Titan (GAIA) Read Online Free
Author: John Varley
lander had been designed to discover what had caused it.
Now that trip had been scrapped in the face of the much more compelling object called Themis.
Ringmaster
resembled another spaceship: the fictional
Discovery
, the Jupiter probe from the classic movie
2001: A Space Odyssey
. It was not surprising that it should. Both ships had been designed from similar parameters, though one sailed only on celluloid. Cirocco was EVA to remove the last of the solar reflection panels which wrapped the life system of
Ringmaster
. The problem in a space vehicle is usually one of disposing of excess heat, but they were now far enough from the sun that it paid to soak up what they could get.
She hooked a safety line around a pipe that went from the carousel hub to the airlock, and faced one of the last panels. It was silver, a meter square, made of two sheets of thin foil sandwiched together. She touched the screwdriver to one corner and the device clucked as it found the slot. The counterweight rotated. It gulped the loose screw before it could drift away.
Three more times and the panel floated away from the layer of anti-meteorite foam beneath. Cirocco held it and turned to face the sun, conducting her own informal puncture survey. Three tiny, bright lights marked where the sheet had been hit by grains of meteoritic dust.
The panel was held rigid by wires along the edges. She bent two of these in the middle. After the fifth fold it was small enough to fit in the thigh pocket of her suit. She fastened the flap, then moved to the next panel.
Time was at a premium. Whenever possible they combined two chores, so the end of the ship’s day found Cirocco reclining on her bunk while Calvin gave her a weekly physical and Gaby showed her the latest picture of Themis. The room was crowded.
“It’s not a photo,” Gaby was saying. “It’s a computer-enhanced theoretical image. And it’s in infra-red, which seems to be the best spectrum.”
Cirocco raised herself on one elbow, careful not to dislodge any of Calvin’s electrodes. She chewed on the end of the thermometer until he frowned at her.
The print showed a fat wagon wheel surrounded by broad-based, bright red triangular areas. There were six red areas on the inside of the wheel, but they were smaller, and square.
“The big triangles on the outside are the hottest parts,” Gaby said. “I figure they’re part of the temperature control system. They soak up heat from the sun or bleed off the excess.”
“Houston already decided that,” Cirocco pointed out. She glanced at the television camera near the ceiling. Ground control was monitoring them. If they thought of something Cirocco would hear of it in a few hours, asleep or not.
The wheel analogy was almost literally true, except for the heating or cooling fins Gaby had indicated. There was a hub in the center, and it had a hole which could have taken an axle if Themis had actually been a wagon wheel. Radiating from the hub were six thick spokes which flared gradually just before joining the outer portion of the wheel. Between each pair of spokes was one of the bright, square areas.
“This is what’s new,” Gaby said. “Those squares are angled. They’re what I originally saw; the six points of light. They’re flat, or they’d scatter a lot more light. As it is they only reflect light to Earth if they’re at just the right angle, and that’s rare.”
“What kind of angle?” Cirocco lisped. Calvin took the thermometer out of her mouth.
“Okay. Light comes in parallel to the axis, from
this
angle.” She moved an extended finger toward the print. “The mirrors are set to deflect the light ninety degrees, into the wheel roof.” She touched the paper with her finger, turned the finger, and indicated an area between two spokes.
“This part of the wheel is hotter than the rest, but not so hot that it could be soaking up all the heat it gets. It’s not reflecting it or absorbing it, so it’s transmitting it.
Now that trip had been scrapped in the face of the much more compelling object called Themis.
Ringmaster
resembled another spaceship: the fictional
Discovery
, the Jupiter probe from the classic movie
2001: A Space Odyssey
. It was not surprising that it should. Both ships had been designed from similar parameters, though one sailed only on celluloid. Cirocco was EVA to remove the last of the solar reflection panels which wrapped the life system of
Ringmaster
. The problem in a space vehicle is usually one of disposing of excess heat, but they were now far enough from the sun that it paid to soak up what they could get.
She hooked a safety line around a pipe that went from the carousel hub to the airlock, and faced one of the last panels. It was silver, a meter square, made of two sheets of thin foil sandwiched together. She touched the screwdriver to one corner and the device clucked as it found the slot. The counterweight rotated. It gulped the loose screw before it could drift away.
Three more times and the panel floated away from the layer of anti-meteorite foam beneath. Cirocco held it and turned to face the sun, conducting her own informal puncture survey. Three tiny, bright lights marked where the sheet had been hit by grains of meteoritic dust.
The panel was held rigid by wires along the edges. She bent two of these in the middle. After the fifth fold it was small enough to fit in the thigh pocket of her suit. She fastened the flap, then moved to the next panel.
Time was at a premium. Whenever possible they combined two chores, so the end of the ship’s day found Cirocco reclining on her bunk while Calvin gave her a weekly physical and Gaby showed her the latest picture of Themis. The room was crowded.
“It’s not a photo,” Gaby was saying. “It’s a computer-enhanced theoretical image. And it’s in infra-red, which seems to be the best spectrum.”
Cirocco raised herself on one elbow, careful not to dislodge any of Calvin’s electrodes. She chewed on the end of the thermometer until he frowned at her.
The print showed a fat wagon wheel surrounded by broad-based, bright red triangular areas. There were six red areas on the inside of the wheel, but they were smaller, and square.
“The big triangles on the outside are the hottest parts,” Gaby said. “I figure they’re part of the temperature control system. They soak up heat from the sun or bleed off the excess.”
“Houston already decided that,” Cirocco pointed out. She glanced at the television camera near the ceiling. Ground control was monitoring them. If they thought of something Cirocco would hear of it in a few hours, asleep or not.
The wheel analogy was almost literally true, except for the heating or cooling fins Gaby had indicated. There was a hub in the center, and it had a hole which could have taken an axle if Themis had actually been a wagon wheel. Radiating from the hub were six thick spokes which flared gradually just before joining the outer portion of the wheel. Between each pair of spokes was one of the bright, square areas.
“This is what’s new,” Gaby said. “Those squares are angled. They’re what I originally saw; the six points of light. They’re flat, or they’d scatter a lot more light. As it is they only reflect light to Earth if they’re at just the right angle, and that’s rare.”
“What kind of angle?” Cirocco lisped. Calvin took the thermometer out of her mouth.
“Okay. Light comes in parallel to the axis, from
this
angle.” She moved an extended finger toward the print. “The mirrors are set to deflect the light ninety degrees, into the wheel roof.” She touched the paper with her finger, turned the finger, and indicated an area between two spokes.
“This part of the wheel is hotter than the rest, but not so hot that it could be soaking up all the heat it gets. It’s not reflecting it or absorbing it, so it’s transmitting it.
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