Under Strange Suns (13 page)

“Let’s have it, Park,” came Vance’s voice.

“Okay. Foster and I conducted the entire battery of tests on the Y-Drive, every diagnostic in the book and a couple more of my own invention...”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Park, are we stranded or not?” asked Doctor Roberts.

The Chief Engineer cracked a smile. “We’re still in business. The Y-Drive met every benchmark.”

“This calls for a celebration,” said McAvoy.

* * *

The
Yuschenkov
continued to slow, bleeding speed over the course of the next several days. A relaxed, almost festive mood permeated the ship. Brooklynn Vance checked and re-checked the course correction. She even acquiesced to Thorson’s request to review it. Since the ship was no longer traveling at superluminal speeds the crew faced the possibility of cosmic ray storms, so Sophia Matamoros spent long monitoring shifts on the bridge. Aidan ventured past the hub to the docking collar, where he spent a day with Quentin Burge stocking the landing shuttle and listening to Burge describe weight distribution in minute detail.

Finally they reached the coordinates designated for the course correction. Thorson reoriented the ship and spun down the hab module to null gravity. After a last minute review of the new course, Vance told him to engage the Y-Drive, and the
Yuschenkov
commenced the second leg of her voyage.

Aidan’s routine resumed: reading, watching videos, exercising, fencing with Vance. He was, he realized, getting comfortable. Comfortable with the people around him, comfortable with his existence. There were holes in his life, he knew. At times he felt incomplete, almost as if he’d left a job unfinished. But at least one of the holes seemed less a yawning chasm than it had. He was beginning to feel the sense of belonging that he’d possessed while still on Captain Merit’s team, the lack of which he’d not fully understood.

There was one job he knew was incomplete. The planet-side expedition, if such a thing actually came to pass, required at least one more decision.

He caught Captain Vance and Thorson at a change of watch.

“Mind if I come in?” he asked, looking through the hatch into the command center.

Like the rest of the
Yuschenkov’s
compartments, the bridge was compact. To Aidan it appeared a near solid collection of monitors and control banks, a dizzying array of lights and switches, and partially reclined chairs built like half-assed acceleration couches, complete with restraining harnesses. He hoped he’d never encounter a situation in which those would prove necessary. A longer inspection showed the cramped passages through the furnishings. He counted four seats and one porthole, through which he could see the gray miasma swirling past with that little disturbing pinwheel of color passing through view in orderly rotation.

Thorson frowned at him, but Captain Vance said, “Sure, Carson. Grab a seat.”

He wended his way in and perched on a padded chair facing a panel of screens displaying images from dozens of exterior cameras and one screen scrolling streams of numbers and letters that conveyed nothing to him.

“Captain, I’ve been thinking about the dirt-side expedition. Assuming it goes off.”

“What about it?” She sounded a touch wary.

“I’ve considered a few different scenarios and who to put on the team. I come up with from three to five.”

“Five wouldn’t leave enough to crew the ship,” said Thorson.

“Yeah, I figured,” Aidan said. “Five would only be in the optimum circumstances: we find what we’re looking for, landing conditions and surroundings look safe, and we have the luxury of a relaxed exploration. We could include McAvoy.”

“Optimum is fantasy, Carson,” Thorson said. “And I still wouldn’t agree to it.”

Captain Vance cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t agree to it either. Which is the important consideration.”

“Right, well like I said, three to five.” It amused Carson to see Thorson put in his place but he wasn’t here for light entertainment. “My preference is four: me, an assistant, a shuttle pilot, and a doctor. I figure Burge for the assistant; he’s young enough for a bit of strenuous activity and he doesn’t seem ship critical if we’re just orbiting.”

Captain Vance was shaking her head. “I agree about Burge. We can take him. But you’re not taking Doctor Roberts. I understand that we’d want the ability to provide immediate medical attention if necessary, but I’ve got the rest of the crew to consider as well. Unless we have some evidence that it is essential to bring her down, I’m not risking her.”

“Okay, Captain. You’re the captain. A three-man team. But you seem to be operating under the mistaken assumption that you are coming along. Like you said, you have a crew to consider. You are ship critical. I’m not risking you. Thorson can pilot the shuttle.”

“Damn it, Carson! This is my expedition. I purchased the ship. I planned the whole thing. It’s my uncle we’re looking for. I’m going along.”

“Carson is right, Captain,” Thorson said, receiving a raised eyebrow from Aidan. “It is your ship. You are in command. You are not expendable. I’m qualified to pilot the shuttle. I’ve logged almost as many hours piloting as you, and probably more in simulations.”

“I am in command, and I should command the search.”

“You can do that from up here,” Aidan said. “And you can remain in command of the
Yuschenkov
as well. Hard to do both from the ground.”

Vance stood. “We’ll talk about this later,” she said, but Aidan knew he’d won the point. “Thorson, you have the com.” The command center was too cramped to allow her to stalk out, but she put as much huff into her exit as the space allowed.

“Thanks, Thorson,” Carson said.

“Even a broken clock,” Thorson said.

* * *

Captain Vance cut the Y-Drive again several weeks later and the
Yuschenkov
decelerated toward her destination. Aidan was eager for a glimpse of the Upsilon Andromeda system, but once Matamoros linked the auditorium’s main screen to the forward camera on high zoom his immediate interest waned: the pair of shimmery blobs–one a dirty whitish lump larger than the other, reddish, lump that flickered somewhat off the center of the screen–was still little more interesting than all the other, smaller shimmery blobs on display. They were still too far to get a visual on the planets. The numbers scrolling along with the image insisted they were getting steadily closer, but to Aidan the blob didn’t appear to be getting appreciably larger.

Vance and Matamoros were thrilled, absorbed in non-visual data. So they at least experienced less anxiety while Park and Foster trekked to the Y-Drive to perform the critical diagnostic for the second time. They had data to absorb their attention.

“What’s that phrase?” Aidan asked rhetorically, “an emotional roller-coaster?”

“That’s the one,” McAvoy said. He offered around a newly opened bottle of his hand-crafted wine, but got no takers from the other crew members waiting in the galley.

“First I’m excited to near the mystery planet,” Aidan said. “Then I’m disappointed we can’t see anything. And then, of course, I remember we’ve got to sit through another nerve-wracking wait for the Y-Drive inspection.”

“How’d a jittery type like you ever make it as a soldier?” asked Thorson.

“Because complacency kills,” Aidan said. Of course he’d not been a particularly anxious soldier, but he didn’t feel any obligation to explain himself to Thorson.

“She’s a good ship,” said McAvoy. “Hasn’t had a problem with the drive yet. Odds are she won’t today.”

“Oh man, now you’ve jinxed us,” said Burge, and Aidan could see the coffee cup held in the purser’s hands actually begin to shake. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Relax, Burge,” said Thorson. “You’re catching Carson’s case of nerves.”

Doctor Roberts rose from her chair and stepped over to lay a hand on Burge’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right,” she said.

The engineers arrived about an hour later, Park stone-faced, Foster staring at his shoes as he went for a cup of coffee. Park hit the intercom.

“Captain?” he said. “We’re fucked.”

A prickly wave rolled through Aidan. The horror that he’d quelled of being adrift in space took hold again. He felt immobilized by the clustering visions of his fate. During his active service he’d often contemplated his death, considering likely scenarios: taking a bullet, triggering an improvised explosive device, being captured and tortured, beheaded. Nothing pleasant, but right then he thought he’d take those options over the lingering end he now faced.

The galley fell silent, the rest of the crew imagining similar dire prospects. Then a half-dozen voices began speaking at once, at increasing volume, words tumbling over each other, competing for attention.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. Jinxed.”

“I don’t want to die out here.”

“Are you sure, Park? This isn’t funny.”

“Don’t think I made enough wine.”

“Still have plenty of reaction mass, maybe we can find someplace...”

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

“How long will the food hold out?”

Burge shoved Park up against a bulkhead, as if the Y-Drive failure was somehow the engineer’s fault. Park wore the stretched-face expression of a man eager for violence.

Captain Vance’s voice hammered through the wall of sound. “Shut the fuck up, everyone. Nobody panics until I give permission, understood?”

Aidan stopped halfway to the Burge/Park fracas. Burge stepped back from Park, hands up in placation. Park still looked ready to brawl. Aidan glanced around at the galley that had fallen silent again. Permission or not, people were panicking. The calm, authoritative voice of Brooklyn Vance had, however, cleared his head. He edged toward the hatch. If this got out of hand, he didn’t want anyone between him and the pistol locked up in a case in his quarters.

“We’re just days out from Upsilon Andromedae d. There’s every reason to believe we’ll find a habitable satellite,” Vance said.

“Right, because Uncle Brennan said so,” Thorson said. “If he was so goddamned smart...” He stopped, not finishing the question aloud.

“Thorson,” said Captain Vance, the asperity in her voice coming through clearly over the speaker. But then the voice of Sophia Matamoros interrupted.

“He just might have been that goddamned smart,” she said. “Microlensing indicates Upsilon Andromedae d has a moon, just like Brennan Yuschenkov predicted.”

“So what?” Thorson said.

“So, we wait and see,” Vance said. “We get a grip, cut the school-girl panic, and we wait and see what else Uncle Brennan was right about. Are we clear? Anyone have a problem with taking orders?”

Aidan noted eyes shifting his way. He straightened, crossed his arms and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No problem from me, Captain,” Aidan said. “You’re the boss.”

Aidan jerked his head toward an explosive, shattering noise. Coffee dripped from a bulkhead, pooling into the splintered shards of the coffee cup on the deck.

“This is shit. We’re going to die out here.” Foster was panting, his puffy features red and blotching. “I don’t...I don’t...” He was panting now, bending at the waist, hands on his knees.

You and me both
, Aidan thought,
I don’t want to die out here either
. A touch less self control and he’d be smashing the crockery too. But he had a job to do, and just the fact of having the job helped him keep it together. He took a step toward Foster.

Doctor Roberts beat him to it. She placed an arm around Foster’s back, placed the other hand on his shoulder. “Come with me. Let’s get you sitting down.” She guided him out of the galley.

As if Foster had somehow taken on the fears of all, acting out for them, the threat of mass panic subsided.

“All right, you heard the Captain,” Thorson said. “Back to your duties. Let’s explore this moon Matamoros spotted before we go off half-cocked.”

A chorus of assent followed and the galley emptied. But Aidan noted that all of the crew bore haunted expressions, eyes unfocused and unusually wide, moving through the ship by instinct and muscle memory. The days before achieving orbit promised to be tense.

* * *

Upsilon Andromeda was a binary star, the primary a yellow-white dwarf, the companion a distant red dwarf. The latest astronomical data indicated five planets, but Matamoros pointed out three more as the
Yuschenkov
drifted through the heliosphere, aiming at the orbital path of the primary star’s third planet, and specifically at the moon circling that gas giant. Sophia Matamoros became the focal point of the crew’s attention, as if the information she provided was in fact the last, slender straw to grip.

Hopes spiked when she announced something orbiting the moon. When she later informed them that it was just a natural satellite of the moon itself and not the
Eureka II
, Aidan thought he might be facing a mutiny. But it seemed resignation had set in. The crew accepted its fate and continued plodding through daily duties. The sighting of the moon’s second satellite barely caused a stir–they’d already been burned by false hope.

Sam McAvoy was the one crew member who found the two satellites fascinating. He disappeared into his quarters, poring over the raw data the ship’s sensors provided.