Venus in real color image courtesy NASA.
As the Eisenhower approached its closest point to Venus Banner donned his spacesuit and joined the few members of the crew with nothing better to do in the shuttle bay where the air had been evacuated and the hanger door rolled back to open vacuum. Venus looked like a moldy peach below them. To his surprise Dr. Cartouche, the head of the science team, was there, watching through the open door.
“I thought you’d be in the lab working.”
“Oh, I’m going back soon,” she said. “We dropped the probes several hours ago and there’s not much happening until they settle into the atmosphere. It was a good time to have a look at the real thing.”
The clouds that girdled the planet below may have looked serene but were in fact violent gusts of acid laden sky. The color reminded Banner of dirty smoke, like in the old days when the farmers could still burn their fields before the spring planting.
Banner was used to looking at Earth’s clouds from orbit. Here what he was seeing were clouds on top of clouds, variations of ocher with lighter patches of sulfur dioxide. The coloring was much subtler than he had expected given that in the pictures of Venus he usually saw the color contrasts were heightened and filtered. He also hadn’t expected the clouds to be so dazzling bright.
The others drifted back inside as the sun passed behind the darkened planet but, oddly, Mary Ellen Cartouche remained with him. Standing together at the edge of the open hanger door the stars in the dark sky shone with an intensity Banner never got tired of seeing. Cartouche gave his arm a gentle tug, pointing towards Venus’ dark crescent.
“Look closely,” she murmured. “Tell me if you can see lightning.”
He wasn’t sure, but there, maybe. . . . With a slight tic his helmet touched hers.
“The first time we knew about the lightning was when the Venera probe heard thunder but no one’s ever seen it. That’s one of the things we’re looking for.”
“Is it like Earth lightning?”
“No, we think it has something to do with particulate matter expelled by volcanoes,” she gave a warm, husky laugh. “But we’ve never seen that either.” She pronounced it eye-ther. Startled, he wondered if she had stayed behind for other reasons than the sights they were seeing. She was giving him a “right chat-up” as Stubbs would say with an affected British accent, but still . . .
He put a gloved hand on her shoulder, pointing towards the brightening edge of the planet. “We’re about to become the only two people to watch the sun rise over Venus.”
He felt her leaning against him, although in microgravity with two pressurized space suits between them it was more a gesture of good will than anything else. More quickly than he could have imagined the sun broke from behind the planet and they quickly moved back into the shadow where they faced each other. He tried to imagine what she looked like behind the gold shield of her visor. Short brown hair, a sincere look in those hazel eyes, dark eyebrows, soft, full lips. She liked to laugh, he knew that. He wondered briefly if she had someone back home but supposed that it didn’t matter since she was going back and he was not.
“Burn in fifteen,” said Lieutenant Astraios. “Strap in.”
“I have to get back to my station,” she said. “Why don’t you drop by in a few hours and have a look at what we’ve found.”
“I’d like that,” he smiled. Although she couldn’t see him, she could hear it in his voice.
He made it to his station with just enough time to strap in and flick his “present” key.
“About time, Mr. Brummett.”
“Sorry, sir.” When there’s no excuse, don’t bother giving one.
ØØØ
“Much of the human condition is caused by fighting one’s own body and its ‘mind,’ as it were.”
Sak listened to Christain without much interest.
“As if fighting the ‘other mind’ wasn’t hard enough,” he sighed as his voice slowly settled down.
Sak left him there like Hamlet on a cloudy day. At the gym Kirin and Venetia were working out. Kirin had that “Eva Braun” thing going that he might have liked, but he knew from experience that she was no waif.
Sak jumped onto the treadmill so that he could watch while they worked out, less out of sexual interest than his interest in their fighting technique. They were playing Pfadfinder—a virtual roleplaying game on a court that was tapered like an alkaloid rhombus. It was an old military exercise that had recently been turned into a Virtual TV reality sport much to the old guard’s disgust.
Kirin was a big, strong woman, a Valkyrie of German Cultural Alliance propaganda—they used her image all the time. Venetia, on the other hand, was small, dark, and wiry. Acceptable for Service—after all, Hitler had been small, dark, and wiry—but suspicious nonetheless. Even so she’d be unable to get a Reproduction Card if she ever asked. . . .
Unlike most physical sports, Pfadfinder didn’t reward the most physically fit, but those with stealth, cunning, swift reflexes, and dexterity. Strength and physicality were important but not essential as it was in soccer or basketball. He watched Venetia slithering across the room, avoiding god knows what that only the two of them could see; maybe the aggressive feints Kirin was giving—god, the woman looked like she could fuck a plowhorse—but the movements seemed too disjointed in time for them to be fighting each other. So they must be teaming.
Sak hacked their visuals, seeing with disgust that they were roleplaying some dumb-ass Nordic heroic tale—big boobs, monstrous breastplates, large swords, fluttering scarves, a bald necromancer nearby opposing them with his hoard of the damned—the whole nine yards. At least they could be said to be working well together. He turned away from them, browsing idly for awhile before settling into his workout regime. He loaded Routine Albatross 13, a favorite WWII epic where he ran around Stalingrad climbing over ruins while avoiding snipers and cutting a throat here and there. Mostly it was about picking up heavy objects and running with them.
A loud noise and flash of light jolted him awake. “Goddamned tanks!” he cursed. He’d just have to blow the cocksuckers up. He ran back to the depot for explosive. He could have ignored the many dead soldiers he encountered in the ruins but he was fascinated by the limitless ways men could die. These images had been lovingly recreated from pictures taken during the Second World War. It was nasty, horrible, funny, and pathetic, almost as exciting as the real thing. Even the smell seemed authentic.
At HQ they gave him the explosives, no questions asked, but before he could return he was asked to follow an ashen-faced corporal into a private room, where he was set upon by a Russian infiltration team. He killed the pallid man who had been leading him easily, stabbing him in the back with his bayonet. The second one couldn’t fight worth a fuck and Sak quickly dispatched him. The other two were far better skilled and writhed out of his grasp while landing hard punches that he couldn’t physically feel but slowed him down nonetheless, reducing his hit points. He realized that he wasn’t just fighting the game anymore, but real opponents and that meant . . .
“Venetia! Kirin!” he roared, dropping the visuals to see the two of them laughing from their stations. “Corny scenario, Arne!” Venetia jibed.
“We thought you needed a better workout, boss,” Kirin added, reinitializing the game. They let him chase them through the Stalingrad ruins for awhile before losing him. Realizing that he was in a different part of the city than he’d ever been he started back to HQ. Big black crows were picking through the corpses. He could see hundreds of them flying above the ruined buildings, calling to one another loudly.
He overheard someone nearby speaking in Russian, realizing he had strayed beyond the battle lines. It would do major damage to his score if he got caught this way. On the other hand, he was already here and had a big pack full of explosives ready to go. Sak skulked about the ruins until he came to what looked like a communications outpost. He didn’t have time for subtlety so he set the fuse and flung it amongst a group of surprised officers while leaping behind a convenient stone wall. Pieces of bodies dropped on him. When he looked all he could see was the smoke from the explosion so he quickly left, hoping to report back to the General directly so that they could take advantage of this incursion. He had just about started to breath easier when a loud explosion deafened him while a fatal white light blinded him. He gasped sinking to his knees. He’d forgotten about the tank and it had finally picked him off.
Disappointed, he turned off his *pod™ as Stalingrad dissolved into an empty gym.
ØØØ
The Eisenhower’s journey to Venus had been the quickest on record, even though they had already passed its orbit once while falling inward towards the Sun, well within the orbit of Mercury. The science crew gathered a lot of data there, for the day when industry would decide to mine the Sun’s corona. On the way back out they skimmed by Venus, taking advantage of its momentum to gain velocity for their return to Earth.
In the space assigned to the lab the video screens were unrolled everywhere, some showing unbroken, dusky mist, others glowing in the ultraviolet or infrared.
“We’re mostly collecting information at this point and relaying it back to Earth,” Mary Ellen told Banner. “We do have a few hundred rovers on the surface but they’re still being evaluated and unpacked. They’re little beggers, about the size of your hand. A stationary lander is relaying pictures of the surface.”
There was the strange sight of a dark valley stretching beneath them and mountains beyond. A bright streak jagged through the sky.
“Was that . . . ?”
Cartouche smiled. “Lightning? Yes, Banner, we’ve found our culprit.”
A rumbling was heard.
“Yes, yes, we’re listening as well. Everything helps.”
“I read a lot about it as a kid. The pictures from Venera were cool, especially when they fixed the data.”
“Wait’ll you see our stuff,” she crowed. “We’re looking at everything!”
“I know. I helped unpack it.”
“Our mother-rovers are built like effing lorries,” she continued enthusiastically. “There is nothing in them to break, or melt, or overheat. In fact, they run on the heat, little steam engines, like locomotives. The difference is that their fire is outside the boiler. As long as we keep them fueled they’ll keep running. Most of the electronics is upstairs in a plane, balloon, or satellite where heat is no problem.”
“I’m more fascinated by the aerostat you launched.”
“Proof of concept, no blokes there yet, of course. It’s well known that you can float a colony, like a raft, on the thick, hot carbon dioxide layer by simply inflating the structure with regular air. It floats about 50 kilometers above the planet’s surface, well above the heat and pressure. We released a model—Landis Station—and, depending on the data, a habitat with crew aboard could be placed within five or ten years.
“Stupid,” Banner said, awed.
“Very stupid.”
ØØØ
Five days after Venus encounter they finally lit the torch—torches—of their thousands of ion thrusters. It took Lomaine 48 hours of preparation before she was ready to commit the ship and she was too nervous to hold still for long, prowling Engineering like an unkempt meerkat.
Banner helped where he could, running errands and catering for the engineers.
“We start by warming the whole thing up,” she explained while sipping the coffee he’d brought and staring at the telemetry. “We stuff the lithium into a hopper where it’s teased into gas and delivered to one of our thousands of little motors that ionizes it to within an inch of its life before kicking it out the back door. That’s why the Ike is such a hot rod . . . for ion drive, I mean.”
“I can hardly wait for some weight.”
“You’ll feel it, sure. We’ll be able to bossa nova.” She rammed him with her hip.
“But never very well,” he muttered, banging off the console.
“Oops,” she looked around contritely before breaking into a laugh. “You always were too bony!”
“Yeah, it’s always my fault.”
“Commander Ireton,” she said, her tone of voice keying the console. “We’re ready.”
He replied simply, “Go at our mark.”
“This is it!” she said nervously, typing in a password, which was immediately rejected. “Darn, I knew I should have written it down,” she muttered. “Banner, what’s Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday?”
“Uh, February something?”
Lomaine smiled, “01-f1FteEn-19tw*9.” She hit enter.
Banner didn’t notice anything at first. He had retreated to the far part of the room, well out of the way, while he watched them working. Gradually, he became aware of the room moving around him. Fascinated at first, he continued watching passively as the deck rose to meet him like a monstrous fly swatter.
“Ow!” He hollered, landing with a thwack. From the habitat above came the muted sounds of unsecured objects crashing throughout the structure.
“Somebody didn’t read the memo,” she frowned down at Banner on the wall—now floor. “Sounds like you’ve got a mess to clean up.”
He tried standing. “Very nice,” he said, bending his knees and hopping lightly. “Enough to be useful, but not enough to be annoying.” He climbed up to the hatch, which opened for him like the iris of his old man’s film camera, the one he’d broken while taking it apart.
Up in the habitat Sergio Biscone was looking at the devastated south forty. Tools, light ribbons, sprout rails, and other detritus were strewn about everywhere. “Save as much as you can,” he muttered while passing out the APRs (Amorphous Particle Retrievers AKA bags).
After they cleaned up the mess they started reconfiguring the biosphere’s watering system. The mild acceleration wouldn’t cause a major disruption because most was covered by system programming, but there were physical changes they had to make every time they turned the ion drive on or off.
At last they were able to turn on the fountainhead at the very top of the habitat. With aching slowness a blob of water grew there. It looked like jelly, rippling continuously as it bulged outwards. The constant thrust of the ion drive was just enough to encourage the water downward, but instead of cascading, as it would in strong gravity, hydrogen bonding—the force that allows water to climb against gravity up the capillaries of the tallest trees—continued holding the water together. The bubble of liquid grew alarmingly until it became elongated, like a huge drop about to fall from a faucet. Instead, it met the head end of the fountain—a slightly concave disk with a halo of thin mesh, which encouraged the water towards the sides of the biosphere. There the mesh divided into hollow strings, acting as conduits for the water, which continued falling along the sides of the sphere where they could use it to nourish the ancillary gardens. Bundles of strands combined near the habitats where they became sparkling rivulets of water cascading—actually, oozing—down falls and through fountains. At the bottom of the habitat, what water remained collected into a pond stocked with freshwater fish and plants.
Sergio was in his office-space fretting about the die-off in his biomass but so far the readings showed nothing unusual happening.
Banner looked over the north forty where they planned to grow wheat, soybeans, and rape. The bundles of FIENAPs were like bouquets of dead white flowers. It was not so different from grandpa Carl planting his seed in the spring. “You went all that way to be a farmer?” he’d heard his Dad laugh when they were close enough to Earth for two-way conversation to be half-way enjoyable again.
Taking a tray of sprouts to row zb8495 he began quickly attaching them to the apparatus, occasionally giving the tubing a good squeeze to get it going. Having “gravity” back (acceleration, if you prefer), even if insubstantial, seemed really strange within their huge vault, which now yawned beneath him. He had to make use of the hand and foot holds that he’d mostly ignored before, not to mention the hassle of keeping his carabiner deployed. A fall from this height probably wouldn’t kill him but it sure would hurt.
Once he’d finished a row he loosed a ribbon of grow-light, attaching it to the adjustable framework overhead. Then he texted the server with the info it needed, squeezed the feeder a few more times, and moved to the next row. By noon he had a pretty good field started.
Looking around the chamber he could see areas that had already begun to “green up” substantially.
He had lunch Downside with the bio crew amidst the stand of saplings that were spouting aggressively near the retention pond.
“Once you’ve squeezed the apple and get all its juice you’ll throw the rind away and that’s when my beetles get to work!” Sergio harrumphed.
“I don’t know, mano, I think a lot more research needs to be done before we start introducing insects to space.”
“They’re here already whether you want them or not,” Francine shrugged happily. “You just haven’t found them yet.”
ØØØ
In his spare time—when he should have been sleeping—Banner spruced up his little home area, encouraging coleus, herbs, and vines along his perimeter. He dreamed of someday having enough growth that he could ditch the tent. The water falling nearby made enough racket that he actually felt like he had a little privacy now, not that he had that much use for privacy, at least not until Mary Ellen finally showed up.
After Venus encounter she had worked for three straight days before collapsing and then three weeks more before she found any time for Banner. By then they were almost back to Earth.
“Nice flat,” she said looking around. “I do nothing but sleep at mine,” she shrugged.
“I’m going to be living here for a quite while longer,” he smiled, showing her around. “These shoots will grow great big leaves and you won’t even be able to see Commander Ireton’s privy from here any more.”
“Oh, what’s wrong with the cat?” she said moving past him, picking up Camus, who gnurlted meekly.
“He hates gravity.”
“Poor kitty,” she held him in her arms. “Is it dangerous for him?”
“Fuh, we’ve built him up in the centrifuge, this should be nothing, but he likes to complain.”
He reached out to pet Camus on the back, his hand touching her arm. Their eyes met and he kissed her. Camus felt crowded so he escaped, leaving them laughing. “I thought I was here for dinner,” she said, smiling.
“Sit here,” he led her by the shoulders to a gossamer white chair that actually felt quite comfortable once you were plugged into it properly.
“White or red wine?”
“White,” she said surprised.
“Good, I can leave out the dye.”
He brought out two small unit containers, like shot glasses, only square. “First crop, kinda hurried along,” he grimaced apologetically. They toasted one another and she didn’t quite gag. “Too sharp is better that too sweet,” she finally said.
“It’ll be better out at Pluto after it’s aged.” This statement didn’t have the effect he’d imagined.
“Banner, are we going to eat? I haven’t had a shred in a day and a half and I’m starving!”
“Sorry. I’ve got some chicken flavored soy-brick or would you prefer a rasher of Tanquomyle?”
“Is that all that’s left?” she said, horrified.
“Oh, and this tofu Tetrazzini I had laying around, somewhere.” He popped open his microwave, gingerly grabbing a container and placing it on the table. He then brought out bags of greens and a squirt bottle of dressing, a light French-like bread, and water.
“Dig in, this is Stubbs’s favorite recipe. He says it works every time.”
“Works?”
“Oh, ah, you know.”
She looked at him glacially.
“Gets, ah, people in the mood,” he admitted ruefully.
“What kind of mood?” she asked suspiciously, then laughed.
“That’s what Stubbs says. I’ve never actually tried it before so you better eat-up so we can find out.”
As usual, Stubbs was right about matters of the heart. “I like you, handyman yob,” she confessed afterwards, kissing him.
“But I have a PhD!” he replied, defensively as she laughed out loud, warm thigh pressing against his spiral yardarm. They were tangled in the web of his bed, like two fat flies in a spider’s den.
“Does that make you overqualified?” she smirked.
“Just underpaid.” Not for the first time he noticed the freckles on her nose, the calm merriment in her eyes. And soon she’d be gone. Life was simpler without this . . . loss, he thought sadly, but not worth living.
ØØØ
Compared to the Eisenhower it was claustrophobic inside the Korolyov, which was more of a submarine than a space vehicle, floating inside a giant bladder of water. Water they hoped to replenish on the other end of their voyage. Ugly from the outside, she supposed it was ugly on the inside, too. Fortunately she spent most of her time working in her gardens.
Or floating in the tank. Yynerdii had introduced her to that pleasure. The especially flat, clear water between the hull and the outer bladder was eventually to be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen would then be shoveled through the reactor with the oxygen serving as an afterburner. Crude, powerful, and much less efficient than the Allies’ ion engine, which would pass them for good sometime outside of Saturn’s orbit, probably, but the concept was simple and reliable.
Used as a heat sink for the reactor, the waters were improbably warm. They donned the scuba gear that was available for the engineers. It was dark inside except for a few orange safety lights shining wanly in the distance. Swimming without gravity was a lot easier than trying to cross open air because you could grab onto water where you would just flail like an idiot in air. Swimming laps inside the big prophylactic tank was exhilarating and a good workout. Of course Yynerdii had another kind of workout in mind, boffing her against the submarine’s aft side, but that was a pleasure, too, like having sex inside a womb. And nothing stopped her from going back later for a swim with other friends.
Except for the two hours a day she spent in the centrifuge life wasn’t all that bad. The centrifuge, also known as the “washer/dryer,” was small, with just enough room for a couple of people to work out on the machines. The spin left her dizzy for up to a half-hour afterwards and a little sick to the stomach. Pir had been nearly killed when the bearings had seized sending weights, bandages, and a 50-liter carboy of sports drink ratcheting around with her inside the room. She had been lucky to get away with just bruises and a dislocated shoulder.
They’d let her recuperate in what the crew called Hell’s Half-acre—Sophie’s garden, an anarchy of riotous plantlife. It was their refuge when they’d stared at the gray walls for too long or tired of the light-green porridge that was called breakfast hash.
“Funny, the doctor being the first one injured,” Sophie laughed over morning coffee.
Pir frowned, “That’s why there are two of us.”
They were in a little alcove near the hatch where Sophie kept amenities. They both wore regulation gray jumpsuits with the bright red, white, and blue coalition patch. Sophie’s suit was stained, torn, and smelled a little of sweat. Pir wore flowers in her hair. Her scent was pleasantly neutral.
“I talked with Mikhail today,” she added. “The time lag from Earth is still tolerable.”
“How is he?”
“He’s being brave but I can tell he’s still hurt. Hell, I am too,” she moved her arm with a wince. “And it was my idea.”
“Lovers come and go,” Sophie sighed. “It’s leaving my family that bothers me the most. I have no children of my own, obviously, but nephews and nieces that I’ll miss growing up. How close can you really be by email? How about you?”
Pir smiled wanly. “I was an only child. Most of my grandparent’s generation disappeared in the war. My parents are gone, too, so there is only me.”
Sophie could think of nothing to say. They both watched a honeybee buzz her cup forlornly. She shoed it away.
“It’s not quite that bad!” Pir burst out laughing. “I have friends, of course, and some of them are as close as family. I just mean that in some ways I’m more fortunate than those who left family behind.”
“It’s not like we’ll be gone forever.”
“Of course not,” Pir replied none too certainly.
While she was there Sophie made her work, albeit slowly because of her injury. She enjoyed caring with the livestock. The rabbits had already doubled their population and the chickens were laying like they were back on the farm.
“We didn’t have a garden when I was a child,” she told Sophie. “We lived too close to Chernobyl.”
“Surely you could grow flowers?”
“Well, yes. We just couldn’t bring them inside.”
That afternoon they processed a tank of plankton. They squeezed, dried, and powdered most of the crop but Sophie kept a few weeds aside and for lunch they ate an acceptable, if stringy, fresh green salad with their meal.
“Things will be better once the first crops come through,” said Sophie. “We’ll have lettuce soon and some other early vegetables shortly after.”
“That will be nice. We’re all tired of the supplement already.”
“It’ll be better soon. I promise,” Sophie replied.
Sophie’s bay was at the front of the hull, where the torpedoes would normally have been if this was actually a submarine and not a lightweight copy of one. The thin aluminum hull had been manufactured on the Moon and tossed towards Earth in pieces by the Gagarin mass driver at St. Leninsburg. From there they were eased into low earth orbit and glued together like an overly large plastic model.
The first airlock led into an open storage area, packed tight with supplies and thin pathways between the bundles. They pulled themselves along until the corridor widened, stopping at a bulkhead where they climbed “down” several levels to another airlock. Inside, the corridor led off past the crew quarters. Anyone there at this time of day was probably sleeping so they moved along quietly. Sophie checked her planters while Pir stopped by her quarters to change into whites. When she came out Sophie saw that she had removed the flowers from her hair. “Back to work!” she smiled.
“Pir!” Ikko Kamaradi cried as they entered the medical galley. He immediately began fussing with the sling that kept her shoulder still. Then he studied her battered face. “I’m more concerned with how you’ll feel going back in the exercise chamber.”
“I’m all right,” she sniffed. “Seriously, I’ve had worse accidents in training.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well, snowboarding, anyway. Anything exciting going on here?”
Ikko gave Sophie a quick smile. “I’ve been forcing people to come in for checkups out of boredom. That’s all. I’ve about worn our practice dummy out practicing.”
Sophie left the two of them preparing the dummy for a faux surgery, pulling herself up to the command deck. It was spacious because most of the hardware was unnecessary and had been removed. They controlled the entire ship from a large viewscreen and a pair of Godboxes®. Ekrim was on-duty but there wasn’t much to do so he was riding the bike and either practicing a disaster scenario or watching anime, she couldn’t tell which. “Hey, little angel, a sunny sight for sore eyes!”
“What’s going on?”
“We got a burn coming up in a few days and then nothing,” he shrugged, “for a few weeks. I’ll probably go on vacation in Moscow while I wait.”
“Good luck with that,” she grinned.
“What’s this civilian doing on my bridge!” Captain Nikolai Matroshka growled from behind them. He pulled himself near, but he was smiling.
“I just stopped by to make sure you weren’t killing my plants.”
“We love your plants, yes, Ekrim?”
“They taste good.”
She just shook her head, pulling herself over to an instrument bay that was unneeded and empty. She had installed grasses and broadleaf plants, whose main function was to produce oxygen. It was all new growth so there was very little detritus to clear from the trap. She hummed happily to herself, which gave some delight to the men listening nearby.
“Ha, look at this!” Matroshka keyed the screen and a picture from outside appeared on the right side. In the middle they could see the oblong shape and dusky coloring of the Eisenhower. “They’re approaching Earth and should reach there in a few days. The vehicles they’re rendezvousing with have already been launched and are positioning themselves now. We’ll be playing tag with them all the way to Jupiter.”
“Then what?”
Matroshka thought for awhile. “Inevitably they will pass us.”
“We could leave them a few presents around Jupiter,” Bodoyev growled.
Matroshka looked over at Sophie speculatively but she went about her business without reacting. “That would be an act of war, Ekrim,” he said evenly, “and not for us to decide.”
“Just sayin’,” he used the Americanism unconsciously. Matroshka decided not to mention it.
“All done,” Sophie announced. “Nikolai, Pir and Ikko wanted me to invite you to a dinner and a movie tonight. Can you come?”
“If I can get someone to cover for me.” He looked at Ekrim.
“All right, boss,” the man shrugged helplessly. “Moscow can wait.”
