Asteroid Wars - The Precipice Part 42

George shooed everyone out of the mission control center, except for the chief who insisted hotly that the center must have at least one human controller on duty at all times.

If he'd been a man, George would have simply picked him I up and heaved him through the door out into the corridor. Instead, the chief on this s.h.i.+ft was a rail-thin, pasty-faced, lank-haired woman with the personality of an Arkansas mule. She would not leave the center.

Restraining the urge to lift her off her feet and carry her out to the corridor, George pleaded, "I've got to send a private message to Dan Randolph. I can't have anybody listenin' in on it."

"And why not?" she demanded, hands on hips, narrow nostrils flaring angrily.

"None of your f.o.o.kin' business," George snarled. "That's why not." For long moments they glared at each other, George towering over her, but the woman totally unfazed by him.

"It's Dan's own orders," George said at last, stretching the truth a little. "This is ultra-sensitive stuff."

The woman seemed to think that over for a second, then said more reasonably, "You take the console over there, on the end. I'll set you up with a private channel. n.o.body else in here but you and me, and I won't eavesdrop. Okay?"

George started to say no, but realized that this was the best he could accomplish, short of physical mayhem.

Before he could agree, though, Frank Blyleven pushed through the double doors, his normally smiling face wrinkled into a puzzled frown. "What's going on here?" the security chief demanded, walking up the aisle between the consoles. "I got a report that you're throwing controllers out of the center."

Heaving an impatient sigh, George explained all over again that he had to get a message through to Dan. "In private," he said. "n.o.body listenin' in."

Blyleven crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look authoritative. It didn't work. To George he looked like a red-faced shopping mall Santa in mufti.

"Very well," he said. "Send your message. I'll sit by the corridor door and make certain n.o.body disturbs you."

Surprised, George thanked him and headed for the console that the chief controller had indicated. Blyleven went to the last row of consoles and sat down at the one closest to the door. Surrept.i.tiously, he tapped the keyboard a few times. When George finished his message and erased it from the comm system's memory core, Blyleven had a copy that he could p.a.w.n to Humphries.

Dan felt nervous as he watched Pancho and Amanda shut down the radiation s.h.i.+eld. Dumping all that electromagnetic energy didn't bother him; it was the idea that now they had no protection against another solar storm except the thin hull of the s.h.i.+p itself.

"... shutdown complete," Pancho announced. "Magnetic field zeroed out."

"Zero field," Amanda confirmed.

"Naked to mine enemies," Dan murmured.

"How's that, boss?" Pancho asked, looking up over her shoulder toward him.

"I feel naked," Dan said.

"Don't worry. Sun looks calm enough for the time being. Even if it shoots out a flare, we can always get into our suits and go for a swim in one of the fuel tanks."

"That wouldn't be very helpful," Amanda pointed out, not realizing that Pancho was joking. "The high-energy protons would set off all sorts of secondary particles from the fuel's atoms."

Pancho frowned at her. Amanda looked from her to Dan and then back to her control panel.

"I think I'll go back and see how Lars is doing," she said, getting up from her chair.

"Have fun," Pancho said.

Dan watched her step through the hatch, then slid into her vacated chair.

"Don't look so glum, boss. We're battin' along at one-third g g with no sweat. Be back in lunar orbit in less'n four days." with no sweat. Be back in lunar orbit in less'n four days."

"I had wanted to stop to sample those other two rocks," Dan said.

"Can't take the chance. Better to -hold on. Incoming message from Selene. George Ambrose."

"I'll take it here," said Dan. "By the way, have you told mission control that we've shut down the s.h.i.+eld?"

"Not yet, but they'll see it on the telemetering. It's recorded automatically."

Dan nodded as George's bushy red-maned face appeared on the screen. Quickly, in a worried whisper, George explained how he'd located Cardenas and spirited her off to the temporary shelter.

"She wants t'see Stavenger," George concluded. "I told her I'd talk to you first. She'll be perfectly okay in the tempo for a coupla weeks, if we need to keep her stashed there. So... what d'you want me to do, Dan?"

George's image on the screen froze. Dan could see that he must have been at the mission control center when he'd sent the message. Good. He must've cleared out the place to make sure n.o.body could eavesdrop.

Now I've got to send him a reply that just about anybody can listen to, Dan thought. This is going to be like an old-time mafioso speaking into a tapped telephone.

"George, I think she's right. Do as she asks... as carefully as you can. She's important to us; there's a lot she and I have to talk about when I get back. We've got some problems here on the s.h.i.+p and we're heading back home. If all goes well, we should be back in lunar orbit in less than four days. I'll keep you informed, and you let me know how things are going there."

Dan reviewed his own message, decided there was nothing he needed to add to it, then touched the SEND b.u.t.ton on the comm panel.

He started to get up from the co-pilot's seat when the comm unit pinged.

" 'Nother message comin' in," Pancho said needlessly.

A young man's face appeared on the screen. He looked annoyed. "General notice to all s.p.a.cecraft and surface vehicles. A cla.s.s-four solar flare has been observed by the early-warning sensors in Mercury orbit. Preliminary calculations of the interplanetary field indicate the resulting radiation storm has a ninety percent chance of reaching the Earth-Moon system within the next twelve hours. All s.p.a.cecraft in cislunar s.p.a.ce are advised to return to the nearest safe docking facility. All activities on the lunar surface will be suspended in six hours. Anyone on the surface is advised to seek shelter within six hours."

Dan sagged back into the chair.

Pancho tried to smile. "You called it, boss: Murphy's Law."

STORM SHELTER.

Four worried people cl.u.s.tered around the table in Starpower 1's Starpower 1's wardroom. The wallscreen showed a chart of the solar system, with the radiation cloud that the solar flare had belched out appearing as a shapeless gray blob twisted by the interplanetary magnetic field. It was approaching Earth and the Moon rapidly. Deep in the Asteroid Belt a single pulsating yellow dot showed where their s.h.i.+p was. wardroom. The wallscreen showed a chart of the solar system, with the radiation cloud that the solar flare had belched out appearing as a shapeless gray blob twisted by the interplanetary magnetic field. It was approaching Earth and the Moon rapidly. Deep in the Asteroid Belt a single pulsating yellow dot showed where their s.h.i.+p was.

Dan said to the computer, "Show the projections for the next two days."

The cloud grew and thinned, but surged out past the orbit of Mars and then engulfed the inner Belt and overran the blinking dot that marked Starpower 1 Starpower 1's position.

Pancho made a sound halfway between a sigh and a snort. "No way around it. We're gonna get hosed."

Amanda looked up from her palmcomp. "If we could pump all our remaining fuel into one tank, it could serve as a shelter... of sorts."

"I thought the secondaries would get us," Dan muttered.

"They'd be high," Amanda admitted, "but if we could pressurize the fuel it might absorb most of the secondary particles before they reached us."

"If we're plumb in the middle of the tank," Pancho said.

"Yes. Inside our suits, of course."

"Can the suits handle the temperature? We're talking about liquid hydrogen and helium; d.a.m.ned close to absolute zero."

"The suits are insulated well enough," Pancho said. Then she added, "But n.o.body's ever tried a dunk in liquid hydrogen with 'em."

"And we'd have to be dunked for G.o.d knows how many hours," Dan muttered.

Fuchs had not said a word. His head was bent over his own palmcomp.

"How much protection would the fuel give us?" Dan asked glumly.

Amanda hesitated, looked down at her handheld screen, then said, "We'd all need hospitalization. We'd have to set the flight controls to put us into lunar orbit on automatic."

"We'd all be that sick?" Pancho asked.

Amanda nodded solemnly.

And I'd be dead, Dan thought. I can't take another radiation dose like that. It would kill me.

Aloud, he tried to sound reasonably hopeful. "Well, it's better than sitting here with our thumbs jammed. Pancho, start transferring the fuel."

"How high can we pressurize one of the tanks?" Amanda wondered.

"I'll check the specs," said Pancho. "Come on, we've got to -"

"Wait," Fuchs said, looking up at them. "There is a better way."

Dan looked hard at him. Fuchs's eyes were set so deep that it was difficult to see any expression in them. Certainly he was not smiling. His thin slash of a mouth looked tight, hard.

"Computer," Fuchs called, "display position of asteroid 32-114."

A yellow dot began blinking near the inner edge of the Belt.

"That's where we must go," Fuchs said flatly.

"It's half a day off our course home," Pancho objected.

"Why there, Lars?" Amanda asked.

"We can use it for a storm shelter."

Dan shook his head. "Once the cloud runs over us, the radiation is isotropic. It comes from all directions. You can't hide behind a rock from it."

"Not behind the rock," Fuchs said, with growing excitement. "Inside it!"

"Inside the asteroid?"

"Yes! We burrow into it. The body of the asteroid will s.h.i.+eld us from the radiation!"

"That would be great," Dan said, "if we had some deep drilling equipment aboard and a few days to dig. We don't have either."

"We don't need them!"

"The h.e.l.l we don't," Dan shot back. "You think we're going to tunnel into that rock with your little core sampler?"

"No, no, no," Fuchs said. "You don't understand. That rock is a chondritic asteroid!"

"So what?" Pancho snapped.

"It's porous! It isn't a rock, not like Bonanza. It's an aggregate of chondrites-little stones, held together by gravity."

"How do you know that?" Dan demanded. "We haven't gotten close enough to-"

"Look at the data!" Fuchs urged, waving a thick-fingered hand at the wallscreen.

"What data?" The screen still showed the chart with the radiation cloud.

Fuchs pointed his palmcomp at the screen like a pistol and the wall display suddenly showed a long table of alphanumerics.

"Look at the data for its density," Fuchs said urgently. He jumped up from his chair and bounded to the screen. "Look! Its density isn't much more than that of water! It can't can't be a solid object! Not with such a density. It's porous! An aggregation of stones! Like a..." he searched for a word,"... like a pile of rubble... a beanbag chair!" be a solid object! Not with such a density. It's porous! An aggregation of stones! Like a..." he searched for a word,"... like a pile of rubble... a beanbag chair!"

Dan stared at the numbers, then looked back at Fuchs. The man was clearly excited now.

"You're sure of this?" he asked.

"The numbers don't lie," Fuchs said. "They can't."

Pancho gave out a soft whistle. "Sh.o.r.e wish we had somethin' more'n numbers to go on."

"But we do!" Fuchs said. "Mathilde in the Main Belt, and Eugenia-several C-cla.s.s bodies among the Near-Earth Asteroids - they are all aggregates, not solid at all. Microprobes have examined them, even gone inside them!"

"Porous," Dan muttered.

"Yes!"

"We can dig into them without drilling equipment?"