If we can’t know where we are, I’ll waste no more energy thinking about it. Because I have quite enough to worry about.
Dana said, “So we’re on the wrong side of a dark nebula, in galactica incognita. No astronomer has ever seen this region of space. I suppose that means no one knows where we might find a planet suitable for establishing a colony.”
Blake arched on eyebrow. “You thought this was going to be easy?”
16
With a decent telescope and a spectrograph, a ship could analyze asteroids from a distance. Most asteroids were mere rock, worthless—but a few were treasure troves of precious metals and rare-earth elements. Spot an asteroid like that and stake a claim, and your fortune was made.
Clermont, become Endeavour, carried a decent telescope. Emphasis on the past tense. Decades of pounding by cosmic rays had degraded that telescope into something at which Galileo would have sneered.
At least that was what Antonio had to say on the subject.
“We don’t have replacement mirrors,” Blake reminded. He was as tired of repeating himself as he was of stacking-room-only meetings on the bridge. Though he did not mind Rikki sitting on his lap. Forty-five years was a lot of abstinence, even asleep and frozen solid. “And before you ask, I can’t polish and replate these mirrors, either. I’d have to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools, with maybe a few more iterations. Don’t even ask how long that’d take. A while.”
“We can’t afford rations for ‘a while,’” Dana said. “We need to get somewhere.”
“Look, Antonio,” Rikki said. “I’ll never know half the astronomy that you do, but I know something of the history of the subject. The Galileo crack is an exaggeration, don’t you think? And not just because his telescope didn’t use mirrors.
“By two centuries ago astronomers had approximated the distance to nearby stars. They did it without any computers worth mentioning. They did it, being earthbound, despite atmospheric shimmer blurring every observation. We have a modern telescope, even if it is a bit dinged up, and Marvin to handle all our calculations, and no atmosphere to distort our viewing. I refuse to believe we can’t match twentieth-century science.”
“I suppose,” Antonio conceded.
“Walk me through the process,” Dana said. “How would we measure the distances?”
“Sure,” Rikki said. “By way of an analogy, hold a finger in front of your nose. With one eye closed, look at the finger. Notice where the finger appears against the background of the bulkhead behind it. Now switch eyes.”
“The finger seemed to jump,” Dana said.
“Right. And knowing the two viewing angles and the distance between your eyes, you could calculate the location of your finger relative to your face.”
“My finger represents a star,” Dana said. “And my two eyes?”
“Two separate sightings on the star. For old-time astronomers, that meant observations made six months apart. Earth’s orbit is about one thousand light-seconds wide. The parallax technique located stars as remote as a few hundred light-years.”
“We’re not orbiting…,” Dana began. “Scratch that. We’re moving.”
Blake did rough math in his head. “Every three hours or so, we’re crossing a distance like the width of Earth’s orbit. In a day, even with our scarred-up mirror, we should have lots of good readings.”
“Can we focus on individual stars?” Dana asked.
“Focus?” Antonio stroked his chin scar. “Not to my satisfaction. But yes, we can locate and take bearings on individual stars.”
“Good,” Dana said. “You and Rikki, get to work.”
*
Blake gazed around the machine shop, waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. He rearranged the tool cabinet. He buffed a streak of grease off a bulkhead. There wasn’t room to pace, so he shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
He did not want to be here. But the only meaningful activity aboard was on the bridge, and he could contribute nothing to star hunts.
“It’s just milk,” he said.
“And you’re a pile of common elements, worth pocket change.” Carlos sighed without looking up, intent on the scrolling readout from a portable synth vat. He stood, hunched over the workbench. The shop stools and workbenches fit Blake.
“Well?” Blake finally prompted. “Did I make milk, or not?”
“Milk is a complex suspension of proteins, fats, sugars, vitamins, and minerals, and you’re trying to synthesize all those. Give me a minute to sanity-check what we have here.”
“A cow does it faster,” Blake said.
“Do you see a cow on this ship?”
“No, alas. I would enjoy a good steak.”
The words just popped out. A moment after, Blake realized that someone named Patel might be Hindu. No one ate beef on Mars—raising cattle took too much water and feed. Grain or grass, Mars didn’t have enough of either.
Only now Mars had nothing.
Wistful, embarrassed, and sad: all in an instant. “Please excuse my obliviousness, Carlos. If I offended you, I apologize.”
“My father would have taken offense. He grew up in Bangalore, didn’t emigrate till he was twenty-eight. That you would eat beef doesn’t matter to me in the slightest.”
“It’s hard,” Blake said. “Losing our families, and not even getting to say goodbye.”
“It was different for me.” Carlos turned away from the synth vat. “My parents and a brother died in the Blue Plague when I was a child. My adoptive parents, from my mother’s family, weren’t religious. Had they been, it would have been Catholicism.”
“I’m sorry,” Blake said. Blue Plague had swept Mars in 2120, when Carlos would have been about ten. Hell of a nasty way to lose anyone. Hell of an age for a child to lose his parents. “But you had other brothers or sisters?”
“I was the fourth of five children. Sanjiv, the brother taken by the Plague, was the oldest. He was in university, studying nanotech. I always looked up to
