mining efforts are fully under way.”
“Well… You’ve made a very compelling proposal, Dr. Donovan, and we thank you for coming today. The committee will deliberate and contact you with a decision.”
With nothing left to say, Marcus dipped his head and left the room. He was glad to be out; the silence inside was heavy, and he had no idea which way things would swing. He had to believe he’d done his best, and trust that his offer was too sweet to pass up. He also prayed that his reputation was enough to cement his place on the ship, otherwise there would be hell to pay. Of course, there’d be some hell to pay anyway.
As he stepped onto the Great Conveyor Belt of Doom, he began to feel the first twinge of regret. He wasn’t a dishonest person by nature, and this exercise amounted to deception on a scale he never imagined. There were billions of credits riding on his manufactured data, and the sudden weight on his conscience was immense.
His only relief came when he thought of the hoodoo math that “proved” humans were, without any shred of doubt, alone in the universe. A dangerous dogma had risen from that math, and with any luck, he’d soon have the physical evidence necessary to bury it once and for all.
Chapter 4:
228 Days
Marcus Donovan’s con worked. Less than a week later (3.3 picoseconds in bureaucratic time), the Budget Oversight Committee agreed to his plan and the Gypsies left on the first shuttle out.
They spent the next two months finishing and reconfiguring the 170 meter long Shackleton Explorer. The Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto probes were removed and placed in storage for some future Jupiter expedition, as was the bulky orbital scanning array, while seven modular cargo containers and a state-of-the-art extra-vehicular mission unit were installed in their place. The cargo holds were packed full of mining equipment and explosives which Marcus realized would have no use on the mission, but he couldn’t figure out a way to ditch them without raising questions.
The Shackleton lost the planetary scanning equipment, but still retained its own substantial suite of sensors. The countless forward facing antennae made it look something like a harpoon for use against impossibly large whales. It also featured a pair of opposed habitation pods that jutted out from the main hull on their own stalks, which were designed to rotate around the central axis and supply the crew with more than half Earth gravity during the long voyage. What the Shackleton lacked in amenities, she made up for in advanced equipment. Mostly, anyway.
The interior of the Shackleton Explorer was a perfect match for her exterior, being both functional and inhumanly spartan. No plush seating, no Corinthian leather; only the bare essentials, and in some places slightly less. Marcus couldn’t shake the thought that he would be hurtling through space in a tin-can lashed haphazardly to a nuclear reactor. He and his crew were about to become real space cowboys, riding out across the wild frontier.
Like the ship, Donovan’s Gypsies were also reorganized. Most of his research staff made the transition: Sarah Park stayed on as sensor operator, and Mason Shen on communications, while Nils Jansen had no interest in leaving Earth orbit and found posting elsewhere. The grizzled and stoic Hector Pacheco continued as crew chief, but his work crews were entirely purpose built, so the hands that assembled the ship were replaced with professional low-g miners before launch.
None of the Gypsies were qualified to operate a nuclear powered exploratory vessel, so it was necessary to comingle their ranks with the original Jupiter mission crew. Marcus was put in charge of the mission, but Commander Alex Faulkland remained in charge of ship’s operations. Faulkland’s team would be responsible for navigation, maneuvering, and the day-to-day maintenance of the nuclear drive systems, while Donovan’s people would conduct the survey and mining.
For the first time in his career, Marcus wished the Foundation had a rigid rank structure with a clear chain of command. The current arrangement was too ambiguous for his liking, and he had no clue who would prevail if (or more likely when) a disagreement came about.
This feeling was made worse because he detected some hard feelings among Faulkland’s crew, and he harbored no illusions about who they would side with. The ship’s original mission would have set records for the most distant manned mission, and there was a lot of pride attached. Marcus just had to hope they were all professional who could adaptable to sudden changes in plans, because the one thing he knew for sure was that sudden changes were on their way.
The rest of The Shackleton’s bunks were filled with Rao’s research team, which included Dr. Juliette St. Martin, a former leading theoretical exobiologist who returned to medicine when the political climate got stormy, and Professor Harris Caldwell, who was brought on as a geologist officially, and as an archaeologist somewhat less officially.
With the ship completed and its crew assembled, The Shackleton Expedition left Earth orbit with little more fanfare than a “Good luck” from Bangalore, and then embarked on a wandering five month trek. Thrusters engaged and the Earth slowly shrank into the distance, until nothing was left around the ship but the sun and pin-prick stars. Weeks and sometimes months stretched out between the short thrusts that transferred the ship from one orbital trajectory to the next, during which time, the crew’s only challenge was to fight boredom.
The battle was a fierce, but there were thankfully no casualties.
Then, after watching the same movies over and over until every line was memorized, after countless card games and late shifts making small talk, a couple hundred long days after Marcus’ plan was approved, they finally neared the fringes of the Themis family of asteroids.
Marcus and Commander Faulkland were in one of the habitation pod dining halls, which stretched the definition of “hall.” It was a tight compartment just a smidgen bigger than any other on the ship. The men were seated on either side a metal table, where they were sipping reconstituted sludge from small plastic sacks. It was supposed to be coffee, but the resemblance was faint. Marcus had come to really enjoy that sludge, but it was an acquired taste.
He nudged the deck of magnetized playing cards on the table, which had been shuffled but otherwise ignored for hours, and Commander Faulkland waved him off.
“Couldn’t focus on a game right now,” Faulkland said.
That was the last thing Marcus expected to hear from the greying and hard-faced commander. “Way you tell stories, I figured you could play a hand of poker with your pants doused in burning napalm.”
Faulkland chuckled and took a slurp of his black sludge. “It’s not the mission. I’ve got a weird feeling. Something’s not right.”
Marcus felt a pang of guilt. He’d hardly felt them at all since they left Earth orbit, but now they were coming back with a vengeance. He decided it was finally time. “Listen… can I come clean about something?”
“I know ya been cheating at cards, Marc. Buy me a steak when we get back home, and I’ll think nothing of it.”
Why did everyone always think he was a cheater? “No, no… About the mission.”
Just then, the intercom lit up and produced an F-sharp. “Commander needed on the bridge. We’ve arrived at Waypoint Lambda-Five.”
“Roger that, bridge. On my way.” He flashed a toothy smile at Marcus and said, “Showtime. Whatever you wanted to tell me can wait for later.”
“Probably not,” Marcus muttered, but the ship’s commander was already through the door. Marcus had no choice but to follow.
The bridge was like the rest of the Shackleton, except another inch more spacious, and every surface covered with a dizzying array of switches, dials, readouts and other things Marcus had no business fiddling with. It was also the only part of the vessel with a view of the outside, which at that moment was filled with a vast field of asteroids looming in the dark.
Faulkland climbed into the captain’s chair and strapped himself in. The rest of the bridge crew were already at their stations and fastened down with five point harnesses. “Take a seat, Doctor.” The last word had a sarcastic sting to it, as it always did. “You don’t want to be floating free during this.”
