Cold Eyes (First Contact), page 17
Dali’s not sure if it’s his imagination, but it seems to take longer to reach higher into the space. The ocean seems bigger. Luyten’s Star sits off in the distance, but the Ranger is struggling to reach for it.
“Okay, I’m bored of being bored,” he says, joking with himself. His radio set to transmit on the open channel. “I’d really love to hear from you guys. Is there anyone out there?”
There’s a crackle in his ear.
“—Ranger. Magellan. Over.”
“Yes, yes,” he says, pushing off the seat and pressing his gloved hands against the cockpit window. He rebounds, saying, “Hello, Magellan. Oh, it is so good to hear from you guys.”
“Read—Over?”
“I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
“Dali?”
“Yes. Yes. It’s me,” he shouts inside his helmet, looking around out of the cockpit window, struggling to spot anything beyond the glare of the nearby star.
“—antenna—right.”
Dali looks around. On the side of the cockpit, there’s a port marked external antenna. Broken sentences continue drifting through his headset as he retrieves a cable and patches himself into the antenna on the Ranger.
“Is that better? Can you hear me now?”
“You’re coming through clear,” Sandy says. “Are you okay? Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” Dali says, feeling a burst of excitement rush through his veins. “I’m fine. The power is out down here. I had a fire, but I put it out. I’m in my suit. I’m okay.”
“Do you know what happened?” Helios asks.
“I was hoping you knew,” he replies.
“We lost all comms,” Sandy says. “Listen, I need you to get the engines back online. You’ll have to cycle the power through the emergency backup system.”
“Okay,” Dali says, turning around and looking for something, anything, but not knowing what he should focus on. Floating weightless within the cockpit, he keeps turning, passing through 360 degrees. The cord wraps around his waist, forcing him to unwind. Dali’s unsure what he should be looking for, but he’s excited about finding it. “Where is it?”
“Listen carefully,” Sandy says. “You’ll find the emergency override at the back of the engine bay. It’s red. It’s behind a—”
“Big red plastic panel, right?” Dali says, cutting her off. “Near a lever on the rear wall? Yeah, I found it right after I lost power.”
“Good,” Sandy says.
“Not good,” Dali replies. Reluctantly, he adds, “It was on fire.”
“What’s the condition of the backup computer?” Helios asks. “There’s a motherboard behind the engine control panel. If you pull the panel away, you should be able to see it. Get that online, and you can manually fire the engines.”
Dali can’t drift more than five feet from the cockpit while connected to the antenna. From where he is, his spotlights illuminate the darkened engine bay. The circuit board is still floating to one side, loosely held in place by a cluster of burnt wires. Several plugs float beside it like weeds in a pond.
“It’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” Helios asks.
As well-meaning as he is, Helios isn’t helping. How sure is Dali? He’s not sure of anything. He’s sure he’s in orbit around a cold eye, skimming the upper atmosphere every couple of hours, but that’s about it. That blackened circuit board could be part of a microwave oven for all he knows. Given the description he’s been given, though, it sounds like the backup computer.
“Things are a mess in there,” he says. “I had to unplug random stuff to stop the fire from flaring back up.”
“Pull the lever,” Sandy says. “If the emergency system is working, you should see lights immediately after pulling that lever. It has its own independent power supply.”
“I’ll try,” he says. “Hang on.”
Dali disconnects from the antenna. In his heart, he already knows what’s going to happen—or more precisely, what’s not going to happen. He takes his time, drifting slowly into the pitch-black engine bay. Dali allows his spotlights to drift over the various pieces of equipment within the compartment. He can see pipes marked fuel, coolant, air, water, electrical. He drifts up to the panel. There’s a large aluminum lever with a blackened handle. The plastic padding has melted, fusing it to the wall. He pulls on it, bracing his feet beneath a handle on the floor. After a few tugs, it comes loose.
Nothing.
With the circuit board free, he can see in behind the panel. Dali positions himself so his helmet spotlight illuminates the cabinet. Foam sticks to everything. If it’s not black from soot, it’s white from the slowly coagulating fire suppression foam.
He floats back into the cockpit and connects to the external antenna again.
“Are you there?”
“We’re here,” Sandy says with a sense of enthusiasm that’s sorely lacking from him.
“Oh, it’s the lever beside the collection rack, right?”
“Yes.”
“Above the pipes marked coolant and hydraulics?”
“That’s it,” Helios says with a similar level of excitement.
“Yeah, it’s fried to a crisp.”
There’s silence for a few seconds, but it’s the kind of silence that screams of being put on hold. They’ve hit mute. Whatever they’re discussing, they don’t want him to listen in.
“I have a right to know,” he says.
“—ah, okay,” Sandy says, coming back online mid-sentence.
Before the others can say anything, Kari lays it out. “You’re in a decaying orbit.”
Although Dali wants to swear, he remains composed. “How long have I got?”
“One, maybe two more passes,” she says. “We’re still running the numbers based on your current trajectory.”
“Okay, so come and get me. I’m ready.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sandy says.
“What do you mean, it’s not that easy?” Dali asks. “You have a starship. You can go anywhere. Just drop down here and grab me.”
“We’ve got plenty of fuel,” Helios says. “The problem is timing.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We have to intercept you,” Sandy says. “It’s not enough to simply drop into the same orbit. What good is it if we’re in the same orbit but on the other side of the planet?”
“And getting down there isn’t easy,” Helios says. “We’ve decoupled the torus, leaving it in a stable orbit, but it’ll take several hours for us to transfer from here to there.”
“And for now, we have to wait,” Sandy says.
“You’re waiting?” Dali replies, unable to believe what he’s hearing. “Don’t wait. Come and get me.”
“Our orbits won’t align,” Sandy says, trying to explain it to him yet again. “We have to time our burns.”
Kari is blunt. “You’re going down.”
“What?” Dali yells inside his helmet. “No!”
“Kari, please,” Sandy says.
“You’ve got to tell him,” Kari replies. “You’ve got to be honest with him.”
“Is she right?” Dali asks. The lack of any immediate reply is a hard yes—and an indication he’s been put on hold again. “She’s right, isn’t she? Goddamn it!”
Already, Bee is looming large in the window yet again. Its ocean is menacing. The distant mountains look like the outer edge of a bullseye. He’s tracking right for them, about to swing from the daylight side into the darkness over the ice sheet.
“How long have I got?”
“Forty-six minutes until entry,” Kari says.
Helios says, “We thought you might be able to survive another orbit or two, but it looks like you’re venting fuel. That’s pushing you lower.”
With a flat, monotone voice, Dali says, “I’m going to die.”
“Not today,” Helios replies. “The Ranger is designed as an exploration craft. It has a blunt-body ballistic profile with ablative shielding.”
Dali says, “You’re going to have to translate that into English.”
“It’s low tech,” Helios says. “It’s a fail-safe design reminiscent of the old Space Shuttle. Even without power, the craft is naturally going to orient itself for entry. Once it starts clipping the atmosphere, it’s going to settle into an ass-down, eyes-up profile. You won’t burn up.”
“Great,” Dali says. “So I’ll die down there instead of up here.”
“It buys us time,” Sandy says. “Right now, we need to focus on getting you safely down to the surface. Once you’re there, we can figure something out.”
“Figure what out?” Dali asks.
“Something,” Sandy says, repeating herself and sounding frustrated.
“But there’s no way off that rock, right?” Dali says. “They’re locked in, and I’m about to join them. If they can’t get off the surface, neither can I… I’m fucked. I’m so totally fucked.”
Sandy’s voice quivers as she speaks. “We’ll think of—just—for now, let’s focus on one problem at a time.”
Helios says, “I need you to swap out of your flight suit into an exploration suit. You’ll find one in the cabinet marked Surface Ops inside the airlock. It’s designed to survive an alien environment. Also, it’s got mechanical supports that’ll help you deal with the oppressive gravity down there.”
“Why bother?” Dali asks. “I’m going to die on Bee. What difference does it make if it’s on impact or a month later?”
“Thirty-eight days later.”
Sandy shouts, “Kari, you’re not helping!”
“No, it’s okay,” Dali says. “I’d rather know.”
Kari says, “You’ve got thirty eight days with minimal exertion. Given the strength of gravity down there, it’s probably more like thirty-two.”
Dali asks, “Thirty-eight? Thirty-two? How do you know that?”
“The exploration suit has air and water filters, so you’ll be able to drink and breathe. But you’re not going to be able to eat anything.”
“So I’m going to starve to death?”
“Probably,” Kari says. She always was brutal in her assessments. Dali doesn’t mind. He’d rather honesty. She goes on to qualify her comment, saying, “If something down there doesn’t eat you first.”
Okay, that’s too much honesty—even for him.
“Well, this is just great. This day just keeps getting better,” Dali says, shedding his flight suit. The smell of smoke lingers in the air. He drifts into the airlock. With the now abandoned torso of his pressure suit still plugged into the main antenna, he has a wireless connection to his Snoopy cap so they can continue talking while he powers up the exploration suit.
Kari says, “Remember, every ecosystem has predators and prey. Don’t assume anything about the wildlife you meet. Nothing.”
“That’s just wonderful,” Dali says, unraveling the various parts of the exploration suit. “Thank you for that pearl of wisdom. You’ve taken my anxiety levels right down. I’m much more relaxed now I know only half of the ecosystem will try to eat me!”
Kari doesn’t seem to appreciate the subtleties of his sarcasm as she responds, “According to Lotka-Volterra, prey/predator equilibrium is around 20%, so only one in five will try to hunt you, but even prey animals can be aggressive. Think—gazelle with horns.”
“Kari,” Sandy says. Although Dali can’t see them, the way she pronounces Kari’s name suggests she’s put out her hand, wanting her to stop making things worse. Honesty only helps so much. Dali gets it. Kari’s trying to help him in her own way. She’s as tripped out as the rest of them and is desperately trying to give Dali the knowledge he needs to survive on an alien world. Without a crash course in astrobiology—or even biology itself—he doesn’t stand a chance.
“If it’s any consolation,” Kari says. “I’d gladly trade places with you. You’re about to experience something astrobiologists have only ever dreamed of.”
“I’ll be sure to tell that to the alien tiger shark chomping on my bones.”
“How are you doing there, buddy?” Helios asks.
Buddy? In his own way, Helios is trying to calm Dali, but his use of the word Buddy is out of character for him. Dali appreciates the gesture.
“Suiting up.”
A faint glow lights up the airlock, coming from the cockpit windows. The glare of a distant red dwarf reflects off the deep ocean waters, reaching the Ranger, painting the airlock in an eerie red hue. Dali keeps the spotlights on the side of his now-abandoned helmet on, but it twists, turning slowly as it tumbles through the air. He works his way into the exploration suit. The trousers are supported by a thin metal frame with external hydraulics. Overall, the suit is bulkier than his flight suit. The material is thick and rugged, having been designed to resist tears. Padding has been built into the knees and elbows to help with falls.
“Okay, I’m suited up. Visor down. Powered up. Consumables look good.”
Helios says, “Your suit has a thorium battery. You won’t need to worry about power down there.”
“Good to know.”
“Every few days, you’re going to need to clean your CO2 scrubbers. You’ll need to remove your backpack to do that. The hoses should be long enough that you can swing it down in front of you. You’ll find the scrubbers just above the excrement processor. Try to keep the scrubbers dry. You’ve got two. You only need one, so there’s redundancy. But don’t get them wet. Just brush them off.”
“Got it,” Dali says.
“These suits were designed to survive a life-support failure on the Ranger, so there’s a chin-activated tube on the right side of the helmet. You’ll be able to drink, but not eat.”
Dali asks, “What if I find something edible?”
Kari butts in. “Do not take your suit off down there. You may think of yourself as a single entity, but you’re not. You’re a walking, talking biome of activity. The bacteria on your skin, in your mouth, and in your gut represent trillions of organisms.”
“And you think they’ll escape?” Dali asks.
“No, I’m worried about what you’ll let in and its impact on your personal ecosystem. The likelihood is the two biomes won’t be compatible, but they almost certainly will be toxic to one another. Remember, we’re seeing Bee as it is today, and yet life down there is the result of billions of years worth of natural selection. Like life on Earth, there will be winners and losers. There will be mass extinctions and eras of dominance, like when dinosaurs ruled Earth. The backdrop, though, is always microbial. Always. Microbes will be the one consistent factor. And microbes are aggressive.”
Dali summarizes her point. “So don’t even think about breathing their air.”
“Nope,” Kari says. “Besides, the atmospheric pressure is so intense it would feel like you were trying to breathe underwater.”
“What is the atmosphere down there?” Dali asks, distracting himself from his impending doom as he fiddles with his gloves.
“Oxygen’s at 16%. There’s a bunch of trace gases. Most of it, though, is nitrogen, argon and neon. Lots of light elements.”
“So they breathe oxygen?”
“Yes. Oxygen is highly reactive. That it’s abundant in their atmosphere suggests it’s being constantly replenished—probably by something similar to algae in the ocean.”
“Huh? What will they look like?” Dali asks, drifting out of the airlock and back into the cockpit. The Ranger has crossed the terminator, passing from day to night as it moves into the shadow of the planet.
“In a high gravity environment?” Kari says. “They’re going to be short and stocky as it would be easier to manage a circulatory system and less distance to fall.”
“Don’t fall,” Sandy says.
“Seriously, don’t,” Helios says. “Even a slight fall down there could break bones.”
“Well, that sounds easy enough,” Dali says, looking down at himself in a bulky spacesuit.
“And be careful when standing up,” Helios says. “You’re going to feel lightheaded on Bee. Blood is going to pool in your arms and legs. Your heart is going to be working overtime down there. Walking on flat ground will feel like climbing stairs.”
“This place sounds amazing,” Dali says, shaking his head in disbelief. He looks out the cockpit windows at the massive ice sheet gliding by beneath the Ranger.
Sandy says, “You’re fifteen minutes out from entry. There are a few things we need to go through.”
“Okay.”
“I need you to retrieve the HALO kit from the storage locker beside the engine bay.”
“Are we going to play a round?” Dali asks, referring to an old video game.
“High Altitude Low Opening,” Sandy says, dismissing any opportunity for Dali to mimic the Master Chief. Dali opens the cabinet. Several day-glow packs are wedged into the shelves. He pulls one out. The term HALO is embroidered on a fabric faceplate. There are lots of straps and handles.
“What’s this?” he asks. “Is this another backpack?”
“It’s a parachute,” Helios replies. “You’re going to need that to bail out.”
“Whoa there, cowboy. You said the Ranger was designed to survive entry!”
“Atmospheric entry,” Sandy says. “But without power, you can’t land. We need you to jump.”
“Well, fuck that!” Dali cries aloud, turning the bright orange pack over in his gloved hands. “You want me to bail out of a spacecraft as it plummets to the sea?”
“Yes.”
Goddamn it. Dali hates one-word answers! Sandy’s trolling him. She’s not going to enter into some longwinded explanation, or debate this with him. As much as he may hate it, there are no other options.
“Has anyone ever done this before?” he asks.
Helios says, “The Russians did this all the time with their Vostok missions. Yuri Gagarin. Valentina Tereshkova—the first woman in space. All of them jumped. Back then, they’d bail out rather than come down with their capsules—it was safer. Gagarin jumped at about seven thousand meters.”
Kari asks, “Have you ever been parachuting?”
