The Next Continent (39 page)

That was not all. The Turtle landing “trucks” would have to return to lunar orbit using fuel synthesized on the surface, where orbital refueling drills would be run with the Titan X tugboat. Add experimental concrete production using a solar-powered kiln…

There was so much to do that parts of the project were already behind schedule. Phase One had been scheduled for completion by the end of next year—2031—but problems with the development of
Apple
had delayed them by six months. Phase Two now looked likely to begin in the spring of 2032.

Shinji sipped black coffee. The largely empty control room was filled with the sounds of quiet conversation.
Now it really begins
.
We'll have to make sure there are no more delays. I'll practically be living here.

He was looking forward to it. Once Phase Two was on track, the lunar tug was operating, and people were traveling to the moon, Ryuichi would deliver on his promise: Shinji would be going into space too.

Eighteen months to go.
For now, Shinji relaxed into the peace that surrounded him.

MOUNT FUJI RECEIVED
another dusting of snow. It melted, leaving the dark slopes naked again. At night, like a dragon, a procession of lanterns—climbers making the ascent to greet the rising sun—zigzagged up the mountain's massive bulk. Snow fell again. On the plain below the mountain, small white shapes moved to and fro. Dozers evolved and were shipped out, and the next generation evolved further. Tilt-rotors came and went from dawn till dusk. GGS had countless visitors. Some stayed for weeks.

Snow closed the trail up Mount Fuji; no lanterns snaked around the mountain. Spring came to the volcano, and the stream of visitors swelled to a flood. Huge satellite trucks topped with parabolic antennas stood in rows outside the Ground Support complex. Broadcast engineers scanned the skies outside their uplink trailers. The energy was palpable, like a high summer festival out of season.

May 2032. Japan's first manned spacecraft,
Apple 7
, was about to blast off for the moon.

The focus of attention for the media camped at GGS was a young man and a younger woman. This was history in the making—the first humans to pay a second visit to the moon.

The disheveled engineer who would ride into space with them attracted hardly any notice.

[2]

“
IS THERE A
problem?”

Tae blinked anxiously. She floated across the capsule to the pilot, who was staring bleakly at the environmental control panel. He nodded.

“The habitat module's CO
₂
scrubber isn't functioning properly. The absorption filter might be partly blocked.”

“Does this mean we can't go to the moon?” Tae paused, then rephrased her question. “Are we going to survive?”

“We'll be okay for at least a day or two. But even with the filter running flat out, we're generating more CO
₂
than the scrubber can handle. Eventually it's going to get hard to breathe.”

“Can you calculate when that will be?”

“I already have. The problem isn't so much the amount of time as the number of people aboard. With six people, the CO
₂
will rise. Five or fewer, and we can probably maintain safe levels.”

“So we do have a problem.”

Three other passengers in the habitat module—Sohya and two engineers from Gotoba—looked worried. The sixth passenger, seated near a window, seemed remarkably unconcerned. “What's the problem? All we have to do is skip every sixth breath.”

“Shinji…” Sohya floated over and gave him a playful slug in the arm. “This is no time for joking. You're having too much fun!”

Shinji looked up sheepishly. “Sorry, I'm kind of giddy right now. First time in space.” He consulted his wearcom. “Let's think this through rationally. We've got three more hours to TLI. Either we fix the problem or we head back to Earth. There's no reason to panic. Gotenba's working on it as we speak.”

Shinji's casual manner seemed to defuse the tension.
I'm glad we brought him along
, thought Sohya. They were orbiting at the same altitude Ryuichi had reached in
Apple 3
. But this mission was going all the way to the moon.

Like
Apple 3
,
Apple 7
included the four-meter diameter habitat module and the conical core module with its heat shield for reentry. Beneath the core was the descent module, resembling an insect with three landing struts. This module would take the core to the surface and, with its small engine, return it to lunar orbit.

The stack was perched atop the second stage of Eve XVIII, which would carry out the translunar injection burn. In a few hours, another Eve would launch with the return module. With a rocket engine, fuel, and life-support supplies, the return module would make its own way to the moon, where it would wait in orbit to dock with the core and take it back to Earth.

Something else would travel with them to the moon: Xiwangmu 6. With support from Jiang, TGT had convinced the Chinese government to sell the module. A week earlier, an Adam rocket had carried it into space. Now it was orbiting Earth, still attached to Adam's second stage, waiting for the signal to head for the moon.

Xiwangmu 6 could accommodate three crew members. The manned phase of Sixth Continent would begin by landing the habitat module on the moon. For Sohya and his two Gotoba colleagues, this was the beginning of a journey that was scheduled to last three months.

WITH PUBLIC ATTENTION
riveted on the ambitious mission, having a CO
₂
scrubber fail first thing out of the gate was poor timing. The pilot, Toshiyuki Yamagiwa, and GGS examined and rejected a number of possible solutions to the problem.

Flight Director Hibiki, surrounded by his controllers, murmured, “How did we end up with the same problem as
Apollo 13
?”

Apollo 13
had suffered an oxygen tank explosion on the way to the moon and was forced to return without landing. During the struggle to survive in their crippled spacecraft, the astronauts had faced a series of problems. One was limited scrubber capacity, a problem they'd solved by modifying scrubbers from the command module and installing them in the lunar module, which was used as a “lifeboat” to bring the crew home.

“We're going to get slammed for not learning from experience,” one of Hibiki's controllers said with a pained look.

“This isn't quite the same scenario,” said Hibiki. “There's nothing wrong with the scrubber. Something's keeping it from doing its job.”

The controller went back to his monitor. He suddenly groaned. “One of Gotoba's crew says he missed a handkerchief just after launch. I bet it's lodged in the scrubber intake.”

“A handkerchief?” Hibiki was incredulous. “What are they doing letting stuff like that float around? It could go right into the filter!”

“Unfortunately, yes. The cabin airflow is designed to drive floating particles toward the scrubber intake—dust, hair, drops of perspiration. Stuff you don't want accumulating and interfering with breathing. A handkerchief is something else. They know passengers will play games in zero G, tossing small objects around. The intake is protected with a grille, but it obviously wasn't configured to stop a thin, deformable foreign object. That's going to have to be fixed.”

“So why don't they just pull it out?”

“The air line snakes around the support ribs on the inner skin of the module. It's a single unit. Saves weight. They can't poke a rod down it, and they can't take it apart.”

“Can't we detach the scrubber canister and hook it to an improvised air line, like they did on
Apollo 13
?”

“Not possible.
Apple
's scrubbers use heat-regenerated metaloxide sorbent material. No need for replenishment, but unfortunately it also means the canisters can't be swapped out without special tools, which of course they aren't carrying to save weight. Unintended consequences again.”

“
Apollo 13
still applies,” said Hibiki. “There's always the core scrubber.”

“The core can only provide life support for six crew for twenty-four hours. That includes CO
₂
scrubbing. But it's a week to the moon and back.”

“All right, that's enough.” Hibiki clapped his hands. The control room fell silent. “We're about out of time, people. We've got a decision to make. Getting the scrubber back up to full power is either going to be difficult or it's going to take a long time. The chances of getting that accomplished before TLI are pretty much zero. The only other option is to use the oxygen candles.”

“But that will put us in Emergency Mode.”

“That's what it's come to. We go to the candles, or we abort. Either way, we're not in a nominal operational posture.” Hibiki turned to the Capsule Communications officer. “Tell
Apple 7
it's their call.”

Aboard
Apple 7
, the mood after Capcom delivered its message was grim.

“Emergency Mode…” Sohya shook his head.

“It's like a new ship springing a leak before it's out of the harbor,” said Shinji.

“Well, I bet I know which option we'll choose,” said Sohya. He looked at Tae. In a situation like this, the decision would be hers. “Use the candle and continue the mission, right? Aborting wouldn't be good for Sixth Continent's image.”

“Well, yes,” said Tae at length. “I'd like to avoid that if possible.” She seemed to be pondering. “Whatever we do, we don't look good. Even if we continue, the world will hear we went to Emergency Mode. I'd prefer a third option.”

“And that would be?”

“EVA to Xiwangmu 6.”

There was a long silence. Yamagiwa stared at Tae in mild bafflement. He wasn't sure if she was joking or just foolhardy. “EVA isn't in the mission profile. If you want to advertise to the world that we're in trouble, that would probably be the best way to do it.”

“On the contrary,” said Tae. “We'd just be moving up the field testing of our Manna space suits. We were going to test them on the surface, but we should prove they're just as useful in zero G.” Sixth Continent's Manna suits had not only been optimized for easy locomotion on the moon; they also looked chic, courtesy of the noted Italian designer Tae had recruited.

Yamagiwa frowned. “There's no air lock in this module. If one of us EVAs, we all have to suit up. There's no time for that.”

“Exactly. So one of us goes into the core through the top hatch, seals it, puts their suit on, and exits by the side hatch. No one else has to suit up.”

“But Xiwangmu is thousands of kilometers away.”

“We do the EVA when we rendezvous for TLI. After that, whoever goes to Xiwangmu is just along for the ride. It's completely automated, no piloting skills required. I'll go if you want. There's a lot about Xiwangmu I don't like, but I'm sure I'll be comfortable with all that space.” Tae smiled and pointed to the comm button. “Go ahead and ask Flight.”

Yamagiwa looked skeptical but began contacting GGS. Tae saw Sohya's face. She frowned. “You think this is a bad idea.”

“Sure do—it increases our risks without being absolutely necessary. The oxygen candle is safe and available, and everything else proceeds as planned. I can't see the point of an EVA.”

“I'm telling you, it's not pointless. We trained for this in the neutral buoyancy pool. There'll be a tether too. It'll be easy.”

“We've had one-twentieth of the training NASA astronauts get.”

“Our suits are twenty times better. What do they call the outer shell, electroconformable? It's hard till you hit a switch, then gets really flexible. Way softer than those stiff Krechet M suits we used at Kunlun. I was so excited when we got them!”

Sohya was suspended from a handhold on the cabin wall. He leaned closer to Tae. “I've noticed something about you. Whenever you start talking like this, it means you're blowing smoke. You know this is dangerous, don't you? But it'll be good publicity, so to hell with the risks. How does that scan?”