by Peter Damon
+++++++++++
Jake was feeling the frustration of having to move the camera by manually typing in the coordinates each time he wanted to use it. Had he been working on a legitimate project, he could have stored the location on the server and invoked the code each time he wanted to return to it. He daren’t risk that with these coordinates though, and impatiently waited the few seconds it took the camera to pivot before focusing on the piece of terrain that was of interest.
He caught the small town in the midst of a battle. Smoke rose from several buildings, while tanks moved slowly along the thoroughfares, stopping occasionally for the turret to turn.
Jake pressed the record function as the barrel of one of the tanks moved. He held his breath, watching in morbid excitement as a nearby building began to collapse, the small figures of people rushing from it, only to fall to the ground as they were cut down by unseen gunfire.
“Jesus!” he murmured, trying to get the camera to focus more clearly on the emblems on the tanks.
August 2nd.
Gary ran the presentation from his tablet while Cheryl stood beside the large screen at the end of the conference room and explained the details and numbers. Michael, Allan, Frankie, Thomas, David, Leanne and Oliver sat listening, occasionally taking notes as Cheryl explained how their satellites would be geosynchronous, and yet also in low earth orbit. She explained the benefits, while also going into details on how the various communication standards and protocols would be supported through Leanne’s satellite design. Finally, she provided details of the agreements they had received from brokers on the various southern continents.
“In summary,” she explained, “we have firm commitments for 12 satellites, with an initial average transponders utilisation of 60%. That number could well rise as the price of services drop in the market place, and more people become aware of how affordable it now is.”
“That’s an income of 120 million US Dollars on each satellite, for a capital outlay of 200,000 US Dollars,” Gary added, grinning at the wide eyed spectators.
“Yes, but we’ve only got electronic material for half that number of satellites,” Leanne pointed out.
“And remember, the numbers I’ve quoted only cover the southern hemisphere,” Cheryl reminded them all. “And only handle communication. If we add weather, global positioning, and other forms of satellite imaging, then you can easily double that income,” she explained.
“Would we need additional containers for these other types of communication, or could we just add to what’s already there?” Michael asked.
“Given that the camera and power are going to be on the outside gantry anyway, then we just add some additional logic to the existing control unit, or install a second control unit. They’re only cards, after all,” Leanne shrugged.
“So we’re short of electronic equipment. That’s what you’re telling me,” Michael asked.
Leanne grinned and flicked a document over to his laptop; a shopping list of items Michael knew would have to come from the UK or Korea. Anywhere else and he’d be cheated, for sure.
+++++++++++
Glen had ditched his glasses in favour of contact lenses for the meeting, and stood beside the large screen in the White House’s West Wing meeting room to give his presentation.
Larry Hawk, head of NASA’s Special Project Division was there, as were representatives from Stanford, Berkeley and MIT. The President, seated at the far end of the room watched in silence while, to her right, Brad Hawker her Chief of Staff sat, his impassive face giving nothing away.
“In short, we manufacture the facility we want, and the ARC will add communication facilities and transport it, and all personnel we wish, to the location we select on Mars. They come and collect us 10 months later.”
“No strings?” the President asked.
“Yes,” Glen moved his presentation to the page summarising Michael’s wishes.
“Five of the personnel will be of the ARC’s choosing. They say that those they select may be of any nationality. They may be technical support personnel, they may be holiday makers. That will be their choice,” Glen explained.
“Secondly, they want the USA to vote with Britain on the amendments to the Outer-Space Treaty tabled before the UN by Russia.”
Brad Hawker looked pointedly towards the President, but her eyes remained on the presentation screen. “Go on,” she told Glen.
“The ARC want to protect their technology, hence if they so much as suspect that we are covertly trying to study it, then they will remove their assistance.”
“And our people get stranded on Mars,” she nodded her understanding.
“There’s such a thing as a radio,” Brad pointed out.
“Which is why the ARC will be providing all the communications equipment on this project,” Glen pointed out.
“And this facility can be any size?” she pressed.
“Well, we already know that they have the ability to lift and control 180,000 tonnes. Mr Bennett wasn’t precise about dimensions or volume, but our conversation revolved around the idea of an oblong two or three storey building facility with a footprint of between 4,000 and 5,000 square metres.”
The President mulled this over, and then glanced towards Larry Hawk. “And you support this, I assume?” she asked.
“Yes, Madam President. We all do,” he said, speaking also for the three universities represented in the room. “They don’t intend to charge us for the transport, and the trip there and back will take less than a month. That leap forward in our space research program is just phenomenal, and completely out of the question were it not for their lift technology.”
The President nodded, and Brad Hawker remained silent. That worried Glen.
The president looked towards her Chief of Staff, her face giving no hint as to her thoughts. “What are you thinking?” she asked of him.
“If they’re offering us this, what are they offering Russia, China, and possibly Japan?” he asked, clearly posing it as a threat.
“So you think they’ve made similar offers to the others,” she summarised.
“We know from our men in the UK that Bennett recently gave Dmitry Kozlov, the Russian Cultural Attaché attached to the London embassy, a ride into space. Who knows what was discussed?” he shrugged pointedly.
+++++++++++
“Michael, have you got a minute?” Matt asked, popping his head around the door.
“Of course Matt. What’s worrying you?” Michael asked having taken note of the student’s frown. Matt never frowned; nothing usually fazed the student.
Matt came into Michael and Heather’s suite and put his tablet where Michael could see it. It showed a page from eBay where an auction for moon dust was in progress. The 10 gram bag had currently reached a price of 500 Euros with over an hour still to run.
“Is this for real?” Michael asked.
“That’s what I thought, so I asked Allan to see if he could find a real name and location of the seller,” Matt explained. He reduced the eBay page to show a name and address; an Emily Trotter from Byfleet, Essex.
“Flick it over to me, and I’ll talk to Frankie,” Michael told him, not looking forward to that conversation.
Frankie was hovering between the workshops and garages, checking on the three additional utility trucks that were undergoing a conversion from earth standard to their own standard. The garages were a hive of activity as the gypsies worked in small teams on different aspects of the conversion, their expertise with the motor industry making it all look simple and effortless.
“Have you seen this yet?” Michael asked him, showing him the eBay auction on his tablet as the price rose to 600 Euros.
Frankie frowned and took the tablet to tap the seller’s information, to find only a meaningless pseudonym and an email address. “Do we know who the seller is?” he asked.
“We do, but the name doesn’t mean anything to me,” Michael told him, showing him.
Frankie swore and looked a
bout him to where the others worked, clearly looking for one individual.
“Let me guess; a family member of Paddy’s?” Michael asked. There wasn’t anyone else who had been to the moon.
“Leave this to me. I’ll sort it,” Frankie promised. He strode off to find him.
Paddy Miller was never hard to find. If he wasn’t outside or in the garages, then he was either asleep in his room, or up in the restaurant and lounge areas where most of the women worked. Frankie found him in garage three and striding up to the heavier set man, pushed him backwards against the side of one of the half built SUVs, his face set in hard lines of anger.
“Hey, what’s that for?” Paddy asked.
“You know right enough what it’s for, you little pile of shit!” Frankie spat. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing with that fucking moon dust, Paddy Miller?”
“Now, come along Frankie. I’m just making a bit of money for the family back home, that’s all,” he claimed, his face growing pale as he realised that Frankie knew about the moon dust.
“Just a bit of money? You think that’s all you’ve done, you stupid cretin!” Frankie spat.
“It’s no more than you’ve done in the past,” Paddy answered as he straightened and measured himself up against the thin and weasel-faced gypsy, his own anger starting to rise.
Frankie’s fist rose from nowhere, and the next moment Paddy’s head had been knocked back and his nose flattened. Blood gushed and Paddy’s hand rose to stem the flow.
Frankie was livid, his anger making the veins in his neck swell and pulse, his face turning bright as his eyes held Paddy and the rest of the room completely still.
“You stupid little fucker. Do you think this is just another scam, another job that we can shave off an extra few quid before moving on to some other small job? Haven’t you realised yet, that this is the chance we’ve been waiting all our lives for; that we don’t have to be those rotten thieving toe-rags that everyone hates any longer, that we have the chance here, the one single chance of being the heroes?”
Frankie put his head very close to Paddy’s and pointed towards the stern and the large doors. “We’re in this at the very beginning, and we could be the ones to lead everyone, absolutely everyone, out into space. New world, new treasures, new wonders. We have the chance to be the leaders, Paddy, leaders of all of earth,” he told the younger man, stopping to draw a breath. “And you want to give it away for a few quid of moon dust!” he snorted.
“We’re no longer there to give the fucking police a reason for their overtime. We’re no longer the shit of humankind, do you understand? We don’t have to pilfer little pieces of soil to make an added crust!” he shouted.
Frankie stepped away from Paddy to look at the other men who had stopped what they were doing to gather round, all silent. “We shed our clothes when we came up here. We’ve got to shed our thoughts too. We’re not thieving little gypsies that everyone wants rid of; do you hear? We’re fucking Spacemen. We’re the first, the very first proper Spacemen, and my son will be born up here, and he’ll be a second generation Spaceman. Not a gypsy, but a Spaceman, a leader. Kids down on earth will look at him, and want to be like him. Do you understand?” he asked. He looked at each of the men in the hope of seeing some understanding, and then turned back to Paddy who was still nursing his nose.
“Tell that daft cousin of yours to cancel the auction and throw the stuff away,” he told him, and then walked out.
+++++++++++
“It wasn’t my fault. I put the right time in, I know I did!” Su Park pleaded as Heather stepped up to the small table in the corner of the now empty restaurant. Martha stood to one side, her face set in stern lines, thick muscular arms crossed over a massive bust, a tattooed red heart on one raised bosom proclaiming her love for Bert.
“We know Su. Just tell me what happened. Absolutely everything. Every little detail; you never know what might lead us to finding out what truly happened,” Heather explained.
“I did exactly what I always do. Having prepared the food, I slid the dishes into the microwave, selected five minutes on the panel, and pressed the Start key. I didn’t look to see what the panel told me, why should I? It made the usual sound and I just left it to get on with it while I began preparing the fruit and deserts.
“I didn’t notice it taking longer than usual, I was busy. We all were. It makes a loud noise when it finishes, and I opened the door, and then we noticed all the food had dried up. It had all been overcooked.
“But Martha is wrong; I did not put the wrong time in!” Su cried, her eyes welling up with tears.
“It’s all right,” Heather stressed.
“She must have. What other reason is there?” Martha asked, shrugging in the manner of saying that her comment was the end of the subject.
“I tell you, I didn’t!” Su cried more vehemently.
Leanne came over and nodded a greeting. “The pre-cook facility had been turned on,” she told Heather.
“Pre-cook?” Su asked, looking between the other two with a perplexed look on her face. “We don’t use pre-cook. We’ve never used pre-cook, there’s no need,” she explained.
“Well, it was tuned on to run for five minutes, so that’s the cause of the over-cooking,” Leanne explained. “It’s off now, and I’ve checked the other machines too, just in case.”
“Glad we could help you add to your CV,” Heather told Leanne with a slim smile.
“So how did the Pre-Cook facility get turned on?” Su asked, looking accusingly towards Martha.
“Oh no, you’re not going to blame your mistake on me!” Martha stormed.
August 3rd.
Gary watched as Allan’s finger ran over the screen on his table to move the coordinates of the chosen satellite onto the SUV’s tracking system, and smiled as one of the cameras in the vehicle’s cabin showed the heads-up display changing.
“Moving towards target,” Maddy murmured behind the wheel while Mickey McKee sat beside her. With calm purpose, Maddy turned the wheel and depressed the accelerator.
“They’re getting very good at this, aren’t they,” Gary murmured, watching the vehicle shoot towards its intended goal.
Allan nodded. “If you watch them long enough, you’ll notice they set their speed to always get there in five minutes, whether it’s one kilometre away, or five thousand.”
“The time it takes to drink a cup of tea,” Gary observed with a chuckle.
Allan nodded and shared the joke while, inside the vehicle, Mickey was bringing up a visual of the satellite he had to work with.
It was a long and cylindrical object, as if three or four barrels had been placed on top of one another, with additional pieces attached to it along its length. Mickey couldn’t make sense of it, but then he didn’t need to.
Maddy moved the SUV to within 30 metres of it and came to a halt. Mickey hummed a tune as he and Maddy donned their helmet and waited for the diagnostics to run through before telling the ARC they were ready.
“You’re green,” Allan confirmed from a glance at his table.
Maddy exhausted the air from the cab and watched Mickey open his door and draw himself out before moving along the side of the SUV to the tool chest in the open back. His drape coat was there, neatly folded and tied down, and Mickey put it on before picking up his tools, then took a moment to just stand on the back of the SUV and watch the earth, high up on the port side of the SUV.
“What are you humming?” Allan asked.
“You know, I don’t know what it’s called,” Mickey admitted, picking up the spray gun all SUVs carried. His safety line went over one of the eyes on the vehicle’s side, and then he jumped away, continuing his humming as he floated smoothly towards the dull grey satellite giving every appearance of waiting for him.
“We still don’t know the weight of this thing?” Mickey asked, coming to a stop just two metres from its side.
“Nothing reliable. I’m not going to rely on Wikipedia,” Alla
n remarked.
“Well, it will get a good blasting, then,” Mickey explained, and pointed the nozzle of the spray gun towards the satellite’s middle.
The device had been designed to not cause any opposite reaction from the pellets of paint being flung onto the satellite, but still Mickey felt a little tug on his arm, and after just a few seconds his body had begun to swivel. Cursing a technology that never worked fully, Mickey put the spray gun into his other hand and used it for the same amount of time, allowing it to swivel him back to his previous position. He did the same again with his other hand until he was happy he had coated the satellite with a thick layer of HYPORT.
“Here we go,” Mickey said, feeling the need to talk as he took the small control unit and pressed it firmly into the gel he’d just sprayed onto the side of the Russian satellite.
“All green,” Allan confirmed while Gary continued to watch from over his shoulder.
Mickey returned to the SUV and took off his coat before climbing back into the SUV, grunting as he felt his backpack fit into the seat.
“In three, two, one,” Allan called. He pressed the app and the satellite surged into motion, moving rapidly away, towards the distant sun.
+++++++++++
Pavel Chaichenko was not what Michael would have thought of as a Russian physicist. Not that he could have put his thoughts into words, other than to say Pavel was not it. Instead, Pavel reminded him of what a British professor should look like, right down to the tweed jacket, corduroy trousers, brown brogues and turtle-shell glasses.
The leading physicist had been silent on their ascent, but on seeing the ARC he had exclaimed in Russian, staring in wonder at the huge ship as they approached it from the underside, the network of experiments in stark relief against both port and starboard sides of the hull, the keel hidden by a large field of solar panels.
He had then resumed his silence, saying little as he went though the induction video, had the RFID chip inserted under his skin and was shown his suite of rooms and the facilities available to him during his stay.
