Pyrotechnic bolts fired, silently releasing puffs of vapor that immediately crystallized and dispersed. Three springs pushed Huygens away from Cassini, and a curved track and roller made the released probe spin, at seven revolutions per minute.
The probe began to fall faster, into the deep ocean of air… Diaphragms slid back. A series of small portals opened in the protective shell of the craft, and sensors peered out.
At last, the probe crashed into the slush. Slowed by Titan’s low surface gravity and the density of the lower air—half again as dense as Earth’s—the impact was slow, as gentle as an apple falling from a tree.
The probe continued its battery of experiments…. Just six minutes after landing, the probe’s internal batteries were exhausted.
Melted slush frosted over the buried portals of the inert, cooling lander. And a thin rain of light brown organic material began to settle on the upper casing. The chatter of telemetry to Cassini fell silent. The orbiter passed beneath the horizon and then turne dits high gain antenna away from Titan, toward Earth. Patiently, Cassini downloaded everything the lander had observed.
Some of the results were unexpected.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to the following for assistance with research, suggestions, and comments:
• Jardine Barrington-Cook and his colleagues of the Space Division, Logica U.K. Ltd., who developed the guidance software for the Huygens Titan landing probe.
• Mitchell Clapp of Pioneer Rocketplanes, author of the Black Horse spaceplane proposal.
• Martyn Fogg, author of Terraforming: Engineering Planetary Environments, the standard text on the subject.
• Dr. J. F. Zarnecki of the Space Sciences Unit, Kent University, U.K., who developed the surface science package for the Huygens probe.
and to the following for reading versions of the manuscript:
• Simon Bradshaw
• Eric Brown
• Kent Joosten of the Solar System Exploration Division, Johnson Space Center, NASA.
About the Author
STEPHEN BAXTER is a trained engineer who took a first-class honors degree in mathematics at Cambridge University. He also has a doctorate in aeroengineering research from Southampton University, and for his degree, worked with Rolls Royce Ltd. and at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, UK. In his research, the author has visited NASA launch centers, viewed a shuttle launch, and interviewed NASA staff, including a mission controller and a space shuttle astronaut.
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Praise
Acclaim for Stephen Baxter’s
Previous Novel
VOYAGE
“In the grand tradition…. An excellent work that shows the path SF must take if it is to remain vital.”
—Washington Post Book World
“Baxter’s excellent what-if novel about a 1986 Mars landing accomplishes its mission. The premise is brilliant…. There’s plenty of imagination on display here.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A wonderful, patriotic tale of lost possibility. Calling Ron Howard.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] thoughtful … history of the space program…. One of the most intelligent and reasonable stories of its type.”
—Science Fiction Chronicle
“Carries the reader on a smooth, arcing experience in reading.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Baxter tells what it feels like, smells like, and sounds like to be aboard a spacecraft.”
—Library Journal
Other Books
Books by Stephen Baxter
Anti-Ice
Flux
Icebones
Longtusk
Moonseed
Raft
Ring
Silverhair
Timelike Infinity
The Time Ships
Titan
Vacuum Diagrams
Voyage
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An earlier version of one chapter of this novel appeared in a very different form in Interzone magazine, No. 105, 1996.
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Copyright © 1997 by Stephen Baxter
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