Titan (85 page)

After seven years of flight, after traveling a billion miles from Earth, the human spacecraft
Cassini
reached Saturn…

A fat pie-dish shape, ten feet across, clung to the side of the
Cassini
stack. It was a combined aeroshell and heat shield for a separate spacecraft, called
Huygens,
which was designed to land on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

Pyrotechnic bolts fired, silently releasing puffs of vapor that immediately crystallized and dispersed. Three springs pushed
Huygens
away from
Cassini,
and a curved track and roller made the released probe spin, at seven revolutions per minute.

The probe began to fall faster, into the deep ocean of air… Diaphragms slid back. A series of small portals opened in the protective shell of the craft, and sensors peered out.

At last, the probe crashed into the slush. Slowed by Titan’s low surface gravity and the density of the lower air—half again as dense as Earth’s—the impact was slow, as gentle as an apple falling from a tree.

The probe continued its battery of experiments…. Just six minutes after landing, the probe’s internal batteries were exhausted.

Melted slush frosted over the buried portals of the inert, cooling lander. And a thin rain of light brown organic material began to settle on the upper casing. The chatter of telemetry to
Cassini
fell silent. The orbiter passed beneath the horizon and then turne dits high gain antenna away from Titan, toward Earth. Patiently,
Cassini
downloaded everything the lander had observed.

Some of the results were unexpected.

I am grateful to the following for assistance with research, suggestions, and comments:

and to the following for reading versions of the manuscript:

S
TEPHEN
B
AXTER
is a trained engineer who took a first-class honors degree in mathematics at Cambridge University. He also has a doctorate in aeroengineering research from Southampton University, and for his degree, worked with Rolls Royce Ltd. and at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, UK. In his research, the author has visited NASA launch centers, viewed a shuttle launch, and interviewed NASA staff, including a mission controller and a space shuttle astronaut.

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Acclaim for Stephen Baxter’s
Previous Novel
VOYAGE

“In the grand tradition…. An excellent work that shows the path SF must take if it is to remain vital.”

—Washington Post Book World

“Baxter’s excellent what-if novel about a 1986 Mars landing accomplishes its mission. The premise is brilliant…. There’s plenty of imagination on display here.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A wonderful, patriotic tale of lost possibility. Calling Ron Howard.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] thoughtful … history of the space program…. One of the most intelligent and reasonable stories of its type.”

—Science Fiction Chronicle

“Carries the reader on a smooth, arcing experience in reading.”

—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Baxter tells what it feels like, smells like, and sounds like to be aboard a spacecraft.”

—Library Journal

Books by Stephen Baxter

Anti-Ice
Flux
Icebones
Longtusk
Moonseed
Raft
Ring
Silverhair
Timelike Infinity
The Time Ships
Titan
Vacuum Diagrams
Voyage

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

An earlier version of one chapter of this novel appeared in a very different form in
Interzone
magazine, No. 105, 1996.

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Copyright © 1997 by Stephen Baxter
Cover photographs © 1997 by SUPERSTOCK
Photo composite by Carl D. Galian
ISBN: 0-06-105713-4
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN 9780061758669

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First Eos paperback printing: March 2001
First HarperPrism paperback printing: November 1998
First HarperPrism hardcover printing: November 1997

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