Asteroid Wars - The Precipice Part 40

Amanda said, "Then its official name will be 41-014 Fuchs."

"How's it feel to have your name on an asteroid, Lars?" Pancho asked. "Very fine," Fuchs said.

"You're the first person to have his name attached to a newly-discovered asteroid in years," years," Amanda said. She seemed almost aglow, to Dan. Amanda said. She seemed almost aglow, to Dan.

"Most of the new rocks have been found by the impact searchers," Pancho said. "Those li'l bitty probes don't get their names into the record."

"Asteroid 41-014 Fuchs," Amanda breathed.

He smiled and shrugged-squirmed, almost, as if embarra.s.sed by her enthusiasm.

"The official name's one thing," Dan said. "I'm calling her Bonanza."

"Her?" Fuchs asked.

"Asteroids are feminine?" Pancho challenged.

Dan held his ground. "Hey, we speak of Mother Earth, don't we? And they call Venus our sister planet, don't they?"

"What about Mars?" Pancho retorted.

"Or Jupiter," said Amanda.

Pointing to the lump imaged on the radar screen, Dan insisted, "Bonanza's going to make us all rich. And very happy. She and her sisters are going to save the world. She's a female."

"Sure she's female," Pancho said laconically. "You want to dig into her, don't you?"

Fuchs sputtered and Amanda said, "Pancho, really!"

Dan put on an innocent air. "What a dirty mind you have, Pancho. I admire that in a woman."

Within three hours they were close enough to Bonanza to see it for themselves: a dark, deformed shape glinting sullenly in the wan light of the distant Sun. The asteroid blotted out the stars as it tumbled slowly end over end in the cold empty silence of s.p.a.ce.

"... eighteen hundred and forty-four meters along its long axis," Amanda was reading out the radar measurements. "Seven hundred and sixty-two meters at its maximum width."

"Nearly two kilometers long," Dan mused. He hadn't left the bridge all during their approach to the metallic asteroid.

"Killing residual thrust," Pancho said, her attention focused on the control displays.

"Throttling down to zero," Amanda confirmed.

The asteroid slid out of view as the pilots established a parking orbit around it. Dan felt what little weight remaining dwindle away to nothing. He floated up off the deck, stopped himself with a hand against the overhead.

He felt Fuchs come through the hatch behind him.

"Lars, we're going to be in zero g g for a while," Dan said. for a while," Dan said.

"I know. I think I'm getting accustomed to it."

"Good. Just don't make any sudden head movements and you'll be fine."

"Yes. Thank-mein gott! There it is!" There it is!"

The dark lopsided bulk of Bonanza rose in front of the bridge windows like some pitted, pockmarked monster, huge, overawing, menacing. Despite himself, Dan felt a wave of unease surge through him. It's like confronting an ogre, he thought, a giant beast from a fairy tale.

"Look at those striations!" Fuchs said, his voice vibrant with excitement. "This must have been broken off from a much larger body, perhaps a planetesimal from the early age of the solar system! We've got to get outside and take samples, drill cores!"

Dan broke into laughter. Fuchs turned toward him, looking confused. Even Pancho glanced over her shoulder.

"What so funny, boss?"

"Nothing," Dan said, trying to sober himself. "Nothing." Inwardly, though, he marveled that the same sight that brought back to him memories of childhood dread stirred Fuchs into a a frenzy of scientific curiosity. frenzy of scientific curiosity.

"Come on," Fuchs said, ducking past the hatch. "We've got to suit up and go outside."

Dan nodded his agreement and followed the scientist. He's forgotten about zero-g, Dan realized. He's not worried about upchucking now, he's got too much work that he wants to do.

Amanda remained on the bridge as Pancho followed Dan down to the airlock.

"You're not thinkin' of goin' EVA, are you?" she asked Dan.

"I've been a qualified astronaut since before you were born, Pancho."

"You've been redlined. You can't go outside."

"And rain makes applesauce."

"I mean it, Dan," Pancho said, quite seriously. "Your immune system can't take another radiation dose."

"Fuchs can't go out there by himself," he countered.

"That's my job. I'll go with him."

"Nope. You stay here. I'll babysit him."

"I'm the captain of this craft," Pancho said firmly. "I can order you to stay inside."

He gave her a crooked grin. "And I'm the owner. I can fire you."

"Not till we get back to Selene."

Dan huffed out an impatient sigh. "Come on, Pancho, stop the chickens.h.i.+t."

"Your medical records say-"

"Dammitall to h.e.l.l and back, I don't care what the medical records say! I'm going out! I want to see see this sucker! Touch her with my own hands." this sucker! Touch her with my own hands."

"No gloves?"

They had reached the airlock, where the s.p.a.cesuits hung in racks like suits of armor on display. Fuchs was sitting on the bench that ran in front of the racks, already into the lower half of his suit, sealing the boots to the cuffs of his leggings. Dan reached for the suit that bore his name stenciled on its chest.

"I thought you were scared of the radiation," Pancho said.

"I'll be okay inside the suit," Dan said. "The weather's calm out there; no radiation storm."

Fuchs looked up at them, said nothing.

"The regulations say-"

"The regulations say you're not supposed to bring pets aboard," Dan said, grinning again as he pulled the lower half of his suit from its rack and sat down beside Fuchs. "But I've got to look into my shoes every morning to make sure your d.a.m.ned snake isn't curled up inside one of them."

"Snake?" Fuchs yelped, looking alarmed.

Pancho planted her fists on her hips and glared down at Dan for a long moment. Then she visibly relaxed.

"Okay, boss," she said at last. "I guess I can't blame you. But I'm gonna monitor your vitals back on the bridge. If I say come in, you come in. Right then. No arguments. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Dan replied instantly. A voice in his head was laughing mockingly. Are you satisfied? the voice asked. You've shown her that you're not a sick old man. Big deal. How are you going to feel when the cold clamps down on you and your bones start hurting again?

Doesn't matter, Dan answered himself. I'm not going to stay cooped up in here like a cripple. To h.e.l.l with it; I don't really give a d.a.m.n. If I've got to die, I'd rather wear out than rust out. What difference does it make?

"Clear for EVA." Amanda's voice came through the speaker in Dan's helmet.

He was in the airlock, sealed in his suit, feeling like a robot in a metal womb.

"Opening outer hatch," he said, pressing a gloved finger on the red light of the control panel.

"Copy, outer hatch."

The hatch slid open and Dan felt his pulse start to quicken. How long has it been since I've been outside? he asked himself. That sardonic voice in his head answered, Not since you got the radiation overdose, jiggering commsats in the Van Alien Belt.

Ten years, Dan realized. That's a long time to be away from all this.

He pushed himself through the hatch and floated in emptiness. The universe hung all around him: stars solemn and unwinking, staring at him even through the heavy tinting of his fishbowl helmet. Turning slowly, he saw the Sun, strangely small and pale, with its arms of faint zodiacal light outstretched on either side of it.

Freedom. He knew he was confined inside the s.p.a.cesuit and he couldn't survive for a minute without it. Yet hanging there weightlessly in the silent emptiness of infinity, Dan felt free of all the world, alone with the cosmos, in tune with the ethereal music of the spheres. Glorious freedom. Radiation be d.a.m.ned; he felt he could soar out into the universe forever and leave the petty l.u.s.ts and hates of humankind far behind. It wouldn't be a bad way to die.

Then the asteroid slid into his view. Ma.s.sive, ponderous, an enormous pitted dark looming reality hanging over him like an ominous cloud, a mountain floating free in s.p.a.ce. Starpower 1 Starpower 1 looked pitifully small and helpless alongside the two-kilometer-long asteroid; like a minnow next to a whale. Dan suddenly understood how Jonah must have felt. looked pitifully small and helpless alongside the two-kilometer-long asteroid; like a minnow next to a whale. Dan suddenly understood how Jonah must have felt.

You can't scare me, he said to the asteroid. You're two kilometers of high-grade iron ore, pal. You're going to look beautiful to a lot of people on Earth. Money in the bank, that's what you are. Jobs and hope for millions of people. Bonanza: that's your name and that's just what you are.

"Ready for EVA." Fuchs's voice broke into Dan's silent monologue.

"Clear for EVA. Lars," he heard Amanda reply.

Dan squeezed the right handgrip on his maneuvering controls with the lightest of touches. The cold gas jet on the backpack squirted noiselessly and he turned enough to be looking back at the s.h.i.+p. Starpower 1 Starpower 1 glinted nicely in the starlight. She still looked brand-new, s.h.i.+ning, not a pit or a scratch on her. The airlock hatch slid open and a s.p.a.cesuited figure stood framed in it. glinted nicely in the starlight. She still looked brand-new, s.h.i.+ning, not a pit or a scratch on her. The airlock hatch slid open and a s.p.a.cesuited figure stood framed in it.

"Exiting the airlock," Fuchs said, his voice trembling slightly.

"Come on, Lars," Dan called. "Isn't she a beauty?"

Fuchs jetted toward him. Dan saw that his suit was bristling with hammers and drills and all sorts of equipment.

"It's enormous!" He sounded awestruck.

"She's just an average-sized chunk of metal," Dan said. "And as soon as you chip a piece off her, we can claim her."

Fuchs showed no hesitation at all, although he seemed a bit clumsy working the controls of his maneuvering thrusters. For a moment Dan thought he was going to ram into the asteroid, but at the last instant Fuchs fired a braking blast and hovered a scant few meters above its pitted, pebbly surface.

Dan jetted toward him, and with a bare touch of the handgrip controls lowered himself to the surface of the asteroid. He felt his boots make contact and then recoil slightly. Not much gravity, he thought, as he puffed down again and finally stood on the surface of Bonanza. Clouds of dust rose where his boots made contact with the surface; they just hung there, barely moving in the minuscule gravity.

It took Fuchs three tries to get firmly onto the surface; he kept coming down too hard and bouncing off. In the end, Dan had to reach out and yank him down.

"Don't try to walk," he told Fuchs. "The gravity's so light you'll float up and away."

"Then how-"

"Slide your boots along." Dan demonstrated a couple of steps, shuffling up even more dust. "Like you're dancing."

"I don't dance very well," Fuchs said.

"This isn't the smoothest dance floor in the solar system, either."

The asteroid's surface was rough and uneven, covered with a powdery coating of dust, much like the surface of the Moon. Dan thought it was more like standing on the deck of a boat, though, than on solid ground. There wasn't really a horizon; the rock just ended. ended. Pinhole craters peppered the surface, pebbles and fist-sized rocks littered it, and out along its far end, Dan could see a more sizeable crater, a big depression with a raised rim all around it. Pinhole craters peppered the surface, pebbles and fist-sized rocks littered it, and out along its far end, Dan could see a more sizeable crater, a big depression with a raised rim all around it.

"How much iron do you think we've got here?" Dan asked.

"We'll have a good measure of its ma.s.s by the time we return to the s.h.i.+p," Fuchs said. "With the s.h.i.+p orbiting the asteroid we have a cla.s.sic two-body system. It's simple Newtonian physics."

Dan thought to himself, He's a scientist, all right. Ask him a simple question and you get a dissertation. Without the answer to your question.

"Lars," he said patiently, "can't you give me some idea of this lump's ma.s.s?"

Fuchs spread his hands. In the s.p.a.cesuit, he looked like a bubble-topped fireplug with arms.

"A back-of-the-envelope guesstimate?" Dan coaxed.

"Oh... considering its dimensions... nickel-iron asteroids are typically no more than ten percent nickel... it must be somewhere in the neighborhood of seven or eight billion tons of iron and eighty million tons or so of nickel."

Dan's eyes went wide. "That's five or six times the world's steel production in its best year! Before the floods and all!"

"There are impurities, of course," Fuchs warned. "Platinum, gold and silver, other heavy metals."

"Impurities, right," Dan agreed, cackling. His mind was spinning. One asteroid is enough to supply the world's steel industry for years and years! And there are thousands of these chunks out here! It's all true! Everything I hoped for, all those wild promises I made-they're all going to come true!

Fuchs seemed oblivious to it all. "I want to look at those striations," he said, turning toward the far end of the asteroid. His effort made him rise off the surface and Dan had to yank him down again.

"Take a sample here, first," Dan said. "Then we can claim it."