Analog SFF, September 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You did everything you could, Quin,” Emil said.

  "Why doesn't that make me feel better?"

  Quin was ready to throw tools, to snap the tethers and hurl the offending metal into the void, the way his father so often had hurled a wrench across the garage when a customer's automobile refused to give in to his attentions. Quin drew a cleansing breath.

  "Thanks for trying, Emil,” he said. “And for telling us."

  Dierker returned to the radio once in those six hours to tell them that Edwin Abbott was on the way and to admit to the coming cold. She didn't explain the reasons for the temperature loss though, and neither Quin nor Jill had pressed the matter.

  Quin cycled through the lock and returned to crew quarters. He could feel edges of chill already. Jill was wrapped in layers of clothing and was hovering next to Zoe, who was wrapped in every sizable piece of fabric Jill could find. Quin maneuvered into place beside Jill.

  "Any luck?” Zoe whispered.

  "No."

  Jill glanced at him. She reached out and tapped her fist against his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry I yelled at you before,” she said. Her voice had lost its earlier nasty edge.

  "No, you were right,” Quin said. If she could bend, then he would too. “I've been slacking, feeling sorry for myself because the two of you are together."

  Jill ignored his apology.

  "Marg is just going to sit there and let us die, isn't she?” she asked.

  "That's how I see it,” Quin replied. “But Emil and his crew are still working on ideas."

  "Meanwhile, we sit here and freeze,” Jill said. “Just three more pieces of junk."

  "We'll save ourselves,” Zoe whispered.

  "How?” Jill demanded. “The batteries are almost gone and I've scrounged every bit of cover I could find."

  "The suits?” Zoe whispered. Jill glanced at Quin and then spit out her confession.

  "I hacked yours apart, looking for the junk that hit you."

  "Wear yours, then.” If she could have managed more force, it would have been an order.

  "No!” Quin said. “I won't pray I'll survive while I watch you freeze to death."

  Jill tapped him with her fist again, harder than before. It felt like a stamp of approval.

  "What the hell,” she said. “We'll go out together, three more pieces of junk. Edwin Abbott can just stick us into orange foam and send us down the chute."

  Zoe slipped her hand from beneath the blankets and managed a thumbs-up, but Quin was still. Jill's words had struck a spark. He turned toward Jill's advertising placard, taped to the bulkhead across the cabin. Better living through chemistry. And the notion came to him, every little detail bright and hard as diamond.

  When he had finished laying it all out, Jill hugged him.

  Once they did the homework, it took seventeen minutes to get Emil back to the radio, and when he came he sounded fuzzy and apologetic. Quin and Jill were shoulder-to-shoulder now, anchored before the communications station, and Jill had slipped a headset onto Zoe so she could be heard.

  "Sorry,” Emil said. “I was sleeping."

  Quin didn't offer up a polite response; there was no time for niceties.

  "Emil, how long would it take for us to splashdown,” he asked, “if we pushed Mary Shelley out of orbit just like we do all the junk?” Quin could almost hear Emil's calculator.

  "Eighty-seven minutes from initiation of burn,” Emil said. “But it would never work."

  "Why?” Quin asked. “The command module's an Orion unit. It's designed for re-entry and we can blow away the rest of the ship with explosive bolts."

  "You've got no engine.” Quin had anticipated that reply.

  "We still have enough solid-fuel cells to do the job,” Quin said. “Jill's done the math. All I have to do is fabricate a platform to mount them around the aft hatch."

  "Maybe—” Emil began. Jill interrupted, maintaining the momentum.

  "All we need, Emil, is a 2-percent delta vee. I can send my data."

  "No need. I'm doing it myself right now.” Seconds passed in silence.

  "Well?” Zoe asked.

  When he responded, Emil didn't sound sleepy anymore.

  "It's possible,” he said. “But there are other issues."

  "Name them,” Jill demanded.

  "The Orion's not equipped for anything but a ballistic descent. Without parachutes, it would be a nasty splashdown."

  "But it's been done!” Jill said. She ticked off her hasty research. “The Soyuz TMA-Eleven capsule in 2008 came down damned hard in Kazakhstan, and the Russian and the Korean walked away from it. The Expedition Six crew in 2003 survived this sort of descent too. Hell, just look at Voskhod Two back in 1970."

  "And we'll be bringing it in at sea,” Quin said. “We could—” Emil interrupted.

  "There's one other major problem. You have to get down there in one piece, even for a hard landing, and you don't have a heat shield."

  Quin glanced at Jill. She was looking up to him, eyes bright, and she was grinning. They had been waiting for this one.

  "Tell him,” Zoe whispered.

  "That's not a problem, Emil,” Quin said. “I'm going to fabricate one."

  "It's ridiculous!” Dierker said, five minutes later. She didn't sound sleepy, either. “No one has ever built a heat shield from collecting foam!"

  "Just because it's never been done doesn't mean it can't be done,” Emil said.

  "Shut up, Emil!” Dierker said. “I will not allow—"

  "Ma'am,” Quin said. “Would you rather have us freeze to death, waiting for rescue that won't arrive in time?"

  That quieted her for a moment. She wasn't about to send a message to the entire Cayley staff that she considered employees to be expendable.

  "Of course we don't want you to freeze,” she said. “We're doing the best we can. It may not be enough, in the end, but what you're suggesting is suicide."

  "You don't know that!” Jill said.

  "No!” Dierker thundered. “I will not allow it."

  Jill was close in again, her fingers itching to settle around Dierker's throat. Quin had no more patience for these games, either.

  "Marg,” he said. “Just how do you plan to stop us?"

  * * * *

  Dierker argued a bit longer, but there was no question now as to the outcome; there would be a revolt aboard Cayley if she didn't let them try. When she returned the microphone to Emil, he was so excited he almost stuttered. Quin listened as Jill helped him suit up to begin work, and he was reminded of the instructors at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. Some of them had seemed as if they ate plankton, slept in their wetsuits, and pissed seawater.

  "The idea is genius, Quin,” Emil said. “The foam is called Vespel. It's a thermosetting electrostatic dissipative polymer with a graphite reinforcement component. Its tensile strength is incredible."

  His words tumbled over each other in his rush to explain.

  "Inherent resistance to combustion. Fantastic heat resistance. Tested at 900 degrees Fahrenheit for hours. Some of the aerospace manufacturers used it for lightweight heat shields on suborbital flights."

  "Will it stand up to re-entry temperatures, though?” Quin asked.

  Emil was silent for a moment, a bit of wind knocked from his sails.

  "Flip a coin to figure that out,” he said at last. “It's a long way down."

  * * * *

  There was no time now to admire the panorama of Earth, waiting so far below; no time to wonder what Zoe would do, if she were able. Quin examined his handiwork. The cells were set in place on the scaffold he had built around the docking ring at the nose of the command module. Working in the mission suit still was slow but seemed less clumsy now, even though he and Emil were making up procedures as they went.

  To form the ablative heat shield, Quin had sprayed the blunt end of the command module with polymer adhesive, one small section at a time, and then affixed collecting cans in concentric circles. The last
bit of work was to stretch a sheet of gold-permeated reflective foil over the cans and affix it to the circumference of the module.

  Quin was pleased with the results of his work.

  The jury-rigged effort might not be enough to take them home in one piece, but it wouldn't be for lack of trying. He had read once—he wasn't certain where—that to die trying was the proudest human thing. He understood that now.

  "Okay, Mary Shelley," he said. “It's time to set off the cans."

  "Copy that,” Jill said. She was sniffling from the cold. “On my mark."

  Under the foil, the cans began to exude their orange bubbles. The bubbles touched and flowed together, constrained by the loose-fitting foil. The foam filled every opening, swelling the foil into a rounded, metallic face that mirrored the contour of the module. Quin watched the holographic timer on his helmet's faceplate. When it reached zero, he reached out and touched the foil. It was unyielding.

  "The cake is baked, Mary Shelley," he said. “I'm coming inside."

  * * * *

  It had taken fifteen hours to complete the work and temperatures inside the capsule were frigid. Vapor trailed behind Quin, swirling about in miniature cirrus clouds, as he moved to his place in the empty acceleration couch. Jill already was in place in the pilot's position, and she had swaddled Zoe in every bit of available fabric after strapping her into the central couch.

  It was time to do this thing.

  "We expect splashdown in the Pacific between the Marquesas Islands and Hawaii,” Emil said. “Recovery vessels will be tracking you all the way down, using your GPS signal."

  "Thank you,” Quin said. “For everything."

  "Buy me a beer next time you see me,” Emil said. “Hey! We've just got the weather report—blue skies and calm seas."

  "Mary Shelley copies all of that,” Quin said.

  "And we're ready to blow this pop stand,” Jill said.

  "Do it,” Zoe whispered. She sounded purposeful.

  Jill nodded and tabbed an ignition switch. The capsule vibrated as the array of solid-fuel cells Quin had set up on the scaffold caught fire and pushed with all their puny might against the forward progress of the Mary Shelley command module.

  Precious seconds passed. Quin watched the gauges, intent upon the numbers, listening as Jill continued to talk to Emil. They needed to bleed away 2 percent of forward speed to begin the drop out of orbit and put them into the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Air drag and gravity would do the rest.

  "It's all about drag coefficient,” Emil had said earlier, trying his best not to lecture. “The greater the drag, the less the heat load. Air will build up under the capsule and act as a cushion to push hot gases and heat energy around you."

  "Burn is over, Emil,” Jill said.

  "Copy, Mary Shelley."

  "Velocity is dropping,” Quin said, watching the gauges. “How do we look?"

  "We're coming onto track.” Jill's voice could have been generated by a computer. “And lining up five by five. I'm initiating turnover now!"

  Quin couldn't feel the change in orientation, but his gauges soon told him the attitude jets had rolled the capsule into a new position. They were moving backside-first again and falling, committed now to the flames.

  "Velocity is still decreasing.” Quin struggled to keep rising emotion from his own voice. “At 2 percent now and still going down!"

  Cheers filled Quin's headset. Dierker might not be pleased with the dismantling of her precious equipment, but the rest of Cayley Station was celebrating.

  "We are in the pipeline and on our way down,” Jill said, in her best test-pilot voice.

  What was left of Mary Shelley began to bounce, as thickening atmosphere wrestled against their extreme velocity, and Quin began to feel the rise in temperature.

  "We're losing signal, Mary Shelley," Emil reported.

  His voice sounded hollow in Quin's headset. It died away and then came back, faint and distant, one last time.

  "God bless, Mary Shelley."

  Quin was sweating now. The gauges showed the module's interior temperature at ninety degrees Fahrenheit and still rising. Intensity of vibration continued to climb, as well. It felt as if they might shake to pieces at any moment.

  Flame licked at the Plexiglas ports, Emil's promised shock wave building beneath the capsule, creating a pocket of heat so intense it ionized the very air. Quin didn't want to consider what would happen if his handmade shield produced uncontrollable wobble, so that what was left of Mary Shelley flipped end for end to finish a hellish descent with its unprotected nose falling into the flames.

  "Quin?"

  It was Zoe. Quin looked to the central acceleration couch. Her face was turned toward him. She was so pale her skin seemed translucent, but her eyes were bright and she was smiling.

  "Thank you,” she said, whispering.

  "Yeah,” Jill said. “You're a god-damned genius, Junior. We need to celebrate."

  She grinned then and touched a switch on her control console. A high, clear, recorded harmony filled the cabin. A single tone. The opening Oh! toQueen's “Fat Bottomed Girls” with Quin's own guitar licks laid over top of it. Jill had pirated his pod.

  He grinned too. That was just what they needed right now, what he hoped he had been clever enough to fashion for what was left of Mary Shelley, a fat bottom that would carry the old girl through the ferocious heat of re-entry. He flicked off his own microphone, cleared his throat, and sang the opening line of the chorus. Outside the ports, the matte black had gone to vivid orange. Jill joined him for the second line. Their voices filled the capsule, howled defiance of the odds, as the music swelled.

  And together the three of them rode the fire home.

  Copyright © 2010 K.C. Ball

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Reader's Department: THE ALTERNATE VIEW: I THINK, THEREFORE I QUESTION by Jeffery D. Kooistra

  In my June 2010 column, I said I would reply in this one to some of the issues raised in letters to Brass Tacks (and elsewhere) concerning my “Lessons from the Lab” November 2009 column, with “gloves off.” At the time I wrote that, I assumed I would be challenged to reign in my combativeness before I submitted the finished manuscript. However, so much news has broken under the collective name of “Climategate” since then that I now find myself challenged to reign in my desire to gloat, and so, the gloves stay on.

  Even by the time this Alternate View sees print many readers will still think, “Gloat about what?” For those of you who feel that way, more power to you, but you may not feel like reading further. Other readers have been skeptical of the apocalyptic claims made about the dangers of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) for even longer than I have. Perhaps they see Climategate and the subsequent damage to the “Warmist” cause (the political aspect of AGW) as vindication that they were right all along, and with them I concur. Those in the middle I hope have at least accepted this particular truth: The science isn't settled after all.

  I have been scouring the news and reading extensively in climate studies for the last few months, and I have a confession to make—most of this shit bores the hell out of me. Nevertheless, visit to my blog—www.jeffkooistra.blogspot.com—will find additional discussions about global warming and links that I think useful. (Posts with AGW in the title are climate-change-related.) The topic is too big to discuss much of it in a few AV columns, so I will do so there. I have too many other topics I'd rather cover in the pages of Analog.

  There is an attitude among the AGW camp followers that can best be summed up with: “How dare you question climate scientists and their peer-reviewed studies!” In my case, I dare because I am a sentient being. Since I do not know everything, I ask questions to find out. I ask people, I read books, I interrogate Nature herself, and I even question myself. One of the reasons I write Alternate Views is to learn, by putting my ideas out there and having them questioned. No one's words should be accepted uncritically. And if there is one thing of which I am mo
st skeptical, it is excessive certainty.

  I think, therefore I question.

  True, I have been skeptical of the alleged dangers of AGW for years. But I lost interest in following the story closely once I became convinced that there was no imminent danger to the human race, regardless of whether or not “excess CO2” was causing some amount of “excess warming."

  Some personal history is in order.

  When I first heard of AGW, I thought it was a reasonable hypothesis worth investigating, since it is not unreasonable to study whether or not CO2 produced by the activities of Man has resulted in additional terrestrial warming. However, I heard about AGW in connection with dire warnings that sea levels would rise by a foot or two in the next hundred years (or whatever the exact claim was at the time). It struck me as ridiculous to think this problem would pose a serious challenge, so it also served as my introduction to global warming hysteria.

  Despite the noise of the Y2K hype, the contested presidential election of 2000, and the calamity of 9-11, around that time I learned of the “hockey stick graph.” This graph removed the medieval warming period (MWP—you know, when the Vikings were setting up colonies in Greenland) from history, and claimed to show that we were living in a period of unprecedented warmth and increasing warming. Around then I also learned there were “Deniers.” I realized I must be one because I was certain of the historicity of the MWP. Naively I assumed anyone with scientific sense would feel the same and that the claim of unprecedentedness would soon fall by the wayside.

  Yet it did not.

  I vaguely followed the subsequent ongoing debate, such as it was. I was investigating superfluid aether theories then, which interestingly enough would contribute to my skepticism about AGW claims. I picture the atmosphere and oceans as complex systems of coupled nonlinear oscillators, which we are only just beginning to understand. Once you learn how difficult it is to adequately model even simple fluid systems, automatically, skepticism greets assertions of certainty about what a computer model predicts for Earth's future climate. Long-term predictions made on the basis of these models, though interesting and perhaps suggestive, are not remotely certain.