Forbidden the Stars (22 page)

__________

Luna Station :

Luna :

The bartender
gave her patron a confused glance when she ordered an iced tea, no ice. Justine was more than accustomed to people blinking at her request in restaurants. Iced tea went down better when it was warm.

The lounge was full, every chair taken, so Justine nursed her drink as she slowly neared the observational domed windows. She was wearing a Lunar vest, the fabric lined with metal shavings that increased her apparent gravity by a factor of six; large magnagrays had been installed in the foundation of Lunar station to help counteract the effects of long-term exposure to light gravity on the moon. Weightlessness and near-weightlessness over time caused bone deterioration, calcium deficiency, and muscular atrophy, among other things, in many people.

Free-fall had many benefits that balanced the dangers, but with Luna established as a base of commerce, every precaution was taken to provide an Earth-like environment, to minimize any dangers.

The antigravs on a ship could not be used on the moon; the expense was far too great.

Justine passed by a few people she knew, nodded or exchanged pleasantries, but quickly moved on. Hoping to catch a glimpse of Earth from the radiation-shield window, she was disappointed. A small digital counter on a support beam indicated it was three hours to Earthdawn.

Because of the moon’s synchronous rotation, the Near Side always faced Earth, and the Far Side always faced away; however, there was a slight variation in its orbit of five degrees. These variations, called librations, allowed the Earth-view terminator—the line that separated the near and far sides of the moon—to fluctuate.

It was in the median of that fluctuation that Luna Station had been erected.

The reason for this was as a compromise between astronomers, who wished an unadulterated view of the sky; and the United Earth Corporate Council merchant traders, who, it was found, were psychologically ill-at-ease conducting business out of sight of the Earth.

A Lunar “day” was about two weeks in length. Currently, the sun was in the northern Lunar hemisphere, shining brightly as it did for fourteen days straight out of every twenty-seven-and-a-third days, though this did not affect the apparent color of the sky from Luna Station. The moon had no atmosphere, no molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor and other trace elements and particles for the sun’s light to catch and scatter in the many shades of orange, purple, and blue that bespectacled the Terran firmament.

Justine sighed, and took a sip of her iced tea. She had spent the last two days since landing on the moon doing nothing but going over and filing paperwork and reports. The liaison from NASA demanded much of her time; each of the crew had been segregated with their respective agencies and departments. They had had no contact with one another.

The little spare time Justine found, she used to avoid all the bureaucrats and functionaries who descended upon her relentlessly; as well as the media who pursued her like sharks to blood.

The news of Alex’s kidnapping, and of Macklin’s Rock, still hadn’t reached any public channels, although the NASA attaché had informed her that the country corp. governments who had participated in the Orcus project where well apprised of the situation.

The media wanted a quip on
Dis Pater
.
What did she think it was?
they asked her relentlessly.
Did aliens put it there? For what purpose? Did she think aliens would be arriving soon? Did she think they looked like the popular representations in the holovids? Did she think the aliens would want to have sex with her?
And on and on, each question more ludicrous than the last.

She hated the media, and what they stood for. Vultures, all of them. They made her want to scramble back to the refuge of the humorless bureaucratic monotony.

In a way, though, she was glad she had things to occupy her mind. Otherwise, she might sink into a morass of guilt over having failed to bring Alex home safely. The kid had gone through more than most adults, and had bore up considerably well, even though he had not been offered any comfort from Justine or any of the other crew: their lives were based on science, not sociology.

She glanced at a chronometer, remembering that she had another meeting in a few minutes, and set down her empty glass for the servobots to fetch, and made her way out of the lounge.

Traversing the warren of halls and corridors, her keen sense of location kept her from losing her way. Her mind tended to wander in an attempt to try to forestall thoughts of the upcoming meeting, but her alertness sharpened when, out of her periphery, she thought she spotted a familiar form.

She turned her head to see the backs of three men and a boy rounding a corner. They were gone too quickly for her to be certain. What made her think it had been Alex? The thought was ludicrous. Alex could be halfway across the solar system for all she knew. Stopping, she debated with herself for a few precious seconds. The attaché would be uncompromisingly furious.

“Ah, they can start without me.” Her curiosity had to be satisfied.

She quickly backtracked to the public corridor where the four had entered, and squinted her eyes to scan down its length.

The four must have gone off on a side corridor. Justine stepped up her pace to try to catch up.

At every intersection, she looked one way and then the other. At the third cusp, she thought she spotted a recognizable jacket, and hurried, jogging.

By the time she reached the elbow of the corridor, the forms were disappearing again behind yet another corner. At the last second, one of the men glanced behind him, and Justine got a brief look at an oriental man. He did not see her.

Throwing caution to the wind, she broke into a run, but when she rounded the corner, the four had disappeared from sight down a long passage decorated with red trim near the ceiling junction. There were two guards barring her way. She glanced at the map on the wall.

She was at the People’s Republic of China section of Luna Station. Whereas most country corporations allowed free passage to anyone, practically inviting them to visit their PR information booths and facilities, it was still each country corporation’s right to privacy. It was a long-standing tradition that PRC did not encourage uninvited guests.

Justine pulled out her identification badge.

“Captain Justine Turner, NASA,” she barked at the two guards holding flechette rifles and giving her stony looks. “I wish to enter; a friend of mine just passed through here, and it’s urgent I speak to him.”

The one Oriental shook his head. “Sorry. No.”

She thought about trying once more, then realized that if the Chinese were behind Alex’s kidnapping, there was no way she could wheedle or bluff her way into the PRC hall.

“Very well. Good day.” Turning on her heel, she stalked off.

*

She was still worked up, and when she backtracked and found her meeting room, the NASA liaison immediately asked her what was wrong, detecting the flush in her cheeks and the quickening of her breath.

“Are you all right?” There was a trace of an East Sussex accent in his voice.

He was tall, English-born, with a thin mustache and a receding hairline. In England, they called him Duke Wexhall, but since his mother had been American, he held dual citizenship, and had used his American status to gain employ with the National Aeronautical Space Administration, a boyhood dream he told her when they first met.

With his natural charm and approachable demeanor, Clive Wexhall waited patiently for Justine to explain why she was so upset.

The internal debate whether to tell the liaison took a few moments. “Either I’m going crazy and seeing things or Alex Manez is being held here at Luna Station. I think the Chinese have him.” Succinctly, she gave him an account of the morning’s chase.

Before she was through, Clive was EPSing a message to NASA. “It may be nothing, but I think we can’t be too thorough in our search. Holding him here would explain why Earth Space Traffic Commission has no trace of them yet. I also find it odd that you mention the Chinese.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, I didn’t want you to be alarmed, but ever since you landed, I haven’t been able to contact Sakami Chin for debriefing. The Chinese consulate refused to answer my calls as well. Washington will have to become involved if we don’t get any cooperation from the Chinese. If both sides start getting their back up on this…”

He shrugged, leaving the obvious conclusion unspoken.

“Shit,” Justine said after a moment.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

__________

Quantum Resources, Inc. :

Toronto :

Canada Corp.:

Determining
the specific gravity—or density—of a sample element on Earth is a relatively easy task; not so for an asteroid floating free in space, even a smaller one that has an estimated radius of 4.3 kilometers, such as the spherical one on the top of Calbert Loche’s list for the Quantum Resources team to re-evaluate.

On Director Sanderson’s orders, the complete survey on SMD #1596 was to be repeated from scratch, no mistakes. It took sixteen hours for the astronautics team to arrive at the asteroid from the Canuck Flyer orbital.

Work began immediately.

Given that the specific gravity, or density, of an object is the ratio of the mass of a given volume compared to the mass of an equal volume of water at a temperature of either 4°C or 20°C, measured usually in x grams per cubic centimeter, the survey team first had to determine the volume of SMD #1596, using a laser topographer to determine surface area.

With area a given, the mean radius could be inferred with the formula of 4πr2; in this case, the asteroid had a surface area of 231.2727 km
, and a mean radius of 4.29 km. The volume of a perfect sphere would have a formula of (πD
)/6, but with the imperfections of the surface, the craters formed through impacts with other asteroids and meteors, and any oblongs jutting from the surface, the scientists could determine the volume of SMD #1596 with an error factor of plus/minus one percent. SMD #1596 had a volume of 330.72002 km3 ±1%.

Once volume was determined, they had to calculate mass. As there are no scales in outer space, another method had to be used.

Given that one Newton of force acting on one kilogram of mass can change its velocity by one meter per second every second, as specified in Newton’s second law of motion, this was where the pilots with the space tugs came in. Using telemetry to study rotation and eccentricity of orbit, they also determined the asteroid’s velocity in orbit, which was 31,215 meters per second, similar to Earth’s, though it had a much longer distance to traverse around the sun to complete one orbit.

The tug placed itself behind the asteroid, and using its propellant engines, pushed on the asteroid until the acceleration gauge registered a constant of one meter per second per second, and how many Newtons of force were expelled to do so. With acceleration predetermined at 1 meter per second, and the Newtons measured at 6,945,120,423,298.4 N, that translated as 6,945,120,423,298.4 kg, or 6,945.12 teratons, compared to Luna’s 74 million teratons, or Earth’s 6 billion teratons.

Adjusting for the temperature difference, the asteroid’s 6.945.12 terratons in a volume of 330.72002 km
calculated down to approximately 21 grams per cubic centimeter, or a specific gravity of 21 ± 5%.

Gold has a specific gravity of 19.3, and since the top layer of asteroid SMD #1596 was made primarily of iron (Sgrav=7.89) and nickel (Sgrav=8.9), there was a large discrepancy which could be accounted for by the presence of a heavy element, such as the asteroids entire interior being pure gold…or a portion of it being Kinemet.

*

Watching on the DMR screens at Quantum Resources, Michael was about to nod approval to proceed with the massive vacuum core drilling campaign to determine the location of the pocket of Kinemet everyone conceded had to be present, when the fire klaxons sounded, and a voice came over the intercoms.

“Please do not panic. This is Major Bernard Nally of the Canadian Armed Forces Army, CFS Petawawa, on authority from CEO Dolbeau of Canada Corp. to secure this building. Please remain calm, stay where you are, and do not transmit any EPS or fiber opt messages from this building until you receive further orders.

“Thank you, more information will be forthcoming.”

__________

Luna Station :

Luna :

He had a plan
, and had been prepared to wait decades to see it through. Chow Yin was nothing if not a patient planner. However, recent developments could accelerate his strategy by several years, even decades.

The first phase of that master plan was being effected before Yin even woke that morning.

Six months ago, Yin’s people, having access to all incoming and outgoing EPS messages received or sent out through the LS antenna array, had intercepted perhaps the most important byte of intelligence that could have ever been forwarded to him. One of those EPSes they routinely had monitored concerned the disappearance of Macklin’s Rock.

It had been a message from USA, Inc.’s NASA headquarters to the attaché posted to the American sector. Without leaving any ghost traces, Yin’s prodigious computer hackers had copied that message and transferred it to Yin’s attention. Almost, it had been overlooked, but with careful planning, Yin had shifted events to his favor.

After the Macklin’s Rock incident, he slowly gathered more and more information about the occurrence, and how it was related to
Dis Pater
, having sent out an interception satellite to record the EPS echoes sent from Orca 1 to NASA Houston, and researched the remarkable ten-year-old survivor of the first luminous flight.

Yin, as had key personnel on Earth, quickly and effectively put together the pieces of the puzzle.

He grasped the import of this intelligence as keenly as he realized that the outcome of this adventure bore directly on his continued survival, and his future control of the solar system.