by T I WADE
“I think we should search for about 70 minutes, then one of us goes up into orbit to report to Ryan,” VIN suggested.
“A waste of gas right now. He must wait, and I don’t want to tell him that we are searching for a needle in a haystack,” replied Jonesy. “We go up when we have just enough fuel to get into orbit, then Asterspace Three can come over with fuel supplies. I know old Max Burgos is dying to get a real journey in space.”
Jonesy took off and Maggie followed, keeping a few hundred feet to the left of Astermine One so Jonesy could see her at all times. At 300 feet they glided over the rim of the crater and flew the two miles to the next one.
Three minutes later the rim appeared, and what Jonesy immediately noticed, was that the crater wall looked like the mountains in Arizona, totally barren of dust. He could see every nook and cranny in the crater walls. He told the crew to look for any dusting atop the crater ridge and they replied there wasn’t any.
“The first crater we checked out yesterday was full of dust. Guys I think we are onto something here.
They searched the crater for 20 minutes and found nothing.
“Maggie, continue on a mile and see if you can find another crater of this size, in the same direction we are heading. I’m going to land to check the dust quantity,” Jonesy ordered. She disappeared over the crater rim as Jonesy descended. There was absolutely no dust at all when his thrusters hit the yellowish surface.
“I am about three miles at your two o’clock position, and I see a massive crater. It must be at least ten miles across, far too big. It is starboard of my craft. That’s all I can see…hold on…..there is a darker shadow inside the crater itself. Jonesy do you know what it looks like?” Maggie asked.
“Like what?”
“It looks like a crater within a crater, just like I found on DX2014.”
“Stay at hover Maggie, I’ll head over and use your lights as a beacon,” replied Jonesy powering up the craft again.
“It looks the same as DX2014, but the inner crater looks only a mile wide, not two, and it is pitch black inside the inner crater.”
Jonesy could see Maggie’s lights as he rose over the rim. He headed slightly to Maggie’s right and within minutes, he was at the lip of the massive crater, its walls over a thousand feet high, and there was no dust there either. Jonesy got excited.
“Maggie, save some fuel. VIN and I are going to have to refuel this baby anyway, so go in and land. I’ll check out the black area and then return. Just leave the lights on, and I’ll come home.”
“Hey, that’s not fair. I want to be the first one to find a diamond,” Maggie admonished.
“You have enough diamonds already, wife,” Jonesy retorted heading down into the blackness of the crater in front of him. “Sure is a crater in a crater this one, I see the walls. It’s like going on a deep scuba dive, like that movie to the bottom of the sea. Here goes…. going in.”
Again there was no dust where the lights shone, he could see the crater wall below the craft and he slowly headed inside the second crater.
“Maggie, you still reading me?” Jonesy asked.
“Yes, but you are getting fainter.”
“Just keep talking so I know when you lose communications,” and Maggie started singing to Saturn.
The second crater was pitch black, and he descended at least 400 feet when the bottom came up to meet him. He could just hear Maggie.
“Maggie, this is scary. It reminds me of that film guy who loves going to the bottom of the sea, what is his name?”
“James Cameron, he did Titanic and those three fantastic Avatar movies,” Suzi replied sitting next to him. “It feels like we are in his sea craft. I watched a documentary about him diving down to the sea bed, years ago.”
“Like who?” shouted Maggie. “I can’t hear you.”
“Like James Cameron and his sea diving documentary,” shouted Suzi. “Sorry, Herr Jones,” she added seeing that she had shouted so loud that she had scared her pilot. He was on edge.
“We have landed on the floor of the second crater. It is dust free and I can’t see anything shinning,” Jonesy reported over the radio. There was no response from Maggie for several seconds, until she came back loud and clear.
“I’m hovering directly above you at 400 feet. You are about 1,200 feet below me on radar, I can see your lights, but I can’t see anything else,” she responded.
“Ok, I’m going to edge around and see what I can find,” said her husband. “Maggie, stay at hover for five minutes, then go back to land.”
Jonesy lifted off and headed in the three o’clock position to what he thought would be the center of the crater. It was smaller than the two-mile craters they had checked out and he couldn’t see anything, even at 100 feet above the floor. Everything was just so black. Maggie radioed in to tell him that she was heading down, when he had to reverse thrust quickly. There was suddenly a thick black crater wall just below him.
“Gee, another crater, another level,” he stated. “Maggie just stay hovering above me. Can you see my lights?”
“Affirmative, I can see the wall shining in front of you.”
“OK going into crater number three. Why do these things come in threes? And this one is less than 800 yards wide, and very dark inside.”
Slowly, with the space around him like a blackness he had never experienced, he descended another 400 feet and found a black, shiny, and clean bottom surface again.
“Jonesy, radar is showing you are 1,950 feet below me, the previous crater’s floor was heading downhill towards the middle.”
“Thanks Maggie, I can hardly see anything down here, even with the lights on.”
“I hope this is not the lair of the space shark,” joked VIN through his suit mike behind the pilots.
“Oh shut up and use your eyes, partner. Any deeper and darker, and I think a massive jelly fish, or calamari is going to shoot out and swallow us.”
“The bottom is black here, Maggie, like that black graphite we saw on DX2014. Gravity has also risen about 10 percent. I’m on 40 percent hover thrust and about 10 feet off the floor. This crater is smaller than the last one. We’ll spend a couple of minutes checking it out and then we must call it a day. Maggie, get its position on your computer ready to send back to Ryan when we go back up.”
It was so dark, that the lights around the ship didn’t illuminate much. Jonesy stayed at the same direction and edged forward. Within a minute he had to reverse thrust again, there was another wall, a black wall right in front of the craft and he had to increase power to 45 percent to stay off the ground.
“Maggie, you won’t believe this, a fourth crater. We beat the record. I am going to look over the rim and then come up; we are out of gas.”
Slowly the craft rose 50 feet, then 55 feet and slowly the lip dropped below them. This deep vertical hole was narrow. Jonesy could just fit Astermine One into it. He estimated that he had about 20 feet fore and aft to spare. He positioned the front of the craft to within ten feet of the wall and slipped into the crater. He began to descend very slowly foot by foot, 50 feet, 100 feet, 150 feet.
“You are 2,100 feet underground, Jonesy. Are you going mining down there or what?” There was no response. “Jonesy! Talk to me, Jonesy!”
Nobody responded to Maggie; they were in total shock. Less than 100 feet below them was the most beautiful sight any human had ever seen. There were millions of dazzling lights going off in every direction. And right below the craft, right next to the wall of the crater, was the first diamond Jonesy had seen. It was big, bloody big!
“Maggie we found them! You should see this one. It’s mine, mine! Yippee! It’s about the size of a minivan and there is no way we could fit it into either of these two craft. I’m going in to pick up a few small ones…hold on…. there is no flat place to land…. VIN, we need fuel, the hover thrust here is at 51 percent, we have found the mother lode! We have to go up.”
Maggie could hear cheering in the other craft; s
he increased her altitude to 2,000 feet, positioned Astermine Two directly above Astermine One and allowed the computers to get a fix on their position using the stars like a sextant.
“Jonesy I’m going into orbit; follow me, you must be low on gas. We can always return tomorrow. Let’s get Max Burgos and Peter Smith on the road in Asterspace Three to pick up your rock.”
“Roger that.” On very low tanks Jonesy ascended, the extra gravity pulling at him just like DX2014 had for the first 100 feet. Astermine One’s hydrogen tanks were virtually empty when he finally joined Maggie in orbit forty miles up. They would have to refuel up there. There was no way he could get down again.
***
The cheering continued in the Bridge of America One when radio communications were resumed, and the good news came through with the exact coordinates of where the diamond mine was.
Ryan did not leave the Bridge while there was no communication from the mining craft. He knew that America One would not hear from them after they went in to land, but the last twenty-four hours had been a lifetime. He was like a dad worried about his son taking the family car.
Kathy was about to give birth. Doctor Rogers guessed that they had about three more days. The engine was finally installed and testing was about to begin. The tests needed the ship to be stationary so that the mechanics could work outside.
Max Burgos and Peter Smith already had Asterspace Three filled with empty canisters and extra hydrogen, and within an hour of the radio message, they undocked.
Captain Pete ordered the first motor tests and for the first time, the third engine ignited and ran on idle for ten minutes. There were bad vibrations coming from the engine, and the spacewalkers began to balance the thrusters after the engine was turned off. By then, Asterspace Three was leaving orbit and heading towards the moon.
***
The excitement in Astermine One had been tremendous. Even Mars Noble had wailed, adding his voice to the excitement of the adults upon seeing the collection of diamonds pretty much all in one place.
With the added thruster power, and with diamonds weighing far less than the platinum rocks they had first collected, Jonesy felt confident about emptying the fourth crater of its wealth. The only problem was that the fourth crater was small, just over a hundred feet across. He and VIN decided that the asteroid that had hit the moon must have created the third crater. The heavier impact of the large vein of graphite and diamonds had certainly made the fourth crater. It was going to be dangerous to get down there, but the minivan-size diamond was his, and he wanted to personally give it to the president of the United States of America as payment for his new Gulfstream.
The flight crew rested for eight hours. Jonesy, and Maggie in the other craft, were tired having done much of the flying. Jonesy had to rest before returning to Maggie and Saturn in the other ship, so he dozed in the right seat of Astermine One, while VIN suited up. VIN would refuel the craft in orbit, something he had done often.
Within eight hours, and with enough fuel in the tanks to get them back down, Jonesy was roused from sleep, immediately he wanted to return to his family. Since walking across had been easy; they had been on the surface, this time they were above the planet in orbit and he would need to be tied to the craft for the transfer. He was helped on with his helmet by VIN who then let out a cord for Maggie to tie to her docking port 300 feet behind them. Finally, with the cord tied between the craft, Jonesy connected his belt safety harness to the cord and carefully pulled himself across to his family.
Once he was helped off with his helmet Maggie and Saturn were glad to see him. He now felt elated.
Jonesy felt guilty asking the president for so much without Ryan’s knowledge; the president was Ryan’s friend after all. But he had seen his opportunity and taken it, and now he felt relieved. At least his persistence had paid off, and there was a really big diamond to repay the country for the Gulfstream. He knew full well that the taxpayer had paid for his luxury, and he was not in favor of wasting taxpayer money.
“OK, who is driving the other rust bucket over there?” he asked, readying the craft for landing.
“Your faithful companion, Tonto, Mr. Lone Ranger, sir,” joked VIN. “Ready and waiting for orders from the almighty astronaut.”
“OK, we begin our descent in three minutes, follow me and we will land outside the last crater, partner. There isn’t much room in there, and we need to make room for Max in Asterspace Three, so don’t take up the whole parking lot. Set reverse thrusters at 80 percent for seven minutes, at a 10 degree angle above horizontal, and let’s go down and coral all them horses.”
It would take two orbits to slow down from 7,000 miles an hour to zero, and to descend from 40 miles up. Jonesy moved the thrusters in reverse and with VIN doing the same, both craft descended down to the moon’s surface.
VIN was getting good at flying and followed a few hundred yards behind Jonesy. Going across the sunlit side of the moon was really bright at these lower altitudes and they needed sun visors for the fifteen minutes of the maneuver.
“Altitude 29 miles, slowing to 4,000 knots, thrusters at 80 percent for five minutes,” Jonesy reported, as he coached VIN down so that they wouldn’t get separated.
The surface of the moon came up to meet them. There were mountains once they descended lower, but the highest mountain on the moon was less than five miles high, and they were a long way from that area, also on the dark side.
“Altitude seven miles, speed 400 knots, 80 percent thrust for two minutes, partner, increase you thrusters to 20 percent above horizon,”
“Copied that, partner,” VIN replied while Suzi was in the rear compartment feeding Mars.
Jonesy headed down and at two miles altitude could see the large crater in front of them. They had seven miles to go.
Ten minutes later and at hover, he dipped into the blackness while VIN stayed aloft. With his lights on, he found the lip of the deepest crater, and at 51 percent thrust put her down.”
“OK, partner, 50 percent thrust will bring you in. There is a small flat area I can see, fifty feet on the starboard side of our craft. My lights are illuminating about half of that area. Look at the line where my light ends and it goes into darkness, get your craft aligned with ours, and you should be perfect. Final landing thrust is 51 percent.”
VIN took Astermine One in and was as accurate as Jonesy wanted him to be. Jonesy had checked out the small area first, and had parked in the middle parking bay. There was enough room for Max or Yuri to get the third craft down on his port side when they arrived, and all Max had to do was what the two mining craft had just done.
They were on the moon. The outside lights were switched off, the blackness enveloped them, and they could easily see the lights from the other craft’s cockpit.
Asterspace Three would still take two days to get there, and there was a lot of work to be done before then.
Chapter 13
Bounty by the canister load
Eight hours later, both ships’ docking ports opened simultaneously as VIN and Jonesy headed through them. The ladders were extended and gravity was strong enough to pull them down the ladders slowly, rung by rung.
All outside lights were on, and would need to stay on while they worked outside. They only had enough battery power for 12 hours of light on full power, so Jonesy told the girls who were now in charge of the mining craft to reduce light power by 50 percent. That would double their usage, and since they could only spacewalk for three hours at a time, they could complete eight walks before they would need to return to orbit to recharge the solar batteries.
Jonesy began to unload canisters from his craft; placing them around the area to his left, he created a designated parking place for Max. It was easier to land when the pilot had delineated zone to aim at.
VIN unloaded his first dozen canisters and, like a wolf, loped to the crater’s edge with them one at a time. He hauled out a Kevlar rope ladder and easily threw it up and over the rim of the 60-foot cr
ater wall above him. The ladder was 300 feet in length and should be long enough to reach down to the ground on the other side.
Until Asterspace Three arrived, they would be the only two miners working, as the ladies had to look after the babies, who didn’t have space suits. There was no way they could get Saturn or Mars across to the other ship, except inside a sealed empty canister, far too dangerous and unnecessary; an emergency procedure only.
Once the landing zone was mapped out, Jonesy grabbed two five-gallon aluminum buckets out of the first cargo hold and headed over to VIN. The buckets were lighter than the automated vacuums that could rake in the small stones, but too heavy to get over the wall. The stones down there were too big for the machines they had brought along. And, since this mission was for diamonds only, the metal analyzer wasn’t aboard either, which created more space for canisters.
VIN tied down the soft ladder, moving some large rocks onto it. With half the gravity as Earth, he could lift or roll twice the weight, and he rolled three large moon rocks the size of cars onto the end of the ladder.
“It’s like a marine assault course,” VIN commented to Jonesy through their suit mikes.
“We had the climbing walls in the Academy as well, partner, it’s up one side, leg over and down the other.”
They had helmet lights on their suits, as well as a space flashlights tied to their belts.
“I’ll go up first,” said VIN. Jonesy nodded.
“Mind that space shark, it might be living up there,” Jonesy teased as VIN began to climb up the ladder. The ladder had three-inch nails protruding from it which kept the rungs away from the rock allowing their large spacesuit shoes a foothold on the rungs.
VIN got to the top and with a mallet he hammered two U-shaped nails into the rock to secure the ladder to the top of the crater. Then he disappeared down the other side. Still in radio contact, he slowly began his descent into the crater, rung by rung. The gravity was stronger than on the outer side.
