CHAPTER 31.
“We’re not getting out of this alive, are we?” Larry said slowly.
“I’m not giving up yet, Larry,” Madeline said, staring down at the pathetically small collection of equipment, “But I admit I’m not immediately seeing an answer to this problem.”
Besides the tremendously strong carbonan-reinforced rope, of which they had another hundred meters not committed to the vital task of keeping Zarathustra in place, they had about a dozen of the explosive-driven spikes or pitons, three cameras of three different types, small sample collection devices, two space-qualified rock hammers of an alloy that remained tough even in extreme low temperatures, two suit multitools, a couple of scientific instruments, and one recharging pack.
“Well, the recharge pack can recharge our suits, right?” Larry asked.
“It’s a universal connector, so yes.” She checked the charge. “And just about enough for one recharge for one of us, or half a charge for both. If we do a lot of exertion, which I have to assume we will, that leaves about a week of life support, maybe a week and a half, for both of us. The concentrates in the suits will last a few days, so starving won’t be the problem.”
“We might be able to get to you in that time,” A.J. said. “The quake and collapse actually gave us a route down to the tunnel region that goes at least halfway down to where you are. No telling how long the crack will stay open, but we’re bringing Athena up fast and we’ll drag her over and get down—”
“Absolutely not.” Madeline said. “I don’t want more of us getting potentially trapped down here!”
“Agent Fathom,” Hohenheim’s voice said, “as a commanding officer I appreciate your sentiments, but I believe that there is not one of us who will accept them, any more than you would accept such orders in our circumstances. If you and the others still have even the slightest chance of being rescued, you must realize that we must, and will, do all in our power to do so.”
She smiled wryly. “You’re…correct, General. I would not accept anyone telling me not to effect a rescue, I shouldn’t expect anyone else to pay attention to me in that area. But—realistically, A.J.—what chances do you think we have?”
“To rescue you…fair. If that gap doesn’t close up on us, which it sure could. Depends on where the blockage is. Without another rover, we’ll have to drag Athena there and lower her with hand devices. None of us are decent hands with explosives, and anyway even if we were, and had enough, no telling what would happen if we tried to blow our way through whatever obstacles there are, so melting’s our only option.”
Something about “melting” nagged at Madeline, but rather than try to force the thought out, she just noted it carefully for later contemplation. “You’ll have to run her laterally. Can she handle that?”
“Er…not my department. Mia, you have anything?”
“Let me think.” A few moments went by. “If we can fabricate something like some simple rails for it to rest on…Brett?”
“If you’ll help me with the design, we should. The heavy workshop equipment from Odin made the rails for the centrifuge, the same basic operations should give you what you need. It just has to be portable enough to go down with Athena, and we have to figure out a connector that allows the probe to keep the rails sliding forward with her.”
“That still leaves Helen and poor Joe,” Jackie said quietly. “How can we get them back?”
“Assuming they’re still alive,” Horst said bluntly. “There is no telling if there was damage to Zarathustra. You have heard nothing from them yet, yes?”
“No,” Maddie said, trying to ignore the chill that had nothing to do with her surroundings. “But based on the angles and how much line was used, they’re hanging suspended in water slightly more than two meters down. Their radios simply can’t reach us through that.”
“Can they adjust the wavelength to get through?”
“I…don’t think so,” A.J. said glumly. “Water’s a bitch to transmit through at reasonable frequencies, and from what the sensors picked up during that…event, there’s a fair amount of salts dissolved in that water. At the power levels they can transmit, they’d have to drop the transmitter wavelength to about forty to fifty kilohertz, and it’s not designed to vary that much.”
There was a pause, a dead space of air that caused the waiting gloom to try to close its cold, aching hand around her heart. Then General Hohenheim spoke.
“Well, we have limited time. Jackie, right now Mr. Baker is the only man topside on Europa, and he cannot move all the components by himself. We must immediately go to help. Is it possible to perform orbital transfer with the reaction mass we have?”
“General, you’re saying you want to move Odin now?”
“If it is possible, yes. There is urgency now that there was not before, and if we can place Odin in orbit about Europa, the entire operation will be made easier. Can it be done?”
“Well…Yes. We wanted another load from Munin so we had more margin, but there’s enough to make the transfer of orbit now. I would feel a lot more comfortable if we could take some more time to check the auxiliary systems, but in theory we could start right now. Well, whenever we hit the right point in orbit for transfer.”
“And when will that next transfer window arrive?”
Andrew LaPointe answered immediately. “Twenty-seven hours, seven minutes, General.”
“Then you have a full day, Dr. Secord. I would recommend we take full advantage of that time to ready anything else we believe will be useful.”
“Thank you, General,” Madeline said. “The major remaining problem I must still discuss, however. Assuming that we can be reached, the problem is still reaching our friends under the ice.”
“I do not wish to sound pessimistic,” Dr. Masters said, “but are we sure it is ‘under’ and not ‘within’ the ice?”
Maddie winced. “I…hadn’t really thought of that, but conditions here simply aren’t the ones I was trained for. Andy?”
“Brett, allow me the use of your models, yes?” A few moments passed. “I believe yes, they are under, suspended in liquid water. Your records showed how thin was the layer beneath, and more importantly we should remember that Zarathustra is herself generating much heat. The water surrounding her, that will be a degree or more warmer than the normal. Yes, they will be in liquid water.”
“Still doesn’t help much,” A.J. said. “The real problem is that if we do manage to break through to them, we’ll just have a repeat of that explosive pressure release—and no guarantee you’ll get lucky a second time. Do we even know why you all didn’t get inundated?”
“I think—” “Yes, maybe—” said both Anthony and Brett simultaneously. Brett chuckled, as did Anthony. “Go ahead, Anthony, it’s really your field; I just ran the models.”
“Well, we have taken A.J.’s sensors’ data, and combined it with what we have learned so far, and models of various material behaviors,” Anthony said. “What happened is that the crack Madeline saw, and into which our friends have fallen, was not the only opening. From the pressure waves there were at least five simultaneous openings which were releasing into the tunnels a huge amount of vapor.
“That vapor, most importantly, was not just water. You recall, I think, the appearance of the water? It was foaming a great deal, yes?”
Madeline nodded, remembering the white-brown surge of destruction. “Yes, a lot—like a shaken soda bottle.”
“That, it is a very good example. It is precisely correct. From the readings, at least the top portion of the Europan ocean is saturated with both carbon dioxide and ammonia. When the pressure was relieved, all of these, plus water, vaporized into the surroundings. The volume released, it was immense—and because of expansion, it was also dropping temperatures drastically.
“At the same time, movement of the surroundings uplifted most of the cavern system, crushing much of it, compressing the atmosphere within.”
His image smiled. “This was most fortunate for all, as the compression, it heated the mixed vapor, kept most of it from condensing out immediately, maintained and even increased the pressure for those few critical moments. But more was boiling out and cooling at the same time, so the end result was that the water subsided and solidified swiftly, partially by self-cooling, rather than continuing to expand.”
“One in a billion, like I said,” Larry commented. “Good work, Anthony.”
The thought she had set aside was starting to grow. “So if I understand correctly, normally once the pressure reached some—much lower—level the water wouldn’t have continued boiling off, so without the external compression it would not naturally reach a high enough value to keep things stable?”
“Unfortunately, yeah,” A.J. said. “I think a few kilopascals would be enough to stop the boil if it was pure water; it’s a lot higher with the other gases, but still, you need over a megapascal to keep the pressure equalized. If you were thinking of punching controlled holes to give you a constant equalized atmosphere, it won’t work.”
“But,” she said, slowly, “when Athena is drilling, she’s giving us liquid water, not steam, right?”
“That’s because Athena is sealing the area and draining it as she goes,” Mia said. “No chance for the water to depressurize and boil off.”
“But what if there was?” Madeline asked.
The airwaves went silent for a few moments. Then Mia said, “That…might just work.”
“You’d have to keep her moving constantly, feeding in more ice—”
“Seal the entrance, too, and really solid—”
“—get the control and power cables stacked up in there—”
Madeline laughed. “Slow down, slow down. Do you really think it could work?”
“It’s not entirely impossible, anyway,” Jackie said, her voice as well as her transmitted face echoing her relieved smile. “If you can keep vaporizing water into the cave—water with its extra cargo of carbon dioxide and ammonia, too—and it stays sealed, you’ll be creating a pressurized atmosphere. Do it long enough, you’ll also make it significantly warmer in there which will keep the stuff from immediately trying to solidify out. Athena puts out a hellish amount of heat, so you might actually be able to keep that area pressurized long enough. Then you could try to break through to Zarathustra.”
“Which,” A.J. said, grinning, “would be dead-easy with Athena.”
“No, no, bad idea,” Mia interjected, making A.J.’s face fall. “Athena is not a precision instrument, and down there you’ll be trying to control her by hand, in extremely non-optimal conditions. If Athena were to drop onto Zarathustra for even a moment, the rover would be severely damaged. This leaves aside the even greater danger of the heat affecting the cable that is currently holding Zarathustra in place.” Mia shook her head. “No, we will have to try to break through with the tools we can bring down with us.”
“Still,” Maddie said, “that’s a much better situation than we were seeing a short time ago. We need to work out some way to communicate, to find out if,” her voice hesitated the merest moment, “find out if Joe and Helen are still all right, but the rest…at least we have a course of action. Since most of it will have to be on your end to begin with, Larry and I had better rest and conserve our energy—literally.”
The others agreed. “Then we shall begin, Agent Fathom, and in a day or so we should be on our way to Europa. Good luck.”
“Thank you, General.”
Madeline made herself sit down against one of the icy columns and relax. That was, at least, possible now.
We’re not dead yet. And we’re not giving up.
Ever.