Michael Cassutt - More Adventures On Other Planets

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More Adventures on Other Planets

byMichaelCassutt

This is what they used to call a cute meet, back when movies were made by people like ErnstLubitsch or Billy Wilder,

when movies had plots and dialogue, when life and love had rules, back in the last century. A handsome officer in the

Soviet embassy (does that tell you how long ago?) picks up the phone one day and hears a lilting female voice asking

him if he can tell her, please, what is Lenin's middle name. "It's for my crossword puzzle."

Affronted, the officer snaps, "To dignify that question would be an insult to the Soviet Union!"And slams down the

phone.

But not before he hears a lovely laugh.

That evening the officer goes to the British Embassy for some reception, and hears that same laugh emerging fromthe

oh solucious mouth of an English woman who should probably be Audrey Hepburn. Smitten, the officer walks up to

Miss Hepburn, bows, and says, "Ilyich."

And so the story begins.

And so our story begins. Only—

Look, you're going to have to be patient with me.Because the couple is not just a couple. It's more of a quartet. And

two of the individuals aren't even people.

Picture the surface ofEuropa , the icy moon of Jupiter. It is midday, local time, but the sky is black: what little

atmosphereEuropa possesses is insufficient to scatter enough light to give it acolor . The combination of ice, snow,

and rock create a patchwork of white andgray , something like a chessboard with no straight lines.

Europais tectonically active, about ten times as bouncy as any place on earth, so the landscape is marked by

jaggedupthrusts and creepy fissures known as cycloids.

But forget the landscape and thecolor of the sky. What really catches your attention is the striped ball that is Jupiter,

looming overhead like a gigantic jack-o'-lantern. It actually seems to press down on the snowy landscape. What makes

it a little worse is that sinceEuropa is tide-locked, always keeping the same face toward its giant mother, if you happen

to be working on that side ofEuropa , Jupiter is always there!

And so are several elements of the J2E2, the Joint Jupiter-EuropanExpedition, three tiny rovers that have been

operating on the icy plains for two years, scouting the site for the "permanent"Hoppa Station and erecting such

necessary equipment as a shelter (even machines get cold onEuropa ), aradiothermal power plant, and the

communications array.

On this particular day, rover element one, also known as "Earl," is approximately sevenkilometers north ofHoppa when

he receives a query from a source in motion (hiscomm gear is sophisticated enough to detect a slight Doppler effect)

for range-rate data.

Element Earl can't see the source: his visual sensor is a hardy multi-spectral charged-couple device that is excellent for

showing a view forward and all around. It lacks, however, a tilt mechanism that will let it see up.

Nor, given the priorities in his guidance system, can he presently provide range-rate data. In the burst of bits that

made up rover-speak, Element Earl says, more or less, "I'm a Pathfinder-class rover element. You should be talking to

the base unit atHoppa Station."

He would think no more about the contact, except that there is a message of sorts embedded in the acknowledgment

that suggests …compatiblity . More than seems to exist between theDopplering radio source and the base unit

atHoppa , in any case.

TheDopplering source is, in fact, a series of follow-up J2E2 packages designed to conduct the search for life in the

dark, frigid ocean underEuropa's icy crust.

All of these elements are wrapped inside a landing bag dropped from a mission bus launched from Earth two years

after the initial bunch that included Element Earl and propelledEuropa -ward bylightsail . The bus has burned into orbit

aroundEuropa , then waited for a command from La Jolla to separate the bag and its retro system.

The follow-up flight has been marred by software glitches, some of them due to undetected programming lapses back

in the avionics lab in La Jolla, others to the assault of Jupiter's magnetic field. After all, the chips are only hardened

against electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon, not the steady and relentless assault of chargedJovian particles.

Like a human trained to withstand a stomach punch only to find himself dragged behind a truck, the bus has suffered

some damage.

Which is why one of its four elements, soon to be known as "Rebecca," goes on-line during the descent phase as a

backup to thelander's systems, which are having a tough time locking on to the signal fromHoppa Station.Not to

prolong the suspense, the landing package arrives safely, bouncing half a dozen times on the icy plain, punching

holes in itself by design, and eventually disgorging four new elements.

It is only a week later when Element Earl, returning to station for thermal reasons, happens to detect (not see: his visual

sensor is usually turned off to conserve power and he was simply retracing his original route) four new arrivals—the

drilling, cargo, submersible, and portable power rover elements that will soon begin the search for life.

He passes close enough to the drilling rover, which is currently deploying its array, since diagnostics show it to have

been damaged in the rolling, rocking landing. It so happens that the array wasn't damaged. But in the stream of bits

flowing from the drilling rover to theHoppa central unit and splashing from one rover to another, Element Earl notes

the familiar signature of Element Rebecca.

As a bit of a joke, he aims his dish at hers, and feeds her the range-rate data she had asked for earlier.

·····

Missioncontrol for J2E2 is in a crumbling three-story structure in the bad part ofLa Jolla , south of the Cove and

bordering on the aptly-namedMissionBeach . The building formerly housed an Internet service provider. The ISP had

purchased and remodelled the place in 1998, hoping for business from theSan Diego andNorthCounty high-tech

communities, which were then wallowing in an unprecedented economic boom.

And did so for the better part of a decade, until a series of mergers closed the node.Then the AGC Corporation, newly

formed by three researchers from UC-SD, just over the hill inLa Jolla proper, leased the building for tests of their first

real-time Superluminal Light PulsePropogation /Emulation Regime (usually known as SLIPPER) on the 2012

asteroidNeva flyby. What the hell: the facility was already wired forfiber -optic and extremebandwith , and was

configured for electrical and thermal support ofAGC's ten-petaflopcomputer.

That was eighteen years and five interplanetary missions ago, and while the guts of what is now the J2E2 mission

control have continued to evolve, the exterior has been left alone.Which presents the staff with a problem. The ISP

operation had never employed more than a dozen people, while the AGC SLIPPER project has thirty or more in the

building at all times.

The parking lot is simply inadequate, and with public transport in this part of La Jolla (remember, this is California)

limited to the occasional bus, with working hours staggered, with rents and home prices in La Jolla among the highest

in the country … well, disputes are inevitable.

EarlTolan pulls his battered Chevy pickup into the gated lot and drives up to space eleven, only to find a brand-new

Volvo already there.

Tolanis fifty-nine, a senior operator on the J2E2 project after moving to AGC from Lockheed Martin, where he led

teams through good times and bad for twenty years. He is not one to lose his temper without reason.

But today he happens to be returning to work aftera what should have been a quick visit to the doctor, acheckup

which wound up taking four hours and has left him in a bad mood. So the site of this impudent little Volvo taking up

his space launches him into a state of only theoretically controlled fury.

He squeals the truck around so that its tailgate backs up to the Volvo. This is a bit of a trick, given the confined

space.Tolan has to drive up and over a curb and sidewalk median just to get into position.

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Michael Cassutt - More Adventures On Other Planets

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