The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  It worked. Nobody uttered another word. The only sound to be heard was the drumming, which was getting louder and louder. What would happen as the density of the atmosphere increased? How many impacts could the roof of the spaceship sustain? The bottom was reinforced for reentry, but the top didn’t have to be equally robust, so the design engineers had certainly saved some weight there. Every gram cost a few dollars per launch.

  Nick pulled himself toward the ceiling. The emergency release could not be controlled electronically, but it was designed to work even in the event of a power failure. He was going to have to eject the reel by hand. If only he could remember that training! But that had been eight years ago, and there hadn’t been an emergency since. Crap! This was sure to send his boss off the handle. The fact that he was proceeding manually would necessitate a multi-day repair.

  Nick hoisted himself up. With a folding knife he pushed the ceiling panel to the side. Just past it was a dark cavity. “Wiseman, give me light here!”

  The bald guy reacted quickly. Good man. Now Nick could see the levers and switches in the false ceiling. They were labeled with abbreviations that he’d had to memorize long ago but had since forgotten. What he did know was that the name would have to end with Ej for Ejection. But there were four candidates. MSEj, LEj, and CEj numbers 1 and 2. He ruled out the last two because there was just one reel.

  What could MS stand for? Should he try it? He touched the lever with his right hand. What if the ‘S’ was for ‘seat?’ If he were to fling them out of the ship at 35 kilometers, they would all die. No, it had to be the L. Maybe it stood for ‘Line?’ His mind was blank. He really shouldn’t drink so much.

  Nick looked down. A look of farewell? Wiseman moved his lips, but the drumming was now so loud that Nick couldn’t understand a word. He pulled on the LEj lever. There was resistance, but Nick kept pulling. The lever gave way and moved down a few inches.

  And the drumming stopped. Whew—lucky. Nick’s heart rate started slowing back down and he took a deep breath.

  “Thank you, Commander,” the bald man said, returning to his seat.

  “Everyone buckle up. Landing in twenty minutes,” Nick ordered.

  5/24/2080, Socorro, New Mexico

  Nick threw his jacket over his shoulder. When he had left the house that morning, the thermometer wasn’t yet at 16 degrees. Now the sun was shining, and it had surely broken into the 30s. He approached the gate and then passed into the lobby.

  His boss was standing in the doorway to his office. “Come here for a minute?” Had Bill been there long? He hadn’t noticed.

  “Can we do it tomorrow, Boss? I’m sure Rosie’s already waiting for me so we can have dinner.” Rosie in fact would never wait for him before eating, but his boss’s wife, Solveig, cooked for him every night.

  “No. Now.” He was noticeably abrupt. Bill was generally affable. He stepped out of the doorframe and let Nick go in first. He didn’t ask Nick to sit down, however, but instead went to stand behind his desk.

  “What’s going on?” Nick asked.

  “You’re fired,” Bill replied. “I can’t leave the passengers with you anymore. You’re unfriendly. I’ve told you so many times. But what you did today really takes the cake.”

  “This guy Wiseman wanted—”

  “It doesn’t matter what he wanted. You’re responsible for their safety. If things had really gone wrong, the company would have ended up broke and everyone here would’ve been out of a job. Who do you think who you are?”

  “Astronaut Nick Abrahams, the world record holder for most launches into space?”

  “You were a good astronaut once. I suggest you take a year off, have a rest, and then come back. I’ll see to it that you get an office job here. You can guide the visitors through our museum. That’d be interesting, right?”

  “Shit, man. I’d rather kill myself, Bill.”

  “I didn’t hear that just now. Otherwise I’d have to get you committed.”

  “And the flight tomorrow?”

  “We have to cancel for tomorrow. The whole rest of the week we’re closed. That’s your fault.”

  “But after that—”

  “Now it’s Mike’s turn,” his boss cut in.

  Of course. Mike, who’d been interning there for half a year. They’d just been waiting to replace Nick. Mike would undoubtedly be cheaper, plus he was 20 years younger and not as defiant.

  “Oh, just bite me,” said Nick. He turned to leave the room. He tossed his employee badge at the woman behind the reception desk and she caught it deftly. Was this the new one? Maybe he should take her out sometime.

  Oh, shit, they won’t be seeing me back here anytime soon. Out of here!

  ‘You are now leaving Truth or Consequences.’

  The city where Spaceport America was located had a stupid name. Nick turned around and looked back at the last of its houses. As if there was really a choice between truth and consequences! Truth and Consequences would have been more logical. They only came in a twin pack.

  Semi-desert started to appear along the roadside as he drove the four-lane highway to Socorro. Nick took the steering wheel in both hands and the car realized that he wanted to take control. He stepped on the accelerator. On the I-25, the speed limit was 120 kilometers per hour, so in autonomous mode the car wouldn’t go any faster. Now he got it up to 150.

  Maybe he’d manage to get home before his wife. Their commutes were about the same distance. He had to go north, and she went east, with Socorro as home base. It had seemed practical to them at the time. His wife worked at the Very Large Array, or VLA. She often put in overtime, and lately even more than before. Evidently she did not long for his company. Nick shook his head and pushed the accelerator up to 160 kph, causing the car to issue an alert. The speed lock would turn on at 175 kph.

  He moved into the right lane and passed a truck, then weaving back to the left. The local sheriffs weren’t very active around here. Really, he couldn’t get away from his old job fast enough. And there was also a little part of him that wanted to get caught.

  The car slowed down independently, two kilometers before reaching Socorro. The speed limit in the city was 50 kph, enforced by a GPS system mandatory for all vehicles. Socorro was proud to be among the first three cities in the U.S. to adopt this technology, and the mayor even appeared on the national news about it. What had become of the American dream, the idea of freedom? he mused. Nick glanced at the glove compartment. At least they hadn’t taken his Smith & Wesson away from him yet.

  The car turned onto a side street. The median strip had still been a fresh green when they’d moved here. It had seemed almost artificial to him, but Rosie had explained that it was an extraordinarily resilient species of grass. Now, ever since the city had prohibited the watering of gardens and green spaces, everything here was gray, from one bungalow to the next. Nick couldn’t even tell which one was his, but the car knew. It signaled, stopped briefly, and then turned into the driveway.

  There was already a vehicle parked in one of the spots in the garage. Rosie must have gotten off work early. She’d left the trunk open, and he slammed it shut without looking inside. So she’d been shopping, that was good. Maybe there would be something other than frozen pizza. Or was there a special occasion he’d forgotten? Rosie’s birthday was in November and their anniversary was in February. He couldn’t think of anything he’d done wrong.

  He opened the door leading directly from the garage into the kitchen.

  “Rosie?”

  There was no answer. He walked through the kitchen into the hallway, then stopped at the entrance to the living room. Rosie was sitting on the sofa across from where he stood. In front of her were two suitcases. She smiled shyly, almost awkwardly. That was the smile he’d fallen in love with more than 20 years ago. He smiled back. But what were the suitcases for?

  “Hello, Darling,” he said.

  Rosie’s smile faded. “Hello Nick,” she said. “Have a seat.”

 
He didn’t want to sit down. Even though his flight instinct had been triggered, he stayed put. He even managed to formulate a question but suspected that he wouldn’t want to hear the answer. Those suitcases... “What’s going on?”

  “I... I’m leaving you.”

  “I see. That explains the suitcases.” Shouldn’t he have felt something? Sadness, perhaps, or anger? He paced up and down the living room.

  “I packed everything I need. Most of it is already in the car.”

  “So you’ll be living somewhere else?”

  “Yes. Jim has a room that’s free, so I can move in.” Jim, who had been her PhD supervisor, had retired a long time ago. He was gay.

  “Is there... is there someone else?”

  “That’s not what this is all about.”

  So there is someone else! Who can it be? Dave? So that’s why she’s been putting in all that overtime lately. It was an explanation that seemed to make a lot of sense. Regardless, he felt no anger, no annoyance. It was no different from what had happened earlier in his boss’s office. He just wasn’t needed anymore. Such was the march of time.

  5/24/2080, Socorro, New Mexico

  Brrrrrrriing!

  Nick reached out with his right hand. “Sweetheart, the alarm clock... so evil...” But next to him, the bed was empty.

  The previous night came back to him. Rosie had told him she wanted a divorce, and she’d moved to Jim’s place. Nothing like ‘taking a break.’ No, what she wanted was a divorce, plain and simple. He had asked her why. She had given her reasons, and he’d had to agree with every single one. He really had grown cynical. At some point, the enthusiastic astronaut he’d once been had gone on an EVA and never come back. Nick the cynic had climbed into his spacesuit to take his place. Nick the drunk.

  He opened his swollen eyes. The sun was casting hard, white rays into the bedroom. It looked like it wanted to force apart the slats of the blinds. The New Mexico sun is harsh. Nick was actually from Seattle, where sunlight was always welcome. Here, people had to protect themselves the best they could.

  Brrrrrrriing! Brrrrrrriing!

  The alarm clock started up again. He rolled over to Rosie’s side and reached his hand to the alarm clock. But the stupid thing fell to the ground, where it kept on ringing. He crawled to the edge of the bed and groped around the floor. He found Rosie’s slippers and let out a moaning howl. He suddenly realized that she was his last link to reality. His face was wet.

  He kept fumbling around until he found the alarm clock. He opened the back cover and removed the batteries. The noise stopped.

  Nick remained in bed for an hour, exhausted, on Rosie’s side, with his arms and legs stretched out. He breathed in her scent because he knew that once it disappeared it would be gone forever. Then he got up. Enough already. He couldn’t live without his wife. He’d have to get her back.

  He went into the kitchen and made some strong coffee. He needed a plan. Somehow he had to manage to get back to his old self again, the one that Rosie had fallen in love with, a college baseball champion on his way to becoming an astronaut at NASA.

  Rosie, on the other hand, had been aspiring to a career in radio astronomy. Their friends had always called them the perfect couple. And then they had moved to Socorro. They’d wanted kids, though not at first—and Nick more so than Rosie, so he’d quit his job at NASA and played the part of the well-paid private pilot for wealthy space tourists. He hadn’t thought about how much giving up on dreams could change a person.

  But this was all in the past now. He’d win Rosie over, though he wasn’t sure how. He tripped over Fraser’s empty bowl on the way to the toaster. Fraser the cat. Shit, he’d forgotten to feed him last night. But people did those kinds of things after getting such news, right? Presumably, the cat was sulking somewhere—or had gone over to their friendly neighbor, an older black lady living alone in her bungalow, to get fed. Nick had always imagined his kids calling her Grandma.

  Maybe he should have talked to Rosie. Not about the job or his stupid boss, but about their lives, their desires, and the fact that even though they’d tried for a few years, they’d never had kids. It was easy enough to say they should have talked it over, now that it was too late.

  Nick got some cat food out of the fridge and dumped half the can onto Fraser’s plate. Then he let some water run into the sink. Fraser never drank from a dish, only from the sink. Then he put the phone in the pocket of his pants and left the kitchen through the garage door.

  Looking across the plains of San Agustin, located at least 2,000 meters above sea level, it was easy to see why this was the prime location for the VLA. Socorro was the last town before the hour-long drive led through an awe-inspiring landscape. The plains were dry and covered by low-lying shrubs, fascinating in their desolation. Agriculture was hardly worth the effort here. There were a few farmers with extensive livestock, but they got more from leasing their land to the institute.

  As Nick let his car drive, a thunderstorm seemed to be brewing over the high mountains on the horizon. The astronomers wouldn’t be pleased, since lightning and humidity disrupt their observations. Most of them worked in Socorro itself and just had the data sent remotely from the telescope. But not Rosie, who wanted to be on the front lines. If she found something, all she had to do was go to Rob in the control center, kindly ask him for a tiny observation slot, and she’d have the data she needed. Rosie didn’t like to wait.

  The first antennae appeared in the distance. Outwardly, they were indistinguishable from the 27 dishes built here in the 1970s, but the electronics made all the difference. There had been three waves of renovations, meaning that Rosie had still been able to do world-class research. Otherwise they wouldn’t have continued living in Socorro. Nick counted the dishes and evaluated the distances. Every four months, they would move via a network of double-lane railway tracks. When had he been there last? Two years ago? Now they were probably arranged in the A-configuration.

  A, like the beginning of the alphabet. And where was he going to begin? Rosie didn’t make spontaneous decisions. She was very different from him, and he’d always liked that about her. He couldn’t imagine planning out an entire year. Rosie, on the other hand, was the type of person to have her whole life planned out, and now he was no longer a part of her plan. How would he be able to get himself back into it?

  It was impossible. She’d probably made her plans months ago. It was a coincidence that she’d told him just the day before, the very day his boss had sacked him. It was a good thing they owned their house. Half of it belonged to Rosie, but she certainly wouldn’t force him to sell. That just wasn’t her style.

  Nick hit the stop button as hard as he could, with no reprimand from the car’s automatic system. Once there had been a product series with control software that would gently scold human drivers. Then an owner pulled out his gun and shot his mouthy vehicle, and the industry realized that including this feature was a mistake. Without complaint, Nick’s car squealed to a halt, bumped off the asphalt, and came to a standstill on the hard, crusty surface of the desert, right in front of a mighty cactus.

  Nick leaned back. Without a strategy, he shouldn’t visit Rosie at all. She would probably have the security guards send him away. He closed his eyes.

  There was a knock on the glass and Nick jerked upright. Outside was a man in uniform. His smile was friendly but he had his right hand on his weapon.

  Nick held up both his hands, then used his right hand to press the button to lower the window. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Are you okay, sir? Your car reported to us an emergency stop, and an owner in questionable condition.”

  Questionable? So that’s how my car perceives me? “Thanks for your concern, but I’m fine. I just had to rest a bit.”

  “Sir, if you’d like, I can get an ambulance. I see on my screen that in thirteen minutes, a vehicle...”

  “No thank you. My car was a little overzealous.”

  “Would you do
me a favor, sir, and put your hands on the wheel? I hope you can understand. I’m responsible for this stretch of road, and even if you’re traveling with the automatic system, you could still do some damage.”

  “Of course.” Nick did as requested. His car measured his heartbeat, oxygen saturation, and skin resistance to generate an ECG.

  The officer looked at the display on his arm and then nodded. “This is reassuring, sir,” he said. “Thanks very much, and enjoy the rest of your drive. But if you don’t mind my saying so, you look awful. You should definitely take a day off.”

  Nick laughed. “I’d like to, but I lost my job yesterday.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” The policeman looked genuinely concerned. “I hope that your wife Rosalie has been able to cheer you up.”

  Nick twitched as the officer said her name. But of course his data was linked to his car’s computer and license plate. “Rosie,” he said. “Rosie left me yesterday, too. Just my luck.”

  “Oh, you poor guy. I’d say that I could relate, and maybe that would make you feel better, but I can’t.”

  “You’re not married?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Consider yourself fortunate.”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. Well, if you really don’t need me, I’ll leave you be now.”

  “Of course. I’m sure you’ve got other things to do.” Nick searched for a nametag somewhere on the uniform but didn’t see one. “What’s your name?”

  “Automatic unit 3BT6, sir. It was a pleasure to chat with you. Call 911 if you need help.”

  That night, shortly after ten, Nick returned to his bungalow. He had spent the day at a casino on a reservation near Socorro, where he’d found some comfort in the rhythmic blinging of the machines. He looked around the kitchen. Fraser hadn’t touched his food, and the water in the sink had completely drained.