Year’s Best SF 15

by David G. Hartwell; Kathryn Cramer

  Her lungs demanded air, and she decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a breath from the thin atmo. She’d expelled her breath before coming down in case it was hard vacuum.

  “Heads up!” said a man’s voice from above.

  One of the older passengers, Mr. Lyle, gripped the edge of the hatch opening with one hand and held the leak kit in the other.

  She waved for him to toss it down. He did, and she caught it with her right hand while anchoring herself to the ladder with her left. She removed the sealant grenade from the kit, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the middle of the room.

  The grenade exploded into a cloud of light-blue fibers.

  Air currents caused by the leak made the fibers swarm like insects toward the hole in the hull. Some were swept out into space, but some stuck to the edges of the hole and caught others as they passed. In less than a minute the leak was sealed as the fibers congealed over it.

  With the Moonskimmer airtight again, Danica manually released air from the reserve tanks to bring the pressure up to normal. Then she carefully checked the lower level to assess the damage.

  “I think my arm’s broke,” Bryson said as Danica floated up through the hatch. “My mom is very gonna sue you. You’ll be lucky to pi lot a garbage truck in the future.”

  At least he was back strapped into his seat.

  Danica ignored his comment and returned to her chair in the center of the cabin. “Well, folks,” she said, “looks like we got hit by a meteor. Our computers are down, and I had to shut off the main engine manually. But the leak is sealed, and we’ve still got plenty of air, so I think the danger is past.” With the computer destroyed, Danica had been unable to calculate their trajectory to know whether she had stopped the main engine in time. She hoped she had.

  “That was very heroic, what you did, young lady,” said Mr. Lyle.

  She shrugged and smiled at him. “Just doing my job. And thanks for the assist.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Ms. Paloma, another of the vacationing retirees.

  “We wait,” said Danica. “Traffic control will realize we’re overdue and start searching for us. They’ll send a tug to pick us up eventually.” She looked at Bryson and said, “I guess you’re going to miss that basketball game.”

  “Why can’t we just call and ask them to come get us?” asked Bryson’s younger sister, Maddy.

  “Coms are out, too,” said Danica. “That meteor really did a—”

  “It wasn’t a meteor,” Bryson said.

  Danica blinked. “Well, I guess you’re right. Technically, it’s a meteoroid.”

  “It wasn’t a meteoroid.” He stared defiantly at her from behind his purple visor.

  “Just shut up, Bryson,” said Maddy. “Why do you always act like you know everything?”

  “You shut up, dumwitch,” he replied.

  “It doesn’t really matter what hit us,” said Danica. “What matters is we’re—”

  “Nothing hit us,” said Bryson.

  Danica let out a slow breath. “Maybe I just imagined the hole in the hull and the air leaking out of the ship.”

  Bryson shook his head. “Yeah, okay, I’m just a kid. I don’t know zot. But my A.I.—” he tapped his datavisor “—says the engine activated slightly before the sideways jolt.”

  Danica raised her eyebrows. An A.I. small enough to fit in a visor would be so expensive that this kid had to come from one of the trillionaire families. His last name clicked in her mind—Sullivan, as in Sullivan Space Technologies. “Then what did it?”

  “Sabotage,” said Bryson. “Someone did this to us.”

  Maddy gasped.

  Shaking her head, Danica said, “Why would anyone sabotage the Moonskimmer?”

  “I know,” said Maddy. “Our mom’s chief negotiator for L.M.C. The union’s made threats.”

  “Now wait a minute,” said Mr. Lyle. “My son’s a union steward. They would never—”

  Several people began talking at once.

  “Stop!” Danica said. “Who did this and why is a matter for the authorities back in Luna City. We survived. That’s all that matters right now.”

  After a few seconds of silence, Bryson said, “We have forty-seven minutes left to live.”

  As the others responded with shocked exclamations, Danica asked calmly, “Our trajectory?”

  Bryson nodded. “My A.I.’s done a nice little animation. In just under half an orbit, we’re going to make a tiny new crater on the moon.”

  Obviously she had shut down the engine too late. But…She unbuckled herself and moved to the hatch leading to the lower level.

  “Come with me, Bryson,” she said as she opened the hatch.

  Instead of unbuckling, he folded his arms tight. “You gonna lock me up? I’m only telling the truth!”

  “I know,” Danica said. “Congratulations! You and your A.I. have just been promoted to navigator. Now get down here and see if you can link up with what’s left of the computer.”

  “Already tried through the wireless. The software’s skunked,” said Bryson. “No way for my A.I. to make sense of it. And rewriting from zot’s gonna take a lot more than forty-five minutes.”

  Danica tightened her lips for a moment. “Look, it’s just our attitude that’s the problem.”

  Bryson snorted. “If we just think positive, everything’ll turn out brightwise?”

  “No, the Moonskimmer’s attitude,” said Danica. “The main engine will push us forward if I switch it back on, but we can’t turn without the A.C.S.—Attitude Control System.”

  “There’s no manual override?” asked Bryson.

  “There was.” Danica pointed down to the lower level. “Unfortunately, whatever fried the computer also fried the A.C.S. board. The only way we’re controlling those rockets is by computer. Have your A.I. focus on that.”

  Mr. Lyle’s voice came from behind her. “I think I can get your radio working again.”

  Danica’s heart seemed to jump inside her. “Keep working on the A.C.S.,” she said to Bryson. She launched herself back to her seat at the center of the cabin.

  “What’ve you got?” she asked Mr. Lyle, who had started taking apart her control panel.

  “Well, it seemed strange to me that a computer problem would take out the com, too.” Mr. Lyle tugged at some multicolored wires.

  Danica shrugged. “It’s all digital.”

  “Yes, but radio doesn’t have to be digital. I can remember the days when even TV was still analog. Terrible picture, but at least the shows were better back—”

  “Honey,” said Mrs. Lyle, “fix the radio?”

  “Oh, right,” he said. He pulled out a circuit board and frowned at it. “Anyhow, I figure even if the digital part doesn’t work, the radio part might. And if we can send an S.O.S., someone might pick it up and come to rescue us.”

  Danica doubted anyone would be listening for non-digital radio signals, but there was no harm in letting Mr. Lyle try. “Do what you can.”

  She turned to the other passengers, still strapped in their seats. “Anyone have any experience repairing computer control systems?”

  After a few seconds of silence, Maddy said, “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”

  “Not if your brother and his A.I. can get the attitude rockets to work,” said Danica. “We just need to get into a safe orbit, and someone will eventually pick us up.”

  Bryson shook his head. “Can’t.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Can’t’? Keep trying,” said Danica.

  “No point. Got into the A.C.S. enough to read the fuel pressure: zero. Explosion must’ve taken out a fuel line.” Bryson shook his head.

  “So we can’t do anything but float until we crash?” asked Mrs. Park, a retired high school teacher who had chatted merrily with Danica earlier in the trip.

  “What about the main drive fuel?” Danica asked.

  “Nothing wrong with the main drive, far as I know.” Bryson shook his head. “They wanted it to work unt
il it smashed us into the moon.”

  “So we can accelerate, but we can’t turn,” Danica said. “We’ve got to find a way to…spacesuit!” She floated over to the cabinet where her spacesuit was stored. “I’ll attach a line to the nose and use the suit thrusters to swing us around.”

  She opened the cabinet and grabbed her suit. The composite fabric, stronger than woven steel, tore like cotton candy. She stared at the wispy handful. Nanobots. That was the only possible explanation: someone had infected the suit with composite-eating nanobots.

  With little doubt as to what she would find, she checked the fuel gauge on the thrust-pack. Empty.

  She shoved the suit back into the cabinet. She swung over to the cabinet holding the “Breach-Balls,” inflatable life-support bubbles with breathable air for two passengers for up to twelve hours. Nanobots had ruined all four of them. No one would be doing any E.V.A.

  She turned to face her passengers. All but Mr. Lyle, still working at the radio, stared back at her.

  “Anyone have any ideas?” she said.

  There was a long pause.

  Mr. Godfrey, a wizened bald gentleman who had hardly said two words during the whole trip, broke the silence. “I read a science fiction story once where people were marooned in orbit, and they made a hole in their water tank so that it acted like a rocket.”

  “Good thinking,” said Danica. “Our drinking water tank isn’t big enough, though. The only liquid we have enough of is fuel, and we need that for the main engine.” She wrinkled her brow. “Plus, the only access to the fuel tank is from outside, and we haven’t got a spacesuit. But we need to think of all possibilities.”

  “Young man,” said Mrs. Park, looking at Bryson, “you said we had less than half an orbit before crashing. Is it more than a quarter?”

  “Um, yeah,” he said.

  Mrs. Park smiled. “Then we have nothing to worry about.” She made a fist with her right hand. “This is the moon.” She pointed at the center of her fist with her left index finger. “Our ship started off pointed at the moon. But without the attitude rockets to keep us facing the moon as our orbit takes us around, our inertia will keep us pointing the same direction.” Without changing her left hand’s orientation, she moved it a quarter of a revolution around her fist. Her index finger now pointed 90 degrees away from her fist. “When we’re no longer pointing at the moon, fire the main engine. All we need to do is wait.”

  Several passengers sighed in relief.

  “There’s only one small problem,” said Danica. “We weren’t using attitude rockets to stay pointed at the moon. We use gravity gradient stabilization—tidal forces. Basically, the long axis of the ship stays pointed at the moon because of the slight difference in the gravitational force on the near end as opposed to the far end.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Park.

  “What if we made another hole near the nose?” said Mrs. Lyle. “Use some of our air to push us before plugging the hole?”

  Danica frowned. “Maybe, if we had something that could make a hole through ten centimeters of diamondglass…”

  “No,” said Bryson. “My A.I. says it wouldn’t be enough even if we emptied all the atmo.”

  “Action and reaction. We need to find something to use as propellant, or else we can’t turn the ship,” said Mrs. Park.

  “Wait,” said Mr. Godfrey. “That’s not true. I read a story once where an astronaut turned his ship one direction by spinning a wheel in the other direction at the ship’s center of gravity.”

  “Yes!” Mrs. Park’s voice was excited. “Conservation of angular momentum. It could work.” She looked at Danica. “Where’s the center of mass on this ship?”

  “It would be in the fuel tank, just above the main engine.” Something about the idea seemed to click in Danica’s mind, but then she shook her head. “There’s no way to access it from here, and even if there were—it’s full of liquid hydrogen.”

  “What if we all got on one side of the ship, made it unbalanced, and then you turned the main engine on?” said Maddy. “Wouldn’t that make it curve around?”

  “A bit,” said Danica.

  Bryson puffed in exasperation. “Not enough to keep us from smashing into the moon, picoceph.”

  “Well, forgive me for not having an A.I. to tell me how to be smart,” said Maddy.

  “Quiet!” said Danica. “Arguing doesn’t help.”

  “Nothing’s gonna help,” said Bryson. “My A.I.’s smarter than all of us put together, and it’s run all the scenarios. In thirty-six minutes we’re going to crash. Get used to it.”

  Danica felt she should protest against hopelessness, but had no idea what to say.

  “Ah, ‘The Cold Equations.’” Mr. Godfrey made a sound that seemed half chuckle, half sigh. “Did your A.I. calculate how many of us would need to jump out the airlock in order to change the ship’s attitude?”

  Bryson’s eyes widened behind his visor.

  “You can’t be serious,” said Danica.

  Mr. Godfrey smiled crookedly. “Deadly so. I volunteer myself as reaction mass, but I doubt I weigh enough on my own.”

  “Not enough,” said Bryson. “Even if all of us jumped, it’s not enough.”

  “I’ve got it!” yelled Mr. Lyle. “It works! I think.”

  “What?” said Danica.

  “The radio. I think I’m sending out an S.O.S.” Mr. Lyle tapped two wires together in rhythm. “Dot-dot-dot dash dash dash dot-dot-dot.”

  “So now we just sit back and wait for them to rescue us?” said Bryson’s sister.

  “There’s a possibility that an ore freighter is in a nearby orbit,” said Danica. She figured it was only a five percent chance, but that was five percentage points more than they’d had before.

  “Except the freighters are all grounded ’cause the miners are on strike,” said Bryson.

  “Don’t blame this on the miners, boy,” said Mr. Lyle. “The working conditions—”

  “Stop it,” said Danica.

  “—are completely unsafe,” continued Mr. Lyle. “L.M.C. makes obscene profits while paying sub-standard wa—”

  Bryson opaqued his visor.

  “Enough!” Danica pointed at Mr. Lyle. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Mr. Lyle shut up.

  “You can either keep sending the S.O.S. on the slim chance someone’ll hear it.” Danica took a deep breath. “Or you can spend some time with your wife before the end.”

  He stopped clicking the wires together and looked over at his wife.

  “Or,” Mrs. Lyle said, “you could do both. Keep trying—I’ll come to you.” She unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed herself away from her seat, toward her husband in the middle of the cabin.

  But her inexperience in zero-gee showed as her right hand caught for a moment on her loose seatbelt. She started spinning as she drifted through the air, and her instinctive move of clutching her arms to her chest only made her pirouette faster.

  “Oh dear,” said Mrs. Lyle.

  Bryson let out a slight chuckle, proving that he could still see through the opaqued visor.

  Danica launched herself to rescue the poor woman. For a moment she pictured Mrs. Lyle as a ship, floating helpless in space, just like the Moonskimmer. Except Mrs. Lyle was spinning on her long axis…

  “I’ve got it!” Danica shouted as she grabbed Mrs. Lyle by the arm. Their momentum carried them across the cabin, and Danica was able to catch a handhold and steady them both.

  “We’re going to survive,” Danica said firmly. “We just need to get the ship spinning on its long axis.”

  “How?” said Bryson.

  Danica pointed at Mr. Godfrey. “Kind of like that story he mentioned. We use my chair in the center of the cabin. And we rotate ourselves around it like we’re on one of those playground merry-go-rounds where you spin yourself around by hand power. We’ll need everyone’s mass for this—some of you will just have to hang on to the people in the middle doing the turning.”


  “Glad my idea helps,” said Mr. Godfrey, “but what good is it to rotate on the long axis? We’ll still be pointed at the moon.”

  Danica turned to Mrs. Park. “Gyroscopic inertia.”

  Mrs. Park’s eyes lit up. “Oh, of course. You all remember my example before? It was wrong because the tidal force kept pulling the long axis toward the moon. But if we’re spinning on our long axis, gyroscopic inertia will resist that pull, just like a spinning gyroscope resists the pull of gravity trying to make it topple over.”

  “Mr. Lyle,” said Danica, “can you handle catching people there?”

  “I can.” He anchored himself with one arm through the seatbelt strap, and Danica gave his wife a gentle push toward him.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Bryson.

  Danica paused in making her way toward the next passenger. “Why not? I think it’ll work.”

  “That’s just it,” he said. He cleared his visor and looked at her with wide eyes. “My A.I. agrees with you.”

  Twenty-eight minutes later, and only 160 meters from the lunar surface, Danica activated the main engine. The Moonskimmer accelerated toward the clear space ahead, and the Moon gradually fell away beneath them. It was another eight hours before a tug from Luna City caught them.

  Just before stepping into the airlock, Bryson turned back to Danica. “I’m not going to let my mom sue you.”

  Danica smiled wryly. “Thanks, I guess.”

  Bryson shrugged. “You know, my grandfather runs Sullivan Space Technologies.”

  “I suspected as much,” said Danica.

  “He’ll track down whoever was behind the sabotage, even if the police don’t.”

  She nodded.

  “Gramps just built a luxury cruise ship to go out to Saturn,” Bryson said. “He really wants me to go on the maiden voyage with him.”

  Puzzled as to why he was telling her this, Danica said, “Well, I hope our little adventure hasn’t put you off tourism forever.”

  “Nah.” He shook his head. “I’m going to tell him I’ll go—if he hires you as the pi lot.”

  He stepped into the airlock, leaving Danica speechless.

  Edison’s Frankenstein