"Mingusat, though a Red Dwarf, burns hot on Samūm." - Felipe Campobello, Samūm - The desert world
Only a few hours into the day, the temperature was already approaching 35 degrees. Sweat trickled down Janer's back, saturating his clothes and making each movement uncomfortable. His harness was soaked. His muscles ached, but he had to push through; he was close to the top.
Blinking the burning salt out of his eyes, he stretched out a hand to make a grab for the top of the cliff. His fingers brushed against the stone, but his eyes were blurry, and his sweaty hands couldn't get a grip. His heart lurched as he felt the rock slip from his hand. The air whooshed around him as an eternal four meters of belay line snaked out through the belay loop, line zinging as he fell. Abruptly, he hit the end of the rope. The climbing harness clenched and dug in painfully, then relaxed, and so did he.
Above him, A chunk of rock dislodged from the cliff and tumbled down, narrowly missing his head. It glanced painfully off his shoulder before plummeting down along the cliff face he was climbing. Trying to push his breath back down, he forced himself to focus on counting the duration of the rock's fall. "1... 2... 3..." He opened his eyes and tried to follow the path he imagined the rock would take.
At "ten," an explosion of sparks and electricity erupted as the rock struck a solar panel far below. Then another as it ricocheted and struck a second panel one further down the side of the hill. The report of the collisions and arcing of electricity took another couple of seconds to reach his ears. His heart still hammered in his chest. The panels would be OK, they were built to withstand much worse in the high gravity of Samūm.
He looked up at the line attaching him to his anchor point and exhaled slowly, trying to re-center himself and calm his racing heart. Just a red strip of cloth threaded through a piton hammered into the rock separated him from such a fall as the rock had taken.
"One problem at a time," he told himself. "First I need to get back to the cliff." He began pumping his legs to build momentum. He swung toward the cliff, aiming for the intersection of two rocks that looked like it would make a good hand hold. His hand found the edge of the arete, and he gripped with all his might as he swung out a leg for counterbalance. The move held him firm, and he stretched upward for another undercut, then a pinchy transition to a nice big scoop where he could rest for a moment.
Pulling himself up, Janer worked his way the rest of the way to the top. The final few meters felt like an eternity, but he gritted his teeth and focused on each handhold, each foothold. When he finally pulled himself over the ledge and rolled onto the flat ground on top, he let out a triumphant yell. He lay there for a moment, breathing hard, feeling the heat of the Mingusat on his face.
Janer lay on the cliff's edge, sprawled out, his chest heaving. He could feel the heat from the rock through his shirt, it was starting to get hot. The climb wasn't supposed to be this hard, or long, but Samūm had other plans today. It usually did. But it was worth it, he told himself. Every second of the climb was worth it.
He rolled onto his side and pushed himself to his feet. The view from the top was breathtaking. In the distant south, he could see the Combs; nine grey domes each rising 800 meters above the surrounding desert; the large spaceport with its thousands of mirrors nearer to him and to the west. East, and opposite the sprawling spaceport was Quoath, the site of a battle half a century ago, but now just a large spire rising into the sky adjacent to large, brown-grey fields of Potag - a tough, leathery plant bioengineered to survive the searing heat of Samum's midday sun. Much of the Samum's textiles were derived from the plant, including his climbing rope.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small canteen. Unscrewing the cap, he took a swig of the tepid water. It was hardly refreshing. It tasted like metal and sweat, but it offered some relief to his parched throat. He knew he should start heading back down; Grandfather was waiting for him. But for now, he just wanted to stand there, to soak in the sun and the wind and the feeling of being alive. He'd earned this moment, and he wasn't ready to let it go just yet.
Far in the valley below, Janer's grandfather sat forward in a basket-like chair, woven from the same tough, red fibers as his rope. The chair was suspended between the second pair of legs of a giant eight-legged robot, Al-Ankabūt. The robot's name meant the spider, for obvious reasons. Janer thought that grandfather's pouch made him look a bit like the spider's egg sack, as it possessively stood guard over its young.
The robot's first pair of legs were posed like a praying mantis, it was holding a sun-shield, woven from the exact same material as the chair. Grandfather couldn't actually see Janer. His eyes were cloudy white from his years sojourning under Samūm's glaring sun, but he looked out towards the sound of his voice, echoing down from high above, and there was love written on his weathered, leathery face.
With a trembling hand, he picked up a small, tube-shaped radio and spoke into it in a thin, airy voice. "Sand cat, great job! You are a wonderful climber. That was probably not your fastest climb up the Guelmim ascent, but it certainly sounded difficult! I'm so proud of you."
The towering robot vigilantly stood guard around grandfather nearly all the time, despite complaints from multiple camp supervisors that it wasn't contributing to the construction efforts. The complaints never came to anything though. In the end, it wasn't worth arguing with someone whose wellbeing was the singular obsession of an six tonne, metal and carbon-fiber arachnid.
It was one of those things nobody who valued their well-being wished to address at their level; but they all felt that raising the matter to their superiors would be impertinent and petty, like tattling on your younger sibling. So the giant spider cared each day for the old man and his young charge without interference.
Janer reached down and unclipped his own small radio transmitter from his belt. "Thanks Fennec fox. I'm on my way down now. Make sure Ankabut is ready."
Now Janer looked across the valley directly below the cliff, admiring their company's work. Eight thousand new solar panels, gleaming bright, placed high enough up on the side of the mountain to catch the sun from its rising in the far east, all the way to its setting 406 hours later.
"It's as good of collection as the panels on the domes themselves" said Murat, one of the foremen who got along with Janer and Grandfather better than most. "Our installation will make enough power to lift an 03-class ship to orbit by itself. This community of builders has its rough edges, but their work is good. I'm proud of all we have accomplished."
A few minutes passed as Janer lazed there. He watched as two passenger space taxis lifted off from the space port, mylar wings extending wide as they lazily floated up, gaining speed slowly as they quietly wafted away from the grasp of the planet's substantial gravity. Another two soared in majestically, wings flexing in immense arcs hundreds of meters wide. A snarl of pterodactyls, one of Samum's more startling inhabitants, flitched around the two craft, dodging and whirling around as they tried to catch the updraft of their eddies.
Finally he had enough of his observation. The sun was still low in the sky, but it was already getting uncomfortably hot. He noticed an iridescent blue beetle skittering for a crack in the ground, then burrowing in to hide itself from the coming heat. It was time he went to ground too.
Janer got up and stretched, jumping in place a couple of times to get the feeling back in his limbs. He checked his homemade wing pack, then slung it across his back, buckling it tightly. Running forward, with a whoop he launched himself from the precipice, streaking down like one of the dive-bombing pterodactyls. A few seconds later he pulled a cord, which opened the wings on his back like he was one of the landing spaceships he had seen. He swooped up in a long arc, carried by his momentum until he reached the apex of his flight, then diving back down towards the rocky outcropping where his grandfather waited.
Ankabut had seen him the moment he leapt. As he barreled nearer, the legs of the robot that weren't occupied with holding Grandfather's chair shifted their stance slightly, widening and digging in. As he glided in on final approach, the robot's first pair of legs snapped out, still holding the red sunshade. Quicker than the eye could follow, it caught Janer out of the air, like a slingshot in reverse, and gently deposited him on the ground in front of Grandfather. Janer marveled that in the entire maneuver, the robot had managed the angles perfectly so that even as he used the red cloth to catch Janer, it also managed to shade Grandfather the entire time.
Grandfather clapped and cheered, hooting and pumping his fists. "Bravo, Janer! A great climb and a successful landing! I saw the whole thing! You are an amazing boy, you are." Janer smiled. It wasn't likely Grandfather had seen anything at all, especially at such a great distance. But the old man always wanted to encourage his adopted grandson, and the boy smiled and gave his grandfather's shoulder a squeeze. "Thanks, Grandfather, it was really a fun send. But now I'm hungry! Let's head home and get something to eat. We have dolmas from Anisa Khalil."
Grandfather smiled, his teeth bright in contrast to his dark, rough skin. "That would be marvelous. Let's go back down to the camp and find some dinner." He slapped the leg of Ankabut, "Giddyup, ya ol' bug! What are you waiting for?"
Ankabut nimbly snatched Janer up again with the sun shield cloth; ever-so-slightly dipping grandfather's seat to keep grandfather in the shade as it did. He carried them both, walking on his back four legs. The two passengers gently swayed back and forth as Ankabut scrambled quickly over the rough terrain. Down toward a vast rift in the ground stretching out to the left and the right for hundreds of kilometers.
The gorges were long fissures in Samum's surface. This one, known locally as Al-ibt, was about a hundred meters across, but in many places, over a kilometer deep. Tens of thousands of such gorges crisscrossed the surface of the planet. Some were much wider, while others were so narrow you could jump across; but they were nearly all deep. Some thought that they were the result of the planet drying up in ages long past; the rock shrinking as the groundwater levels receded deeper and deeper away from the scorching sun above, till the parched and cracked surface had split after millennia with only the smallest taste of rain each cycle. The gorges served as natural refuges from the harsh surface conditions; and most of the small creatures which had made their home on Samum since the humans had arrived over 150 years ago hid within them, only venturing to the surface during the relief of early morning and late evening. In many, what scarce traces of water that remained accumulated in hidden grottos, shallow pools in ephemeral oases. The few plants and animals that lived on Samum gathered thickly around them to drink the precious liquid.
As they crested the rim, the delicious smell of cooler air far below wafted up and tickled Janer's nose. The rocking and the soothing whir of Ankabut's servos were comforting and familiar. Janer let his eyes and mind wander, eyes trying to penetrate the shadows of the yawning chasm before them.
The camp hunkered in a narrow recess far down the face of the near wall, barely a nick in the sheer face of the fissure. The construction company had erected a few portable shelters, carried by robots like Ankabut down to the small crevice in the rock. A rare natural stream seeped out of the rock face. The stream then crept uncertainly towards a shallow pool a few dozen meters wide before flowing over the edge in a meager trickle which dissipated into a fine mist, then evaporated into the parched air long before it reached the floor far below.
The camp's grotto in the wall of the gorge offered the advantage of being far enough down to remain cool during the long, hot days. The abyss below dredged up cooler air when the temperatures above were most deadly. But still they were close enough to the surface that the light filtered down, leaving the camp in a reddish dusk during most of the long day.
It was into this that Ankabut, Grandfather, and Janer began their descent, following a narrow road as it jagged in crazy switchbacks, zigging and zagging. Some places it was little more than a few sturdy holes drilled deeply into the rock for hand and foot holds. Most workers avoided the perilous road, and instead rode the cargo elevator which ran directly from the edge above the camp and was rigged with a system of machines and pulleys for hoisting heavy construction equipment up and down when it needed servicing.
Ankabut's pace was easy, rolling and confident. They traversed several switchbacks with practiced ease. They were almost on level with the camp, two more tight turns to go. Suddenly, Ankabut's cadence changed. Janer sat up with a start as a terrible grinding sound came from the servo on his leg nearest the cliff and the joint began to smoke. Without a warning, Ankabut was slipping, skidding down the steep path! Janer was sure they were going too fast to stop before the turn. The servos were clicking furiously now, faster than they should as the pincers on the end of Ankabut's three remaining legs scrambled for any purchase on the rocky cliff. Janer realized that with only three legs, the robot would surely hurdle off the cliff. Ankabut must have realized it too. At the same instant, Janer heard a slip and a crash, and Ankabut flung him high into the air.
Janer saw it as in slow motion as he tumbled. The hard rock of the stony wall sailing inches from his face, the small sliver of sky high above, the other wall farther off, a yawning abyss deep below, then back to narrow path they had just been traveling down. There was Ankabut, now below him. It had ripped the red sun shade into two pieces as if it was tissue paper. Now the pieces clung to it's front pair of legs as if they were two blood-soaked bandages; the powerful limbs braced in front of the robot, trying to arrest its momentum as it skidded down the path. Janer continued to tumble through the air. He reached for the rip-cord of his wing pack and pulled.
The world seemed to snap into fast-forward to catch up. Ankabut, who had never made a sound beside the quiet hum of its motors, seemed to scream in pain and fear. Arresting his crazy rotation with a flick of his wings, Janer turned his head just in time to see Ankabut sliding off the path down the steep rock wall, unable to stop in time for the turn. In a last effort, it slammed its two back legs into the stone path with all its robotic strength. A shower of sparks flew up as the pinchers on the end crumpled under the impact, but Janer knew it was not enough. Metallic arms crashing against the hard stone, the robotic spider tumbled from the path, still flailing desperately for purchase on the rock. With a cry, Janer dove towards the falling pair, but he couldn't reach them. The terrible shrieking motors whirred and gears ground; but the robot toppled over the edge. Curling its legs into a tight ball around Grandfather, it fell, crazily rolling and bouncing, down, down down the steep cliff. He heard the terrible crashing of metal as the pair tumbled far, far below.
"Grandfather!" Janer screamed. By reflex, he opened his arms and legs wide as he saw the side of the gorge approaching too fast. His glider wings flared open, and he banked steeply, narrowly avoiding the rough, grey, rock wall. He turned, angled down as he pulled his arms back close to his body, palms inward, chin tucked tightly to his chest. His wing pack responded and he dove. Boy and wing pack went streaking downward. Tapering his descent barely enough to keep from careening into the unforgiving stone, he tore down into the darkness in the deep bottom of the trench.
As he approached the crash site, the illumination of Mingusat far above was so diminished to be nearly pitch black. The glow from his wing pack indicator lights were all that illuminated his surroundings. Only a glint of light off of something reflective at the bottom warned him that the ground was rapidly approaching. He flared his wings out as wide as they would go, but wing pack physics don't work well for abrupt landings. He swerved crazily, glancing hard off a large boulder. One wing snagged on the protrusion, sending him into a violent tumble. The other wing smashed against the ground. He spun wildly as he crashed and skidded to a stop, bruised but alive.
With a groan, Janer sat up. His head swam and his entire body ached. It was so dark he couldn't make out his own hand in front of him. For a moment he had the strange sensation as if he was in a dream, trying to see if he still had arms and legs attached to his body. It seemed they were all present, but a sharp pain in his ankle when he tried to stand up told him he probably had twisted it on landing. Gingerly, he got up, putting his weight on his other leg as he did so. It wasn't too bad, he told himself. He could put a little pressure on it. More pressing was finding Grandfather. He looked around.
Not far away, he saw a blinking light. It must be them! With a cry he jumped up and limped over to them as fast as he could. The ground was rocky, and in spite of his best effort, it took several minutes to pick his way to the wreckage. He scrambled over a large rock, and then he saw them. Ankabut's flashing error lights illuminated its body, crumpled in a heap. In the middle of the pile, he saw Grandfather.
Ankabut had formed a tight ball with his mighty titanium legs. The joints were crushed and twisted at crazy angles; but somehow, Grandfather was still breathing. His face was pale, his eyes closed. Blood was seeping from a his leg. Janer shouted his name, but Grandfather didn't respond.
As he approached, a servo whined. Janer saw that the one of the robot's claws was trying to apply pressure above the wound. Janer tried to remember his first aid training. He heard the gruff voice of the camp medic in his head. "Direct pressure won't quit, then tourniquet it!" It didn't look like Ankabut's pressure was able to stop the bleeding. There wouldn't be any time to waste. He looked around and saw the red cloth, still tied to Ankabut's front leg. He hastily worked to untie it. His fingers were trembling so much they would hardly work, but somehow he got the knot undone and limped over to Grandfather. The robot refused to budge, still pressing above the oozing red gash in Grandfather's leg. Janer choked and nearly gagged as he saw bone sticking out of the skin. The lower leg was twisted and bent at a sickening angle. Hastily, he looped the red cloth around Grandfather's sinewy calf, a few inches above the wound, and cinched it as tight as he could possibly get it. Would it be tight enough?
If he didn't get help for Grandfather soon, he might not make it. Remembering the radio on his belt, he took it out and tuned it to the planet-wide distress channel. 406 Megahertz. Janer had heard once that it harkened back to an ancient traditional search and rescue channel on old Terra, before the colony ships had left for Mingusat. But right now, ancient rescuers on distant planets were of no help to him. He just hoped someone close by was listening. His parched voice croaked out "Mayday, Mayday. I need help. My grandfather is hurt. Is anyone out there?" He waited, anxiously, for what seemed like an eternity. There was only silence.
He called his distress signal again, waited, then called a third time. Each time more frantic, with less and less attempt to fight down the panic rising into his voice. The wind blew along on its way overhead. Janer thought it sounded like it was crying. Then he realized it was not the wind crying, but that his face was wet with tears. As his tears fell to the ground, the parched sand of the ground soaked them up, and in seconds, they disappeared without a trace.
A quiet whirring sound interrupted his thoughts. Jerkily, one of Ankabut's mangled legs was moving. It looked like it was trying to... reach something? In a flash, Janer realized what it was. "The first aid kit!" he cried. It was strapped to the side of Ankabut's carapace. How could he forget it was there? Inside the small kit was an emergency vitals pod. He peeled off the backing and pressing the sticky side down it on his grandfather's pallid chest. The device beeped and a display flickered to life, showing Grandfather’s vital signs were at dangerous levels.
"Patient is in critical condition,” a monotone voice stated. "Severe blood loss. Immediate action required." Janer followed the monitor's instructions as quickly as he could. He reached into the kit and pulled out a hemostatic foam. Carefully, he sprayed as much of the foam into the wound on Grandfather's leg as he could to to control the bleeding. Next, he followed the device's instructions to apply a bio-adhesive patch over the foam to seal the wound and prevent infection.
"Blood volume critically low. Recommend synthetic blood infusion," the monitor continued. Janer had never done anything like this before. His whole body was shaking with adrenaline, but this wasn't like climbing or wingpack sailing. He mixed up synthetic blood components from several bags and had to start over again. This wasn't good; he couldn't afford to be careless. Grandfather might need every milliliter of blood he could get. Following the illustration more carefully, he got the mixture correct the second time and poked the infusion line into his grandfather’s arm. Red synthetic blood began to flow through the tube. In a few minutes, the vitals on the display began to stabilize somewhat, as oxygen and the antibiotics inside the blood came to the aid of Grandfather's natural defenses.
Once the monitor changed color from red to orange, he followed another set of directions and used the detachable probe to do a ultrasound of the injured leg. "Tourniquet detected. Recommend controlled release," the monitor advised. Centuries ago back on Earth, this could have been a dangerous step taken only by a qualified surgeon. Now, Janer worked through the steps to attach an intelligent tourniquet management system to the one he had improvised. It beeped softly and began to monitor blood flow, gradually releasing pressure and ensuring no sudden blood loss occurred.
The warning chimes slowed, then came to a stop. Janer was relieved. Grandfather's breathing was shallow and his skin was cold, but at least he was stable for now. He moaned softly. "Grandfather?" Janer asked hopefully. "Can you hear me?" Grandfather's eyes fluttered a little bit. They opened briefly, then closed as he winced in pain. "Yes, Janer, boy. I hear you." He seemed to fade in and out for a moment as he battled with the pain. He continued to lay still in the hammock he was still in. Finally he spoke again. In spite of the terrible pain he must be in, he managed to crack a wry smile. "It seems we've had a bit of an accident, haven't we?"
Janer shoved back hard against back a fresh round of sobs that tried to claw their way up to the surface as his grandfather spoke. It was everything he could do to squeak out in what he hoped was a reassuring voice "Yes, Grandfather. A bit of an accident. But you're going to be OK. We just need to get out a distress signal and someone will find us. It's just..." he broke off. His grandfather looked at him with concern. "It's just that the 406 band isn't getting any response. Is that it?" Janer knew he couldn't see his nod, so he squeezed his hand instead and grunted. He just didn't have the courage to say it; they were stuck, and probably no one would ever find them down here. "Yep, makes sense," his grandfather continued, "this here valley's so deep and narrow, can't a man bounce a distress signal out of it anyways. They ought to have heard you up at the camp though. I guess all their antennas are pointed up towards the sky to get communications from on high. Nobody ever thinks of listening to the little guy beneath him anyhow." Janer choked back another sob.
Grandfather tutted. "The brave sand cat I know wouldn't let such a little thing get him down, would he now?" Janer shook his head no, and even though Grandfather surely couldn't see it, he seemed to get the response. He paused to breath heavily and coughed, wincing as he did so from the pain of his many injuries. Finally he caught his breath. "You need to go get help, Janer," Grandfather said. "I..." he panted, "I can't get up to go with you. You're going to have to leave me here." Janer shook his head, "No, Grandfather, I can't go. It's dark. I may not be able to find you again." Grandfather huffed, "You'll be able to find me. This bug here is blinking brighter then a glow fly at a summer's midnight. You'll be able to see him, don't you worry." As if in agreement, the lights on Ankabut's front legs flashed three times, a bright, sharp light that Janer thought actually would be visible from a decent ways off. "But what about you, Grandfather? Your leg is broken and you lost a lot of blood. What if you pass out again?" "Well Janer, if I do pass out, I imagine it will hurt a parcel less... and this here crazy spider might be broke for any construction work for a while, but I reckon he'll do his best to look after me anyhow while you're gone. Just don't be gone too long, alright?"
Janer looked at his Grandfather incredulously. "Grandfather, it's almost a kilometer to the top. And the only climbing gear I have with me is my rope and a few cams. I've never climbed this area before. In fact I've never even seen it before... plus, it's dark. How will I know which way to go?" Grandfather took a few breaths as he mastered his pain. "Janer boy... I am old and I have seen many things. Good men go down to death and so do bad. Their creator receives them both and they both have naught but what they received from Him. If I pass out here, nay, even if I die, there is still a good God who made me. And if he wills that I live, and you to go and fetch some help and bring it here; I know he will. So don't you go saying that the way ahead is impossible. Listen to me, boy, and hear. If you needed go scaling the heights out of this gorge, I know if anyone could climb them, it'd be you. One day maybe you will, but today we need help quicker than what you could scale those heights.
"This is what I want you to do instead. Follow this gorge down, till it goes deeper still to the south. If you keep following it, about sixty kilometers from here you'll find the entrance to a cave in the side of the wall. You'll know it when you see it, because it will glow with lights inside. Follow the cave until you find someone who will help; and bring them back here." Grandfather stopped to breath again, Janer continued listening, unsure if his Grandfather's mind was lucid enough to be able to trust his directions. Sixty kilometers! That was an incredibly long distance to walk. And a cave with lights? What did that mean? They were the only camp in the area, and nobody else that he knew of was anywhere closer than the Combs. And everyone knew that there was little love lost between the people of the Combs and surface dwellers like them. He tried to clarify, but Grandfather only patted his shoulder and repeated his directions.
Janer took a deep breath, then looked up again. The bright line of the sky seemed so far away as to seem like a streak of fire against inky blackness. He knew Grandfather was right. Perhaps he could make it, but the climb would take days. Days grandfather might not have. If he stayed there, perhaps nobody would ever find them. He squeezed Grandfather's hand and patted the mangled robot. "Take care of Grandfather, Ankabut. I've got to go and find help."
The few working servos whined as one leg with only half a working claw reached out. To Janer's surprise, it withdrew a utility pouch from inside its torso, next to where Grandfather now lay. Janer was impressed that the broken robot was still able to move its manipulators as well as it did. He took the proffered pouch and looked inside. Three ready-to-eat meals, a large water bag, and a small foil tent, called a cryo-tent, designed for emergency use if you got caught outside during the day and a chemical cooling pack were inside. There was also a small light, which Janer took and flicked on gratefully. It was standard emergency gear for a planet where being trapped on the surface during the day meant it was nearly impossible to move for many hours, and certain death if you were not prepared. He took one of the meal packs and left the other two for Grandfather. Ankabut gently took one of the two and gave it back to Janer. It seemed to think that he would need it more than grandfather would. Janer sighed and pushed the extra pack back to the robot. "I'm OK, Ankabut. I'm going to find help, but I don't know how long it will take to get back here." He topped off his canteen with water from the pouch, though, before handing it back to the robot's fine manipulator arm. "I know you'll take care of him, Ankabut," he said, emotion choking his voice. "You're hurt pretty bad too. I wish I could do something to help you, but I can't right now. I need you to do your very best to keep Grandfather alive until help comes, ok?" The robot's claw bobbed twice, then retracted and gently rocked Grandfather's hammock.
Before he took another step, though, he would have to do something about that ankle. He dug through the first aid kit again, this time pulling out a kind of compressive bandage that would make a good stabilizing wrap. It was cooling and soft against his skin, but as it dried, it formed into a tough, rubbery shell that supported his hurt joint and immediately relieved the pain of stepping on it. "That will have to do," he said to himself, "I probably shouldn't be doing anything too crazy on it, but I think that should cover a few miles."
He hugged his grandfather, who squeezed his hand again and told him what a brave boy he was. Then, Janer he turned to the south and began walking. What else was there to do? He had to find help, though he had no idea in what form he would find it. He looked up. "The sky is so far above it looks like is a thin ribbon of light, the darkness is deep and I am alone. I'm scared, God, please help me. Please let me find someone to help Grandfather." In a few minutes the blinking lights of Ankabut were lost around a bend.
He traveled as quickly as he could manage with the small illumination from his light. Jogging when the way was clear, he was pleased with the makeshift brace he had made for his ankle. He even enjoyed the parts where he had to slow down to scramble down short runs of boulders. Nothing too difficult or steep, but enough to make him thankful he carried the climbing rope with him a couple of places. The path ahead was a descent, usually gentle, but always downhill.
He had lived on the surface of Samum all his life, but the depths of the gorges were still new and amazing to him. "If it weren't for the emergency of finding help for Grandfather, I think I would like exploring this gorge," he thought to himself, once. When the company set up camp, they liked to find a place closer to the surface so they could have less of a commute to the solar panel installation sites. The surface work window was limited to a few dozen hours each day, so every minute had to be used as efficiently as possible. Transportation time was a significant factor in the project budget, making proximity to work sites essential. Occasionally, they would set up camp in a large cave nearby, which he might poke around in for a bit, or in a deep valley nestled in the heart of a mountain range where he could climb the nearby cliffs. Most of the time they stuck to the gorges though. This camp site had been particularly nice because of the running water; too bad the way down had been so perilous.
Janer had spent the sunny part of many days exploring the area of this gorge near the camp; but had never descended to the bottom. It was too steep and too long of a climb to get out for all but the most tenacious climbers. As he continued his downward hike, he wondered how he would find a way out of the gorge at all.
For now though, he walked near the center of the bottom of the gorge. Here the floor was smoother. The large boulders gave way to a rough gravel and sand mix. "Now look here!" Janer thought to himself, as a tiny rivulet seeped out of the sand and cautiously flowed a few meters before retreating back into the dry cover of the streambed. Oases were incredibly rare on Samum. "And to think that I might be the first to find this one!" Wanting to note its location for the survey team, he pulled the flight computer from his wing pack and made a note of the location, and froze.
He realized with horror that he had not noted the location where Ankabut and Grandfather lay waiting. How would he tell help where to find his grandfather if he didn't know himself? Fighting back the rising panic, he tried to think logically. Then he laughed. But of course, it was so simple! He realized that it must be very close to the location of the camp; and that was already marked. Measuring now, he saw that he had traveled about ten kilometers already! That surprised him. It hadn't seemed that far at all, and he wondered at how quickly the time had passed. He usually had a good head for distances and directions. Was the panic of the situation causing him to lose his head? He shook his head. No, he was probably just stressed and hungry and thirsty. This seemed like a good place to take a quick break, he thought to himself, just a short rest before he continued.
He sat down and took a drink of water from his canteen, then refilled it from the little pool. The canteen's filtration system would remove any toxins from the water, or in the rare case it harbored some sort of disease, it would remove viruses and bacteria as well. Unlikely though, since life was so rare to begin with on the desert planet.
He mused about this as he sat quietly, chewing on his protein bar. Water was rare on the surface, but the gorges were poorly explored. Surface dwellers stayed near the surface because they had business there; solar construction or farming, mostly. Anyone who could, lived in underground in The Combs. But there could be other places to live outside The Combs, he mused. After a bit, he realized he wasn't the only one who appreciated the oasis. A thick, spongy, moss-like plant covered the ground near the water. At first Janer thought it was a porous stone and had ignored it; until he saw the surface wiggling! He took a closer look, and in its tightly woven fibers, Janer spotted several desert mice gnawing out a tunnel inside the strange, dark green plant's densely knotted interior. Holding his light more closely, he saw tribes of small three-segmented insects with six legs hurriedly scuttling here and there. He tried to remember back to the illustration in Felipe Campobelo's famous book about Samum. He couldn't be sure; perhaps these insects were ants?
He wished he could sit and wait in the quiet, peaceful oasis for longer, but he must go. He scattered a few small crumbs from what was left of the bar for the desert mice, but while they sniffed the air and poked their heads out to stare at the treats, they wouldn't dare venture from their mossy fortress. So he shoved the rest of it in his mouth, and chased it down with another gulp of water from his canteen.
"Must be going now, Grandfather is counting on me," Janer thought to himself. He pried himself up from his seat and kept walking. With some food and water, he felt better. Even his leg wasn't bothering him too badly now. The dry river bed crunched beneath his feet as he continued his trek, and the further traveled, the more signs of life he saw. Chinchillas ducked their fuzzy little heads back into their holes as he approached. Several birds, mostly little desert sparrows, but even one conniving looking hawk which peered indignantly at him in feigned innocence as if Janer had accused him of looking for hapless rodents to eat. He looked hopefully for an elusive desert fox, or even a mountain cat, but no such luck.
Kilometer after kilometer passed, and Janer was getting tired. That in itself wasn't unfamiliar to him. His high-climbing, wingpack-jumping past couple of years had often left him with nothing left to continue on except sheer grit and determination. But the fear in his chest now wasn't the adrenaline-soaked motivation of climbing, or even the long, slow burning energy of a camp movement, which sometimes required dismounting and manually controlling machinery in order to help it navigate through difficult and unfamiliar terrain. That was hard work, but with the tough and leathery Bedoui around, with their colorful characters, it was easy to get lost in the work. This was different. No jubilant Sayid Kanan, always singing and laughing at the strangest jokes only he seemed to get. No Anisa Khalil, with her practical demeanor, always thinking ahead to the next meal for the seventy or so men, women and kids who made up the camp, chatting with him amicably to pass the time.
This tiredness was wearing on him. He had been up since the beginning of Rotation 1, and it was now well into Rotation 2. Little things started to irk him; the faint twinge of pain when he stepped on his twisted ankle was replaced by a general throbbing as it began to swell. He had to rest it more often. The heat of Mingusat was beginning to filter down into the gorge as well. Up on the surface on the desert plains above, the temperature was rising. Probably up to 40 degrees by now. The outer limits of what humans could endure continuously, but it was still relatively early in the day. The temperatures would rise to the mid 70s by the hottest part of the day, but that would be another 10 rotations or so. He hoped to reach the help for Grandfather before the end of this rotation. If he didn't he would have to sleep... He was just getting so tired already; he could hardly keep his eyes open. 40 kilometers behind him already.
Suddenly he came upon large boulder blocking his path. He looked around the base, but there wasn't even enough room for one of the little mice to squeak around it. He sighed. At least a large pool of water had accumulated at the base of the obstacle. He decided to have one more rest before attempting to climb this barrier. The area around this pool wasn't as full of life as the little oasis he had found before, which surprised him. He would have expected that, with as much water as was here, it would be teeming with little critters. Here, there was not even moss on the stones. This bothered him for a little bit, but eventually he shrugged and put it in the back of his mind. He was too tired to think about it anyway. He thought of Grandfather, wounded and desperately in need of help. No time for a nap, then. He would just fill up his canteen, then start his climb.
He sat by the edge of the pool as he sipped his water, and ate the last bits of the meal that he had saved from its pack. A cookie and some dried nuts were all that was left, so he ate them now. As he sat, he looked around him. The boulder was surrounded by much debris and detritus, as if its fall had caused quite a collapse of the surrounding gorge walls on its way down. He tried to peer upward to trace its path on the way down. It was still very dark. Although the passing hours had lightened the gorge enough that he could now see without his flashlight, it was hard to make out any detail. He thought he could see a large shadow, which might have been where the boulder had been resting before its crashing descent. Perhaps the fall had been recent, he mused. That would explain why not much life had colonized around it yet.
A few minutes later, he was ready to begin again. He decided to make his climb at the joint between the boulder and the gorge wall; he figured there would be the most opportunities for footholds or handholds to ease his way. The boulder was a strange rock. Janer couldn't place seeing another one like it on any of his adventures. It was black and glassy, and pitted with little pockets that made it look porous, much like the moss that made up the mouse's home. It also seemed sharp, and Janer took a pair of thick gloves (made of Poatag, of course), out of his wing pack before he continued. Out of habit, he checked the wing pack. The one wing that had clipped the wall was splintered at the tip, but could probably still fly in an emergency. The other was scuffed up from his crash landing, but otherwise fine. He carefully packed it back away, ready to deploy at a moment's notice.
Climbing up and around the boulder took about a half an hour. The way was not steep but the loose rubble around it made the climb difficult. When he finally crested the top, he caught his breath. In spite of the gathering light above him, in front of him was completely black. The darkness was so absolute, he panicked for a moment, as it reminded him of his initial decent into the the gorge. He felt a dread pulling at his heart at going back down into that darkness. Then, he saw something. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Or was there a blue glow in the distance? It wasn't low, where he expected the bottom of the gorge to be. It looked to be about half-way up. About as high as the grotto where the construction camp was. His heart quailed. How would he reach it? Had he come all this way just to find another impossible climb? At that moment, a small ripple of wind blew through the gorge.
In an instant, he realized the solution. This boulder he was standing on was his ticket. The gorge always had strong currents of air passing through it as Samum's surface heated. Warmer air would rise and cooler air settle, creating the drafts that kept the oasis habitable. These winds would have to travel up and over the boulder, just like he did. A little pocket of rising air should be enough to bring him up to the glowing tunnel.
He peered at it again. Dread filled his heart. He couldn't see the bottom before him. Would it even be possible to climb back on top of the boulder if the climbed down first to scout out the way before him? No, he decided, it wasn't worth the risk. It was a terrible thing being unable to know what lay below him; especially if he couldn't make the landing at the glowing cave's entrance. He had no idea what awaited him in the darkness below. But he had already made one crash landing on the gorge floor, and this might be his only chance to rise to the height necessary to escape. He would launch himself back towards the way he had come from, towards the oncoming wind. At least that way he would know what was below him at first.
He sucked in few deep breaths, and deployed his wing pack. The damaged wing was holding well, his lift felt balanced, and he knew if he got some momentum, he could ride this rising current of air. He gave himself a three count in his mind, and launched himself from the boulder! At first he plummeted towards the small lake below him, but then, picking up speed, he swooped back up! He reached the apex of his flight, trading momentum for altitude. At the last second before he stalled, he twisted around and dove back towards the lake below him. The tail wind caused him to fall more quickly than before, and he nearly crashed into the dark water before he managed enough speed to swoop up and towards the boulder's precipice. It loomed larger than he expected, and he barely managed to turn his flight skyward and avoid splatting himself against its knife-like edges! Soaring upward, he let out a whoop of delight. It was working! He felt the current of air that had been his adversary moments ago now catching him under the wings and carrying him upward. His arc peaked nearly 20 meters higher than the place he had jumped off, and he knew that he would make it... as long as this wind held!
He circled the updraft several times, climbing meter by meter. After several passes, he estimated he had risen to nearly 200 meters high; and the boulder and the lake below were impossible to make out. He had to inch out over the downhill side of the boulder; with its inky blackness surrounding him. He found that the darkness was caused by a bend in the gorge right where the boulder had lodged itself. The light from Mingusat that had filtered down earlier in his journey was not able to penetrate at the new angle. He imagined the area before him was in complete darkness the entire day until high noon on rotation 9.
As he crept out into the dark gorge, following the updraft of air he locked his eyes on the blue glow before him. It was clear that it was a cave of some sort, although it wasn't just the cave that was lit by the eerie glow. As he drew closer, he realized the light spilled out of the cave and covered the rock around it. With amazement, he realized that the rock itself was glowing. Grandfather wasn't crazy after all. Although if Grandfather hadn't told him about this phenomenon, Janer would have thought that he was the one going crazy. "Rocks don't glow," Janer thought to himself. But these ones certainly were. He still was a long way off from the glowing tunnel, but he thought that he could see someone standing in the opening of the tunnel. He shouted "Hey! Help!" but just then he fell out of the updraft and had to quickly wheel about to regain his altitude. When he turned back around, he saw no one.
Climbing the updraft was becoming more and more difficult. Between the darkness and the scant wind that made it around the bend, the last two passes had not seemed to bring blue lit tunnel any closer to him. He decided that if he hadn't gained any altitude by the next pass, he would coast as far as he could and try to grab onto the wall somewhere close to the tunnel. He could see the glowing rocks around it extended for quite a ways now, and the entrance looked like he might be able to scramble up as long as he got close.
He took one more dive after spiraling the updraft, feeling like he had eked out every last centimeter of altitude it was willing to give him. He gained as much momentum as he could before leveling out and plummeting towards the blue light. At first, it seemed to refuse to grow. It climbed upward in his angle of vision, but no closer. The dark was disorienting. Janer felt a pang of panic, as if he had somehow lost his sense of direction in this darkness. But then he saw it was in fact growing. And then it was growing fast as he sped towards the blue light! He didn't dare slow down yet though. Once he killed his momentum it would be impossible to get back to the updraft from this far. He did not relish the thought of finding out what was on the bottom of that black ravine below him.
It seemed like the light was almost directly above him when he finally angled his wings and shot upward! It looked good, he thought, when suddenly a large boulder that was not lit by the glowing iridescence appeared right before him! He jerked away, but the broken wing, which had held its own so well until now, suddenly faltered! The maneuver was too much for it, and Janer only had time to cry out in dismay as he watched his good wing careen into the boulder. For the second time he ricocheted crazily, this time pitching wildly into the blackness!
Janer screamed. Not a scream of fear though. His tired mind didn't have any room left for being afraid of anything. It was a primal shout. One of desperation and frustration and anger at all the things that had gone wrong. Grandfather hurt, Ankabut smashed, his wings broken. This impossible mission, the eternally long days, this terrible planet. Yes, he was angry and he directed his last piercing cry at the One who he believed had held him all his life. Why did God let this happen? But at the same instant, in the scream of angst and rage, he felt at peace. As if all of the bad things would somehow still work out. His scream died in his throat. Instead of rage he felt complete calm. And as he tumbled, he looked around... and saw the mouth of the cave right in front of him!
With a shock he realized that the tumble had disoriented him! He couldn't explain how it had happened, but none of it mattered now. He flared out the broken wings, begging for one last surge of strength in their dying breath. They fluttered, then caught for just a second, slowing him down considerably, then snapped back again and he plummeted to the cave floor. He threw his hands forward and the wings snapped with them, breaking his fall. With a crash, he landed, and for the second time on that crazy day, tumbled to a stop.
This landing, somehow, was not as hard as his crash before. He carefully stood up and looked around him. The cave was bathed in cool, green-blue light that emanated from the surface of the rock. Then he remarked with surprise that he was standing on some sort of a paved path! This area was inhabited! With his eyes he followed the path, and realize that what he had thought was a cave before in the wall of the gorge was actually a tunnel! And running toward him down the path was the strangest sight he had ever seen.
Four men wearing long, brown tunics with simple brown belts around their waists. All four of the men looked to be old, one of them at least as old as Grandfather. But while Grandfather was nearly blind and hardly able to walk, this one ran with a spring in his step to best some of the most sprightly young men on the construction crew. The one in front was fairly flying, though his grey beard reached nearly to his belt, or would have if it wasn't streaming backward like a strange grey pennant dangling from its owner's chin. The second man was the only one who seemed to be having any trouble bounding down the path, and that was clearly on account of the large spotlight he was carrying - nearly as big as he was. Janer recognized it as the same type that the men on the construction crew used at night for when they did construction in the pre-dawn twilight shifts. Janer stood up and waved. All four men came to a skidding stop, mouths hanging wide open and expressions of amazement on their faces.
"Brother George! I thought you said there was someone who needed help in the gorge!" huffed the one carrying the light. His voice was not loud but the tunnel carried his voice right to Janer's ears. The one in front with the long beard must have been Brother George, and Janer remembered in a flash the figure who he thought he had spotted in the mouth of the cave. There was someone! Brother George's look of shock had been replaced by a wide grin. "Well Brother Theodore, as much fun as it would have been to prank you into running down the cuniculum aditu [1](Tunnel Avenue) with a large grow light from your beloved hydroponics garden, I assure you I am not quite that inconsiderate to rouse Brother Constantine from his rest without an actual reason."
At this, the one in the back who was quite old chuckled, and spoke up. "Well, your winged friend does seem like he could use some help, Brother George, and I would have gladly gotten up for whatever small assistance I could render." At this the sprightly, aged monk turned to Janer, and was the first of the group to address him.
"May the mercy and favor of our Lord find you, child." He walked a few steps towards Janer, then seemed to take in the boy's condition. He rushed forward, chiding the others. "My brothers! See how the boy is both injured and greatly fatigued! How we gab along while this child needs assistance!" Then arriving before Janer, he looked keenly into his eye. "My son, I am Brother Constantine, these are Brothers Theodore, Anthony and George. What is it that you need?"
Janer was absolutely exhausted, and more than a little amazed that he had arrived safely after that his last crash. For a moment he was so astonished that he wondered if he had indeed crashed and died when he clipped that giant boulder, and these strange men of God were some of his lesser servants at the outer gates of heaven come to fetch him in. He must have asked Brother Constantine as much, because the elder man fell to laughing. "No brother, though the least of the Lord's servants we surely are! You are alive right enough! But what brings you on such a perilous journey that you fly in the dark with wings such as these?" He looked in considerable amazement at the wing pack on Janer's back. They were quite a sight, broken as they were and dragging behind him, red fabric now dirty where he had crashed and dragged it through the dirt, but near his back still strong and proud as they arched up and away from his shoulders. The boy wearing the pack felt neither though. His exhaustion and fear and even recent rage that had somehow been quenched just in the nick of time all came crashing down at once. In quiet sobs, he told them everything that had happened. He told them about Grandfather sitting alone in the gorge, needing help, and about Ankabut doing its best to watch over him while Janer went to get help. The monks listened quietly and then talked together very hurriedly in hushed voices. Soon, Brother George returned to Janer. "Don't be afraid, child. Brother Anthony and Brother Theodore are going right now to find your dear Grandfather. You have done your part well; now, rest for a while."
It was if Janer's body had been holding out only until he heard those words. Within minutes after they were spoken, he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Maxim had the perfect, cozy little hiding spot in mind as he walked quickly up the winding terrace along the side of the shipyards. A sturdy railing separated him from the vast cavern on his left where scores of workers manufactured and refurbished various spaceship components.
The shipyards were Maksim's favorite place in the Combs. He loved watching the components for giant spaceships slowly stitched together, the frenzy of activity as workers carried parts here and there, giant heavyweight construction robots moving enormous rocket engines, gravity rings and power generators into position. Even though the shipyards were a hive of busy activity, the organized chaos below helped him think. He would often bring a sketchpad to draw what he saw, or dream up designs for giant new cargo ships with pages of detailed schematics for solar sails, particle-voltaic accelerator thrusters and magnetic lifts.
He saw his hiding space in the wall, a rocky alcove just below eye level for adults, with a surprisingly deep recess that he could slip into and not be seen, but still could see out and watch the activity below. Checking up and down the path to make sure nobody else was watching, he dropped down and rolled into the recess. A smear of bioluminescent algae in a crack provided enough light to draw by, and he quickly opened up his book and took out his drawing pencil. He was soon lost in a complex cutaway drawing.
"Nice detail, Maxim" said a voice belonging to the owner of a very expensive pair of boots just in front of Maxim's hideout. Maxim started, but his surprise was quickly replaced by recognition. He scrambled out of his hole, looked up, and gave his dad a wide grin.
Aseph looked down at his son and returned the greeting. "That's a nice hiding spot by the way. If you had your notebook back another couple of centimeters I wouldn't have even noticed."
Maxim picked up the book out of the crevice and put it back into his shoulder bag, sheepishly. "Thanks Dad. I wasn't actually hiding from anyone particular... I just like to watch the men at work, but if I'm sitting around everyone acts all weird since the boss's son is there."
"You enjoying watching my men putting together The Trustworthy's gravity ring?
Maxim looked down at the mighty arc layed out on the floor below him. There was team of welders wearing lightweight exoskeletons, crawling around like ants, busily scurrying here and there with pieces as large as they were. Just now, two were working together with a portable fabrication rig extruding a ribbon of titanium alloy into place. For a moment, the growl and yip of tensioners echoed down like a small dog playing tug-of-war with a rope far bigger than its own size while the cooling piece stretched against the frame, then bright flashes of blue light momentarily illuminated the vaulted ceiling hundreds of meters above as they welded it into place. Towering 50 meters above him, Maxim could see the great doors built into the roof. This room was one of the few places in the Combs able to be opened to the outside. When the giant torus was complete, the roof would be opened, and the gravity ring for The Trustworthy would be lifted by space crane up to the orbital shipyards, in orbit, high above the Combs.
Again the roof was lost in shadow, but Maxim saw spark kicked high up in the air drift lazily down, then flicker out on the rough stone floor below. The connections the men were working on glowed momentarily, red metal cooling quickly with a blast of cold air from an exosuit. The team made their way a few meters further to begin the process again. The space filled with the sounds of machinery and the low hum of the air circulation systems, punctuated by sharper noises; the clanging of metal, the snapping hiss of arc welders, the shouts of workers calling to one another.
For a moment Maxsim closed his eyes and imagined the assembly running in fast-forward. The structure looked like a wire-frame diagram of a giant's donut laying on the ground. The scattered pieces and components on the ground represented so many crumbs. He imagined the workers as they climbed all over structure, like ants working in reverse, each one carrying a tiny piece to add back to the pastry. For now, there was nothing but the skeleton, and inside it a single-piece pressure sleeve that held the air of the ship inside the frame. Once the ring was launched into orbit, this portion it would be pressurized to become the rock-hard - no, bulletproof - inner-hull of the living area. Deflated as it was now though, it was sort of sticky and white and squishy. To Maxim it looked like the gooey cream filling of the doughnut.
Maxim knew that next, in his ant metaphor, the dough part of the doughnut would be un-eaten away. The workers would soon install the light, foam-like battery cells - wrapped in a shiny foil to shield them from air - around and between the titanium ribs already present. These cells would form the lightweight superstructure of the ring. The battery cells were a patented invention of his Dad's company. They had enough power storage to pack a wallop of a charge, were barely heavier than air, and durable; made by processing the red potag that grew on Samum's hostile surface. The batteries were tough enough to double as the main form of the hull, and as the shielding that would protect the crew against radiation, micro-meteoroids, and the cold of space.
Finally, the donut would get its glaze. A tough, silicon boron nitride composite, serving as the first and most resilient barrier between the harsh environment of interplanetary space and the more delicate layers within. A material with unparalleled resistance to micrometeor impacts, extreme temperature fluctuations, and radiation exposure of space.
"She'll be a 50 kiloton freighter." It was was Maxim's father's kind voice tugged him back to the here and now... Maxim quickly did the math in his head. He new anything greater than 1 kiloton but less than 2 was a 00 class, 2-4 kilotons was 01 class. So... 2, 4, 8, 16, 32... a 32 - 64 kiloton ship would be... "An 05 class, dad?" His father chuckled. "That's right!" You take the kilotonnage and calculate log base 2. That gives you the spaceship class.
Maxim thought about that for a minute. "But what if it's greater than class 100?"
His dad chuckled. "Whoever made up the spaceship class system liked hexadecimal - after class 9 you get class A, B, C, D, E and F. Don't forget though that smaller ship classes below 1 kiloton start at FF and go down. FF, FE, FD, FC, FB, FA, F9 and so on. But the biggest thing possible to describe in the class system would be 2 to the 128th power kilotons.... That's roughly 76 times larger than the mass of all the matter in the Milky Way galaxy combined. So probably the numbering system we're using is safe for a pretty long time. In the other direction, the smallest possible ship would be 2 to the -127th power - that's about 155 times smaller than the mass of an electron. So I think they're pretty safe on that end too.
Maxim laughed thinking of the absurdity of a ship 76 times larger than the milky way, or smaller than an electron. He made him wonder though... "OK then, what IS the biggest ship ever built?. I mean, what class was it?"
"Well, that's actually pretty easy, son! You're standing less than a 5 kilometers from one of them!"
The boy slapped his head, remembering. "Of course! ElSahraa' spaceship!" He remembered learning in history that ElSahraa' was the second of the three great interstellar colony ships. It was designed as a 100 year home for up to 100,000 people. When it departed from earth it massed over 100 megatons. That was over 2000 times larger than the ship being assembled in the shipyards in front of him.
He looked up in awe at the gigantic structure being assembled. His mind spun trying to even imagine how big the colony ship was. But it was here, in the combs!
"How in the world did they ever land ElSahraa?"
Dad looked thoughtfully at him. "That is a very astute question for a young man of your age."
The boy waited, expectantly, for his father to explain; but the older man just kept looking at him. Finally, his dad spoke.
"Let me see your sketchbook, son."
Puzzled, Maxim handed him the notebook that he had been drawing in earlier. Flipping through the pages and landing on a blank one. He began writing, speaking out loud softly to himself... "You'd need to calculate the lifting body parameters for our atmosphere, model how lift and drag relate to velocity, surface area, fluid density, and the vehicle's shape, apply Bernoulli-derived dynamics tuned for compressible flow dependent on the atmospheric mode. Then you’d need to figure out the optimum glide ratio to model the control model, and how Mach number tracks the speed regime—especially as you transition through hypersonic into transonic phases." His dad was writing quickly now, a few sketches to illustrate the idea.
"Your control model has to feedback into your descent planning from orbit, Kepler’s laws frame the motion, but you’d rely on the vis-viva relation to get instantaneous velocity at a given orbital point, and Tsiolkovsky to estimate the velocity change needed for the de-orbit maneuver. Newtonian impact models to approximate pressure distributions at hypersonic angles of attack, Rankine–Hugoniot conditions to characterize the behavior of gas across shock fronts. Then the heating problem at the stagnation point forces - you would probably want Fay–Riddell stagnation heating analysis, but really you need a simulator for high-enthalpy flow theory. Once inside the sensible atmosphere, Newton and Euler’s rotational-translational formulations help you account for control surface deflections and torques. You'd need to estimate structural flex, both from dynamic pressure and thermal expansion, you would Hooke’s law for stress-strain and thermal strain theory, with vibration modes outlined in Rayleigh’s early modal decomposition, again, simulator. Probably needs a hybrid lift-body and propulsive landing strategy to settle something that big even if you decomposed most of the craft.
"In a way it would be easier since you can use deep-throttling thrust vector control and inertial navigation, but merging the two models is tricky. On top of glide slope planning, you'd have to calculate the suicide burn initiation point using constant-thrust kinematics—solving backward from target altitude and velocity with gravity losses and throttle delay. Your powered descent phase has to be modeled as a variable-mass rocket, governed by Tsiolkovsky’s exponential law, but applied incrementally as mass drops with fuel burn. The burn profile optimization pulls in calculus of variations or bang-bang control theory depending on the margin—typified in the Goddard problem.
"During this phase, the lander has to manage pitch, yaw, and roll using gimballed thrust—Euler's rigid body rotation equations run in real-time on flight computers tuned for actuator response and body-frame inertia, but for modeling you would probably need to iterate parametrically. For landing, thermal and plume effects near the surface are modeled using reactive CFD to avoid debris damage to the lander...
His father finally looked up, smiling at his son. The page was covered top to bottom with equations, notes, sketches and simulation notes. "The question is wonderful. But to answer, I think we'll just have to send you to the Space Pilot academy to study as an engineer."
The boy's jaw hung slack for a moment before he jumped up and hugged his dad. Those words were music to his ears. Study at the Space Pilot academy as an engineer? He had longed to do just that, been begging his parents... and they never discouraged him, just vague answers like "well, just keep up your studies and maybe someday..." This was the first time his dad had actually said he wanted him to go.
His dad returned the hug, then held him out at arms length. "We're shipping the hull they're working on there up on space tug 3 just before sunrise, as long as everything goes to plan. You want to ride along and see them install her on the Trustworthy?"
Maxim grinned. Outside on the planet's surface, the 812-hour day was well underway; it were far too hot to safely work outside. There would be a brief window after sunset when temperatures would be safe for a couple of city-days at most, but it would be dark then, and anyway, the gravity-hull wouldn't be ready yet. Sunrise was still another 21 city-days away—about 500 hours—but already his skin tingled with excitement and anticipation. "Absolutely. Can we get lunch at the zero-grav restaurant on deck C?"
Dad winked a mischievous grin. "Perhaps I could persuade Faris to fit that in my schedule." Maxim groaned. It was the old joke. Dad was the president of Najm Al-Majd Shipbuilders; Faris was his secretary, but Dad often joked that Faris ran his entire life down to scheduling bathroom breaks.
Maxim pumped his fist and ducked in to hug his dad's barrel chest again. He smelled like grease and hot metal. His father returned the embrace quickly, then gently pried him away as another man approached, demanding his attention.
The newcomer was a young man in his early twenties, dressed in long, flowing robes—a formal dishdasha—made from smooth, pearl-gray silk that shimmered subtly under the light from a nearby fiber-optic in the wall. The fabric draped elegantly, its fine weave and delicate sheen suggesting its origins from a master artisan in the upper combs. His turban, tightly wound and pristine white, was embroidered with gold and silver thread that traced intricate geometric patterns and delicate floral motifs, each stitch meticulously placed with precision better than mass production allowed. Tiny beads of polished lapis lazuli were sewn into the design, catching the light with each movement. The craftsmanship of his attire, marked him as someone born into wealth. Maxim didn’t recognize him at first, but he knew he must be someone important. Usually his father would cheerfully introduce his customers and associates alike to his son, but today, Dad indicated with a rapidly open-then-closed fist behind his back that Maxim should make himself scarce.
Quick as a wink, and before the rich Sheikh could notice. Maxim slipped back into his crevice in the wall next to the path. He made sure this time to tuck himself all the way to the rear of the space. As soon as he settled himself, Maxim heard the man address his dad. His voice was much less refined than Maxim expected, it had a raspy quality that reminded Maxim a little of a leaky air recycler near one of his friend's homes in the lower district.
"Sahib Asef, you’ve truly built something remarkable here." The man used the respectful term "sahib", signaling that he considered Dad a peer, a respectful gesture for someone who was clearly a prince of the city. The CEO of a major company was still just a minor citizen compared to the royal family.
"Everyone knows Najm al-Majid is the crown jewel of the Combs’ shipbuilding industry," the raspy voice continued, "perhaps even the crown jewel of every industry here, except my father's mining works. The King, of course, has always had great faith in you, and rightly so."
This was interesting! Maxim couldn't leave now. For one, now he knew who the man must be; Amir Khalid Al-Sahra'i! None other than the King's nephew, son of Prince Sardar! It surely must be, for Prince Sardar was famous as the champion of the miners. After the calamity of the near-war and subsequent Treaty of Quoath, Prince Sardar had begun several different mining ventures - replacing the one owned by the royal family. His investment had paid off, since the Combs exported its refined minerals to the Nüüdelchid and to Ísreikistjarna; he had brought great wealth to the Combs, and to the royal family. Curiosity ignited, but terrified of being caught, Maxim ducked deeper into the alcove, the rock wall warm and rough against his back, and hid as the Amir Khalid continued.
"It’s rare to find someone so respected both by the monarchy and by the people themselves. I’ve often thought that if there were more men like you in the Combs, this city would be flourishing beyond imagination."
They had come to a stop directly in front of Maxim's hiding space -- had Dad intended for him to hear whatever was about to happen? Afraid to even move, Maxim listened with interest.
"That is why I truly hope we might work together. Imagine what Najm al-Majid could accomplish if we combined our strengths. My family’s businesses control a substantial portion of the mining and energy sectors." That was true too, Maxim thought, Dad had told him the Sardar companies on the surface covered both surface mining for minerals that were more abundant there, and building solar collectors, to fuel the Comb's great need for power to run its multitudinous systems filtering air and recovering water for over a million people. "I could ensure that your company always has the priority for materials, delivered on time and at a lower cost. With my assistance you could have access to new opportunities—contracts that are currently quite difficult to access."
Maxim's mind whirled. He loved thinking about systems and had a good head for business, his dad had said. The implications for Najm industries would be enormous. He was so busy thinking about how much good this would do for the shipbuilding business that he almost missed what the wealthy prince said next. "All I am asking for in return is a 10 percent stake in your company. As you know my father hasn't given me control over anything in his portfolio yet. I want to show him that I can make good investments as well as he can. Earn his trust, if you will. It's quite charming the close relationship you have with your own children, Sahib Asef;" at this point, one of the hands, bedecked with several, fabulously-expensive looking jewels, gestured in Maxim's direction. Maxim did his best to remain calm. The prince knew he was there, but didn't seem upset about it. Subtly, Maxim slid out of his hiding spot, being sure to keep his dad between himself and Prince Khalid's position, and scurried off and around the corner, as noiselessly as a breath of wind.
A few days later, Maxim was sitting next to his Dad in a comfortable bucket seat aboard the space tug "Strong Willed", waiting to take off. He looked around him wile he was waiting. The space tug's interior was a wide, open area, a circular room with a dozen small porthole windows facing the outside. The controls and large displays were set up between he windows. The layout mean that the bridge of the tug -- the part where the crew controlled the ship, was a lower area that ran in a ring all the way around the ship. The passengers were on a slightly raised platform in the middle, facing out. That made sense to Maxim. They needed to be able to see all the way around to ship to make sure they were clear when working in tight spaces, but he wished he could get down from his seat and get a better look out the windows. The ceiling was tall - about 350 centimeters. It gave them room to swap out the chairs and secure cargo in this space instead. "Does this ship belong to your company, Dad?" Maxim wondered.
"No, Maxim", this tug belongs to the royal family. My company hasn't been able to acquire one yet - and I'm not sure the economics of owning one like this really work out in our favor. A lot of the cost of a launch is from the cost of energy beamed to the ship as we ascend. The tug is owned by the energy company - which is a 49% joint stock company with the Sangay Lift Inc and the royal family being the exclusive holders." Maxim's eyes glazed over. He didn't really care about how the politics and economics of running a business went; nevertheless his dad continued. "the royal family owns a 49% share in the mining company that provides most of the raw materials for Najm industries as well." His dad's face was pinched, thoughtful, and Maxim tried to reign in his bouncing thoughts and figure out why. Was it something to do with what he had asked, or something else on his mind?
The lift off was not the explosive, flaming affair of a rocket, or even the screaming, noisy launch of a scram-jet that were features on most of the old Earth movies that Maxim had seen in history class. Instead, it slowly and gracefully expanded enormous wings...