“Oh, that is bad,” Michael asked. “Can’t you just repair it?”
“Only under a microscope, and it’d never be like new again.”
“But then you wouldn’t have to take anything from storage.”
Ah, so that’s what he’s afraid of. JR might notice the part removed from stock and start asking questions. Such micromanaging was not her style. The inventory control system issued warnings automatically when certain supplies or replacement parts got low or ran out. He’d never needed to replace any muscle modules before.
“I’ll put in a new one and try to repair the old one later. Then you can do with it what you want.” Mike should have to do his dirty work himself, thought Giordano.
The doctor nodded his consent.
“Okay. I’ll get the spare part and put it in. But then you’ve got to leave me alone for the rest of the day.”
“What about the repair?”
“It’ll have to wait for tomorrow. I’ve got other plans.”
“Oh, yeah? You got a hot date or something?” Michael punched him playfully in the side.
“Yeah, with a mysterious, sexy celestial body.”
“Aha, I always knew you were the romantic type.”
With a hum, the hatch closed behind him. Finally, he was back in the workshop with his telescope. This time he would be able to work in peace and quiet. Carefully and without touching anything because he didn’t want to shift something accidentally, he closed one eye and put the other up to the eyepiece.
He didn’t see anything.
But that also made sense. He had been gone for almost an hour, meaning the object must have moved during that time. He called up the preliminary trajectory data on the computer, calculated a new position using that data, and oriented the telescope to the new position. There was still nothing in his field of view. He scratched his chin and concluded it was too early to worry. Preliminary trajectories were seldom right on the first try. Usually they were inexact, because they were missing some information.
He had the computer calculate other possible positions. He moved the telescope to each of these locations, sorted in terms of decreasing likelihood. He couldn’t find the object anywhere. Shit. He’d lost it, all because of Michael’s strange doings.
Just stay calm, Giordano. Maybe you should start over from the beginning. Where did the ELT in the Andes find evidence? He reset the coordinates again and then moved the telescope along the orbit. It was a long, tedious task, and it didn’t appear to make any sense. But he might have had made an error somewhere. The computer hadn’t placed any illuminated label over this barely distinguishable speck of light, which would have told him the name of the object. But the asteroid belt was still between the ship and the object. The risk that he had mistaken the object for one of the more significant asteroids wasn’t great, but it was still possible.
There! He hadn’t expected it, but there was a pinpoint of light in the field of view that shouldn’t be there. Giordano entered the data into the computer. It wasn’t any of the known asteroids. But the object that he had observed before would have already been much farther along its orbit. Had he found a new celestial body? He’d be far from disappointed. Finally, there would be an object in the universe carrying the name of his choice, the name of his mother, Paola Bruno. That was what he’d wanted ever since he was a kid.
The object moved out of the central area of focus and became blurry. But it hadn’t moved to the right as would be expected, and it traveled to the left instead. That didn’t fit at all with his earlier observations. One possibility was a previously unknown celestial body that was orbiting the wrong way around the solar system, that is, a real oddball. That would make it very fitting if it were to be named after his mother. Either that or the object had changed its direction of motion by somewhat less than 180 degrees. That would mean it wasn’t a celestial body at all. It would have to be an artificial object, a spaceship.
Giordano began writing a memo to the Minor Planet Center to report his discovery. But then he began to reconsider. He’d look like a fool if he sent a report that turned out to be just a spaceship. He hadn’t even checked what human-made constructions were flying around out there. Where was the Europa probe that was supposed to bring material from the ice geysers of Jupiter’s moon back to Earth? What other missions were still underway out beyond the Asteroid Belt? He really should check that before sending any reports. But, at the same time, he also knew that it would be a fruitless search. No probe made by man could have changed its course so radically within such a short amount of time.
He stopped his search in the NASA databases before he’d really even begun. Maybe he would be the biggest laughingstock among the astronomical community, but the risk of that seemed low. He decided he’d send his observations to the MPC. Let them decide what to do next and see what they could find. He sent his already recorded data. His stomach growled. It was time for dinner, but he didn’t want to waste his valuable time with eating. He stayed at the telescope.
January 3, 2035 – Moon Base Unity
“Base to away team. Please report.”
Jonathan opened his eyes. He needed a few seconds to orient himself, as it was dark. He reached out toward the right. His spacesuit had to be there somewhere. The computer on the suit’s arm showed that it was 04:00 standard time. What did base want with them at this time of the morning?
Yesterday had been plenty stressful and they needed sleep. Jonathan hoped the conversation wouldn’t disturb Wayne and Maxim. “This is Jonathan. What do you want? We’re trying to sleep.”
“Atiya here. Sorry, but we were just awakened here too.”
“Let me guess. Earth?”
“Yeah, Capcom sent us an urgent request from NASA.”
“What do they want from us?”
“They want us to make some observations using the telescope in Shackleton crater.”
“But that’s not even officially operational yet.”
“Tell me about it. But they don’t care. And I’ve got to admit the test exposures were impressive.”
“Tell them it’s not working because the laser link isn’t up yet. And it’s their fault.”
“That was my first response. But they only want an hour of observation time. You should be able to use one of the fuel cell modules from the solar power station to run it for that amount of time,” Atiya assured him.
That was the equipment that Wayne had just repaired yesterday. It was almost as if they had planned it all this way.
“But if we take out one of the modules, we won’t have enough power capacity for the base, and our work will get even further behind,” Jonathan countered.
“Doesn’t matter. If we do what they’re asking, they’ll send us a Cygnus transporter full of fresh food.”
Fresh food. That was the dream of any astronaut on a long-term mission. And it was a bribe, but he didn’t care. A whole transporter meant several tons of food. They could live like royalty for a few months.
“We’re already on our way,” Wayne interjected, having followed the conversation. “What’s it all about, anyway? Ah, it doesn’t matter. Tell them we’ll be there soon.”
“Just a minute, we need to ask Maxim too,” Jonathan said.
“Computer, 30 percent light.”
Light modules in the floor immersed the room in a warm light. Jonathan stood up and walked to the couch. Maxim’s eyes were closed and he was breathing very quietly.
Jonathan tapped him on his left shoulder. “Wake up, Maxim.”
“What? What’s going on?”
“Earth is asking if we’d make a little side trip to Shackleton crater. What do you think?”
Maxim laughed. “Of course!” What he really meant was, ‘See, Doc? You’re never going to get your hands on me.’
They started out half an hour later. Jonathan would have liked to shower, but there was only a sink in the outpost. Outside it was just as bright as yesterday. At this latitude, the day was almost end
less. Maxim was lying in the back of the transporter, sharing the space with the fuel cell that was nearly two meters long, a meter tall, and a half meter across. Jonathan had given Maxim an injection of painkillers, which was supposed to make the ride more bearable.
They were headed south. Wayne was in the driver’s seat, and Jonathan was sitting behind him. Only at the beginning was the incline so steep that Wayne couldn’t take a direct path. The view down to the low plains in front of them was frightening, but not because of the height. Instead, it was due to the loneliness and desolation that lay over the dark gray landscape like the soupy mist over a swamp.
Jonathan imagined they were driving down from the peak of a 25,000-foot mountain back on Earth. There, they would’ve probably slid into a crevice of a glacier by now. The moon made it a little easier on them. Its mountains were formed many billions of years ago. Since then they’d been flattened by erosion due to cosmic radiation and impacts from objects from space, so even the more significant elevation gains and drops could be traversed relatively easily. But at least here, on the great wall in the north, it looked pretty different from anywhere on Earth. It was frigid, but because there was no atmosphere, the suits lost heat only through radiation. Thus the built-in heating systems could very easily keep up with any losses.
The grand spectacle of the landscape started to make him feel exhausted after they had made it only about halfway down the mountain. Perhaps the last few days had simply been too hectic, or maybe the morning was simply not his best time of the day. In any case, he fell asleep.
“Wake up, Jon.” Someone was knocking on his helmet—Wayne.
“We’ve reached the summit ridge.”
Jonathan felt bad. Wayne must’ve driven almost a hundred miles, and at least the last part over challenging terrain. “You want me to drive now?”
“Nah, let me do it, Shorty. I feel safer when I’m behind the wheel.”
Shorty? Wayne was maybe two inches taller, but it wasn’t worth a reaction. Jonathan looked around. The sun was putting on another impressive show of shadow puppet theater. The crater wall’s zig-zag ridge was casting patterns that brought to mind dinosaurs fighting in the bowl-shaped area in front of them. In the middle of the crater, he could just make out the central mountain. And on top of that mountain stood the pride of humankind, the FST, short for the Far Side Telescope, although they were still too far away to see any sign of it.
There were supposed to be two critical astronomical instruments in this crater, but only the FST, customized for observations in the infrared and visual range, had been built so far. A radio telescope was still in the plans for some later time. It would especially benefit from being free of all of the diffuse radio emissions that were everywhere on Earth. The FST, in contrast, had the advantage of an always-perfect view into space, undisturbed by clouds or any atmosphere. Its resolution wasn’t particularly large—there had been instruments on Earth with larger apertures for quite some time.
“Away team to Base,” Wayne said on the universal frequency. “Do you copy?”
Jonathan turned around. The summit of Mons Malapert was projecting upward behind him. It shimmered in the sunlight. Up there was a repeater that would forward their radio calls to the base—otherwise contact would be impossible.
“Atiya here. I copy loud and clear.”
“That might not be true for much longer,” Wayne said. “We’re driving down from the crater’s edge into the valley, and we’ll be passing through a pretty big radio shadow.”
“Thanks. That’s good to know.”
“I’m not sure what the range of our helmet transmitters is. From the crater to the repeater at the solar power station, it’s about 130 kilometers as the crow flies. Our transmitters might not have enough power.”
“There’s another repeater at the FST.”
“Yeah, but it’s got no power.”
“That’s true,” Atiya said, “I hadn’t thought of that. It was supposed to be powered by the laser link.”
“Tell Capcom they owe us two transporters full of fresh food,” Wayne said.
“Do I need to be concerned?” Atiya asked. “Should I wake up Yue and get her permission to continue?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Maxim said. “Your commander is here and has ordered the crew to make its way to the telescope. We can power the repeater from the fuel cell too.”
“Yes, but on your way there, we won’t be able to contact each other.”
“And we shouldn’t need to,” Maxim said.
“Okay, well, then I’ll guess we’ll talk again in about two hours,” Atiya said. “I’m excited to see the images you take with the FST.”
“Expect it to be more like three hours. This descent’s gonna take some time,” Wayne said.
They still hadn’t reached the telescope three hours later. Jonathan had climbed off the vehicle a while ago. In the shadow of the crater’s ridge, it was so dark that they could only move forward at a walking pace. He walked about fifty meters in front of the rover and pointed out the best path forward. Before he had gotten off, they’d had to turn around several times, because large chunks of rock had blocked their passage. The interior of the crater was obviously considerably more chaotic than outside.
But he could already see the shadow’s boundary. It moved in a zig-zag shape through the landscape. Past the boundary, everything appeared to be blindingly bright. But that was due to his sense of vision having adapted to the darkness. The low central projection where the telescope was located was also bathed in sunlight.
“I think you can get back on the rover now,” Wayne said by radio.
Jonathan stopped and let the rover catch up to him. The light from the two headlamps was jumping around wildly. It looked as if a playful kitten with golden-yellow eyes was approaching him. The silence of the rover’s approach also fit that metaphor. It was something he still hadn’t gotten used to, a one-ton vehicle rumbling over stone and dust, and yet there was nothing to hear.
The ground had become uneven over the last 500 meters. It must’ve been incredibly uncomfortable for Maxim. The pain medicine wouldn’t be working as well anymore compared to right after they’d set out, but their commander didn’t complain.
Let’s hope this little excursion will be worth the discomfort, Jonathan thought. The rover stopped next to him. Wayne waved.
“You want me to take a turn driving?” Jonathan asked.
“Won’t make a difference anymore. Just let me stretch my legs a little bit and I’ll be all right.”
Wayne got off the rover, tried to take a step away from the vehicle, groaned, and then fell to one knee.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, no problem, Doc, my legs just fell asleep, sitting on that seat all that time, and I didn’t notice.”
“I think I’d better drive.”
“No, just give me a couple of minutes, then we can keep going.”
Wayne was as stubborn as Maxim. But weren’t they all? Otherwise they wouldn’t have had the persistence to make it onto the international moon crew. When they had applied to ESA for the mission, the moon base had still been humankind’s big prestigious project. Who could’ve known that the crash of the Chinese on Mars would change everyone’s priorities?
“Okay, I’m ready again,” Wayne said. He slowly stood up and then walked once around the rover.
“Maybe we should take breaks more often,” Jonathan said.
“I just want to get there,” Wayne said. “My shit diaper’s already full. I shouldn’t have eaten breakfast. That dried crap didn’t even taste good.”
The telescope building still didn’t have a room where they could take off their spacesuits. The critical life-support systems had no power yet, because the bureaucrats couldn’t make the laser link fit their suddenly tight budget. Thus, Wayne would have to wait until they got back to base to solve his problem.
While Wayne climbed on the rover and started the motor, Jonathan glanced back at the cargo
bed. Maxim was still lying there and appeared to be sleeping. Being able to sleep anywhere and anytime might be the most crucial superpower for any superman astronaut.
After descending from the four-kilometer-high crater rim, the central peak looked to him like a small hill. Jonathan was familiar with such hills from the low mountain ranges back home, although those back home were covered with green forests instead of gray dust. The telescope was located on the plateau in the middle of the peak. From a distance it looked something like a pimple that was about to burst. A giant 3D printer had used the regolithic dust, mixed into an injection-moldable material to form the rounded, dome-like base. At its center was a metallic cap that protected the telescope from dust when it wasn’t being used, and this was what resembled the white tip of a pimple.
Now they were right in front of it, and fortunately it had lost that repulsive resemblance. The hill where the telescope was located looked like it had grown out of the rocky plateau below it. They were both made of the same material. Together with the dome, it was about thirty meters tall. Right in front of them was the cavern-like entrance that was closed by a simple steel door. The interior wasn’t pressurized. They would have to keep their suits on if they wanted to complete Atiya’s orders.
“Away team to base. Do you copy?” Wayne asked via radio.
“I doubt that’s going to reach them. We haven’t powered up the repeater yet,” Maxim said.
“Just had to test it. I thought maybe we might’ve underestimated the range of our helmet transmitters,” Wayne said.
“Come on. I’ll push the fuel cell to you from the back.”
Wayne walked around the vehicle. The fuel cell moved noiselessly to the edge of the cargo bed. Wayne lifted it up and lowered it to the ground. “Ugh,” he said, “that’s a heavy part. Where do we have to take it?”
“The external power coupling is in the dome,” Maxim said.
The Wall: Eternal Day Page 4
