Third Moon Rising Read online

  “Hey, Carlos, did you lose your voice?”

  “No, you surprised me. I assume they’re talking about outfitting the New Horizon for the trip. What about the crew; has one been picked?”

  “The New Horizon was selected, but so far no crew has been picked, or at least not announced. Fremont Jones is collecting profiles of candidates, and he’s made it clear they’re not accepting any recommendations or looking for volunteers. I’ll bet you’re wondering if your name is included, but honestly, I don’t know. Fremont won’t talk about the list, and no one but him and Mission Director Joe Fairling know who’s on it.”

  “It looks like I have some catching up to do, plus a lot of politicking to make sure I’m involved in the mission,” Carlos said.

  “Yes, you do, amigo. Things have really hopped around here the past couple of months, and there’s a lot more you don’t know. But come on in; the remainder can wait until you get here.”

  After the discussion with George, Carlos sat mulling over what he had learned, wishing he had not slept through the previous two months.

  “Commander, Samuel is waking from hibernation,” Eve announced.

  He rose and went to check on Samuel. They both had a lot of catching up to do.

  THREE

  UNDERCURRENTS

  The presidential suite felt confining to Anchora, even though it was spacious and had an excellent view of Central Park. No, it wasn’t the suite; his thoughts made him feel trapped. He needed to get out for a while, needed to talk to his confidant, Ambassador Joseph Trumane.

  It was bad enough that a ground swell of opposition to the extrasolar colonization program was rising due to resource shortages. Now some fool had let it slip that they planned mass emigration to Zilia, without first gaining approval from the peaceful civilization residing there. Indeed, they had not contacted those on Zilia. They had planned to do that when the first emigrant transport, an armed one at that, entered their solar system with a diplomatic envoy onboard. Other armed transports would follow at intervals close behind.

  At least that had been the plan until the Messier Colony discovered Zilia. Now they were sending an early envoy from Messier. This morning Anchora had thought of another option this early envoy presented, one that was very disturbing but one they must explore.

  He could summon Joseph, or call him, but today he wanted to go to the ambassador’s office, as unconventional as that was. It was not all that far, just across, or more correctly under, Central Park to the UN building. Moreover, he could go alone as long as he stayed in secure corridors and used secure transportation.

  Anchora paused in the lobby of the NAU Executive Office Building. He looked out the main entryway toward Central Park, then at the escalator leading down to the secure transit tunnel. When had he last walked outside confining walls? Months.

  He looked at the Executive Protective Service team gathered nearby and smiled at their growing nervousness. He waved for the team’s leader to come over.

  “I’m going to walk through the park to the UN building.”

  “But, Mr. President…”

  Anchora held up his hand. “I’m going through the park. Do what you feel is necessary, but I suggest only a few agents follow me through. I take full responsibility for this.”

  He knew the agent had her recorder on. He turned and walked out the door, leaving the woman motioning frantically for the others to follow.

  The park was empty along his path, and this pleased him. But he had not anticipated how cold it would be, even with the enclosing, high canopy. Still, he lingered until his teeth started chattering. He felt invigorated, with mind clear and focused as he entered the ambassador’s offices.

  Joseph met him in the reception area with a worried look on his face.

  “Mr. President, what are you…?”

  “Let’s go to your office, Joseph.”

  Anchora laid out the most difficult course of action he had ever contemplated. For the first time in their association, he astounded Joseph. Simply put, if they made martyrs of those in the Messier envoy to Zilia, with blame cast on the Zilans, it would swing sentiment on Earth to support forced occupation of Zilia. A harsh thing to consider and difficult to orchestrate. But if it would help secure the future of humanity, they had to consider the option. There would be ample time to decide if going this far was necessary but very little time to lay the groundwork to support such a future decision.

  Joseph slowly nodded his agreement, driven speechless for once by such an uncivilized proposal from Anchora.

  Two hours after the New Horizon docked with the space station, Carlos walked into Fremont Jones’s office to discuss wrapping up the Democritus mission. He also intended to push for assignment to the team planning the Nepali C mission.

  Fremont rose and shook his hand. “Welcome back, and congratulations on a job well done. Your return is timely. We have a lot going on you can help with.”

  Good, he could not have hoped for more. “It’s great to be back. I’m looking forward to helping plan the mission to Nepali C.”

  Fremont waved Carlos to a seat and sat down across from him. “Well, you’re going to be involved, but not in that way. Earth has thrown us some major curves with respect to getting the New Horizon ready for a mission to Nepali C, and we need your help.”

  Carlos stifled his disappointment and listened carefully to Fremont.

  Earth’s first stipulation was surprising. They wanted to include the option of having the crew awake for up to two years at the end of the journey. This would require a major change in outfitting the spaceship with supplies and equipment, adding significant weight. Earth also directed they expand the fuel storage capacity and minimize total spaceship mass, clearly conflicting requirements.

  It was obvious the latter requirements focused on shortening the travel time to the third star system. But it was clear to Carlos the new requirements meant extensive modifications to the New Horizon, extending mission preparation time.

  “How can we add the new requirements and not significantly increase the spaceship’s mass?” he asked.

  “We’ve decided to install a new virtual hydrogen collection scoop to replace the large hybrid electromechanical scoop,” Fremont said. “This approach reduces the mass considerably, even with maintaining a twenty percent fuel safety margin. This margin will ensure achieving the relative velocity where the nuclear ramjet transitions to efficient operation. This approach does have significant risk. They have made extensive use of such systems on recent spaceships leaving Earth, but our experience with this technology is limited.”

  Carlos was familiar with the general design of interstellar nuclear powered spaceships that collected minute particles from space, mostly hydrogen atoms, needed for propulsion. The hydrogen atoms fueled a pulsed fusion engine, which converted hydrogen to helium. The helium accelerated out the back end, providing the motive force for the spaceship. This space “ramjet” technology had been around for two centuries. It had not been practical for interstellar travel until an advanced spacecraft, using pulsed fusion engines, achieved high relativistic velocity.

  He was only vaguely aware of the virtual collector concept. It employed a gravity concentrator, or gravity lens, to increase the attraction at the front of the spaceship for the hydrogen atoms and other minute particles floating sparsely throughout space. This enabled collecting particles efficiently without a mechanical scoop, greatly reducing the spaceship’s mass. In addition, the collector could be focused either forward or aft of the spaceship, enabling fuel collection with the spaceship reoriented for braking.

  Fremont next explained an advanced ablation shield concept that used nanotubes. The shield would protect the spaceship against small, impinging particles. It employed programmable wellstone nanofibers, which became thousands of times harder than diamond when miniscule electrical control currents were applied. It was thin, very light, and incorporated a self-healing process of extruding fibers to replace material lost through abl
ation. This would reduce the acceleration weight and minimize interference with the virtual fuel collector.

  In addition, they would install an augmented reality control center, removing the remaining vestiges of physical interface consoles. The control center would simply contain seats, with all controls projected as interactive 3-D virtual panels. In fact, all major control interfaces would be interactive virtual environments. A small hardware control console near the main propulsion plant would provide backup control for critical systems, such as propulsion and life support.

  “But even with all these measures,” Fremont said, “the modified New Horizon will not achieve anywhere near the velocity that new Earth spaceships can achieve. Earth has extensive factory resources to build advanced propulsion systems, and we don’t. So we’re still limited to using an older version fusion power plant. But it will get to Nepali C fast enough.”

  What Fremont described was exciting, and Carlos had temporarily forgotten about the Nepali C monitoring activities and the Democritus mission. He frowned as he thought about these now; Fremont had not asked for a debriefing, nor had he said anything about Carlos’s erratic mood swings while en route to Democritus. Surely Eve had relayed medical monitoring data to Mission Control.

  As if reading his mind, Fremont changed the subject to address his tasking. “No Democritus mission debrief is required. We’re getting all the information we need from the ship’s systems. We need your engineering knowledge and flight experience brought to bear in the team modifying the New Horizon.

  “You’ll not be in charge; that’s Wilson McGee. He has extensive system development and integration experience. He asked for your help because of your strong engineering background with automated control systems and your operational experience. We have to get the design changes done right the first time, because there won’t be a second time.”

  “I’ll do the best I can,” Carlos replied. He was disappointed at being excluded from the planning efforts. However, he fully understood the importance and magnitude of the effort to get the New Horizon ready for interstellar flight.

  “Good,” Fremont said. He then turned the conversation in an unexpected direction. “When Joe Fairling and I briefed President Turney on discovery of the signals, he asked several pointed questions about you. One was how your spaceship detected such signals and we did not by other means. Just what motivated you to break discipline and monitor Nepali C?”

  “I just thought it was irrational to exclude directly monitoring Nepali C from our mission plan. I thought at the time it posed minimal mission risk and was something the mission commander could decide.”

  It was an honest answer. Carlos had always insisted procedures be strictly followed to minimize risks. He was not about to tell Fremont about the siren’s song in his dreams.

  “I had to ask because of the intensity of President Turney’s questions,” Fremont said. “It’s also curious to me how the New Horizon was in the right place at the right time to detect the sweeping X-band beacon. Still, if you hadn’t decided to monitor for signals then, we wouldn’t know about them now. The simultaneity of events is intriguing.”

  Fremont smiled, then added, “That was a neat trick getting Eve to override its prime directive and not report changes to the mission plan. It’s a good thing Eve recognized that the captain of a vessel underway is the ultimate authority in all matters aboard that vessel. Fortunately for you, everything worked out for the best.”

  Fremont paused. “I shouldn’t tell you, but President Turney suggested we include you on the short list of candidates to lead the mission to Nepali C, should it go forward. I told him you were already on that list.”

  In spite of my erratic behavior on the Democritus mission! Carlos leaned forward and started to speak. Fremont held up a hand to stop him.

  “Now don’t get the big head about this. There are several good candidates, and the final decision is pending. So, stay focused on your job, and don’t say anything about the list. You’ll continue in rotation piloting flights to and from the space station to keep your skills honed.”

  “Thanks, Fremont. I guess that’s the best I can hope for right now.”

  “I’m sure George will keep you informed about what’s happening with our monitoring activities,” Fremont said as he stood. “I suggest you find Wilson and get involved. They can use someone who thinks on his feet and is willing to take calculated risks.”

  Carlos was encouraged by being on the list to command the mission but had to ask about something else bothering him. “Why is Earth stepping up the pace in sending people here? How can we hope to accommodate them?”

  A pained look flickered across Fremont’s face. “That’s something you shouldn’t worry about or talk about.” His expression softened. “Carlos, we know each other well, so keep this to yourself. Things are much worse on Earth than most people here know. Our civilization’s fate, our move out among the stars, will be determined in one generation. We don’t know how yet, but we’ll find a way to take care of those immigrating here.”

  It was all the answer he would get, so Carlos thanked Fremont again and went to find Wilson McGee.

  Carlos was soon immersed in the modification program and was pleased to find Samuel Osborne assigned to the team. They had worked well together on the Democritus survey mission. But he didn’t see much of Samuel now, either; he was focused on communications systems modifications, and Carlos was focused on propulsion and control systems updates.

  In addition to the modification program work, Carlos piloted shuttles to the surface of Hope or to the Moon Research Facility on average once a week. There was little time for personal pursuits, a fact he regretted each time he encountered one of the flirtatious DeLarco sisters.

  However, he did spend some precious rest-period time keeping track of the Nepali C signal monitoring activities. His primary information source was indeed George, who kept him updated on discoveries and the reaction of those on Earth to the unfolding story.

  Earth became very helpful in decoding the satellite signal links and focusing analyses efforts, quickly advancing understanding of the newfound civilization. Information gleaned from global communications links greatly expanded understanding of the Zilan civilization. From a physical perspective, the planet’s inhabitants appeared to be hominids, but no one was willing to go as far as classifying them into the Hominidae family. The males were larger than females and had bushy eyebrows across slightly prominent brow ridges above the eyes, with the forehead sloping gently back to the hairline. The males also had larger noses and slightly flared nostrils. These features were not as prominent in the females, but both sexes appeared to have weak chin structure. Overall, the inhabitants were generally comparable to humans of Earth origin but with less diversity, at least among those appearing in video data. This stimulated intense debate among philosophers, evolutionists, and religious factions on Earth, and to a lesser extent at the Messier Colony.

  The Zilan language was very pure as compared to that of Earth, and had a musical rhythm when spoken. Either the language had few slang words or there was not yet sufficient understanding of the social mores of the society for such words to be recognized. In addition, no contractions were evident in the translations. Contractions such as “it’s” for “it is,” and many others, were commonly used in the language at the Messier Colony.

  The Zilan global information links contained comprehensive education channels. The residents of the planet used centralized teaching methods, with courses presented globally over video channels. The education channels provided the character relationships and nuances needed to complete translation of the Zilan language.

  Soon after discovery of the educational channels, Earth directed the Messier Colony to finalize plans to launch a mission to Zilia as soon as possible. Work had progressed well on New Horizon modifications, but the effort had taken second priority to expansion of the Hope colony to support the expected influx of new colonists. That changed quickly.


  The ongoing modification approach minimized future risk to the spaceship and its crew. However, this meant numerous review steps and thorough, repeated testing of systems. The team estimated it would take a year and a half to complete preparations and launch the spaceship.

  Earth’s leaders harshly rejected this estimated time to launch, even though they had set the priority on preparing for the influx of colonists. The Messier team was directed to launch the mission within a year or sooner, much to their surprise and consternation, causing the modification team to go into extended work shifts at all levels, with no days off.

  Carlos didn’t mind the work hours, but he was concerned about the risks this posed for the mission. The others on the team shared his concern, but no one spoke about it openly. They had no choice but to do the best they could under the circumstances. Still, he wondered what difference six months would make in a trip of twelve years or more to the Nepali C system.

  His concerns about risk were alleviated somewhat when very few problems were discovered in the design review process. He gained even more confidence in the accelerated modification process once he knew the leader of the design team better. Gloria Ceyam was very serious about her work and very good at it.

  Gloria was also very attractive, with a slender figure, auburn hair, green eyes, and an easy smile. It didn’t take Carlos very long to become intrigued with her. However, it took him some time to work up the courage to ask her for a date, which in itself was unsettling, for he had never had any trouble approaching a woman. When he finally approached Gloria, he was bumbling as a teenager trying to get his first date.

  “Umm, Gloria, would you have dinner with me?” Their design review meeting had just broken up, and he lingered as she completed her notes. Of course, he wanted more than dinner.

  She looked up at him, still locked in thought about the design review. His timing was clearly way off. He blushed and turned to leave.