by Peter Damon
The result was a party 500 kilometres above the earth.
The party had gone on for a few hours, when, some hours after Michael and Heather had arrived, Jake called for attention and transferred one of the feeds from the outside cameras onto the large front wall.
The room fell silent as all 108 individuals watched the sun rise over the curve of the slowly rotating earth, its dark arc taking up a full third of the wall while the sun’s rising disk created a ribbon of light at the earth’s edge. It wasn’t just the size of the image that drew and held the attention, although it must have helped. The greater impact was the knowledge that the image came from just feet away, from a camera on the outside hull of the very ship they were standing within.
“A new dawn,” Michael murmured into the silence, ten years of journalism having given him a sense for the right by-line.
Glasses were raised and a new and final toast made. “To a new dawn,” they recited.
The former Emma Maersk sailed on, no longer through the seas and oceans of earth, but 500 kilometres above her. Her new status was painted in large letters on her hull. “Cambridge University Annex: Rolle College”. That hull was nearly 400 metres long and 30 metres from keel to deck, double that including the volume of the shipping containers that sat upon her, oblong metal sides of various colours, some still displaying the name of the logistic company that had originally used them.
Her superstructure had been removed, leaving her a torpedo-like shaped hull, her flat rear painted in yellow and white chevrons to mark the addition of large double-doors opening into a cavernous docking bay, its unique solution to docking the converted cars, trucks and lorries the English gypsies had rebuilt and were using to transport goods and people to the new college in space.
Thomas and David Howard, the twin students who had stumbled across the ‘magic’ chemical that enabled them to lift 180,000 tonnes into space, edged out of the party while everyone’s attention was on the image of the sun rising, and walked to where they had created their own laboratory, a place where they could continue to manufacture and develop their chemical.
The young men were uncannily similar, not only in their long and lean faces, wiry frames and dusty hair colouring, but also in their mannerisms and their reactions; the tilting of their heads when they listened, their occasional little smiles. No one knew them well enough to tell them apart.
The laboratory was towards the front of the ship, past the cavernous spaces that had yet to be completed. The boys, architects of most of the ship, walked confidently forward and, entering their chosen space, turned on the lights. Thomas pulled out a stool and leant on the broad counter while David turned one of the monitors on. Pressing the Tab key repeatedly, he cycled the image from one camera to the next until he reached the image they wanted.
“Wow. Rolle would have loved the clarity,” Thomas murmured as the monitor showed them an area of the Milky Way, a bright ribbon of distant stars across the dark of space.
David nodded agreement and felt the same keen loss as his brother. In the space of just a year, Professor Rolle had managed what many would have thought impossible, enabling the twins to escape the tentacles of the authorities and keep their discovery for themselves. The professor and his wife had died though, killed by persons still unknown, but undoubtedly someone wanting the magical chemical the twins had created. Space was to be their only sanctuary, but it had taken the professor to realise that.
The twins sat in silence watching the image for a while, the first moments of contemplation they had managed for some weeks.
“No reservations?” David asked.
“None,” Thomas affirmed.
“When to tell Michael,” David murmured as a statement and saw his brother nod in agreement.
“He’s going to be busy with the college administration,” Thomas observed, his eyes fastened on the image from the camera. Children learnt to identify the Milky Way before they ever learnt to identify Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter or Saturn, all visible in the night sky and far, far closer.
While heading out of the solar system was not yet on the twin’s minds, it was in the right direction; outward.
“He probably has an inkling,” Thomas murmured.
“About the Asteroid Belt?”
The Asteroid Belt had been relatively unknown until 170 odd years before. The last couple of decades had seen an explosion of information about the thousands of asteroids in orbit between Mars and Venus. Yet still relatively little was known about them. Indeed, more spacecraft had explored Saturn than had explored the Asteroid Belt.
There was a lot to be done before they could contemplate travelling to it. In contrast to what they were planning, the lift from earth had been a nothing, just a tiny step.
Thomas drew his tablet from his hip pocket and touched it awake to open the growing list of tasks they would need to complete in order to start a trip to the belt. For the next hour, the twins poured their attention into the list, their voices little more than whispers as they developed ideas and resolutions. The image of the Milky Way remained on the monitor, silently beckoning.
June 14th.
The Situation Room in the White House was the largest of four meeting rooms that comprised the Command Centre; an extremely well protected area in the basement of the large building, with secure communications to every element of the armed forces. A long and broad room, it allowed aides to sit behind the senior men and women sitting at the large table that was the main item of furniture. The walls, where not covered by screens or whiteboards, were a subdued blue made darker by the lighting that was focused on the large and long table.
On this occasion, with no aides present, the room appeared dark and quiet, perhaps more so because of the image of the ARC on the large screen at one end of the room.
General Pat Mears sat on one side of Glen Schroder, the President’s Technology Advisor. Both of them had seen more of the ARC than anyone else in the room, and yet each watched with a sense of awe mixed with anger as the images on the far wall showed the enormous container ship sailing through space. No one spoke, least of all to the General whose deep and thick eyebrows, tugged down by his unspoken anger, swelled into ridges of hard muscle above his hawkish nose. Beside him, Glen Schroder looked almost relaxed, a black polo-neck sweater and his round wire-rim spectacles reflecting his desire to look like the late Steve Jobs.
They had learned a lot about the ship since it had appeared in orbit just three days before. It was, or had been, the Emma Maersk, an E class container ship launched in 2006 that had become redundant now that even larger Triple E container ships had been built. What appeared to have been a group of investors had recently bought the ship, and sailed it into one of the South Korean docks near Busan for refitting.
How such a build had eluded detection was an embarrassment to more than just the USA. Russia, China and Japan had also been hunting for the technology, and though the United Kingdom appeared to be fully supportive of the new facility, they too had been as eager to hunt it down as many of the other states.
Brad Hawker, the President’s Chief of Staff, sat at the head of the table, his sharp blue eyes intent on the screen, his lips compressed in a thin line as the light caught the vividly white title painted on the side of the 400 metre long hull. To his right sat two senior officers from the CIA and Pentagon; Colin Whitt and James O’Connell, both trusted officials of the current administration, and neither of them strangers to the secure room in the basement of the White House.
“I don’t have to tell you what this is going to do to our space program,” Brad told the four men. He fingered the NASA written report that sat on the table in front of him, just one of several reports that all warned of a significant impact on the USA as a result of the British move that had placed this massive craft into space. Russia was already talking about closing the International Space Station.
The week had begun with the ISS joint venture regarded as one of the most advanced facilities in the world,
and ended with it being overshadowed both literally and metaphorically by its monster of a neighbour. Privately, Brad would like nothing better than to close down the space station and have it burn up in the atmosphere, removing any possibility of comparison with the huge ship that had joined it in orbit about the earth. Unfortunately, there were at least a dozen agreements with partner countries to use the facility, some spanning the next 30 months. Extricating themselves from those agreements would be an even bigger embarrassment to the administration.
“I guess you’re not talking about the 24 billion dollars per annum saving we could achieve by cutting back on it?” James O’Connell asked.
His statement had the others staring at him in shock, all but Brad who smiled thinly, well used to the Pentagon man’s frequent cynicism. James would have long since been side-lined into a more minor role, but for the President’s favour. She thought his cynicism brought value to the negotiation table. Brad had another phrase for it, but humoured the President.
“I am. I’m talking about the 70 billion our space industry brings to the economy, not to mention our status as the leader in space.”
“You still believe we can compete with that?” Glen asked, nodding towards the screen as the earth-based observatory continued to track the craft’s serene glide towards the far horizon.
“They have a new technology. We can obtain that technology,” Colin pointed out.
“Without anyone finding out how we obtained it?” Glen pressed. “Oh look; here’s one that we made earlier!” he quipped sarcastically.
“The point is; how far are we willing to go to save a huge part of our country’s heritage?” Brad pressed, his shrewd eyes darting to each of the men around the table.
“I don’t believe any clandestine project is necessary,” Glen told them. “Listen to them; they’re a bunch of college students! They’re still partying, for Christ sake! They’re not out to make a commercial mountain out of their discovery, they are out to discover still more, ‘to seek out new life’, and all that stuff,” he pointed out. “We should be supporting them. We should be up there, right at their side. This is what America stands for!”
Pat Mears made a disparaging sound deep in his throat. “They may be partying and full of high ideals for now,” he judged, “but they’ve only just got up there. It won’t always be the case. At some point they’re going to grow tired of partying, and realise they need substantial revenue to keep it going. When they do, some bright spark is going to wake up to the fact that they can offer facilities that no one else can offer, and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will adversely affect the USA.”
“Only if we antagonise them, only if we continue to try to obtain something that isn’t rightfully ours,” Glen told the man, stabbing the table in his passion to get his point across.
“Which is why, outwardly at least, we will be supportive of what the British have done. We’re going to be good friends. We’re not going to be pushy, we’re not going to be aggressive. We’re going to be supportive,” Brad stressed, and was pleased to see nods from around the table.
“However,” he added, and took a breath. “It would seem appropriate that we should monitor these people. At the very least, check them all out and verify their credentials.”
James from the Pentagon nodded and put his hand on the manila folder in front of him. “We have the names of all the Brits who are on board. We’re still working on a list of the South Koreans who appear to have joined them.”
“Share your Intel’ with Colin and let’s begin finding their strengths and weaknesses. In particular, let’s research family members still on earth. Let’s see if any of them have any family on US soil that we can use as leverage, shall we?” he asked with a disarming smile.
“I can’t say I’m comfortable with that,” Glen told the Chief of Staff.
“You don’t have to be comfortable with it, Schroder. It’s not your field, so I suggest you don’t get involved.” Brad told him.
Glen sighed. Alienating himself from the President’s command structure wasn’t going to help him. “I can talk to the guys at NASA and see what we can do to curry favour with those on board. At the end of the day, despite their leap forward, it’s the USA that has over 70 years experience in space,” he pointed out.
“Yes. Go for it, Glen,” Brad smiled humourlessly.
June 16th.
Frankie Hall, the weasel faced man who had led 47 English travellers into space, forced himself to take a deep breath while staring out of the large open doors at space. He had voided the huge docking bay of air to stand in his tight fitting spacesuit and head-mask, in total silence but for the loudness of his laboured breathing, the open doors at the very edge of his vision and the feel of the deck against his feet.
The spacesuit he wore had been developed for them by a Cambridge based company, their original concept being a diving suit for the oil exploration companies working in the arctic seas. Skin tight and light, it made him feel almost nude. A small backpack made of carbons and titanium weighed next to nothing, feeding tepid water through his suit and air into a sculptured head-piece that provided the last piece of protection. A heads-up display warned him that his heart-beat was excessively high, as if he needed to be told.
“Frankie?” Matt’s voice came to him through the plug in his ear. Something touched his shoulder and he jerked and turned, recovering his breath as he saw it was Matt, a big grin on his face.
“You didn’t think you were the only one who wanted to do this, did you?” he asked. Behind Matt were Gary and Leanne, two more Cambridge students who had worked from the start to help the twins escape the overly greedy authorities on earth, both grinning and raising a hand to wave a greeting.
“You shouldn’t creep up on a man like that,” Frankie grunted, turning back to look out into the huge emptiness of space once more.
“No air, no sound,” Gary remarked, coming to stand beside Frank on the very edge of the deck. Leanne went to stand on Frank’s left, Matt disappearing for a moment, returning with a long length of rope and a spare equipment belt. Frankie noticed that all three were wearing one, and took the one offered him to put it on before sliding the rope into one of the carabiners attached to it.
“Check each other,” Gary urged.
They each checked one another’s belt fitting and that the carabiner was securely locked, and having nodded to one another, returned to stand on the edge of the platform, on the very edge of space.
“On three,” Frankie breathed. “One,” he murmured, and he could all hear the others taking a deep breath. “Two,” he called, bending his legs and sensing the others doing the same. “Three!” he cried, and jumped outwards.
The disappearance of gravity was as sharp a sensation as diving into cold water. All of a sudden he was in a different environment, without an Up or Down. Gasps from a couple of others told him they had felt it too, as if one of their senses had been removed.
Frankie glanced about him to see that they were all tumbling, only the presence of the rope stopping them from spinning too as it played out leaving them hanging 20 metres from the back of the ARC. The ship appeared as he rotated, then fell away, and the earth appeared, a huge, huge brilliant ball, cloud patterns seemingly frozen in place, water gleaming up at him off the Pacific.
“Oh, wow!” Leanne murmured, her own rotation revealing to her what Frank had already seen.
“Isn’t it nice to know our technology works?” Matt quipped as he tried using the rope to stop his tumbling.
Frankie tried and sensed the futility in it. “We’re going to need something better than a rope,” he murmured. “How do the Americans do it?” he asked.
“They make very slow, careful and measured movements,” Gary told him. Gary Clarke was president of the Cambridge University Spaceflight Society, a body that had dedicated themselves to making space more accessible to all. In which goal he had truly succeeded. Their efforts, in one single launch, had practically doubled the am
ount of people who could call themselves Astronauts.
“They don’t jump off the side of their vehicle with just a rope!” he chuckled, the larger part of his attention on the earth as their orbit took them gradually eastward.
“Didn’t they have some sort of gun that directed a gas in one direction?” Leanne asked as she turned towards Matt and used his body mass to stop her own from tumbling.
“Oh, thanks, Leanne,” he complained.
“We could try that,” Gary agreed, referring to the gun as Matt tried reaching for Leanne’s leg to return her favour.
+++++++++++++
Michael sat in one of the small meeting rooms situated just forward of the aft docking bay, about as far from the building work as he could get, and still the sound of drilling reverberated through the ship and into the room.
It would end soon he kept reminding himself, and Heather, who returned at the end of most days covered in paint, plaster and wood shavings, seemed continually happy at the progress they were making, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t have a bath.
Sir Richard Phillips appeared on the other end of the video, his surroundings bringing on a bout of nostalgia for Michael, and an ache to have the late Professor Rolle beside him again, sweeping his untidy hair back while listening with a keen mind to the arguments around the table.
“Hello Michael. Is everything alright?” Sir Richard asked.
“Yes, yes, fine thank you, Sir,” Michael hastily replied.
“I have Professor Roland Prentice with me from Oxford. He’s a leading authority on international law and, in particular, the United Nations Outer-Space Treaty.”
“Professor Prentice, I hope you can put our minds at ease,” Michael welcomed him.
“Mr Bennett. I’m sure that I can, and can’t,” the man grinned.
