Trapped on Venus (8 page)

 
“The crust may quite
easily be the result of the extremely high temperatures on the planet. Life
could never survive for very long under such intense heat. But, given the shad
of a crust-like layer, and the viscosity of a medium amenable to life, it
could, quite conceivably, have developed over the eons of years the planet has
been orbiting the Sun. Adaptation – that’s the key. Creatures, and life of all
kinds, have shown a remarkable ability to adapt to nearly any kind of
environment. There is certainly no reason to preclude the possibility on a
planet such as Venus.”

 
But, as Stimson
listened, his thoughts were of how to tactfully tell Marty and Scott of the conclusion.
Should they be told at all? he wondered. Yes, they have to be told. They have
to be told immediately. Their lives could be in danger! He returned to his desk
and prepared to awaken them early.

 
In the capsule,
perched vulnerably on the bleak surface of Venus, there was a gentle stirring
in the cabin. An indiscreet, almost unnoticeable tremor shivered through the
ship. It jostled Scott from his sleep. His eyes opened slowly at first, then
wider as the shaking persisted and he realized that something was wrong.
Something was terribly wrong!

 
Marty awakened. He
bolted upright in his chair.

 
“What’s happening,
Scott? What is it?”

 
Another tremor shook
through the ship.

 
“Scott, something’s
happening! Something’s wrong!”

 
Each pivoted in their chairs,
straining to look out through the hazy glass of the pod windows. It was the
ground beneath the ship. It was crackling, breaking up like it had when they
were outside... Seams, splits, cracks spewed from around the ship’s buoy-like
feet, radiating out from under them. The ship was rocking violently.

 
“Probe, this is
Stimson,” came the calm voice from Earth Control One over the astronaut’s
radio. “Jennings... Fisk... We’ve got some information for...”

 
“No time, Stimson!”
Scott relayed hastily. “It’s the ground, the surface – it’s breaking up all
around us! We’ve got to take off immediately or we’re going to be sucked down
with it! No time to explain, just keep this channel open!”

 
Marty was busy on
another channel, notifying Grayson of their abrupt decision.

 
“Roger,” he
acknowledged. “Tracking you at 34.287. Should make hook-up in 13.246 minutes.
Go on your count. Beginning take-off sequence now!”

 
Scott and Marty
rapidly raced through the ignition sequence.

 
“Power on?” Scott
asked.

 
“Check!”

 
“Computer?”

 
“Check!”

 
“Relay unit? – Check!
Monitor system on? – Check! Tracking beacon? – Check and working!”

 
The ground was
trembling violently, splitting haphazardly in all directions. The ship rocked
and jerked from the stress of the upheaval, tossing containers and loose parts
across the area like a storm of hail.

 
“Booster stage
readied?”

 
“Check – all systems
clear!”

 
“Marty, what’s the
reading on the fuel pressure?”

 
“2000 psi – not enough
to...”

 
“We can’t wait,
Marty!”

 
The ship tilted in the
unstable soil, wobbling slightly as it began to sink.

 
“But, Scott!”

 
“No! We can’t wait!”

 
“...there’s not enough
pressure in the...”

 
“Hit the computer
alert! Hit it, Marty!”

 
“But, we’ll never get
off the ground! We’ll crash before we get off the surface!”

 
“HIT IT!”

 
Marty pushed the
ignition disk and the rockets erupted. Ground spewed viciously beneath them,
spitting fragments of crust hundreds of feet in the air. The ship moved.

 
Slowly it trembled
from the surface, shook, bobbed, and rattled upward as it began to stabilize.
The astronauts were pushed deeply into their chairs from the force of the
rockets as they were launched upward. Fire belched from the tail of the rocket,
pressure choked at the lungs of the astronauts, and in a wobbling, twisting
spiral they rose up and out of danger.

 
“Check... check the
pressure, Marty,” Scott tried to gasp from the strain of the acceleration.
“Is... it holding?”

 
“Roger,” he grimaced,
straining to control his breathing. “Holding, but just barely.”

 
Fired from the surface
like rocks in a slingshot, the astronauts plummeted forward. The pressure only
gradually subsided, leaving them minutes before they could regain control of
the ship.

 
It was tumbling
erratically in space as it rose from the surface because of the angle at which
they had taken off. They tried to stabilize it with short bursts from the
thrusters, but these weren’t designed to overcome the acceleration of a launch
into space. They remained quiet for a few minutes wondering what would happen
to them next?

 
“Marty? Can you get us
back on a course with Grayson?” Captain Scott Jennings asked his friend and
very capable co-pilot, Major Martin Fisk, as they rushed to recover from their
hasty and unexpected emergency liftoff from the planet Venus. Now they were
attempting to link up with Col. Thomas Grayson, the third member of their team
who had been circling the planet so they could head back to Earth.

 
“I can’t find him yet,
Scott. I’m not getting a signal. I think he might be on the other side of the
planet.”

 
The two American
astronauts tumbled in space helplessly as their craft wasn’t designed for space
travel. It was only designed to travel down and up from the planet, with slight
little thrust bursts to stabilize them as they adjusted their horizontal and
vertical alignment. But, to actually navigate in space would be impossible.
That’s why it was so essential for them to hook up with Grayson. He was in the
Command Module that would take them back to Earth.
 

 
“Scott? This is
Stimson at Earth Control one. What is your location? You took off in such a
hurry, we haven’t got a digital fix on you yet. We’ve got two visual
confirmations from telescopic observations, but we’re not tracking you
digitally yet.”

 
Marty leaped in.
“We’re at zero niner one one seven two five, Earth Control.” Marty watched the
dials spin around on his console as the craft spun like a yo-yo at the end of a
string. “Although, that’s going to change by the second, Stimson. We’re
spinning out of control because of the angle we had to take off.”

 
“Yes, I know,” Stimson
replied to Marty’s comment. Then, turning to his side: “Michelson! Zero niner
one one seven two five. And, get it fast!”

 
Quickly setting some
dials and flipping a switch, Michelson watched for a radar confirmation. But,
there was nothing. “Nothing, Chief,” he reported back to Stimson.

 
“Keep scanning, Brad,”
Stimson instructed. “They’re rolling pretty fast. See if you can locate them.”

 
I am, Chief. But,
they’re just a needle in a haystack without a better fix.” Then, he noticed
something. “Wait! There’s Grayson! I can see him on the screen. He’s just
coming out from behind the planet.”

 
“Earth Control One,
this is Grayson at zero eight eight six five double zero seven. Do you read
me?”

 
“Yes, we read you,
Grayson,” Stimson confirmed. “Have you got him Michelson?”

 
“Yes, Chief. I’ve got
a good fix on him. And... Yes! I think I’ve got the pod!”

 
“Put them on my
screen, Brad,” Stimson commanded.

 
Michelson flipped a switch
and the radar images immediately filled Stimson’s screen. There was a large,
solid, yellow circle positioned in the upper middle of Stimson’s screen, then
two other images faintly appeared to both the left and right of it. The image
on the right was blinking in a red color as its position was unconfirmed while
the image on the left appeared to be a sharp and steady, small, moving green
dot.

 
“Grayson? Can you pick
them up on your radar, yet?” Stimson asked.

 
“Yes, I see them,”
Col. Thomas Grayson quickly replied, ”but I can’t reach them from here; not the
right altitude. I’m going to have to go around one more time. The computer is
figuring out an interception course right now.” He paused a few seconds, but
nothing appeared on his monitor. “I can’t get an interception course plotted
until I get a better fix on their location. Scott? Marty? Can you hit your
thrusters on either side to stop that spinning?”

 
“Negative, Grayson,”
Scott answered from the still spinning probe. We had to launch so fast, we didn’t
have a chance to adjust our angle of ascent.”

 
“We can do a little
maneuvering, though, Tom,” Marty quickly added. “I can put some drag on the
ascent booster at the same time that I burn the rear thrusters. That might stop
us, but it won’t hold us for long. If you can get close enough, we’ll see if we
can stabilize long enough to dock.”

 
“Are you crazy, Marty!
We can’t try something like that. That would be like catching an apple dropping
off a tree in mid-air! If I miss, you’re gonna slam right into me.”

 
This was a dangerous
idea. Stimson, at Earth Control One, briefly considered it, then had an image
of a mid-space collision flash through his mind in an instant that ended in
tragedy. “No, no, no,” he objected. “That’s just too much precision for the
circumstances. It would be a one in a million chance. We can’t try it.”

 
Jennings and Fisk
continued their out-of-control spin that hurled them deeper into space until
they reached the limit of their blast and merely spun like a knuckleball as
they drifted helplessly in place.

 
“Stimson, you’re
exaggerating,” Scott added. “It’s not that bad of an idea. We can slow our spin
for a short time, I’m sure of that. And, if Grayson uses some caution, he can
always pull out if we’re not stabilized enough.”

 
“No, I just don’t want
to risk it, Scott,” Stimson replied with finality.

 
“But, there’s no other
option I can think of, Stimson, unless we just wait for something to happen,
and I’m afraid to think of what that might be.”

 
The monitor on
Grayson’s craft flashed with an image of two circles, representing their
crafts, linked together with a dotted line that whirled around the planet then
hooked them together.

 
“I’ve got a course
plotted,” Grayson advised them. “My computer shows once around the planet, then
I can overtake them. Shall I initiate it?”

 
Stimson was still
greatly concerned. There just seemed to be no way these guys could pull off
that kind of flying precision and timing without a major problem. It was like
daredevils; the way they used to barnstorm those bi-wing airplanes in the old
days!

 
“No, you just can’t
take that kind of risk. It could get you all killed!” Stimson emphatically
cautioned them.

 
“Not if we back
everything up,” Marty asserted. “We’ve got these billion dollar computers,
let’s see what they can do.”

 
“It’s not the
calculations, Marty, it’s the hookup,” Stimson persisted. “If you’re not
perfectly aligned, the ships aren’t going to fit together.”

 
All three of the
astronauts knew that what he was saying was completely true. If those hatch
doors didn’t link up perfectly, there would be a collision and damage that
could never be repaired in space.

 
“Give me a chance at
it, Stimson,” Scott pleaded. “I used to be a test pilot, I know how to
improvise. I’m sure I can bring it in.”
 
“And, if Grayson comes in from the
leeward side, it will give us that much more of a chance,” Marty added.

 
Stimson let the idea
formulate more completely in his mind. It did seem to be about the only chance
they had. If they waited much longer, it might be impossible to ever get
another chance like this one.

 
“Ok. Try it. But the
first sign that something’s not going according to plan, we’ve got to abort,”
Stimson emphasized. “There won’t be a second chance if the timing isn’t just
perfect.... What do you think, Grayson? Can you get in alignment with them?”

 
“Got it, skipper,” he
said to Stimson, his old friend at Earth Control One. “The computer’s got a
course plotted and I can swing around the planet in about 18 minutes.”

 
“We’ll see if we can
slow the rate of our spin,” Scott advised.

 
“We’ll give Grayson
our exact location, and he can fly in close to us,” Marty added.

 
“Then, Scott and I can
fly them together manually,” Grayson confirmed.

 
They all knew what a
huge risk this was, but they also knew that they were up to it. All those years
of training and practice would now come down to just a light touch on the
thrusters, a quick look out the pod window, reliance on the split second timing
of their instruments, the confidence to push fear to the back of their minds,
and enough poise to try something that neither of them had ever done before.

 
Immediately Scott and
Marty resumed trying to slow the spin of their capsule, but that was like
trying to dig in your heals in the calf roping event of a rodeo! The capsule
had all the inertia of their blastoff, but none of the maneuvering power needed
to bring it under control. All of that was complicated by the fact that their
angle of ascent was twelve degrees off vertical. So, when they had hastily
blasted off from the planet Venus as the ground beneath their ship began to
tremble and split, they were actually launched at a diagonal to their desired
trajectory. This put them into a lower orbit than they had planned, and created
an almost immediate spinning effect on the capsule.

 
The weightlessness of
their spin kept them from getting sick, although they had rehearsed this
procedure many times in their training back on Earth and knew that they
shouldn’t look around to be made more aware of the spinning they were experiencing
but should rivet their attention to their consoles so that things were more
stabilized for them.

 
In the meantime, Col.
Grayson was riding around the planet Venus to bring his command module into
position for a linkup. It would be a very delicate and intricate attempt. There
was no telling how effectively they could fly these space craft. Most of the
mission was just going along for the ride with the computers and pre-programmed
equipment doing what was necessary. But, now, they would have to do some manual
flying. And, it became even more critical because of the dangers involved.

 
Col. Grayson looked at
his radar monitor just as his ship came around the planet so that he could get
a fix on Venus Twelve. He could see it still moving on his radar screen, so he
pressed some buttons to lock onto it and swing into the proper altitude. He was
gaining on the probe, but he slowed his ship with thrusters to try and match
the speed of the probe.

 
“I’ve got you on
radar, Venus Twelve. Slowing to come in on the starboard side,” Grayson
informed Scott and Marty.

 
“Firing our thrusters,
Command Module,” Marty indicated as he briefly pressed the palm-sized disk that
controlled the blast of the thrusters near the front of the craft. The
thrusters fired in the opposite direction that they were traveling, and
immediately slowed the spinning they were doing. Then he hit the side thrusters
and tried to stabilize the spin.

 
“Only 32 seconds,
Probe,” Grayson announced as he continued to gain on the probe but ever more
slowly.

 
“I see you, Grayson,”
Scott indicated when he made a visual sighting. “You seem to be coming pretty
fast.”

 
“I’m slowing, Scott.
Let me drift up close to you then we’ll see if we can manually adjust our
orbits.” Grayson was flying totally digitally. He watched the dials and
readings that were continuously updating, but he was very quickly coming into
the recovery range.

 
“Here I am, Scott,”
Grayson alerted him. “Turn seventeen degrees to starboard.”

 
Scott gave a quick
burst to his aft thruster and watched his monitor as the craft moved almost
seventeen degrees to starboard. But, not quite. There was just enough
misalignment that they wouldn’t be able to dock.

 
“No, back it up,
Scott,” Grayson coached him. “Come back another two degrees.”

 
Scott fired the
thruster just a touch, then watched as the lines on his monitor looked to be in
alignment. “I think I’ve got it, Tom,” Scott called out optimistically.

 
“Yes! Go with it!”
Grayson urged him. The two crafts were only inches apart. It was a fluctuating
gap and the movement of each ship made the alignment uncertain. But, just as
they slid past each other again, Scott pressed his thruster and rammed the two
ships together. As they touched, Grayson hit the disk to seal the hatches and
they were instantly locked together.

 
“We did it!” Grayson
exhaled. “I’ve got you,” he confirmed when the light on his console blinked
green.

 
A vacuum seal had been
established between the two ships, and they were now flying as one unit. Scott
slumped back in his cushioned chair. Marty, too. And they both closed their
eyes gratefully just as Stimson’s voice came over their headsets.

 
“Great work, guys!” he
congratulated them. “Just superb! That was the best flying I’ve seen since,
well... since Neil Armstrong!”