“He's doing it then!” said Margaret, staring at the screen of the tablet, propped up on its stand on the table. “He’s actually going to the moon! I thought he was joking!”
“If it is a joke, half the world’s in on it,” said Richard.
They were in one of the prefabricated housing units that had been hastily erected on the grassy field next to the airport buildings. From outside came the noises of workmen putting up more, along with the sounds of large trucks bringing more of the huge, plastic wrapped kits. The Lewis family had been given one of the first to be completed, the authorities doing their best to keep their promise to Paul Lewis to keep his family safe. The whole place still reeked of fresh glue and green pine, though, and Margaret had opened all the windows in an attempt to get some fresh air in. It made the place chilly, but that was preferable to having swimming heads from solvent fumes. According to the health and safety regulations there was no way they were supposed to be in there yet, but health and safety had become a relative term lately.
The whole family was squeezed into the one apartment, with the three women sharing one of the small bedrooms and the two men in the other. There was also a tiny bathroom and a kitchen/dining room, all on the same level. They were more than happy to be there, though. Not just in the apartment but in the airfield. Safety was more important than comfort at the moment. The airfield’s perimeter fence had been repaired and most of the injured civilians had been moved away to one of the new field hospitals. The airfield was secure once more, and armed guards patrolled the grounds.
The furniture was whatever they could find. Folding chairs, a table made of planks laid across packing crates, the whole thing covered by a bed sheet. Power for the lights and the oven came from a portable fuel cell that stood in the corner of the room. Another corner held a drum of fresh water and a distillation unit that recycled what they used. Their beds were just blankets and sleeping bags laid out on the ground. The one thing they seemed to have plenty of was blankets, even after so many of them had been cut up to make bandages. They'd even draped some of them across the windows as makeshift curtains. Margaret had no idea why an airfield needed so many blankets, but she was glad for them now. When Len had tried to go back into their old apartment block to get some personal items a pair of guards had turned him away, saying that the damage caused by the tsunami had left the building too unstable.
At the moment, they were all gathered around the table, watching the news reports. A camera on the space station was showing the shuttle receding in the distance, steady jets of fire coming from the manoeuvring thrusters that had only been designed to burn for a few minutes at a time. A commentator was naming the members of what was being called Lunar Rescue Two, and a lot of attention was being given to Eddie Nash, the scientist who had had virtually no space training and who had heroically volunteered to risk his life for the benefit of all humanity.
“What about the others?” said Richard indignantly. “They're risking their lives too!”
Hazel moved next to Margaret and slipped her hand into hers, squeezing tightly. “They wouldn’t be doing this unless it were safe, right?” she said, her voice begging her to agree.
“Depends how desperate they are...” began Len. Margaret shot him a sharp look that silenced him.
“Paul's always trying to reassure me,” Margaret said to Helen. “Whenever they make a movie set in space, they always try to make it look dangerous, to make it exciting, but Paul says it hasn't been like that for a long time. Going into space now is just like going to work on a bus.”
“Unless you're Eddie Nash,” said Cathy.
Margaret ignored her and kept talking to Hazel. “He's always telling me how safe it is in space now. He tells me how long it’s been since the last serious accident in space. I keep worrying, of course. We all worry, but the one thing uppermost in their minds when planning a mission is safety. Another death in space could set the space program back decades.”
“I suspect the crew's safety may not be their first priority this time,” said Richard, though. “So long as there's even a small chance of success...”
“They say they’re going to actually land on the moon!” said Hazel, staring at her mother desperately. “It wasn't designed to land on the moon! There are no runways on the moon!”
“They must have something figured out or they wouldn't be doing it,” said Margaret.
“But why? Why take such a risk? What if the moon stays in its new orbit? The world will survive. We’ll adapt. There's no need to risk people’s lives.”
Margaret didn't reply, she just squeezed her daughter's hand tighter. There wasn't any need to say anything. They all remembered the news broadcasts over the past few days as the world came to terms with what the moon had done to it. Conditions in British refugee camps were bad enough, with the crowded conditions and the threat of disease, but they were idyllic compared to other parts of the world. In the west coast of Africa in particular, government in many countries had broken down completely, with armed gangs roaming the countryside and entire cities taken over by local warlords.
And even in the wealthy countries of western Europe the good news seemed likely to be only temporary. Food stocks, with strict rationing, were estimated to be just enough to last until the next harvest, and that was without the future lunar perigees that would take place if Paul Lewis's mission failed. If there were more floods, more earthquakes, more tsunamis, then what was happening in Africa could very well happen elsewhere. Hazel knew this. The brutal facts were being repeated on every news broadcast until she had refused to look at them any more. Only the news of what her father was doing had brought her back.
The news that morning, before the news of the space mission had broken, had all been about London. With the waters now having receded, business was beginning to get back to normal, for the time being at least. The Prime Minister was making a big thing about remaining at Ten Downing Street for morale purposes. It was just below the twenty metre mark and so the water had only just been lapping at the doorstep. On top of that, the building had been waterproofed and the fury of the tsunami had been spent by the twisting and turning of the Thames before it got that far. A spokesman had been talking about plans to build a new seawall along the eastern side of Parliament Street to protect the western side of the city and to build a new Houses of Parliament in St James Park. London would survive, Richard Garrison had said, and would continue to be the centre of a prosperous, forward looking United Kingdom. More and more businesses were already making plans to move to higher ground, though. If the capital was going to be hit by twenty metre floods every few months, the city was likely to become a ghost town.
On the tablet, Mark Pigeon was in a television studio being interviewed by a reporter. He was looking very pleased with himself as he explained how one of his rockets had been modified to take a man into space while graphics and diagrams flashed up on a screen behind them. “They keep talking about this Eddie Nash,” protested Richard. “They're forgetting there are three more people on that shuttle.”
“I expect they'll get round to talking about all of them,” said Len. “What school they went to, what shoe size they wear. It'll be two days before they get to the moon. They'll need something to talk about until then.”
“You think they'll send reporters here?” asked Cathy. “To talk to us?”
“When they remember Eddie's not alone up there,” said Richard. “We should all think about what we're going to say to them.”
“I know what I'm going to say to them,” said Hazel acidly.
“Easy, Spud,” said Richard gently. “It's not their fault. If you want to get angry at someone, get angry at Eddie. It was probably all his idea to begin with. Saw his chance at glory. Save the world, become a hero.”
“Hey, the guy’s risking his life!” said Len. Helen turned to stare at him, her eyes wide. “I mean,” said Len hurriedly, “Some risk. A little risk. The Colibri shuttles have been flying for over ten years, after all, and there's never been a death aboard one of them.”
“But they were never designed for this!”
“But if I had to bet money, I'd say it'll be fine. Your dad’s always talking about those shuttles, saying what a great design it is. A sturdy work horse, he calls it. Everything about it is designed to keep the crew alive, no matter what kind of damage it takes.”
“So the crew can be rescued, no matter where on earth it lands,” said Hazel. “Yes, I get that, but who's going to rescue them if they can't take off from the moon again?”
“Perhaps we should turn it off for a while,” said Margaret, reaching for the tablet.
Helen reached out to stop her. “I want to see it,” she said. “I want to know how dad's doing. I want to know exactly what he’s up against up there.”
“Okay, but let’s keep positive, shall we? He's aboard a good ship with a good crew. He's going to be okay and he's going to come home.”
“When are you due to talk to him again?” asked Richard.
“Later today, at five. They said you can all come this time. I think they want to keep his mind occupied. They're worried he'll get bored or something.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“They’re not going to get cabin fever in just two days,” said Len. “People at sea can be cooped up in a small boat for weeks and they’re okay.”
“They're just playing it safe, I expect,” said Margaret. “With so much at stake, they don’t want to take any chances, and I’m glad they’re not. I'd spend all day talking to him if I could.”
“Is there any reason we can't?” asked Helen. “Surely in this day and age they can set up some kind of permanent link up.”
“They probably don’t want him distracted when he’s got work to do,” said Richard. “And this day and age isn't what it was just a couple of weeks ago. The shuttle used to communicate with Canberra by means of a network of relay satellites, but most of them aren't there any more. They have to communicate directly now, and they can only do that when they're over that part of the world. Also, their radio doesn't have much range. They were never supposed to be more than a few thousand kilometres from the nearest relay satellite. They’re expecting to lose contact with them before long. We’re lucky we can talk to them at all.”
The others nodded, and they watched the rest of the news report in silence.
☆☆☆
“Engine cut off in ten seconds,” said Benny, staring at the readout on the console in front of him.
Around him, the others were strapped into their seats. They'd been up and moving around for the past couple of hours while the small manoeuvring engines pushed the shuttle on, but for some reason the ground controllers wanted them all sitting down and strapped in when the engines were cut off. Eddie had no idea why. He would have thought that the turning off of the engines meant a lessening of the danger, not an increase, but he would have been pleased to admit that rocket engines were one of the few things he knew almost nothing about. He noticed that the others were all tensing up and he felt himself tensing up as well, even though he had no idea what he was supposed to be afraid of.
“Three, two, one...” said Benny. The faint noise and vibration that had filled the shuttle abruptly stopped, along with the very small force that had been pushing them all back against their seats. “Engine cut off successfully accomplished,” said the Swede. “We will now be coasting for forty five hours twenty minutes until we begin the deceleration burn.”
“Are we on course?” asked Paul as Eddie reached down and turned off the mass dampener.
“You're looking good, Lunar Rescue Two,” said George from the intercom speaker. “Course and speed are in the pipe. We'll keep an eye on you and tell you if you have to make a course correction later.”
“Please God we don't,” said Paul earnestly.
“I don't get it,” said Eddie. “Why are you so afraid of the engines?”
“Because we installed the pipework ourselves,” said Benny. “In four days, and none of us are even remotely qualified to do any such thing.”
“And even when the experts do it,” said Paul, “they don’t fire it up until they've spent weeks going over it again and again, looking for mistakes. Bad welds, microfractures, that kind of thing.”
“And it’s when you turn it on and off that these things tend to reveal themselves,” said Benny. “That's when it’s all under the most stress.”
“When we tow the moon, we're going to be turning the engines on and off again every few seconds for several hours,” said Eddie.
“Please don't remind us,” said Paul, and Eddie could have sworn there was actual fear in his voice. Good God, he thought. What have I gotten myself into?
Paul turned back to the monitor screen on the console in front of him, where George Jefferson's face was looking out at him. “How's the weather?” he asked.
“Looking good,” George replied. ‘The Sun’s calm and peaceful. No solar flares, and no sign of any developing. I think you have every chance of getting there and back without incident.”
Paul nodded, and Eddie relaxed as well. The shuttles, European and Chinese both, had never been designed to leave the protection of the Earth’s magnetic field and so were vulnerable to radiation, especially radiation from the sun. If a large solar flare were to erupt while the shuttle was away from the Earth, the shuttle might well arrive at the moon with only corpses aboard. So long as the sun remained calm, though, they would only receive the equivalent of a whole body CT scan over the entire duration of their mission. Even so, though, Benny was turning the shuttle to put the fuel tanks between them and the sun, to reduce their exposure as much as possible.
As a consequence, the moon was directly ahead of them in the cockpit window. A featureless dull grey sphere now almost reduced to its normal size as it continued to recede from the Earth. It was slowing down, crawling through space, as if pausing to catch its breath after its mad dash past the Earth and gathering its strength ready for its next devastating plunge, bringing more chaos and destruction. More floods, more earthquakes. More tsunamis. Unless they could stop it and drag it back into its proper orbit. Eddie felt himself beginning to tremble as he contemplated the magnitude of what they were on their way to attempt and what the consequences of failure might be.
He snapped himself out of his gloomy thoughts. “So,” he said. “Two days. What are we going to do to pass the time?”
“Pray,” said Susan. “Pray for guidance and wisdom.”
“For two days? I know, how about I spy with my little eye something beginning with...”
“Eddie,” said Paul, a warning tone in his voice. “Don’t.”
“If we're going to just sit here for two days, the time's going to drag,” said Eddie. “Maybe I should have brought a good book.”
“There's plenty of books in the shuttle's memory,” said Benny. “If you want one we haven't got, you can upload it next time we're in contact with Canberra.”
“Yeah, I wasn't actually serious about the reading. Fiction’s always seemed a bit pointless to me.”
“We've got biographies, histories, collections of essays on all subjects...”
“Yeah. Seriously though, what do astronauts do to pass the time? What did the Apollo astronauts do while they were on their way to the Moon?”
“Mission control generally gives us things to do to occupy our minds. On the space station, there’s always plenty of routine housekeeping duties that need doing.”
“You can show me how to convert your mass dampener into a mass amplifier,” said Paul, releasing his seat straps and allowing himself to float out of his couch. “In case anything, you know.”
“In case I die before we get there,” said Eddie. “Yeah, okay. Makes sense.” He unfastened his own seat straps and allowed himself to float upwards. He and Paul then turned themselves upside down so that the metal case containing the mass dampener, which had been fastened to the bulkhead beside his feet, was now on the wall level with their heads. “This being weightless sure has its advantages sometimes,” he said.
“It really does,” agreed Paul. “We've got twice as much space as you’d think.”
Eddie undid the latches and opened the front of the case. Inside, a tangled mass of components gleamed in the light of the cabin LEDs. “Frank wrote a users manual for this thing, explaining what each component is and what we think it does.”
“Yes, I've read it,” replied Paul. “We all have.”
“You all have?” Eddie looked around at Susan and Benny. “You may come to regret that. This is going to be the world’s most tightly regulated technology, even more so than nuclear weapons. Anyone who knows how to make one of these is going to be watched for the rest of their lives. If you think being on the sex offenders register is bad, that’s nothing to what you've let yourselves in for. Imagine if a terrorist figures out how to make one of these.”
“I can imagine,” said Benny from the Captain's seat.
“Can you? The amount by which they reduce mass is fixed, but the volume they affect grows with the amount of power you put into it. Imagine if you attached this very device here to an industrial generator capable of powering a city.”
“It would melt, or explode, surely,” said Benny.
“It wouldn't. Most of the power goes elsewhere, into another dimension or something. It would reduce the mass of everything within a radius of several kilometres by seventy six percent. Now you might think that wouldn't mean much...”
“The atmosphere,” said Benny. “It would reduce the mass of the air itself.”
“Clever man,” said Eddie. “The air would rise, as if it were less dense, as if it were hot or made of helium. Air would rush in to fill the low pressure region created. You'd have hurricane force winds rushing in from all directions while the rising air would probably spin, like a cyclone. Do it in the middle of a city and the city would be devastated, and you can make one of these with components easily purchased from any supplier of lab equipment. No need for plutonium or any other controlled substance.”
“You said earlier that it might one day be possible to create a device that can reduce mass by ninety nine percent,” said Paul. “If one of those were connected to an industrial generator...”
“You saw what the Chinese device did to the moon,” said Eddie. “A mass dampener could literally destroy the world. I can't tell you how happy I am that there are none of the original alien devices left on Earth, and I hope it’s a long time before we create a device that can match their performance. Imagine if one of them were to fall into the hands of one of those religious nuts who thinks the world has to end before the Day of Judgement can happen. So just imagine how closely you’ll be watched from now on. Every friend you make, every conversation you have, every email you send, for the rest of your life. You may have bodyguards, in case terrorists try to kidnap you. Bad guys may try to kidnap your loved ones to make you talk. The knowledge you now have will be a curse from which there’s no escape.”
“Maybe they'll make mass amplifiers all around the world, to cancel out the effects of a terrorist mass dampener,” suggested Benny. He looked scared as the meaning of Eddie's words sank in.
“A mass amplifier in the hands of a terrorist would be just as devastating,” said Eddie.
“And you’re working on these devices?” said Paul. “There are people who hate the inventors of nuclear weapons, who hate the people who make and service them. That'll probably be nothing compared to how much you’re going to be hated.”
“Even after we use it to save the world,” agreed Eddie. “I can tell you now that I'm not going to be doing any more work on the mass dampener. Other people will, I know that, but I just can't. Not knowing what they're capable of. There are plenty of other things in the alien spacecraft to study. I'll probably focus on coherent matter instead.”
“That might also make a terrible weapon,” said Paul.
“I suppose,” Eddie agreed, “but that's true for every scientific advance we make. We're already capable of destroying the world with what we’ve got. There are just as many nuclear weapons in the world as there have ever been. The danger with the mass dampener is that they can be so small. The aliens created a device that can destroy a planet and that's so small that it fits comfortably in your pocket. That’s what I want no more part of, but science still has to advance. If we succeed, the mass dampener will save millions of lives. Who knows how much benefit the next great breakthrough will bring?”
The others just looked at him and Eddie found himself growing suddenly self conscious. He'd never been one for speeches, but that one had just popped out of him as if he’d been rehearsing it for weeks. He hadn't realised how strongly he felt about it until the words were actually coming out of his mouth, but now that he’d said it he knew that he meant every word. If he got back to Earth alive he was finished with mass dampeners. He felt a powerful sense of disbelief at how casually Ben Wrexham and the others had taken the prototype dampener to Martinique on a commercial flight with only a couple of hired private security guards to look after it. That had been before they realised just what a Pandora’s box they'd opened.
“Anyway,” he said, dragging himself back to the here and now. “To turn a mass dampener into a mass amplifier. Well, the first thing you have to remember is to be very, very careful. Some of these components are very fragile, and I wasn't able to bring any spare parts, because of the weight. You break it, you bought it. We've all bought it.” He looked up at Paul to make sure he understood. The serious look on his face told him he did.
“So, basically, you have to swap these two components around, but to do that you first have to dismantle this assembly here...”