Lightspeed Magazine - January 2017

by John Joseph Adams [Ed. ]

  Skipper? The Z-axis burn?

  Coming up, Collier said, shaking himself out of his reverie. He repositioned himself on Rocinante’s hull, gripping what he could while avoiding the exhaust vents. He would need to also fire his suit jets to keep himself from losing his grip—

  Damn.

  Uh, small problem, Sancho. I didn’t think of this.

  What?

  My suit jet controller. I need my hands to operate it, but I can’t let go of Rocinante while she’s thrusting.

  Shit, was Sancho’s only reply.

  Collier waited a few seconds, then said, Sort of need an answer, there, faithful computer.

  Sancho answered, I suggest a very faint thrust on Rocinante at first, to see what you can handle. Then you can step it up slowly and feel how much you can take.

  Not bad. Let’s give that a go. Rocinante, minus z-axis thrust, uh, one percent, continuous burn. On mark.

  Acknowledged.

  Three … two … one … mark. The thrust was almost imperceptible. Were it not for the puff of vapor escaping through the exhaust vents, Collier could have believed nothing had happened. Rocinante, increase thrust to five percent. Mark.

  He could feel a very gentle pull away from him, but he could hold on at this level indefinitely. He continued to tell Rocinante to step up the thrust until he could feel his arms beginning to strain. He stopped increasing at seventy percent.

  Okay, Sancho, how am I doing?

  Not even close, Skipper. You’re going to miss the asteroid, high, and when you do, you’re going to be flying by her at about thirty-four meters per second. And that’ll happen in about nine and a half minutes.

  Okay. What do I need to hit the asteroid?

  Skipper, you don’t want to hit the asteroid. You’re going too fast.

  I’ll increase minus Z-axis thrust.

  Can you hold on?

  I guess I’ll have to. Rocinante, increase minus Z-axis thrust to ninety percent. Mark.

  The pull away from him was now considerable. The problem wasn’t so much that Rocinante’s thrust was too formidable as much as it was the lack of proper handholds—he felt himself tightening his grip on antennae that were never intended to be used in this fashion. Idly, he wondered if anyone had ever tested the tensile strength of the objects that would mean the difference between life and death for him.

  Whoa, baby. Now you’ve really got some kick to you.

  Skipper?

  So far, so good, Sancho. How’s about now?

  You will still miss the asteroid, though not by as much. You’re still a bit high. And now you’ll make your flyby in thirteen minutes, give or take. At twenty-two meters per second.

  I’ll go to one hundred thrust. Has Rocinante got enough juice for that?

  Yes, but—

  Rocinante, increase minus-z axis thrust to one hundred percent. Mark.

  The tug increased, and he felt his left hand slip a few inches on the antenna he was gripping.

  Alert, came Rocinante’s expressionless voice. Fault indicator warning on high gain antenna.

  Rocinante, nature of fault? Collier felt the agony of his position. He couldn’t lessen his grip on the antenna, but he couldn’t afford to have it break off, either.

  Structural failure in antenna housing. Loss of contact with antenna attitude control.

  Will it break off? Rocinante, will it break off? he corrected himself.

  Query parameters not set.

  It was useless. Rocinante was not Sancho—it was only a very basic dedicated computer. There was, therefore, no way of knowing. He scanned Rocinante’s hull. Nothing else presented itself as a handhold—it was either the antenna or nothing.

  How about now, Sancho?

  Well, you’re still not going to hit it. You’re still a little high. Not much: I give my calculation a ten percent chance of error. Due to the asteroid’s slow spin, there may be a high enough projection that meets you right when you are flying by. In fourteen minutes, eleven seconds. But you’ll pass the asteroid at nineteen point seven meters per second.

  That’s too fast, Collier said matter-of-factly.

  Yes. I’ll be on the other side to meet you, Skipper. It was a good try. You almost did it.

  Collier didn’t answer. Rocinante, prepare for Y-axis burn.

  Skipper! You can’t give a minus burn: you’ll put yourself in the path of the asteroid. You’re going much too fast—if you hit the rock at this speed, you’ll be killed. Even if you somehow survive the impact, which you won’t, your suit will certainly rupture. Plus Rocinante will break up, and some of the debris might—

  Sancho, shut up for a second, would you? I know what I’m doing. I’m not going to lose this rock. Rocinante, cut Z-axis thrust. Mark. He pulled himself closer to the hull when Rocinante’s jets stopped.

  Skipper! Don’t!

  Rocinante, plus Y-axis thrust, ten percent, five second burn. Three … two … one … mark.

  The tug this time came from the opposite direction, as if Rocinante was an elevator ascending at a very low rate of speed. After the furious Z-axis thrust, the mild and short upward thrust was nothing to his muscles.

  I don’t understand. You are absolutely going to miss the rock now. I’m glad, but I don’t—

  Rocinante, prepare for minus-Z axis thrust. One percent, increasing by one percent per second. Continuous burn.

  Ohhh, I see. Sancho said.

  Collier couldn’t help but smile a little. Mark. Once the thrust had built back up to full power, Collier tried to keep the smugness out of his voice as he asked Sancho, Give me an updated telemetry report, if you please, Sancho.

  Gladly, Skipper. You will begin flyby in twelve minutes, two seconds. Moving at relative velocity of twenty point six meters per second.

  How thick is the asteroid?

  It varies, Skipper. If I understand what you are asking, the flyby should take about three and a half seconds to be complete, so I’m going to estimate the asteroid’s ‘thickness,’ as you put it, to be around sixty-five meters. When you clear the asteroid, you’ll have a relative velocity of about eighteen meters per second, give or take a few centimeters.

  How long before I catch up with it again?

  About four minutes, forty seconds. But you’ll want to reduce velocity well before that. I estimate, in order to land at a reasonable velocity—say, no more than two meters per second—you’ll take around ten minutes. You’ll need to play a little bit to get the velocity right.

  I’ll bet I can do it in eight minutes, Collier said, his breath wheezing a little as he continued to hold on to Rocinante’s antenna.

  Sancho surprised him with his answer. You’re on.

  The next five minutes were interesting: he cut back on thrust once he had checked with Sancho that Isa’s ship was still too distant to beat him to the rock even if he reduced his velocity, fearing the damaged antenna on Rocinante’s hull would snap off. Once Rocinante had taken him back to the asteroid and he was closing in on it, he let go of the scout and ordered her back to the Dulcinea for refueling and repair. He would use his suit jets to soften his landing there.

  Just to let you know, Skipper, Sancho said after he had released his grip on Rocinante and reversed his jets to begin a gentle braking maneuver, your eight minutes are up. I win.

  Congratulations. I owe you a dinner. How’s my relative velocity?

  You’re closing at eight point seven seven meters per second. Distance ninety-one meters.

  Still a little hot for my liking, Collier mumbled. He squeezed his jet control grip and felt the pressure on his chest as the suit jets thrust broke his speed. He kept up the burn for five seconds, counting in his head, and called Sancho for an update. He didn’t trust his eyes to give him an accurate assessment of his velocity: the asteroid’s surface appeared to be coming at him very slowly.

  Five point one four meters per second. Distance fifty-four meters.

  He nodded. That would do for now. A few more bursts from the jets
once he got closer, and he’d be there.

  I’m receiving a transmission from the Ad Astra mining ship, Skipper, Sancho said.

  Really? Put her through to me, Collier said. Hello, Isa. I’ll be with you in a minute.

  What the hell are you doing, Col? You overshot the rock and are coming back? You’re not going to beat us, not by a long shot. I don’t know—

  Sorry, Isa, I already have. In fact— he applied a final tiny burst of thrust and extended his arms, absorbing the gentle impact of his slow-moving body on to the asteroid. Touchdown.

  What?

  I’m on the rock. It’s mine. He began to unship the tethering gear from his shoulder pack.

  Sancho chimed in. Confirmed. I have you on telemetry.

  Col, I don’t know what kind of game this is, but if you think you can fool me into thinking you’ve made a claim to this asteroid without being on it, you’re crazier than even I thought.

  It’s not a trick. I’m on the other side. Sancho, when will the rock’s rotation carry me into view of the Ad Astra ship?

  Won’t be for a while, Skipper. Perhaps thirty-five minutes.

  Isa, unless you want to just trust me, you’ll have to wait half an hour before you can see me. You think you can do that?

  This is insane, Isa murmured.

  Yep. That’s the Belt for you, he smiled and aimed the tethergun at a likely looking spot. Sancho, I’m tethering myself now. He fired the piton and immediately drifted away from the impact. He didn’t bother using his suit jets to compensate: the piton buried itself into the rock trailing the tether cable, which coiled oddly for a moment before the shoulder winch tightened it down. He sank gently back down toward the asteroid, tucking his legs under him so he could stand.

  Tethering successful, he said to both Isa and Sancho.

  Col, are you really on the rock? You wouldn’t lie to me?

  Collier paused even as his feet touched the dusty surface of the asteroid. No, I wouldn’t. I never did, Isa. That’s why you left me, remember? Because I couldn’t lie to you.

  Yeah, Isa said, and Collier hoped the wistfulness he heard in her voice was real and not his own invention. Then, her coldness returned. So you’re on the rock.

  Yep. And I plan to mine it. So why don’t you and your corp look for another one. It shouldn’t be hard. I’m planting the claim beacon now. He opened his thigh pouch and planted the disc-shaped beacon firmly on the surface of the asteroid. When he depressed the securing stud, the beacon fired its spikes into the surface and began blinking red.

  Receiving beacon transponder, Sancho said.

  Good. Record and send to Ceres, please, Sancho. Collier grinned and said to Isa, It’s over, Isa. Go find another.

  You don’t get it, Col. Nothing I’ve said to you—you haven’t heard anything. She was silent a moment, then continued. I’m going off comm for a little while. But this isn’t over.

  Whatever you say, Isa, he grunted, then told Sancho to cut transmission, hoping to get the order in before she cut hers.

  Transmission ceased, Skipper.

  Good. Now. Where am I relative to that crevice we saw when we first decided this was our baby?

  You’re on the proper side of the asteroid, Skipper. I make it sixty six meters distant.

  Good news indeed. All right. Prepare for orientation. He faced the tether point and held still. Designating bearings. I am currently facing zero degrees at designated north pole. Align my suit compass and your own compass to that, please, Sancho.

  Alignment complete. Fissure beginning point located sixty-five point nine meters distant, bearing one-six-four degrees. You should see that in your helmet display.

  Got it, Collier said as he saw the tiny diamond appear in his display. He turned slowly, crouched down, and launched himself as flat as he could toward the target. There were no outcroppings ahead of him, and in any case, he was not travelling very rapidly. He kept his hands in front of him, gripping the suit jet controls, and skimmed the surface of the rock toward what he hoped were the deposits that would make this whole endeavor worthwhile.

  If there are no Ps there, I’m going to feel a bit stupid, he murmured. Then, louder, to Sancho, he said, You didn’t see anything down there, did you?

  I’m afraid not, Skipper. But you wouldn’t expect me to be able to from up here.

  Collier grunted. That was true. But he would have felt a hell of a lot happier if Ps had been just lying on the surface somehow.

  You’re almost there, Sancho said a few moments later. You should be able to see it pretty soon.

  Collier used the suit jets to take him higher off the surface. He increased his headlights to maximum intensity and dispersal and suddenly saw the fissure. From his vantage point, it looked like a box canyon made of shadows: his lamps could not penetrate to the bottom.

  Contact. I’m going to set a second tether here. I’ll also put a beacon down for you, Sancho. What’s your ETA?

  I should be hovering over your position in roughly three hours, twelve minutes.

  Collier nodded inside his helmet. His suit was rated for twelve hours survival time under working conditions, and he knew from experience he could stretch that out to sixteen if he was miserly with air and water. The biggest problem with a twelve-hour suit shift was the nutrient gel. It never tasted quite right.

  Okay, Sancho. I’m going to begin preliminary excavation as soon as I am re-tethered here. He set to work, firing another piton from his shoulder and securing himself close to the fissure. Once he was safely tethered to this new point, he released the first tether, securing it to the rock with a blob of stik-tite adhesive, and began his weightless rappel down into the fissure.

  He descended slowly—one meter per second—despite his impatience to reach the bottom. There was no sense in hurrying things now, not when he had beaten Isa to the rock. Besides, the fissure couldn’t be more than seventy meters deep, since the asteroid itself wasn’t that thick. He should find the bottom relatively soon.

  No sooner had he thought that than his feet felt the surface of the bottom of the fissure. He bent his knees and absorbed the gentle fall, being careful not to spring back up and launch himself off the bottom.

  Okay, I’m down, Sancho.

  There was no reply. He tried again, but still did not get an answer. The canyon walls, combined with the asteroid’s gentle rotation, must be blocking his transmission. He shrugged. It was a minor annoyance, but he should have expected it. He set to work unshipping his core sampler, deploying a firefly to give him some ambient light by which to work.

  Minutes later, he eyed the harpoon-like core sampler and selected a spot on the canyon wall. He set the sampler’s anchor points and secured it to the wall. All that remained now was to press the firing stud and allow the sampler to bore deep into the rock, retrieving and analyzing samples that would tell him if all this had been worthwhile.

  A single test, if negative for Ps, would not mean the rock was worthless. He could test dozens of times and still not hit veins that may be hidden elsewhere on the asteroid. He knew this intellectually, but he nevertheless hesitated on the firing button. How many tests would he perform before admitting his instincts were wrong?

  He shook himself inside his suit. Haven’t even sampled the damn rock once, and already I’m … He pressed the firing button with what amounted to defiance.

  The sampler worked invisibly and soundlessly for several minutes, boring a deep shaft into the surface of the asteroid. Only when the sampler had created a shaft deep enough did a cigar-sized cylinder fire itself through the barrel of the sampler’s long, rifle-like assembly toward what Collier hoped were the ores he sought.

  Collier knew well the operation of the probe: it would scrape the sides of the shaft created by the mining laser and determine where, if anywhere, veins of rare metals and ores lay. It could, and probably would, come back with nothing on this first run, he told himself. No sense getting worked up about it.

  The cylinder returned to its
home in the sampler base presently and the dedicated assay computer in the sampler housing began its work. Collier watched the readout screen at the rear of the device, his breath coming quickly despite his self-talk. The dark screen brightened to life with a chemical readout. Collier gasped at the numbers. He had long ago programmed the assay computer to highlight the Ps and ignore the more common elements: Dulcinea would never be a workhorse mining vessel carrying iron ore in huge quantities. She would always be a specialist. But such a path meant many, many failures. Only when he struck a vein of Ps would any mission be worthwhile.

  And so he had this time. The readout did not change even as he stared at it:

  Platinum: 6.123%

  Palladium: 3.237%

  Total P’s: 9.36%

  Rhodium: 1.788%

  Iridium: 1.334%

  Osmium: 1.299%

  Nickel: 67.344%

  Iron: 11.322%

  Copper: 7.044%

  Other: Trace

  He had only once before broken ten Ps on a strike: that was years and years ago and had carried him for quite some time through a long dry spell. He hadn’t quite broken ten on this sample, but nine point three plus was damn good. And that was just his first sample—what if he hadn’t even hit a vein?

  The possibilities swam before him. On his first sample, a nine-three. Nine three six, really. He considered his options.

  He could reset the sampler and start looking for an even richer vein, but he was out of contact down here. It would be more prudent, now that he had verified that the rock was a winner, to get back to the Dulcinea, resupply, regroup, and think about his plans. He had time.

  He disassembled the sampler again and returned it to its place in his pack, then placed a second beacon on the wall of the canyon with stik-tite. Grasping the tether cable, he jumped gently off the floor of the canyon and rose back to the surface, using the cable to steady his ascent.

  Once back on the surface, he hailed Sancho again.

  Sancho, my friend, open the champagne. The sampler came back nine-three-six on the first try. So the—

  Skipper! I’ve been trying to raise you for the past twenty minutes! Sancho’s voice was tense.