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This section deals with the reports by the crew aboard the Undepoldus
spacecraft.
Viewers familiar with this subject may pass on to the next
section.
Please select PASS or CONTINUE.
Crew Reports
Captain Rosanne Umberto's report.
We felt elated when we had recovered from hibernation. George
reported that all was well and our planned arrival at the Alpha
system was going exactly according to plan. We studied the orbits
of the planets that George had detected and tried to guess which
one we would try to visit first. George reported radio signals
from all around the planetary system on his broadband receiver
but could not identify any particular source. He could not decode
any signals either. Most of them seemed to be digitally encoded
and possibly scrambled. We decided that when we got a bit closer
to the inner planets we would decide which one we would visit
first.
The deceleration program was set so that we would reduce deceleration at a distance from the star that compares with the orbit of Jupiter in the Solar system. We began to make observations when George reported to Steve that a strange asteroid would pass close to our track. George then reported that he had a possible sensor malfunction because the asteroid was not following the orbit he had computed for it earlier. Subsequently it became clear that it was a spacecraft of some sort that was accelerating to intercept us. George then calculated an acceleration-deceleration profile for the spacecraft and concluded that it would hit us at a high velocity if we maintained our present deceleration program. George computed that we could not out accelerate it and that a collision was inevitable. The object was a self-targeting missile. After we had prepared ourselves for high acceleration, George manoeuvred so that our track and speed would match that of the missile as closely as possible. He also rotated the ship so that the shuttle would be on the side where the missile would hit us. He succeeded and the shuttle was sacrificed to save the Undepoldus. Even so George and his sensor system were damaged and the Undepoldus itself was virtually blind. The automatic system for dealing with impacts was activated and we were all anaesthetised a few seconds before the impact took place. When we awoke to find that the Undepoldus was still more or less in one piece we were tremendously relieved but sad that our mission looked as if it would be a complete failure. Steve had been injured by the impact but his situation was not life-threatening.
Roger, the backup processor used the lifeboat's sensors to navigate and to check for more missiles. If there had been any more missiles, we would not have survived.
The Undepoldus was not designed to flit around a planetary system because the shuttle was intended for that purpose. Now it was gone we could not do much in the way of exploration. After a lot of discussion it was decided that we would try to find a small planet that we could visit with the lifeboat. The lifeboat was intended for a one-way trip with four of us on board to land on an Earth-sized planet. It had enough fuel for one landing and a short move across the planet's surface if the original landing site proved to be unsuitable. Roger computed that it could land and return to orbit from a planet like Venus with four on board or from a planet like Earth with two on board. As Steve was out of action it was decided that Carlene should be the pilot and Marita would look around. Derrick's sensors located a suitable sized planet with an atmosphere that we could reach without going too near the star. We thought that since there was a lot of radio traffic, there would be signs of civilisation on the planet. We expected that all the planets that did not have hostile atmospheres would have at least an outpost if not a reasonable number of inhabitants.
We transferred into the lifeboat some of the things that we
had brought to give to any beings that we might meet. Marita insisted
that we should also load a corer and a few other geological tools.
When we went into orbit around the planet we could not see any
signs of cities or large non-natural features. We launched an
atmosphere probe that could observe lesser signs of civilisation.
The probe found nothing except that the planet seemed to have
areas where there were lots of caves or tunnels. We could not
go on to another planet so it was decided that Carlene and Marita
would investigate one of the cave regions for signs of life. There
might be troglodytes living underground.
Marita's report covers the landing and return.
After Marita and Carlene had returned, Roger reported that the hull of the Undepoldus was leaking slowly. If the leak was not repaired, our air supply would be exhausted in about three years. We knew that it would take us more than nine years to get home. We had no lifeboat and barely enough fuel to make the return journey. Our situation seemed desperate. Marita worked out the solution. The high gee bunks replaced our normal air supply with breathable liquid. It was calculated that we could withstand up to 25 gee if we were supported in liquid and all the air in our bodies was replaced by fluid. If the hibernation system was transferred to the high gee bunks, we could survive in fluid for between 12 and 14 years. Roger said that he could add further protection while we were hibernating by flooding the ship with sealing foam. This would stop the atmosphere leak but we could not get out of our bunks by ourselves until the foam had been washed away. Roger could not activate the foam flushing system. It would activate automatically when the ship was in a breathable atmosphere and he had a sufficient reserve of power. Carlene and Marita made the conversions and Roger began our return journey as soon as we were all safely in our bunks.
Lieutenant Commander Marita Andersson's report.
Carlene instructed Derrick to pass control of the lifeboat to
her as soon as we had left the Undepoldus. I had forgotten that
she was used to piloting a light yacht and felt happier when she
was doing all the piloting. She told me that if she did things
her way, we might have enough fuel for a second landing if we
needed it. She said that I should prepare for a rough ride. She
locked out Derrick so that he would not try to apply the prime
directive and waste fuel. Then she made a planetary approach that
used hardly any fuel. It was something like it must have been
in the last century when planetary landings were made without
power. Those old ships had wings. The lifeboat had no such luxuries.
Carlene must have bounced us in and out of the atmosphere five
or six times. As soon as the hull got too hot she used the motor
to get us out of the atmosphere again to cool off. Then, when
she judged that the lifeboat would nor burn up, we entered the
atmosphere like a meteorite. She used the steering thrusters to
keep the lifeboat in a slightly nose up angle as if it were an
aeroplane. It was only when we had less than two kilometres of
height that she reverted to what might be called a normal descent
manoeuvre. After a very smooth landing I unloaded my equipment
and the gifts we had brought. I had a sample trolley, a corer
and some sample sacks as well as my trusty hammer. We had landed
where the probe had indicated that there were a lot of caves nearby.
I planned to take a series of core samples from what looked like
different sorts of rock and collect a few loose rocks on the way.
I had taken two cores and collected around 50 kilos of rocks when
there was an earthquake. Carlene called me to get back to the
lifeboat as quickly as possible. She had started the motor to
stop it from falling over. As I prepared to push the trolley back
towards the lifeboat, cracks appeared in the ground in front of
me. The trolley was useless now so I emptied all the samples and
cores into one sack and carried it on my back as I avoided the
cracks on my way back to the lifeboat.
Carlene had set the winch so that I could put the bag on its hook as soon as I got back to the lifeboat. She shut down the motor and used the steering thrusters to stay upright as I climbed onto the ladder. When I was clear of the exhaust she restarted the motor. The lifeboat was lifting off before I reached the hatch. I looked back at the ground before I went in to see what I had just left. There was a trench a metre deep where two of the lifeboat's pads had rested. A chasm of unknown depth had appeared between our landing place and the abandoned trolley. I had been on the surface for less than twenty minutes and had only been able to collect a jumbled bag of rocks. Whatever luck we might have hoped to have was totally absent. It seemed that the planetary system was doing everything to make our twenty year mission into a failure. When I was back on board the lifeboat, Carlene said that she had used so much fuel in keeping the ship upright that there was not enough left to make another landing in a safer place. My rock samples were all that we would have to show for our efforts.
The return to the Undepoldus was uneventful. Carlene re-activated Derrick and told him to maintain orbit for as long as possible. Perhaps one day one of the local beings would find the lifeboat and discover what had happened to us. My pitifully small collection of rocks was put into the freezer to preserve them as long as possible. I planned to try to sort them out when and if I returned to Earth.
PAUSE
The next section deals with what happened
after the crew returned to Earth. It is primarily concerned with
Marita Andersson's work. Viewers familiar with this subject may
pass on to the following section.
Please select PASS or CONTINUE.