2061 Odyssey Three

chapter 26 Night Watch
Only time is universal; night and day are merely quaint local customs, found on those planets which tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation. But however far they travel from their native world, human beings can never escape the diurnal rhythm, set ages ago by its cycle of light and darkness.

So at 01.05, Universal Time, Second Officer Chang was alone on the bridge, while the ship was sleeping around him. There was no real need for him to be awake either, since Galaxy's electronic senses would detect any malfunction far sooner than he could possibly do. But a century of cybernetics had proved that human beings were still slightly better than machines at dealing with the unexpected; and sooner or later, the unexpected always happened.

'Where's my coffee?' thought Chang grumpily. 'It's not like Rosie to be late.' He wondered if the steward had been affected by the same malaise that had overtaken both scientists and space crew, after the disasters of the last twenty-four hours.

Following the failure of the first penetrometer, there had been a hasty conference to decide the next step. One unit was left; it had been intended for Callisto, but it could be used just as easily here.

'And anyway,' Dr Anderson had argued, 'we've landed on Callisto - there's nothing there except assorted varieties of cracked ice.'

There had been no disagreement. After a twelve-hour delay for modification and testing, Pen No. 3 was launched into the Europan cloudscape, following the invisible track of its precursor.

This time, the ship's recorders did get some data - for about half a millisecond. The accelerometer on the probe, which was calibrated to operate up to 20,000 gee, gave one brief pulse before going off-scale. Everything must have been destroyed in very much less than the twinkling of an eye.

After a second, and even gloomier, post-mortem, it was decided to report to Earth, and wait in high orbit round Europa for any further instructions, before proceeding to Callisto and the outer moons,

'Sorry to be late, Sir,' said Rose McCullen (one would never guess from her name that she was slightly darker than the coffee she was carrying) 'but I must have set the alarm wrong.'

'Lucky for us,' chuckled the Officer of the Watch, 'that you're not running the ship.'

'I don't understand how anyone could run it,' answered Rose. 'It all looks so complicated.'

'Oh, it's not as bad as it looks,' said Chang. 'And don't they give you basic space theory in your training course?'

'Er - yes. But I never understood much of it. Orbits and all that nonsense.'

Second Officer Chang was bored, and felt it would be a kindness to enlighten his audience. And although Rose was not exactly his type, she was undoubtedly attractive; a little effort now might be a worthwhile investment. It never occurred to him that, having performed her duty, Rose might like to go back to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, Second Officer Chang waved at the navigation console and concluded expansively: 'So you see, it's really almost automatic. You only have to punch in a few numbers and the ship takes care of the rest.'

Rose seemed to be getting tired; she kept looking at her watch.

'I'm sorry,' said the suddenly contrite Chang. 'I shouldn't have kept you up.'

'Oh no - it's extremely interesting. Please go on.'

'Definitely not. Maybe some other time. Goodnight, Rosie - and thanks for the coffee.'

'Goodnight, Sir.'

Steward Third Class Rose McCullen glided (not too skilfully) towards the still open door. Chang did not bother to look back when he heard it close.

It was thus a considerable shock when, a few seconds later, he was addressed by a completely unfamiliar female voice.

'Mr Chang - don't bother to touch the alarm button - it's disconnected. Here are the landing coordinates. Take the ship down.'

Slowly, wondering if he had somehow dozed off and was having a nightmare, Chang rotated his chair.

The person who had been Rose McCullen was floating beside the oval hatchway, steadying herself by holding on to the locking lever of the door. Everything about her seemed to have changed; in a moment of time, their roles had been reversed. The shy steward - who had never before looked at him directly - was now regarding Chang with a cold, merciless stare that made him feel like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake. The small but deadly-looking gun nestling in her free hand seemed an unnecessary adornment; Chang had not the slightest doubt that she could very efficiently kill him without it.

Nevertheless, both his self-respect and his professional honour demanded that he should not surrender without some sort of a struggle. At the very least, he might be able to gain time.

'Rose,' he said - and now his lips had difficulty in forming a name which had become suddenly inappropriate - 'this is perfectly ridiculous. What I told you just now - it's simply not true. I couldn't possibly land the ship by myself. It would take hours to compute the correct orbit, and I'd need someone to help me. A co-pilot, at least.'

The gun did not waver.

'I'm not a fool, Mr Chang. This ship isn't energy-limited, like the old chemical rockets. The escape velocity of Europa is only three kilometres a second. Part of your training is an emergency landing with the main computer down. Now you can put it into practice: the window for an optimum touchdown at the coordinates I will give you opens in five minutes.'

'That type of abort,' said Chang, now beginning to sweat profusely, 'has an estimated twenty-five per cent failure rate' - the true figure was ten per cent, but in the circumstances he felt that a little exaggeration was justified - 'and it's years since I checked out on it.'

'In that case,' answered Rose McCullen, 'I'll have to eliminate you and ask the Captain to send me someone more qualified. Annoying, because we'll miss this window and have to wait a couple of hours for the next one. Four minutes left.'

Second Officer Chang knew when he was beaten; but at least he had tried.

'Let me have those coordinates,' he said.