‘Doctor Eckert!’
The commander’s tone, jarring even over the com, snapped Dean out of his reverie. He looked up, held up a finger to indicate that Shane should wait, then looked right back down again, following the mathematical trail right down the proverbial rabbit hole.
‘Dean, God damn it, so help me—’
“Please, commander,” Dean said in his most impassioned tone, “we’ve got to keep going, just one more minute…”
He returned his focus to the equations. They were almost lined up. Almost there. This was everything. The key, the reassurance he could give them, proof that he hadn’t completely lost it. He only had seconds left to figure out the endgame, he couldn’t waste them on idle chatter.
He heard Jo’s voice, pleading with him, ‘Dean, what are you doing? Why are we heading into that thing?’ In his tunnel-visioned focus on the problem at hand, he thought she was still right next to him—but her voice sounded distant. Artificial. How could he had not noticed? But he couldn’t worry about that now. Have to make them line up.
There! Finally. The deviation he’d been looking for.
‘Dean, you son of a bitch,’ Shane growled, ‘I’m going to come down there and put you down myself if you don’t—’
“Full stop commander. Now. Execute!”
It was a testament to what remained of their friendship that, following an infinitely brief, reluctant pause, the commander finally did as he was asked. A creaky silence fell over the ship as they ground to a halt. On the exterior monitors, the spacewalkers hugged the hull, finally free of the g-forces Dean had forced on them in his haste to save the ship.
They were in the belly of the beast now. His calculations had proved out. They’d be safe, so long as they stayed put. Looking over his calculations, Dean couldn’t believe it had all been there all along, the answers that had eluded him so thoroughly. The way forward was obvious now, and the way to keep the ship out of danger. It was all there.
There’d been no way to solve for it on land because the energy behaved differently on land. In space, the numbers added up in a whole different way. It moved slower out here, shifted dimensions differently, all mixed up because of the lack of gravitational pull. The solution had to account for that, or it wouldn’t work at all. Moving closer had been the right call. The only call. His assumptions were mathematically confirmed. He looked up, feeling like a drowning man lifted out of the sea, with an amazing sense of relief washing over his hunched up form. Then he saw the look on Shane’s face over the viewer. He needed to say something, right now. The commander was ready to take drastic action otherwise.
“Look, I couldn’t explain it in the time we had,” Dean attempted to make himself sound reasonable, “but I had no choice.”
He knew Shane was angry beyond words. He also knew that, even assuming he was willing to hear him out, his patience would only go a tiny bit farther.
“If we hadn’t moved the ship, the anomaly would’ve killed us.”
Shane’s softened, just a fraction, but at least he was listening. He wasn’t sure if he’d have been able to do the same, if the circumstances were reversed.
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but there was something about the way it took Denisova.”
‘Took her?’ Shane replied, ‘Jesus, Eckert. You almost make it sound like it’s alive.’
Dean shook his head. “No, not alive. Not exactly. But it’s…”—he caught himself, trying to come up with a way to explain something so wildly speculative—“you know how matter on Earth can be found in several different states. Liquid, solid, gas, and then you’ve got plasma. Which seems like a gas on first glance, and there are similarities, but enough fundamental differences for it to be considered a fourth, distinctive state?”
He was getting a blank stare back so far, but at least the commander wasn’t stopping him. “Right,” Dean continued, “so there’s that. And now we’ve got this new, unfamiliar energy state. We call it gravimetric because it seems to be related to the force of gravity, but there are fundamental differences. And one of those differences is what I saw when the anomaly killed Denisova. It didn’t just draw her in, like a heavy object draws in satellites. It also pushed back. As though she were affecting it somehow, even as tiny as she was compared to such a gigantic force. How does that make sense, unless it’s fundamentally different enough from gravity to be considered a new kind of force altogether? You see? It’s influenced by relative energies in proximity, in this case the energy of a human nervous system. Only we never saw that back home, because there was too much surface interference. There were to many of us, so it didn’t react on an individual basis.”
‘But now that we’re isolated out here, each body had an effect on it?’ Shane asked. He seemed to be catching on. ‘Is that what you’re saying doctor?’
Dean nodded. “Something like that. I can’t say for sure until I learn more, but I did know that however it reacted to her, it would’ve reacted to us in the same way if we’d continued with the deployment.”
‘You moved us away so it wouldn’t find us near the spot where it killed Denisova,’ the commander said, his voice a sudden realization, ‘because there it’d be looking for more—’
“Food,” Dean finished.
Shane winced at the gruesome nature of the representation, sickened by the thought of it. But it was apt. There was no getting around it.
“It’s getting what it needs from Earth right now, but if we moved in to interfere—”
‘It would fight back,’ the commander said. He understood perfectly now. ‘But then why did you think moving closer would help?’
“Because it’s in a different state out here, compared to the closer orbit where it knows what it’s hunting for. Out here, it’s virgin energy. Or at least I hope so. If we can move in and divert quickly enough, we might just cut off the part that’s eating away at the planet.” Then he added weakly, “If we’re lucky.”
‘That’s a hell of a lot of conjecture,’ Shane said.
‘It’s all we’ve got.’ Jo radioed, voicing agreement with Dean’s line of thinking. Or perhaps just supporting a friend. It was hard to guess which, but Dean supposed it didn’t matter.
“The equations add up,” Dean said. “The behavior of the anomaly is different up here in the vacuum, and the properties change the further away we examine. I’m reasonably sure we’re on the right path, but that’s why I had to make sure it added up on paper. There’s one thing I know for sure, if we don’t get closer we’re definitely going to fail.”
“How much closer?’ Shane asked.
‘We’re almost there now. I just need to coordinate the maneuver. If you’ll let me…”
The commander looked like he was going to argue, then fell silent. With a frustrated slump, he motioned for Dean to continue.
“Alright. Get ready to spin on my mark. We’ve only got one shot at this.”
‘Hope you know what you’re doing,’ Shane replied, his cynical remark breaking the tension, somewhat.
I hope so too. Dean returned his attention to the flashing numbers, waiting for them to line up, hopefully sometime before the ship was torn apart.
67.
The magnitude of the shear continued on—a constant threat. Shane had to hold course perfectly steady, according to Dean’s exacting calculations, else the ship would buffet again, threaten to break apart. Shane was pushing all the boundaries, for the sake of information more than ship control. He had to understand how this new, previously unknown stream worked. And so he tested, carefully, where the boundaries lay. Creeping toward the edge until just the moment the effect started to take hold of his ship, then easing back to median. He checked how long it took, and how far they’d travelled, before moving into another angle and testing once more.
This is insane, he thought, pure suicide. For a pilot that didn’t have a genius navigator aboard, that would surely be true. He could only hope that Dean Eckert was that genius. He compartmentalized the dire prediction, tel
ling himself he’d write about it when he got home, consult with all the pilots and spacefarers he could find. With added force to his already firm grip on the controls, he continued testing the bounds.
A savage jolt slammed his spine into the seat, delivering a shooting pain from tail-bone almost to his shoulder blades. He ignored it. Several indicators crept into the red. Those, he could not ignore. There would be time enough for pain later, not so for potential repercussions. He eased off and got them back on the straight and narrow, abandoning the experimentation for now.
Of all concerns facing him, the most pressing, aside from navigating this path to hell, was the new configuration of his ship. While there was no air resistance in the vacuum, he had to take in the location and intensity of the anomaly, making sure not to approach too close with the upper apparatus of the solution exposed. But he couldn’t dip too low, either, or else he’d lose the central trajectory so vital to Dean’s projections. According to the scientist, the path was just as vital as the distance. Thread the needle, pilot.
* * *
Shane Douglas kept an open channel with the evac team, although there wasn’t much to be said. They would hold position until otherwise ordered, and until such time, there was nothing to do but hang on and ride it out. Shane had informed them they didn’t need to check-in or reply in the interim. He had his cameras trained on them, and that was enough. But he did keep a dialogue going, every free moment he had, conveying encouragement and explaining everything Doctor Eckert had explained to him. He hoped the constant flow of information would prove a comfort, allow them to forget their precarious situation for a minute or two, unlikely though that was.
“So when we hit the mark it’s going to be a quick turn-around, and you just have to reposition the top to specs and then get to work underside. We’ll give you all the time we can, but work fast. The sooner we finish, the better our chances of getting out.” He winced inwardly at the last part. No point in adding to the pressure. What the hell was I thinking?
What he said was true, though. Even if everything Eckert theorized proved true, they were still way off course for the return, and the oxygen issue wasn’t going away either. He’d managed to put that out of his mind for a while, but there was no getting around it much longer. They wouldn’t have enough air to make it all the way down, and there was no escaping that biological imperative. If this new alignment hail-mary of Eckert’s didn’t shoot them home quick as expected, they’d perish long before making it back.
Even if by some miracle they resolved that issue satisfactorily, the re-entry would be strictly by the seat of their pants. Just getting down in one piece was the main objective. And Shane would be the one making the tough calls, no one else. If they failed, it would be on him. This wasn’t ego so much as an acknowledgement that any and all choices presented to them now would be bad ones, and it was preferable for a commander to scuttle his own ship if it came to that. He was very much aware that was the likeliest situation, though he would keep it to himself.
A heavy slam wracked the fuselage, shaking loose what fixtures hadn’t already rattled apart, along with the remainder of his fillings, if the pain in his clamped-down jaw was to be believed. At least it took his mind off the back pain, he thought with a grim edge.
“So anyway,” Shane said, returning to the spacewalkers as if nothing had happened, “until we reach that point you just stay put. I’ll give you as smooth a ride as I can, but you know how that goes. I’ll let you know when it’s safe to proceed. Until then I’ll keep the line open.”
There was no reply, but he saw Evans gesture slightly with a boot, using the only limb he had free to tell his commander he was listening. The words of encouragement were being received, and hopefully helping to make their harrowing ordeal pass a little quicker.
After delivering his explanation, Doctor Eckert had settled back into his zombie routine, once again staring blankly into the scrolling equations like a slot-machine addict. There would be little to gain by bothering him, and hopefully Dean might glean some new bit of information that could help them, so Shane had left him alone. But his options were narrowing, so he decided it was time to interrupt whatever the doctor was doing.
‘Eckert, Command. I could use an ETA up here Doctor. Path’s narrowing down to nothing. Just so you know.’
Dean looked up, took a deep breath, and shut off the monitor. “It’s time,” he announced. “Command, go on your mark. Evac, brace for the maneuver and stand by for secondary deployment.”
The spacewalkers radioed their acknowledgement, and Shane accepted the directive with a crisp ‘Roger’. They were fully committed now. Once in position, there would be no stopping until they deployed fully, then made their escape.
* * *
Unlike the first phase, there would be no diverting the anomaly until the arms were deployed this time. In order to ensure the energy had no place to go but directly away from Earth, they had to nail it straight-on, all at once. Until they did so, the ship would be caught in the middle.
Theoretically at least, Dean’s new trajectory should prevent them from getting splinched in the time it took to deploy, but theory was of little comfort. Shane flew them into the maw of the beast, holding back as long as he could before spinning the ship onto its side. From there, the deployment should go unchallenged by the anomaly until the second maneuver, which would align the remaining arms and fully deploy the solution. Theoretically.
‘Halfway there,’ Shane reported, ‘better get to work, it’s starting to fight back. Bucking like a bronco up here…’
He needn’t have bothered with the analogy, everyone could feel it. The ship was compressing once more under the stress, giving the impression of being trapped inside a coke can, slowly being crunched underfoot.
Dean retook the lead, working in concert with his commander now.
“Evans! Kashani! You’re up!”
The spacewalkers moved to link the two struts. “Andrea, they’re coming down soon. Get ready!”
On the opposite monitor, Andrea Price sailed into position on top of the lower strut, beginning to code in the deployment. She was prepping both struts, Saito feeding her real-time updates from his console. So far, so good, Dean thought. Feeling somewhat superfluous, he watched with mounting anxiety as the crew prepared for full deployment.
* * *
Ed Evans carefully entered the adjusted coordinates for the focus-beam. There was no margin for error, and backtracking was off the table. He fought the instinct to look over. To see Kashani would be to see Larisa all over again. That was her station, that’s where she’d been when it happened. He knew he’d relive the entire ordeal if he put that strut into his frame of reference once more. He would have to look over when he was done, check in with Kashani and break for the underside. Until then, he would focus on his station and resist any urges to look elsewhere. He didn’t know if he could take it otherwise.
Evans, Kashani, report. How’s it going up there?
Evans felt himself seize up. He was so tunneled on the assigned task that the distraction sent a panic through him.
Thankfully Kashani was there to respond, perhaps picking up on his partner’s hesitation. ‘Making progress, commander. Looks like we’ll be done inside of two minutes, all goes well.’
Evans felt a surge of gratitude. He wasn’t alone.
Copy. Two minutes. Price is getting mighty lonely, though, so get down there as soon as you can.
‘Will do command,’ Kashani answered.
Evans heard static on his channel and forced himself to reply. “Command, Evans. Tell her we’ll be there in a jiff.”
Evans spoke to himself in calming tones, affirming each adjustment with an inward ‘you’ve got this’ nudge, watching the numbers swing back and forth, positive to negative and back again, edging slowly to parity. Perfect alignment kills the anomaly, he thought. The macabre little mantra amused him, though he realized with a start it wasn’t quite right. As they’d entered the maw of
the beast, in the dark as it were, it wasn’t a perfect alignment at all. But rather an alignment in the dark, the only way to save the Earth and themselves at the same time. By pulling off this dark alignment, he realized, Dean was ensuring they got squeezed out the other side, solving their lack of remaining air issue as well. Brilliant.
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