Starfire

by Unknown

“So what do you think of the name?” Travis demanded. “Everest?”

  “My specialty is propulsion, Professor Hill.”

  Travis quit walking. “Okay. Your turn.” He unclipped himself from the treadmill and took the fresh towel that Linwood handed down to him. He got out of the way, swiping the towel over his glistening skin, watching quietly as Linwood flipped over and began strapping himself into the walker. Travis finished with the towel and shoved it into the receptacle of the ALD. “I was thinking, Doc. Since we’ve known each other a year ago May, you could call me Travis. If you wanted to.”

  Linwood looked up at him, painfully trudging against the treadmill’s friction. He didn’t say anything.

  Well, Travis didn’t really expect an answer; he hadn’t asked a question. So when Linwood said nothing, Travis just gave him a big grin and pushed himself out of the cramped room.

  “Mission control. Starfire now closing on 2021 XA, with shipboard computers doing almost all of the work; here at Houston we are keeping our hand in with an occasional position check, useful by virtue of Earth’s extreme separation from the spacecraft. Nice to have two points of view, when you want to know where you are out there…”

  Robin’s voice came over the comm. “We’ve acquired a visual of the target. Anyone interested in a really crisp picture, join us on the flight deck.”

  Travis was first in line, soaring up the corridor toward the flight deck, almost colliding with eager Melinda on the way. Linwood pushed in behind them.

  The main screen was a packed field of stars, crowded unblinking points of silver against matte black and bright dust—the view from the optical telescope feeding the video circuit. The sun was somewhere off-screen to the left, but its unfiltered light struck an obstacle at dead center: a knobby black thing, pitted and scarred, perceptibly crawling across the star field.

  The five astronauts studied it wordlessly.

  Linwood, quite uncharacteristically, was the first to break the silence. “In view of the object’s eight-point-seven-kilometer length along the major axis, Professor Hill has suggested we refer to it as Everest.” He paused. “The name would be unofficial, of course, since the privilege of naming is given to the discoverer, subject to the approval of the International Astronomical Union. However, as a convenience, I—”

  “Gee, I always thought 2021 XA had a kind of catchy ring to it,” said Melinda.

  “—I, for one, have no objection,” Linwood finished.

  Travis peered at Linwood over his shoulder, but Linwood avoided his eye. He appeared to be absorbed in the image on the screen.

  “You like it, Spin?” asked Robin. “Everest?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. Everest, here we come,” said Robin.

  Taylor Stith gave the knot of his tie and the line of his tweedy lapels a brief, happy adjustment. “Thanks, people,” he said. “The MS worked flawlessly during the inclination maneuver, better than a hundred percent efficiency. Thanks for a quick fix and a good one.”

  The members of his tiger team looked equally fresh and cheerful, happy to be demobilized. All but the manufacturer’s rep, who would be spending the rest of the mission waiting for his valves to misbehave.

  And grim-faced Jimmy Giles, of course. “Registering continuing concern with the overall MS consumables status,” he said in a monotone. “And I’m not satisfied that we’re not generating anomalies in the MS software. I’d like to keep working with Dr. Cruz on it.”

  One of us, at least, is generating anomalies, Taylor thought.

  Dolores Cruz, the red-headed analyst, caught Taylor’s sour glance as she was chewing the fingernail of her right pinkie. She took her finger out of her mouth. “It would be reassuring to eliminate the software question,” she said quietly.

  A safe enough answer; it was what she was hired to do. Taylor thought about it a second more and concluded that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to lose Colonel Giles in some endless maze of software. Keep him out of everybody else’s hair. “Okay, Jimmy, I’ll have a word with the astronaut office.” He stood up. “Now the rest of you people can get back to your regular jobs.”

  Dinner time again. Travis was backed into his favorite wardroom corner, contemplating his cauliflower w/cheese and wishing Melinda would stop looking at him. That little girl is spoiling for a fight, he thought, and I sure wish she’d pick on somebody else.

  Across the room Robin was chasing a chunk of floating chicken tetrazzini with what seemed like a very dull fork. A crackle of noise burst from the comm speaker: “Starfire, this is Houston, transmitting at UT twenty-seven hours twenty-three thirty.” Robin looked up angrily as the Capcom’s cheery voice plowed on. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner, know how you feel about that, but this one we thought you’d like to hear. Flight has completed the MS consumables reassess, with the result that you are confirmed go for MMU EVA by the original numbers…”

  “Hey, how about that?” said Robin, her frown vanishing.

  “Hot doggie,” said Spin, and Linwood cleared his throat in a manner denoting satisfaction.

  Travis in his corner and Melinda in hers caught themselves sneaking peeks at each other in the midst of their grins, and each knew what the other was thinking—that this was it, the real thing, and is he/she going to hold up his/her end of it?

  “When we hear from you that you are ready to receive…” The Capcom’s voice was swallowed in a blast of searing static.

  Spin, abandoning his dinner, leaped to turn down the speaker volume. “I don’t much like the goop tonight anyway,” he said to Robin. “Okay with you, I’ll go up and tell Houston to send whatever they want to now.”

  “Your privilege,” she said. “Don’t get too far behind on your calories, Spin.”

  “Yeah, okay.” He flipped his tray in the trash and was gone, swimming upward through the hole in the ceiling.

  “Good news,” said Robin. “Too bad it’s lousy reception.”

  “Sounds like the sun’s in our side lobes,” Melinda said. “Early for that.”

  “The sun is unusually active for this phase of the sunspot cycle,” said Linwood brightly. “I have several rather good snaps in the hydrogen-alpha of an interesting complex of new spots.”

  “I don’t think I want to think about sunspots,” Travis said. Silence greeted him. Damn again. Why had he said that? A none-too-subtle reminder of his adventures with solar flares, raising the hero’s shield he’d let slip earlier? He peered at his watch. “Am I wrong or did that last message take half a minute to get here?”

  Melinda glanced at her watch and said, “Yes, you’re wrong. Twenty-five point nine seconds, in fact, if we’re where we’re supposed to be. Which we are.”

  The comm speaker stopped frying, and the Capcom could be heard saying, “…updates for Professor Hill, Science would like a verbal confirm after he has had a chance to study. Over.”

  Spin was upstairs now, his reply coming over the comm. “Houston, this is Starfire at UT twenty-seven twenty-four forty on board, copy we are go for tomorrow’s EVA, and you have messages for the Prof, but we lost a piece in the middle, will you say again, over?”

  Travis bent to his cauliflower w/cheese. Trusting Melinda’s numbers—she was never wrong in these matters—it would be fifty-one point eight seconds, at least, before Houston said again.

  “A long way from home, cowboy.” Melinda’s words came out so low they were almost a growl. “So if you want to reach out and touch someone, it’ll have to be someone in the neighborhood.”

  Now what the hell did she mean by that?

  “This is mission control, Houston. Day two, eleven hours. Starfire’s crew is in the sack. Two of the astronauts, Wooster and Hill, are in the sack inside their spacesuits and sleeping inside the air lock, where at the appropriate time the computer will switch them over and begin feeding in the pure oxygen suit environment, the gradual prebreathe necessary to ensure against the bends…”

  13

  Dawn. The solar telescope on
Kitt Peak looked at the rising sun through clear still air and discovered a complex mosaic of minor sunspots. A cautionary word was sent to NASA, but orbiting solar monitors detected no unusual x-ray activity in the region. Within an hour three diminutive flares had burst from the region before, strangely, it began to shrink again.

  Inside their suits Travis and Melinda hung like possums from a branch, their knees relaxed, their arms raised, their gloved hands draped at the wrists. Inside each clear helmet was a round, sleeping face, snug in its Snoopy hat.

  Through their earphones flowed Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante.

  “Good morning, campers. Your prebreathe is complete, your bloodstreams are fully purged of useless N-two.” Robin’s voice on the comm channel was loving, a mother coaxing her children to wash and dress in time to catch the school bus. “Would you like to take a little walk?”

  Travis opened his eyes and rolled them toward Melinda, who was already staring at the padded white wall of the air lock. He closed his eyes again. Mozart, rich and complex, filled his mental space. One more moment—

  “Melinda?”

  “Roger.”

  “Uh, Travis?” When he didn’t instantly reply, Robin faded the Mozart.

  His eyes flew open. Suddenly his heart was pounding. “Roger, commander. Unconsciousness termination achieved.”

  She had the grace to laugh at that. “Okay. Let’s do this by the numbers. Official comm check on you, EV-one.”

  “EV-one comm check, receiving you loud and clear.” To Travis’s ears, Melinda’s enthusiasm bordered on the obscene.

  “And your biomeds read nominal.”

  “I read my biomeds better than nominal,” Melinda said.

  “Have it your way. You, EV-two?”

  “Fine, good. Comm’s good.”

  “Copy, and your biomeds are looking good,” said Robin. “Stand by, we’re going to set up a clock…Okay, you guys are go for battery.”

  They unplugged themselves from the wall and switched to suit power. Melinda said, “We’re in battery, let’s get our water on.”

  More switches. “Boy, I’m getting cold in a hurry,” said Travis, reaching to reset his heaters.

  They inspected each other for loose straps and other oversights. Gazing deep into Melinda’s eyes, Travis said, “You know, I just now fully realized that I’m gonna miss breakfast.”

  “Breakfast, ugh.” Melinda ran her tongue over her teeth. “I just wish I could brush my teeth…We’re nominal, Robin.”

  “Roger, I’m pulling you down,” said Robin. Pumps throbbed in the wall of the air lock, sucking away the air. “Want to give me a rundown? Melinda?”

  “EV-one suit P is thirty point four kp. O-two pressure is five nine three. Battery voltage twenty point seven, r.p.m. eleven point eight, water temp seven six, gas pressure one oh five point five, water pressure one oh three.”

  Spin’s face appeared at the small round window in the air lock’s inner hatch. “Air lock coming down,” he said, his voice picked up by the mike beside the hatch. “I read air lock pressure down to thirty-five eight.”

  Robin said, “Copy. EV-two, give me your numbers, please.”

  “Suit pressure twenty-nine six kp, O-two pressure five nine eight, r.p.m. nineteen point seven. CO-two is one point two, water temp seventy-one, water pressure…Scratch that. Gas pressure is one seventeen, uh, one eighteen.”

  “Copy all.”

  “Air lock at twenty-six two,” said Spin.

  “Okay, Spin, whenever they’re ready,” Robin said. “Remember to keep breathing, guys.”

  Travis and Melinda grabbed steel staples in the wall. The round outer hatch unseated. The remaining air in the chamber rushed out with a whisper, taking all the thuds and bumps and pump throbbings with it, into the starry universe.

  “I want to be out when you come out,” said Melinda.

  “Then you get the tethers,” Travis said. He grabbed her well-padded butt as she reached out through the outer hatch and retrieved a yellow nylon safety tether, pulled it in, and snapped it to a ring on her suit front. She reached out again and found a tether for Travis.

  “Okay, I’m hooked up,” he said.

  Melinda maneuvered carefully through the opening and floated away, until the safety line was almost taut. With one hand she unholstered her portable video recorder. She turned slowly and raised the camera. “You have a picture, Starfire?”

  “Roger, Melinda,” Robin replied on their headsets. “And we are sending it on to Houston.”

  “Okay, cowboy, come on out. The whole world is watching.”

  “Roger.” Travis moved through the hatch cautiously and stood on the skin of the ship, perpendicular to Melinda, his eyes still on the interior of the air lock. Then he raised his head. He was standing on the back of a stainless steel whale, plowing smoothly through clear seas of incandescent plankton.

  “Whooeee!” His heart was thudding again, not with fear but with exultation. Travis had never been farther from Earth than low orbit, had never been in the farther reaches of outer space where a planet did not fill half the sky. In this shining darkness there were only stars; even the polished skin of the ship reflected the stars.

  “Hoo Eee? Is that a cowboy expression? Like Yah Hah?”

  Travis ignored her. “Starfire, how far away are we from the rock—I mean Everest?”

  “Spin snuck up on it while you were asleep,” Robin said. “I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

  “Well, let’s get these MMUs on and go look.”

  The ship’s three cargo bays were positioned along the length of the hull below the main air lock. Two large bays held the solar probe satellites. The smallest bay, nearest the air lock, was crowded with a miscellany of equipment: experiment packages to be placed on the surface of the asteroid, folding solar panels, an extensive tool kit with spare parts and handy extras like rolls of shiny Mylar and reels of electrical cable, and three backpack maneuvering units.

  “Want to try a dolly shot, camera person?” Travis asked.

  “If you’d be so kind,” Melinda replied.

  Floating to the lip of the cargo bay with Melinda’s tether in hand, Travis turned and reeled her steadily in while she recorded the view. Robin had already opened the cargo bay doors from the flight deck. The MMUs were stored against the floor, looking like white-painted armchairs with the seat and legs missing. Like everything else in the cargo bay, they were securely bolted to the floor. Travis let go of Melinda’s tether and floated into the bay, turning to back himself into the unit that bore the painted numeral “2.”

  “Houston wants to tell you they are getting some nice pictures in between breakup, Melinda,” said Robin.

  “Copy. It’s going on auto for a minute.” Melinda tugged herself into the bay and snapped the recorder to a bracket on the maneuvering unit labeled “MMU 1.”

  “Okay,” said Travis. “Let’s release the…well, let me think here, I’m not getting any reading on this.”

  “Check your TD-one is open to flow fully clockwise,” Melinda said flatly.

  “That’s verified.”

  “Okay, open your GN-two supply valve.”

  “Somehow I don’t think this QD is on yet…Close the flow fully which way?”

  “Clockwise…no, the other clockwise.”

  “Shoot. You been born left-handed, you’d understand.”

  Her reply was full of scorn. “You’re not left-handed, cowboy.”

  “Ma claimed she trained it out of me…Uh, that camera’s probably going to interfere with you.”

  She locked herself fast to her MMU and deftly freed the recorder, aiming it at him. “No sweat.”

  “Hell, it looks easy when you do it.”

  “Okay, and my launch bolts are out, how about you?”

  “All the launch bolts came out.”

  “You say the launch bolts are out?” Robin asked.

  “That’s an affirmative for both of us,” said Travis. He and Melinda unsnapped their
safety tethers.

  “Okay, you got circuit breakers, one and two?” Robin asked.

  “Sure, we got the circuit breakers,” Melinda said.

  “Okay, power’s going internal. Disconnect the power cable. It’ll take me a couple of seconds and then you can close those things.”

  “We got ’em out,” said Travis.

  “Okay, a final word,” said Robin. “Houston’s concerned that when you’re down there trying to match spins, that your attitude hold could be on, continuing to send fire commands to the jets and we might overheat something. What we’d like you to do is, while you still have the attitude hold on, turn the THC ISOL valves to isolate, and then—”

  “Isn’t that already on the checkpad?” Travis asked.

  “It is, except we want the cycling—”

  Melinda abruptly interrupted. “Starfire, copy we want to ensure that we do not have attitude hold commands firing jets that don’t have any GN-two supply to them. Copy, copy, copy.”

  “Copy you said you understand,” Robin said. “I show all systems on MMU batteries. Mark.”

  “After you, hotshot,” Travis said.

  “I’m cutting loose.” Melinda triggered a puff of nitrogen from the MMU’s thrusters and flew out of the cargo bay, toward the stars. She rapidly got farther away; the stars did not move. With three more expert puffs she wheeled herself to face Travis. Again she raised her camera.

  His exit from the cargo bay was only a little less expert. It had been awhile, but some skills, like riding a bicycle, never really desert you. Cautiously he wheeled, then fired the thrusters to raise him above the flat steel horizon of Starfire.

  As he rose above the ship, Everest rose into view.

  “Dear God.”

  It wasn’t a planet. It was something much more immediate, more pressing. Almost nine kilometers of crumpled black rock fell away beneath the shining ship. Every inch of its surface was cratered, craters within craters within craters, receding to invisibility—overlapping circles reaching a limb that was much nearer than a moon’s or a planet’s and yet impressively far away. Seen thus, the rock was much, much bigger than Mount Everest, for its height was viewed not from altitude but all at once, entire.