Deep Space - Hidden Terror (The Stasis Stories #6) Read online

  Zaii shrugged, “I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about it himself and is pretty good at deflecting my questions. As best I can tell he mostly does PR and works as some kind of gofer for Mr. X.”

  Shelle found that hard to believe but decided to drop it. She said, “You said there was something else I could learn quickly?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Zaii said, reaching in her pocket and getting out a cylinder a bit bigger than a Chapstick. “Pepper spray. It’s legal in Virginia, but only for self-defense. You’re supposed to be eighteen too, but you’re probably turning soon, right?”

  Shelle nodded, “In a couple of weeks. But what if Eric threatens me before then?”

  “Use it anyway. Breaking the law to save yourself rarely gets you in much trouble.” Zaii launched into a description of how to use it. “Keep it in your pocket all the time. Keep it in your hand when you’re worried. For the first couple of days practice taking it off safe a bunch of times, then practice occasionally after that.”

  Shelle said, “What if the one I get works differently?”

  “That one’s yours. I’ve got a couple more in my room. I think it’s the best kind, so buy yourself more like it so you won’t have to learn a different mechanism. Once you’ve got another, spray some things with this one for practice.”

  Shelle asked, “I thought Tasers were supposed to be best for self-defense?”

  Zaii nodded. “They’re also legal in Virginia. But they’re bulkier and I worry about the electronics failing without me knowing they’re out. However, when you use pepper spray, pretty often some of it gets on you. Tasers pretty much only get the other guy unless you screw up.”

  ~~~

  When it was time for her mom to get home, Shelle started packing up her stuff. “I don’t know how I can thank you enough for your help today.”

  Zaii got up as well. “Help someone else someday. That’s payment enough for me. Send me a note and tell me what you did.” She stepped away, saying back over her shoulder, “Just a sec. I’m gonna get one of my spare pepper sprays, then I’ll walk you home.”

  Shelle wanted to protest. Either Shelle walked home alone or Zaii would walk her over and then she’d have to walk back alone. Of course, Zaii can protect herself, Shell thought.

  When Zaii got back she handed Shelle another cylinder. “I forgot I had this practice sprayer. It shoots a red dye that’ll wash away in the next rain. You can take shots at trees and posts without getting hit with a pepper backsplash.” She shrugged, “It might not have all that many shots left, so make ’em count.”

  As they went out the door, Zaii turned on her phone’s light and asked, “Where’s your sprayer?”

  “In my pocket,” Shelle said, feeling more confident from its mere presence.

  “Out for a walk in the dark,” Zaii said, “it should be in your hand. If someone surprises you, you don’t want to have to start digging in your pocket.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Shelle said, reaching into her pocket. Her pants were tight enough it took a moment to get the sprayer out. And that’s why I should have it in my hand, she thought.

  ***

  Diddiq groaned as he woke from hibernation again. This time when he looked at his wall display the cubby’s temperature was 20 ℃, and before he looked away it popped over to twenty-one. His first heart was at fifty-five beats per minute and his second heart was up to forty. He felt terrible but knew he’d feel almost normal in another hour.

  It was a small price to pay for sleeping through the months of endlessly boring passage on the way to the distant reaches of the home system. And, of course, since the ship couldn’t carry enough food for many to remain awake, he had a good excuse.

  Diddiq didn’t try to reach Rabaq this time. Instead, he ate a meal, waited until he was fully awake and alert, then headed for the ship’s bridge.

  When Diddiq arrived at the bridge, the guard came to attention. Four legs slightly spread and the upper two extremities holding her weapon, she bellowed, “Expedition Leader Diddiq arrives.”

  Fully staffed for the first time in over a year, the bridge crew showed its readiness as well, everyone posing with their legs somewhat spread and their forehands on the station they were manning. Captain Rabaq said, “Welcome Expedition Leader.” He twitched his antennae interrogatively, “Are you ready for your briefing?”

  Diddiq lifted his antennae affirmatively and positioned himself on the leader’s saddle.

  Rabaq said, “We should arrive at the jump point in forty-six minutes. We’ve exposed the cores so they’ll superheat and the engines have started charging the capacitors. The jump crew’s fully staffed and we’ve awakened two navigation computers. We expect the jump to go well.” Rabaq looked proudly around the bridge, “Shortly we’ll become the first haliq to jump to a new stellar system in thousands of years.”

  Diddiq shrugged his antennae, “Likely not. Almost certainly haliq from other systems are spreading to new systems as we speak. Still, we must congratulate ourselves on being the first to jump from the Epsilon Eridani system.” As a little cheer rose from the bridge personnel, Diddiq reflected on what they’d told him. He’d trained as a leader and, though he’d learned something of how a ship functioned, he wasn’t comfortable with a lot of it. He thought exposing the cores “so they’ll superheat” had to do with pushing the uranium rods out of their neutron absorber channels so the chain reaction would build heat for the steam generators. The turbines were probably winding up to full speed and the excess power beyond what was needed to charge the capacitors was being wasted so that the generators would be fully spooled up when they needed all the power they could get for the jump. Upon deciding that, he promptly had the sensation that he could feel the vibration from the spinning generator cores. After a moment he decided he was confident enough in his interpretation that he wouldn’t ask questions.

  No need to display any embarrassing ignorance.

  Instead, he asked, “What of the other ships, Busux and Kranex?”

  Rabaq said, “They all report readiness as well. The scoutship will be a few hours late making its jump because it fell behind upon sustaining some drive damage when scooping the second gas giant.”

  Because the extremely high-speed passes through Jovians’ atmospheres were dangerous, Diddiq felt relieved that only one of the ships had sustained damage. “Were they able to fully repair the damage?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Rabaq said.

  Diddiq shrugged his antennae. “A little delay for the scoutship may be good. If we encounter hazards in the new system, it’ll give us some time to react and to plan for the scoutship’s arrival.” He settled in to wait for the jump, wondering whether the interstellar jump would feel different from the interplanetary jumps he’d made.

  ~~~

  In the event, the stellar jump was anticlimactic. Everyone pulled shrouds over their antennae to block the violent radio-frequency chirp produced by a jump. Even in the shroud, the chirp was loud. Louder than an interplanetary jump, it felt something like the radio burst from a nearby lightning bolt. The shroud toned it down but it remained irritating, Diddiq imagined that without the shroud it would’ve been deafening.

  Diddiq rested on his saddle, trying to look calm and in charge but internally wanting to exercise his bad habit of picking at the hooves of his hindlimbs. His mind kept anticipating all the possible bad news he might soon receive from the crew. Chief among those was the possibility that there were no gas giants for refueling, effectively stranding them in the new system. A lesser, but still disastrous concern was that there might not be any oxygen-bearing worlds—something that would render the mission a failure, though at least they’d be able to return home and then try for a different system.

  ~~~

  Almost an hour after the jump, Rabaq—having accumulated reports from his crew the whole time—turned his eyes to Diddiq and spoke formally, “Expedition Leader, we have arrived in the correct system at a position approximately eleven billion kilometers from its sun.
We’ve retained our velocity and are heading in-system at 0.5% light-speed. So far, we’ve found three gas giant planets in the periphery of the system with one close enough to our course that we can use it for refueling. We’ve also found one moderately large, oxygen-bearing, rocky planet in the interior. The other two ships, Busux and Kranex, have arrived. The scoutship is not here yet, but, based on its projected timeline, is not yet late.”

  Claws fully sheathed, Diddiq bowed his forelimbs at Rabaq, “Congratulations are in order for you and your crew.”

  A cheer rose from the bridge.

  Diddiq asked, “Have the computers worked out a flight plan?” One that will let us make a refueling pass through the atmosphere of the gas giant on the way to the oxygen world, Diddiq left unsaid because it was obvious. If there wasn’t a reasonably positioned gas giant, they would have to resort to lower deceleration profiles and use gravity slingshots around other worlds to slow themselves down. That would take much longer and stress their supply situation.

  Rabaq frowned and looked toward the small corral at the back of the bridge where the two computers huddled under the watchful eye of one of the young female officers. “Kasuq,” he asked, “do you have results yet?”

  Kasuq dipped her antennae negatively but didn’t speak. Because the genetic modifications that gave the computers their phenomenal mathematical abilities left them slow-witted in other ways, females almost always handled them.

  Computer-haliq were especially clumsy at social interactions and females were simply better at handling the overly sensitive beings. Males almost always became frustrated and began striking and shouting at computers left in their charge.

  Experts had determined that kind of negative reinforcement was consistently counterproductive.

  Diddiq could see the two computers in Kasuq’s charge were typically slovenly with downcast eyes and antennae. Kasuq probably feared that if she radio-spoke her response to Rabaq, her tones would distract the poor wretches from their assigned computations.

  After a few minutes, Diddiq found himself wanting to go back and smack the computers around himself. They can do calculations you’ve never dreamed of, he reminded himself. They deserve respect even if they don’t look like it. He’d cribbed that little mantra directly from his leadership courses because he needed it to consciously overcome his gut-level disbelief.

  He settled a little on his saddle and tried to project the composed demeanor he couldn’t force himself to feel.

  ~~~

  Diddiq had almost convinced himself that he wasn’t concerned when he heard quiet conversations leaking out of the computers’ corral. He turned his eyes to look, but slowly. As if he weren’t worried.

  Kasuq had bent down over the two computers, probably reconciling their results to see if they agreed closely enough that they could be merged, or whether she’d have to have them calculate their trajectories over again. The young officer lifted her head and thoughtfully looked forward at Rabaq and Diddiq.

  Is she wondering whether the agreement’s good enough? Diddiq wondered. The young female started forward, evidently planning to ask their opinion. He decided if she and Rabaq asked his own opinion he’d simply insist they do it over until they got answers that truly agreed. He didn’t want to waste time, but he certainly didn’t want the trajectory to be wrong.

  Kasuq leaned close to Rabaq. From the trickles of signal that passed Rabaq and came to him, Diddiq could tell she was trying to have a private conversation but propriety constrained her from leaning close enough to keep it truly confidential. Diddiq couldn’t fully understand what she was saying, so he supposed it was private enough.

  Rabaq got off his saddle and approached, leaning close to Diddiq. “The calculators agree on the trajectory, but only because they agreed beforehand on the likely mass of the gas giant. They’re concerned that their estimate may be inaccurate.”

  “What?!” Diddiq asked, astonished.

  Rabaq shrugged his antennae and leaned close again, “If we make the pass they’ve recommended and the gas giant is more massive than they believe, our trajectory will bend more than expected. If it’s less massive, our trajectory will be deflected less.”

  Diddiq pulled back to look at Rabaq, wondering if the haliq might be joking. Rabaq looked serious. Aiming his antennae directly at Rabaq and speaking very quietly, he asked, “How do we determine the mass of the planet?”

  Rabaq frowned, “You send a known mass past the planet at a known velocity and measure how much its path is deflected.”

  “Do we have a plan for that? A mass to send by?”

  Rabaq lowered his antennae in the negative.

  “You must be kidding! Why not?”

  “We’ve lived too long in a system where all the planetary masses are known. It appears that no one considered it while planning this mission.”

  Astonished, Diddiq said, “Who on the primal planet was in charge of that part of the planning?!” Rabaq jerked back, making Diddiq aware of how loudly he’d sent that last message. Of course, the buzz of his overpowered radio waves echoing around the bridge made him aware of it anyway. He’d sent it so loudly that his radar sense had involuntarily provided a 3D image of the bridge from the reflections. He wanted to apologize, especially for cursing, but decided it wouldn’t be appropriate for the expedition’s leader to do so.

  Rabaq leaned close and responded to his angry question by whispering again. “No one was in charge of that part of the planning. Therefore, everyone is at fault on that.” The “everyone is at fault” part of Rabaq’s reply was an oblique reminder to Diddiq that—as the overall leader—Diddiq was ultimately at fault even though it wasn’t his field of expertise. Rabaq continued, “If you want to know how it happened, it’s because no one but the computers can do these kinds of calculations. In our home system, the computers doing this work have memorized things like the planetary masses that they need to do the work. Since the rest of us can’t do it, the computers’ work seems like magic, but magic with such a reliable and satisfactory outcome so we don’t worry about it. None of us worry about the planetary mass inputs because the computers don’t ask for them. Now that they’ve asked me, it seems obvious that we need such information in a new system but, unfortunately, since no one’s done this for thousands of years, no one considered it beforehand.”

  Diddiq sighed and fell back on another gem from his leadership courses. “So, what do you think we should do?”

  Rabaq turned his eyes thoughtfully to peruse the bridge displays. After a moment he said, “Send one ship ahead to make the pass the computers recommended. We’ll know the mass of the planet after we see how that ship deflects. Then the rest of the ships will be able to make accurate passes.”

  “And, could the mass be so great that the chosen ship will plunge into the planet and crash?”

  “Not crash, no. But, as you know, passes through atmospheres at these speeds are very dangerous despite the exotic alloys and ceramics we use in the ships’ noses and scoops. If the ship were to go a little deep, overheating could destroy it,” Rabaq said. “I’d recommend sending the scoutship. Such risks are what scouts are for.”

  “If the scoutship’s destroyed, how will our status report get back to the homeworld?”

  Rabaq shrugged his antennae, “We’d have to unload one of the ships and then send it back empty. Better that, than losing a big ship and all its equipment and personnel.”

  “Okay,” Diddiq said reluctantly.

  “I’ll order the trajectory the computers recommended, then tell Kasuq to have them calculate a plan for the scoutship to precede us… That is unless they can think of another way to determine the mass of the planet.”

  “Do they usually have ideas for things like that? That sounds like it would require innovation.” Despite their big brains, computers rarely conceived of anything new, they only did the things they’d been taught.

  Rabaq sighed, “No. But it can’t hurt to ask. They may have memorized a method they can pull
up, but haven’t because no one asked them to.”

  Chapter Six

  As Lee packed her luggage into the locker, she thought back to her first 400-million-kilometer trip to Ceres, not so many years ago. Then, they’d launched from the recently completed 1,000-kilometer lunar launcher at sixty gravities, reaching the—at that time astonishing—speed of 123,000 kilometers per hour. They’d had a proton-boron fusion rocket, but it’d been quite inefficient so it’d only been used for course corrections and deceleration at the end of the trip. The lack of further acceleration during the trip had meant that she, Norm, and their son Will had been in stasis for 135 days on the way out there.

  Because they’d been in stasis, the journey had been an eye-blink for them, nonetheless, there’d been quite the time dislocation when they’d arrived and had to catch up on the news of all that’d happened while they were out of the loop. As they still did nowadays, the ship’s crew had also spent most of the time in stasis, taking rotating shifts to watch over the ship’s progress.

  Since crews did it over and over, concern had developed that if it went on much longer, some interplanetary flight crews would become so dislocated from current events and changes as to be unable to adapt. However, just as unions and companies were discussing limits on the number of trips or the degree of time-dislocation spacemen could tolerate, along had come more efficient p-B fusion reactors and engines that had allowed the shortening of a Ceres trip to an average of forty days.

  Today Lee was boarding SC Maui, an Island-class ship that would launch from the lunar tower, accelerate at 0.143 gravities for six days, then decelerate for a slightly longer period of time, arriving at the minor planet in twelve days, having burned only about 12 tonnes of hydrogen and boron to do it. Staze was only a couple of days from finishing the prototype of the next generation of ships that would use four p-B fusion engines and could thus get to Ceres in six days, though they’d have to burn four times as much p-B to make the trip in half the time.