T'aafhal Legacy 1: Ghosts of Orion (6 page)

“The larger two components, 667A and 667B, orbit each other with an average angular separation of 1.81 arcseconds. At the system's estimated distance, this is equivalent to a physical separation of about 12.6 AU, or nearly 13 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. Their eccentric orbit brings the pair as close as 5 AU and as far apart as 20 AU, corresponding to a fairly high eccentricity of 0.6. This orbit takes approximately 42.15 years to complete and the orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 128° to the line of sight from the Earth. Both the A and B stars are K types with 0.73 and 0.69 solar masses respectively. While this is in the sweet spot for habitable planet formation around binary systems, the high eccentricity does not bode well for any stable planetary orbits.”

Elena paused to take a sip of water and then continued. “According to work done by Kaib, the stellar orbits of wide binaries are very sensitive to disturbances from other passing stars as well as the tidal field of the Milky Way. This can cause their orbits to constantly change eccentricity, with the system inevitably developing a high eccentricity at some point in its life. As a result, any planets that might have formed would probably have been forced into very distant orbits or ejected from the system all together.”

“If there is little chance of finding a habitable planet, why are we going there?” asked Beth.

“Ah, good question,” Elena said with a coy smile. It was easy to see why she had been a good TV science presenter—she looked more like a starlet than a professor. The Italian astronomer shook her tawny tresses and moved to gesture at the wall display. “You see, it is the third star in the system that we are interested in.”

“Don't keep us in suspense, Elena,” said Billy Ray. “What's the story on star number three?”

“Gliese 667C is the smallest stellar component of the system, with only around 31% of the mass of the Sun. It is a red dwarf with a stellar classification of M1.5 that orbits its other two companion stars at a distance of over 230 AU. A small star, it radiates only 1.4% of the Sun's luminosity at a relatively cool effective temperature of 3,700 K, giving it a red-hued glow. Most importantly, it is known to have a planetary system of at least major five planets.

“The second confirmed planet, 667Cc, is a super-Earth that orbits along the Inner edge of the habitable zone with a year of only 28 days. According to a survey probe report, it has a breathable nitrox atmosphere and liquid water. Based on orbital analysis 667Cc would receive 90% of the light Earth does, however much of that electromagnetic radiation would be in the infrared, making the planet warmer than indicated by the raw figure.”

“In other words...” began Mizuki. 

“In other words, this world could support human life,” Elena finished.

“You said it is a super-Earth, what is its mass and diameter?” asked Mizuki. “If the gravity is too high people may not wish to live there.” 

“The survey drone's best estimates are mass 4.5 and diameter 1.9 times Earth. That works out to a surface gravity of 1.27G.” 

“Making the surface gravity tolerable.”

“Si,” Elena confirmed. “What a world it must be! Almost seven times the surface area of Earth. And from its surface, the red star would have a visual area more than five times greater than that of the Sun as viewed from Earth.” 

“So sunset on 667Cc would go Tatooine one better, having three stars in its sky,” said Bobby. 

“Depending on the orbital alignment, you could certainly see triple sunsets or sunrises,” Elena confirmed.

“Why this particular star system, Elena?” asked Beth, “There have to be any number of good candidates.”

“That is true, Beth. I think I had better let TK answer that question.” While the briefing occupied everyone's attention, TK had quietly slipped into the back of the room. The others turned to look at their new boss.

“The answer to that is a simple matter of expediency. In about three weeks, the Colonization Board is going to send its first load of settlers to Gliese 667Cc with an eye to claimin' the whole planet. We need to see if there is anything dangerous waiting for them, or anything that we might want to stake a claim to first.”

“So it's a race?” asked Bobby. “Given the low mass of the M type the transit is going to take a long time.”

“Si, it has been calculated at almost 22 days.”

“Three weeks doesn't give us much time to finish gathering a crew, provision the ship and get underway,” said Billy Ray. “Not if we need to do a reasonably complete planetary survey before the settlers arrive.”

“We might have an ace up our sleeve on that one, Billy Ray. You see, a transit to 667A only takes about 14 days; you can gain a full week on the colonists during transit.”

“You said that the smaller star was more than 230AU away from the pair of K types,” said Mizuki. “It could take a month traveling in 3-space to get from A to C.”

“That's why we retain the services of humanity's greatest experts in alter-space travel, including your mentor, Yuki Saito. They tell me that, given the long distance between the red dwarf and its companions, it should be possible to do a shallow transit through alter-space between 'em.”

“Forgive me, TK, but that seems like an extremely short distance for an alter-space transit. Saito-san says this is possible?”

“Both he and Rajiv Gupta have done the calculations. They hadn't thought it possible over so short a distance either, not 'till they learned about those T'aafhal particle cannon that shoot faster than the speed of light.”

“Technically they do not exceed the speed of light, they send a particle beam skipping in and out of alter-space,” Mizuki corrected. She was, after all, an astrophysicist herself and a former student of Dr. Saito's.

“Whatever. In any case, they say that if you carefully calculate the entry point and are really accurate with the approach vector you can do a short hop from one star to another within the system. It's this system's fairly unique geometry that makes it possible.”

“Just how long would such a transit take, TK?” asked Billy Ray.

“They said on the order of five or six minutes.”

“Wow!” Bobby exclaimed. Alter-space transits usually took days or weeks. 

“Right, so you should be able to get there a couple of weeks ahead of the colonists' ship.”

“Then I guess we had best start loading the ship. What about the rest of the crew?”

“We'll be sending qualified candidates directly to the ship for you to interview. Chief Zackly has already signed on and can help screen the prospective spacers.”

“Will you be coming with us, Elena?” asked Mizuki.

“No, I am very happy right here, thank you. But I will make sure all of the course calculations done by Yuki and Rajiv are downloaded into the Peggy Sue's computer.”

“Well people, we had best get on board then,” said Captain Vincent, smiling at his officers. “We got a lot to do and a short time to do it in.”

Residence Level 5, Farside

Jimmy Tosh was making his way home from working the lunch shift at Jesse's bar in the Atrium. While primarily a drinking establishment, Jesse's served an assortment of lighter Island type fare—conch salad, grilled redfish with mango chutney, chicken baked in banana leaves, and such. Though some of the customers were more interested in drinking their lunches, the tips never quite rose to the level of the evening crowd. Jimmy would be returning for an evening shift starting at six.

A tall, slender young man with dreadlocks and mocha skin, Jimmy was a native born Jamaican, like Jesse Lowe, his employer. He professed to be a Rastafarian, as his mother had been. Indeed, his name did honor to two notable reggae musicians: Jimmy Cliff and Peter Tosh. Last name not withstanding, to Jimmy's knowledge he was not related to either. Like most reggae artists, he did have a fondness for the Rastafarian sacrament of choice—ganja.

Strangely, the widely used term for marijuana did not originate in Jamaica; it was actually a Hindi term for hemp resin derived from ancient Sanskrit. But then the islands of the Caribbean had been a veritable multicultural stew, melding cultural influences from all over the world. Right now, Jimmy was looking forward to taking a few tokes and having a nap before returning to work. Rounding the corner to his apartment block, he did not see the two burly men until they were upon him.

“Oof!”

Jimmy exhaled forcefully as one assailant grabbed his left arm and the other put a meaty fist into his solar plexus. Doubling over, the slender Jamaican found he could not inhale. Supporting their victim between them, the thugs swept him into a side alcove with a conveniently disabled surveillance camera.

“Where you going so fast, boy?” asked Vasyl, still supporting Jimmy by his arm.

“We think maybe you not like us anymore,” said Ruslan, the thug who had struck the blow, “and after we were nice enough to give you credit.”

All that Jimmy could manage as a response were a few gasps.

“You see, boy, you owe us 400 credits and we want it now,” Vasyl said, tightening his grip on Jimmy's arm. Vasyl and Ruslan were Ukrainians, part of a gang that ran various illicit enterprises—prostitution, drugs, gambling, etc. Though much of mankind had been destroyed and those on the Moon were comparatively few, there still existed among the survivors a strain of human that found preying on their fellows preferable to productive labor.

Several days ago, Jimmy happened upon one of the Ukrainian gang's floating crap games and proceeded to lose his accumulated savings of several hundred credits. Sensing a mark ripe for the taking, the game's organizers gladly extended credit to the young man. In short order he lost those credits as well, ending the evening more than two weeks' wages in debt.

“You transfer money to account on card,” Vasyl said, handing Jimmy a card, which he accepted with trembling fingers. The fact that there was no physical currency on the Moon was no impediment to vice—criminals were infinitely inventive when it came to milking their victims. “If you not pay by Friday, you owe 500 credits,”

“And we come visit again,” added Ruslan, “only we not be so nice.”

To underscore the threat, Ruslan sent a short jab into Jimmy's back in the area of his kidneys. Again the young man's knees buckled and this time his attackers let him fall to the floor. Their message delivered, the two Ukrainians departed, walking down the hallway, chatting amiably with each other. In the alcove Jimmy remained on his knees, retching.

Polar Bear Habitat, Farside

Umky gazed up at the dark starry heavens, where uncounted points of light twinkled through the cold air. The temperature was frigid, befitting a cold winter's night, and a constant wind blew traces of snow over the ice ridges. The male polar bear raised his nose to the wind and sniffed... and the illusion was shattered.

Polar bears have the sharpest sense of smell of any Earth animal, capable of detecting prey kilometers away beneath the Arctic pack ice. It was that keen sense that betrayed the simulated environment provided for his kind. No matter how well the filters scrubbed the recycled air there were still smells that could be detected by ursine noses: the smell of far too many bears, crowded into the habitat's small area; the smell of humans outside the simulated environment, living in the surrounding Moon base.

The humans mean well,
Umky thought,
they tried to make the habitat as natural as possible.
 

The temperature, the seasonal change of the day-night cycle, the sky overhead, even the windblown snow, were all there to ease the stress on Farside's polar bear community. But any bear who smelled the air instantly knew that he was not free on the polar ice pack, he was in a cage. A comfortable and elaborate cage, but a cage nonetheless. True, they were free to come and go, free to mingle with the humans on the rest of the base, but there the heat was so sweltering and the monkey smell so overpowering that most bears stayed in the habitat. Many, having served in the Marines, called it their quarters, but at times Umky thought of the habitat by a different name, a despised name among his kind—zoo.

Umky sighed. Things had become so complicated since aliens rained gigantic meteors down upon Earth several years ago. The weather patterns were still greatly disturbed and the planet was trending colder and colder—the human climatologists said that the next glacial cycle was starting and things would get much colder before they got warmer again. It was not the cold that bothered the white bears, it was the lack of food that kept them in their safe-haven on the Moon, and dependent on the humans.

Umky felt trapped. He had fought along side humans against the alien invaders, but now he could not help feeling that the humans would rather their ursine allies stay out of sight. New humans recruited into the Fleet and Marines did not value the presence of polar bears like the old timers. He put in two years with the Marines and was glad to return to the company of his own kind. But things were also changing in polar bear society. 

Some bears, mostly females, were saying that they should emulate the humans by forming stable family groups. In the wild, male bears only associated with females during mating season. They then left the females to give birth and raise the cubs on their own. This made good sense in the wild, it was hard enough for a single bear to feed itself without a mate and cubs along. But they were no longer living in the wild.

His own mother and father, Isbjørn and Pihoqahiak, had started the trend toward families, staying together to raise their cubs jointly. Several of the older males said that it was unnatural and that polar bears should not ape, so to speak, their human allies. But then his father, who was known to most humans only as Bear, was a most unconventional and famous polar bear. 

He was the first of the talking polar bears to be recruited by the legendary Capt. Jack. Isbjørn and Umky himself were among the first batch of bears that humans brought to the Moon. Now his parents and their latest litter of cubs were off with the Captain somewhere in search of more adventures. Unfortunately, their odd ideas about family commitments lingered on.