Ceres Page 8

  The boarding attendant cleared his throat and waited to make sure she was through. “Yes, indeed, you must, Madam, if you want to arrive at your destination, instead of shooting out of the Solar System toward the stars.”

  He waited for an interruption, but none was forthcoming. “You see, Madam—everybody—you’ll be leaving Pallas, accelerating at the same rate as this asteroid’s average surface gravity, a twentieth of a gee.”

  “Average surface gravity?” the New Jersey woman asked. “I thought that gravity—”

  “Varies,” he interrupted her this time, “from point to point on any planet’s surface, even that of Earth, believe it or not. But it tends to be especially noticeable out here on small worlds like Pallas and Ceres.”

  “He is not just whistling ‘Dixie’.” Jasmeen whispered to Llyra.

  “But to get back to your question,” said the boarding attendant, who now had a diagram of the Solar System floating beside him. “Your ship could keep going at a twentieth of a gee, gaining speed until it gradually approaches—but never reaches—the speed of light. Please don’t ask me about that, folks, because it’s a whole different lecture.

  “Instead, when you’re halfway there, the ship will flip over, its engines still running, and begin slowing itself—it’ll feel just like it did before; you won’t be able to tell any difference—until you arrive at Ceres.”

  The lady from New Jersey was insistent. “But what about this flipping over? Will we have to wear seatbelts, or tie ourselves into our beds?”

  He gave her a manly chuckle. “No, Madam, you won’t feel that, either. The captain and the ship’s computer know how to use the attitude thrusters to turn it over very subtly and gradually. If you’re having cocktails, you won’t spill a drop—unless you’ve had too many, of course.”

  Llyra raised a hand and spoke without being acknowledged. “Isn’t it a little more complicated than that? What about the difference in Pallas’ orbital inclination and Ceres’? What about the difference in their gravities?”

  The attendant nodded. “Right again, Miss. The actual acceleration of the ship will increase gradually until you’re feeling the tenth gravity of Ceres, rather than the twentieth of Pallas. The actual moment of turnover will be determined, in part, by the fact that, while Pallas travels in the same plane as almost everything else in the Solar System, Ceres’ orbit cuts through that plane, rising above and below it. Its ‘angle of inclination’, as they say, is about twenty degrees.

  “Happy now?” He winked at her.

  She grinned. “Happy now,”, she told him.

  “Okay, then, back to BeeDee. The two levels above the recreation deck consist of a series of large, comfortable wedge-shaped staterooms located around the central well and escalator. Our staterooms offer every modern amenity, including real showers, automassage beds, almost limitless 3DTV and music libraries, and high speed SolarNet access. In addition, they are capable, in an emergency, of serving as independent lifesaving pods.”

  In the holographic simulation, Llyra and her fellow passengers watched dozens of pie-piece shapes—each with a single bite taken out of the small end to make room for the central well—floating around the abandoned and forlorn skeleton of a stricken ship. She wondered if the cargo holds could be ejected, as well.

  The boarding attendant went on. “At the moment, because there aren’t very many of you, we’re using most of the lower passenger deck for package mail and light cargo. The topmost or eighth deck—that is, the deck furthest forward—features a spacious passenger lounge, including a full service wet bar, and an automated kitchenette. A series of floor-to-ceiling windows wraps around the deck’s entire circumference, affording a scenic view unrivalled by any luxury hotel —with the possible exception of the Marriot Everest and the proposed Mons Olympus Hilton.

  “At its center stands a slightly elevated control deck, capped by a transparent dome, and visible from all over the lounge area. All Fritz Marshall Spaces Lines passengers are encouraged to visit and observe the captain and his bridge crew navigate and operate the ship. There will be champagne cocktails offered to celebrate liftoff and midcourse turnover.”

  With these words, the boarding attendant dramatically threw open a large oval-shaped door in the wall behind him. The passenger tube from the Fritz Marshall offices in the crater wall attached to the vessel at the level of the recreation deck. A transparent-walled companionway between the weight room, with all of its machines and mirrors, and the swimming pool, led them to the central well and its spiral escalator. Llyra and the other passengers found their luggage already in their staterooms, and were free to repair directly to the lounge deck if they wished.

  Jasmeen and Ardith insisted that Llyra take a nap, first.

  ***

  Soft chimes sounded, followed by a gentle recorded female voice saying, “Twenty minutes remain until liftoff. Twenty minutes remain until liftoff.”

  “I believe,” said Ardith, “I will have a baggie of champagne.”

  She was speaking to a crisply-dressed female attendant who had just offered her a flexible plastic cylinder with a self-sealing top. The attendant wore dark slacks and a brass-buttoned blue blazer, just like the boarding attendant, with her long, dark hair neatly tucked up into a French braid, just as his had been. Pallatians were familiar with containers like this, which were useful in carrying liquids and preventing messes not only in space (the lounge attendant had assured them that they would never feel less than one twentieth of a standard gravity, even at turnover, halfway to Ceres) but on Pallas itself, where one twentieth of a gee usually wasn’t quite enough to make drinks behave themselves.

  “What I don’t understand,” Ardith went on, “is how this company plans to make any money.” Llyra knew that it was more than simple curiosity with her; the Ngus were major stockholders in Fritz Marshall Space Lines. “This is a beautiful room, and our suite below isn’t a bit less wonderful.”

  The three of them were on the lounge or common deck at the very top of the Beautiful Dreamer. The deck had a circular floorplan almost a hundred feet in diameter, centered around a pilots’ flight deck standing in the center of the room and elevated five feet above the main deck. Through its transparent doors and windows, passengers could watch the flight crew handle the ship and be invited, a couple at a time, to come up, look around, and even try out the captain’s chair. Just now, captain and crew were going through the pre-flight checklist.

  “It’s our ‘Hidden Efficiency’ plan, Ma’am,” another attendant told her with a proprietary grin. He was a young man in his early thirties, with thinning, carroty-colored hair cut very short, and round, shiny cheeks. He, too, wore dark slacks, a white, long-sleeved shirt, and a black necktie. But, instead of a blue blazer, he wore a red plaid vest. His accent was southern East American. “I’m glad you-all’re enjoyin’ it.”

  The soft chimes sounded again, and the voice said, “Seventeen minutes remain until liftoff.”

  “Hidden Efficiency plan?” Ardith gestured with her baggie and her eyes, asking Jasmeen and her daughter if they might like a container of champagne. Jasmeen nodded enthusiastically and accepted a baggie from the attendant. Llyra, only now beginning to awaken fully from her nap, mouthed no thanks, and took another sip of her favorite drink, Koffie Kola.

  Wrapped most of the way around the base of the control deck—

  interrupted only by the forward, or upper terminus of the spiral escalator—was the kitchenette and bar the boarding attendant had spoken of. There were facilities in the staterooms for preparing simple meals, as well, although Llyra had been too sleepy to inspect them closely.

  The lounge attendant slipped his tray beneath his arm and squatted beside the comfortable leather-covered sofa Ardith relaxed in. “Yes, Ma’am. Fritz Marshall company policy is that nothing is ever done that will diminish or spoil our passengers’ experience with us. Think about it—is this your first trip into space? I thought as much. How about your daughters—oh, I see, her first
trip, her tutor’s second. My point is, this is something that each of you will remember for the rest of your lives. And we want it to be a happy memory, one that you associate with us.”

  “I understand,” said Ardith. “But the Hidden Efficiency … ”

  “It’s simply this: if we have to save money, it must always be done somewhere else in the operation, where the payin’ customers’ll never notice it.”

  “So you might cut corners,” Llyra suggested archly, “where safety measures are concerned?”

  “Or perhaps on maintenance?” Jasmeen asked, like Llyra, appearing to be innocent. Sometimes, Ardith thought, they really do seem like sisters.

  “Absolutely not, Miss. Havin’ one of our spaceships blow up at liftoff or crash into another ship or something would sort of be the ultimate way of diminishin’ or spoilin’ our passengers’ experience, wouldn’t it? And, of course, they’d tend to notice it—for a few seconds, at least.”

  Jasmeen smiled. “So how do you reduce overhead?”

  They heard the chimes again, the voice said, “Ten minutes remain until liftoff.”

  The attendant sighed, “I guess we’d look for bargains in deuterium or reaction mass, or peanuts an’ champagne. The way they always talk about in company briefin’s, is by cuttin’ salaries and benefits—but only from the top down. Nobody who serves in-ship as attendants or crew, nobody who gets his hands dirty in the wrench barn, has ever taken a cut. But it’s said Fritz Marshall himself worked for nothin’ through a couple years in the beginnin’.”

  “Well,” Ardith replied, “I suppose that represents some kind of progress.” She turned to her young companions. “You see, the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion, the agonizingly slow-but-steady 21st century revolution against the United States government—that ended with West America separating itself from East America—was also a revolt against a handful of giant corporations that had come to believe they owned the country and everybody in it. There are still states in West America where holding a Master of Business Administration degree is illegal—or at least considered suspicious, like being caught carrying lock-picks.”

  The attendant chuckled. “Makes sense. Whenever a company hires an MBA, it’s a sure sign they’re lookin’ for ways t’give their customers the least possible goods an’ services in exchange for the highest possible prices.”

  “Regrettably,” Jasmeen sipped at her champagne, “revolution is incomplete. Problem is not solved everywhere, even today. My father worked for short time in factory making … electric tooth washing machines.”

  Ardith blinked. “In Russia?”

  “In Newark,” Jasmeen replied. “When factory is owned and operated by original inventor of tooth washing machine, quality is such that they have less than two percent return of faulty merchandise from customers. This goes on for years and years. Then inventor sells company so he can retire to Florida beach, and factory is taken over by engineer.”

  “A man with a mind so narrow,” the attendant was grinning as he quoted the old saw, “that he can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”

  Jasmeen asked, “Are you not engineer, Mrs. Ngu?”

  The attendant paled slightly. The chimes sounded again, and the voice said, “Six minutes remain until liftoff.”

  “No, Jasmeen, dear,” said Ardith. “I’m a scientist. Llyra’s father is an engineer.” She tilted her head back, emptied her baggie, and took another.

  Jasmeen went on. “Engineer at tooth machine factory is also Master of Business Administration, therefore perfectly able to put whole head through keyhole.”

  Everybody laughed.

  “One day, out of blue,” Jasmeen went on, “recombinant MBA-engineer hybrid calculates that Quality Control Department—where my father Mohammed happens to work—costs tooth machine company too much. Engineer eliminates entire department, saying this will save company millions.”

  “Uh-oh,” Ardith and the attendant muttered at the same time.

  “You are both way ahead of me,” Jasmeen told them. “Merchandise returns promptly shoot up to fifty percent. Engineer claims this is still cheaper than running Quality Control Department and therefore acceptable. Trouble is that tooth machine company soon acquires reputation for selling trash to wholesalers, retailers, and public. Engineer’s short-term gain is erased by long-term loss. Company fires engineer, asks my father to restart Quality Control Department, but by that time, he and Beliita my mother are in training, committed to IASA Mars program.”

  The attendant nodded. “Introducin’ ‘em to an altogether different kind of quality control problem. I know—I had an uncle and an aunt who died on Mars.”

  They heard the chimes again, sounding a little more urgent. The voice said, “Thirty seconds remain until liftoff. Thirty seconds. Please be seated.”

  “Their name?” Jasmeen asked, genuinely interested.

  “Sanchez—Fourth Expedition.”

  She nodded. “Mine is Khalidov, Seventh Expedition, rescued by—”

  “The infamous Ngu brothers,” he supplied, then looked to Ardith and then to Llyra. “Your grandfather, young lady?” he asked the younger female.

  Llyra stood up and stretched, then sat again as the deck beneath her feet began vibrating. “That’s right, William Ngu—and my great uncle Brody.”

  As Llyra and her companions watched out the enormous windows of her eighth deck, Beautiful Dreamer began to rise above the baked and frozen soil of Port Peary, as quietly and gently as an elevator in a luxury hotel. In seconds—almost without discernable acceleration—

  the ship reached, then surpassed, the level of the mountaintops about the polar crater.

  In the center of the deck, a few feet above the level of the lounge, the flight crew, consisting of the captain and two assistants, chattered at one another in technicalese, as they manipulated their keyboards. Llyra’s heart beat so hard in her chest that it hurt. She was going to see her father and her brother! She was going to see another world!

  They were on their way to Ceres!

  CHAPTER NINE: THE MONKEY IN THE WRENCH

  All of the new worlds likely to be settled by humanity in the near future have a considerably lower gravity than Earth: Pallas has five percent of Earth’s gravity, Ceres has ten. Earth’s Moon has about seventeen percent, and Mars has about thirty. That fact—and its consequences—may turn out to be the most important in human history … or at least human evolution. —The Diaries of Rosalie Frazier Ngu

  Not quite wide awake yet, Jasmeen took a deep breath and released it, uncertain but fearful of what she was about to confront. The young woman pushed a lighted plastic button on the panel before her, let the stainless steel door slide shut, and felt her weight surge slightly as the compartment began to rise.

  The ship’s centrifuge facility, strictly speaking, constituted an unnumbered deck unto itself, squeezed in between the deck with the swimming pool and sauna, and the lower, or aftmost deck of passenger accommodations, presently uninhabited and given over to cargo. The machine could be entered only when it wasn’t running, by means of this small lift from the recreation deck.

  Her weight grew lighter on her feet, the door slid open again almost immediately, and, as she stepped through, shut itself again. Without being told, the lift descended to the deck below, leaving an empty space behind her. She looked across the disk-shaped centrifuge deck, interrupted only at the hub, where the escalator and service core passed through it, to a clutter of various benches, chairs, and exercise equipment, all of it bolted securely to the curved wall on her right.

  From within one of the cagelike weight machines, a familiar voice spoke to her. “You’ll have to reorient yourself ninety degrees as quickly as you can. The new floor will be the carpeted surface to your right. Lie down on one of those couches ahead of you, strap in, and, once the centrifuge has begun spinning, you’ll find yourself standing on the new floor.”

  Jasmeen answered. “Llyra, what are you doing down here in middle of night? I woke up ju
st now and you were gone. If your mother knew, she’d be—”

  “My mother, Jasmeen. She’d be my mother.” Jasmeen saw movement ahead of her as Llyra climbed out of the exercise machine holding a remote control device in one hand. The girl pressed a button. They both heard relays thud, and a low, powerful hum began to fill the space they occupied.

  Llyra said, “No room to jump in here. I want to do some floor exercises and some of these machines. Let’s try the gravity of Ceres, first, okay? One tenth Earth normal, twice the gravity of Pallas. Better get into these couches, though.” The girl quickly followed her own advice.

  “Very well,” the older female said. “But afterward we shall have some talk.” Lying down and strapping herself onto the couch, Jasmeen placed the soles of her feet in contact with the carpeted wall. This shouldn’t be much of an ordeal, she reflected. Llyra had experienced this much gravity at those mascons on Pallas she liked to skate over, and it was only a third of the gravity she herself had been born to, on Mars.

  The noise grew quieter as it grew more complex. Jasmeen had read the brochure by now and knew there were counterweights in the ceiling, spinning in the opposite direction as the centrifuge to keep it from altering the ship’s attitude and course. She also knew that, although facilities like this had been built wherever humanity settled among the asteroids, and the moons of the major planets—not to mention several dozen space stations between here and the Sun—and had once been thought vital to the survival of the species in space, it was now known there was no need for them. They continued to be built and used nonetheless. Beautiful Dreamer might be the first spaceship (since Fifth Force) to boast of a swimming pool; it was by no means the only one to have a centrifuge.

  Apparently thinking similar thoughts, Llyra told her, “You know my mother spent hours and days and weeks in one of these things, just to have my brother. The theory was that human ova can’t descend through the Fallopian tubes without more gravity than we have out here in the asteroids.”