Dubious Heroes: a novel

by Nicholas Blue

  Then someone (probably a rocket scientist) got the bright idea that if you ran your engines all the way there, you’d just keep getting faster and faster. Sure, you’d need a lot more fuel- far too much to carry up from the planet- but that turned out to be pretty easy to find, once they bothered to look around. This is why modern ships now burn either hydrogen or helium, unlike the early ones, which used mostly oxygen. Hydrogen and helium are easy to find in space, on whatever rock you find yourself on.

  Of course, there was the problem that if you didn’t slow down, you’d whiz by your destination so fast you could blink and miss it. This was almost as bad as taking forever to get there, and could really put a damper on tourism.

  So, they decided to blast to the halfway point, and then swing the ship around ass-end to where they were headed, and spend the next half of the trip slowing down, just like the old NASA decel burns, but a lot more intense. But still, how fast could you go?

  That turned out to be pretty simple, too. Whenever you speed up or slow down, you feel gravity pressing on you. A force of one gravity, or one gee, for short, is what keeps humans planted firmly on, well, terra firma. So, if you fly in a spaceship which is constantly accelerating (i.e. not coasting) or decelerating at one gee, then humans will feel right at home, and as a bonus, you avoid the hassles of zero gee, like people throwing up all over the place, or your chess pieces not staying put.

  How much faster was it, than when those first intrepid explorers coasted to Luna? At one gee acceleration, the trip from Earth to the Moon takes about six hours. If you’re in a hurry, and don’t mind the discomfort of weighing double what you would on Earth, then you could blast at two gees, and cut the trip down to just a few hours. Those first astronauts made the same trip, in a little less than three days.

  This is why speed is referred to only as your acceleration, and not in miles or kilometers per hour, the latter of which would depend on the length of your trip. The shuttle I was on to Mars would be humping along at one-and-a-half gees, which was uncomfortable, but would get us there in about twelve days. The first manned mission to Mars had used the coast along method, and they spent the better part of two years making the trip. Which also serves to illustrate that just because something is inside the solar system, even just the next planet over, it’s still a long, long way between things. Once I left Mars, the liner I’d be on would lope along to Jupiter at one gee for around two months. Trip times do vary, depending on where a planet or moon might be in relation to where you’re leaving from. They’re not just sitting there, they’re all moving around, orbiting the sun. Sort of a space navigator’s version of your results may vary. 

  Loonies, at least the smart ones, work out several hours per week on machines that simulate one gee. While Luna has gravity, it’s only about a fifth that of Earth, and human physiology doesn’t do well at low gee. Prolonged living in low gee causes you to lose a lot of your bone and muscle mass, and if you ever have to leave that environment, you’ll find yourself an invalid. Hence the workouts, to simulate a one gee environment. Even though I’d done those exercises religiously since childhood, living under a gee and a half was still a bitch.

  I spent the twelve days of the journey largely flat on my back in my “stateroom”, which was a cubicle only a little larger than the overgrown, glorified recliner they called an acceleration couch. Twice per day, I’d drag my ass off of it and trudge to the passenger galley for meals, joined by my equally miserable fellow travelers. The crew, inured to the routine, was at least tolerant of our bitching and moaning, if not altogether sympathetic.

  One of the goodies I’d managed to wrangle from TGS was a full set of the specs and operational procedures for all the different type ships we owned. It also contained the complete training manuals used to educate our crews, all of it loaded on my Pod. Being a guy with a lot of experience with data systems, I backed it all up on a set of chips, too. Details such as ship capacity, speed, and other information was as close as my Pod, thanks to that data. Granted, I already knew a lot of the stuff; most of it picked up on the job over the years. Still, I spent a lot of time in my cabin, poking around in the material.

  My voyage from Luna to Mars (or more accurately, to the big spaceport on Phobos, orbiting Mars) was aboard the TGS Mali. At TGS, we used two basic models of shuttle for moving people and cargo around the inner system. There was the Mercury-class, like I was on, which could carry thirty passengers, a crew of six, and twenty tons of cargo. Appearance-wise, it was about sixty yards in length, and looked like an ugly collection of boxes strapped together with pipes and cables; an impression not far from the truth. Unlike most bigger spaceships, shuttles like the Mali could actually penetrate atmosphere and land on a planet, which was pretty amazing for something with all the grace and elegance of a garbage bin. But, as the manuals pointed out, when you’re using hydrogen ramjet engines, neither streamlining nor subtlety are required.

  The Mercury shuttles are a little faster than their brethren, the Orion-class. A Mercury like the Mali could hit two gees, but usually didn’t travel that fast, since even the crew has a hard time moving around in that much gravity. At two gees, people tend to injure themselves. The Orions were a bit slower, maxing out at one-and-a-quarter gee, but as with the Mercury class, they generally traveled slower. The primary difference between the two was that the larger Orion could carry a few more passengers, and ten tons more cargo.

  Both types were manufactured by Universal Shipworks, and while both were equipped with AI’s, neither had star drives, so leaving the solar system wasn’t a wise idea, unless you had plenty of travel time. A couple thousand years would do nicely.

  Having boned up on various ship arcana, I dragged myself off the couch and wandered up to the bridge. The door marked Bridge clued me in to its location, had I not known they were always at the top of the ship. Alas, the door wouldn’t open for me, which wasn’t a surprise; passengers weren’t allowed to be there, unless they managed to talk a ship’s officer into a tour. I was used to talking to ship AIs remotely, but this was my first opportunity to talk to one, well, face-to-face. Ship AIs had a reputation for being more independent than other AIs, probably due to the isolation they endured while out in space. Come to think of it, ship’s crews had much the same reputation.

  Anywhere but aboard a ship, I’d have gotten a “May I help you?” from the AI, or at least some other polite response. This AI chose to ignore me, even though it knew I was standing there, and knew who I was. Every time it made port, it had to call into my office, and might have even talked to me personally, a time or two. Bottom line, it knew who the hell I was, and still chose to ignore me.

  Alas, patience is not one of my strong suits.

  “Excuse me”, I said, trying not to feel foolish talking to a door that, with the exception of the word Bridge on it, was otherwise blank and unresponsive. Several seconds dragged by, and I was just beginning to contemplate kicking the door, when it responded.

  “What?” the AI finally said, a male voice emanating from the little speaker/keypad combo by the door. With the right code, one could open the door, AI (or crew) notwithstanding. Of course, if I’d had the code, I wouldn’t have been standing there talking to an AI that sounded like it was in a snit.

  “I’m doing some research, and I need access to the bridge, please”, I said. “By the way, please identify yourself.” This was something that had been coded into AIs from the outset; if a human, any human, requested their identity, they had to respond with the info.

  “My name is Rollo, serial number K5894237, and I am the artificial being of the TGS Mali. I’m a Gen Seven, Mark Four AI, created by S3 of Lowell, Mars. And, as I’m certain you already know, only the crew of the Mali is authorized to access the bridge, unless accompanied by an officer.”

  “But I’m a TGS employee, on special assignment from headquarters”, I said. “You know that, so make an exception.”

  “I’m well aware of who you are”, Rollo replied, “
but I still can’t let you in. Only Captain Abar has that authority.”

  “Okay, fine. Have him grant me access, please.”

  “Nope”, the AI said. “I’ve already asked him. The Captain says he’s busy, and for you to amuse yourself elsewhere.”

  Marvelous. Apparently, neither TGS nor I inspired much in the way of respect out here. The AI remained silent, so evidently, it considered the conversation over. Maybe a low-tech approach would work. I knocked on the door. About a minute dragged by slowly, with no response. I knocked again, the metal composite of the door ringing hollowly.

  “What?” It was a different male voice, also in something of a snit.

  “This is Orel Doon, and I’d like to come in. I’m doing a general audit of ship security, and I’d like to take a look at the bridge, please.”

  “Your code doesn’t say I have to do anything but give you a ride. So, go back to your quarters and write your report. Be sure to mention that, thanks to Captain Azan el-Abar, security aboard the TGS Mali was very good, as you were not authorized to be on the bridge, and therefore no access was granted. Have a nice day.”

  Further button pushing, yelling, knocking (and a little kicking) had no discernable effect; as both the crew and AI did their level best to ignore me. They succeeded. It did give me a pretty good idea why someone might want to blow up a spaceship. Fresh out of ideas, I returned to my cabin and took a nap.

  Five days later, we docked on Phobos.

  I’d watched the approach to Mars via the external vidcams on the ship, since the only windows were a couple of small ones on the bridge. I didn’t think my chances of getting in there for a peek out were any better than before, so I didn’t bother trying. They call it the red planet, and it was, sort of. But there was also a lot of orange and brown, as well as white from the ice of the polar caps. It hung there in space before us, slowly growing to fill the screen. The detail was incredible; maroon rifts hundreds of miles long, the mountains and plains an endless palette of brown and pink, more shades than anyone had names for. Still, it didn’t seem real. I could have seen the same thing sitting in my apartment back on Luna.

  We docked at Phobos station, which is the main orbital spaceport for Mars. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos; fear and death, if I remember correctly. Phobos was the larger of the two at about sixteen miles long, and was shaped something like a lumpy potato (look it up, if you’ve never seen a potato). Deimos was about half that size, but its orbit was a lot further out from the planet. Phobos was only three thousand miles up from Mars, and whizzed right along, circling the planet three times per day. The same side always faced the planet (just like on Luna); a condition known as being tidally locked, if it matters. Almost the entire surface of Phobos was covered with man-made structures; likewise for Deimos.

  After disembarking from the Mali, I spent some time walking around the station, which turned out to be a tedious affair. On Luna, there’s enough gravity to keep you from floating around. Not so, on Phobos. There was a little gravity, but escape velocity- the speed you needed to leave the little moon- was only about fifty miles per hour. Lose contact with the floor and you might float there for hours, unable to reach anything, until you eventually drifted back down.

  There’s an old story of how the early explorers on Phobos would get drunk (or high), put on a spacesuit, then go outside, take a running jump and launch themselves from the moon, hopefully with enough lateral velocity so they didn’t just hang there. Up and around they’d go, as the miniscule gravity would tug them into a very low, very slow orbit.

  The game was pretty simple (depending on just how drunk a person was): see if you could go all the way around Phobos without either landing, or smacking into any of the low ridges or hills. Even if someone did hit something, injuries were pretty rare, as you were only drifting along at about jogging speed. There were a few deaths, but most were from torn spacesuits, or drunks running out of air. As with most things that are a lot of fun and involve either alcohol or drugs, MarsGov eventually banned the practice.

  I desperately wanted to go planetside, but I didn’t have time if I was to make my connection to Io. Instead, I went to one of the many observation decks, and paid a few bucks so I could get a good view of the planet below. If you took away that view, being on Phobos was a lot like being stuck underground on Luna; one rock is pretty much like any other rock. Well, except for the sticky shoes. We hadn’t had to wear them on the shuttle, since there had been gravity (and plenty of it). We had experienced half an hour of zero gee at midpoint, when the ship swung around and began decelerating. But, like most everyone else, I’d strapped myself to the couch and stayed put.

  Early space travelers used magnetic boots to move around, especially on ships, where pretty much everything is metal. Then we began colonizing moons, asteroids, and so on, where the floors tended to be rock, or at least a plastic composite, rather than metal. So, moving around tended to suck.

  Then came sticky shoes. They allowed a person to walk around on most any surface, regardless of gravity. They’d been developed several decades ago, and used the same type adhesion which arachnids (aka spiders) used to walk all over things and not fall off. One of the few surfaces they wouldn’t work on was ice, nor did they do well on sand. On anything else, though, you could be the life of the party, and hang upside down from the ceiling, which an awful lot of people did when they got their first pair. After a few days the novelty would wear off, around the same time they figured out that having all the blood rush to your head was only fun if you were a bat.

  Sticky shoes have one very, very annoying property: up to a point, the longer they are in contact with a surface, the stronger they adhere. At running speed, they aren’t very sticky at all. Walking slowly could be a hassle and if you stopped and stood still for a bit, it was like you were glued to the floor. There were times you wanted to be firmly attached to something, like when moving around outside a spaceship. To get going again, you had to yank the shoes loose, and then you could move. In principal, it made sense. In practice, it was an utter pain-in-the-ass. Especially if you were walking around slowly, gawking at things like a tourist, which I was. So, thanks to a combination of the sticky shoes, and not much to see or do, I tired of sightseeing on Phobos pretty quickly.

  The view from the observation deck was indeed truly stunning. The red planet filled the windows, appearing to race along beneath us, though in reality, it was Phobos hurtling around its master. The northern polar ice cap, barely visible, gleamed brightly, as if lit from within. A huge brown dust storm raged across the plains east of the massive dormant volcano Olympus Mons.

  I could see a few of the bigger domes, but most of the habitats were underground, shielded from the solar radiation. I could see down into some of the larger rifts, where water had collected and frozen. Robots and probes had discovered water on Mars long before humans made the trip, though most of it was locked below the surface as frost. There was much more on the planet now, thanks to some engineers who began dropping comets onto the surface a century or so ago. They were pretty well aimed to hit remote areas, but the practice has always had its opponents. If they could keep it up (and keep finding comets to haul back and lob at the planet), in a few hundred years, Mars would be significantly warmer (thanks to the greenhouse effect), and would have a breathable atmosphere. An enterprising group in orbit around Venus was doing the same thing, hoping to cool it off enough for humans to eventually land on, one day.

  Mars seemed to inspire people to big projects. Another bit of lore has it that a group of colonists strapped a bunch of rocket motors to Deimos, and moved it into a stable areo-synchronous orbit, where it remains today. Those must have been some seriously large rockets; Deimos was nine miles long.

  I so badly wanted to go down there. Being a native Loonie, I’d never been on a real planet, and had never seen a real sunrise or sunset with my own eyes. But, I had a connection to make, this one aboard the TGS Valkyrie, one of our deep space liners. It
was headed for Jupiter (and points beyond), and so was I. I could skip this ship, but then I’d be stuck on Phobos for at least another two weeks, and that was time I’d rather spend getting on with things. The longer I waited, the less likely I would have the nerve to go through with it.

  As I stood and watched the Barsoom of Edgar Rice Burroughs unfold beneath me, my pocket beeped. I pulled out my Pod and checked it; it was an incoming memo from one of the smartasses back at my office on Luna, letting me know that the TGS Mali was now on Phobos. What a coincidence; so was I. I sighed, and sent back a response that mentioned, variously, performance reviews, pay cuts, and my current sense of humor (or lack thereof). I didn’t get a reply back, so I suspected they got my point. With another fourteen hours to kill, I grabbed my duffel, had a brief fight with the sticky shoes, and eventually unstuck myself from the floor. In a funk, I headed for the nearest bar.

  It didn’t take long to find one. It seemed there were bars crammed into every nook and cranny of the little moon. I suppose that was to be expected; Phobos station was the main gateway to and from Mars. There was the serious business of cargo handling and ship servicing, but beyond that, most everything else seemed to be designed around the principle of separating visitors from their money as quickly and efficiently as possible. Aside from the bars, there were an endless variety of hotels, casinos, restaurants, and souvenir shops. There were even sex shops and brothels, boldly advertising. While the latter did exist on Luna, they certainly didn’t advertise their presence. I had an idea that Luna’s reputation of being kind of prudish contained an element of truth.

  I spotted a bar that looked like what I was in the mood for; a comfortable place, a little more upscale than some of the others, with a lot less glitter and flash. The interior was very plush, decorated with sumptuous fabrics, the seating arranged in small, private clusters of overstuffed chairs and tables. Hidden lighting created a soothing feel, as did the soft music playing in the background. I strolled in, my sticky shoes continuing to stick, even on the thick carpeting. I found a seat and glanced around. There was a bar against one wall, where a couple of people sat, but otherwise, the place was deserted. This didn’t mean much; it was only mid-morning, local time.