure you’re fully briefed from now on.’

  ‘Good. Let’s start with the mission plan.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘We’re just over a day away from the insertion burn. The – object – is in Psyche’s shadow, sixty-eight thousand kilometres behind the asteroid, just inside the L2 libration point. So we won’t be able to see it; we’ll have to do a radar approach.’

  ‘How do you propose to dock, if it is the Ulysses?’ Mordecai leaned forward.

  ‘That depends on what we find. If it’s rotating – which it could be if there’s been any venting from pressure relief valves – then we’ll have to stabilise it first before attempting to dock. What’s the docking adapter like?’

  ‘I have a schematic.’ Mordecai put his computer tablet on the table and brought up a line drawing of the ship. He enlarged the forward end. ‘Here. The ship was equipped with a lander, which occupies the forward docking port. We can dock on one of the two side ports, but you’ll have to be careful of these antenna structures.’ He indicated three long, spine-like antennas facing forwards.

  ‘What are they for?’ Collins asked.

  ‘Charged-particle experiments at Saturn.’

  Clare studied the ship, and its arrays of tanks and antennas, and strangely-shaped cooling fins. ‘It’s unusually large for a survey vessel.’

  ‘Yes. It was designed originally for the Saturn mission, and the stasis equipment was added later, so we had to extend the crew module, and add extra tanks and cooling systems for the memory arrays. It delayed the mission by nearly a year.’

  ‘What’s the lander for? Titan?’

  ‘Yes. We’d planned to go into orbit, and take a lander down to the surface.’ Mordecai looked wistful. There had been no repeat attempt of the Saturn mission after the Ulysses was lost.

  ‘Okay, so if we can manage to dock at the front end, here –’ Clare touched the docking adapter, ‘then we can gain access to the crew module. How many decks are there?’

  ‘Three in total; a command deck, a lounge deck, then the memory deck, which holds all the specialised stasis equipment. Then there’s the hibernaculum itself.’ Mordecai spoke as if it was the main reason for the ship’s existence.

  Clare considered the layout. ‘Our priority’s going to be the command deck, see if we can access the ship’s log. Then the reactor and engine controls, to restore power if we can. Then we can take a look at the stasis systems. There’ll be the remains of the crew, of course.’

  ‘Yes … of course. Captain?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Mordecai put his hands together and spoke carefully. ‘It really is of the utmost importance that you do not touch any of the ship’s systems until I have completed my investigation, so that we can work out what went wrong. I would recommend that you and Lieutenant Collins remain on board the Mesa while I conduct—’

  ‘No.’ Clare shook her head firmly. ‘My orders are very clear on this – I am in charge of the mission; I will hand the investigation over to you when I am satisfied that there is no danger to this ship or its crew. And just to be clear on that, the Ulysses has to be made safe and slaved to our flight systems; I don’t want any thrusters firing while we’re docked.’

  ‘At least let me go first into the—’

  Clare raised her hand. ‘I’m sorry, doctor, but this isn’t up for discussion. Lieutenant Collins and I will go first, you will stay here on the Mesa until I am convinced it’s safe, and after that you can come aboard. Are we all clear on that?’

  Mordecai’s smile had gone. ‘I had hoped we could work together on this, captain.’

  ‘We are working together, doctor. We won’t touch anything we don’t have to, you can follow us on the helmet cams, and I will listen to your advice. And once we’re done, and I’ve decided it’s safe, it’s your investigation. Okay?’

  Mordecai hesitated a moment. ‘Very well, captain. I am only interested in making sure we find out what went wrong.’

  ‘I understand that. We’ll be careful.’

  ‘What will we do with the crew?’ Collins asked.

  ‘Good question. Doctor, I presume you’ll want to examine their remains?’

  ‘Yes captain, I will. After that, I suggest that we move them into the Mesa’s hibernaculum – we can keep it cold in there. We are bringing them home, aren’t we?’

  Clare nodded. ‘Yes. As long as you’re not planning on bringing much else on board, we should be okay. If we can get the Ulysses working and if there’s any fuel on board that we can transfer to the Mesa, then we’ve got more options. If there’s sufficient fuel to take the Ulysses in tow, then obviously we can bring everything back.’

  Collins looked less than enthusiastic about turning the hibernaculum into a makeshift morgue. ‘What will conditions be like on board, after all this time?’ he asked Mordecai.

  ‘Well, if the ship lost power, it would have become very cold. It’s in permanent shadow, so there’s nothing to warm it up. Some hatches might have frozen fast. The cryogenic fuels should be okay, but the ammonia fuel will have frozen solid.’

  ‘Going to need suits on, then.’

  ‘Yes. The air will be too cold to breathe,’ Clare said. ‘And if we can’t get power restored, we’ll need to wear them all the time we’re in there. Speaking of which, I need to remind you both of the rule for when two ships are docked – close the inner hatch behind you when you’re moving between the two ships. If we come loose for any reason, I don’t want to lose the atmosphere. The outer hatches can stay open while we’re docked.’

  Both men nodded. Clare looked again at the schematic of the Ulysses, but couldn’t think of anything more to add for the moment. ‘Anyone got any more questions on the basic plan? We’ll go over the detailed approach when we’re a bit closer and we can see what we’re up against.’

  ‘No captain, that’s fine f
or now.’

  She looked at Collins, but he shook his head.

  ‘Okay. Well, I suggest we get some rest, and study the internal layout plans while we’ve got the time. We’ve got one day before we find out if this thing really is our lost ship.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  It was a few hours later, and Clare and Collins were sitting in the hibernaculum. With the hatch closed, they couldn’t be overheard.

  Collins considered Clare’s question. ‘What do I think about our mission? Or this guy?’

  ‘Both.’

  Collins shrugged. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘Neither do I. Too many things don’t add up.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘What are we going to do about it?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s much we can do,’ Clare said. ‘We’re under orders to assist him.’

  ‘Yeah … I figured you’d say that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I’d come to the same conclusion. We have to follow our orders, but we should watch our backs. I don’t like the way he was placed on board, and knows more about the mission than we do.’

  Clare nodded slowly. ‘Me neither. I can’t help the feeling that he’s just telling us what we need to know, and no more – like he’s hiding something.’

  Collins slid the locking mechanism on one of the stasis units open and shut.

  ‘I was thinking about that myself. This whole thing about finding the ship again after all this time, just from a chance observation. Don’t you think it’s just a bit – convenient?’

  ‘Are you saying they knew where to find it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well if they knew where to find it, why not look here sixteen years before?’

  ‘I think they were actively looking – maybe going over all the possible objects the ship could have reached from Jupiter.’

  Clare said nothing. Her main worry was why Mordecai had been revived first, and what he had been doing on the command deck before she found him. She had checked over all the ship’s systems, but had found nothing so far.

  ‘Okay, listen. I don’t trust him, and you don’t seem to either. So let’s carry our sidearms at all times, okay? And we keep him away from the controls of both ships, not just the Mesa.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘All right then. You take your sleep period now. I’ll wake you in eight hours, then I’ll get a few hours before the insertion burn.’

  Collins nodded. ‘Sure. Uh, captain –’ he hesitated.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I – I realise what you did for me, during the revival.’ He seemed to be having some difficulty speaking. ‘I just wanted to say thank you. For saving me.’

  ‘That’s okay. I know you’d have done the same for me.’

  Collins nodded emphatically, then continued: ‘Um, look, I know you’ve got to face a hearing when you get back. I – wanted to say that I’ll do everything I can to play down what I said on the cockpit voice recorder.’

  Clare looked down, and half-smiled, thinking of what Wesley had said to her. ‘I’d just tell the truth if I was you. They’ll spot you trying to cover for me a mile off; it’ll just diminish your own testimony. I made my bed and I’ll lie in it.’

  Collins considered this carefully before replying. Eventually he said: ‘Well, I’d like to think that I can help by not saying anything beyond what I have to.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Collins seemed to be satisfied by this. He nodded, and reached up to open the hibernaculum door.

  After he had gone, she stayed there alone for a while. It was peaceful in the hibernaculum, and the low lighting and gentle hum of equipment was soothing.

  She thought on what Collins had said. It was good of him to offer, but a lot still hinged on how she performed on this mission. Her thoughts drifted to the fate of the Ulysses’ crew. What would they find when they opened her up, she wondered?

  A tomb most likely; there was no way anyone was left alive, not after sixteen years. Why the hell had they abandoned their mission, and flown the ship all the way here, though, of all places? She leaned across to the nearest console, and flicked to the data on Psyche again. There was indeed nothing remarkable about it as an object. An irregular lump of nickel-iron about two hundred and fifty kilometres along its longest axis. It had been imaged by a small probe in the early twenty-first century, which had produced some uninteresting contour maps of its surface and some information on its composition and magnetic field, and that was it.

  Why had the Ulysses abandoned its mission, and come all the way out here, and why had the crew attempted to conceal it? The L2 Lagrange point hadn’t been chosen accidently; they had clearly not intended for the ship to be found.

  She tapped some rough numbers into the nav system’s ready reckoner, and calculated how much fuel the Ulysses would have had left after getting here. The answer made her raise her eyebrows; they clearly weren’t planning on coming home.

  So. There was something important here, so important that it was worth taking a one-way ticket for, and they didn’t want to be found.

  It just didn’t add up.

  A cooler draught of air moved across the chamber, and she shivered.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The roar of the main engine faded, and weightlessness returned to the flight deck of the Mesa. The big nuclear engine had fired for a whole three minutes at maximum thrust, consuming over a thousand tonnes of their precious liquid ammonia propellant in the process. The direction of the ship’s flight path now matched that of their target, and they would no longer simply fly past Psyche at tremendous speed, but now followed slightly behind the asteroid in its orbit, catching up with every passing minute.

  Clare went through the shutdown procedure for the engine, quenching its nuclear fires until they were needed again, and safed the firing controls. She adjusted their attitude slightly. The ship reacted more quickly to the controls after using up so much of its fuel, which would make the upcoming manoeuvres easier.

  ‘Can you see anything yet?’ she asked, glancing across to where Collins was hunched over, his head down in the rubber hood of the binocular eyepiece.

  ‘Nothing. I’ve got it bang on where the radar says it is, but I don’t see a thing.’

  ‘Well, it’s definitely there. It’s the right size, too – a hundred metres in length, plus or minus ten.’

  Behind them, Mordecai leaned forward in the observer’s seat on the flight deck, behind the central pedestal. Clare had allowed him to sit there, on strict instructions not to talk or distract them during the terminal manoeuvres. She looked back at him. ‘Should we be able to see it at this range?’

  ‘I’m not sure, captain. How far away are we now?’

  ‘Five thousand kilometres.’

  ‘It’s in the shadow of the asteroid, so it will be very difficult to make out.’

  ‘I’ve got the image intensifier set up to enhance any reflective objects - I’d have expected to have it by now.’ Collins sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘Can you kill the cockpit lighting?’

  Clare reached up to the lighting control panel. The command deck faded into darkness, punctuated by the glow of the instruments. The flight deck windows faced forwards after the burn, along their line of flight, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she could make out the stars outside.

  Away to her left, sixty-eight thousand kilometres sunward, was the ragged, misshapen crescent of Psyche, casting an invisible cone of shadow deep into space ahead of them. Somewhere within that shadow, the mysterious object lay, and if it really was the Ulysses, they would be the first human beings to see her after sixteen years. She felt a faint shiver of fear, mixed with anticipation at the thought.

  Collins bent back to the binocular hood, and continued his search, adjusting the focus and the aim as he quartered the darkness.

  For many minutes, there was silence on the flight deck; Clare knew better
than to break his concentration with unnecessary questions while he searched. Suddenly, Collins went motionless, and then his fingers moved fractionally as he zeroed in on something. He stared to be sure, and then he spoke, keeping his head very still.

  ‘Think I’ve got something. Hard to make out. Take a look.’

  Clare punched up the grainy image on one of her display screens. She couldn’t see anything but stars at first, but then she enlarged the view, and in the very centre of the field there was … something. It looked like a tiny sliver of metal, hanging motionless in space, and she felt a wave of disappointment that their long journey had been fruitless after all. ‘It’s not a ship.’

  ‘Look at the scale,’ Mordecai said, unable to keep silent. ‘It’s about ten metres long – it can’t be the target.’

  Clare caught her breath. ‘No, you’re right.’ She looked at it more closely for a moment. ‘You know, I can’t help thinking that it might be a radiator sunshade.’

  ‘Yeah, I think you might be right – it certainly looks man made,’ Collins murmured, ‘Let’s keep looking, I’m sure there was something else there, to one side of the screen, I—’ he broke off suddenly. Something had flitted across his field of view. He panned back slowly, and stopped. Something regular and man-made poked into the upper edge of the screen. He zoomed out slightly, adjusted, and there it was – a tiny spacecraft, hanging motionless against the stars. The grainy image quivered in the telescopic display.

  ‘That’s it,’ Mordecai exclaimed, ‘that’s it! You can see the structure!’

  ‘Definitely a ship,’ Collins said, ‘I can make out the fuel tanks … main antennas. Looks dead, no lights. But it’s a ship all right.’

  ‘Holy shit.’ Clare exhaled slowly. It felt very strange to just suddenly see it floating there in the darkness, after having been lost for so many years.

  Mordecai sat there, riveted to the screen. ‘Can we get more magnification?’

  ‘Not without losing detail. If we wait a few minutes, it’ll get a lot clearer. Can you enter the coordinates while I hold it steady?’