Below Mercury

by Mark Anson

  He changed camera again to examine the forward end of the tug. With its separate fuel tanks, crew module and docking adapter, this part of the tug was effectively an independent spacecraft. In an emergency, it could separate and blast away from the rest of the tug using its own small rocket engines, hidden away within the attachment truss. Once separated, the forward section could function as a ‘lifeboat’ for the crew until rescue came, and could even perform limited orbital manoeuvres under its own power.

  Below the crew module were two heavy-duty handling arms, each with a powerful, vice-like hand that could be used to manipulate cargo loads. One arm was retracted and hung at rest, the other held the drop tank that the spaceplane would need for the descent to the surface.

  At the very end of the crew module, Matt could see the sleek shape of the Olympus spaceplane, its nose section open like a gaping jaw. Powerful couplings and latches held the spaceplane to the tug’s docking adapter, and provided an airtight conduit through which the crew and stores could pass. On either side were various couplings for electrical power, coolant lines, and the large pipes for refilling the spaceplane’s propellant tanks for the descent to Mercury.

  As he panned over the spaceplane and came to the end of his inspection, Matt tried not to think of the reduction in living space they would face once they were down on the surface. The six of them would have to live in the spaceplane’s cramped conditions until they could get the inflatable habitat modules deployed, and even then, the facilities would be basic. They would be three of them in each module, with only a few places where it was possible to stand upright. There were no bathroom facilities; they would all have to use the small toilet and washroom on board the spaceplane. Abrams had remarked one day that it would be like moving from staterooms aboard an ocean liner to living in a tent. They would be thrust together by necessity, and Matt wondered how they would manage.

  They had trained as a team for three months, so they could at least work with one another, but it was another thing entirely to have to live together for an extended period in such cramped conditions, and with hardly any privacy.

  He had no worries about getting on with Rick, of course. They had worked together before, and knew each other’s irritating habits so well that they had learned to ignore them.

  Matt didn’t know Abrams before the mission training, but the man had been a model of easy-going calm, reflecting his considerable experience in investigative missions.

  Wilson was okay; he was junior in rank and experience to Clare, and the burden of the mission didn’t seem to weigh so heavily on him. Wilson enjoyed unwinding with the others after his watches ended, and could often be heard on the lounge deck, laughing over some joke. He seemed confident in his abilities, and Matt guessed that he would be promoted quickly once he had built up some more hours in space.

  Dr Elliott was more of an issue. Matt tried not to dislike him, but if there was going to be trouble, that was where it would come from. It wasn’t that Elliott did anything wrong, but he did tend to keep himself slightly aloof from the rest of the crew. He spent more time than the others did in the privacy of his individual berth area, his curtains drawn, rather than spend time in the lounge, and that inevitably put a distance between him and the rest of the mission team.

  Elliott also took issue with Matt’s point of view during the many speculative discussions about what they might find when they got to Mercury. As the only member of the team who had actually been in the mine, Matt was asked frequently for his views, but somehow Elliott always seemed to be there, ready to question any opinion that Matt might venture.

  Matt felt increasingly that Elliott was only considering evidence that supported one explanation, and rejecting anything else. It was a worrying trait for an investigative mission.

  And just how objective was he himself, Matt thought. Was he just as biased as Elliott, and unable to see it?

  What Matt feared most was further uncertainty. The worst outcome would be an inconclusive one that would leave the hundreds of families back on Earth in a permanent, agonising limbo. In some ways, he thought, it might be better to find a piece of damning evidence that would prove that the mine personnel had brought about their own doom, as Elliott often theorised.

  Whatever way he looked at it, living with Elliott looked like it was going to be a problem, and Matt hoped that they wouldn’t get drawn to share one of the modules together.

  And then there was Clare.

  Matt didn’t know much about her case, except what he’d managed to pick up on the grapevine. Once or twice, Matt had seen her reading mails from Guam and firing off furiously-typed replies, which he guessed were directed at Helligan.

  The rest of the time, Clare had flown the mission with tireless concentration, hardly ever smiling, totally focused on the job. Matt guessed that she wasn’t sleeping much; she was often up and about well before the end of her sleep period, dark shadows under her eyes.

  Matt had been in space enough times to know a good commander when he saw one. The flight into orbit had been flawless, and the rendezvous with the space tug had been completed with textbook precision. Clare had been happy to let Wilson show his skills with the tug’s nuclear engine; he had hit the launch window right on the button, firing the engine precisely on time for the long burn that had launched them on their journey to Mercury.

  There was something else however, deep inside Clare, something that seemed to gnaw at her spirit. He guessed it some issue related to her previous suspension. Whatever it was, Matt hoped that the mission would bring some respite.

  With a strange, sinking feeling, he realised that he could have applied the same sentiment to himself. He wondered what he would find in the mine, and whether it would bring him any closer to closure – or just more unanswered questions.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Later, Matt was using the rowing machine in the small gym area, situated in the curve of wall next to the bathroom on the command deck. Abrams was seated at the flight deck, taking his turn on duty.

  Even in the twenty-second century, there was no way round the need for strenuous daily exercise to reduce bone loss in low gravity. Everyone on board had to spend their allotted time in the gym, doing a variety of exercises. If a urine test showed that they were losing too much calcium, the exercise programme had to be increased.

  It was mind-numbingly tedious; endless sets and repetitions on the equipment, and kilometres of going nowhere on the exercise bike and rowing machine, but they had to do it; none of them could risk a bone fracture when they were on Mercury.

  The curved viewscreen on the wall of the gym area could show movies and news broadcasts to help alleviate the boredom, but Matt had seen enough of the news today, and the viewscreen showed a tranquil river scene that moved past as he rowed.

  The rowing machine beeped, indicating that he was coming to the end of the set course, and could start slowing down. The air-conditioning duct was right above him, and it provided a welcome breeze as the machine’s resistance setting lowered, allowing Matt to maintain a steady action as he cooled down.

  He was looking forward to a shower. One of the luxuries afforded by the tug’s rotational gravity was a proper shower, and Matt intended to make as much use of it while he could. Later in the voyage, when the tug’s rotation was halted, they would have to go back to using moist towels again; the environmental systems couldn’t cope with the thousands of floating water droplets that showers created in zero gravity.

  The machine gave a double beep, and displayed the amount of work that he had done today. Matt released the handle of the machine with relief and sat back, letting the cool breeze run over his body.

  He heard someone coming down the ladder in the centre of the command deck as he got off the machine. He flung a towel round his neck and raised a hand as Clare came into view. She looked up briefly and nodded, but continued downward, into the airlock and docking adapter that led to the spaceplane. Matt guessed that she was having trouble sleeping
again, and was heading for the spaceplane cockpit, which was a good place if you wanted some privacy and some quiet.

  She looked up again. Her eyes met Matt’s, and she held his gaze for a fraction longer than was necessary before she disappeared from view.

  Matt didn’t know quite how it started, but he had begun to spend time with Clare. It wasn’t a regular thing, just something that they had grown into when they were both off duty. He was very careful not to intrude; privacy on a long flight was too important to take lightly, but she seemed to welcome his presence, especially when she couldn’t sleep.

  He left a good half an hour before he followed her down the ladder. The spaceplane cockpit had become her favourite retreat of late, and by unspoken consent was her territory; she was the captain after all.

  The ladder led down, through the tug’s docking adapter, where four airlocks opened into a central space, and through the opening of the spaceplane’s docking mechanism. A narrow tube, with steps recessed into the walls, then led underneath the flight deck. A featureless space, and cold; the tug’s warmth never seemed to be able to penetrate here.

  Matt emerged towards the rear of the spaceplane’s crew compartment, from an opening in what had been the floor of the cabin. Because of the tug’s rotation, the cabin appeared to be stood on its rear end, rising up above Matt, with the seats fixed to a vertical wall.

  Music played quietly in the background, something classical that Matt didn’t recognise.

  ‘Hey,’ he said in a soft voice, just loud enough to be heard above the music.

  For a moment, he thought she had fallen asleep, but then Clare turned in her seat high above and looked down at him, her face lit by the soft glow of the cockpit displays. She had been reading; a paperback book was open in her hand.

  ‘Mind if I come up?’

  ‘Sure.’ Clare put her book down, and reached up to the cockpit console. The music stopped.

  Matt climbed up the length of the cabin, using the built-in steps in the sides of the seats, until he was at the front. He flopped into the copilot’s seat. The spaceplane was running in flight idle mode, and most of the displays were dark, but a few of them showed the status of various systems, and a copy of the tug’s flight display.

  Clare looked at him quizzically, but there was a smile behind her eyes. She had been hoping that he would come and join her.

  ‘So.’

  ‘So – are we there yet?’ Matt grinned.

  Clare smiled, and for answer pointed at one of the cockpit displays, which showed the tug’s in-transit trajectory. A tiny icon of the ship followed a faint white line against the stars, accompanied by strings of figures showing course, velocity and other data.

  She zoomed the display out, to show the white trajectory line intercepting the orbit of Mercury, and pointed at the figure showing orbit insertion in 87 day’s time. She looked back at Matt.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’ She lay back in her seat and shook her head slowly. ‘My Mother always told me that if I couldn’t get to sleep, I should read a book until I did. I guess she’d never been in a spacecraft.’

  ‘Mine just told me to go back upstairs, or else.’

  Clare smiled again.

  ‘I can’t imagine you as a child,’ she said after a pause. ‘I’ve only ever seen you in meetings, or in training, taking things seriously. Don’t you lighten up at all?’

  Matt’s mouth opened in surprise, and his expression was so comical that Clare laughed. For a moment, Matt stared back at her, then his face relaxed, and he fell into laughter himself. He lay back in his seat.

  ‘I suppose – I’ve been thinking too much about the mission. About going into the mine again. It’s all I’ve thought about for the last few months.’

  Clare nodded. Her work would be halfway complete once she had delivered the mission team to Mercury, but Matt’s troubles would then just be beginning.

  ‘What are you most afraid of?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you most afraid of? When you get into the mine?’

  Matt thought a moment, staring upwards, looking at the cockpit displays.

  ‘I guess it’s coming across the bodies – in the dark, without any warning. I know we’ll come across them sooner or later, but the thought of just turning a corner and seeing them there, that’s scary.’

  ‘I thought you said, way back when we first met – I thought you said you needed to see them?’

  ‘I did. I do. I need to see them, and I’m – afraid of seeing them.’ He sighed. ‘You asked.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘How about yourself. What are you afraid of?’

  Clare glanced back at Matt.

  ‘Failure.’ She said it in a matter-of-fact voice, as if it was something he should have known.

  ‘The mission’s gone like clockwork so far. You’re not going to fail.’

  ‘You have no—’ she started, then just shook her head. A wisp of hair fell across one eye.

  ‘No what?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s going to be fine.’

  A silence fell between them. Matt wished he hadn’t raised the subject, and searched for something else to say.

  ‘Um, Abrams noticed something earlier, on the external scan. We think it might be a small leak in one of the coolant lines to the cryo tanks. It’s on camera twenty-six.’

  Clare looked up at one of the consoles and clicked through the external camera displays. Her previous demeanour was gone, and she was cool and professional again, focused on the ship and its mission.

  ‘Twenty-six?’

  ‘Yeah. Take a closer look at the gaseous ammonia pipe at the top.’

  Clare magnified the image. An encrustation of frost was visible where the pipe entered a coupling.

  ‘Oh … yeah, that looks like a leak all right. We do get the occasional one after major manoeuvres. Does it show up on any of the leakage monitors?’

  ‘No. We think it’s too small to show, or maybe it’s plugged itself with ice.’

  Clare stared at the image on the screen for several seconds.

  ‘Well, it’s certainly not serious. It needs sorting, though. I’ll schedule Wilson to go take a look at it in the next day or so. He’ll be keen to get some EVA time on his log. Thanks.’ She reached across to a keyboard and started to tap out a note.

  Matt looked around the cockpit.

  The view through the forward windows was spectacular. The length of the Baltimore stretched out in front of the spaceplane, from the crew module directly in front, past the cryogenics tanks, to the long length of the ammonia tanks. At the far end, the sunshade was a disc of blackness against the glare of the Sun, which rose, curved swiftly overhead, and fell behind the spaceplane, tugging the stars behind it on its endless rotation.

  As Matt’s eyes got used to the sight, he saw that the ship was surrounded by tiny, glinting stars, which didn’t wheel with the real ones. Small fragments of paint and reflective coatings, which had flaked off the ship during its journey, followed the tug in its tumbling.

  Clare continued her typing.

  ‘Guess I’d better be getting back,’ Matt said.

  ‘Uh-huh. Catch you later.’

  Matt looked at her, at the dark circles under her eyes, the long lashes, and the gentle, in-and-out movement of her chest as she breathed.

  She finished her note, and picked up her book again. The moment had gone, and she was the commander again, reading to get to sleep. Her hand moved to find her page, and Matt saw that her fingernails were bitten close, on both hands.

  Matt clambered out of the seat and climbed back down the cabin, back to the entrance to the access tube and the way out.

  He moved quietly, however, so as not to disturb her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Sometimes, First Lieutenant Steve Wilson thought, there was no substitute for human intervention, and the good old Mark I eyeball.

  Wilson floated
weightless outside the tug’s crew module, close to the docking adapter, held in place by safety lines and rigid braces fastened to attachment points on the hull.

  The tug’s rotation had been halted for the spacewalk, and the crew module was in the cool darkness behind the sunshade. Lit up in stark relief by Wilson’s helmet lights, a complex maze of pipework ran in all directions, taking fuel, oxygen, helium, and ammonia to where they were needed around the tug.

  The stainless steel pipe right in front of him was about four centimetres in diameter, and carried gas from the ammonia boilers, where the liquid took in heat, back to the cooling circuit. Wilson could see the build up of frost over the leaking coupling; it seemed to be thicker than it had appeared on the cameras.

  Wilson touched the frost with a gloved finger. A piece broke off the pipe and drifted away. Underneath it, the stainless steel of the pipe glistened. He wiped away the remainder of the frost with his finger.

  ‘No damage to the pipe itself,’ he reported, ‘seems like the leak’s coming from the coupling. Can you pressurise the system again – I’m going to check the coupling for leaks.’

  On the tug’s command deck, Clare, Elliott and Bergman clustered round the monitor, watching the view from Wilson’s helmet-mounted camera.

  ‘Coolant circuit’s coming back up to pressure now,’ Clare said. ‘See anything?’

  Wilson watched the pipe coupling for nearly a minute before responding.

  ‘There’s a faint – and I mean faint – line of frost building up in the rim of the coupling, where the pipe enters. I reckon that’s it. Shall I just leave it or put a patch on?

  Clare considered. There were many arguments for just leaving it alone. It was a known problem, the leakage was small, and they could do more harm trying to fix it.

  She decided.

  ‘I’d like you to apply a small amount of sealant just where you think the leak is. I’d rather be able to see it and keep it monitored than cover it with a patch.’