Chapter Six

 

Cramer knew what to expect when the engines came to life. He’d read about it several times but words printed on a page didn’t really cut it when the actual event happened. He’d learned that numerous times from the operations manuals on some state-of-the-art craft that always came along. The ice skimmers at Mars Polar Cap always stuck in his mind. The earlier ice skimmer’s manual described the bumpy ride the driver could expect as he or she traversed the poker chip ice structures on the polar caps. The written word fell short of the actual experience of that bone-jarring ride. Every ice skimmer driver loved the undulating repulsion field when it came along. No more bumpy ride. Well he, and probably Hendricks and Mona too, would learn the same thing in less than thirty seconds when the huge star drive engines spewed into life.

Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, the liquid not quite large enough to run down his face. The engine coolant flow rate climbed faster as the last twenty seconds ticked away. The hydrogen storage tank pressure dropped a little lower, the fuel channel flow rate inched higher, then it happened.

The engines coughed into life. The roar, more felt than heard, sent a shudder coursing through the ship. His body sank into his contour seat as the ship accelerated. The g-forces would reach one G and remain there until relativistic effects caused the acceleration to drop off. When they reached the halfway point to Sirius, the ship would be turned around and deceleration would begin. Their speed at that point would reach eighty percent light speed. Ship’s time would be two and three tenths years, and Earth’s time five and two tenths years.

“All readings in acceptable range,” Lila said.

Uranus receded on his monitor. He went to the side observation bubble and watched the great pale gas giant move behind them. The wave of motion came to him as he the planet finally disappeared off the corner of his viewpoint. He returned to his monitor and left it on zero magnification. A faint blue emanated to one side of the ship from the nearly invisible hydrogen flame. Uranus shrank to a minute disk, and he realized Mars and Cindy were behind him too. The nightmare came true.

Tears slipped down his cheek. He didn’t wipe them away. He looked up to find Mona and Lila both looking at him. Mona seemed to swallow then dropped her gaze to her station controls. Lila, despite still being attached to the MindX link, fixed her gaze on him and conveyed a loving expression of sympathy mingled with kindness and concern. Now he wiped away the tears then tried to present a stern business-like look and busied himself with trying out his detectors.

Sirius. Their destination. In his monitor at zero magnification it presented itself as a pinpoint of light, cold, distant, a cloud of comets and who knew what else separating them.

Two weeks passed. Their acceleration now held constant at one G. It came time for them to make the final checks before going into cryo sleep. Cramer wanted the checks to last as long as possible. The deep sleep continued to worry him.

The four of them went to the sleep chambers. He walked over to Witherspoon’s chamber and looked at the lightly frosted transparent dome. The big man wore only loose fitting underwear that preserved his modesty. The frailty of human life. It hits all of us.

Lila activated a privacy screen around all the chambers. She went with Mona to her cubicle. Cramer tried to rid his mind of Mona stripping to her panties and bra before climbing into the chamber. That thinking had no place on this voyage or anywhere else, he told himself. While Lila tended to Hendricks’s and Mona’s preparation, Cramer moved away from Witherspoon’s tank and went to his own, then started removing his on clothing. The faint humming of equipment came from behind Mona and Hendricks’s screens. Cramer’s bubble cover swiveled upward and stood ready to receive him. Extra wiring sheaths went to his chamber. He would inquire when Lila tucked him in.

He stood there in his jockey briefs, a bit embarrassed when she stood at his chamber. Fear at the thought of crawling into this sleep tank numbed him. He inhaled, then exhaled.

“What’s the extra wiring harness for?” he asked.

“As promised, I rigged your chamber with a means to feed you images of your daughter from Mars.”

“That must have been a lot of trouble.”

“I had to develop new circuits and hardware, but it was well within my capabilities.”

“You’re very kind.”

“I’m making every effort to set your mind at ease. I will monitor your entry into cryo sleep. You’ll be able to see me through the transparent lid.” Lila curved her arm around his shoulder.

With her help, he stepped into the chamber. Given her small size, her incredible strength amazed him. After he reclined, she placed two tiny pads with small diameter wires attached on each temple. Next she inserted an intravenous needle into his arm. He didn’t feel the needle go in. She outdid the nurses who hooked him up during his regular blood donations. She squeezed his hand, smiled, and made one last check of the chamber controls.

“Relax. The least little problem, and I’ll know it. You have your daughter’s images to keep you company now.” She closed the chamber lid.

He kept his gaze centered on her face as the drug entered his system. A warm sensation seized him, especially in his body’s waste openings. The special nutrient liquid entered his blood stream and would provide maximum sustenance during sleep and produce minimum waste. Lila continued to look down at him. The temperature dropped despite the drug pumping into his veins.

Sleep began to infringe on his awareness. He surrendered unwillingly. Lila’s beautiful face and lovely expression faded, then disappeared from view. A veil closed on his outward sensations, but that closing veil contained other sensations seemingly painted on its exterior. The folds in the veil smoothed out and allowed him to see his daughter in the hospital on Mars. Her progress astounded him.

He started reliving the time of Cindy’s birth. Rita, having the radiance of a pregnant woman, went into a forty-hour labor which produced a wonderful baby girl. They both agreed to name her Cindy, after Rita’s grandmother. At age six months Cindy stopped following them with her eyes when they walked across the room. Then the seizures began.

He remembered her first seizure because he fell apart. They wasted no time seeing doctors. The bills began to mount, forcing him to leave his laboratory work near their home and hire on with Olympus Mons Mining, which paid very well. He hated being away from his family but eventually, he moved them to Mars.

Rita cared for Cindy herself despite the doctors urging to put her in a nursing home. The doctors predicted she would not see age five. Rita kept Cindy alive with her love, compassion, and attention for her needs. The reward? Their little girl continued to bless them with her presence in their lives.

In his deep sleep he relived that portion of his life. Then memory of the agonizing loss of Rita through an unexpected illness rocked him and forced him to place Cindy in the hospital on Mars, sell every valuable thing he had, and take a riskier, more aggressive job with the mining company. Witherspoon’s two assignments followed, and Cramer barely escaped with his life. That life scenario played itself out into his sleep state, then he could see real images of Cindy on Mars again.

Pressure increased. Was this part of a dream artifact caused by the cryo sleep? The force increased until it became uncomfortable. His body warmed, his eyes fluttering until he held them open. The light frost left his bubble bit by bit. Lila opened his chamber, saying nothing, then left.

He dressed and had to keep his balance by grabbing the sleep chamber. He couldn’t stand up straight and heard the roar of the engines, much louder than at the start of their journey. He heard Lila talking to Mona and Hendricks. He couldn’t blame his lack of balance on being in deep sleep; it had to be something more serious.

Lila entered his chamber cubicle. “Joe, as I just told Mona and Hendricks, the engines are out of control. Diagnostics shows the hydrogen feeder valves have malfunctioned. Hydrogen injection rate is too high and increasing all the time. Our acceleration has doubled.”

“The drive will have to be shut down,” Mona said as the four of them started back toward the engine sphere.

“The replacement feeder valves will be heavy,” Hendricks said. “We’ll have to use the mech cart to haul them back.”

“I’ll help you,” Cramer said as he trailed Hendricks toward the supply sphere.

The two of them managed to transport the spare feeder valves back to the engine sphere along with the necessary tools to remove the defective valves and install the new ones. When they arrived Lila told them over the intercom from the pilot sphere she couldn’t shut the drive down. Precious hydrogen continued to be consumed, and their acceleration approached a critical value that wouldn’t allow them to function or even do simple tasks. Mona joined them as they stared at the huge manifolds interfacing the hydrogen tanks with the cone shaped rocket nozzles. Hard vacuum and the faulty baffles lay behind those manifolds.

“The baffles that control the hydrogen flow are stuck,” Mona said. “We can’t disrupt the fuel flow. They won’t function properly above a certain gas velocity.”

“There is a way to shut the baffles,” Cramer said.

“How?” Hendricks asked.

“Manually.”

“I don’t see how that can be done,” she said. “The heat and hard vacuum near the baffles make that very difficult.”

“We have a heat resistant space suit. I’ll get it and knock those baffles loose,” he said.

“You can’t handle it. I’ll do it.” Hendricks started for the storage cabinet holding the suits.

“Nothing doing. I’m the least valuable member of this crew. It’s settled. I’m getting the suit.” Cramer struggled against the g-forces to the nearby suit locker.

“Lila, Joe is insisting on breaking the baffles free manually,” Mona said over the intercom.

“It’s too risky. We’ll figure some other way,” Lila answered.

He ignored the oral resistance and stepped into the bulky space suit. A ladder led to the engine’s access air locks halfway up the sphere. The ladder extended straight up from the floor to where the sphere’s curvature started its angle toward the highest point overhead. He stuffed a utility bar into his suit belt and mounted the small ladder.

Below him Lila appeared and went to a nearby intercom. Her voice came over his suit radio. “Joe, get back down here.”

“There isn’t time for someone else to get ready,” he said.

He reached the access panel, opened it, then crawled through. A crawl space led toward the back of the ship to the engine bay. Traversing that crawl space, some twenty meters, proved difficult against the acceleration forces. Fortunately, hand holds on the way helped. At the end of the crawl way another door opened to an air lock. Once inside, he expelled the air so he could open the access door to the workings of the mighty engines. He entered through the door once the green light signaled a vacuum.

The three conical jets extended to the back of the ship, beyond the spherical chamber. They dwarfed him. His suit heat indicator rose to near the red zone. A local indicator showed the liquid sodium coolant still flowing, but its temperature neared critical values and very likely the coolant tubing would burst.

He could see all three baffle plates. They refused to budge when commanded to shut by the actuator circuit. He went to an electronics access panel, his movement slowing, hearing only his breath inside his suit. He hated the silence of vacuum. This time his incessant tinnitus kept him company.

Lila’s voice came over his suit radio. “Joe, do you copy?”

“Yes. I’m rerouting the baffle circuit with the jumper wire, hoping that will work.” He used sharp nose pliers from his utility belt.

The first jumper didn’t work, number one baffle remaining open. He tried the second one, turning his body in order to see the baffle plate through his helmet opening. Same result. The third one hesitated, then with a jerky motion moved inward.

“Number three engine shut down, Joe. The other two are still going strong,” she said.

“I’m going up the ladder to number two to try prying or breaking it free.”

“Be careful. It may be too hot up there.”

As he drew closer to the top of the ladder, the temperature rose on his suit’s heat indicator, the needle flirting with the red zone. At the top, he braced himself against the ladder, putting it at his back, allowing the acceleration to hold him there as he took the bar from his belt and gave the baffle a good whack. It refused to budge. The heat from the nearby hydrogen burned.

He used the bar as a pry, trying to move it sideways. It worked. The baffle slammed shut, and Lila informed him of number two engine shut down. Thankfully, he noted his suit temperature dropping out of the red zone, just barely. He gave the indicator the chance to reach its lowest value then went down the ladder and up the number one engine’s ladder.

He repeated the process on bracing himself. He whacked and he pried but to no avail. Again, his suit’s heat alarm chimed in his ears, and his suit would lose its seals if he didn’t free that baffle. He pried with all his might, breathing hard, cursing his messed-up lungs. He put his foot on the pry bar, grasped his arms around the ladder, then shoved with all his might, letting out a grunt in the process. The baffle gave but didn’t close completely.

Lila’s alarmed voice came over his radio. He replied by telling her of his partial success. He took the bar, drew back as if holding a ball bat, then swung with all his might, giving the baffle a good blow. It worked. As the baffle moved to a closed position his haymaker swing threw him off balance. He fell from the ladder and almost didn’t catch himself.

“You did it. Number one engine is off,” she said. “Joe. Joe?” Her voice became high-pitched, a tone he’d never heard before.

“I’m okay. Just lost my balance a second,” he answered, then started back.

Once out of his suit Lila confronted him. “Mona tells me you remarked you were the least valuable member of the crew, then took on this dangerous job.”

“That’s right. I’m sorry I ignored your orders, but I felt it the right thing to do.” He tried to cover his labored breathing.

“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. You’re important, and when we get to Sirius, you’ll be our diplomat with the aliens. Look at you. You’re wheezing and clutching your chest. Don’t pull a stunt like that again.” Lila’s tone conveyed concern, not anger; he wondered if she would ever be angry with him. “Come on. I’ll help you to your room. You need rest.”

“I need to help install those feeder valves.”

“Hendricks and Mona will do that. Come on.” She tugged his arm and draped hers around his shoulder. Her strength reminded him of Stark.

Once back at his room he recovered a bit, but she insisted he climb into bed. She helped him off with his shoes and put a light blanket over him. As he lay on his back, she knelt at the side of his bed, put her hand up to his forehead, then brushed an errant hair lock away from his eyes. Her gentleness, kindness, and beauty washed over him like a warm wave of water on a cold day.

“The others say you don’t show emotions. I don’t understand why they say that.” He looked into her eyes, at her beautiful lips, her long dark hair.

“You have special needs and require strong support.”

“You make it sound like you’re programmed to act a certain way when the need arises. I had hoped, well—” He caught himself, stopped short of saying something improper to his captain.

“Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when the valves are installed. The four of us need to assess our position and fuel situation and plan accordingly.” She squeezed his hand, smiled, then got up and left. Sleep came fast.