“Deal,” she said on a deep sigh.
They shook paws again.
“Folks back home will be skeptical of this chicken shit deal. That’s one hell of a high price to pay. But I’ll make ’ern see the value in it.” She handed over the square of cloth reluctantly. “We call this a lace-edged hankie. This one belonged to my Nanna.”
“Then I shall treasure this artifact and record its provenance with care.” Ab’nere patted the hankie with respect. Four digits and an opposable thumb seemed to work wonders with looms her own species could not manage. She imagined woven translucent veils that had nothing to do with the spun webs of the Arachnoids of Arachnia. “I’ll have a contract ready in a few centags. You, the Glug representative, and I will all sign it with three witnesses from neutral species.”
“Sounds good. Say, I’m throwin’ a little party on my ship tonight. The crew deserves a little three-alarm- Texas chili and beer after our trek to the First Contact Cafi. Come along and bring the Glug. If he’s lucky, he might get a sample of some of the best methane ever produced on Earth. A rare treat.”
“For me or the Glug?”
ORBITAL BASE FEAR
Eric Kotani
Eric Kotani is a pen name used by an astrophysicist who has published seven science fiction novels, some with co-authors, e.g., John Maddox Roberts. He also edited an anthology of stories in tribute to Robert A. Heinlein. He served as the director of a satellite observatory at NASA for fifteen years, and previously headed the astrophysics laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center during the Apollo and Skylab Missions. He is now co- investigator of the Kepler Mission to detect Earth-like planets. He has held professorship at several universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and the Catholic University of America. He has published over 200 scientific papers and edited thirteen books on astrophysics. He has received a number of awards for his work, including the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement and Isaac Asimov Memorial Award. An asteroid has been named Yojikondo in recognition of his contributions to astronomy. He holds a sixth degree black belt in judo and in aikido and has been teaching a class for the past few decades.
LANDING maneuvers—uh, correction!—docking maneuvers in three hundred seconds!” Jacques Boutillier, the pilot of Mars Trailblazer, announced somewhat flamboyantly. The crew tensed in anticipation. This was the last step before reaching the Martian surface. Actually, they were about to “land” on Phobos, the larger of the two satellites of Mars; it was a little over a dozen kilometers across, with an irregular shape typical of small objects in the solar system. The surface gravity of the Martian moon was so miniscule—less than a thousandth of the standard g-force on Earth but varying widely at different locations due to the nonspherical shape—that the “landing” was essentially matching the orbital velocity with the Martian moon and establishing contact on the surface smoothly.
Poul Eriksen, the captain of this manned expedition to Mars and an experienced U.S. Air Force Space Command test pilot, was looking closely over Boutillier’s shoulder. He had an outstanding reputation among his fellow officers as the man who got the job done right, no matter what. He looked the part, too—the indomitable look of a Viking war chieftain, with an intelligent face.
Eriksen was doing his utmost to avoid the disaster that overcame the Consortium’s Mars Expedition I, and to become the captain of the first successful manned mission to Mars, something practically every kid would dream about in growing up. He had no desire to be a dead hero, but, more importantly, this was his expedition and he had no intention of letting it fail. Since he had little information on what had gone wrong in the first manned mission, it meant close supervision of everything that went on, occasionally irritating his crew, all of whom were experienced space jockeys.
Boutillier was a veteran pilot, too, with the rank of Major in the U.S. Marine Corps, Space Division. At twenty-eight he was probably the youngest among the crew; he had been selected specifically for his skill and fast reflexes in landing flying ships of all sorts. His credentials included piloting the Navy’s single stage to orbit ships several times. He also had a unique qualification—successful landing on a small Earth-crossing asteroid a few years earlier. He looked lean, his brown hair framing the clean-cut features of his determined face; there was hardly any suggestion of his one-eighth Cherokee ancestry there. He was from the Louisiana bayou country and it was not always easy to control his Cajun temper. But it was either maintain a tight grip on his disposition or be disqualified for the mission. He had kept his cool.
The pilot ignored the close supervision by the captain and concentrated on the delicate final stage of contact with the small moon. He completed the “docking” maneuver with hardly a jolt felt by the four-person crew. After making sure that the ship was really at rest with respect to Phobos, he pushed the button for the anchors, firing two super-sharp harpoons into the crust of the little moon. Once the harpoons penetrated the surface to the predetermined depth, hooks extended from them, securing the anchorage.
“Anchors in place, Colonel Eriksen. We are right next to the Stickney Crater as planned.
All set for extravehicular activities now.” Old habits were hard to break; Boutillier sometimes addressed the ship’s captain by the latter’s military rank.
“Well done, Jack.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The ’landing’ site was near the huge crater, where an earlier flyby mission reported a possible ice deposit. With the chance of taking advantage of the putative ice deposit, two supply ships had been sent to the adjacent area and had been waiting for the arrival of Trailblazer. One robot ship was full of supplies; the other ship contained provisions but had been designed to serve as a habitat.
“Nobu, put on your space suit and follow me outside. We’re going to find out if the cargo aboard the supply ships arrived safely. We’ll also see if the habitat can really be made habitable, then we’ll check up on the rumored ice deposit.”
“I am ready, Captain,” answered Nobuo Okita, ship’s nuclear physicist and all-around engineer.
Looking out the neo-glass window from his pilot’s seat, Boutillier wondered aloud.
“Why do we call this huge cavity the Stickney Crater? An unusual name, I’d say.”
“It was named after the wife of the discoverer of the Martian moons, Asaph Hall of the U.S. Naval Observatory. His wife’s maiden name was Chloe Angeline Stickney.” Okita, who was an astronomy buff, offered the answer, spelling out her first name for the benefit of his audience. “I understand she was a brilliant mathematician and an interesting woman. After her marriage to Hall, she would sometimes sign her letters using her initials, C.A.S.H.”
After his discovery in 1877, Hall named the two moons Phobos and Deimos, Fear and Panic, the two ancient companions of the war god, Mars. The Crater was not discovered for about a century after the discovery of the little moon. It was “imaged” by a flyby probe in the latter part of the twentieth century. Asaph had always publicly acknowledged that he would not have succeeded in the search but for Chloe Angeline’s constant encouragement to keep looking. The International Astronomical Union approved naming the Crater Stickney to honor her important contribution.
While donning his space suit, Okita mumbled an aside to his captain. “The Consortium ship Ares was only several days behind us the last time we checked. If they go for a direct landing on Mars, they can reach the planetary surface before us.”
“Yah, don’t we all know it! We have no time to waste. Let’s get going.”
Presently, Eriksen and Okita stood on the surface of Phobos, where no human beings had walked before. The robot ships that had landed a few months before were visible at a distance of a few hundred meters. The sunlight striking the bottom of the Stickney Crater was reflected by something shiny there, possibly a dark patch of ice.
“When you start walking, slide along the surface. Avoid up and down motions. It might not be easy on this godforsaken surface, but move horizontally as much as possible. If you try jumping over an obstacle, you might end up getting into orbit around this moonlet', cautioned the captain.
