Forbidden The Stars (The Interstellar Age Book 1) Read online

  She playfully batted at him, ignoring his enthusiasm. “You know I hate being called Mags,” she scolded her husband, mock annoyance on her face as she initiated the vacuum seal on her suit torso. “Gabe!” she said to him, purposely making a face.

  He shot her a dirty look right back. “All right. Margaret.”

  “Thank you, Gabriel.”

  “I prefer, ‘love of my life.’ ”

  “And I much prefer…” Margaret leaned over before her husband pulled on his artificial atmospheric replicator helmet and kissed him soundly on the lips.

  “Yuck!” Alex declared and wandered over to the Digital Mock-Reality hologram screen on the prefab wall opposite the console desk, and set the thought-link patch over his temples.

  Using Hucs for the EPS engine, since he did not have a bus generator like the one in their apartment on Canada Station Three, he logged in to the global operating system of the EarthMesh and waited the seven minutes for his personal settings to manifest and his modified cyberscape to be uploaded.

  “This thing takes so long!” he said, even as he once again congratulated himself for his inventiveness in design.

  His personal cyberscape was based on one of his favorite novels, Homer’s The Odyssey. He called it Odysscape.

  As Odysseus, he had to sail his ship to different lands to access the various programs, utilities and games in his cyberscape. He would change the cyberscape whenever he read a novel that took his fancy, basing his desktop on his latest favorite. Previous desktops included worlds from Lewis Carroll, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Robert E. Howard.

  “It takes me forever just to boot the system,” he complained, though he had no choice in using the EarthMesh virtual drive. Hucs’ LAN did not allocate even a quarter of the memory needed for Alex to run Odysscape. The drives were dedicated to the technical aspects of his parents’ work and for the bio systems of the TAHU.

  On the Odysscape casement, the tall Greek figure of Odysseus stood on the shore of Calypso’s Island, making a raft to try to sail home to Ithaca. The casement showed Hermes, messenger of the gods, floating in the sky off to one corner after just delivering his message to Calypso, telling her that she should let Odysseus go. That signaled the startup of his desktop.

  The CGI character was laboriously slow in binding the logs of his raft together, and Alex harrumphed with impatience. Hucs’ P-Generator just was not powerful enough.

  “Don’t forget, it takes a little while for the Electronic Pulse Signal to reach Earth and bounce back. We haven’t quite mastered faster-than-light … yet,” Gabriel joked, and pulled on his helmet.

  Alex’s mother pulled on her own helmet, and each checked the other’s suit for seal breaches, passing a vacuity loss detector over the seams and bodice of their suits. The contained ecosystem computer signaled that their suits were leak-free and surface-ready.

  His mother’s voice came over the septaphonic speakers in the TAHU, losing little of its tone in the digital translation.

  “We’ll see you in ten hours, Alex. You be good, and do your homework. Hucs will report to us if you don’t.”

  The warning came after the lecture of the night before, and Alex dropped his chin to his chest, looking abashed.

  “I know, I know!” he replied. The moment they had returned from work and asked for a report on Alex’s activities, Hucs informed them he had spent six hours playing Nova Pirates instead of concentrating on his studies. Hucs was nothing if not deadly accurate in his recital.

  “Hucs is a tattle-tale,” he declared sullenly.

  “No,” Alex’s mother corrected. “A tattle-tale is someone who tells on someone just to get them in trouble. Hucs reports to us for your own good, Alex. It’s his program.”

  “I know, I know.” But the timbre of his voice suggested he found the whole idea unfair in any event.

  “We’ll see you soon, Alex. Be good.”

  “I will.”

  Alex’s parents stepped through the airlock. With a deep, audible click, the door sealed shut. The vacuum notification light glowed on the control panel to the right of the door at eye level as a chime sounded to indicate pressure equalization was beginning.

  There was a low humming sound as the pumps sucked the air out of the lock, and the gravity replicator magnetics slowly dropped its gain, matching the negligible G’s on the asteroid’s surface.

  His parents performed a few light exercises to get their muscles used to the near-zero gravity, and their own relative body weights of less than a gram.

  Erected under the surface of the asteroid, the TAHU provided ideal protection for a survey team. The Construction-Engineering team had used pulse charges to create an artificial cavity ten meters into the surface, forming a rectangular box fifteen meters on a side, and four meters in height. AI mechbots constructed the TAHU itself.

  With two personnel cubicles, a communal area, lavatory, dining cubicle, computer laboratory, and airlock, it was the perfect size for a two-person survey team. If the surveyors were a couple, a third person, such as an offspring, could be attached to the mission, and not put any real strain on the TAHU resources.

  There was enough food for six months, and solar wind particle converters kept the batteries charged to full.

  They built a gravity convection magneto into the floor of the TAHU, magnifying the asteroid’s natural magnetic field inside the construct by a factor of 85.91, enough to simulate near-Earth gravity. The energy requirements were enormous, but the Sun, four hundred gigs away, provided an unlimited source of power.

  Constructed on the surface of the asteroid, the ATV bay held the ATV itself, as well as a small two-person floater in case of emergency. The floater had enough power to escape the gravity of any celestial object smaller than Luna, after which it would emit an alert beacon.

  Each personal cubicle inside the TAHU held a security receptacle, which converted to a one-person floater. Safety first.

  Alex turned to the DMR.

  “Hucs,” he said aloud, even though the computer would follow every command he thought at it. “Bring up a VR casement for ATV camera.”

  For the moment, he ignored his Odysscape, preferring to use Hucs’ much faster CPU engine for the local task. He shut down his link with the EarthMesh. After all, he was supposed to be working on his biosyn. Hucs had enough lesson plans uploaded into his Vdrive to last another month.

  A connection with EarthMesh was not needed, but Alex felt better knowing that contact with Canada Station Three or Earth was seven minutes away.

  Hucs spoke:

 

  Alex picked up the optics but waited before pressing them over his eye cavities.

  The interface camera on the dash of the ATV powered up. It would make a visual and audio log of his parents’ progress to each of the Nelson II sites, recording their reports and theories, failures and finds, and automatically EPSing it to Canada Corp.’s mainframes in Ottawa on Earth.

  The DMR casement in front of Alex showed a 2D image of the camera’s current field of vision. Alex slipped on the ocular cap of the thought-link patch. He pressed the cup-shaped caps to his eyes as they form-fitted themselves to the contours of his face.

  Abruptly, he saw everything in the ATV bay from the dashboard, as if he were there, sitting on the hood.

  Approaching the ATV, his parents were guiding themselves by a system of guy wires attached to the ATV and the bay. With the minimalistic gravity of the asteroid, a strong jump could send a person flying off the asteroid and into space.

  The ATV itself used a version of the gravitational magnetos, combined with a reversed polarity magneto to repel itself against the asteroid’s surface so that it could float two meters above the ground.

  His parents both strapped themselves into their seats inside the vehicle and fired the power cells before his mother saw the green camera light indicating ‘image-transmit’ as well as ‘image-record.’

  “Hello, Alex,” s
he said, smiling through the transparent faceplate of the helmet, guessing correctly that it was he who had slaved his VR to the camera. The clear septaphonic voice came over the TAHU speakers.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “What is it, Son?” Gabriel asked after a moment, fastening his seat restrictors.

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to let you know that I miss you.”

  “We miss you, too. Love you, Alex.”

  “I love you, too.” He wasn’t yet too old to say that; at least, not in private. If they were back on Canada Station Three, he might feel uncomfortable about telling his parents he loved them in front of his friends.

  “All right, then get your lessons completed this morning, pass that biosyn test … and when we get back, maybe you can show me just exactly how that ‘Nova Pirates’ game works,” his father said to him, his grin filling the width of the helmet’s face plate.

  “All right!” Alex exclaimed, suddenly excited. “See you later, Dad!”

  He disconnected the VR link with a thought, and turned his attention to the review of the biosyn material that Hucs had presented in a secondary DMR casement with borders flashing an urgent red.

 

  Hucs was as accommodating as ever.

  The computer droned on in a childlike voice with the review, but hard as Alex tried to concentrate, he found his attention soon wandering to the suspended ‘Nova Pirates’ game, and within an hour of his parents leaving, he minimized the lesson casement against the warnings of Hucs.

  He maximized the game casement in VR.

  Seconds later, he was blasting pirates out of the Ronge Nebula.

  4

  Geological Report :

  Macklin’s Rock :

  Filed by Gabriel Manez :

  Belt Segment: 14568

  SMD Mine Number: 928-3

  Name: Macklin’s Rock

  Age: 237.89 million years (Earth Standard)

  Type: Metallic/Carbonaceous Chondrite (C-Type)

  Distance from Sun: 425.92 gigameters (mean)

  Closest Earth Approach: 276.33 gigameters

  Dimensions: 148.11 kms longest diameter / 35.08 kms widest diameter.

  Surface Temperature: -103.5 °C average

  Mass (estimated): 10,020.5 teratons

  Surface Gravity: 0.0000002373 G

  Atmospheric Pressure: None

  Escape Velocity: 0.009568 km per hour

  Mineral Content: aluminum, calcium, carbon, cobalt, copper, helium, iron, magnesium, nickel, silicon, sodium, sulfur, titanium

  Potential Value: $14 Trillion (Can) over 50 years.

  5

  USA, Inc. Exploration Site :

  Mission Orcus 1 :

  Pluto :

  Dark, cold, silent, inhospitable.

  Wonderful.

  Captain Justine Turner stood on the edge of Sol System. As captain of the Orcus 1, the historic honor fell to her.

  It was another in a series of firsts for her: youngest female astronaut in NASA history; youngest person to get a captaincy of a space vessel; first human to set foot on the icy surface of Pluto.

  She tried to think of something notable to say for the benefit of those on Earth who tracked their progress. Overcome with the tide of emotion, Justine could not think properly. The stale recycled air in her suit did not help clear her mind.

  “Pluto,” she finally declared into her microphone.

  Swiveling her head to face the Sun, a tiny glowing pinprick in the low horizon, she imagined she was speaking for the benefit of posterity.

  “It’s been a two-hundred year journey to get here, since the dark planet’s existence was first theorized. Now, that dream is a reality. This occasion is a milestone in human history. From here, all that’s left is to conquer the stars.”

  She took a breath before continuing her speech, but a digitized voice filled her helmet.

  “Captain!” called Helen Buchanan over the comlink. On loan from the Canadian Space Exploration Department, Helen had more than proven her administrative competence in her position as second-in-command. Still, she had a tendency for dramatics.

  Irritated by the interruption, Justine growled, “What is it, Helen?”

  “The science team reports all spectroanalyses are normal. Ekwan again requests permission to venture out on the surface.” The first mate lowered her voice to match the captain’s tone. “Justine, if he doesn’t get his way soon, he’s going to drive us all off the end of the planet, you know.”

  There was always one bad apple in every bushel. Unfortunately, NASA had had no say on who the Japanese included in the mission. They had to accept Ekwan along with the fifteen billion in research money the Japanese Space Administration had invested.

  Six months in space with that overblown, opinionated jackass, however, was enough to test the patience of a saint.

  I should deny his request, just out of spite. That would be petty, and a blatant misuse of her authority. Besides, it was not a generous attitude to take with any member of the civilian science team.

  Looking around, she could barely see twenty meters beyond the landing lights of the Orcus 1. Willing to ignore the petty politics of Earth’s corporate countries, she had accepted this mission—ecstatic and full of passion—for the chance to touch the heart of Pluto.

  Now I am here! She reveled in the fact.

  The surface of Pluto was barren and unforgiving. The achievement of reaching it would spur Earth to invest more resources in space exploration. The mantle of that responsibility rested squarely on her slight shoulders, and she dare not let anything untoward happen on this mission. She knew she should make the other members of the eight-person crew wait an hour after her exposure to the surface of the planet, in case there were microbes eating into her suit, or some other fantastical possibility thought up by the NASA scientists. But if letting Ekwan go would shut the seismologist’s loud mouth up for just five minutes…

  “Permission granted, Helen. But make sure he follows regulations. I’m coming back in. Seen all I need to see for now. I’ve got enough pics to keep NASA’s publicity department busy for a year.”

  “Very good, Captain.”

  She could hear the relief in the First Mate’s voice.

  Justine made her way up the lander’s ceramic ladder and entered the belly of the Orcus 1. It took a minute to cycle through the airlock.

  ∞

  Inside, she faced an unorganized mob. In an orchestra of confusion, four crewmembers circled about their unbidden conductor, all shouting in a cacophony of anger.

  “Ekwan! Slow down,” Justine commanded, getting their attention. “We’re here for seven months. You’ll get all the surface time you need.” She stared into his angry eyes. So much anxiety in such a little man.

  “It’s these stupid belts, Captain! There are too many, and they’re getting in the way. And she—” He jerked his head at First Mate Helen Buchanan. “—won’t let me go out until she has me trussed up like a prisoner.”

  “Ekwan. Just do it. Would you rather waste time arguing, or get your suit on properly and get out on the surface that much sooner?”

  Clearly unhappy, the seismologist allowed Helen to finish strapping his suit together. With comic exaggeration, he stomped into the airlock.

  “And wait for the rest of us!” Helen shouted through the intercom. “We’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  Ekwan’s reply was unintelligible, but there was no misunderstanding the frustration on his face.

  In a way, Justine could relate to him. Even in modern Japan, the need to excel and surpass everyone else drove their economic and social order. In a small country with such a high population density, it was no wonder people were frantic and short-tempered in their race to get ahead of the pack.

  The others in the locker room slowly fumbled their way into their suits.

  Justine nodded at Johan Belcher, the European Space Agency’s geologist. The handsome Austrian was there to run detailed
tests on the makeup of Pluto’s icy surface, including depths, densities, and percentages.

  If not for her captaincy, Justine would have encouraged his smooth-tongued advances. She had to keep herself set apart from the others, however; to do otherwise would undermine her authority. It was imperative she keep her command and authority for the duration of the twenty-month mission.

  Johan returned the nod with a calculated smile as he helped Dale Powers, the NASA astrogator, into his suit.

  Two other NASA members struggled to get ready. Henrietta Maria and George Eastmain. Justine suspected the two had become lovers on the long voyage. They giggled at each other like schoolchildren when they thought no one was looking, and whispered in each other’s ears frequently.

  “Where’s Sakami?” she asked the group. The single representative from the People’s Republic of China, Sakami Chin was clearly an outsider. He refused to dine with the others, and made no effort at casual conversation. Surly and abrupt, Sakami made no qualms about his aversion to space travel.

  Justine turned her head at the sound of boots striking the metal plate that divided the locker room from the rest of the ship.

  Sakami pushed his way through the crowd to his suit, and paid no attention to the cries of outrage from the others.

  Justine glanced at her First Mate. “I’m heading to the bridge, if you’ve got everything under control here.”

  “Sure do, Captain. Take a nap. I’ll alert you if Ekwan falls down a crater,” she joked.

  “Belay that. Only alert me if he kills himself.”

  She forced a smile, and made her way through the spacecraft.

  ∞

  With the Orcus 1 empty, Justine made a detour to the galley and helped herself to a squeeze tube of cold tea. She congratulated herself on achieving the most important goal of her life.

  Stories of Planet X had filled Justine’s young mind and fed her imagination, and as a teenager she studied every book she could download on the subject.