More Tales of Pirx the Pilot

The whole building heaved, rose and fell like a skiff on a wave. Then, in a hellish racket of cracking iron, everything was blotted out by a brownish-black wall of smoke and dust. Even as they raced downstairs to the airlock, Pirx, one of the first to suit up, had no doubts: in such a collision, there could be no survivors.

Soon they were running, buffeted by the gale winds; from far off, from the direction of the “bell,” the first of the caterpillar vehicles and hovercrafts were already on the move. But there was no reason to hurry. Pirx didn’t know how or when he returned to the control tower—the image of the crater and the crushed hull still in his dazed eyes—and only at the sight of his own suddenly grayed, somewhat shrunken face in a wall mirror did he come to.

By afternoon, a committee of experts had been set up to investigate the causes of the crash. Work crews with excavators and cranes were still clearing away the wreckage of the giant vehicle, and had yet to reach the deeply buried cockpit containing the automatic controls, when a team of specialists was bused over from Syrtis Major—in one of those quaint little helicopters with huge propellers, custom-designed for flight in the Martian air. Pirx kept out of the way and didn’t ask questions, knowing only too well that the case bordered on the unsolvable. During a routine landing, with all its hallowed sequences and clockwork programming, for no apparent reason the Ariel’s primary computer had shut down the boron power, signaled a residual meteorite alarm, and initiated an escape maneuver at full thrust; the ship’s stability, once lost during this neck-breaking action, was never regained. It was an event unprecedented in the history of astronavigation, and every plausible hypothesis—a computer failure, a glitch, a short in one of the circuits—appeared highly improbable, because there was not one but two programs for lift-off and landing, safeguarded by so many back-up systems as to make sabotage a more likely cause.

He puzzled over the incident in the little cubicle that Seyn had put at his disposal the night before, deliberately laying low so as not to intrude, especially since he was scheduled to lift off within the next twenty-four hours; but he couldn’t come up with anything, or at least not with anything he could report to the committee. He wasn’t forgotten, though; a few minutes before one in the afternoon, Seyn paid him a visit. Waiting in the corridor was Romani; Pirx, on his way out, didn’t recognize him at first. The coordinator of the Agathodaemon complex could have passed for one of the mechanics: he wore a pair of sooty, grease-stained overalls, his face was drawn, the left corner of his mouth twitched, and only his voice had a familiar ring. On behalf of the committee, of which he was a member, he asked Pirx to postpone the Cuivier’s lift-off.

“Sure thing.” Pirx, a trifle stunned, tried to regain his composure. “I just need clearance from Base.”

“Leave that to us.”

Nothing more was said, and the three of them marched over to the main “bubble,” where, inside the long, squat command HQ, sat some twenty or more experts—a few of whom were based locally, the majority having flown over from Syrtis Major. It was lunchtime, but since every second was precious, they were served a cold meal from the cafeteria. Over tea and paper plates, which lent the proceedings a strangely casual, even festive air, the session got under way. The chairman, Engineer Hoyster, called first on Pirx to describe the abortive landing, and Pirx could easily guess why. Belonging neither to the ground-control team nor to Agathodaemon’s crew, he was the only unbiased witness present. When he reached the point of his own personal intervention, Hoyster interrupted him.

“So you wanted Klyne to shift from automatic to manual override?”

“Yes.”

“Why, may I ask?”

“I figured it was his only chance,” Pirx answered without hesitation.

“Right. And you didn’t foresee that the shift to manual would mean a loss of stability?”

“It was already lost. This can be checked; we do have the tapes.”

“Naturally. We just wanted to get a general picture. What’s your own guess?”

“As to the cause?”

“Yes. For the moment we’re just piecing together the facts. Nothing you say will be binding; any hypothesis, however shaky, may prove valuable.”

“I see. My guess is that something went haywire with the computer. What, or even how, I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes and ears. The computer aborted the maneuver and signaled a meteorite alert. It sounded like ‘Meteorites—attention, full power ahead in the axis.’ But with no meteorites around…” Pirx shrugged.

“The Ariel was an advanced AIBM 09,” observed Boulder, an electronics engineer with whom Pirx had rubbed elbows at Syrtis Major.

Pirx nodded.

“I know. That’s why I said I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. But it did happen.”

“Why did Klyne hold back, in your opinion, Commander?” asked Hoyster.

Pirx felt his insides go cold; before answering, he cast a glance around the table. It was a question that had to be asked, though he didn’t relish being the first to face it.

“I don’t know the answer to that.”

“Of course not. But you’re an old-timer; put yourself in his place…”

“I did. I would have done what I tried to make him do.”

“And?”

“No response. A madhouse. Yelling, maybe. The tapes will have to be checked and rechecked, though I’m afraid it won’t do much good.”

“Commander,” said Hoyster, in a soft but painstaking voice, as if struggling to choose his words, “you realize the situation, don’t you? As we’re speaking, there are two more superfreighters, equipped with the exact same guidance system, on the Aresterra line. The Anabis isn’t due for another three weeks, but the Ares is nine days away. No matter what our obligations to the dead, we owe more to the living. I’m sure in the past five hours you’ve given some thought to the case. I can’t force you, but I’m asking you to speak your mind.”

Pirx blanched. He’d read Hoyster’s mind from his opening words, and a sensation, opaque, born of his nightmare, gripped him: an intense, desperate silence, a faceless enemy, and a double killing—of himself and the other. It came and went. He collected himself and looked Hoyster in the eye.

“I see,” he said. “Klyne and I belong to two different generations. When I was getting my wings, servo- mechanisms were more error-prone. Distrust becomes second nature. My guess is … he trusted in them to the end.”

“He thought the computer was in control, had a better command of the situation?”

“Not so much in control. More like, if the computer couldn’t handle it, a man would be even less likely to do so.”

He sighed. He’d spoken his mind without casting a shadow on his younger, now deceased, colleague.

“Was there any chance of saving that ship, Commander?”

“Hard to say. There was so little time. The Ariel dropped to zero velocity.”

“Have you ever soft-landed under such conditions?”

“Yes. But in a ship with a smaller mass, and it was on the Moon. The longer and heavier the ship, the harder it is to regain stability when you’re losing speed, especially if it goes into a list.”

“Did Klyne hear you?”

“I don’t know. He should have.”

“Did he ever override the controls?”

Pirx was about to defer to the tapes, but answered instead:

“No.”

“How do you know?” It was Romani.

“The monitor showed ‘automatic landing’ the whole time. It went off only on impact.”

“Could it not be, sir, that Klyne didn’t have time?” asked Seyn. Why was he “sirring” him when they were buddies? Hm. Keeping his distance, maybe. Out to get him?

“The chances of survival can be mathematically deduced.” Pirx was aiming for objectivity. “I just don’t know offhand.”

“But once the list exceeded forty-five degrees, stability was irretrievably lost,” insisted Seyn. “Right?”