Version Innocent

by Pete Molina

Chapter 36

  Sam was on the train heading to the spaceport. Terra had briefed him on who his contact was once he reached the station and how to get there. Sam was disguised as one of the safety inspectors for the Martian antimatter stations. He was sitting in one of the window seats and there was no one next to him. The car was mostly full but his persona looked a little menacing so people had avoided being too close, which was just fine with him.

  He was excited to be given this part of the job all to himself, and he finally felt like he was contributing to the team. He had contributed a little with the design of the cargo container lander they had used yesterday. Of course, that seemed like weeks ago with everything that had been happening. So he had done something, but he felt like the short leg of a three legged stool, needing to be propped up on something to keep them level. But this trip would help with that. He was the only one who had to go. The others needed to figure out how they were going to get away once Sam found a destination.

  The train made good time through the tubes and he arrived at the spaceport in under half an hour. The spaceport was located twenty kilometers from Olympia, and there were two subterranean pressurized train tunnels that connected them. When he arrived, the train pulled out of the masonry tunnel onto a platform at the base of the space port dome. The construction here reminded him of the Houston Spaceport, only smaller. It too was built with one major dome and outlying minor domes, but only a fraction the size of the Houston spaceport.

  As he made his way up the stairs in to the main terminal to find the shuttle service that went to the Hyatain station. He heard a rumble and looked upward through the transparent dome to see a rocket lifting off. It was a little different here than on Earth. Sam had been reading up on Martian space flight capabilities, and it seemed that it wasn’t done the same as on Earth. There were very few antimatter powered vehicles; they were mostly powered by methane and oxygen which were manufactured simply by having some hydrogen feedstock and using the Martian atmosphere, just as Robert Zubrin had proved possible so many years ago. They got the hydrogen by electrolysis of the water from the sub Martian aquifer.

  The rockets here didn’t have the ultra strong rotors for landing. They launched and landed purely on rocket power. Once Sam thought it over, it seemed natural that it should be this way. After all, there was only one third gravity here and still fairly little atmosphere despite the orbiting mirrors. It would be centuries still before the Martian atmosphere really gained much density. Until then, direct power launches and landings were easiest.

  Sam found the Trans Mars express shuttle counter and picked up the ticket that Terra had discreetly arranged for his passage. The woman working at the counter confirmed him on the six-o-clock shuttle that would take him to Phobos, and from there he would take another shuttle, one designed for space flight only, to the Hyatain station that was trailing Mars in its orbit by a half-million kilometers.

  Once he had confirmed that there was space on the shuttle, he had Ralphie bring up a guide display in his visuals. A virtual green band illuminated the floor in front of him that led him towards the spoke that went to launch pad Gamma. The terminal was bustling with people moving all over the place because this spaceport also functioned as a transport to other cities located around Mars that were reachable by sub-orbital rocket powered transports which performed the same function on Mars as zip tubes on Earth.

  Eventually, Sam supposed as he followed the green path, Mars would construct zip tubes as well, but the technology used to grow the tubes had not yet been imported to Mars. The expense was still too high for the UMG government to afford. Mars mostly dealt in low-tech real goods, unlike Earth which mostly dealt in high-tech equipment and information. Mars supplied the belt colonies that were not self sufficient and the orbital colonies around the Earth. They also supplied the Moon and some of the outposts on the Jovian moons. This all occurred not because Earth couldn’t do so but because it was more expensive to launch anything from Earth’s surface to any of these places than it was to do so from Mars.

  All of these low-tech goods were shipped by solar sails that never came closer to Mars than Phobos or Demos, the two small moons of Mars, which were too small to affect the sails adversely. What got to Sam was that Mars could be producing their own high tech goods as well but most of what was considered high tech today was nanofactured and nanofacturing technology was strictly controlled and regulated and so far had been denied permanent placement on Mars.

  There were always debates because Mars did contribute to the LNRC but only as a minor partner, and as such they were given nanofactured items from Earth but not nanofacturing equipment. Eventually this would change but so far Earth had kept control of what they designated as dangerous technology. The main argument against Mars having the technology was that they wouldn’t be able to stop a nanotech disaster. Which was probably true, but neither was Earth prepared really, though they liked to pretend they were.

  Sam reached his shuttle ten minutes before it was due to depart and one of the attendants waved for him to hurry up as they needed to finish their check list before they took off. Sam hustled a little and went out the ramp that connected to the side of the rocket. The rocket was a Boeing design nanofactured in Earth orbit from asteroid fragments brought to the nanofacturing facility by solar sail from the belt colonies. It was a strange triangular trade that had arisen with Earth shipping high tech goods to Mars and Mars supplying low tech supplies like food and so on to the belt colonies that shipped raw materials back to Earth, and some to Mars to be turned into more high and low tech goods.

  The Boeing rocket had been built as almost one unit. It was a diamondoid material that made up the bulk of the structure with two decks of passenger space and three rows of seats in concentric circles about a central lift tube shaft on each deck. The top deck was the cockpit where one person monitored the SS system. Below the two passenger decks was one cargo deck, and below that the fuel tanks that made up two thirds of the whole length of the rocket. Then there would be the super efficient rocket engine. The top passenger deck was full and the only available seat was on the lower passenger deck in the innermost circle of chairs. A simulated window that took up half the wall, through it Sam could see the Martian landscape with Olympia off in the distance and a few other rockets sitting neatly near their smaller domes at the end of the long ramps.

  This was how everyone traveled from Mars. The larger passenger liners and bulk transports all went to the spaceport on Phobos where passengers would then take smaller shuttles like the one Sam was on to make the descent. The liners and transports weren’t designed to make a landing. To do so would have needlessly increased their mass and expense.

  “Welcome aboard Trans Mars. I’m your Captain, Jim Alton, and we’ll be ready to depart in just a few minutes. Please make sure your are securely in your restraint chair and your personal items are stowed under your seat or down in the cargo deck. I’ll be activating the fog restraint system for the duration of the launch phase, which will last approximately six minutes. After that we’ll have a leisurely rendezvous with Phobos Interplanetary Spaceport by six-thirty local time.” The Captain announced over the intercom.

  Some things never changed. Sam sat down in his chair and activated the restraints.

  Sam had read that during the days of air travel on Earth when large airplanes were the transport system of choice, the flight attendants used to give safety briefings about what to do in the event of a disaster. They didn’t do that any more; there weren’t even flight attendants on these shuttles. The zip trains had never had one accident and the failure rate for the rockets nanofactured today was almost zero. It was truly the safest way to travel. In the event that something catastrophic happened, you’d just wake up on Earth in a restoration room anyway, so what was the big deal. Inconvenient but better than the alternative.

  “All right folks, we’ll be lifting in T-minus twenty.” the Captain broke
in again.

  Everyone just sat back to relax. The g-forces wouldn’t go above three for very long, although that was a lot for a Martian, and the restraints would help with the discomfort as they cushioned and molded to your body to prevent any pressure points from forming. Then the Captain began his count down as was traditional, starting at T-Minus ten.

  When he reached zero, there was a rumbling noise as the engine kicked on and after just a few seconds of barely moving upward they began to accelerate. The g-forces started to build and Sam felt himself pushed back into his restraint seat which gripped him comfortably. The view from the window was, as always, spectacular. He watched the ruddy Martian landscape fall away and in only a few minutes they were space borne on a path that would intersect Phobos as it came over head.

  “We’re finished with our main burn and I’m going to deactivate the fog restraint system. You’re free to float about the cabin if you wish until we’re ready to dock at Phobos in twenty three minutes,” the Captain informed them.

  The illuminated red band around the top edge of the cylindrical deck changed to green indicating that the fog field was now off. A few zero-g enthusiasts released their restraint chair and floated upward into the two meter empty space above the seats. Each seat back went up over the head of the occupant so even if the floaters landed on a seat or pushed off from one, they wouldn’t kick anyone. It was a good system, Sam decided, but he didn’t get out of his chair. Normally he would have. Zero-g was a blast, but there wasn’t much room, and his persona didn’t really look like the aerobatic type.

  Outside the window the Martian terrain was sweeping by, and Sam saw the city moving out of view already. He just sat back and relaxed as they covered the distance to Phobos. Several children were playing tag, but their mother quickly got them to settle down as they were getting a little too rambunctious in such close quarters. After another fifteen minutes Sam could see the speck of light they approached continue to resolve itself slowly into a small potato shaped body, Phobos.

  “We’re going to be rendezvousing with Phobos in just a few minutes, so everyone please return to their seats and engage their restraints,” the Captain instructed. The potato-shaped rock continue to grow as the distance closed, and the floating passengers quickly made their way back to their seats.

  Phobos was now looming over them as they came up on it. The small moon of Mars was only twenty seven kilometers long and nineteen wide. It was theorized that both Phobos, which means fear, and Demos, which means panic, were captured asteroids. Unlike Earth’s moon they had almost no surface gravity due to their small masses. If someone threw something from the surface too hard, it would easily reach escape velocity and never return. This property was what made it such a great place for interplanetary spacecraft. The spaceport was a ring that went around the entire circumference of the moon at the midpoint of its smallest diameter. From the ring every five degrees a docking spoke came out several hundred meters, and from those main structural spokes came several docking shafts that made each spoke look like a sparse antenna.

  The docking shafts were of different sizes and shapes, designed to mate up with all types of spacecraft from light sails to passenger liners and bulk transports. Two of the spokes were designated for Fleet operations only. A large section of the moon underneath the spaceport ring had been excavated to store water and methane, the two primary propellants for modern spacecraft. There was also antimatter stored there to power them. The shuttle came along side one of the inner docking shafts of a spoke. It began to brake gently, matching speed and attitude, and then without much effort came to a stop aligned with the docking port. There was a momentary lateral thrust as the shuttle mated with the port and they came to a complete stop.

  “Welcome to Phobos. Thank you for traveling Trans Mars. We hope you have a pleasant day and that if you are making connections, a pleasant journey. The fog restraints will be released momentarily, and then you may disembark down the lift column to the cargo deck. Don’t forget to collect your belongings before exiting,” the Captain said, concluding their trip.

  As soon as the red band went green Sam released himself from his restraint chair, and floated up and over his chair pushing gently to get into the lift column. As soon as he entered it began to pull him downward. Once he reached the cargo deck floor, he stepped out of the lift column, grabbing on to a hand rung and pulled himself through the exit. He felt the illusion of simulated gravity disappear as he exited.

  He continued to float, only grabbing at the hand supports on the walls, and he imagined himself floating gently upwards towards the main spine. Once he reached the end of the shaft, he came out into the spine which was a hollow cylindrical structure perhaps ten meters across. The top portion of the space was dedicated to outbound travelers and the bottom was dedicated to the inbound. The exit from the shaft parted into a y-junction which was clearly labeled for each direction, and Sam kicked a little to send himself through to the inbound. The two sections were separated by a thick transparent plastic sheet that also seemed to be serving as a floor for each of the sections. As he entered the inbound section, he felt a gentle force pulling him to the transparent floor.

  At least they have simulated gravity, Sam thought as he got his bearings and began to walk quickly down the shaft towards the main ring. His transport for Hyatain would be departing from Spoke Six and he was on Spoke Four. It was a little strange walking on a transparent floor, as others were walking in what appeared to be upside down positions in the opposite direction on their way to the waiting shuttles. The walk took only a few minutes before he made it to the junction with the ring. As he reached the end of the spine he felt the simulated gravity reorient him so his feet were now facing the surface, and it gently lowered him as if in a lift tube.

  The spaceport had grown by eight spikes since the fog system had been installed. Before that there had been only six, and passengers had had to deal with the zero gravity systems using motorized tethers to pull them to their destinations. The main ring was a recently completed half toroid that wrapped around the entire moon. It was thirty meters high at its tallest point which gave plenty of room for the shops and restaurants that lined the sides as well as hotels and living accommodations for the permanent staff. Plenty of open space.

  Earth had bankrolled a large portion of the spaceport to support the newly created Fleet. Mars had provided the labor and the asteroid belt mining colonies had provided the raw materials. After the first two hundred years of operations, a time still another hundred and twenty years away, Mars would become the owner in full. Until then it was operated by the Space Alliance, a sub organization of the United Nations.

  Large sections of the ring were just bare structure designed to accommodate additional spokes in the future and to provide more space for later expansion of residential and business areas. On either side of the toroid were fog transit tubes that would carry one to whatever exit area they requested. Sam walked into the tube and had Ralphie instruct the transport system that he needed to get to Spoke Six. The fog of the tube began to pull him, and he moved off briskly. Sam wondered what they had used before the fog technology had been installed and had Ralphie query the local datasphere. Ralphie reported to him that there had been a zero-g train that made stops but that it had never worked as well as the designers had intended, tending to break down and block up traffic.

  A few minutes later Sam arrived at his stop and the fog system gently pulled him towards the exit. He stepped out of the tube into the ring and walked quickly towards the lift section that would take him into Spoke Six. He glanced about at the shops offering food and souvenirs. On the ceiling he could see the entrance to spoke six and there was a circular area on the ground that was composed of two colors; one was marked Inbound, and the other Outbound. Sam walked in to the outbound region and was lifted upward into the spoke. The fog reoriented him again once he was inside and he was walking on another tran
sparent floor. It took only another minute before he reached his gate and he checked in with the gate attendant. There was no problem. The transport would be leaving in ten minutes.

  It had worked out well that a shuttle could get him to the spaceport and a transport would get him to Hyatain in the same day. Many times, Terra had informed him, one had to overnight on the Station as there was only one transport to Hyatain a day. The attendant ushered him into the shaft and again he became weightless and pulled himself up the handholds to enter the transport.

  The transport was a cigar shaped vessel, purely functional. Its appearance was similar to the shuttle he had taken from the surface on the outside, but inside Sam found it was completely different. It was powered by antimatter and used water as a propellant, which gave it the ability to constantly accelerate. The ship was laid out in decks that were perpendicular to the thrust vector so that the acceleration would act like artificial gravity and keep the passengers firmly fixed to the floor. This transport visited all of the fifteen antimatter stations that trailed Mars in half degree increments starting at five degrees behind Mars in its orbit. Hyatain was the first, and was five hours away.

  Instructions and a graphic popped up in Sam’s displays, telling him that he needed to take the central lift tube to deck two and his seat was number twelve. He followed the instructions and was lifted up past five decks to deck two where he emerged in an area very similar to the shuttle’s but twice the size. Additionally, the seats were much wider and more comfortable looking as passengers would have to endure long hours onboard. The directions informed him that the restroom was located along the wall, which he noticed as he entered his deck because it stuck out in place of several of the seats. The ship would use simulated gravity in all sections except when under power, which would have a limit of one g.

  “If everyone will please take their seats, we’ll be departing in five minutes,” a voice came over the intercom.

  Sam took his seat and activated the restraints. He had Ralphie access the ship’s external monitors and used his implants to have an unobstructed look outside. The view was spectacular. The sun was just setting. He caught a glimpse of a few of the larger cruise liners that were on the next spoke and beyond he could see what must have been a few of the Fleet ships that were currently docked. Sam wondered if the Powel were among them.

  Sam had a three-dimensional representation of the transport come up in his displays that showed him the location of the galley and the large observation room, which was simply a deck where all surfaces except the floor had screens that showed the external view. There was a warning that agoraphobics could experience discomfort and that the service could be disabled if there were more passengers than could be safely seated on the upper decks.

  He waited patiently, watching the external view from his implants until the Captain spoke up again. "Everyone is aboard. We’ll be departing momentarily. Attendants, please prep for departure.”

  This ship, unlike the shuttle, actually had a few attendants. Sam thought it was funny that they stuck to tradition. The ship probably didn’t even need to have a human pilot, as the SS system understood orbital dynamics and powered space flight better than a human ever could.

  “All right, the hatch is closing and we’ll be outbound in just a moment.”

  There was a brief lurch and the transport was free from the station, Sam felt his heart jump just a little with excitement. He was certainly on his way now.

  Sam watched intently as they moved slowly away from the station and then the Captain came on the intercom with the thrust warning, “We’ll be bring up the engines shortly. We shouldn’t experience more than a third g on this trip, I will disable the simulated gravity once we’re under power. Then you may move about the ship freely. Our flight time to Hyatain will be about five hours, Melbringer in six and a half, with a hour and a half additional to each of the other stations.”

  There was a rumbling as the antimatter was injected into the reaction chamber, and they were off. Sam almost didn’t notice as the acceleration built up. That strange sensation that simulated gravity always seemed to give went away, and he felt almost normal again. The same lighted band around the ceiling to indicate that the simulated gravity was on, turned off after a few minutes. After a few more minutes they were well on their way and the excitement Sam had felt before began to wear off. He realized that he was actually pretty tired considering he had slept terribly last night after Terra’s revelations and his previous night of insomnia.

  Sam deactivated his external view and took a brief glance around him. There wasn’t anyone sitting on either side of him that he could see, so he decided it would probably be all right if he took a brief nap-something he desperately needed after last night. He checked his power monitor on the camouflage; he had another twenty six hours. Terra had arranged for an additional power cell that Sam was wearing on his belt to keep the camouflage powered for as long as they could arrange. If that weren’t enough, then Sam would have to find a way to recharge it on Hyatain. Assured that he wasn’t going to mysteriously change from this stranger he personified back into himself, he instructed Ralphie to keep an ear out for trouble and to wake him twenty minutes before arrival.

  That done, he closed his eyes and tried to get some sleep.