later, Dolph took the tram cage up to the tether
axis on the mast at the north pole of their rock. Well, not quite their rock yet, he reminded himself, though he had a lot of sweat equity in it. It
was three kilometers across its longest dimension and swiss-cheese-full of
craters, the largest being the football field-wide hole at the top. They’d name
it after Tina, they’d decided, as soon as they had the right to do so.
Below him was their habitat, deep in a hundred meter
cylindrical pit for radiation protection. A fifty meter-radius squirrel cage of
trusswork, it mounted a couple of big bent sausages and other equipment around
its circumference. Above him was the great dish of their solar collector, a few
kilograms of nearly perfectly reflecting graphene-aluminum sandwich almost two
hundred meters across, it focused on a flat relay mirror. There was enough dust
around the asteroid for him to trace the beam into the big black cylindrical
converter at the top of the mast
He saw few stars on his way up to the docking ring. Their
pole was in sunlight, and would be for another year. He looked back toward the
Sun. Mars was a reddish dot just far enough from the sun to see if he shaded
his helmet window. Earth, Venus, and Mercury were lost in the glare. Even when
he looked away from sun, the sunlit structures around him banished any hope of
dark-adapted vision, mocking his mood with their unsoftened vacuum brilliance.
But Jupiter, now near opposition at the perihelion of the
Pallas association, shown brightly against the black sky. Jove was over five
times as bright as from Earth, and its four large satellites were clearly
visible—he could even see the orange tint of Io. Saturn, way off to the right,
still seemed very distant, but the asteroid Pallas was brighter than Venus from
here, and showed a tiny disk. Sirius, Procyon, Betelgeuse, and Regulus—the
brighter stars got through as well, and the effect was almost three dimensional—he
could imagine the planets on a plane stretching out toward infinity, with those
few bright fixed stars set beyond.
Despite all the work and all the details of things to be
removed, tested, repaired, replaced, and tested again there was still a sense
of wonder that he was out here—the descendent of apes with stone axes daring to
live out here on the doorstep of all creation. He was going to do it. Somehow,
despite everything, he was going to do it.
An instant and temporary comet got his attention. Inspector
McCarthy’s spacecraft was in the final stages of rendezvous, with thrusters
flaring. Like their Hopper , it was a standard spin-electric rock hopper—essentially
a smooth cylinder with a two-ring magnetic mirror plasma nozzle at the end—indistinguishable
from Hopper on the outside except for the outsize volatile tanks mounted
at its middle and the IPA insignia. It grew smoothly out of the dark and made
the standard mast connection, nose in, rings out. Next to its connecting probe,
a hatch swung in and poured out light. Into the light floated the black shadow
of a spacesuited figure.
“Welcome to 12478, Ms. McCarthy.” Dolph gestured to the
peanut-shaped carbonaceous chondrite below them. The spacesuited figure coming
down the mast to him was obviously female, of average height, and perhaps a bit
hefty the way people too busy to exercise get in low gravity.
She put her helmet to the mast for a moment, then turned
toward him, her face invisible behind the mirror finish of her helmet window. “You’ve
got a sick stator magnet on one of your despin mast bearings,” she announced in
a no-nonsense, almost imperious tone. “I heard it screech after my dock.”
Dolph opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of a response.
The complaint was trivial, as far as he was concerned. The
hollow despin mast held their main elliptical mirror and the docking fixture. Some
torque on the despun inertial mast was inevitable as a ship docked, and it
might momentarily cause physical contact in
axis on the mast at the north pole of their rock. Well, not quite their rock yet, he reminded himself, though he had a lot of sweat equity in it. It
was three kilometers across its longest dimension and swiss-cheese-full of
craters, the largest being the football field-wide hole at the top. They’d name
it after Tina, they’d decided, as soon as they had the right to do so.
Below him was their habitat, deep in a hundred meter
cylindrical pit for radiation protection. A fifty meter-radius squirrel cage of
trusswork, it mounted a couple of big bent sausages and other equipment around
its circumference. Above him was the great dish of their solar collector, a few
kilograms of nearly perfectly reflecting graphene-aluminum sandwich almost two
hundred meters across, it focused on a flat relay mirror. There was enough dust
around the asteroid for him to trace the beam into the big black cylindrical
converter at the top of the mast
He saw few stars on his way up to the docking ring. Their
pole was in sunlight, and would be for another year. He looked back toward the
Sun. Mars was a reddish dot just far enough from the sun to see if he shaded
his helmet window. Earth, Venus, and Mercury were lost in the glare. Even when
he looked away from sun, the sunlit structures around him banished any hope of
dark-adapted vision, mocking his mood with their unsoftened vacuum brilliance.
But Jupiter, now near opposition at the perihelion of the
Pallas association, shown brightly against the black sky. Jove was over five
times as bright as from Earth, and its four large satellites were clearly
visible—he could even see the orange tint of Io. Saturn, way off to the right,
still seemed very distant, but the asteroid Pallas was brighter than Venus from
here, and showed a tiny disk. Sirius, Procyon, Betelgeuse, and Regulus—the
brighter stars got through as well, and the effect was almost three dimensional—he
could imagine the planets on a plane stretching out toward infinity, with those
few bright fixed stars set beyond.
Despite all the work and all the details of things to be
removed, tested, repaired, replaced, and tested again there was still a sense
of wonder that he was out here—the descendent of apes with stone axes daring to
live out here on the doorstep of all creation. He was going to do it. Somehow,
despite everything, he was going to do it.
An instant and temporary comet got his attention. Inspector
McCarthy’s spacecraft was in the final stages of rendezvous, with thrusters
flaring. Like their Hopper , it was a standard spin-electric rock hopper—essentially
a smooth cylinder with a two-ring magnetic mirror plasma nozzle at the end—indistinguishable
from Hopper on the outside except for the outsize volatile tanks mounted
at its middle and the IPA insignia. It grew smoothly out of the dark and made
the standard mast connection, nose in, rings out. Next to its connecting probe,
a hatch swung in and poured out light. Into the light floated the black shadow
of a spacesuited figure.
“Welcome to 12478, Ms. McCarthy.” Dolph gestured to the
peanut-shaped carbonaceous chondrite below them. The spacesuited figure coming
down the mast to him was obviously female, of average height, and perhaps a bit
hefty the way people too busy to exercise get in low gravity.
She put her helmet to the mast for a moment, then turned
toward him, her face invisible behind the mirror finish of her helmet window. “You’ve
got a sick stator magnet on one of your despin mast bearings,” she announced in
a no-nonsense, almost imperious tone. “I heard it screech after my dock.”
Dolph opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of a response.
The complaint was trivial, as far as he was concerned. The
hollow despin mast held their main elliptical mirror and the docking fixture. Some
torque on the despun inertial mast was inevitable as a ship docked, and it
might momentarily cause physical contact in
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