Come In, Collins (Riddled Space Book 2)

by Bill Patterson

  ***

  Orion was a concept from the early 1960s, when the Cold War machine was trying to get people used to the idea of a tamed nuclear energy industry. People resisted that sort of dishonesty. All they had to do was remember the Castle Bravo nuclear test, and they voted against nuclear power of any kind.

  Take a platform. Make it really thick—like two or three meters of hardened steel. Build a spaceship on the top part of the platform. In the meantime, go to the center of the platform and build a bunker. Drill a hole in that floor plate of the bunker until it hits dirt. Then install the strongest but fastest operating doors in the floor of the bunker.

  Build the spaceship, including trim rockets, on top of that big platform. Test it. Load it with passengers. Clear out the land for a hundred kilometers in all directions. When the timer hits zero, go to the bunker and open the doors to the bare dirt underneath. Twist the time-delay fuse on the first nuke, drop it out the bottom door, slam it shut, and hold on tight.

  The nuclear fireball pushes the ship up into the sky, fast! Once clear of the fireball, open the bottom (back) door again, throw out another bomb, slam the door shut.

  Whamm! Open the door, drop another. Whaaam! Keep this up until the ship has achieved orbital velocity. It's better if the passengers don't look down to see the firestorm created by incinerating the surrounding countryside.

  Orion, obviously, never got beyond the blue-sky visionary phase. But a test platform, using small blocks of TNT, demonstrated that it would, indeed, work

  ***

  Vito sported a huge grin. “I've always wanted to see Orion become a reality. Those mamby-pambies on Earth were always wetting their pants about ionizing radiation. With squeezed tampers and some relatively clean fusion, I could give you a half-megaton blast with almost no fallout.

  “Jeez, man, I'm looking for propulsion, not vaporization!”

  “Well, if you're looking for vaporization, you should talk to the laser folks. Wasn't there a concept where they shoot a laser beam up the engine bell and use that to vaporize and propel the working mass?”

  “Yeah. But frankly, if we're going to do that, I might as well be burning aluminum powder. It gets it just as hot. And don't give me grief about the mass-fraction and aluminum powder.” McCrary leaned back in his chair. “The real problem here is surviving the trip. There was always zero chance of making it back with what we just shot up in the sky. Paper-thin aluminum walls will not survive up there long. Nor will walls even as thick as the ones we build here.

  Vito nodded. “You'll need something pretty beefy. Maybe lots of layers of something beefy,” he said. “Even with aluminum and magnesium, we're talking a lot of weight.”

  “Correct. There's no way a dinky laser or five is ever going to lift that chunk off of the ground,” he said. “Maybe the Flinger could do it, but I doubt it. That's why Orion. Didn't the original papers say that the larger the spacecraft, up to a point, the more efficient Orion gets?”

  Vito smiled. “Yup! That's because a big, bloated, wide and deep ship catches much more of the blast front. Now, if you were going to build a single ship to get everyone back home, you'd need something about two hundred meters on a side. You'll need shock absorbers between the pusher plate. Hmmm. Aluminum engines, too, just for midcourse corrections. Say! Are you going to jettison your pusher plate before reentry? It's going to be kinda hard do make something like that out of reentry tiles. First shock wave will crush them all or rip them off.”

  “I hadn't gotten that far,” admitted McCrary. “I've been doing more of the mass/kiloton/speed reactions, and worrying about how to throw the bombs out of the back door fast enough.”

  “Ah, that's just engineering. Simple enough to handle. Getting an assembly line to make bombs, though—that's going to be challenging!” said Vito.

  “Get out of here,” said McCrary. “I've got some thinking to do, and so do you.” Vito left McCrary's position on the dias, deep in thought.

  McCrary faced the Operations floor. “I’ll be in my bunk, should anything come up with regard to the new orbit of the impactor. Awaken me as soon as something comes in. Good night.”

  ***

  “No damage,” said the head of the instrumentation team during the staff conference at the Spartanburg Observatory. “Frankly, I'm amazed. That blast would have burned out every detector along the optical path, and even some that were not properly stored.

  “How are the other facilities?” Jama asked. She already knew some of the bad news. The nuclear weapon, against the brilliant white backdrop of the Moon, had caused about fifty million in damages to various observatories that had the misfortune to be observing in the direction of the Moon. Worse, thousands of people were afflicted by retinal burns from staring at the blinding light. There were some very pointed questions being asked of UNSOC. Fortunately, there were none so far being directed their way, despite Jama's attempted warnings.

  “Terrible. The observatories who were taking part in the Lunar Impactor Count had many of their instruments come up as total losses. Oh, the reflectors and other optics are fine, but the electronics are just gone. Millions, poof. I've even heard of a couple of fires that resulted from objects at the focus of some reflectors.”

  “I, ah, heard that Doctor James and a few grad students have been blinded in one eye,” said Doctor Circe. “They had the misfortune of directly eyeballing the Moon. Even through filters, the light was enough to burn their retinas.”

  Billy gripped his hands until the knuckles turned white. He looked like he was ready to throw up. Jama noticed.

  “Mr. Dels.” Billy kept grinding his hands together. Doctor Circe nudged him. No response.

  Jama stood up, walked around the table, and spun the chair around to face her. “Mister Dels! Are you OK?”

  Billy burst into tears. “All my fault! It was all my fault!” Over and over, he kept repeating his conclusion. Jama did everything but slap the poor man, but he would not change his mantra.

  “Doctor, I think Mr. Dels needs some assistance. Could you please call security, then the clinic?”

  Circe left the conference room to get help.

  “It's not your fault, Billy, and you know it. You didn't figure out what they were going to do until it was too late. None of us did. There was no way to warn others, either.”

  “But there was! Oh, I tried to be cute. Wait until I got you and Circe together. Super hush-hush codeword messages. If I had just come out and said it, then the media spies could have spread the word and saved all those people's eyesight. But no, I had to be the big man.” He kept uttering his litany of blame until the medics showed up, slid a needle into his unresisting arm, and carried him away.

  Jama was shaken, but she refused to let it show.

  “Anyone else feeling guilty? Let's let it all out. I won't have anyone collapsing on me in the days ahead. Anyone? Then let's get back to our work. I'll let you know how Mr. Dels progresses.”

  ***

  The data from the impactor came in during the next overpass, which was almost a day later than forecast. The bomb had moved the rock into a much higher orbit. The impactor would take at least another seventy-five years to decay in orbit enough to become a problem. McCrary and Lee left it as a problem to their successors, if they had any.

  Commander Lee had listened to McCrary's suggestion of a lunar-derived Orion spacecraft with some skepticism.

  “Really? Nukes out of the back of a spaceship? I know it can be done—the impactor proved that. But propulsion? Really? Do you have any idea how much radiation will still work its way past a shield of steel, no matter how thick? Also, as each nuke vaporizes a bit of the steel, there will be less and less shielding all the time.”

  McCrary was waving off the objections of his commander. “None of the above, sir,” he said, warming to the topic. “To be perfectly honest, I was thinking about hope. I think we'll christen the ship Lee's Hope, if it gets that far.”

  “Good Lord, no!” said Commander Lee wi
th some asperity. “Don't name an airless metal stronghold after me at all.”

  “Well, we'll see about that, sir. One of the problems we are having now, sir, is the loss of hope. You know what a problem we had with Ms. Huertas and the rest of her group. Now that we no longer have any kind of spaceship, I think we're going to have a problem with morale unless we can offer the troops some way back home.”

  Lee nodded his head, then winced as his headache returned. “I agree. Remember how working on the ERVs for the Chaffee picked up the morale around here?”

  McCrary smiled, a rare occurrence. “Those were the days. I remember foaming our first sets of reentry tiles, and gluing them on the ShelterCans. It seemed like we were putting one over on old Subby there in UNSOC. I wonder what happened to him.”

  “No idea. That reminds me, McCrary. What do you feel about getting back in contact with Earth? It's been about eight months now, hasn't it?”

  “Yes, sir. I'm not sure how that will play out, frankly. I bet everyone on Earth thinks we’re dead, and they’ve moved on.”

  “True. But I suspect that not everyone has given up hope yet. Think of it…you know those light beams that show when you're blasting the space junk? I bet they can see them from Earth.”

  “Quite possible. Some of them are thirty kilometers long, at least slant range.”

  “Then you set off the nuke under the impactor. I imagine at least someone, even if it's Colorado Springs, saw that thing go off.” Colorado Springs still housed the head of that space debris watch center.

  “I bet they’re wondering what's going on up here,” said McCrary. “I'll have to check, but I imagine the radio gear we chopped out of Sandy is functional. We'll have to re-raise the mast. It wasn't high on our survival list, anyway. There's nothing Earth can do for us. There's no chance that anything they launch will be able to get through that shooting gallery of debris in Earth orbit, so we didn't pay attention to getting it back in order. Maybe it's time.”

  ***

  The mast had only had its base sheared off, so the damage to the main mast was trivial and easily repaired. The raising of the mast was greeted with a general mood of hopefulness. Both the base gear and the Sandy gear were wired into an array of antennae, all aligned roughly with Earth. Lee had graciously given McCrary the honor of first contact.

  “After all,” he said, “you did all of the work. I've just been lying here in Sick Bay, using up supplies.”

  “Nonsense, sir. Nevertheless, if you want me to be the Voice of Luna, I will do the best I can.”

  So here he was, arrayed in front of the radio gear that had been shoehorned into Operations. He didn't have to loom over the panel, of course, but it also didn't seem right to be lolling around on the dias, like an indolent James T. Kirk, calling Earth as if it was his servant. He subconsciously struck a pose of attention, as if reporting to a superior.

  “Moonbase Collins calling United Nations Space Operations Command. Moonbase Collins calling UNSOC. McCrary here. Come in, UNSOC.” He released the key and waited. Three seconds elapsed, round-trip time from the Earth to the Moon. Nothing. He tried hailing again. Still nothing. “Comms, please put that on a loop and let me know when they come on-line.”

  “They may not, sir,” said Comms. “But I have something that might work instead.”

  “Yes?”

  “The Mars Expedition is only ten degrees off the Earth's limb. From their vantage, we're nearly in line. Perhaps we could try hailing them and see if they can get Earth to answer.”

  “Sounds good. Do it.”

  Ten minutes later, Comms indicated readiness. This time, McCrary hailed from his seat. Even with one-sixth gravity, the effort to remain upright in spite of the body's tendency to pull into the fetal position was wearing.

  “Burroughs, this is Moonbase Collins, do you read?” McCrary waited.

  “Two minutes round-trip, sir,” said Comms.

  “Thank you, I was about to ask.”

  “No problem.”

  “Collins?” the speaker erupted with sound at two-oh-five. After three months, finally an unfamiliar voice! “Is this some kind of hoax?”

  “McCrary here. You must be Donovan. You still have that damned rubber Twinkie?”

  “Holy cow, McCrary! We thought you were all…I mean, I saw the shock wave!”

  “Dead, I know. Some of us did die, but most of us are alive and well. We can't seem to raise UNSOC.”

  “Oh, the whole New York operation is shut down. Everyone's on indefinite 'hold' status at the moment. Earth is a mess,” Donovan said. “We're working with JPL out of Pasadena. Should I spread the word that you're alive?”

  “I suspect that anyone monitoring your frequency knows already. But yes, please break the news to them and ask them to contact us. We've got a beacon running. Comms here will give you’re the specifics.”

  McCrary was shaking slightly, which obscurely bothered him. He prided himself on being a mostly unemotional man. He loved the original Star Trek series, and tried to emulate Spock at all times. It was his hidden, shameful secret, rarely thought about. His ability to remain emotionless while empathizing with nearly everyone else had led to his steady rise in the UN Space Forces. Now, at the apex of his career, he was dismayed to find himself at the mercy of some thalamic storm. He was glad he was sitting down, where his shuddering was far less noticeable.

  “Earth is replying, McCrary. We're passing along the comms’ parameters. Better get ready for a flood of communications.”

  “Thank you, Donovan. Feel free to listen in.”

  “Oh, I will. I'm also taping this for the other shifts. They're not going to believe me otherwise.”

  “Donovan? Godspeed. We'll talk about your predicament as soon as I get encryption running on this beast. McCrary out.”

  ***

  The news flashed all around the Earth at the speed of the Internet. To those who had friends or family on the Moon, the news was mostly joyful. Mrs. McCrary, fortunately, was sitting down when she heard her husband on the radio, so she merely spilled her tea instead of shattering the cup on the floor. She wiped up the mess, but she was smiling and crying with joy at the same time.

  Others were not as enthused. Mr. Huertas, for instance, had participated in a few memorial services in his wife's honor, then quietly gotten back out on the dating circuit. Irma had been a good wife, but she was a little too stubborn for his tastes. He had been relieved when she was believed dead, dead in a relatively painless and rapid manner. He was disconcerted to find that she was still alive, and, worse, leading the loyal opposition. At least she was still stuck on the Moon, while he was relatively free down on Earth.

  There was some pain, of course, not the least of which came in the form of formal envelopes in the mail from life insurance companies, requesting their money back from those who had filed for benefits early. Most of that money had been spent, of course, keeping families alive, and there was going to be increasing pain involved in paying it back.

  UNSOC was pleased to find that the Collins had not only survived, but appeared to be surviving in a degree of style. The Moondogs were actively defending Collins from the rain of stone, but it was doing so at some cost. The supply of products manufactured on Earth, for example, was dwindling. Apart from medical, which was serious enough, there was an increasing dearth of machine tools and parts, as well as the high-tech parts such as circuit boards and memory modules. The workers were able to keep themselves in food and oxygen, but the water supplies were starting to run thin.

  UNSOC faced an uncomfortable dilemma. Should they recall all the personnel from Moonbase Collins? It was, on the face of it, the wise move. The UN was already reeling from the public relations disaster surrounding the rescue of the crew of the Chaffee. The recordings of Subraman Venderchanergee ordering the crew to remain to face certain death and his subsequent disappearance gave the agency more than a black eye—it was a body blow to the legitimacy of the entire operation. The only reason the United Nation
s Space Operations remained in operation was the Mars Expedition, and even that was a mission of unrelieved gloom.

  ***

  For the past five months, neither Ashley nor Lori had discussed their pregnancies with anyone else. Sensing, perhaps, the incredible amount of resentment they would receive from their fellow women, as well as the harsh commentary, they had been keeping to themselves as well as accepting assignments that kept them out of sight. Still, five months along, it gets increasingly difficult to hide a growing baby, particularly during a blowout drill consisting of skintights and helmets.

  Luckily, the babies were not harmed, but the pressurization of the fabric caused both women to pass out.

  “You little morons,” said Peter, when he visited them in Sick Bay. “Still, no harm done. McCrary's doing the announcement in a few minutes in the cafeteria. Want to listen to it?”

  ***

  “As you may know, we had two casualties today during our biweekly blowout training. Ashley Boardman and Lori Minelli both suffered a form of compression suffocation and were evacuated to Sick Bay.

  “You might find it unusual that I am announcing a routine trip to Sick Bay. These are unusual times. You see, both Ms. Boardman and Ms. Minelli are pregnant. They had discussed the circumstances, as well as the identity of the fathers, with me. I have promised to keep their medical condition, as well as the people involved, private until such time as it became advisable to announce it. That time is now.

  “Their due dates are some four months from now. Yes, for those of you counting, they became pregnant before The Event. Their reasoning for doing so is private and I will not discuss it. Both women are keeping their babies, obviously.

  “I will add this one note: both Ms. Boardman and Ms. Minelli were originally scheduled to rotate back to Earth some two and four months after The Event. Their pregnancy would not have affected their work. They would have been back on Earth long before now, anticipating the joy of holding their newborns, and not worrying about how to fit into skintights during months five through nine.