Saving proxima, p.16
Saving Proxima, page 16
He tapped the rim of the glasses on the right side, bringing up a virtual three-dimensional environment desktop in front of him. He shuffled through several icons until he found the folder he was looking for. He tapped the air before him effortlessly and the file opened up into a virtual diagram of the Samaritan.
“Mimi, find the most out-of-the-way path to the starboard gamma ray telescope,” he said softly.
“There are several paths to the starboard gamma ray telescope.”
“Can you open the ship’s interior cameras for me and then identify paths with no other personnel in them?” He waited patiently.
“Yes, there are two. I have highlighted them for you.”
“Thank you, Mimi. Now I’m going to take this path.” He touched one of the ones before him and it lit up with a light purple hue. “Please hold the cameras as I pass. Stealth-mode algorithm.”
“Understood, Ray, but note, there is someone approaching your door.”
“Very well. Who?” He waited for Mimi to access the face recognition algorithms, AI ID tracking system, and other shipboard systems that would identify crew members.
“Ambassador Charles Jesus, the ship’s political officer,” Mimi replied.
“Well, I’m sure Ray Gaines isn’t in the least reminiscent in appearance as Raymond Simms. And politicians shake a million hands all the time. I’m sure he will not recall me. Just in case, I’ll be prepared to take actions.”
* * *
“Yes, Mr. Gaines, this is really the first we’ve heard about this.” Ray listened to the woman, a Dr. Lorraine Gilster according to Mimi, explain her whereabouts over the past few days. Of course, Ray knew who she was, everybody on Earth knew who she was, but he had to act the part of the curious investigator. The woman continued. “Captain Crosby mentioned there was a glitch with the PINS, but that he had it under control. Charles, what’s this all about?”
“Rain, don’t worry about it. The captain has authorized me to tell everyone what has happened and why we have had two vessels dock with us in the last few days,” Charles Jesus started saying. Ray let him go. “A few days back the CHENG and one of the astrogation techs noticed there was a slight problem with the pulsar nav-system thing. At that point they reached out to the test engineer Dr. Roy Burbank, who just happened to be on a Samaritan fly-by cruise vacation so they brought him onboard to help. It turns out they found evidence of sabotage.”
“What?” Rain and several of the other scientists Charles had gathered in the galley all gasped and started jabbering back and forth. Ray noted the chaos that could be instigated, but he wasn’t sure if it were the right way to go—yet. So, he let them go on. But the ambassador didn’t.
“Hold on! Hold on!” Charles held up his hands palms outward. “It’s all under control and been fixed. There’s a team of US Space Force experts here now sweeping the ship for anything else, and Mr. Gaines here has been asked to do interviews. None of you are suspects. In fact, it’s pretty clear that whoever did this did it a long time ago. We’re just collecting as much data as possible while we are still in the system and they can.”
“So, as you were saying, Dr. Gilster,” Ray interrupted. “Please, the first time you were on the ship was when?”
“A week or so before we left lunar dock,” Gilster replied. “Like most of us that chose to stay awake for the first bit of the trip.”
“Most of us?” Ray asked although he knew the answer.
“Mr. Gaines, if I may,” Charles inserted himself back into the conversation.
“By all means, Ambassador.”
“Only about ten or so of the crew chose to stay awake for the trip out toward Mars and then for the main step-up sequence of the Samara Drive,” Charles explained. “The rest of the crew are already in cryosleep.”
“I see.” Ray nodded. “And once they are in sleep, how long does it take them to be awakened?”
“About ten minutes or so. Although I hear you still feel a bit hungover for the first day,” one of the other scientists added. Ray looked at him and ENRICO VULPETTI appeared in his HUD view.
“I see.”
Ray continued his investigation for about thirty more minutes or so and then decided that he’d done enough to fill his cover duties. Once during the conversation, Charles Jesus did make the comment that Ray seemed familiar to him and wondered if he’d ever been at the UN building. Ray brushed it off as if he just had one of those faces.
“I get that all the time,” he said.
CHAPTER 21
August 25, 2089
Roy Burbank couldn’t sleep. He was more than too damned tired. He was frustrated. Something kept nagging him. It was one of those just out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye kinds of things that make you want to stop the car, turn around, and go take a look just one more time. He was having one of those “what the hell is going on” moments. The fact that there had been something acting up with the PINS months ago during the test phase that he never could put his finger on wouldn’t leave his mind. It kept creeping into his thoughts. Sure, they’d found the gamma ray sources that were clearly not supposed to be there. But he’d never found the initial problem and then things just started working right.
“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” he recalled telling the team. But that didn’t rest well with him. To be honest, he hadn’t really rested well since that test was conducted months back. But all the retests showed no problems. He’d gone over and over the data. He’d had Nigel run every algorithm, simulation variation, and every error check on the experiment, data, and analyses that he could think of. They found nothing wrong. But still, something nagged at him.
“What if I missed something then?” He raised up from the bunk and took a deep breath. “Lights on. What if the sabotage was there all along?”
He sat upright for a moment, rubbing at the sleep matter in the corners of his eyes. He glanced at the clock on the datapad screen and realized that he had slept longer than he’d expected but not as long as he’d wanted. “That makes no sense. Oh hell, lights out.”
Roy plopped lazily back against the pillow and sighed. The covers were warm and inviting and he was tired, dammit. He tugged at them, dragging the weak magnetically weighted blanket over him again. They’d been through the PINS front to back and couldn’t find anything else wrong. Cindy and the techs would be all over it again and again. It would be fine. But what if it wasn’t fine? What if? The crew would be lost in space until they died of starvation, lack of something or other, or who knew what perils.
He and Cindy and the techs had practically rebuilt the PINS main system down in the astrogation room. They’d tested it against simulated good data from the telescopes and it worked flawlessly. Roy thought about that again.
“We tested it with simulated good data and it worked flawlessly,” he muttered into the darkened quarters. He thought about the original first test that went iffy months back. It actually had hardware in the loop, meaning the sensors were actually connected to the PINS box. It had worked . . . well, the second time.
“It worked the second time . . . ” Roy yawned and tried to force the nagging thought from his head with hopes of going back to sleep for an hour or so. “We just had to insert the red/blue shift simulator algorithm to make the data from the telescopes look like the ship was moving on its way to Proxima. Easy stuff, Roy.
“Easy . . . stuff . . . Roy . . . ” He had almost drifted back to sleep. “Easy . . . stuff . . . ”
For a moment Roy was actually in that land between being awake and being asleep. He was at that moment where the brain often sends random leg-twitch signals that will either wake the body or not depending on how deeply tired the body is. Roy was tired, very tired. But his mind was twisted with doubt, a nagging doubt. His legs twitched.
“You wouldn’t have to shift the clocks!”
Roy raised straight up, tossing the covers off so abruptly they flittered upward and billowed like a parachute in the low gee of the spaceship. The magnetic threads woven throughout them popped them back down in a wrinkled pile against the metal frame at the foot of the bed. Roy stumbled and almost rocketed himself into the bulkhead on the far side of his quarters before he could gain his composure and force his mind to wake up completely.
“We didn’t check the data stream between the telescope with actual data from pulsars to the PINS. Each time we had to simulate our acceleration. There’s a weak link in the chain.” He rushed his clothes on and debated forgoing shaving and brushing his teeth until he took a deep breath and rubbed his tongue about his mouth a couple of times. He slowed down and decided a shower and general hygiene could come first.
CHAPTER 22
August 25, 2089
“Mimi, are you certain this is the panel?” Ray asked quietly.
“Yes, Ray,” the AI instructed him via an image in his HUD view. “Remove the outer hasps on each side underneath the beveled edge here, here, and here.”
“I feel it right there. Got it.” Ray ran his fingers in behind the top of the panel until he felt the rest of the hasps and popped it free. He eased the panel down and stuck it to his tool case with a bit of hook-and-loop tape.
He shined a light down into the instrument box that was on the interior bulkhead just beneath the gamma ray telescope on the port aft section of the ship. The surface-mounted integrated nanocircuitry was so overwhelmingly complex that there would be no way to actually adjust the system at the component level. The components were beyond microscopic. But that was immaterial to Ray as he was more prepared than merely trying to hack into a system.
“Circuit board identified,” Mimi said as a small card about three centimeters by two centimeters was highlighted in his view. Circles and arrows appeared, pointing out fasteners and two small screws.
“Yep. Got it.” Ray reached into his little brown tool case and pulled a small tool about the size of an ink pen from within it. He carefully worked his hand through the box and placed the tip of the tool on the fasteners. As he depressed a small membrane on the side of the tool, there was a faint whirring sound as the magnetic tip backed out the screws. He set the screws against the magnetic plate in his toolbox and then carefully popped the circuit card free and stowed it away amongst the other things in his kit. He then pulled a small translucent silver plastic bag from the kit and opened the ziplocked end. He looked at the card as he extracted it from the bag, noting that it looked just like the one he’d removed.
“There we go.” He placed it into the slot and then reached for the tool and the screws stuck to the magnetic plate.
* * *
Roy Burbank shuffled swiftly down the corridor. He laughed at himself as he passed by the cryosleep room entrance that he’d gotten lost in the night before. He was following a map in his head to the gamma ray telescopes, starting with the one at the port aft of the ship. He had to make certain that the systems hadn’t been monkeyed around with. He wasn’t exactly sure how he would know, but he had seen every circuit board, every wire, and every screw of that system during testing. He just thought something, if anything were wrong, would stick out for him to see. At least, that was what he was hoping for.
He cycled the hatch on telescope instrument room and was immediately startled by the door being pulled open before he could grasp the lever. The light from inside the room silhouetted a man standing in the hatchway. At first glance Roy thought it was a man he knew, but that couldn’t be.
“Patrick?” Roy rubbed at his eyes and blinked several times. “What the f—”
He didn’t have time to finish his statement as the man pushed off the floor and bounded into him like a missile. Roy was still confused, and even more so, as he was slammed against another bulkhead just outside the doorway. His head cracked against the metal wall with a thud and he saw stars. He hit hard enough to be concussed. He then felt a fist pound into his nose and then his eyes began to sting and tear up. He could feel blood rushing from his nostrils down his face and could taste the saltiness from it on his lips.
“P-Patrick, what are you doing here?” Roy stammered as he fought to get free from the man’s grip. “Stop it!”
Roy flailed helplessly against his attacker, but he honestly had no idea how to fight. Roy realized that as far as he could recall, he’d never even been in a fight as a boy. He punched, slapped, and squirmed but he was overmatched and quickly overwhelmed. He felt something press against his neck and then sting like a wasp had gotten him there.
“Patrick O’Hearn? When did you start wearing glasse . . . ” Roy slurred as the light in the room tunneled out and he became indifferent to what was going on around him. He looked up, confused, as one of his old engineering team members stood over him doing . . . well, Roy wasn’t sure what. His head rolled sideways and he could see through the hatchway of the telescope room to the windows. He looked at the stars visible through the window beyond the telescope aperture. His mind drifted. Roy was tired. Very tired. He just wanted to sleep.
* * *
“Dammit, now I have to deal with this.” Ray Gaines looked at the now unconscious Dr. Burbank. “What the hell were you doing coming in here, Roy? Mimi, jam his AI. Deactivate it if you can.”
“I’ve already deactivated it, Roy. It was a low-level data assistant,” Mimi responded.
“Good.”
Ray quickly ran through scenarios in his mind. How could he cover up this? If they found Burbank, then they would know something was up. If they didn’t find Burbank, they’d know something was up. Somehow, they had to think Burbank left the ship as planned and all was well. That was going to be tough.
“I guess contingency plan B is now going to have to be plan A.” Ray grabbed Roy under the arms and tossed him over his right shoulder. “Come on, Roy, we’ve got work to do.”
Ray shuffled down the corridor a few meters to the entrance of the cryosleep room. He was his typically calm self even though his plans just had a major disruption. Mimi was keeping the cameras hacked and was watching all the tracking data for crew. The cryosleep room was very rarely visited and it was approaching lunchtime. He was likely to be uninterrupted for some time to come. There was time. He could manage the problem.
“Mimi, cycle the cryobed for Thomas Pinkersly.”
“Wake cycle initiated.”
“Good. Roy, I’m leaving you here for a moment. I have to finish up next door. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.” Ray chuckled lightly.
* * *
“What the hell is going on?” Thomas Pinkersly blinked at the lights while holding his left hand to his forehead. “Why are you here?”
“There’s been a complication, Pinkersly.” Ray grunted. “Now get out of that thing and get your clothes off.”
“We had a deal,” Pinkersly protested. “My family . . . ”
“Shut up and do what I said if you want your deal to continue.” Ray began undressing Roy Burbank and tossing his clothes into a pile to the side. “Put those on and put your clothes on him—now.”
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Pinkersly said. “Is he dead?”
“No, he’s not dead. Now shut up and get moving.” Ray cycled through various menus in his HUD, looking for the right instructions. “Here we go. Cryo initiation procedures. Mimi, can you identify the right sequence for this?”
“I am currently erasing the history of this bed and will have it ready in a moment,” Mimi replied. “Be certain to remove any binding items of jewelry or clothing from him.”
“Just get the bed ready.” He paused for moment. “Mimi, rewrite Burbank’s ID file for Pinkersly. And vice versa.”
“Understood, Ray.”
It took the better part of ten minutes, but Ray and Pinkersly managed to get Roy into the cryobed, seal it, and have Mimi cycle the sleep initiation sequence. Pinkersly followed closely behind Ray down the corridor.
The docking airlock was open and Ray ushered Pinkersly through with a smile while flashing their security data cards to the guards there. All he had to do was get him through security, into his private quarters, and keep Jacobs away from him until he could get Pinkersly up to speed on Burbank’s identity.
“Ray Gaines, State Department. This is Dr. Roy Burbank.” Ray held his data card to the scanner. The enlisted E-3 Space Force guard read the screen and then looked at them.
“Welcome aboard, Dr. Burbank. Good to see you again, Mr. Gaines.” The soldier motioned them through.
CHAPTER 23
August 26, 2089
“Well, I’m glad you found nothing, Captain Jacobs.” Ray stood at the end of the captain’s ready-room table, nodding affirmatively. “I questioned the crew and there was little to learn there. Whoever did this must have done it during the test or even construction phase.”
“Probably. Have you gotten Dr. Burbank squared away?” Captain Jacobs asked.
“Yes. He’s eager to get to Mars and then to catch up with his wife,” Gaines replied. “What is our current Mars orbit ETA?”
“Actually, we will rendezvous with another Samaritan sightseeing cruise in thirty-six hours and drop him off there. You’re free to go with him if you like. We’ve been pulled to another mission and our trajectory will not take us back to Mars for a couple weeks. The cruise ship will be at Mars dock on four September about two in the morning. Is his wife there on Mars?”
“No, Captain Jacobs, she’s not. She’s on a transport back to the Moon and then to Earth. Any way you look at it, there’s probably a two-week interlude before they rendezvous again.” Gains chuckled a bit. “He made quite a sacrifice jumping on the Samaritan like he did. Good man.”
“Good man. I agree.”
“I’ll book me a suite on that cruise as well. No need to hang out here with you space jockeys,” Gaines said.
