Illustration by Vincent Di Fate
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An alien world
poses new and
daunting challenges–
and "alien" depends
on where you start.
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In the dead, dark stillness outside, the temperature continued down below 200 K. The high-tech tent provided some protection, but it was designed to have more thermal input than the body heat of six huddled people. There was no more fuel for chemical heaters and the small electric heat pump was silent, every erg of battery power long since drained. The only energy left powered the bodies and minds of the survivors. Each, in their own way, concentrated on one thought. Endure. Endure. Only one of them felt betrayed.
I’d just turned thirty and gotten tired of lunar geology. We knew where the ice was. We knew where the carbon was. The real action was Mars and beyond, or in to Mercury, but for that I needed some space time. So I’d figured a four-year stint and a few training missions with the CLR Space Service would punch those tickets.
Classwork, of course, came before the missions.
"In space, you think of oxygen as a friend; you can’t live without it. But it can be your worst enemy. You may think you can’t get enough of a good thing, then a spark and you’re toast."
Our lecturer, Captain Avia Martinez, had our full attention. There was a dark authority in her voice and a gravitas to her bearing that made me forget she was under 160 cm tall. Her English was careful and her accent mainly North American, though with the ineradicable tendency to pronounce her "i" a beat longer than a native would.
We all knew her story; she’d been a combat nurse in the Mexican army during the 2028 insurrection, a purser’s mate on the first passenger line, a heroine of the Lunar independence movement and more than once since on various rescue missions as the fledgling republic took over from the UN space authority. She was also a close friend of the legendary Captain Sally Duluth, CLR President Lisa Reynolds, and defense minister George Samios–about as high up as there is room to go in the fledgling Cislunar Republic pantheon. For the last year, Martinez had been responsible for search and rescue over most of known space. We were lucky to have her.
A hand went up; Zander Yurovich, our beefy class skeptic. That was followed by oh-not-again groans among some of the other students, which he cheerily ignored.
A somewhat forced smile flickered across the captain’s face and she nodded to him.
"Computers tell you if problem," he stated. "I am electronics expert, I know this."
The other ten of us sat in an embarrassed silence deep enough to hear the whisper of air moving through the ventilation ducts. That made me think of safety and lunar society; there was no need for the ventilation to be noisy enough to hear, other than that not hearing it would be a warning. You grow up a little paranoid on the Moon.
I smiled to myself; side by side he and Captain Martinez were an almost comical contrast: she small, intense, dark-eyed, buffed and the exemplar of lithe–he pink, blond, and bloated.
"In the seven emergency calls since the founding of the service," Captain Martinez answered, "the target spacecraft or spacesuit computer was damaged or down completely and the people inside were often shielded from their own ship. Things can happen pronto, too fast for you to stop to ask a computer. Inside, you can glance at your wrist, maybe. You must know this! Generally, 0.1 bar oxygen is too little, 0.6 bar is too much."
"The Lucky Leo–" someone said and stopped as Captain Martinez held up a hand. She ran a tight class; you were expected to keep your mouth shut until you held the floor. Especially while she held the floor. But the name of the spacecraft was enough; there were nods and murmurs in the class.
She nodded. "Sí, the Lucky Leo. Interior view please, after salvage."
The holo stage behind the captain became a larger-than-life view of the inside of a spacecraft command deck. Clean, bare metal.
"This was a debris strike to start with," she said, "one that hit the emergency suit hook-up oxygen line. Unfortunately, a redundant safety valve upstream of the distribution valve jammed open. It probably hadn’t been exercised since installation. Once they got the entrance and exit hole plugged, the oxygen partial pressure probably hit one bar.
"The fire started in the airlock controls and flashed through the cabin in about seventy seconds, incinerating the temporary patches. That kept the cabin from exploding, but everything combustible in any way was turned to ash and vapor and blew out the holes. What you see is bulk aluminum and titanium coated with their oxides; everything else–plastics, composites, thin wires, and, of course, anything organic–was gone in seconds."
I stared at the sterile shell. Five people had been in there. Somehow, that was even more unsettling than a charred corpse. I imagined being simply erased in an instant.
"That is probably a good place to end this session. Keep that image in mind. Now, I have the standby scramble ship duty selections for those of you who have qualified. Jones, Levine, and Ghandhari go with Lt. Rae on CLR-20. Baklanova, Petersen, and Kiwidinok, go with Captain Reynolds on CLR-23; and Yurovich, Kent, and Yu will be on call with me on CLR-18. Have your kits on board by 1800."
That woke me up. Being "on call" meant the chance for a real mission. It also meant the captain thought my course work to date meant I wouldn’t be a liability. I wasn’t surprised at Kristine Kent, a cool and competent South African refugee raised in London, but Yurovich was another matter. His constant questions and haphazard English had him down as the class clown to a lot of people. But his scores must have been a lot better than that indicated, or he wouldn’t have been here.
Zander was at the CLR-18 when I brought my travel kit that evening. He gestured to the spacecraft hanging from its fore and aft hard points.
"Looking like movie ship," he said. "Round and smooth. Real spaceships look like some soccer balls and sausages in erectors set."
I grunted. "Zander, the aeroshell is so it can use Earth’s atmosphere to change course, if needed."
He shrugged. "Da, I know this. Still look strange."
Compared to the usual cislunar ferry, it did. The nose was wedged for minimum drag and the long, thick, stumpy "wings" that held the launch track suspension magnets were fully enclosed and had real control surfaces. Its orbital maneuvering pods were high on the rear, another aeronautical contingency adaptation.
A climbing pole thrust five meters down from an open circular hatch in the belly, forward of the main engine bay. Zander gave me an "after you" gesture, so I slung my kit over my shoulder and pulled myself up. Zander didn’t bother with his shoulder strap; he jumped almost halfway, grabbed the pole with one hand and thrust his bulk up, popping up through the hatch like a breaching whale.
"We get called tonight," he said. "I know. I have a date tomorrow."
I smiled and shook my head. Zander’s future universe was always a dark one. But the CLR rescue service was only getting about two missions a year. While nothing was absolutely safe, space travel was getting there. The few missions that did occur got so much publicity that it obscured the fact that hardly anything ever happened; but the Republic looked on the rescue service as a reservoir of high-performance spacecraft and crews for any contingency.
"You see. They train us, no? So they create something and not tell us is not real. But we know and we play." He grinned and slammed me on the back with a huge hand. "Just like is real, yes?"
"Sure, Zander," I said. "Just like is real."
"Hey, maybe we go to Saemahahn? You’d like that?"
I groaned. My oriental surname and a slight epicanthial fold were the second curse of Abraham Yu, the first being "Hey, you." I played dumb. "Why?"
"Why? New Korea at L4!"
"Zander, my folks are mostly New England Yankees, almost back to 1640. The great-great grandad I got my surname from came from Hawaii on a returning missionary ship; he was Chinese, not Korean, and not 100 percent of that."
"Oh." Zander shrugged. "Good food at Saemahahn, anyway."
"Well, they would have that. Let’s get this stuff stowed."
We followed the pole up to the control deck. The cabin layout was compact and simple, a tube seven meters long and six meters wide. The lower deck was for storage or passengers and the upper deck for crew. The control deck was about three meters long and consisted of two rows of three swivel chairs. Video display panels covered the walls over the chairs, but those were backup. Helmet visor displays were now the primary interface.
The captain’s cabin was in the odd rounded space in the nose of the pressure hull just aft of the attitude control cluster. The door was open, so, out of curiosity, I stuck my head in. A maximum of two meters long, it held a folding single bunk that left room for a very small group of people to meet privately, a microgalley in the extreme front, and a microhead in the corner across from the bunk.
It seemed roomier than our virtual trainer and it took me a moment to realize why. The bunk was folded up and there were no personal effects whatsoever. There were no bolt-down furnishings, no items in the aerogel cabinet, no rug and no wall decorations. This had been Captain Martinez’ ship for over two years, and there was nothing of her to be seen.
Spartan? Her demeanor in class would be consistent with that.
Or maybe it was psychological–in a crunch, the ship was expendable and she didn’t want to have an emotional investment in it. That would be consistent with it having no name.
"Is problem?"
"No, Zander, no problem. Our captain likes things simple, it seems."
"Da. I think she has bruised soul, almost like Russian."
"Maybe."
We went aft to the crew quarters. Three tiny compartments, two meters wide only at floor level, formed a U at the rear of the cabin. Each compartment had two swing-down bunks, but two compartment doors were locked, leaving me with only one choice.
"You room with me?" Zander said.
Rooming with Kristine would be much more pleasant. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and one of the smartest. But that was a fantasy; I hardly knew her well enough to suggest it, and, besides, the odds were that we’d never leave port. I agreed to be agreeable and tossed my kit into the bin at the tail of the lower bunk in the open compartment.
"Nyet. You take upper bunk."
"Hey, Zander . . ."
"Look at me, Da? Main rocket in ship’s belly; what if they not take time to wake us up before they pull two gravities."
I visualized Zander falling down on me from the top bunk at two gravities, smiled and retrieved my kit. "There is no avoiding all inconveniences in human affairs," I told him.
"Kung Fu Tse?" Zander asked.
I groaned. "Adams, Zander. John Adams. One of my fatherland’s early leaders."
"Oh."
We met Kristine on our way out. She wore immaculate white coveralls relieved by a small Cislunar flag. The coveralls opened at the neck just enough to show that her skin-tight white shipsuit was fastened all the way to her throat. The effect was high Victorian in pants and left me as curious as I imagined any teenager might have been as to what lay beneath. This in a culture that had long ago discarded swimsuits as excess mass.
"We’ve taken the last two bunks, it appears," I said, grinning like an idiot. Someone a little more on top of the situation might have said, "But I will be happy to make other arrangements." But being me, I just stood there dumb-faced.
That gave me time to notice that she wasn’t carrying a kit.
She smiled charmingly and said in a bell-like voice with her Mary Poppins accent, "I’ve already made my arrangements, thank you very much. I returned to add today’s lecture to my spare comcomp." She displayed a data wand. "A nuisance, but it has to be done in person. The ship is well shielded here, have you noticed?"
"We can go to Mars, if needed," Zander said.
Kristine laughed melodiously. "Yes, Alexander, we could, though I’d think we’d grow quite bored with each other’s company in the months that would take."
I sighed. I wouldn’t be that much of a bother to her. My last romantic liaison had been with a lady astronomer who had been cheerfully sleeping with two other guys as well. Then she left all of us for a berth on the Ceres expedition. Though she’d constantly told me to develop other relationships, keeping up with one third of her appetite had been about my limit. Nonetheless, this mysterious lady in white was now standing in front of me and my heart rate was elevated.
Hormones overcame fear of embarrassment; I had to say something . . .
"Kristine, given that we’re not likely to get to know each other that way, perhaps we could have dinner at Duluth’s some night." I sounded like a goddamn idiot.
She laughed and touched my arm lightly. It burned where she touched.
"Sorry, but I’m not the dating type, am I? Moreover, I must study every night until this course is over. Someone’s life might depend on it–perhaps yours. But thank you for the thought." She tossed her head toward one of the other compartments and flashed a gigawatt smile. "Please excuse me for a moment."
She turned to one of the other compartments, opened the door and slipped in with the grace of a fawn, leaving only the scent of a fresh spring breeze.
While the door was open I caught a brief glimpse of two signed portraits in her compartment: one was of a blond boy of about five with a bright smile in a school uniform of white shirt and blue shorts; the other was of a lunar icon, but the inscription on the photo didn’t say "to Kristine," it said "to Avia."
Zander frowned. "Admiral Samios? She knows Admiral Samios?"
I read English faster than Zander. "It was inscribed to Captain Martinez; it looks like our captain is rooming with Kristine."
Zander looked toward the captain’s stateroom toward the bow. "But . . ."
"I like to leave the forward room free for meetings, or as a surgery, if needed." Captain Martinez appeared at the door, looking very serious. "Do you have everything you need aboard? Yes?" she asked.
Zander shrugged. "Da . . . Nyet. One never has everything."
"Hmmm. You are learning, maybe. Well, what you have will have to do, because we are going somewhere. We must get ready for launch, pronto!"
That was why she was here in person. No sooner had she said it, than I heard the clang of the port’s macrowaldos attaching themselves to the hull, ready to lay the CLR-18 on the launch track like a round in a rifle. I turned to scramble for my seat and bumped into Zander, who stood there like a block of Siberian permafrost.
"We go where?"
"Zander," I said quietly. "Move."
"We go where?!" he said more loudly.
"Ensign Yurovich, you have five seconds to take your position, or go out the hatch," Captain Martinez said almost as quietly as I had, but the words seemed to echo off the hull.
Zander scuttled back into the main cabin, looked up at his station on the raised platform on the left side, looked down the exit pole, hesitated, and then with a grim expression pulled himself up to his acceleration seat.
"Ensign Yu . . ." Kristine said.
I’d been frozen watching Zander’s personal drama and was now blocking the passageway myself. "Uh, sorry."
I jumped for my seat and began to strap in and run through my checks. The ship was entirely computer-controlled, with five redundant nodes, each fully capable of running the ship, but the captain, last out of the passageway, had somehow settled in and called out "Command ready" before any of us. I couldn’t see her; her station was in front of mine, and the back of her seat blocked my view.
My lights were all green. I reached up, flipped open my locker and did a visual on the various environmental packages: black for vacuum, gray for lunar surface, red for Mars, and in the spare slot, there was a white package. White?
"Station 3, ready," Kristine sang out.
The telltales on all my packages were green. I checked my straps.
"Station 2, ready."
"What’s the white package for?" Zander called out.
"Yurovich . . ." The captain’s voice held the hint of some extreme doom for Zander unless he responded quickly.
"Da, it has a green light, whatever it is."
The ship settled into the launch cradle with a couple of thumps.
"Station 4 ready," Zander finally said.
"CLR-18 ready," Captain Martinez said.
"Okay, is exercise over now?" Zander asked.
The CLR-18 leapt forward and my seat pushed my reluctant body along with it. The seat swung toward vertical as the g built up to the track standard of 30 meters per second squared and felt the slight rocking motion as the ship’s magnets lifted it off the cradle. Three g was bracing–eighteen times my usual weight, but like most lunies, I’d been pretty good about maintaining my high-g certification.
I glanced across the passageway. Kristine was doing what I was doing, but Zander looked grim and seemed to endure the acceleration rather than play with it. I selected "side view" and watched track supports whip by with increasing frequency as the distant gray hills majestically glided aft. My weight began to fall away as Ft. McHenry came into view, silently chuckling at the irony of its name as I did each time I passed this maintenance outpost on the rim of Congreve Crater.
Across the passageway, Zander lay flat, pale and breathing heavily. Only his eyes moved.
"What is so funny?" he wanted to know.
"Just the name of the maintenance base."
Kristine looked over as well; "Well?"
"I would like to know, too," Captain Martinez said sharply from in front of me.
I realized that I was the only one of U.S. ancestry in our crew. "History. It goes back to the War of 1812. The British bombarded Fort McHenry, near Baltimore, with Congreve rockets. It didn’t fall, so they bypassed it and sacked Washington. But they didn’t stay with a hostile force at their rear. The whole thing was kind of pointless, but it provided that "rocket’s red glare" phrase in the U.S. national anthem."
"Glare wastes energy. Only time rockets glare red is in an emergency," Zander said. "1812. Napoleon. U.S. on wrong side of war. Russian view, of course."
From the Russian perspective, I realized, my ancestors had been on the wrong side of a world war. I thought of another irony–playing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture on independence day.
Kristine laughed. "The British view as well, but I think I get the point. Congreve and Ft. McHenry were on opposite sides of the Napoleonic wars, but are now together on the Moon. I suppose it’s as hard with nations as it is with people, but one must, eventually, let go of such things, mustn’t one?"
"An irony, indeed," Captain Martinez said. "Now, if any of you have any business to clean up back on the Moon, it is the time to do it. Our ETR is ten days."
A chill went down my spine and the small cabin was suddenly silent. They tell you when you sign up that we are primarily a search and rescue service, but that we are also part of what passes for the Cislunar Republic’s military. Things hadn’t entirely calmed down between the CLR and Earth’s International Space Authority–particularly over the issue of self-determination for the population of the big L1 manufacturing complex. The United Nations had yet to formally recognize the new Lunar government and only a handful of member nations had done so. Some wanted to "reclaim" what they felt was partly their property.
"What happens now?" Zander asked. "Where do we go?"
"Ensign Yurovich, simply tell whoever you talk to that you haven’t been briefed yet, but you’ll be back in ten days. Please make it sound routine."
Another silence. I had questions of my own, but it was clear they wouldn’t be welcome just now. Kristine was already quietly talking to someone on her board. What had I planned to do in the next ten days? Dad and Mom were on Mars . . . I’d just broken up with Cynthia . . . Rolf Petersen might be going out as well . . . Cousin Todd would be in his office. I touched-in the code. He was busy, but his cyberservant took my message.
Zander was saying something in Russian and getting increasingly agitated, finally ending his call with a "Do svidanya!" that echoed through the main cabin.
"Bah! Mother asks too many questions I cannot now answer."
I struggled, with limited success, to keep a straight face. However, Kristine, whom Zander could not see, grinned from ear to ear, doubled over, and then clamped her hand over her mouth so all that escaped was a faint lady-like cough.
"Are you all done?" Captain Martinez asked.
"Yes," I said.
The others nodded.
The captain floated out from her station into the middle of the passageway. "We are on total radio silence as of now. No calls until I lift it. Settle in and then join me up front and I will tell you what this is about."
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