Singularity's Ring (11 page)
Read Singularity's Ring Online
Authors: Paul Melko
Manuel swallowed and nodded. He released his hand from the bulkhead, and tried to push his fingers into the waldo. Once more, then his hand was in, and he tightened down the claw’s clutch onto Flora’s sled. The jerking smoothed.
I applied another series of thrusts and the twisting and turning slowed. The impulses countered the tumbling, and then the sleds were righted, zero tumble, just the pull of centripetal force into space. We were hundreds of kilometers farther out than when we’d started.
Behind me, Moira began cleaning up the vomit, sucking it into the zero-gee portavac. I ignored the smell, ignored my own twitching stomach, focused on the vectors of velocity and acceleration. The fuel gauge was too low. The extra maneuvering to slow the tumble had used too much
fuel. We were still flying outward. The seconds ticked off as the distance stretched. We had to make a decision; no decision was death. But I saw no decision that worked.
fuel. We were still flying outward. The seconds ticked off as the distance stretched. We had to make a decision; no decision was death. But I saw no decision that worked.
I modified the image and shot it to my pod.
We need to get back to the station.
The model was unsolvable. I could not fight the outward centripetal force and reach the station.
My mind started trying other scenarios: could we reach L4 or L5 in less than five days? No. I could set us on a thirty-day trajectory. Too long. No food, no air, no water.
I ruled out the moon.
The Ring?
Meda sent.
Meda sent.
The Ring was thirty thousand kilometers below us. There was no way to reach it if we could not reach Columbus Station.
No, the spines.
My mind jumped and assimilated the thought. The Ring orbited in geostationary orbit at ten thousand kilometers. Because it was so far below geosynch, the Ring was actually under acceleration: the centripetal force of a geostationary orbit at ten thousand kilometers did not cancel the pull of the Earth. In fact the acceleration was 0.14 gees. To keep the Ring in place, it relied on the rigidity of the Ring itself, the anchors to the Earth, and the spines that served as counterbalances. The spines extended past geosynchronous orbit.
I added the spines to my map image, but my hope faded. None of the spines were near enough to reach. Columbus Station had been positioned atop Quito precisely because there were no nearby spines to tangle with the station’s counterbalances.
Then I realized that Columbus Station had its own spine, the start of Columbus Station’s own counterbalance tether. It extended some ten thousand kilometers, half its
final length, and it was near, very near. Near enough to reach. The pod checked my calculation and agreed.
final length, and it was near, very near. Near enough to reach. The pod checked my calculation and agreed.
Do it,
Meda sent.
Meda sent.
I applied the thrust gently, urging the awkward double sled toward the end of the cable. The tether was invisible, but I knew where it had to be. I kept the acceleration on, not fighting the outward centripetal force, but moving perpendicular. The result was a vector about thirty degrees off the vertical cable.
If we missed it, there would be no hope. The trajectory sent us toward the Earth-Sun spinward Lagrange point in a figure eight that would bring us back to Earth in months.
The claw,
I sent.
I sent.
Manuel nodded, flexed the first claw, the one we had used to hook the cable.
Meda turned the radio back on.
“Apollo! What are you doing? Your trajectory is no good.”
Aldo, still screaming.
“We’re going to catch the counterbalance cable,” Meda said. “You may have to come get us.”
Silence on the radio, then, “Apollo …” I knew Aldo was considering, wondering. If he had had a part like me, he would have seen it right away as a valid solution.
“Can you … ?”
“Yes, we can, Aldo.”
“I’m going to need more fuel if I have to come get you,” he said.
“You’ll have time to get it,” Meda said. We would catch the tether near the end, draw it taut and swing in a pendulum with the station at the fulcrum. But the full swing would take hours.
Sixty seconds,
I sent. We weren’t going to be able to decelerate. There was one chance, and one chance only.
I sent. We weren’t going to be able to decelerate. There was one chance, and one chance only.
“Flora, hold on,” Meda said on the radio’s open channel. “If you can hear us.”
There it is,
sent Strom. Everyone used Strom’s eyes to watch.
sent Strom. Everyone used Strom’s eyes to watch.
The cable swung close, not at our speed, since we approached it at an oblique angle. But still it was coming at us fast. A light blazed past us, a beacon for wayward spacecraft. Good, I thought. The next one wouldn’t be for ten kilometers.
The cable was like a single raindrop, stretched by relativity to infinity. It slid between Manuel’s stretched claws.
Manuel snagged it and the sleds jolted. The sizzle of the claw on the wire echoed through the cabin.
Don’t break it!
Manuel let go and grabbed again. He twisted the claw and the sled jerked.
The cable began to tangle with the sleds. Free fall, then a spasm of acceleration as the line pulled taut and held. Weak gravity tugged at us. The long swing had begun. In relief, in amazement, I let out a half snort, half giggle.
We were an inverted pendulum with a period of just over four hours. The ramifications of it shuddered through me, and I began to laugh. We were part of a double pendulum over fifty thousand kilometers long—the station, the sleds, and the up and down cables—acted on by gravitational and centripetal forces. I painted the image for my pod and tossed it at them.
“Beautiful,” Meda said.
I added the flex of the diamond cables. I accounted for its mass. The effect of the hundred or so kilometers of cable still above us, a third pendulum in the system. I began to calculate the jerk Columbus Station received when the cable damped the sled’s zenithal velocity.
Uh-oh,
Meda sent.
Jerk?
Meda sent.
Jerk?
The time derivative of acceleration
, I sent helpfully.
The second derivative of velocity. The third derivative of position.
, I sent helpfully.
The second derivative of velocity. The third derivative of position.
We jolted the whole station?
How much?
“A little,” I said, and the pod’s concern finally made it through to me.
Did we hurt the cable?
It’s moving up a couple meters per second.
“Oh, crap!” Meda said. “This isn’t going to look good.”
It looks great,
I sent.
I sent.
Meda glared.
We need to get down.
We need to get down.
We need to check on Flora,
Strom sent.
Strom sent.
I looked up. The zenithal windows were blocked by Flora’s loosely held craft. Since the sled’s thrusters had misfired, we’d heard nothing from Flora. She may have been severely hurt.
“Flora, are you there?” Meda said on the private channel.
Try the suit radio,
Quant sent.
Quant sent.
Meda nodded and pulled the suit helmet over her head, cutting herself off from the intrapod pheromones.
“Flora? Are you listening?” I could hear the tinny conversation from Strom’s helmet, which he held in his hands.
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“Broken ribs, bruises. The sled’s fucked. Vomit in the console does that.” She snorted. “I haven’t vomited in years.”
Meda chuckled. “We have a little of that over here too.”
Silence for a moment, then Flora said, “That was nice flying.”
I felt myself blush. Strom tousled my hair with a huge hand. I batted it away, smiling.
“Thanks,” Meda said.
“Any ideas on how we get down?”
I signaled to Meda with hand gestures, indicating we should attempt to connect the two sleds at their airlocks. Verbal speech, chemical thoughts, and pheromones were all part of how a pod thought and spoke. When none of those were possible, we could use our own modified version of the hand language, Pod-C. All First State children were taught Pod-C in the creche.
“We’re going to try connecting the airlocks,” Meda said.
All the sleds had single-person airlocks with universal connectors on the outside. I turned a camera on the sled. Flora’s airlock was on the far side. There was no way to maneuver to the other side, while one claw kept the sleds attached and the other clung to the cable. If we let go of either to adjust their position, one or both of the sleds would fly into space. A tricky problem.
I signed to Meda again.
“Do your claws work?” Meda asked.
“Maybe,” Flora said. “No, the claw is not responding. Not much is.” There was a pause. “Apollo. We’re almost out of air.”
“What?”
They should have days left,
I sent.
I sent.
“I didn’t fill it up all the way. I didn’t think we’d be out that long.”
“That’s a real grounder thing to do,” Meda said.
Flora chuckled. “Tell me about it.”
“How much do you have left?”
“An hour. An hour more if we suit up.” I heard the reluctance in her voice. Suited up, the trio would be sundered, out of communication except by voice. Voice communication was too … shallow. No memories, no feelings, just low data rate.
Aldo won’t be here before she runs out of air.
I mapped out the problem in my mind, built the image and passed it around.
Flora’s claw didn’t work. Our claws could not be disconnected for the time it took to connect the sleds. We had little reaction mass left.
Ferry them over in their suits.
I looked around at the already cramped sled. Three more bodies would be a tight fit, but possible.
“Flora, can you suit up and come across?” Meda asked.
“We have two broken legs and I don’t know how many broken ribs. It won’t be easy. Maybe.” If they were injured, the pod would be even more reluctant to separate.
We need to link up and get back to the Station.
I had it.
The railcar,
I sent.
The railcar,
I sent.
When we had gone spider-head hunting, Aldo had ferried us to the cable and we had attached our sled to the cable with the railcar claw attachment. Then we’d crawled the cable, plucking off spider heads and tossing them in a bag.
If we could get a railcar attachment on the cable now, it could move us down the cable at ten meters per second. We’d be back at Columbus Station in a few hours.
They still need air.
Bring them across.
How?
Do it by hand,
I sent.
I’ll suit up
—
I sent.
I’ll suit up
—
We’ll suit up,
Strom amended.
Strom amended.
—
use lines to latch the sleds, and connect the two locks. We mount the railcar attachment to the claw that was holding Flora’s sled, and off we go.
use lines to latch the sleds, and connect the two locks. We mount the railcar attachment to the claw that was holding Flora’s sled, and off we go.
No one objected, except for Manuel, who wanted to go with Strom and me.
Someone has to man the claw,
I sent. Strom painted an image of Manuel with claws as hands.
I sent. Strom painted an image of Manuel with claws as hands.
“Thanks.”
Moira helped me with my helmet, while Meda buckled Strom’s. Moira planted a kiss on my cheek, and said, “No one can fly like you. No one will pilot the
Consensus
like you.”
Consensus
like you.”
Elliott O’Toole wants to try,
I sent. Elliott, our classmate and competitor, was right now interning on the moon at the aluminum smelting plant. I didn’t like thinking about his captaining the
Consensus
instead of us.
I sent. Elliott, our classmate and competitor, was right now interning on the moon at the aluminum smelting plant. I didn’t like thinking about his captaining the
Consensus
instead of us.
Moira left me with a private image of a triple pendulum, an elegant thought-postcard. I smiled, and drew the helmet down, cutting myself off from the rest of them.
“Don’t worry, Quant,” Strom said over the suit radio. “We’ll be back in a jiffy.”
I nodded. Strom was the one who could spend the most time away from the pod, but also the one who hated most to be away. We touched gloved hands, and I entered the sled airlock first.
It cycled, and I listened to the clunk as the air was removed, until there was too little air to hear anything but my own breathing.
Then the outer door opened. My visor darkened in the face of the sun’s glory, even though most of me was in shade. Three meters above was Flora’s sled, two meters away was our claw, grasping a docking ring embedded in the sled’s hull. I saw one of Flora looking at me through a window, and I gave her a quick thumbs-up. She waved back.
The gentle tug of centripetal force reminded me to connect my line to the sled. I half fell, half somersaulted out of the lock, and watched as the door closed. Cut off from the rest.
I felt a momentary pang, then took another line and drifted across to Flora’s sled. My plan was to connect the sleds by a single line and let the weak centripetal force twist Flora’s sled around so that we could winch it down,
airlock to airlock. I caught a hold not quite as elegantly as Manuel would have, and tied off the sleds.
airlock to airlock. I caught a hold not quite as elegantly as Manuel would have, and tied off the sleds.
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