The Solar Sea (22 page)

After getting dressed, Pilot made his way up the ladder into the central hub of the
Aristarchus.
Looking out at Jupiter, he took a few minutes to remember the creatures he'd seen on the planet. He floated in front of the console and closed his eyes. For just a few moments, he allowed himself to imagine he was a miles-wide creature drifting in the winds of Jupiter. The throbbing in his nose brought him back to the task at hand. He set to work calculating the slingshot out of Jupiter's orbit.

Jenna Reynolds knocked on the door of Myra Lee's cabin. The biologist answered the door, wearing her nightgown. She yawned. “Didn't you get any sleep?"

"I haven't been able to.” Jenna shrugged.

Myra invited her in and looked at the time. “I should be getting up, anyway,” she said. “What can I do for you?"

"I converted the creature's songs into binary code.” Jenna stepped over to the table and fell into one of the two chairs. Her wide eyes scanned the room, looking at pictures of whales and sailing ships on the walls.

"Very good.” Myra stepped over to the small kitchenette alcove and started some coffee brewing, then joined Jenna at the small round table. She picked up the keyboard and displayed the translation program on the video display unit. “Now, where's the file?” she asked. Jenna told her and she typed it in, trying to stifle a yawn. Looking up, she was glad to see that the coffee had finished brewing. She resumed the program, then stood and retrieved a cup. She offered one to Jenna.

"No thanks,” said the computer technician who stood and paced. “I really do need to get off to bed soon. I was just anxious to see if we had a match."

Myra sipped her coffee as she padded back to one of the blue chairs by the table and sat down. Looking up, she smiled. “Bingo. It looks like the creatures on Jupiter also have a line open to the keepers of the rings. They're using many of the same words. I'll send this to Cristof and Harmer. It should help us build up some more words for the database."

Jenna dropped down on the edge of the bed. “So what do you think we're going to find at Saturn? More whales in the clouds?"

"I begin to wonder.” Myra took another sip of her coffee. Looking up, she noticed Jenna had fallen backward on the bed and was snoring softly. Myra lifted the technician's feet onto the bed and pulled a blanket over her, letting her get some well-earned sleep.

Lisa Henry whistled to herself as she labeled a number of microscope slides—difficult with the gloved fingers of the biohazard suit she wore—then put a sample of the sludge from the Petri dish on each one. She began to think she would give a lot of money for an electron microscope and she hoped the old fashioned microscope in the ship's biology lab would be sufficient to see any signs of life.

There was a knock at the door. “If you're suited, come in,” she called cheerily.

Neb O'Connell stepped in. “How are you doing this morning?"

"The boss brought me a present from your trip to Jupiter.” She held up the Petri dish.

"She brought you slime?” Neb blinked several times, then dropped into a chair.

"Well ... yes.” Lisa smiled. She mounted one of the slides in the microscope and took a look, adjusting the magnification. With a shake of her head, she set the slide aside and mounted a new one.

"I came to ask if you wanted to get some breakfast,” said Neb. “It just wasn't the same making the trip to Jupiter without you."

"Yeah, Myra showed me pictures of the creatures you saw.” Lisa sounded distracted. She stood up, blinked, and then looked again. “Say, come over here a moment and tell me what you see in the microscope."

Neb stepped over and bonked the faceplate of his suit into the eyepiece. Lisa showed him how to look into the microscope while wearing the suit. He tried again. Standing, he shrugged. “I dunno, it looks like a speck of sand or something cut a groove in the gunk."

"Exactly,” said Lisa. “I think we found our microscopic organisms. The creatures you saw on the planet
were
alive. They feed on the thing you just saw in the microscope."

"Good for the creatures on the planet,” said Neb. “I need something a little bigger to feed on. Are you coming?"

Lisa held her hand to her faceplate, blew a kiss, and then touched Neb's faceplate. “Let's go eat,” she said.

Pilot clambered down into C-and-C from the central hub, went to his console, and brought up the flight plan. He stepped over to the thruster control console and talked to Daryl LaRue, then double-checked his calculations with Kurata Nagamine, sitting at the external sensors console. Looking up, he saw Captain Jefferson sitting at the central console. “We're ready to execute the maneuvers to take us out of orbit, Captain,” he reported.

"Very good,” said Jefferson. “I'd like to take a look at your calculations for myself."

"I assure you.... “Pilot looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked back up. “Yes, of course, sir.” He stepped over and typed a command on the captain's console bringing up the information.

Jefferson looked over the numbers and nodded his approval. “Carry on, Mr. Alonzo."

Pilot stepped over to his console, entered several commands, then pointed at Daryl, who in turn fired the thrusters, adjusting the ship's course. Once again, the solar sailing ship fell toward Jupiter, but this time on a carefully controlled trajectory. The ship would not hit the planet, but be thrown around it. Pilot brought up a chart that showed the ship's speed. The ship had orbited Jupiter at a speed of two kilometers per second. As the ship fell toward the planet, it rapidly accelerated until it whipped around the other side of Jupiter at thirteen kilometers per second. “Whoo hoo,” said Pilot, his hand in the air. “We're on our way! Next stop is Saturn!"

After the successful slingshot maneuver, Pilot was happy to take a watch in C-and-C. The captain took the opportunity to find Natalie Freeman. She sat in the ship's galley holding an animated discussion with Angus MacDonald about the value of red peppers in cooking.

The cook shook a meat cleaver menacingly. “Och! What good is food you canna eat?"

"You should talk.” Natalie folded her arms. “You're the one who makes us eat haggis on Burns Night."

MacDonald caught sight of Jefferson standing in the doorway. “Well, I do admit it's a lot better with scotch, but he willna let us have any."

Jefferson held out his hands. “Don't blame me,” said the captain. “She agreed with those rules.” Then he looked at Natalie. “Would you mind coming with me for a moment, Captain Freeman?"

"Sure thing.” She stood and followed the captain to the ship's observation lounge.

Jefferson closed the door. Through the porthole in the floor, Jupiter already appeared smaller than when they'd been in orbit. “Sorry to pull you away from your off time, but I need to know something. Have you figured out what Thomas Quinn is looking for at Saturn? I presume this isn't just some joyride."

Freeman shrugged. “I have no idea, Captain. Sorry."

The captain gritted his teeth and sat down. “The President of the United States put you on this ship to find out what Pilot was up to. I can't imagine that we've been away from Earth for a year and a half and you still have no idea."

Freeman put her hands on her knees. “Why are you suddenly so concerned?"

Jefferson held his hand out toward the porthole. “Because of what he did at Jupiter. He nearly destroyed the ship trying to save the mission. I don't buy that he did that because he's little more than a teenager and reckless. He's too smart for that. I think he expects to find something further on that's worth dying for—or worse yet, something he thinks is worth all of us dying for."

Natalie Freeman looked down. Jupiter disappeared from the porthole as the ship's spin continued. “Don't you think you may be overreacting? Quinn designed this ship. He knows what it can and can't do ... better than you."

The captain sat back as though she'd hit him. “You're the last person aboard this ship I'd expect to defend Thomas Quinn."

"Why is that? Just because I was sent aboard this ship to find out what he's doing? That doesn't make me his enemy. I'm simply doing my best to make sure the interests of the United States are being served."

"You
do
know something,” said Jefferson, matter-of-factly. He shook his head. “I know better than to press a trained military officer for details, but I just want to know this.... Are we getting in over our heads?"

Freeman stared at the porthole for several minutes, watching Jupiter come back into view. “I don't know,” she finally admitted. Jefferson started to say something, but she held up her finger, stopping him. “All I ask is that you trust me. Quinn's my responsibility, not yours. I'll ask for your help if I need it."

"Fine. But the ship's my responsibility."

"I will say this,” said Freeman. “I've observed Quinn long enough to know he's in this for the intellectual prize. He may not care much about your life or mine. To be honest, I don't even think he cares about Quinn Corp. He does care about his own life, though. He will do everything in his power to make sure he gets his prize. That means he'll keep this ship safe. If he dies, he loses."

"I hope you're right.” Jefferson ran his fingers through gray hair. “I'm getting too old for this."

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Repairs En Route

The
Aristarchus
sailed on to Saturn at a speed determined less by the diminishing sunlight and more by the gravitational boost gained from the slingshot around Jupiter. Two weeks along, and Jupiter had already shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball in the rear windows of the ship's central hub. Captain Jefferson called a meeting of the senior officers to discuss the repairs of sail number three. Pilot outlined two possible courses of action: “First option is that we just ‘wing walk’ out to the stress fracture. There are handholds on the sails as well as points we can clip on safety lines. The advantages of doing that are we conserve fuel in the tow shuttle, in case we need it later, and we can visually inspect the sail as we go, making sure there aren't any other stress fractures we're not detecting."

Daryl LaRue chewed on his lip and Vanda Berko shook her head. “Pilot,” she said, “you're talking about a three-mile climb along a rotating sail. If anyone looks out at the stars, they're going to get dizzy and disoriented. This ship spins pretty fast and it's going to be very noticeable the further you go out on the sail. In fact, the gravity perception will increase out there. You'll feel like you're about to be flung out into space."

"Not to mention that those sails, though strong, are low mass. They'll sway under the weight of a team of people.” Daryl put his hands in the pockets of his coveralls. “It could even be enough to turn the sail and change our course. I don't really like that option."

"Me either.” Pilot nodded. “That brings us to option two, which is a little trickier, but probably better all around. We take the tow shuttle out and match the
Aristarchus'
spin. Four people spacewalk out on safety lines and do the repair. The disadvantage is that it'll be some tricky maneuvering. If anything goes wrong and the shuttle hits a sail, we'll be worse off than we are now. We'll need to work fast, since the fuel supply on the shuttle isn't indefinite. The advantage is, done right, we could be finished with the job in about an hour."

"There is a third option,” said Daryl. “We could simply leave the sail alone as we talked about before. There's not that much pressure on the sail. It will probably survive the rest of the voyage even if we take no action."

Captain Jefferson shook his head. “I'd feel better if we at least tried to repair the sail.” He moved around the command console, running his fingers along the edge. From the opposite side, he looked up. “If there are any signs of problems, though, we'll abort and leave well enough alone. How's that?"

"Sounds fine to me,” said Pilot. With that, he named off the members of the repair crew, which included Berko, LaRue, and two mechanics. “I'll fly the shuttle. Let's get our gear together this afternoon and we'll fly out first thing tomorrow morning."

While the technicians assembled their gear, Myra Lee read through her email from Earth. She was delighted to see a message from Cristof and Harmer. Attached were a program and a video file. She played the video file and was delighted to see Stirling Cristof's face appear on her display.

"Hey, Myra,” he said. “Between the data from that Martian disk and the songs from those creatures on Jupiter, we think we have a rudimentary translation program for you. It will take binary encoded sequences and translate them into a printed message on your monitor. In turn, you can type in a message and it should turn it into a binary encoded audio message that the ring keepers should be able to interpret."

When the message finished, Myra installed the program and tried it out. She typed in “Hello there.” A few seconds later, a set of tones issued from the speakers.

Captain Jefferson stepped up to her console. “The language of our Saturn people?"

"Presuming there are Saturn people.” Myra shrugged.

"You still aren't convinced?” Jefferson lifted his eyebrows. “What about the Martian data disk?"

Myra took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The data disk is exciting, but all it proves is that the ring keepers exist. Nothing that we've been able to pull off the disk says that they're from Saturn."

Jefferson nodded, understanding. “You and your team have done an excellent job.” With that, he turned and stepped back to his console.

Myra hit the record button on her console. “Thank you, Stir.” She sent the email on its long flight back to Earth.

The following morning, Pilot and the repair team boarded the tow shuttle. After receiving clearance, Pilot carefully lifted the shuttle from the bay and took it out ahead of the
Aristarchus
, then doubled back behind the ship. As Vanda had done when she went to evaluate the damage, Pilot took the shuttle to the correct distance out from the hub, then waited for the damaged sail to approach. As it did, he fired the thrusters, causing the shuttle to spin with the sail. It took Pilot some practice to get the hang of the maneuver. He tended to overcorrect and undercorrect a bit, causing the shuttle to wobble with respect to the sail. However, after about fifteen minutes, he got the hang of it and the shuttle and the sail seemed to rotate together.