Out
A series about Mars
by Daniel
E. Machado
Chapter 9
If it surprises Blade that her daughter
sleeps all the way out into orbit Fred doesn’t notice it. Fast asleep and
oblivious to all around her the little girl lay strapped into a cocoon
of blankets and pillows, coming around only once during take-off and then
only long enough to ask if they were "there yet" as if riding the subway
with Grandma from Oildale to Sherman Oaks instead of from Edwards Interorbital
to the New London Orbital Transfer Station.
Following the ship’s pilot on his
hand-tablet Fred watches as the SS Starbucks III guides with slow
caution up into the station's two-kilometer wide docking channel. Feeling
the gentle nudges Fred watches as the transport's pilot slides the ship
around to drift slowly onto one of the open docking clamps. After one of
the New London Port Authority's massive robotic docking arms clamps hold
of the launch harness on their OT's nose the orbital transport is slowly
lowered into one of the station's many hollow radiating spokes that connect
the docking tunnel to the launch sites on the transfer station's outer
surface.
The basic concept of a transfer station
seems simple, or at least that's the way it sounds when Fred explains the
process to Roselene. The transfer station is like this giant spinning Life-Saver
candy. Ships enter and dock through the middle hole; OTs to port, non-atmospheric
IOs to starboard. When the OT comes inside the entry port a docking crew
grapples onto the ship and then locks it down onto a launching clamp. Then
the ship is lowered down through the station's interior out to the station's
rim where it off-loads, loads, and then waits to re-embarkment. Fred further
attempts to explain how the station uses the lowered ship's outfacing mass
and inertia to spin up flywheels that they use to help lift cargo back
up into storage areas near the center but Roselene finds Fred's reasoning
dubious at best.
"That’s just silly." The girl pretests.
"Why don’t they just take everything out when the ship’s still up in the
middle and it doesn’t weigh nothing?"
"Well for one thing, most of the cargo
and nearly all of the people are transferring between the orbital transports
and inter-orbitals. And when you're loading and unloading a little inertial
gravity can be a good thing."
As their shuttle slows down into the
departure levels a stomach stabilizing .3g hits them. They find themselves
completely ravenous by the time they leave the transport. Breakfast had
been several hours and one entire world ago. But on Fred’s advice they
keep the meal down to frozen protein yogurt and juice.
"We’ve still got six more hours of
zero-g. Don't want to eat anything we don’t want to stare down and catch."
Fred warns.
"Oh, gross!" Roselene jabs out her
tongue at him in disgust.
As they near Baskin-Robins Blade leans
close to Fred's ear and whispers. "I wish you hadn’t reminded her."
Little more than an hour between arrival
and departure leaves no time at all for sight-seeing the New London station.
There's not even a decent size public display to watch the ships come and
go outside. But, from the tiny images she watches on Fred’s handtablet
it all looks very exciting to Roselene. All these huge ships coming in
and then slinging back out like tiny toys. The station itself doesn't seem
too much different than any other crowded subway station, except for that
in this station you tend to bounce into things a lot; including occasionally
the ceiling. Blade eventually threatens Roselene with a harness leash if
she doesn’t stop bouncing off everything and everybody within sight. Fred
likes the leash idea, regardless.
Checking in at the Jib’s shuttle seems
drudgingly familiar. Again they clear every security station previously
cleared at Edwards, but this time only to check the baggage seals for any
signs of tampering.
"How many people are we going with?"
Roselene asks as they pull their .3g-light baggage through the IO transport's
enclosed waiting room and pressurized gantry. Blade somehow finds it odd
that it looks just like every other padded gantry in every airport on Earth.
"Do you mean on this shuttle, or out
on the Jib?" Fred asks the girl. Tossing a short glance at the back of
his head Blade wonders just exactly when he became her daughter’s
primary answer giver?
"On the shuttle." Roselene replies,
still having a bit of trouble keeping her feet in contact with the floor.
"About two-hundred and fifty or so.
There'll be about two thousand immigrants plus crew out to Mars on the
Jib."
At the shuttle’s main hatch a young
man in a TransOrbital jumper grins down at his manifest tablet before smiling
back up at them. "Davis/DeSilva?"
"How’d you guess?" Fred nods.
"How, indeed?" The young man smiles
down at Roselene. "Not many four-year-olds on this flight."
The man takes Blade’s secured tablet,
connects it to his at the data-point, then after looking at the display
for a moment hands hers back.
"You guys are down on the lower deck
to starboard. D section. Seats seventy-three, seventy-four, and seventy-five."
The man looks back down at Roselene and notices the girl standing off at
an odd angle, her head and shoulders weaving awkwardly against the station's
spin.
"How’s she been doing so far?" The
steward asks up at Blade.
"Okay. Why?"
"Seventy-three is a view-port seat.
Sometimes looking out helps, sometimes not. You checked her patches lately?"
"About fifteen minuets ago." She nods.
"She's still green."
"You need any extras?"
Blade shakes her head back at him
with a furrowed squint.
"Sorry." The steward smiles. "But,
I’m the guy who has to clean out the cabins and air filters between flights."
"I understand." Blade tugs both her
daughter and her luggage through the hatch and into the ship’s interior.
While she tries to quickly stow their
baggage in one of the cargo racks near the main hatch Blade once again
looks up just as Roselene rushes off down the center aisle. And for
the hundredth time since arriving at the transfer station the girl's feet
kick up in the air behind as her lose traction with the floor. Back home
this would have sprawled her face first down on the aisle, but the longer
fall-time of .3g’s she has plenty of opportunity to recover. But the sensation
always leaves her head and stomach with a strange wiggly discomfortable.
"You okay, Sweety?" Her mother asks.
"Uh huh." Roselene nods, the strange
expression of discomfort still on her face. Some of the grown-ups glide
across the floor using special slippers to push off on traction strips
along their toes then gliding down the deck on the slipper's slick outer
edge. Unfortunately, every time Roselene tries to slide-walk her toes always
slip and the floor never seems to be exactly where it should. It keeps
moving unpredictable sideways making her stomach flutter into a knot.
"I want to sit by the window." Roselene
insists.
"Are you sure?" Her mother asks. Fred
shakes his head, certain that somehow he’ll be the one who will ultimately
have to pay for Blade’s overindulgence.
"I want to sit by the window!"
Suddenly irrational and close to both tears and tantrum Roselene throws
herself cross armed into the far seat next to the viewport, hugging herself
as she pouts.
"She’s tired." Blade mumbles.
And spoiled rotten. Fred nods
quietily to himself.
"Let her have it." He tells Blade.
"It’ll be hours until we match orbits with the Jib, and personally
I plan on catching up on some sleep."
"I’ll try to keep her quiet for you."
"You forget." Fred smiles. "I just
spent the last eighteen months bouncing around between training quarters.
Rosie’s an amateur compared to some of the assholes I’ve bunked with."
After strapping her daughter into
the window seat Blade pulls back the girl's collar to check the dosage
strip on the her motion sickness patch. Still half green. Then she checks
Roselene's mood regulator. Blade hadn’t wanted to put it on her at all,
but the medical technicians back at the Edwards' departure gate had insisted.
The faded dosage strip is nearly white and the replace-or-discontinue indicator
glows red. Blade tugs the tiny two-centimeter circle off Roselene’s neck
then rubs her thumb gently at the red spot left behind.
"How you feeling, sweetheart? You
ready to take another little nap?"
"Uh uh." The girl twists her head.
"I’m not sleepy yet. How does the ship get outside the station?" Out Roselene's
viewport she watches the bright yellow hanger bay, it's thick girdered
walls housing every manner of robotic arms and all swinging to and fro.
"Is there a big door on the other side?"
Blade glances back at Fred as he quietily
stares down at the bridge crew’s public on his display, apparently choosing
to wait for zero-g before taking his nap. "You still doing the guided tour,
or shall I?"
"Help yourself." Fred mumbles absently,
completely ignoring the edge in Blade's voice.
"You see those great big round things
on the floor over there next to the wall?" Blade points out past Roselene's
nod. "Those are the floor hinges. When they docked the shuttle way up in
the middle they put this great big lock harness thingy up on the nose and
then used it to lower the ship down the shaft. Now, you know that the station's
spin tries to throw everything out and makes it feels like the floor has
gravity?"
The little girl nods again, but never
takes her eyes off of the multitude silently swinging arms.
"Well, when they want to launch a
ship all they do is open up the floor beneath the ship and let go of the
lock-harness. Then the ship just falls away from the station, sometimes
back down to Earth and sometimes out into space or the Moon." As Roselene
visualizes their shuttle being flung out into space Blade notices a quiet
chuckle coming from beside her. With a slight ankle twist she taps the
corner of her heel up against Fred's ankle.
"Cool." The little girl's face and
hands pressed hard against the cool glass. Roselene finds herself both
terrified and fascinated at the thought. Straining for a wider view Roselene
watches the floor closely for any sign of movement. Then one by one the
swinging robotic arms slowly begin to recede back into their pressurized
bays and all motion in the hanger comes to a stop. Soon a thunderous click
shutters down through the shuttle.
"Is the floor gonna open up now, Mommy?"
"Pretty soon, Sweety." Blade removes
the seal from one of the mildest sedative she has and thumbs it unnoticed
onto Roselene's neck as she leans across to look out the viewport with
her daughter. "Watch, Sweety. After the red lights start to flash then
the floor drops open. Do you think watching the stars go by sideways is
going to bother you?"
"Uh uh." Roselene shakes her head.
"I want to see it." A sudden flood of flashing red lights
fill the bay. "Oh…! Mommy, look’it!"
"I see it, Sweety. I see." The floor's
sudden tilt sends another shutter through the ship as the tilted slab of
floor below them slowly falls away.
"I don’t see no stars." Roselene whines.
"Any stars." Her mother corrects.
"It’s still pretty bright in here and your eyes haven’t had time to adjusted.
But, see! Over there. You see that?" A bright point of light casually drifts
toward the slowly opening door.
"I see it!" Roselene squeals, then
pauses with a confused look up at her mother. "That’s not very scary."
"I never thought it was either. But,
you know how silly some people can be." Blade leans up against her daughter
to gently bump a kiss the back of the girl's sweet-smelling head.
"Are they going to drop us out now?"
Roselene asks.
"In about ten minuets." Fred taps
his tablet. "Baring mishap or major malfunction."
"Thank you, Fred." Blade replies.
To pass the time she challenges Roselene
to a quick game of Find-The-Flying-Star. The rules are simple and the play
quite lively and before very long the gray and yellow stripped bay floor
hangs straight out below them. The score stands at Blade twenty-three,
Roselene thirty-seven, by the time the IO pilot sounds the drop alarm.
"Passengers please be advised:
zero-g in sixty seconds. Please re-check and secure all personal objects.
All shuttle crew, protocol G is now in effect."
"Zip up all your pockets, Sweety,
and sit back. You can look out the viewport again when we're clear of the
station." Blade presses her daughter back down into her seat, synching
the small girl tightly into the oversized harness. Then she straps herself
in. Fred had strapped himself in the moment he sat down.
"Can I watch outside from here?" From
the viewport Roselene can see a thin red flashing crescent of launch bay
wall.
"Sure, Sweety." Blade assures her
daughter as she takes hold of her tiny fisted fingers. "As long as you
sit back and stay still."
Afraid to look away from the viewport
for fear of missing something Roselene begins to feel a slight trembling
in her seat. The wall outside start to lift. Finally visualizing what her
mother had said Roselene suddenly discovers an opposite perspective and
finds herself being lowered. The ship sinks down past the wall until Roselene
sees the launch bay floor hanging suspended from the flashing red bay above.
A strange warbling echoes through the transport as Blade squeezes Roselene's
hand.
"Zero-g. Zero-g. Prepare for zero-g.
Mark..." …and they fall, the hanging floor’s flashing metal planks
rise and quickly give way to the sharp inky black of space. As the false
feel of gravity quickly leaves their bodies Roselene’s tiny fist clamps
down tight on her mother’s hand.
"Don’t worry, Sweety. Once you get
used to it it’s kind of fun."
Still nodding out the viewport Roselene's
eyes stay fixed on the deep black of space. For some reason she doesn't
really remember looking out at space on their trip out to the transfer
station.
After drifting for several minuets
the growing rumble of engines vibrate up through the ship as their seat
backs gently pressing the firm contoured cushions up against their spines.
Roselene leans her head over toward the viewport but never catches a glimpse
of the transfer station. Soon the shuttle's cross tugging weightlessness
becomes tolerable. Then even pleasant. She occasionally has to concentrate
on holding her stomach muscles tight when the shuttle's maneuvering thrusters
tug her between harness and seat, but soon even that becomes unnecessary.
After several minuets Roselene asks her mother if she could call her friend
Eli. He should be back from school now, and this is their regular after
school playtime. Blade nods and little Roselene sets about notifying Eli’s
handtablet.
Between Fred’s soft snoring and Roselene's
giggled description of zero-g Blade sits and tries to relax and pass the
time until docking. On her own handtablet she again checks the current
archives of her biotics cargo on the
SS Flying Jib. Flicking the
tip of her index finger through the various system diagnostics, checking
every temperature, atmospheric, and related environmental. Then as an added
precaution she flips through the archives feeds for the actual device read-outs
on each container. Everything looks perfect.
This transfer seems to be going
extremely well.
As the corporate new kid in this type
of teraformation she’d expected a certain degree of amateur sloppiness
from them. Atlantis Corp certainly has had its full share of highly public
and occationally fatal failures. But even considering the extra effort
a loser must apply to just stay even, this transfer has been exceptionally
error-free.
Now, if I can just get a viable
eighty-percent out to Mars.