Suddenly Astronaut

by Andrew J. Morgan

  These thoughts came to him as a single feeling. Although he would never be able to express it in words, he knew completely what it meant.

  "I see it …" he whispered. He reached out to touch it, pressing his finger onto the screen. So small, so delicate, yet it contained almost all the history of the creatures that had evolved to become what he was now.

  It made thoughts turn to his life on the station. How long would it be before humans left Earth completely? Not years, not decades, maybe not even centuries, but some day. An immense feeling of nostalgic yearning filled him, even though he had nothing to be nostalgic about.

  When he uncovered that significant point of light once more, a part of him was surprised that it was still there. It could easily have been a smudge on the screen or a flare of light. He wondered if anyone on it was looking back up at him.

  A blast of gas out in front gave Ben a fright. He leaned forward into his harness as the ship decelerated to a standstill.

  "Are you ready to begin the tour?" Tom asked.

  Ben nodded. He'd forgotten about the station tour. "Uh huh."

  The ship pirouetted around, and Ben squinted as the full brightness of Jupiter fill his vision. They'd come further out than he'd predicted, and for the first time ever he was able to see Jupiter as a disc, rather than as a wall of swirling colour. He shielded his eyes to get a better look.

  "Let me adjust the screen for you," Tom said. The screen dimmed until Ben was able to take in the view comfortably. "How's that?"

  "Better, thank you."

  The ship gave a small start and they drifted forwards, towards Jupiter. Ben knew it was big, but somehow being able to see all of it—just—made him really appreciate just how huge it was. Browns, creams, oranges all slid against each other, fractals of smaller vortices blending the stripes of colour together. Here and there, great blisters of orange spread those stripes apart, including an enormous example towards the underside of the planet.

  "Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system," Tom told Ben in a matter-of-fact way, "but did you know that it could have been a star instead?"

  Ben had heard something like that before, but he'd thought it was a made-up story. "No," he said.

  "Jupiter's makeup consists of hydrogen and helium—predominantly hydrogen—just like our own sun. If Jupiter had only been a bit more massive, it too could have been a star."

  "So it's not going to explode or anything like that, then?"

  Tom laughed. "No, it's not going to explode. For the fusion process between hydrogen and helium to occur—that's the part that releases energy as light—it would need to be at least twenty percent bigger. Even then it would be barely noticeable on Earth, being only a fifth as bright as the sun and a lot further away."

  Ben couldn't imagine Jupiter being even bigger. "How big is the sun compared to Jupiter?"

  "The sun has a diameter ten times as large as Jupiter."

  "Ten times?" Ben choked.

  "That's correct. In space, scale is virtually limitless. Our sun is a small sun in the scale of the universe. That largest known stars, such as the supergiant VY Canis Majoris, can be many thousands of times bigger than our sun. If our sun were to be replaced by VY Canis Majoris, it would engulf Jupiter."

  It was as though Ben's brain had thrown an error code. He simply couldn't picture anything as large as that. Reminding himself of the view he'd had of the sun only moments ago, a glowing dot among glowing dots, the thought of filling that entire view and more with fusing gases made him feel disorientated. Suddenly, Jupiter, despite its enormous size in front of him, seemed quite insignificant.

  "Project Jove was started so we could gain more of an understanding into the building blocks of stars. Fusion is the most efficient way to create energy, and between research by Helios Technologies Corporation on the sun and on Jupiter, we hope to further our understanding of it. Until then, we'll simply have to make do with ordinary fission."

  "Why is fusion so hard?"

  "Stellar nucleosynthesis—that's fusion in a star—occurs due to the huge gravitational forces drawing the matter together. The friction becomes so great that the heat, over ten million kelvin, causes the fusion reaction to happen. As we see with Jupiter, this cannot occur on a smaller scale. To make something small enough to fit on Earth, let alone in a laboratory, is infinitely complex."

  As they drew slowly closer to Jupiter, Ben stared at the swirling rings, mesmerised. He almost felt he could see them changing shape, evolving and dancing.

  "What can we learn from Jupiter?" he asked.

  "While research continues on Earth, out here on Jove station we are developing a theory that could get us one step closer to understanding and replicating fusion by studying the gases and the way they behave. You see, if the scale of a device that is feasible on Earth is not enough, then perhaps something larger will do. Something much larger."

  Ben blinked. A familiar rush of thoughts inside his head told him he was having a realisation. Jupiter, a failed star. Only twenty percent bigger and it would have been.

  "You want to … ignite Jupiter?"

  Tom laughed. "Theoretically, yes."

  "Theoretically?"

  "You see those bands of colour on Jupiter?" Tom asked.

  "Yeah …"

  "Some of them are light, some of them are dark. The light ones are called zones and are rising, the dark ones called belts and are sinking."

  "Uh huh," Ben said, not sure where Tom's point was leading.

  "Do you know why these zones and belts rise and sink?"

  Ben shook his head.

  "Neither do we. There are a great many mysteries that Project Jove aims to solve, and fusion is one of them. We're a long, long way off any usable breakthroughs."

  This seemed very pessimistic to Ben. "How long do you think it's going to be?"

  "Oh, decades at least. Maybe even centuries. But this is the seed we plant for our future, not for ourselves. This is why Project Jove has been built to span generations of scientists who work towards the salvation of humanity now instead of when it's too late."

  The sun caught the smooth, angular edge of the station. Ben hadn't really noticed it until then, dwarfed as it was by the gas giant. Inside it felt big to Ben, filled with people he didn't know, rooms he'd never been in and work he didn't understand, but out here it looked small, vulnerable—particularly the occasional protrusions that reached out into space. It seemed like a small nudge would send it tumbling into Jupiter's atmosphere where it would be crushed into dust.

  "Tell me about the station," Ben said, if anything to distract himself from that sickening thought.

  "Jove station took three decades to construct. Mostly manufactured from lightweight titanium alloys and carbon composites, it was designed to be assembled in space in stages. Each module was constructed twice, once to be built on Earth in the simulation tank—the largest ever created—and once to be built here.

  "Every bolt, every rivet, every weld was practiced to perfection on Earth before being repeated out here. The completed Jove station on Earth now resides at the Kennedy Space Centre, and is a popular tourist attraction. Guests can even stay the night on the station as an experience."

  "Weird," Ben said.

  "To you, maybe. To the people of Earth, they look up to you as the trailblazers of humanity. They wish to emulate that, feel part of it."

  "I guess. Tell me more about our station."

  "There are three main systems on board Jove station. The first is the atmospheric system. This provides the air to breath in and recycles the air that's breathed out. Activated carbon taken from the matter in the waste system filters it and purifies it. The air on board the station is far cleaner than the air on Earth. In fact, if you were to return to Earth, you would require several days in a controlled environment to let you adapt."

  "Wait," Ben said, holding up a hand. "Did you say that the air is filtered from matter in the waste system?"

  "That's correct. The waste is
of course sanitised first."

  "That's gross."

  "It's efficient. The next system is the water system. This takes moisture from both the atmospheric system and the waste system and purifies it for reuse."

  Ben wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  "This water is the purest water you'll ever drink," Tom said. "The system is so efficient that loss is down to zero-point-zero one percent. The station only requires a resupply every two years.

  "Last is the waste system. This is broken down into multiple facets. You've heard about the activated carbon, but we also use some of the bacteria to assist in the production of the base for the food synthesisers."

  Ben's stomach turned. "Really?"

  "Really. We grow a fungus from cultures sent from Earth that can be formed into multiple shapes and textures. It naturally carries most of the constituents of a healthy human diet, with the remaining vitamins and flavourings added artificially. This system is eighty-two percent efficient and is the sole source of personnel dietary intake."

  Rubbing his stomach, Ben wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to eat anything again.

  "Let's change the subject," he said.

  "Well as luck—and months of intense planning—would have it, the resupply barge has arrived. Look, to the left."

  Leaning forward to see, Ben glimpsed a long, thin structure moving slowly towards the station.

  "Oh yeah, I see it," he said. "So what's this refit for, anyway?"

  "When the station was built, it was equipped with the most up-to-date technology available. That technology is outdated now, so it's being replaced. This aligns with the Hohmann transfer window—"

  "The what?"

  "The period when the distance between two bodies is at its smallest."

  "Oh, right."

  "And so the new equipment is here now."

  Ben watched the barge drift listlessly towards the station. It seemed to only just be moving. He thought about his parents, about how busy they were, and he felt guilty for being so selfish considering what a huge deal this station and its research was. Could he have been more childish about the whole thing? Now was when he was supposed to have been becoming an adult, yet he was still mucking about with dangerous flying claws and pining for a planet he'd never even been to. He felt like he needed to take control, take responsibility for himself.

  "I forged permission to do this," he blurted out.

  Tom's reply was not immediate. "What do you mean?" he said.

  "I copied my dad's fingerprint with Shelltape and forged the permission slip to come on board. I shouldn't have done. I'm sorry. I've let everyone down."

  Ben waited for Tom to respond. It was agonising. He deserved to be told off, wanted to be reprimanded. He couldn't bear the lie any longer.

  "Ben, I don't know what you're talking about," Tom said at last. "Your parents signed a permission form for you two weeks ago."

  Chapter 8

  "Two weeks ago?" Ben repeated. He heard himself say it, but still couldn't quite fathom what it meant.

  "Yes—the day you asked."

  "But—but I thought—"

  "If you're thinking about the promise to let you ride the tug if you achieved an A in your class—I think your father was simply trying to motivate you."

  Ben was dumbfounded. All this time they were going to let him take the tour anyway. The bubble of guilt swelled.

  "I need to speak to them," he said.

  "Now?" Tom asked.

  "Yes please."

  "I'll see if I can get hold of them for you."

  "Don't tell them where I am."

  "Yes, of course."

  Ben waited as Tom contacted his parents. The monitor in front of Ben showed a holding screen while the call connected.

  "Ben!" It was Ben's dad. "Ben, I'm so sorry, we were supposed to be there this afternoon, but we had to hold the barge back while we sorted out a few problems—"

  "Dad," Ben interrupted.

  Ben's dad looked surprised. His mum then appeared in the frame as well.

  "Adam, you didn't say it was Ben calling," she said.

  "I've only just answered," Ben's dad replied.

  "Mum—Dad," Ben addressed them both. He took a breath. His fingers tingled. "I went on the tug without your permission. I forged your fingerprint, dad. I'm sorry."

  His parents were quiet for a moment. His father looked blank, while his mother smiled, her eyes reddening.

  "I'm sorry," Ben said again. The silence was killing him.

  "That's okay," his mum said. She laughed through the tears building in her eyes, while his dad broke into a smile. "We wanted you to have this anyway."

  "If you were able to circumvent the security system," his dad added, "then you deserve an A from me anyway. How'd you do it?"

  While this reaction was the one Ben wanted, he somehow knew it wasn't the one he needed. "I used Shelltape to copy your print from the tablet screen."

  His dad was shaking his head with amazement. "Genius," he said.

  "Shouldn't I be in trouble?" Ben asked, not believing those words were actually coming out of his own mouth. His parents' reaction was immediate: they seemed to snap back to reality, to a neutral state.

  "Well, yes," his dad said. "You need to know that what you did isn't right."

  "Okay," Ben said.

  "Are you on the tug now?" his mum asked.

  Ben nodded. "Yes."

  "Finish your tour," she said, "and we'll talk about this tomorrow. It's still your birthday after all."

  Ben felt so confused. He loved his parents very much, and he knew that they loved him, but he needed them to actually be his parents. They were so wrapped up in running this station that it seemed they forgot they had other responsibilities, too.

  "Okay, Mum," he said. "I love you."

  "I love you, too."

  "Enjoy the ride, champ," his dad said. "I'm proud of you."

  The screen went blank. Ben sat motionless for a while.

  "Are you ready to continue the tour?" Tom asked him.

  Was he? He didn't know. For some reason, he struggled to feel anything. "I guess," was his response.

  "Why don't we stay here and watch the docking of the barge," Tom suggested. "I can tell you all about it."

  "Okay," Ben said, half listening.

  As Tom began explaining more about the Hohmann transfer window and gravity assist manoeuvres, Ben stared out of the window, through the barge, through Jupiter and into infinity. He thought about the dreams he had of flying, about how he thought he'd wanted to fly in the tug, but he realised then that the dreams weren't literal—they were simply a longing to be free.

  The station, its purpose—he knew as long as he and his family were there, they could never be free. His parents could never be his parents, not truly. A commitment had been made by them to serve the station, its crew, and most importantly, Helios Technologies Corporation. A family could only ever be fourth on that list.

  Ben wished he was far away from the station, far, far away. He wished he was in that world he dreamed off of, the world with grass and clouds. The world where he could be free.

  "… and so the tugs are used to guide it into place," Tom was saying.

  "Huh?" Ben said.

  "Which bit didn't you hear?"

  "The bit—oh, never mind. Carry on."

  Tom made a huffing noise, then carried on. "Because the barge is unmanned, piloted tugs come in to assist it in the final docking procedure. On older stations, such as the Ares station orbiting Mars, docking can take over three hours to complete, but on the Jove station it only takes twenty minutes.

  "You see, the station's internal guidance and stabilisation system—IGS, for short—uses nanometre-accurate readings to keep it perfectly placed in Jupiter's orbit, and those figures can also be used to guide objects within the vicinity of the station, too. The information I am using to pilot this tug, for instance, is provided by that very IGS system. The same goes for the barge."

  Be
n had been listening to that and couldn't help but have his interest piqued. He'd come across the IGS system in his research for the Hoverclaw, and although it had overwhelmed him, he still found it fascinating. It boggled his mind that it could even be created in the first place.

  He watched as two tugs, the same as the one he was in, emerged from behind the station to meet the barge. From out here they looked like little creatures scuttling about, tentatively approaching a larger animal.

  "What about the tugs? Aren’t they piloted manually?"

  "The tugs serve as a human backup to what would otherwise be an automated process, however the instruments they fly to are all fed by the IGS."

  "Seems sort of pointless."

  "Humans like to make sure the job is done properly."

  Ben snorted. "Well, I think you're doing an alright job."

  Suddenly, all the lights in the tug switched off, leaving Ben sitting in darkness, heart pounding. Then they all switched back on again as if nothing had ever happened.

  "What the hell was that?" he wheezed, eyes darting between instruments he didn't understand, looking for a warning he wouldn't recognise.

  "I'm sorry," Tom said. "That was supposed to be a joke. You said I was doing an alright job and so I pretended not to be."

  Ben tipped his head back onto the seat. Perspiration was already clammy on his neck. He released the seat's armrests. Then he started laughing uncontrollably.

  "Are you okay?" Tom asked.

  Once Ben had regained control of himself, he wiped his eyes, blinking to clear his blurred vision. "Tom," he said, "you're crazy."

  "I'm very sorry, I thought it would be funny—"

  "It was, it was," Ben interrupted. "It was very funny. Probably best not to do that to anyone else though, yeah?"

  "Yes, of course."

  The tugs drew in closer to the barge, nipping at its underbelly as it dipped low and slow towards the station. Ben estimated less then fifty metres before it was docked.