'Smartass. I know this is Earth. But where on Earth? I never saw a pine thicket like this in New Mexico.' Tabitha rested her right hand on her hip and cocked her head sideways like she always does when she is being a smartass in return.
There was a path a half of a mile wide south of us that had been cleared away by the tornadoes. I knew which direction it was now that the sun was out.
'You're right. This ain't New Mexico. Reminds me of southern Alabama,' I replied.
The humming sound got louder.
Tabitha and I poked around the probe trying to determine where it was coming from. First we tried the comm system. It had been crushed completely by debris or landing—it was difficult to determine which. Tabitha pulled a limb out of ECC number three, the one that was damaged the most. The humming got louder and turned to a buzzing.
'Holy crap! The sound is coming from the ECC!' I looked a Tabitha. She looked back at me with a horrified expression on her face.
CHAPTER 11
How long, Anson?'
I plowed through the wreckage looking for the precise origin point of the sound. 'Dig the batteries out of the science suite if they are still intact,' I told her.
I found the general area where I thought the sound was coming from and tried to isolate a subset of circuit boards. The horrified looks we had had on our faces were warranted. The Casimir effect energy devices were oscillating asymmetrically. In other words, the Clemons D umbbells were going chaotic. Not just a few of them like the ones that destroyed the bathroom at the manufacturing facility or the handful that injured 'Becca. The amplitude of the buzzing sound implied hundreds of thousands of these things could go. I started doing the math in my head. If all of them went at one time, the explosion would be bigger than Hiroshima or if I slipped a zero or two, which I often do without paper and pencil, much bigger than Hiroshima. Of course, it had occurred to all of us working the project from day one, that we were dealing with much larger than nuclear-explosion levels of power. That is why the ECCs were to never be activated until we were in space. The conventional propulsion system on the probe was to take it up to about a thousand kilometer orbit and there we would turn them on.
'Only one of the batteries is still operational, Anson. How long till it blows? Answer me!' Tabitha implored.
'Bring it over here. And I'm working on it.' I ripped some cabling from the probe. I fumbled through my EMU and found the Swiss Army knife that all astronauts are issued. I stripped off the ends of two wires and tied them to the battery poles. Then I stripped the other ends and shunted across a section of the Clemons Dumbbells. The buzzing returned back to a humming. The battery was drained completely.
'Shit! That battery wasn't enough. This thing is going to blow, in like, an hour or so. If we can't find a power source to overload the Clemons Dumbbells in the ECCs, they get stuck in that positive feedback loop and will eventually go big bang!' I said.
'There's nothing else we can do? Is there no other spacecraft power system?'
'Sure. The ECCs delivered all the power we needed, but they're fried and this one is about to go kablooie!' I shrugged my shoulders and did an explosion gesture with my hands.
'What about that one?' Tabitha pointed at good old ECC number two. The one we had used as a shield from the hail.
I ran to the diagnostic panel on the side of it and tore off the plate. Tabitha grabbed her electric ratchet and started in on the bolts. In a few short seconds we were peering at a perfectly good cube of Clemons Dumbbells. I shorted the breaker, which in turn kicked the dumbbells loose. The ECC started producing power. Then an arc jumped out of it and tossed me about four meters away from it. Smoke and sparks poured out of the cube. Tabitha ran to my side and helped me to my feet.
'Are you okay?'
'Yeah,' I shook the numbness out of my hands. 'Oh well. That's that, I guess. I can't stop the cube from blowing now.'
'How big will it be?' Tabitha was scared. She looked even more scared than she had when the Shuttle exploded.
'Judging from the size of the area that's humming. I would guess that in about two hours or so everything within a radius of about ten miles from where we're standing will be totally destroyed. That is only a guess mind you. About two times as big as Hiroshima comes to mind however.' I looked south at the pathway the tornadoes had cleared for us.
'Anson, are you sure we can't stop it?'
'Yes. Hell I wish we could just hit the damn thing with a rock and get it over with, but that might trigger more of the dumbbells to go chaotic and make the thing blow up sooner and bigger!'
'Then I guess we have no choice but to run! Let's go.' She started to take off.
'Hold on,' I grabbed her by the wrist. 'Get your water bag out of your EMU first.'
'Good thinking.' She nodded.
I was thirsty and borderline dehydrated and needed to drink—being sick earlier hadn't helped either. We tore the PLSS backpacks apart and dug out our water supplies. They were about a third full each. Better than nothing. I fashioned some straps from the backpack material and we tied the bags on to our backs. The plastic tubes from the bags we threw over our shoulder so we could grab it and drink from it whenever we pleased.
'Just like my water pack for my mountain bike gear,' I told Tabitha.
Tabitha also grabbed the Velcro NASA mission patches off our suits. 'We should have some sort of visible identification other than just my dog tags,' she said.
'Ready. Now, can you run with your ribs?' I asked.
