T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion (11 page)

“Yes, don't tell anyone else. If you find things you want to read you better do it now. I doubt there will be any such devices when we get to our destination.”

Peggy Sue, Emergence Gliese 667A

Sam Shepard, Tommy Chen and Jimmy Tosh were unpacking a stellar surveillance satellite from its shipping crate under the watchful eye of Chief Zackly. Deck gravity in the cargo hold was reduced to a tenth of Earth normal to make the 500kg space craft easier to handle.

“Move it slowly, yous deck apes! It may not weigh much but it still has mass.”

“Aye, aye, Chief,” said Tommy, not really understanding the Chief's point.

“That means, if you get it moving fast, it'll be just as hard to stop as on Earth,” Sam added, “so take it easy, mates.” 

 “Yous guys turn this space widget into a broke-dick we'll have to get the bilge rats to fix it before it can be launched,” added the Chief. “And if we cause a delay we'll all be on the Captain's shit list.” 

“What is dis ting for, mon?” asked the Jamaican cook, who had been pressed into service to help ready the probe for launch.

“Dr. Ogawa wants us to put this in orbit around the first star we come to,” the old Chief said. “As fer what it does it's PFM.”

The crewmen carefully landed the metallic dodecahedron on a hover sled and strapped it down. The satellite needed to be taken to an ejection port on third deck, which meant moving it forward to the cargo lift against the forward cargo hold bulkhead. As they carefully moved the hefty payload the men conversed. 

“I understand how most of us got on this mission,” Sam said, “but how did you find yourself aboard, Jimmy?”

“I still be tryin' to figure that out, mon. I was visitin' some friends in Colorado when all Babylon exploded—fire rained down on Jah's creation and I only lived because I was in de mountains. Bamba yay, I brought to de Moon with a bunch of other survivors a few months later. I went from Rocky Mountain high to I and I Moon base.”

“Right, mate. But how did you get on the crew?” Sam repeated. “Most of crew were sailors of one kind or another, but you seem like some tosser who just wandered on board before we cast off.”

“Hey mon! I be a good cook and de Captain like Jamaican food,” replied Jimmy. “In fact, I was savin' money to open I own restaurant back on de Moon. It was going to serve Italian-Jamaican fusion cuisine.”

“Italian-Jamaican?” said Tommy. “I can't even imagine what that would be like.”

“It be great, mon! Jerk chicken fettuccine, conch Marsala, all sorts of great combinations—I was going to name de place The Pasta Rasta.”

“What?”

“Pasta Rasta. As in pasta with a Rastafari twist.”

“The only thing I've seen you twist up is a spliff,” said Tommy. 

“Ya mon! But only a Jamaican spliff made wit ganja, no jackass rope. True Rastas don' smoke tobacco, only God's plants.”

“I thought that Rastafari were also vegetarians; how can you cook meat dishes for the crew?”

“Ital eatin' varies widely from Rasta to Rasta; food only need be pure, clean and natural.” 

“So why aren't you back at Farside, working on your restaurant?” Sam pressed.

“Well, you see, I had some financial difficulties. I hopin' that de profits from dis trip will pay off I creditors and let I start de restaurant.”

“Right,” said Tommy and Sam in unison.

“All right, quit yer yappin' and pay attention on the cargo lift,” the Chief ordered as the elevator platform rose, headed up to deck three.

* * * * *

On the bridge all stations reported ready as the Captain and crew prepared for emergence—the transition from alter-space back to normal 3-space. There was really nothing for the crew to do during the transition—the ship's computer handled all necessary adjustments to the engines, shields and deck gravity—but you never know what might greet you when suddenly popping into being in a strange star system.

The klaxon sounded and the computer's voice announced, “transition to 3-space in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”

The panels in the ship's nose went from opaque to transparent as the normal Universe shimmered into existence outside. Directly ahead was a star, orangish and slightly cooler than the Sun, though it looked as large as the Earthlings' native star. This was because the arrival transfer point was closer to GJ667A than the departure point was from the more massive Sun—linked transfer points have complementary spacetime curvature. 

“Mr. Lewis, lay in a course to bring her about,” Billy Ray ordered. “Notify the Chief when we are properly positioned to release the stellar observation satellite, then line us up for the jump to 667C.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

“Dr. Ogawa, please reconfirm the transit calculations with the ship's computer. I wish to spend as brief a time around this star as possible, but missing the transit point on the first pass would be even worse.”

“Yes, Captain,” Mizuki answered. “It will take at least six hours to get properly positioned. I will have refined parameters well before we are on the final vector.”

* * * * *

A little over six hours later the Peggy Sue had altered course and was on an outbound trajectory. That trajectory was a line joining GJ667A and 667C, suitably corrected for the time lag incurred by light from the target star. Though part of the same stellar system, it took light more than thirty hours to travel from A to C. The Earth ship was about to make the same trip in fewer than five minutes. 

This transit would be the shortest, and quickest, ever made by an Earth ship. Such a brief excursion into alter-space required the utmost care with its entry parameters; the course and velocity must be spot on or, when the computer tried to trigger the transition to alter-space, nothing would happen. Even worse, they could enter alter-space on a trip to some unintended destination. Mizuki had triple checked the parameters and passed them to Bobby, who was manning the helm himself for this maneuver.

“We are ready for the transit, Captain,” Bobby reported.

“We are tracking all parameters accurately?”

“One hundred percent balls on accurate, Sir,” Bobby replied with a smile. In years past Bobby and Billy Ray had manned the ship's helm together in many a tight situation. “The computer has the conn for transit.” 

“Acknowledged, Sailing Master Danner,” the ship replied. The warning klaxon sounded.

“Transit in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”

Space rippled for what seemed a longer than usual time as the Peggy Sue slipped from one reality into another. The normally transparent panels in the ship's nose went opaque. The minutes crept by with glacial slowness as the crew marked the passage of time in silence. None wanted to consider what not emerging after the calculated interval would mean. Just over four interminable minutes later, the computer spoke again.

“Emergence in 5, 4, 3...”

Part Two

Devils In The Darkness

Chapter 7

Emergence, Gliese 667C

The ship shuddered and the normal Universe returned. The view forward was unexpectedly dark—it should have held a head on view of the red dwarf star that was their destination. Instead the view ahead was a starless black. 

“What the bloody hell?” said Nigel.

“Shit!” said Bobby, hands dancing over the controls. “I need emergency power, now!”

The view forward spun to show the backlit limb of a planet. A very large planet that was far too close.

“Captain, we have emerged 2.36 seconds prematurely from alter-space,” the ship's computer announced as the collision alarm sounded. 

“Not now, Peggy Sue,” replied the Captain in a dead calm voice. “Engineering, Bridge, we need emergency power to the engines.” 

The looming planet continued to grow larger at an alarming rate as the ship's bow swung toward the backlit arc that was the planet's edge. Instruments showed that the emergency antimatter reactor was online and acceleration was edging above 60G.

“It might be a good idea to strengthen the forward and bottom shields,” Bobby said, while making small adjustments to the controls. “We are going to kiss the atmosphere.”

“Roger that, pardner,” replied Billy Ray, Navy protocol forgotten as the two friends struggled to save their ship. Seconds later glowing streaks formed around the bow, dim and flickering at first but rapidly turning into a bright cocoon of fire. The view outside the ship disappeared as the planet's atmosphere registered its outrage at being violated by an object traveling a thousand kilometers a second. Then, as quickly as it had started, the sheath of plasma vanished and the half lit disk of the planet visibly fell away in the ship's wake. 

“Negative impact,” Bobby said, “the course ahead is clear, Captain.”

Across the bridge gasps could be heard as people who had been unconsciously holding their breath began breathing again.

“Very good, Helm,” acknowledged Billy Ray. “That entrance was a mite more exciting than I would have liked.” 

“Sorry, Captain,” Bobby said with a smile. “We seem to have skipped off the atmosphere of 667Ce. I hope the science types got some good samples as we passed through.” 

“Peggy Sue, care to explain how we came out of alter-space into a near collision with a planet?” the Captain asked. 

“As I reported, Captain, we seem to have exited alter-space prematurely. I have no explanation for this except that GJ667C must have been in occultation with respect to our departure point by the planet we nearly collided with.”

“Captain,” interrupted Mizuki, “I think that the explanation lies in the distortion of local spacetime by the planet's mass. Evidently, the local distortion was severe enough to cause displacement of the terminal transit point. As a result, we came out of alter-space a million kilometers short.”

“What are the odds of that?” Beth said, still standing next to the Captain's chair.

“Based on the planet's diameter and orbit, the probability of emerging with the planet directly in front of the ship is roughly 5.8 times 10 to the -12,” the computer answered. 

“That's longer odds than winning the old Powerball lottery,” said Bobby. 

“It is worse than that,” added Mizuki, “667C is in orbit around the AB pair. As it moves the orientation of its ecliptic plane also changes. It is only aligned with a path from A twice every 3100 years or so. Add to that the fact that A and B are in an eccentric orbit around their center of mass every 41 years and the probability of an alignment becomes vanishingly small.”

“But evidently not zero,” Billy Ray noted.

“Not zero,” Mizuki agreed. “The Universe is really big, and it has been around a long time—anything that is possible is bound to happen sooner or later.”

“Great,” said Billy Ray, “we can all cross colliding with a planet off our bucket lists.”

“Perhaps we should have tee shirts made up,” Beth remarked dryly.  

Billy Ray glanced sideways at his first officer and then said, “Helm, lay in a course for the second planet and let's get back to the business at hand.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” replied Bobby, turning back to his controls. Next to him, Nigel leaned over and whispered.

“You were bloody brilliant, mate.”

Deck Three, Peggy Sue

On third deck, a party of crewmembers were readying robot probes under the supervision of Will Krenshaw. Dr. Krenshaw had spent time at NASA working on robotic missions to Mars and other prime destinations in the solar system. His specialty was hunting for life on other worlds, a task that had yielded no rewards thus far in his career. The work party was busily running diagnostics on the probes that would survey their destination when the collision alarm sounded.

“What's that?” Will asked, looking up at the viewing screen on the wall. The screen went from black to red to bright yellow in the course of a few seconds, and then back to black. 

Matt consulted the display on his jumpsuit sleeve, which was monitoring activity on the bridge. Looking up he said. “Its nothing, Doc. We just bounced off a planet is all.”

“What!” the microbiologist exclaimed. “Is that normal?”

“Oh sure,” said Steve Hitch, “happens almost every time we arrive in a new system.”

Matt Jacobs shot his friend a look and murmured in a low voice, “and so the fun begins.”

Two types of survey drone were being sent to the surface of GJ667Cc—one terrestrial and one aquatic. The aquatic robot was more conventional, consisting of a dozen cylindrical metal segments, each ten centimeters in diameter and twenty long, joined by flexible, pleated joints. The head and tail segments tapered, giving the contraption a worm like appearance. Four fins protruded from the otherwise smooth, barrel like body segments at 90º angles. A centimeter tall, they ran the length of each segment, their purpose to give purchase on land and aid in swimming. 

Powered by a cold fusion fuel cell modeled on those used in the Marines' battle armor, the robosnake was meant to swim or crawl around in harsh environments, exploring its surroundings with a multitude of sensors and cameras. On land it either used serpentine locomotion, slithering slowly through rough sections, or sidewinding on clearer ground, hitting speeds as high as six km/hr. Swimming in water the same undulating motion translated to 1.5 km/hr. Not fast, but persistent. 

The other robot explorer, dubbed a flexibot, did not look much like a robot at all. It was, in fact, a deformable, flexible robotic exoskeleton originally developed by NASA researchers. Based on
tensegrity—
a design principle that employs a discontinuous set of compression elements, balanced by a continuous tensile force that creates internal stress, to stabilize a structure. The term was coined by architect Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome and other novel structures. As a result, the land roving robot looked more like a kinetic sculpture than a scientific probe. 

For shipment, the structure was collapsed into a compact bundle. When deployed, the robot itself was a mostly open, roughly spherical collection of cable and crisscrossing pipe segments around two meters in diameter. Its expanded structure could absorb shocks that would destroy more seemingly solid devices. Possessing no wheels or legs, it had no axles or hinges, no single points of failure that needed strengthening to withstand stress. It moved by shortening and lengthening the cables that connect its rigid components. The cables themselves were similar to the electroreactive “muscles” in the crew's armored space suits. This deformable structure allowed it to roll on smooth surfaces and climb over broken terrain. The force of an impact—whether bouncing down a hill or a fall off a cliff—was absorbed and diffused throughout its structure by multiple paths, protecting the scientific instruments suspended within.