Marcus Donovan’s con worked. Less than a week later (3.3 picoseconds in bureaucratic time), the Budget Oversight Committee agreed to his plan and the Gypsies left on the first shuttle out.
They spent the next two months finishing and reconfiguring the 170 meter long Shackleton Explorer. The Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto probes were removed and placed in storage for some future Jupiter expedition, as was the bulky orbital scanning array, while seven modular cargo containers and a state-of-the-art extra-vehicular mission unit were installed in their place. The cargo holds were packed full of mining equipment and explosives which Marcus realized would have no use on the mission, but he couldn’t figure out a way to ditch them without raising questions.
The Shackleton lost the planetary scanning equipment, but still retained its own substantial suite of sensors. The countless forward facing antennae made it look something like a harpoon for use against impossibly large whales. It also featured a pair of opposed habitation pods that jutted out from the main hull on their own stalks, which were designed to rotate around the central axis and supply the crew with more than half Earth gravity during the long voyage. What the Shackleton lacked in amenities, she made up for in advanced equipment. Mostly, anyway.
The interior of the Shackleton Explorer was a perfect match for her exterior, being both functional and inhumanly spartan. No plush seating, no Corinthian leather; only the bare essentials, and in some places slightly less. Marcus couldn’t shake the thought that he would be hurtling through space in a tin-can lashed haphazardly to a nuclear reactor. He and his crew were about to become real space cowboys, riding out across the wild frontier.
Like the ship, Donovan’s Gypsies were also reorganized. Most of his research staff made the transition: Sarah Park stayed on as sensor operator, and Mason Shen on communications, while Nils Jansen had no interest in leaving Earth orbit and found posting elsewhere. The grizzled and stoic Hector Pacheco continued as crew chief, but his work crews were entirely purpose built, so the hands that assembled the ship were replaced with professional low-g miners before launch.
None of the Gypsies were qualified to operate a nuclear powered exploratory vessel, so it was necessary to comingle their ranks with the original Jupiter mission crew. Marcus was put in charge of the mission, but Commander Alex Faulkland remained in charge of ship’s operations. Faulkland’s team would be responsible for navigation, maneuvering, and the day-to-day maintenance of the nuclear drive systems, while Donovan’s people would conduct the survey and mining.
For the first time in his career, Marcus wished the Foundation had a rigid rank structure with a clear chain of command. The current arrangement was too ambiguous for his liking, and he had no clue who would prevail if (or more likely when) a disagreement came about.
This feeling was made worse because he detected some hard feelings among Faulkland’s crew, and he harbored no illusions about who they would side with. The ship’s original mission would have set records for the most distant manned mission, and there was a lot of pride attached. Marcus just had to hope they were all professional who could adaptable to sudden changes in plans, because the one thing he knew for sure was that sudden changes were on their way.
The rest of The Shackleton’s bunks were filled with Rao’s research team, which included Dr. Juliette St. Martin, a former leading theoretical exobiologist who returned to medicine when the political climate got stormy, and Professor Harris Caldwell, who was brought on as a geologist officially, and as an archaeologist somewhat less officially.
With the ship completed and its crew assembled, The Shackleton Expedition left Earth orbit with little more fanfare than a “Good luck” from Bangalore, and then embarked on a wandering five month trek. Thrusters engaged and the Earth slowly shrank into the distance, until nothing was left around the ship but the sun and pin-prick stars. Weeks and sometimes months stretched out between the short thrusts that transferred the ship from one orbital trajectory to the next, during which time, the crew’s only challenge was to fight boredom.
The battle was a fierce, but there were thankfully no casualties.
Then, after watching the same movies over and over until every line was memorized, after countless card games and late shifts making small talk, a couple hundred long days after Marcus’ plan was approved, they finally neared the fringes of the Themis family of asteroids.
Marcus and Commander Faulkland were in one of the habitation pod dining halls, which stretched the definition of “hall.” It was a tight compartment just a smidgen bigger than any other on the ship. The men were seated on either side a metal table, where they were sipping reconstituted sludge from small plastic sacks. It was supposed to be coffee, but the resemblance was faint. Marcus had come to really enjoy that sludge, but it was an acquired taste.
He nudged the deck of magnetized playing cards on the table, which had been shuffled but otherwise ignored for hours, and Commander Faulkland waved him off.
“Couldn’t focus on a game right now,” Faulkland said.
That was the last thing Marcus expected to hear from the greying and hard-faced commander. “Way you tell stories, I figured you could play a hand of poker with your pants doused in burning napalm.”
Faulkland chuckled and took a slurp of his black sludge. “It’s not the mission. I’ve got a weird feeling. Something’s not right.”
Marcus felt a pang of guilt. He’d hardly felt them at all since they left Earth orbit, but now they were coming back with a vengeance. He decided it was finally time. “Listen… can I come clean about something?”
“I know ya been cheating at cards, Marc. Buy me a steak when we get back home, and I’ll think nothing of it.”
Why did everyone always think he was a cheater? “No, no… About the mission.”
Just then, the intercom lit up and produced an F-sharp. “Commander needed on the bridge. We’ve arrived at Waypoint Lambda-Five.”
“Roger that, bridge. On my way.” He flashed a toothy smile at Marcus and said, “Showtime. Whatever you wanted to tell me can wait for later.”
“Probably not,” Marcus muttered, but the ship’s commander was already through the door. Marcus had no choice but to follow.
The bridge was like the rest of the Shackleton, except another inch more spacious, and every surface covered with a dizzying array of switches, dials, readouts and other things Marcus had no business fiddling with. It was also the only part of the vessel with a view of the outside, which at that moment was filled with a vast field of asteroids looming in the dark.
Faulkland climbed into the captain’s chair and strapped himself in. The rest of the bridge crew were already at their stations and fastened down with five point harnesses. “Take a seat, Doctor.” The last word had a sarcastic sting to it, as it always did. “You don’t want to be floating free during this.”
The commander grabbed a black handset, pressed the button on its side, and in response, the F-sharp rang out again. As he spoke, his voice echoed through the halls. “Attention all crew and passengers. We are now preparing for final deceleration before entering the asteroid field. Find a suitable harness and strap yourself down, or you’ll be in for an unpleasant ride.”
Marcus clicked his belt, and then his eyes were filled with those asteroids. He picked through them trying to find his target, wondering if she might be visible from this distance, but it was no use. Zebra-One was still too far out to identify, if she was visible at all.
“Alright, that’s long enough. Mr. Macek, bring us about one-eighty counter vector.”
“Roger,” Macek called back. As soon as the word was out of his mouth, the ship began to spin along its axis and the view of the asteroid belt ran from Marcus’ hungry gaze. “Maneuver complete, Commander.”
The commander tapped his personal display and scratched his beard, then looked up and said, “Sixty-percent thrust for 326 seconds, on my mark.” The room was silent as a tomb while waiting for the command, and Marcus imagined the commander was stalling just for drama’s sake.
“Mark!” Faulkland barked.
Then it began. The entirety of the Shackleton was filled with a roar as its engines magnetically accelerated ions into space. The sound was shocking at first, but it was so constant and pervasive that Marcus numbed to it quickly. He was reminded of a class field-trip to a hydro-electric dam in the fifth grade. He’d been impressed enough by the massive structure itself, but the trip took on legendary proportions when he stood beside the dam’s thundering outlet. It was only then that Marcus began to understand some fraction of the billions of metric tonnes of water held on the other side, and the almost unimaginable force contained within.
Now he was in the depths of space, imagining that dam’s immense strength at his back, straining against the Shackleton’s momentum. He started to wonder how the ship’s reactor compared to the dam, but abandoned the math. Better to enjoy the ride, he thought, and so he relaxed and stared out through the thick polycarbonate panes. He was pressed into his seat with a force equal to Earth’s gravity, and with a little effort of imagination, he was lying on the ground back home, watching the glittering night sky. During an earthquake. Next to a waterfall.
The engines’ fearsome thrust lasted for just under six minutes, and then cut off as abruptly as it had begun. The sudden absence of noise left Marcus feeling hollow and reverent, like sitting in a church as the bells finished ringing.
The ship came back around and the windows were again filled with a field of charcoal black stones that stretched into the distance. They were closer now, close enough that the size of the asteroids could truly be appreciated. As Marcus stared on in amazement, he wondered how humbling that view might be to the architects of the Foundation’s cathedral.
“Not very,” he mumbled, only to realize he was talking to himself out loud.
Faulkland glanced over at him. “Come again, Doctor?”
Marcus looked a little sheepish. “Nothing, Commander. My internal monologue slipped out.”
At the start of the voyage, a comment like that would have been followed by an uncomfortable silence, but Faulkland was accustomed to the Gypsies’ eccentricities after five months together. He just nodded and said, “Understood. A view like this is liable to shake the best of us.”
The commander took another moment to admire the view, then grabbed the intercom mouthpiece and announced that it was once again safe to move about the ship.
With the very talented Mr. Macek at the controls, The Shackleton slipped into the asteroid belt like a surgeon’s scalpel, using only the lightest thrusts to carve a path to their objective. The passing asteroids grew to even more fantastic proportions as the ship progressed, many dwarfing the largest mountains on Earth.
Rao entered the bridge compartment quietly and found himself a spot next to Marcus. A glance at his face revealed a scientist in rapture, suddenly closer to the subject of his research than he’d ever thought possible. He was the first in his field to view these asteroids with the naked eye, and Marcus thought he could hear Rao’s heart thumping madly in his chest.
Faulkland indulged the eager scientist and asked, “Would you care to tell us what we’re looking at, Doctor Rao?”
“Of course.” Without skipping a beat, Rao moved closer to the windows and started pointing out features on the asteroids, the way a tour guide introduces animals in his zoo. “These are largely C-Type asteroids, composed of silicates, sulfides…”
Then, 228 days after Marcus made his presentation at the Foundation headquarters, after a half-hour of Rao’s excited lecturing on the composition of rocks, The Shackleton Expedition finally arrived at Zebra-One.