The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative

by Mark Terence Chapman

  Finally, I buckled myself in the passenger seat while Tom finished the preflight checklist.

  “Ready when you are, Tom.”

  “Hang on, then. We’re going to have to take off at full thrust to avoid getting flattened by the ‘roid. Get ready, Guido,” he radioed. “Here we come, and we’ve got injured.”

  “I’m ready and waiting with medkit in hand.”

  “Wish us luck. ETA…three minutes—if we make it.”

  “Full thrust” sounds impressive, but we were still dealing with what amounted to an oversized maneuvering thruster. The thrust-to-weight ratio is fairly high in an almost-empty pod, but we weren’t exactly plastered to our seats by the acceleration.

  “Hang on!” Tom shouted—as if that would make the slightest difference if the ‘roid hit us.

  I held my breath. We ascended and the immense rock face rushed up at us, seemingly giving malevolent chase, as the ‘roid spun and tumbled. The tip of the asteroid filled the forward viewport as it grew ever nearer. There was no way it could miss us.

  “It’s going to hit!” I shouted—and then we were clear. I was too relieved at still being alive to be humiliated by my outburst.

  The asteroid missed us by a good meter, yet it seemed more like scant microns as the tip swept by, just beneath our landing gear. I don’t know how we managed to get off safely, but we did. Tom’s a superb pilot—fortunately. Some people, Tom and Cap included, are born to fly. Others, like me, shouldn’t be allowed within fifty meters of a command chair.

  It took Tom only seconds to stabilize the pod’s dizzying pitch and roll after leaving the ‘roid. Good thing, too—another minute of seeing the stars and asteroids wheeling crazily outside the pod and the inside of my faceplate would have been a mess.

  As soon as we landed in the pod bay, Guido closed the outer door and began repressurizing the bay. Once the pressure was close enough to Earth normal that the airlock’s outer hatch would unseal, Guido was through and rushing to the pod. There was no time to take the patients all the way to sickbay.

  Guido examined our injured comrades while I went for gurneys to lay them on. When I returned, Guido was through with his initial examination.

  “We got lucky. Cap appears to have nothing worse than a mild-to-moderate concussion and some bruises. Scans show no hemorrhaging or permanent injury. I’ve given him something for the grogginess and to speed the healing process. He’s more alert now, but it’ll take him a few days to recover fully. Sparks suffered a broken rib and a punctured lung, which is why there was all that blood, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. Let’s get their suits off and move them to the gurneys, so they’re more comfortable. Careful now.”

  That took a few minutes. Removing an EVA suit gently from an injured person isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

  “Are you sure they’re well enough for us to leave them alone?” Tom asked. “Swede and I need to go back out and retrieve the extractor.”

  “Go. You won’t be leaving them alone. I’m still here. As I said, they’ll be fine. There’s nothing you can do for them that I can’t do better.”

  Tom and I looked at each other, knowing he was right. Then, as if on cue, we sighed simultaneously.

  “All right then,” I said, relieved the injuries weren’t worse, “let’s top off our tanks and get back out there.”

  “Good. While you’re doing that, I’ll wheel these guys to sickbay.”

  * * * *

  It took some doing, but we finally retrieved the extractor. It was tumbling wildly and most of the remaining conveyor conduit had torn free and was who-knows-where. We had to shoot a grapple over to the extractor and it took three tries to snag something. Eventually we reeled it in and stabilized its motion so it was safe to bring into the pod.

  “Whew, I’m glad that’s over,” Tom said. He turned Pod 2 back toward Shamu.

  “We may have the extractor back,” I reminded him, “but we lost the conduit and some of the other equipment. That’ll set us back a few days. We’ll have to manufacture whatever we don’t have in stock.”

  “Yeah, but without the extractor we might as well have gone home with our holds almost empty.”

  “True. At least Cap and Sparks are all right.”

  “Amen to that, brother.” Tom radioed the ship. “Mission accomplished. We’re heading home.”

  “Roger that, Tom. I left the porch light on for you.”

  * * * *

  As soon as Tom and I exited the pod we visited sickbay. The cheery sight of Cap and Sparks sitting up and chatting with Guido greeted us when we arrived.

  “How’s your head, Cap?” I asked.

  “It hurt like a sonofabitch when I woke up, but it’s already starting to feel better. Guido gave me some of his magic elixir.” He nodded in Guido’s direction.

  “Sparks, you old reprobate! How are your ribs doing?” Tom was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Not too bad, considering. I hear you two went to a lot of trouble to bring us back.”

  “Nah, just some rock climbing,” Tom countered. “It’s good exercise.”

  “We couldn’t exactly leave you behind,” I said. “After all, who else would tell us bad jokes all the time?” My attempt at humor made Sparks chuckle and then wince.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ve had broken ribs myself. I should know better than to make you laugh.”

  “’S all right. I’m just glad I’m here and in shape to laugh. I’m really pissed that we missed out on all that beryl ore, though.”

  “Yeah, it was a tough decision,” Tom said, “whether to retrieve you two or continue extracting.”

  We grinned at his jest and chatted a bit longer; then we left the patients to recuperate.

  CHAPTER 11

  Overpopulation—By 2180 mankind truly was in desperate straits. Its forty billion souls were crowded into teeming labyrinths that soared into the sky and burrowed deep underground. Major cities in every continent had swelled to populations of more than fifty million apiece, with all the attendant infrastructure problems that entailed. The immense population necessitated certain sacrifices: reduced food rations, the curtailment of various civil liberties and a reduction in personal living space, to name a few. Most single-family homes were replaced by high-density, high-rise housing—all but the homes of the wealthy and powerful. Small towns either grew into large cities, were absorbed by encroaching megalopolises, or disappeared entirely as people migrated to the cities in search of work.

  Some countries instituted DRACONIAN measures in an attempt to stem the runaway population growth. Beginning in 2181, Greater China enforced a policy whereby only the “best and brightest” were allowed to reproduce, limiting this privilege to only one in three carefully screened families. India, in even WORSE economic SHAPE than China, instituted a lottery system in 2183 that permitted even fewer “winners.” In both countries, couples that violated these policies were summarily executed.

  Most Western countries enacted laws limiting families to only one child; yet the penalties often were light and violations frequent. Combined with the longer life spans afforded by improved medical techniques and nanotechnology, population growth slowed only slightly.

  — Excerpt from Encyclopedia Solaris, 2194

  * * * *

  Guido kept Cap in bed for the remainder of the day. That was as long as Cap would allow himself to be babied. He insisted that he could heal just as well sitting on the bridge. Sparks was given a treatment of two types of nano medibots—one designed to knit bones and the other to repair damaged tissue. In less than a day, Guido declared Sparks fit for duty. Scans showed no indication that the rib had ever been broken or the lung punctured. Those medibots do their jobs extremely well.

  Even before the duo finished healing, however, it was time for another powwow in the Commons. As was customary, I prepared a light meal.

  Cap had the floor. “Right, then. We’ve lost Pod 1 and some of the mining gear. It hurts us, but not terribly so. We can mak
e do with one pod, and what equipment we don’t stock replacements for we can manufacture. Thanks to Swede and Tom it wasn’t a lot worse. They managed to save the extractor, without which we would have been sunk.”

  “Tom deserves the credit, not me,” I said. “He’s the one who thought to cut it loose from the asteroid.”

  “Yes, I know,” Cap said with a wry smile. “You were more concerned with saving my life, and Sparks’. I ought to throw you in the brig for that—if we had a brig. Besides, I’m told you had the tricky task of lassoing the extractor while Tom piloted the pod. So shut up and accept my thanks.” I shrugged and smiled awkwardly while everyone had a good chuckle at my expense.

  “And let’s not forget that Guido saved the ship from possible disaster—or his skills as a medic. Now—” He put his hand to the back of his head with a pretend wince. “If he could just give me something for this damn headache!” We all laughed.

  “Is there any hope of retrieving the missing pod?” he continued, looking at Tom and me. I’d been filling in for Sparks as CSO during his convalescence.

  I shook my head. “So far there hasn’t been a peep out of the pod’s transponder. Either it was smashed or the pod’s out of range. It’s not showing up on sensor sweeps.”

  “Pity. Keep on it, just in case,” Cap ordered. “Sparks, give him a hand when you feel up to it. That’s an expensive piece of equipment to leave lying around.”

  “Aye, Cap,” we both replied.

  By this point we were just about finished with our meals. Sparks eyed the last piece of lemon cake, but Tom was too quick for him, drawing a brief pout from Sparks. Tom split the piece and slid the serving plate back over to Sparks. His gracious act was good for a wink from the other. It was a matter of only seconds for the two men to finish the last few bites. Sparks’ satisfied belch indicated the end of another supper.

  “All right, mates, let’s get back to work. Guido, where’s that aspirin?” Cap mock-demanded. He favored our medic with a small smile and a twinkle in his eye.

  Guido played along, with a deadpan expression. “Aspirin? What is this, the Dark Ages? I think I can find you something a bit less antiquated. Let’s see…where did I put those leeches?”

  * * * *

  We spent two more days searching for Pod 1, in an ever-widening spherical pattern, but there was no trace of it. If it was still in one piece, it sure wasn’t anywhere we could spot it. Perhaps it was smashed flat against an asteroid, or in the sensor shadow of one—or maybe the mysterious boot-print aliens snatched it. Either way, it was gone. I like to think that it’s still out there, somewhere, exploring the universe on its own.

  I just hoped it wasn’t coming out of our bonuses.

  * * * *

  After our little pod hunt we continued exploring and mapping the asteroid belt. Over the next three weeks we came across several more mineral-bearing rocks—A167, A178 and A192, to be exact—containing more iron, bauxite, and some lead, respectively, but no more tesserene. And nothing at all in the last six days.

  Unfortunately, we were rapidly depleting our thruster fuel. This meant we couldn’t afford to keep taking Shamu in close to the asteroids that we were investigating. Eventually we resorted to using the pod to do the verification scans, instead of Shamu. The pod’s sensors weren’t as sensitive as Shamu’s. However, we were able to get close enough to do the job with far less fuel consumption, so that’s what we did to stretch our diminishing supply.

  Finally, it was time for another get-together in the Commons.

  “Men, we have another decision to make,” Cap began. “There’s enough thruster fuel for maybe two weeks before we have to head home. We seem to be in another asteroid wasteland with nothing worth mining. There’s no way to tell whether we’ll have another month of this or if we’ll be past the wasteland tomorrow or the next day.

  “If we continue on and find nothing, we’ll have to return home with only what we’ve extracted so far. Or, we can turn back and start mining what we found earlier. The third option is to leave the belt and head on to the nearest planet, Richelieu-5, which has eleven significant moons in orbit around it. Long-range scans show theta-band signatures from at least seven of them, but as yet we’re too far away to tell whether there’s any tesserene there or if the TB signatures are spurious.

  “If we head for the moons we may or may not find anything, but at least we won’t use up much of our thruster fuel exploring those moons from orbit. The only ‘sure thing’ would be to head back along our path and fill up our holds. But if we do that, we give up any chance of finding any more tesserene.

  “So what do you say? Do we keep going in the belt, do we jump to the fifth planet and check out the moons, or do we play it safe and collect guaranteed bigger bonuses?” For Cap, normally a man of few words, that was a lengthy speech.

  “I say we investigate the moons,” I offered. “We already have pretty good bonuses coming from the tesserene and iron we’ve already mined, as well as the claims for all the other asteroids with mineral deposits that we’ve identified. We can take the sure thing, but I say as long as we’re out here, as long as we’re explorers and not simply miners, let’s take a chance. We may come up empty, but we may hit the jackpot. And that’s part of the reason we’re all out here, isn’t it, to go for the big strike?” I saw nods from Sparks and Guido.

  Tom seemed less sure. “You’re right. That’s part of the reason we’re here, but the main reason is to make enough money for our families to live well and to put away something for our eventual retirement—or for our families to live on if we don’t return. Sure, we have decent bonuses coming already, but we can increase them substantially if we fill the holds that are currently empty. I’m not opposed to becoming rich, but I’m also mindful of the adage ‘one in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ We don’t even know that there’s anything in the ‘bushes’ orbiting Richelieu-5.”

  Cap weighed in. “Tom’s right. We might be leaving a lot of money on the table by passing up the sure thing. The question is how much of a gamble are we willing to take?

  “Before we vote, does anyone want to make a case for continuing in the belt the way we’re going?” Silence. “No one? Right, then. Who’s in favor of exploring the moons before we head home? We can always cut the detour short and head back to the asteroid belt if the moons prove to be a bust.”

  I raised my hand, as did Cap, Guido, and finally Sparks.

  “It looks like you’re outnumbered, Tom,” Cap said.

  Tom’s mouth quirked up in a crooked smile. “That’s all right. I just thought someone ought to play devil’s advocate. I’m kind of curious to see what’s out there too.”

  * * * *

  The Richelieu system has seven planets. The first three are barren, stony lumps of rock, with no atmosphere or water. Then comes the asteroid belt and finally the four outer planets. These are gas giants, not unlike Saturn, Uranus and Neptune back home, except that none of these sport Saturn’s spectacular rakish rings.

  The fifth planet, and the target of our search, is greenish-yellow in color and like many gas giants consists primarily of hydrogen, helium, and methane. In size, Richelieu-5, which we decided to nickname Richie, is nearly a match for Neptune, but it has more moons of at least 500 kilometers in diameter, which is partly what drew our interest to it. That, and the strong traces of theta-band radiation we detected.

  Despite the millions of kilometers in distance from the asteroid belt to the fifth planet, it was a matter of only seconds to travel there by starflight jump. That was quite a change from those long frightened hours of crawling along on thruster power only a few weeks earlier.

  * * * *

  “Approaching Richie orbit, Cap,” Sparks called out. We were all crowded on the bridge to watch. The high-resolution holoscreen spanning the entire curved front wall of the bridge made it seem like we could reach out and touch the planet in front of us. It’s an experience that shouldn’t be missed. Unless we were involved in something i
mportant elsewhere in the ship that couldn’t wait until we arrived, we all tried to be on the bridge to take in the sight of a never-before-seen planet. Sure, we could have watched it on the smaller holoscreens in the Commons or Engineering, but it just didn’t have the same effect, somehow, as seeing it on the bridge.

  “Very good,” Cap replied. “What do you see on the scanners?”

  “Numerous TB signatures, coming from several of the nearby moons. It’ll take awhile to sort through the false leads and pinpoint the valid options.”

  “Of course. Let me know when you have a high-percentage target.”

  “Will do.”

  In this context “high-percentage” was a relative term. It meant only that it wasn’t obviously a false lead. Of the nineteen moons that we charted orbiting Richie, eight were more than 500 kilometers in diameter, including two that measured more than 1,100 km. Three others were over fifty klicks across. The rest were as small as a few hundred meters and more properly termed moonlets—probably stray asteroids captured at some point by Richie’s gravitational pull. Of the eleven moons that were large enough for us to care about, we were able to eliminate four immediately as having no theta-band emissions, and then two others in quick succession after closer analysis of their TB signatures. That left five for us to have a closer look at.

  Two showed current or geologically recent tectonic activity and the other three revealed indications of such activity at some point in the distant past. That was a good sign for tesserene.

  * * * *

  The first moon we checked out, P5M13, showed strong theta-band emissions, but too deep in the moon’s crust for us to reach. There was no way to determine whether the source of the emissions was tesserene or something else, so we were forced to indicate such in our report. If a subsequent mining mission found beaucoup tesserene under the surface, they’d be the ones to become rich and famous, instead of us—but we knew that at least we’d get a nice finder’s fee out of it. There was nothing we could do about it except move on to our second target moon: P5M6. (We were visiting them in the order of strongest-to-weakest indicators for tesserene.)