Spindrift (6 page)

JUNE 1, 2288—EASS
GALILEO

F
rom the distance, the
Galileo
was almost invisible; only the gunmetal grey bell of its main engine could be seen within the latticework of its dry dock. As the orbital transfer vehicle drew closer, though, the vessel gradually took on form, becoming an elongated spindle illuminated by floodlight arrays. Even so, the spacecraft remained toylike, its true dimensions not readily apparent until the OTV was only a hundred meters away.

“
Galileo
command, Charlie Victor two-ten.” Emily Collins kept her hands upon the yoke, moving it ever so slightly to fire maneuvering thrusters. “Requesting clearance for final approach and docking.”

A moment passed, then she heard Arkady's voice in her headset: “
We copy, Charlie Victor. We have you acquired. Proceed to docking at port four.
” She was about to reply when she felt a gentle nudge at her left elbow. Not taking her eyes from the wedge-shaped window, Collins stole a sidelong glance at Jared Ramirez, sitting beside her in the copilot seat.

“Yes?” she said, tapping the lobe of her headset to mute the wand-mike.

“Sorry to bother you, but…” Ramirez hesitated. “Do you think it's possible that we might have a last look before we go aboard? After all, we're going to be cooped up in her…it, whatever…for quite some time.”

“Yes, please.” This from Cole, seated along with the rest of the science team in the rear. “Of course, if the schedule is too tight…”

Collins checked the chronometer above her head. The countdown stood at T-minus five hours, nine minutes. The flight crew had arrived a little more than forty-five minutes ago; although they were preparing
Galileo
for launch, there wasn't much for the science team to do between now and then except find their way to their quarters, stow their belongings, and wait. And although they'd toured the ship during training, this would be the last time any of them would see the outside of the vessel for many months.

“I'll see what I can do.” Collins tapped her mike again. “
Galileo
, Charlie Victor two-ten. The passengers have asked for visual inspection of the vehicle. Requesting permission for flyby.”

Another pause, this time a little longer. Collins imagined Arkady turning to Captain Lawrence, repeating her request to him. She half expected it to be denied because…well, simply because…but then his voice returned. “
Roger that, Charlie Victor. You have permission for a brief flyby, with the captain's compliments
.”

With the captain's compliments. Oh, how grand!
Collins could only picture the look on Arkady's face as he relayed this; if he was smart, he'd turned his back to Lawrence. “Thank you,
Galileo
. Charlie Victor two-ten over.”

She muted the mike again, then inched the yoke slightly to the left, delicately negotiating a starboard turn that put the OTV on a parallel heading with the dry dock. “You got your flyby, Dr. Ramirez,” she said. “Better look sharp, because we're only doing this once.”

“M'lady, you're a princess.” Ramirez favored her with a dashing smile, then lowered his voice. “Captain's something ofa…well, y'know…”

“No, I wouldn't,” she said tightly, even though she could think of a dozen apt descriptions that would fit the diplomatic pause in his last comment. “And it's my pleasure,” she added, even though she probably would've ignored his suggestion if Cole hadn't seconded it.

The OTV was traveling alongside
Galileo
, moving from the stern toward the bow. One hundred thirty meters long, the vessel was a collection of cylinders of various sizes, with the propulsion module taking up nearly half of its length. Through the dry dock's cradlelike trusswork, they could see ropelike umbilical lines running to ports along the sides of the enormous main fuel tank, containing deuterium and helium-3, just aft of the fusion engine. Like the rest of the ship, they were enclosed by plates faintly resembling hand-woven blankets: nine-millimeter beryllium shields, the first line of defense against interstellar dust, a nuisance barely worth noticing most of the time but potentially lethal at relativistic velocities.

“Not that I have anything against Captain Lawrence,” Ramirez said quietly. “It's just that…well, I can't help but notice a certain difference between him and Mr. Harker.”

“Is that so?” Collins kept an eye on the radar, carefully maintaining a safe distance between the OTV and the dry dock. “I hadn't noticed.”

By then they were passing the service module. Forward of the reaction-control thrusters, two probes were mounted on either side of the hull: Larry, the lozenge-shaped vehicle meant for atmospheric entry, and its larger brother Jerry, a spherical robot designed for orbital reconnaissance. She had no idea why they'd been given these names, other than that they held some literary significance for their designers. Past the service module was the four-port docking module, the most narrow part of the ship. Her own craft, the
Maria Celeste
, rested belly-up within its cradle, her dorsal hatch mated with the air lock. She noted that the OTV that had transferred the flight crew from Tsiolkovsky Station had already departed, flown back by a harbor pilot who'd been waiting aboard ship for the crew's arrival.

“You haven't?” A dry chuckle. “I certainly have. Mr. Harker is…well, forgive me for saying so, but he's obviously the more capable officer. Or at least that's how it seems to me.”

“Not my place to say.”
Although I completely agree
, she silently added. By all rights, Ted should have been given command of the
Galileo
. He'd graduated at the top of his class from the ESA training center in Geneva, and his grasp of astronautics far exceeded Lawrence's, who'd struggled through the four-year officer training program and was barely qualified to hold command-level rank in the astronaut corps. Yet Ian Lawrence was the scion of landed gentry, his father a peer in the House of Lords, while Ted Harker came from a working-class family in Wales. Since the UK had been the primary financial backer of the
Galileo
's construction, though, Lord Lawrence was able to pull strings to make sure that his son was named as its commanding officer, despite the objections of those in the ESA who knew that Theodore Harker was far more suitable for the job.

Bloody class system
, she thought.
This ought to be Ted's ship. Ian's just a rich laird looking for something to add to the family crest.

She distracted herself by inspecting the concentric bulge that protruded from the hull just forward of the telemetry platform. The housing for the diametric drive, stowed until
Galileo
reached the Kuiper Belt. Ramirez stretched forward against his seat harness to admire it. “Very efficient engineering,” he murmured. “Have to admit, it's an elegant solution to a problem…how to make the drive torus small enough to pass through the starbridge.” He looked back at her again. “You haven't answered my question.”

“That's because you haven't asked one.” Before he could reply, Collins nodded toward the window. “There's our home for the next four years.”

Galileo
's hab module was the foremost section of the ship: a drum-shaped cylinder, little more than forty meters long, with portholes and emergency hatches spaced along its four decks. At the end of its blunt bow was its deflector array, six conical pods arranged along a ring-shaped structure; it was designed with redundancy in mind, so that even if two more deflectors failed, the rest would continue to operate. Likewise, the module was connected to the rest of the ship by a slender neck; in the event of an emergency, the module could be detached, to survive on backup power and life-support systems until—at least in theory—the crew could be rescued by another ship.

Yet rescue was almost a moot point. Although plans were being made for the eventual construction of a sister ship, the
Columbus
, the fact of the matter was that if the
Galileo
met with disaster, a rescue mission was almost out of the question. Although the ESA had a small fleet of interplanetary spacecraft, none were designed to pass through KX-1. Indeed,
Galileo
's first mission had originally been intended to be nothing more than a survey of the Kuiper Belt, with a flight to 47 Ursae Majoris being contemplated if that was successful. No one thought that its maiden voyage beyond the solar system would be to investigate an anomaly like Spindrift.

As they reached the end of the dry dock, Ramirez said something else, but Collins ignored him. Twisting the yoke hard to the right, she assayed a tight starboard turn that brought the OTV around in a 180-degree arc.
Galileo
lay dead ahead, the silver coating of its deflector pods catching the spotlights of her craft. She fired forward thrusters to decelerate, then gently coaxed the OTV forward.

“As I was saying…” Ramirez began.

“Not now, please.” She prodded her mike. “
Galileo
command, Charlie Victor two-ten. Flyby completed, resuming docking maneuvers.”

“
Copy that, Charlie Victor.
” Arkady again. “
Clear for docking at port four. Wave as you go by.
”

She grinned despite her nervousness. Maneuvering the OTV within the confines of the dry dock would be a tight squeeze; Arkady knew that her hands would never leave the yoke. “Wilco,” she replied. “Watch for my lights.”

The OTV slipped into the dry dock with scarcely twenty meters on either side to spare. Emily chewed her lower lip as she let forward momentum do most of the work, firing aft thrusters only when necessary. From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a figure floating within one of the broad, oval windows on Deck A; Arkady, watching her from the command center as she passed by. She stole a second to flip a toggle switch twice, causing her formation lights to blink a couple of times, then she put both hands on the yoke again.

Once she guided the craft past the forward mooring cables, she was home free. Emily rolled the OTV forty-five degrees to starboard, then pitched the bow ninety degrees to port. Charlie Victor was flying perpendicular to
Galileo
. When the docking module drifted into view, she fired another burst to brake her momentum. The designated docking port lay directly below her; a quick fire of the aft thrusters, and she moved toward it. Ten meters…seven meters…five…three…

A hollow rasp as the OTV's docking probe slid into the collar, then its flanges engaged and there was a sudden thump as the OTV mated with the ship. Emily let out her breath as she reached forward to flip switches that would withdraw the probe and begin pressurization. “
Galileo
, Charlie Victor, we are home.”

“
Confirm that, Charlie Victor.
” Only this time it was Ted's voice, not Arkady's. “
Nice flying there. You've always been good at this sort of thing.
”

Ted, you bastard
…Emily felt her face grow warm and prayed that no one noticed the innuendo. “Roger that,” she replied, trying not to smile. She waited a second, studying the gauges to make sure that the seal was tight and there were no air leaks, then turned her head to look back at the passengers. “All right, now, I'm popping the forward hatch. Might be a slight pressure difference, so I suggest you swallow a couple of times. But don't touch the hatch…someone aboard will let you through.”

The science team murmured; they were already unclasping their harnesses and reaching down to pull their baggage from the nets beneath their seats. Collins reset the comp and put the engines on standby mode; since she'd be the last person to exit the craft, it was her duty to make sure that the harbor pilot had a safe craft to fly home.

“Nice work,” Ramirez said. “You've got a real feel for this sort of thing.”

She'd almost forgotten about him. “Yes, well…it's a small job, but it's mine.”

“And you do it well.” Apparently at ease with where he was, he patiently awaited his turn to leave the ferry. “Not like other individuals, at least…”

Collins cast him a hard look. “Let them do their work,” she said, “and see to your own.” She paused, then lowered her voice. “Sorry, but there're no Savants aboard. You're just going to have to make do with us normal humans.”

He scowled and looked away, and Collins left him alone. She didn't know whom she distrusted more: him or the captain.

 

With six extra passengers aboard, Deck C was more crowded than usual. Emily carefully made her way through the circular passageway surrounding the hab module's central core, trying to avoid collision with scientists searching for their assigned quarters while, at the same time, adjusting to microgravity. The Millis-Clement field wouldn't be activated until the diametric drive torus was deployed; until then, everyone aboard would have to maneuver around each other in free fall. This didn't pose a problem when
Galileo
's complement consisted of nine seasoned spacers. Add six eggheads who'd only recently completed deep-space training, and the potential for chaos was magnified a hundredfold.