Starfire Page 31

  “Engineer?” Dyson asked in her headset.

  “Linscott here,” she answered. She was sitting at a second console now, a programming station. She had several windows open and was trying to concentrate.

  “Have you got that power-down worked out yet? Give me about half this level of acceleration, and we’ll be making great time without being crippled.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  There was a silence. Jackie thought Colonel Dyson was annoyed.

  “How long can it take?” she demanded. “I can hardly hang onto the guidance controls. Don’t you have to get in there and divide a number by two or something?”

  “It’s more complex than that,” Jackie explained. “The control unit has a nonlinear control algorithm. Dampening the engine’s output dampens the field strength. I have to adjust with a polynomial—”

  “All right, all right. Whatever. Get it done. Dyson out.”

  Jackie shook her head. She’d known right off that Dyson was going to be a hard one to get along with all the way out to Jupiter, and the woman had done nothing to change her opinion.

  “Is the commander riding your butt?” Perez asked.

  She nodded. “She doesn’t like being out of control, I think. This isn’t a Boeing jet or a shuttlecraft. I didn’t really even know what would happen when we lit this thing up. There wasn’t any time for trials and tests.”

  “Did you think we might blow up?”

  She looked at him. “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  Perez smiled.

  She spent several hours working formulas, and was finally able to come up with a controlled slow-down. She’d only been able to model the procedure while on the ground. Now, with real data as to the thrust the engines could provide and how the ship responded in actual space, she was able to come up with solutions that she’d only guessed at before.

  As soon as she was able, she employed her thrust-reduction scheme and the ship eased on down. The thrumming of the engines reduced to a murmur, and her guts felt better immediately. She was able to stand up and walk around again.

  Soon thereafter her helmet squawked again, and she put up her gloved hand to answer the call. “Linscott here.”

  “Engineering?” asked a familiar voice.

  “Sandeep? What is it?”

  “We’re down below one-G acceleration. Is there a problem? Are the engines failing?”

  “No sir. I reduced our speed.”

  “That action is not authorized. I’ve checked with ground control. We need to beat our rivals to the target. Even with our current acceleration curve, we might not make it.”

  Might not? she thought. Who was doing the math? There shouldn’t be a “might” involved when it came to a set of equations.

  “Sandeep, have the navigator do the numbers for a one-G burn half way, then a turn-around and one-G deceleration to the finish.”

  “Those numbers have already been run,” Sandeep explained. “Even at our current velocity, we won’t beat them out there at this pace. They’ll have a whole week on the surface ahead of us.”

  Jackie sighed. “Sir, I have to ask, who exactly is in overall command of this mission? Who makes flight-control decisions?”

  She already knew the answer, of course. She was just trying to make a point. The flight crew made flight decisions—that had been established before they left. At least, that’s what the answer was supposed to be.

  “I’m surprised you aren’t accepting my authority,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

  “I’m not bucking you, Sandeep. I’m a civilian, but even I know a ship needs to have a clear chain of command.”

  “Mission parameters are set by ground control and relayed to the crew by me. Flight decisions are limited to how best to achieve those mission goals.”

  “Have you told Dyson about this?”

  “That’s none of your concern.”

  “All right, all right. What will it take to match the Russians?”

  Sandeep was quiet for a moment, working on his computer and talking to others. “A little faster than one G will do it. But that’s not good enough.”

  “Not good enough?”

  “No. We have to beat them. It isn’t at all satisfactory to meet them head on. We’re asking for an average of one-point-seven gravities all the way out, accelerating and decelerating.”

  “Great. Linscott out.”

  She closed up her console and took a deep breath. Perez had gotten to his feet and was stretching while he quietly watched her.

  “What did he say?” he asked.

  “He wants us to maintain a killing pace. He wants us to feel like bugs under a man’s heel.”

  Perez nodded as if unsurprised. “He’s become a classic middle manager in a very short time.”

  “I have to talk to Edwin. I’m not sure we’re built to withstand this kind of force for weeks.”

  “Weeks? Wonderful.”

  Jackie contacted Edwin, who cleared his throat in her earpiece before she could speak.

  “Medical here,” he said.

  “Dr. Goody—”

  “Please call me Edwin, Dr. Linscott.”

  “Okay Edwin,” she said. She’d called him Edwin ever since she’d met him, but now that they were officially in flight, well, part of her wanted everyone to have a title. “I need input. Can this crew take about two Gs of acceleration for a prolonged period?”

  “How do you define prolonged?”

  “Figure on two weeks.”

  Edwin cursed colorfully. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

  “Would it have helped?”

  “Probably not. How about this? How about we push hard for a few hours, then ease off to normal one G for several hours. Give everyone a chance to rest. Then we get back on our couches and fight to breathe for the next few hours at two-point-five Gs? I’m using round numbers here.”

  “Would that be better for overall health?”

  “Yes. Especially for sleep schedules. I’m afraid of sleep apnea if we apply so much weight to everyone’s chest all night. Not all of us are in our twenties, Doctor.”

  She thought about that in alarm. Sleeping under heavy Gs? That sounded horrid. It would be like sleeping with lead weights resting on your chest and throat.

  “All right. We’ll work on a schedule. Out.”

  Together with the navigator she worked out the math. She talked to Dyson about it, but there wasn’t any mercy to be found there. Apparently, the flight crew had known all along that pulling prolonged Gs was going to be necessary. As they were in top physical condition, they’d never worried about it after the initial launch, which had been brutal.

  The ship would have to push hard for several hours a day while everyone rested on couches. During sleeping periods, they could coast with almost normal gravity levels. For short periods during the day, they’d also ease off the accelerator to allow people to move around, eliminate and eat safely.

  This trip was beginning to feel like a grueling endurance contest to her. She’d known that space travel could be harsh and unforgiving, but knowing it intellectually and living it were two different things.

  Unfortunately, she had a feeling that life might not become easier once they reached their destination.

  Chapter 51

  Approaching Jupiter, Aboard Troika

  Starlight

  Whenever he could, Lev spent hours watching Jupiter gliding swiftly nearer. Now that they were so close, he wasn’t sure he wanted to arrive at all.

  Seen from less than twenty million miles away, Jupiter was like a small pale sun. Relatively tiny objects swung around it. The planetary system swarmed with its own moons. The largest of them were now visible to the naked eye.

  Things changed as the ship went into deceleration and slowed down to land. Troika was moving so fast that the deceleration process took many
days.

  The radiation alerts became increasingly disruptive. Jupiter was like a torch in the Solar System, outdone only by the fury of the Sun itself. They couldn’t all stay in the radiation-shielded module all the time, however. In order to operate the ship, the crew moved around in bulky spacesuits which were thicker and heavier than those used in Earth orbit. The suits were built to protect the cosmonauts from a steady blast of radiation once they reached Europa.

  Spending all his time in the shielded module made him claustrophobic. Lev soon figured out that he could have privacy by braving the radiation during sleep periods. He drifted around the ship at night, searching for interesting items. Sometimes Dr. Norin joined him on these jaunts.

  He was acutely aware of the tiny, invisible particles bombarding him during these forays, but he did it anyway. Thinking about it made his skin crawl, so he tried not to.

  During one of the many radiation blackouts, Lev finally managed to enjoy a blackout of his own. Dr. Norin had helped, locating a stash of vodka another passenger had hoarded. Lev had guzzled four ration bottles without hesitation, giving Kira the fifth. Then, he’d stretched out on his victim’s bunk and fallen asleep.

  He awakened alone. The ship was quiet, and the lights had been dimmed for sleeping. He heaved himself out of the bunk, wishing he could rub his face—but he could not. The radiation was still hitting the ship like a steady storm. Why had the designers not seen fit to shield the entire vessel? Certainly, it would have been a serious weight issue, but he would have gladly flown for two more weeks to enjoy the additional comforts.

  Groaning, he made his way out into the passages. He decided after looking back into the floating debris field he’d left behind in someone else’s cabin that he was glad the radiation alert signs were still blinking red. He’d worried that he’d be found on the bunk. He didn’t need any more enemies.

  He’d made it perhaps ten meters down the passageway when it occurred to him that Kira had left him snoring. Why was that?

  The matter did not anger him. Perhaps she’d decided to let him sleep—but he was curious as to what she was doing. It was his job to watch her, after all. They hadn’t been able to enjoy sex very often lately, due to the communal nature of the radiation-shielded module. He found that this made him wish to locate her even more. He didn’t like the idea that perhaps she’d lost interest.

  He could have simply contacted her with suit-to-suit radio—but he didn’t. He found that people were usually at their most honest when you came upon them by surprise.

  Lev floated quietly through the ship, passing the bridge, where two suited pilots watched the controls. He passed the shielded “safe” module, finding it full of sleeping crewmembers, but she wasn’t among them.

  Curious, he levered himself down to the end of the central passage. This long, twisting tube connected most of the ship, stringing together the modules like grapes on a vine. In the very last module he found a light—a blue-white light that moved.

  He watched quietly. Kira was here, in the engine compartment. What was she doing? He couldn’t fathom it. She had tools, and her headlamp was turned up to full power.

  He floated near her, looming over her shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” he asked conversationally.

  She startled, spinning around. “Oh, Lev! You gave me a heart attack.”

  “Did you think I was one of your aliens?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then why be afraid?”

  Kira was quiet for a moment. She turned back to her work and began putting away her tools. “It’s only natural,” she said. “I’m alone in a quiet spot. You startled me.”

  “You never told me what you’re doing here.”

  “Nothing,” she said, “other than my job. Have you ever wondered why they brought me along out here? And why, as a result of this, you were brought along too?”

  Lev had wondered about that, but since he had no way of altering events in the past he hadn’t pursued the details.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She pointed at the engine. “There is alien technology here. I have an affinity for it. That’s why they wanted me. That’s why you were told not to harm me, and to help me escape the Artifact in the Arctic Ocean alive.”

  “I don’t understand. They brought you here so you could work on the new drive system? You’re no engineer.”

  “No, I—it doesn’t matter. Let’s go back—”

  She’d packed up her tools and begun to pass him, heading for the passage. He blocked her progress with a firm hand.

  “It does matter,” he said. “Please continue. Explain to me why you left our bed, left me snoring, and came down here to do this vital work.”

  Kira glared at him. He could see her unhappy expression through her visor.

  “You’re still a brute, aren’t you?” she demanded angrily.

  “I simply want you to answer the question.”

  “After all we’ve been through together there isn’t a tiny amount of trust?”

  “No,” he said firmly. “None at all. It is not part of my nature. If you want to experience trust, go back to Earth and buy a puppy. Not a cat, mind you, because they won’t trust you either.”

  Kira took in a deep breath and let it out again, blowing loudly over the microphone in her helmet and causing her visor to fog briefly.

  “All right,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

  Lev waited. Often, people said more when he said nothing.

  “They brought me on the mission because this ship’s engine is stolen. It was salvaged from the wreckage in Siberia. I never worked on that project, but I was among the first to find the Artifact under the icecap. I was, in fact, the first person to touch it without protection.”

  “What possessed you to touch it?”

  She shrugged. “We were on a deep-sea mission, driving a bathysphere. We were searching for minerals, of course, surveying the seafloor. I was only a graduate student at the time; I didn’t yet have my doctoral degree. Anyway, I was young, and when we found the Artifact and managed to get inside the dripping, cold interior, I took off my glove and touched the walls.”

  Lev shrugged. “So what? You touched it, so now you’re sabotaging this mission? How does this make sense?”

  “No, of course not. I imprinted on the Artifact—or it imprinted on me. I don’t know. I think the Artifact was down there at the bottom of the sea so long that it reset itself. I think that the locks on it lost their memory of whomever or whatever had mastered them before. Now, whenever I touch alien equipment, it operates for me. It will not do so for anyone else.”

  Lev stared, trying to understand what she was saying and what it meant. “You mean this ship won’t fly without you?”

  “No, I don’t mean that. I was important to its construction, however. I was able to move the engine to Troika from the Artifact and connect them properly. Now that the engine are no longer part of the Artifact they can operate under the harness of earth-built controls.”

  Lev nodded. “So, why are you so critical, then?”

  She gave him an irritated glance. “Because they hope to repeat the trick. They hope that by bringing me along, they’ll be able to unlock more technological wonders on Europa.”

  “I had no idea you were so important to this mission. The concept is alarming. After all, you’re a recent saboteur and murderess.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your lover,” she said. “Besides, I didn’t mean to kill everyone down there. I meant only to send a signal.”

  Lev was thinking fast. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to, but this woman’s companionship required it. If she was so critical to this space mission, it explained the way that Kira had risen up in the ranks of the Science Academy so quickly, and it explained why she hadn’t yet gone to prison or been quietly shot for her role in what had happened in the Arctic.

  “So what are you doing here with the engine at this moment?” he asked
. “The engine is working perfectly. Your dubious services aren’t needed.”

  “I—I’m sending another signal.”

  “What? Are you mad, woman? Will you kill us all?”

  “Don’t worry, Lev,” she said. “The signal has already been sent, and no one has died.”

  His eyes narrowed. “These radiation alerts, have some of them been your doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why Kira? Why? Are you insane?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Tell me, then, why in God’s name you would send another signal?” he demanded. “And where did you send it?”

  “To Europa, of course. We’re close now. They can’t possibly miss it.”

  “They?”

  “Yes. I believe there are aliens on the small, frozen world ahead. I believe they’re the people who sent a ship to Earth a century ago.”

  “Why would you want to signal them, if they’re there?”

  “Because of the plan. They’re going to do it, Lev. They’re going to drop the hammer.”

  “What are you talking about now?”

  “It’s an old idea. It’s called the Hammer of Thor. Our military—the Americans too—they’ve both experimented with the idea of dropping objects from space onto Earth. A five kilo object—just a ball of steel wrapped in ceramic—that’s enough to destroy a town if it moves fast enough.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She turned around and looked into his face. He could tell she was serious. Whatever she was, she wasn’t a liar.

  “Listen. The kinetic energy of a moving object grows as its velocity increases. That’s why a ball thrown hard enough hurts your hands. If you throw a ball of metal at a planet—well, if you throw it fast enough it will strike like a meteor and create a crater at the impact point.”

  Lev was beginning to catch on. “Are you saying we’re doing this? That we’re launching cannonballs at Europa? Why?”

  “Yes. We fired several ahead of us when we were at maximum velocity. We’ve been slowing down, but the missiles have not. They will smash into Europa in a chain, creating a large crater. That’s why I’m warning the aliens.”