Riddled Space Page 15

  Lisa and John looked at him in amusement.

  “Did you name all the machines here?” asked Lisa, smiling.

  “Of course! How else can I relate to them?” replied Panjar. Peering closely at her, he asked, “Don't you name machines you use all the time?”

  “Er, no, I don't,” said Lisa. Looking over to John, her eyes asked the question.

  “I, ah, had an electric car back home I called Sparky,” replied John. “Savage thing gave me a shock every time I pulled maintenance on it, too.”

  Panjar was shaking his head sadly. “That's because you were making fun of it. Sparky… goodness!” he said, replacing the cover plate on the pump, then the wall panel. “If you want machines to work for you, you have to treat them nicely.” He gathered his tools and slipped away down the corridor, to the next repair job.

  “He's amazing, Lisa, you know that?” John smiled. “Panjar can get anything running after a breakdown. He's worth five of any of the other techs I have.”

  “You put any stock in this machine naming business?” she asked.

  “Not a whit. But then again, a lot of times, a tech will use a hammer instead of a little finesse, and that often ends badly for the machine. Panjar just seems to murmur to it, stroke it a few times, and a balky machine will settle down and run just fine. He's teaching the other techs how he does it. I have no idea if he's converting anyone, though.”

  “Well, keep him up here. The Chaffee's not anywhere close to falling apart, but we have some mighty old stuff on board. The UN will scream bloody murder if they have to replace them.”

  They passed a hatch in the cross-connecting corridor between the old and new spikes. “That reminds me - we should conduct a solar shelter drill again. It's been a few weeks since the last one. Pass the word.”

  “Gonna cram everyone in the sleds for an hour?” asked John. “We'll have to move some stores out of them to make room. We've been keeping some transient Collins cargo in them.”

  “Well, I wish you wouldn't,” said Lisa. “We're never going to get enough warning about a solar storm, and I'd hate to have folks out in the passageways getting zapped while cases of space ice cream get tossed out the hatch.”

  “Tell the OTVs to speed it up, then. Earth can ship stuff up here faster than we can ship it to the Moon.”

  “Don't I know it. What about cramming the stuff into MoonCans and storing it outside?”

  “Some of those cans aren't airtight apart from the LOX tank. Cargo would get damaged. And we don't have any handy rubber or vinyl to make seals with, either.”

  “Talk to Roque, see if he has any of that carbonaceous chrondite material left over. Remember that stuff Lee sent up last November? Roque made nylon out of it - maybe he can make you some vinyl.”

  “Not a bad idea. Hey, I wanted to show you something.” John towed Lisa over to the porthole overlooking the sleds. “Notice anything?”

  “You've got something over the sleds.”

  “Yup! Behold the shields. I took a MoonCan and rolled it flat. Got a couple of sheets of aluminum out of it. I attached it on the top and bottom of the sleds.”

  “For what purpose?” she asked, intrigued.

  “Increased solar shielding. The big ions will smack into the aluminum and generate a shower of secondary particles, which are trapped by the tiles and hull of the sled. Before, the ions would hit the tiles and hull, and the secondary particles would light us up inside.”

  “What about if we have to use them for reentry?”

  “Simple, I've rigged a jettison switch to the main pilot board. Pop them free as soon as you first feel atmosphere, and they fly outward and away from us.”

  “That's wonderful, John. What a nice surprise. Speaking of, I better head over to Astronomy. I hear they've got something special for me.”

  With a wave of her hand, Lisa bounced off the side of the corridor and changed her flight path to head down the new spike to Astronomy. John continued his trek to Engineering, where, much to his dismay, he found Celine on the intercom, handing off the VIP kids to him to entertain.

  Impact

  UNSOC Space Station Roger B. Chaffee, June 17 2082, 1000 EDT

  Lisa Daniels was talking to Commander Jeng on the Lunar Colony Collins.

  “Lee, how are you doing? Computaters all running fine? Mine are all green.” Lisa waited for his affirmative, then continued. “I wanted to let you know how we're doing with that nylon project. Roque has about five hundred square meters of ripstop nylon here. He almost went crazy trying to sew it but eventually figured a way to keep the cloth still. He remembered an air hockey game he once had as a kid. Reversed the motor, and the cloth was sucked against the work surface. After that, manufacturing the device was a piece of cake.”

  “That's wonderful. When do they get installed?”

  “That's the best part. They're already on board. With a little sprinkling of ultrafine silicon dioxide powder, they'll keep for years. So the sleds are complete.”

  “That's great news. Got a name for them yet?”

  Lisa looked curiously at Lee. “You too?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Lee. “Me too what?”

  “Panjar's a nut for naming machinery. I was hoping my oldest astrofriend wasn't susceptible to that, too.”

  Lee's laugh was long and hearty. “Oh, no, not at all. The sleds are, after all, spacecraft. And they have to have a name.”

  Lisa was dubious, but Lee was right. All independent craft had names. And her sleds were no different. “I'll consult with Roque. After all, he was the one who did most of the work on the materials that make up the sleds.”

  “Fine idea, Lisa. I have one other thing here, about the KREEP materials. . .” His image washed out in a glare of white. Raucous static burst through the speaker. Turning it down, Lisa became aware of the General Quarters alarm sounding throughout the station. She felt a momentary sensation like a wave of heat washing over her.

  ***

  Celine monitored the photophone circuit between the Commanders. So far, it was a routine, rather dull call. The photophone tracking circuitry was working well. The Moon would be visible to the Collins for another twenty minutes, plenty of time to complete the call. Her mind drifted back to that time when she watched John Hodges working under her panel. Maybe Commander Daniels was right - some cinnamon buns would be nice. Celine knew that the Hodges’ marriage wasn’t going well. The Hodges were not talking as long or as often as they had in the past. It wasn’t a good situation.

  The screens in front of her flared a vicious blue-white, then went to static. Simultaneously, the radiation alarms blared their shrill warning of danger. Celine felt a wave of heat wash over her while streaks of light flashed through her tightly closed eyes.

  ***

  Roque floated effortlessly in the middle of his materials lab. He was putting the finishing touches on his latest ND:Yag crystal. He fondly patted it.

  “Give me a dozen of you and we'll be able to blast space junk instead of hoping it avoids us.”

  He felt a sudden wave of heat throughout his body, passing quickly. Blue sparkles appeared in front of him.

  ***

  Eddie was in the shower when the system belched hot water at him for a moment. He frowned. It had never done that before. On second thought, it wasn't the water that was hot, it was just how he felt—as if he had been hit with a microwave beam. Small streaks of light appeared in front of him, just like they sometimes did when he was flying to and from the Moon. A sudden sense of dread came over him.

  ***

  Celine reacted immediately, with a full sweep of the boards. What she saw made her pound on the large red General Quarters alarm button. The main computer had crashed and was rebooting.

  “Report!” called Commander Daniels, sailing onto the Main Deck from her Ready Room.

  “Radiation alarm, main computer rebooting, backup computer offline, systems safed. Power is up, most other systems have failed safely and are auto restarting. Al
l sensors on the side facing the Moon are disabled. Got a board full of reds, ma'am. Photophone still tracking Collins, God knows how. Rotating second camera to bear.

  “My God...” Celine gasped as the image from the second camera appeared on the viewscreen.

  A brilliant flare saturated the image of the Moon, but it was dying off even as they looked at it. Even before the flare faded into a dim red cloud, they saw great masses of debris rising from the point of origin in the South Polar area.

  “Radar is trying to image the debris, Ma'am,” said Celine as she worked the controls of the collision avoidance radar. “Too much radiation is saturating the receiver. All EVA terminated three hours ago. Nobody outside, no craft docked. Ground track has us passing over the California.”

  “Keep on it, Celine,” Lisa said gently. Lisa looked over her repeater board and shuddered at what she saw. The radiation meters were all hard against their rightmost pegs. Everyone on the station was getting large doses of radiation. There was nothing she could do about it, either.

  Lisa silenced the General Quarters klaxon, which was making it hard to think. She punched the intercom button. “All hands. Remain at General Quarters. All medical personnel to the aid station.”

  Celine checked her board. “Collins is back online.”

  “Main viewer. Rebroadcast to UNSOC. Full record.” She looked into the worried eyes of her friend, Jeng Wo Lee.

  “What happened, Lisa? You cut off midsentence.” A loud voice erupted from the Lee's speaker.

  “Commander Jeng. McCrary from the surface.”

  “This is Jeng. Go, McCrary.”

  “Earth has brightened at least two magnitudes.” McCrary sounded calm and unruffled.

  “Collins, this is Chaffee, Daniels here. There's been some kind of event on the Moon. Radiation meters are offscale high. All sensors aimed at you have burned out.” Lisa, like all commanders in high stress situations, reflexively relayed calmness.

  “Copy, Chaffee,” said Commander Jeng. “Can you give us any range data?” A window popped up on Lisa's monitor; Celine feeding the data directly to Collins.

  “Data on the sideband. Ejecta is obscuring the origin location. Collins, the event is roughly five thousand kilometers from you. A large shock wave is propagating from the event site.” Ranging circles overlaid the position of the Collins. “Estimate about twelve minutes until you're hit.” Celine's voice was analytical, calm, and precise as she announced the doom of the Collins.

  Commander Jeng hit his own General Quarters alarm. “Emergency. Skintights and helmets. Moonquake in ten minutes. Patching through McCrary.”

  “McCrary from the surface. The Earth has lit up from the reflected Moonlight. Chaffee reports visible shock fronts headed our way. Prepare for massive Moonquakes. Get in the ShelterCans as soon as possible. A man in a Can will live for at least a week, maybe longer.”

  Lee, sticking his legs into the spare set of skintights he kept in his office, blessed the day he required ShelterCans installed before using them for LOX transport to the Chaffee. They made excellent emergency shelters, and were placed throughout the Collins.

  McCrary switched to Lee's private channel. Lisa could overhear the conversation.

  “Sir. Go ahead, get in your ShelterCan. There's nothing you can do now. I'll jump into this Can behind me when the wave approaches.” He toggled back to the Lunar public-address channel.

  “The ShelterCans are automatically topping off their LOX tanks. Plug your suits into the fitting inside the ShelterCan, just like in the drills. The quake will knock you around a lot, and some of you may end up under rock or other debris. Do not panic. Help will come to dig you out. If you feel yourself losing control, there are sedatives in the ShelterCan. Do not panic.”

  Lisa listened, tortured with helplessness. Celine mirrored her look, but at least she had something to do.

  “Commander Daniels, you're next, you know,” said McCrary.

  “Next?” she asked.

  “I can see a white nimbus off to the south. It has to be the ejecta. Whatever hit us blasted enough rock into the space between the Earth and the Moon to make your station uninhabitable. Better figure out how to get everyone off.”

  “Understood. McCrary - Godspeed. You will not be forgotten.”

  “Commander, I doubt anybody's going to come back here for decades. Too much rock in orbit.” With a start, Lisa agreed. If Lunar rock could reach Low Earth Orbit, it was going to be around for a long, long time. The debris from shredded orbiting satellites would only exacerbate the debris problem.

  “This is McCrary. The debris plume is like a great sparkling curtain rising from the south. It has spread from one source and now extends from horizon to horizon.”

  “Two minutes, McCrary,” said Lisa. “Better get inside.”

  “Please relay this to everyone,” said McCrary. “One hundred and twenty-four years ago on Christmas Eve, three men rounded the Moon for the first time and reported back to Earth. As it was the dawn of spaceflight, they read from Genesis. I fear this is the end of spaceflight, so I will read from the end of the Bible, from Revelations.

  “I looked when He broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the sky fell to the earth, as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind.

  “The sky was split apart like a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

  “Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains.”

  McCrary was silent for a second or two.

  “And now, our Moon is red, and we go to hide in our caves. Let this be our final transmission: From the crew of the Lunar Colony Michael Collins, we close with good night, good luck, and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth. I bid you farewell.”

  The sound of the ShelterCan closing was loud in the hushed bridge of the Chaffee. Seconds later, subsonic thumps told of impacts around it. On the other screen, the camera stream from the Collins started dropping frames, then stopped completely.

  Celine spoke quietly. “All telemetry from the Moon has stopped.” The shock wave swept over the small X that marked the UNSOC Lunar Colony Michael Collins, and the three hundred souls that called it home.

  Meanwhile, at UNSOC Control

  UNSOC Control Room, New York City, June 17 2082, 1005 hrs

  “I don't care how you do it, I want that stock dumped NOW,” hissed Subramanyan Venderchanergee into his hushphone. “It's what I pay you for. Do it!” He tapped the disconnect button. It would never do to be seen losing his cool in the office. Smooth, that was Subramanyan.

  “I better make sure the next contractors for space on the Chaffee don't get spooked before their funds clear,” he mused to himself. “Who's first?”

  ***

  Outside his office, meanwhile, controlled chaos reigned on the floor. Fred thought for an instant, then punched up the special software that made recordings of everything on his board. It was not uncommon for Subramanyan Venderchanergee to fire controllers whom he thought had made an error. There was no way he was going down over this.

  Gus fairly flew out of the Ready Room before the initial radiation alarm had quite stopped ringing. He raced over to the VIP tour group and bundled them away from Fred's console before Fred started tossing them away himself.

  “Like, what's happening, man?” asked one of the too-cool teens. “Zero-gee toilet get backed up again?” An angry scowl from Gus penetrated his shell of smugdom.

  “Radiation blast of some kind.” Glancing over to the repeater meters, he blanched. “Pretty bad.”

  The children allowed themselves to be herded to a corner of the room. Gus warned them sternly to stay put. To the teens he asked, “Who's oldest?” One glanced around and tentatively raised his hand
. “You're in charge. Keep everyone in this corner. You can see what's going on, but if you interfere, by God, I will make sure that your whole family gets sent back to wherever you came from.”

  Gus ran back to the left-side CAPCOM console and logged back in. He looked up at the repeater board and paled even further. The radiation levels inside the Chaffee were huge. This was no solar flare, that was for sure.

  “Gus, you with us now?” asked Fred over the intercom.

  “Just logged in.”

  “Good, get the tour guide or someone responsible and get these kids out of here before Subby sees them.”

  “On it.”

  Fred turned his attention back to the board. So far, the Chaffee had only acknowledged his initial calls, but had not provided further information.

  Gus came back on the line. “They're locating the guide now.” He glanced over to the corner. The kids were glued to their corner, watching the board. They suddenly pointed to it. Gus turned back around. A new window had opened, showing the Moon with a monstrous glare in the lower quadrant. Dimly, he could make out the ring of the shockwave racing away from the site of the glare. He toggled the intercom and listened along with the Chaffee as McCrary ordered the Collins crew to their ShelterCans.

  Meanwhile, Gus toggled the UN Public Affairs offices. A bright, polished spokeswoman appeared on his screen.

  “PAO, Moira Litwizniak here. How can I help you?”

  “Moira, Gus here in the UNSOC Control Room. There's been a major disaster on the Moon. You better get hooked in here.” Behind Moira, the bank of screens showing all the major infonet channels began their 'Special Report' graphics, one by one. Gus stared at the display, amazed at the speed of the infonet's response.

  “I don't think I can move now, Gus,” she said, waving at the info wall. “I have about thirty seconds before the phones freak out. Talk to me.”