by T I WADE
Chapter 17
Ganymede in sight
Twenty-three months and four days after VIN’s first shower on DX2017, America One left orbit to travel to the solar system’s largest moon, and Jupiter’s farthest moon; Ganymede was 120 million miles ahead of them.
America One’s rear thrusters powered the spaceship away and within an hour their warm and comfortable home away from home was just a blip on the radar screen. The crew left the caverns as they had found them. They didn’t need the nuclear battery anymore, as Roo had powered up its own unit, even though he didn’t know how it worked, or where in the planet it was located. Three days before departure, VIN donned a full spacesuit and removed the nuclear battery from the enclosed safety of the power room.
Roo did open a rear door in the power room on their last day, when the room was cleaned and safe from radiation. The small door led to a smaller storage room, the contents of which made Igor’s day.
The second door led into an electrical storage cabinet, and Igor, who was with him, shouted with delight upon seeing the stores there to investigate. Of most importance to Ryan were the half dozen stored black boxes, which would produce shields. Now he had enough shields for the mother ship, as well as all of the smaller craft, plus the one Roo repaired as a spare.
Supplies of frozen food and water were left outside the still-operating shield for their return. The crew knew that they would see the little blue cannon ball again soon.
Time flew past and life changed aboard America One during the newbies’ stay.
It had taken six months of linguistics but they were able to communicate in a basic way with Roo and Tow. Fritz, three-years old Mars Noble, and VIN could conduct basic communications in both English, and Matt, Roo’s language. Mars Noble was pretty fluent in Matt, often spending time with Roo, whom he thought of as a big brother, but he was still too young to understand what the words meant. Most words in Matt were single syllable, many were two syllables, and there seemed to be few words over three.
Long descriptive words were what they struggled with learning English. They could pronounce cucumber pretty easily, but they struggled with “th”, “sh” “qu” and “z” as well as plurals; in their language they spoke of “one engine”, and “two engine”.
Numbers weren’t hard, until you got into distances and ages. VIN thought he was mistaken when they deciphered that Roo was 36 years old, the number of times Earth orbited the sun while he was on DX2017. He had been born on the planet, and that didn’t take in the extra 10,000 or so years of hibernation. Roo, in turn, didn’t believe that he had been asleep for seven to ten thousand years. He explained to VIN that the cryonic chambers, and there were twelve in each base and on DX2017, were only intended for travel to Jupiter and Saturn.
His mother, a petite young-looking 25, was actually 59 years old, very young for their tribe, and Roo was her first and only child.
When they returned to the mother ship after their first trip to the base they visited the third body. The man was Tow’s husband or mate, Roo explained; he was 80 years old, looked 40, and she literally broke down and needed to be returned to the hospital ICU unit to keep her stable.
Roo fared a little better after seeing his father dead, and the next day attempted to converse seriously with VIN and Fritz; he wanted to know why his father and all their colleagues on Mars had died. It all seemed to become clear in Roo’s mind a few days later when he understood that he and his mother had been asleep for several millennia. It was also true that Roo was pretty adept in space travel, and was probably his father’s protégé. His father had rounded the entire solar system on DX2017, “Dook,” as they called the small planet, three times and was the tribe’s third commander of the supply vessel/planet.
On the next visit to DX2017, Roo opened up the final area of the underground base, a sleeping area that had a few small rooms, and the same beds found on Mars, all empty. The only rooms Roo did not open on DX2017, were the rooms he didn’t know how to. Only those with the rank of commander could open certain areas on all the bases.
VIN returned to check the globe of Mars, and much to Roo’s dismay, the red dot had changed. It had become dull and looked bleached, or much older. The dot did not seem alive any more. Roo looked worried, and tried to show VIN that the globes were alive, computers transmitting information to and from all five of the planets they represented in real time. Because the crew of America One took the globe off the base on Mars, there was no active computer communication with the red planet; and they needed to return to reinstall it.
Martha and Petra kept one of the space suits sealed with the remains—a pile of dust—intact, in their research room. Both Roo and Tow cried when they viewed the remains of someone they must have known. When they saw the rest of the suits in another room, hung up, cleaned and empty, they cried at seeing such devastation. Their mourning infected those around them who also had tears in their eyes. Roo held VIN’s hand tightly.
Days later, when the two visitors calmed down, they returned to the Bridge and looked at the new pictures of their once lush home; they accepted the fact that their home on Earth was not the same as when they left, and that desert replaced the tropical Sahara forests they had lived in.
Yet, the red dot on Earth still glowed, the exact opposite of the dot on Mars. Roo explained that some of their people were still alive down there in their underground base, and certainly in the same cryonic state he and his mother had been in since their departure from Earth long, long ago.
Through more weeks of discussion and learning, VIN and Fritz found out from Roo that there was still a base on Earth, underneath all the sand that never stopped moving. Roo and his parents had visited Earth every 14 years, after dropping off supplies to the planets they were passing. Each base had a shuttle that would take off to meet the passing planet and take delivery of supplies. The bases were mostly self-sufficient, but electrical equipment and luxuries from Earth were always in demand. VIN learned that the tribe was a mix of vegetarians and meat eaters, and at one time the meat-eaters had been asked to leave. Roo acknowledged the same tribe of meat eaters, when Petra showed him an electronic Wikipedia picture of Bushmen on her computer, the San people from Southern Africa. Roo excitedly told them that these looked like the exact people that had left in a friendly manner to venture south, a few hundred years before their maiden flight into space. Roo’s tribal history records were still down on Earth, and Petra and Martha were now keen to return home, as soon as possible.
Roo told the crew on America One that his people were not inhabiting the two moons of Jupiter they were about to visit. The voyage they had left on, their last voyage, had supplies aboard to help their people make the move. DX2017 didn’t have a space shuttle on it. It didn’t need to. Their craft supplied the planet from Earth headquarters and a similar craft collected the supplies as the planet passed the planet or moon. It was a very simple system, and yes, their space craft could make the trip to Saturn from Jupiter, but could not make the voyage back to Mars or Earth. Further, Roo and Tow were not saved, or even found during the thousands of years that DX2017 had flown around on its orbit. Fuel was produced on Earth and Roo believed that perhaps the last reserves of fuel had been used to get the two base crews from the Jupiter moons to Saturn.
Working with Roo over several days, Suzi learned how they made their fuel. Roo’s tribe used pure plant ethanol, not alcohol, which she previously understood to be rocket fuel. After sniffing it, Roo was sure that alcohol would work as well.
Ryan said that there wasn’t much chance that ethanol or alcohol could be made on the moons out in space; Roo remarked, after watching Jonesy and VIN drink their schnapps, that he didn’t think that drinking pure rocket fuel was very good for the human body either.
The Jupiter tribe members must have moved on to Titan, the moon around Saturn. What fascinated VIN was that the red dot symbolizing life was not as bright on the Mars globe on DX2017 anymore, although there might be people still alive on th
e red planet, perhaps in a room similar to the one in which they found Roo and Tow. They needed to get around the solar system pretty fast if they were to save lives.
Over the next few days VIN participated in a meeting with Roo, Ryan and Captain Pete to devise a faster route around the solar system. Not only did it take a long time to get from one place to another, but the planets all moved at different speeds. Many computerized calculations were needed to determine a route back to Earth, via Mars.
Following several days of discussion which included details of each planet’s orbit in the solar system, Ryan addressed the planning group. “So, Captain Pete, crew, and Roo we are going to hop off DX2017, and go to Ganymede to try to find water to turn into hydrogen fuel. From what Roo has explained to us, gravity will be a challenge for us on the moon Europa, and maybe also Ganymede. We should expect changes in extremes and both might even have periods of zero, or even negative gravity. This could mean a more powerful gravitational pull at certain times from Jupiter or a closer moon. It could be extremely dangerous for America One while we are in orbit, and even more so for any craft trying to stay on the surface of that moon. What worries me is if you float off the planet at high speed we will not be able to retrieve you. Our plan is to land on Ganymede and then Europa. If we find ice, we will head for Saturn, check out Saturn’s moon, Titan, fuel up with water again and, if possible, aim for Mars without using DX2017. If we find water on the first moon, we won’t need to land on Europa, unless we want to check on Roo’s base there.
“Getting to Saturn, and then all the way back to Mars in the shortest possible time, will take three years, four months and twelve days. To reach and visit Titan, Saturn’s moon, we will have about 300 days before we need to return to Mars at an economical speed. The longer we stay on Titan, the faster we must return to get to Mars while it is at its closest point to Saturn. Mars will be on a direct four-year route between Saturn and Earth. When we return to Mars, we can decide whether to stay there for six months as it swings back towards Earth, or leave directly for Earth. At the time we are due to arrive, Mars and Earth will be on opposite sides of the sun, or in an Apogean position; in plain English that means as far as they can be from each other. At worst, after Mars we could have a long 12-month journey back to Earth, or we could just stay on the planet as Earth’s faster orbit catches up to Mars.”
Saving lives was important, and even Ryan didn’t mind that their odyssey would be made shorter by several years. Depending on how long they stayed on Mars, the whole odyssey would now be close to ten years in duration. They could always hitch a ride on DX2017 in another decade and go around again.
DX2017 was still lit up when they left, the dome alive and the lonely planet just waiting for some company. Roo and family had done exactly the same when they entered the cryonic chambers for their six-year flight to Saturn, thousands of years earlier.
“We have Ganymede on radar,” Captain Pete reported over the intercom. Four months had elapsed since they left DX2017. Compared to life on Earth, it was small and cramped—more than 20 crew lived in the caverns—but it was still bigger and roomier than life aboard America One.
With America One speeding up to and cruising faster than 60,000 miles an hour, they had used up valuable fuel resources. They had to find water on one of the next three moons, or they would never return to Earth.
VIN had been with Roo daily since he had awakened. Roo and Tow had moved into the apartment next to his and Suzi’s aboard ship. Nancy, still single, had also moved closer to be the other neighbor.
Tow was fascinated by the machines the doctors had. She was experienced in homeopathic medicine, but had never seen an X-ray machine or an MRI. An electrical machine that could actually look inside a living body was wondrous to her.
In many ways their ancient tribe had advanced beyond current technologies on Earth, but in other ways, they lagged behind. VIN never saw either newcomer get angry, or refer to any weapons. He firmly believed that this tribe didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘war’ or ‘fight’ or even know how to express ill will towards each other. He got a lot of solace from this fact, although the Marine in him remained alert in case it was just an act to fool the crew of America One into letting their guard down. With time, understanding between the old and the new continued to grow and improve.
Jonesy got his wish and had a shield permanently placed aboard SB-III; when activated, he could enter and depart the much larger shield around America One as if the shields didn’t exist.
The crew also placed one of the boxes aboard one of the now empty freighters still tied to the outer hull, made the shield live, and tried to shoot the freighter with the ship’s most powerful laser a dozen times which Roo found to be equally amazing and unacceptable. On the first count, he was stunned that VIN could go out into space in his spacesuit; he couldn’t and didn’t need to in his because they had shields everywhere. On the second count, it was incomprehensible that they would want to harm the small shield ten miles away, and just visible from the Bridge.
Allen Saunders in SB-II returned and the crew inspected the shield and then the freighter, and found the freighter to be totally unharmed. Ryan relayed to the crew that anybody who might try to shoot them down when they arrived back on Earth was in for quite a surprise.
Roo told them that their Earth supply ship used the shield immediately after takeoff and that it worked perfectly inside Earth’s atmosphere; one of its jobs was to cushion the craft from the heat impact of reentering the atmosphere on Earth, and on Mars.
This was perfect news. They had a shield that would protect the ships from attack, and also from severe risk inside Earth’s actual atmosphere. He was even more excited when Roo explained to the crew on the Bridge that the use of the shield inside an atmosphere, reduced drag by up to 70 percent, which also reduced fuel consumption. When they looked at papyrus reed records of fuel usage in Matt, Ryan couldn’t believe that Roo’s shuttles could leave Earth’s atmosphere with less than 500 gallons of ethanol. It had taken SB-III more than ten tons of hydrogen fuel to exit Earth the last time.
Ryan began to grow fearful of his own power. With the knowledge he had gained and now, with this new infrastructure protecting them, Astermine Inc., America One, his shuttles and his crew were virtually invincible on Earth. Nobody could touch them. He was getting worried about having absolute power on Earth. These friendly little people who always smiled and gave freely of their knowledge would never have given a thought to world dominance. He also concluded that there was a chance their return would not be accepted by many on Earth, and he would be forced to show the strength he possessed in order to protect them.
VIN and Jonesy, as well as the rest of the astronauts, were looking forward to flying around Earth and jeering at the enemy trying to blast them out of the sky. Jonesy was already thinking about borrowing a box for his Gulfstream. VIN explained to him that there was no way anybody could get the Gulfstream to VTOL. Jonesy thought he could fly the Gulfstream in softly enough to allow the shield to touch ground gently on a rolling landing.
Ryan did agree that these shields gave them total immunity against any enemy on Earth, if new weapons hadn’t been invented, unlikely, but a possibility. He suggested to the crew that the rest of the world, including the U.S. Government, would do their best to steal this technology away from them and, because of that, none of this technology could be left on Earth. They would have to find a home base, keep it secret, and make sure that the rest of the world would not know why they were suddenly interested in moving the Nevada airbase to the Sahara Desert, or another desolate desert, or another continent.
Ganymede appeared as a faint white star and gradually increased in size. Time on the odyssey was something that there was a lot of, and nothing happened fast. Tow helped the crew to understand the breakdown of their ancient garments, which the scientists had correctly surmised as being made of spider silk. All the other supplies taken from the planet were analyzed and found to be either made c
ompletely with Rare Earth metals, or used the simplest systems found in nature and usable on Earth.
There was a generous exchange of information. Everyone learned something from Tow or Roo, both of whom were extremely knowledgeable in everything except medicine. The samples brought up were mostly plant, or root based, and much the same as traditional homeopathic medicines found on Earth. The food stocks were mostly dried and then frozen. Tow learned more from Suzi, Martha and Petra, than they learned from her, apart from cryonics.
Roo was more technologically inclined. The commanders of DX2017, or a planet or a moon were always male. The electronics were designed and controlled by the builders, a rank equal to Roo’s father, a commander. Tow knew very little about what Roo had been taught by his father, or his grandfather, the possible Ruler who could still be alive on Earth. Roo was to become the fourth commander on their supply planet when his father became too old. However, he not yet reached adult or elder status in his tribe, and had received only basic schooling and space travel education from his father.
“Mr. Jones, Mr. Noble, Mr. Saunders, Mr. Roo to the Bridge for briefing regarding our next port of call, please,” Ryan announced over the intercom ten days after Ganymede could be seen as a tiny star in the sky.
By now Roo was pretty competent in the English language, far better than VIN was in Matt. Fritz Warner and Mars Noble were the language experts and could speak Matt as well as Roo could speak English.
Roo and Tow’s space, or flight suits, were the only dress they wanted to wear, which flustered Martha; they never needed washing as often as their own suits.
Tow spent many of her waking hours with Fritz, and often Suzi and Mars Noble when she wasn’t with Nancy in the medical area. The newcomers had also taken well to the ship’s routine, also needing ten good hours of sleep a day.
