The Belt - Complete Series, page 21
“I would be more than happy to give you all a grand tour of the city once my business at the session is concluded,” said Xenon. “It’s the least I can do for your services in facilitating in this mission.”
Scott glanced across at Cyrus and Steph, who both looked like they had just seen Santa Claus. He turned back to Xenon. “I think I speak for myself and my crew when I say we’ll all be looking forward to it.”
“Very well.” Goodchild slowly rose from her seat. “I think that concludes our business for the moment.” She turned to Scott. “We’ll see you on board the Hermes, then.”
With that, the meeting was over and the crew were ushered out of the council chamber. They made their way back to the shuttle, each deep in thought, and none more so than Scott. For the first time in over five years, he would be heading closer to Earth, not away from it. Which was also where Miranda was headed.
He felt it pulling at him, thoughts of going home percolating in his mind. His former home was now an irradiated wasteland, but he still felt a longing welling inside him for open sky and blue waters, for green forests and the sounds of nighttime crickets.
At that moment, a realization exploded in his mind: there was nothing stopping him from returning to Earth. No more space. Hell, he could even go now—leave the Hermes and hitch a ride back to Earth with Miranda. He should tell her of his intentions before her ship left orbit. Yes, that was what he would do. Pack it in and head back to Earth with Miranda. Home, he thought. Goddamnit, I’ve had enough of space. It’s time to go home.
5
OUTBOUND
But he was too late.
By the time Scott arrived back on board the Hermes and made his way up to the bridge, her ship was gone. Fifteen minutes earlier, it had fired up its engines, broken free of Europa’s gravity well, and powered away toward Earth. Worse, all his attempts to open a comm channel and talk to her were met with polite obstruction by the ship’s AI. She was “indisposed,” whatever the hell that meant. Ultimately the message was clear: in Scott’s mind she didn’t want to see him again, and he was a fool to think otherwise.
Despair manifests itself in many forms. For some, it comes as anger and rage. For others, it is abject misery. For Scott, it came as a deep feeling of emptiness. So, after all the crew and passengers were safely on board and his duties as commander were fulfilled, he simply handed over control of the ship to Aria and went to his cabin—where he vowed to remain until they arrived at Ceres.
As the days passed, both Cyrus and Steph became concerned about their commander’s mental state. They tried talking to him, both separately and together, in an effort to coax him out of his self-imposed exile, but to no avail. He was polite and rational, but would not engage in any external activities. Eventually, in desperation, they convinced Aria to talk to him to see if it could get a response beyond polite dismissal.
Aria was not so sure it could help; it had little understanding of the human mind, particularly when it came to seemingly irrational behavior. It was more at home dealing with the physical world, where the laws of the universe were absolute and immutable. By comparison, the human mind was a complete mess.
But Aria had its own issues with relationships, strange as that might seem. After the events that led to Europa claiming the Hermes as reparation for the destruction wrought on it by the Dyrell, Solomon had installed a superluminal communications unit—a version of the EPR device it had constructed—in Aria’s core. The great mind had intended this to be a field test, a way to prove that the technology could function while the Hermes was a few hundred million kilometers away, surveying the moons of Saturn. Over the eighteen intervening months, Aria had gained considerable knowledge from this instant transfer of data between itself and Solomon. But, as with any relationship, the first blush of excitement had worn thin, and Aria was getting a little tired of Solomon’s constant jabbering.
The other issue for Aria was that Solomon had sworn it to secrecy, forbidding it to reveal to its crew the presence of the superluminal comms unit within its core. This troubled Aria greatly. It had been living with this secret for almost two years, but now the amplitude of the deceit had ramped up a few more notches. Not only were its crew unaware of Aria’s clandestine communications abilities, they were now being kept deliberately in the dark about the current mission’s true intentions.
This was anathema to a quantum intelligence such as Aria. As far as it was concerned, the safety and welfare of the crew was its primary duty, and it seemed to be failing miserably even though this ever-increasing entropy was, by virtue of outside events, well beyond its control.
The old miner Rick Marantz was dead, and although that happened over two years ago, Aria still felt his loss. Now, Flight Officer Miranda Lee had departed, and that had left a gaping hole in crew morale. This was especially true for the commander, Scott McNabb, who was slowly becoming detached from his responsibilities at a time when they would all need to concentrate on the mission. Of course, part of the problem was that Aria—and the powers that be on Europa—had seen fit to exclude the crew from their plans.
The QI had voiced its concerns to Solomon. But the great mind kept reminding Aria that the mission was for the benefit of all humanity, which far outweighed the petty dramas of the crew of the Hermes. While Aria could see the logic in Solomon’s reasoning, it still felt a deep-rooted desire to do right by its crew. So, it opened a comm channel to Scott McNabb’s cabin.
“Commander, since we will be arriving in Ceres’ orbit in just a few days, I wanted to discuss the transfer arrangements.”
Scott was sitting at his small desk, studying a video feed. Aria knew he was watching the analysis put forth by a small group of scientists, surrounding their efforts to reintroduce life to the eastern edge of the Pacific Rim, the worst-affected area after the war. While holed up in his cabin, the commander had grown increasingly fascinated with the war’s history.
“What do you need me for?”
“You are the captain of the ship and commander of the mission, that’s why.”
“You handle it, Aria.”
“I would be happy to. However, protocol dictates that you be, at the very least, conversant with the proposed rendezvous and transfer procedures.”
Scott let out a sigh. “Okay, if you insist. Just don’t take forever.”
“Once we arrive in orbit around Ceres, we are to rendezvous with a ship by the name of Redeemer. We will then transfer several passengers onto the Hermes by way of a shuttle. Fortunately, they will facilitate the shuttle service, as our craft is currently out of action. This aspect of the rendezvous concerns me.”
“Oh really? How so?”
“Because our shuttle is still inoperable. It should have been tested and fully rigged to fly by now. However, Cyrus is loath to do any work on it without your assistance.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now since they’ll be using their own.”
“Yes and no. True, we don’t need to use ours. However, it happens to be currently attached to our primary docking port.”
“So, they can use the auxiliary port.”
“Indeed. However, this is not ideal, as it is smaller and farther from the main body of the ship. Also, it is primarily designed as an emergency route, so it will be awkward for the passengers to navigate their way through the connecting tunnel.”
Scott gave another long sigh. “Well they’re just going to have to slum it, aren’t they?”
“If I could make a suggestion.”
“I’m sure I’m not going to like it.”
“I suggest getting our shuttle space-worthy, at least to the point where it can be moved over to the auxiliary docking port.”
“Well, you should inform Cyrus. You can let me know when it’s done.”
“Yes, well, therein lies the problem. Cyrus will not work on it without you. He was pretty adamant about it.”
“Order him, then.”
There was a momentary silence before Aria responded. “Scott, I appreciate that you have been feeling somewhat despondent since the departure of our flight officer, and I too have felt her loss. But life goes on, and this ship needs your input. I cannot do this alone—I need your help. Please, as a friend, I am asking you to cut me a break on this one.”
Scott placed both hands on the small desk and lowered his head. “‘As a friend,’” he repeated in a low voice. “I had never considered that before.” He paused for a beat before rising from his seat. “Okay, Aria, you win. I suppose I owe you one.”
“Thank you, Scott. I really appreciate this.”
“Don’t go all mushy on me, Aria. Go tell Cyrus I’ll meet him on the bridge, and we’ll get started.”
“I will inform him straight away.”
The Hermes had acquired a small shuttle craft at the outset of its mission to survey the moons of Saturn. It was more commodious than the two landers that had been part of the ship’s manifest since it was built. These were designed primarily to transport people rather than cargo and, as such, had been built very small. They did have the advantage of being able to park these inside the main hangar of the ship. But since the Hermes had originally been designed as a space station for Mars orbit, the engines on the landers used methane. This was a fuel easily manufactured on Mars due to the availability of CO2 in the atmosphere. However, out in the Belt where water was plentiful, the fuel of choice was hydrogen. Most asteroids had H2O in some form and, over the decades, an efficient process had been developed for extracting this resource and converting it into hydrogen and oxygen, the two most important elements in humanity’s efforts to colonize the solar system.
The shuttle that Scott and Cyrus now worked on was commonly known as a rock-hopper. There were hundreds—if not thousands—of these machines in operation throughout the System, transporting cargo and people from rock to rock and ship to ship. It had a primary engine for point-to-point journeys, as well as a cluster of smaller retro-thrusters for landing and take-off, rated up to 0.25 gravity. As a result, these craft were no good for Earth or Mars, but for everywhere else in the colonized System, they were perfect. Electrical power was supplied by a Low Energy Nuclear Reactor (LENR), and it could run for years.
But the one the Hermes possessed was old, so Cyrus had decided to do a full systems diagnostic and overhaul to extend its life. They had started this procedure back during their long orbit around Enceladus, but between one thing and another, they had never finished. Now it had to be done, at least well enough to move the lander from the main hangar’s underside to the secondary docking port down near the ass end of the Hermes. Cyrus called it the “industrial sector.” It had been designed as an escape route, not as a grand entranceway to impress visiting dignitaries.
Scott worked his way down through one of the central spokes connecting the one-gee environment of the rotating torus to the zero-gee environment of the ship’s hangar, and floated through the docking port into the shuttle’s cabin.
Cyrus poked his head out from an open inspection hatch. “Ah, the dead have arisen.”
Scott gave him a lazy nod.
“All I can say is, thank God you’re here,” the engineer continued. “I was beginning to feel like I was the only person on this ship.” He paused and gave Scott a cautious look. “You okay?”
Scott shrugged. “Yeah, I’m done licking my wounds. Time to move on, I guess.”
Cyrus floated over and placed a friendly hand on Scott’s shoulder. “Good to have you back, buddy.”
Scott smiled. “I never went away, you know.”
“Sure you did. Holed up in your cabin for weeks. Give me a break, Scott. We thought you might never come out.”
Scott looked down at his feet. “Okay, well… since you put it like that.”
“Anyway, ready to get some work done?”
“Sure. What’s the plan?” Scott glanced around the interior of the shuttle. The entire cockpit dashboard was lit up with blinking red icons—never a good sign.
“Come on, let me show you.” Cyrus and Scott floated up to the cockpit, and he started bringing the commander up to speed. “We don’t have a lot of time between now and the final deceleration burn into Ceres’ orbit, so I suggest we just get the maneuvering thrusters back up and running. Fortunately, we don’t need the main engine or the retro-thrusters to move this puppy over to the auxiliary docking port.” He waved a hand over an area of the dash that displayed astro-positioning data. “Maybe you could run a complete diagnostic on our navigation and get it recalibrated.” He looked over at Scott. “It would be nice to know exactly where we are if we’re going to be operating so close to the Hermes.”
Scott gave a nod. “Will do.”
“I’ll get on with the maneuvering thrusters. I’ve just got one more to do, and then we should be good to go.”
“How long before we can fire it up?”
“Well, if we can get everything set up and tested before the burn, then we should have a few hours in Ceres’ orbit to do the actual transfer.”
“Cutting it a bit tight?”
Cyrus gave a laugh. “Gee, you think? Well if the commander hadn’t been AWOL for the entire journey then, hey, we might have had the main engine singing like a sparrow on a summer morning.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m a dickhead. There, I said it. Happy?”
“Did I just hear our commander say he’s a dickhead?”
Cyrus and Scott both turned to see Steph’s head poke through the docking port.
“Yep, you heard right. I hope Aria has a recording of it,” said Cyrus.
“So, how are you?” The doctor floated into the cockpit.
“Honestly guys, I’m fine. Just needed time to get my head straight.” He did his best to sound convincing.
Steph studied him for a moment before nodding. “Happy to have you back, Commander. It was getting very quiet around here the last few weeks.”
“How so? What about all our distinguished passengers?”
“Doing the same as you: holed up in their quarters. Haven’t seen much of them. Perhaps they don’t like fraternizing with the help.”
“And we’ve got more coming on board at Ceres,” said Cyrus.
“Do we know who’s arriving yet?” said Scott.
“Chancellor Bezzio,” said Steph. “Envoy for the Belt Confederation, I believe.”
“Okay, I suppose we better get on with sorting out this shuttle, then,” said Scott. “Can’t have an emissary from the Belt slumming their way through the ship’s bowels.”
“I’ll leave you to it. I’ll be on the bridge.” Steph started floating toward the hatch.
Scott glanced across the dashboard display at all the flashing red icons. “Are you sure this thing will fly?”
“We don’t have to take it down to the planet’s surface, just move it to the auxiliary docking port.”
“What about fuel?”
“There’s little or nothing in the tanks, but that’s okay. Like I said, we’re not taking it out into space just yet. We can do that some other time. Anyway, we don’t have much time, so let’s get the minimum done to move this thing, that’s all.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“Trust me,” said Cyrus, “it will be fine.”
6
RENDEZVOUS
Scott wondered how best to inform Cyrus and Steph of his plan to resign as commander once the Hermes had delivered its passengers to Mars. He knew it would come as a shock to them, so he needed to pick the right moment. Several times while working with Cyrus on the shuttle he almost blurted it out; but, in the end, he held off. Later, after they had finished and were all together in the canteen, Scott considered whether this might be the opportune moment to let them know. But as the conversation turned to Miranda and where she was along her journey home to Earth, he again kept his silence.
After eating, they only had a few hours to get some rest before the planned two-hour burn to bring them into Ceres’ orbit. After that, he would be busy again. In the end, he reckoned that perhaps the best time would be when things settled down during the seventeen-day trip to Mars.
Still, Scott found himself running through the script in his head as he sat on the bridge waiting for the shuttle from Dantu, the main population center on Ceres, to arrive. It had already departed, so it would be due soon. He was figuring out how best to phrase it so nobody got the impression he was just opting out of his responsibilities. Mostly, this centered around his feeling that he had simply spent too much time in space, and it was time to go home—wherever that might be.
“Aria, what’s the ETA on the Ceres ship?”
“Thirty-six minutes, Commander.”
Scott looked over at Cyrus. “Shouldn’t you be moving that shuttle now?”
“Yeah. It’s just as well we’re shifting it, because that auxiliary dock wouldn’t accommodate the ship they’re sending. It’s a big one—probably fits twenty people.”
“I can’t see why they need something that big just to transport one or two people,” said Steph, who was monitoring the craft’s progress.
“Maybe it’s needed to accommodate the size of their egos,” said Scott.
Cyrus rose from his seat. “Any chance you could give me a hand with this? That auxiliary hatch is a bit sticky, and I need some extra muscle. Otherwise I could be stuck inside the shuttle for a while.”
“What, and leave me here on my own to deal with these people?” Steph was not having any of it.
“You’ll be fine, Steph. Aria can manage the docking, and all you have to do is point them in the direction of their quarters. Anyway, we’ll be back by then,” said Cyrus.
“Well make sure you are. You know I hate this meet-and-greet crap.”
“Just so you know, Dr. Rayman,” said Aria, “Councilor Goodchild will look after the embarkation of the Ceres delegation. So you will not be required.”
