Solar Express (22 page)

“What about a diamond nanorod drill or a drill or sampler like it? An artifact with that kind of albedo and no marks on its surface might be incredibly difficult to obtain pry samples from.”

“Silvered silicon…” The colonel paused. “I'll see what I can do. Just a moment.” Whatever the colonel did was near-instantaneous, most likely through an implant. “Back to the AIs and the associated equipment…”

Tavoian listened.

After fifteen minutes, the colonel smiled. “You'll have a week en route to go over all of this. There are complete schematics in the ship's database, two sets, one in the AI and one in your personal infobank. There's also a print manual as backup.”

After that, Tavoian got a briefing on the mission profile, from the timing, the possible corrections necessary, and if the object turned out to be alien, what Space Command would like, and if it did not, all the astrophysical and other data the scientific types would like. In the event of the second case, the mission would be much shorter, but it was clear that Space Command believed strongly that the object was more than a unique asteroid. It was also clear that time was of the essence, especially in getting a Noram spacecraft to the object, and that the colonel had been ordered to get the most suitable pilot from those available at Donovan Base.

Carrying his kit, Tavoian reached the lock for Recon three at 1030 UTC, meaning that he had little time to waste.
But any delay was the colonel's, and a few minutes won't change much for something that's been there a long time, especially since this isn't a preprogrammed mission where every second changes every calculation.

Except every second did change every calculation. It was just that Recon three's AI could make those adjustments so that a few minutes or seconds didn't change much, especially since Tavoian wasn't getting any help from any other planet's gravity field, beside Earth's.

He cycled the locks and lock doors to enter the spacecraft and, once aboard, made an interior inspection, noting that Recon three had been converted from a standard fusionjet, with a tiny galley in the passenger space and an extensive food supply, extensive for a fusionjet.

He stowed his kit before making his way to the controls, where he strapped in and activated the control system. “Commence booster checklist.”

Tavoian went through the booster checklist with the AI, because he wasn't familiar with it, although it was effectively a second, if shorter, FusEx checklist. Then came the checklist for Recon three.

When he finished, he commlinked Operations. “OpsCon, Recon three, ready for release.”

“Recon three, you are cleared for ungrappling and release this time. Cleared for use of thrusters. Notify when you have full separation before ignition.”

Those weren't precisely standard release instructions, but clearly Operations did not wish to broadcast that the boosted Recon three needed greater clearance from the docking link and Donovan Base … or that it might be boosted or otherwise different.

“OpsCon, will notify readiness for ignition.” Tavoian watched and monitored the AI as it eased the overlong booster and ship combination away from Donovan Base.

“Begin orientation.”

Tavoian had to wait several minutes before the AI reported,
ORIENTATION COMPLETE.

“OpsCon, Recon three, ready for ignition.”

“Recon three, you're cleared for ignition this time.”

“OpsCon, commencing ignition. Request departure clearance.”

“Recon three, you are cleared to depart.”

“Activate drive.”

DRIVE ACTIVATED.

The gentle pressure began to build, pushing Tavoian into his couch as it gradually approached a full gee of acceleration. It had to be his imagination, but he felt that the Recon three booster combination was somehow slow and sluggish. Yet a one-gee acceleration was a one-gee acceleration. It just took more power to accelerate more mass.
And much more Hel3 …

He just hoped that the Space Command mission planners had calculated that correctly, and with a hefty safety margin.

He watched the monitors and screens as Recon three continued to accelerate away from Donovan Base on a course that would gradually rise above the plane of the ecliptic toward an unknown object discovered by the only astrophysicist he knew.

 

31

D
AEDALUS
B
ASE

2 N
OVEMBER
2114

At 1001 UTC, almost precisely midmorning on Friday, assuming a work day began at 0800, which it didn't on days that fell during the lunar night when Alayna was usually in the COFAR control center by 0700, Marcel announced, “All outgoing communications have ceased.”

“For what reason?” she asked.

“There has been a failure in the pretransmittal process. No signals are being received by the transmitter. The streaming compression system is inoperative.”

Alayna gulped. “What about the data from both the radio telescope array and the optical systems?”

“The data is being saved in the backup databanks for transmittal.”

At least the data's not gone.
But the delay would generate complaints, and that was something she didn't need. She paused. “Shouldn't a failure have switched the data stream to the backup compression server?”

“That did not occur.”

“Why not?”

“The failure mode was not activated.”

“Then activate it.”

“That requires a supervisory override, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

Sometimes!
Alayna turned and entered the codes, with her password and thumbprint.

“Communications have resumed, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

“What about the data that was stored?”

“It was sent first. The system will be three minutes late for the next nineteen minutes, two minutes late for the next seventeen, and one minute late for the next fourteen.”

Assuming we don't have another foul-up.
“Is the problem in the system codes or routines?”

“No, Dr. Wong-Grant.”

“Where, then?”

“The server monitoring system malfunctioned.”

“Is that the result of a hardware failure?”

“Until the relay override box is replaced, that is impossible to determine.”

“Where in the storeroom is the replacement?”

“Delta Zulu six seven.”

“Delta Zulu six seven.” Alayna shook her head at the location codes, revealing the old United States military origin of COFAR's developers and builders. She called up the compression server schematic and a diagrammatic map of its location in the main information processing center. “Is your link to the information processing center working?” The question was not a formality because several of Marcel's links did not work, such as the one in the suiting/unsuiting locker room, but since repairing them would have required drilling into the walls of the base, or installing hardware that the base did not presently have, and since those locations were not considered critical, the Foundation had deferred those repairs. Alayna certainly wasn't about to drill into base walls, not knowing just how accurate the base specifications were and not as the sole inhabitant of a base set on an airless moon.

“The link in the information processing center is operative.”

“Is the screen there operative?”

“It is.”

“Good.” Alayna immediately stood and made her way down to the lower level equipment supply room.

Delta Zulu six seven was in a stack of bins almost adjacent to the door, something she never would have guessed from the numerical identifier. Thankfully, the stack and bin numbers were large. There were six of the server relay override boxes, all identical oblongs of black composite ten centimeters long and roughly three wide, with large white letters—SRO-2(a)—on the top.
Definitely black boxes.
She took two, just in case, and walked down the long corridor to the main information processing center.

When she entered, she asked, “Marcel?”

“Yes, Dr. Wong-Grant?”

“Display the system plan that shows where the server relay override box goes.”

“System plan is on the screen.”

Alayna studied the map/diagram, then walked over to the racked electronics. She didn't see what she was looking for. She walked back to the diagram and studied it more closely, realizing that the diagram was oriented to lunar north, and that she'd been looking at it wrong. The second time, she quickly located the relay, its upper surface covered with a thin film of fine dust, suggesting that it had not been touched or moved in some time. As with most of the other components, it was a plug-in, and she eased it out, replacing it with the new relay.

“Marcel, the new relay is in place.”

“The replacement relay is not functioning.”

“Frig!” Alayna eased the supposed replacement out and tried the second. “Now?”

“The replacement relay is not functioning.”

Two out of two not working?
Alayna studied the flat panel under the relay, finally noticing a stud or button that had likely once been white but was a dark gray. She pressed it.

“The replacement server override relay is functioning. The streaming compression system is inoperative.”

“Why?”

“The coding integration module has also failed.”

Alayna went back to the screen. “Display the location of the coding integration module.”

This time, before she went to find another part, she checked the location around the “failed” module. There were no reset studs anywhere near. With that, she turned and once more headed for the equipment supply room.

Ten minutes later she slipped out the old integration module and replaced it with a new one—yet another blackbox replacement—simply numbered LACCD 761—and that put the main data compression server back on-line.

As she walked back from the information processing center to replace the relay she had not used and then up the ramps to the COFAR control center, she was still thinking about the design.
Why a relay that could be overridden or bypassed by the main system, and one with a reset stud as well?
That didn't make sense. Either that, or there was a reason she didn't comprehend.
How many other things are there here like that?
It all brought home to her the fact that COFAR was old, very old as astronomical installations went, although the main optical mirror had been replaced comparatively recently. Still …

When she reached the control center, she immediately asked, “Marcel, if the main system could physically activate the failure mode and switch to the backup compression server, why is there even a relay override box?”

“The relay override box was part of the original design. The data transmission system was upgraded after the installation of the present main optical mirror. There is no information on why the relay override was retained.”

“Why was there a reset stud as well? Is that information available?”

“It is both a reset and an on/off switch.”

That makes at least two other ways for things to go wrong.
But was that true, or was she still missing something? “Thank you.” She settled back in front of the displays, going over the system indicators, and then the messages, except the only thing that had arrived was an outsystem news flash, beginning:

“Free Mongolia!” terrorists claim to have obtained five Indra scramjet missiles, along with the coordinates of locations where top Chinese political officials are often located …

Alayna hadn't even heard of whoever or whatever the “Free Mongolia” terrorists or political agitators might be, but how had they obtained Indian high-level weaponry? Or had they? Who would know until it was too late, one way or the other? Since COFAR was back to operating normally, she searched the news databases, especially
HotNews!
, which for all of its racy and sexually obnoxious content, also had the most recent revelations, and with a high degree of accuracy.

She didn't find that much that wasn't old history, such as the Chinese takeover of 2081, and the infighting among the Sinese multinationals to control the resource subsidiaries. Most of the Noram corporations had agreed to cash settlements for their interests or even whole subsidiaries because the United States had been essentially bankrupt, and the whole world knew it could exert neither economic nor military pressure, and hundreds of billions of hard yuan had been more than welcome in a collapsing U.S. economy …

She shook her head. There was nothing about the “Free Mongolia!” movement, but she supposed that was to be expected with the effectiveness of the Sinese “media guidelines.” Except … why had they allowed the story to be reported? Again, more questions than answers, and she didn't have access to the sources she would have had back on Earth. But there wasn't much she could do, not from Daedalus Base.

She was also concerned about Chris. He'd avoided saying what he was doing, and he'd been very clear about his piloting duties between the Noram space elevator and the lunar stations, either L1 or the Low Lunar Orbit Station. Since he'd been transferred, he hadn't written a word about his new duties, except about training and doing supervisory duties in the middle of the night—she stiffened in the chair. An officer supervising in the middle of the night at 0400?
That's watch-standing. He's on what amounts to a military installation!

Alayna swallowed. If Noram had a de facto military base, then so did the Sinese and the Indians most likely … and everyone was right to be worried.
How could you not have seen that?

He'd never said he was an officer, except when she had noted his uniform on the trip to the LLOS. He'd passed it off as a requirement imposed by DOEA for all Noram pilots. She'd wondered about that and looked it up. It was a requirement with the rationale that Noram wanted to assure pilot loyalty.
But that requirement allows rapid militarization and control of Noram fusionjet spacecraft.