Chapter 2 Part 3

Nathan Thomas had spent six days enjoying what diversions the moon's largest city had to offer. He took in a baseball game and toured the historic Apollo landing sites.

He found that a small tourist shop near his lodgings was run by a pleasant but depressed middle aged man. Nathan dropped by daily for a cup of coffee before embarking on whatever diverting excursion he had planned for the day. The shop owner’s name was Walker, and his business was struggling.

“They tell me that it is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Walker told Nathan over a cup of Jovian Java, a flavor grown in the aquafarms of Europa. “My business is losing money and my net worth last year was negative. I am scared to death that every time my comport rings that it will be MIRA calling me in for an audit.”

“I have told you over and over, that they won’t,” Nathan assured the man. He had not revealed that he, himself was an MIRA agent. That would only have panicked the shop owner. “They do not audit people for having bad luck in business. As long as you have a viable working business, it doesn’t matter if you turn a profit or not.”

“But they are supposed to be checking us out. If we are not productive, we get eliminated.”

Nathan sighed. It was a common misconception and few people who did not have advanced educations in economical dynamics would understand, but he tried to explain anyway. “Even though your business doesn’t show a profit, it does help to drive the economy. It isn’t possible for everyone to make a profit. In order for one person to make a profit, someone has to take a loss. But because your business helps to drive the economy, you are granted synergistic credit. That usually offsets your loss. So long as your business does not completely fall apart, you will be okay.”

Mr. Walker shook his head doubtfully. “I hope you’re right.”

“Don’t worry about it. Even if you do lose your business, MIRA will give you a year to present a plan for starting a new business, enrolling in a school to further your education or otherwise gain employment. Their charter requires that for independent businesses. I don’t think you should worry yourself about it.”

The conversation was similar each morning, and Although Nathan found it entertaining at first, it became somewhat irritating in the latter days of his stay on Luna. When his flight finally left for Twilight Station, he had been eager to leave.

The trip to Mercury's Twilight station was much more diverting. The large craft that ran between planets came equipped with hibernation sleepers which kept a human in deep sleep for several weeks at a time before reawakening them. Five weeks in hibernation was the limit that the human body could endure without physiological deterioration occurring. After five weeks, the passenger would be awakened to restaurant, gymnasiums, casinos, arcades and other forms of entertainment for another week then they would return to the deep sleep. In this manner, a ship could maintain six berths of passengers each alternating wake shifts.

Nathan arrived at Twilight Station early one Tuesday morning. Since it was such a short trip from Luna to Mercury, no hibernation had been needed and the voyage had lasted only four days. So he had nothing to do but be entertained by the vessel's many diversions.

Almost all civilian and industrial interplanetary travel was done by laser propelled sail ships. The Radial Liners departed from Mercury on rendezvous courses to the outer and inner planets on regular intervals. Because of the planet's short orbital period, there was rarely more than a maximum of ninety standard days wait for any departure.

To book passage on a liner one simply had to wait until Mercury was in a launch window for a sail ship to be propelled by a ring of large solar powered lasers in orbit around the sun. When the ships launched, they would unfurl their sails and the lasers would push them outward at a constant acceleration in an orbit that would fly them past the planet. Then the sail would be furled, everyone would vacate the craft and the ship would continue on its unpowered phase of the orbit through aphelion on computer guidance.

Then when it returned to the inner solar system, it would unfurl its sail again and use the solar energy collected to operate thrusters that would alter its orbit sufficiently to pass by a planet to pick up a crew and passengers for the inbound trip.

His chartered ship, the Orion's Belt, was waiting for him and he reported immediately. The captain, Brian Delora, suggested he take a few hours to refresh himself before they departed as the ship would require a certain amount of preparation.

Nathan wandered about the spaceport for the three hours it took for the reactor fuel to be loaded on the ship. He passed the time by sitting in the observation lounge and watched the huge screen dimmed image of the sun hovering in the sky. Nathan wished that he could take some time to indulge in some of the various diversions of Twilight Station.

Because of some of the long waits between flights, Twilight Station had become something of a resort for the entertainment of passengers. There were casinos, camping trips to the dark side, tours to the bright side and various low gravity diversions as well.

Nathan was sipping on a cola while watching a game of Dred when his wrist pager buzzed indicating that his ship was boarding. He reluctantly left the game and made his way back to the ship. He would like to have watched the rest of the game as Dred was an ever changing and fantastically exciting game. It was an evolution from the conventional game of poker where a fifth suit of fifteen cards was added to the deck. Each of the cards of that suit somehow altered the play.

When Nathan reached the Orion's Belt, he was ushered aboard and the captain escorted him to the bridge of the craft. The ship was a roughly cylindrical with a sphere in the rear where the reactor and main power plant were located. The bridge was a transparent blister near the front of the cylinder.

Nathan stood next to the stairwell that lead up from the body of the ship into the bubble like bridge. Three consoles faced the nose of the craft. Three crewmen occupied the consoles while the captain, a short stocky bald man with black eyes and beard stood near the edge of the large transparent canopy.

"All pre-launch checks are complete with no deviations," a tall thin man of African ancestory announced from his console.

"Thank you, Mr. Mansita. Stand by to launch." The captain addressed a second crewman. "Contact Twilight Station and obtain clearance."

While the crew carried out their duties, the captain entertained his passenger. "Welcome aboard. Mr. Thomas."

"Thank you, captain," Nathan replied.

The captian eyed Nathan closely. "Once we get underway, I would be honored if you would dine with me."

Nathan was not fooled. For a ship to be dispatched for the sole purpose of a single passenger was rare indeed. The captain was eaten up with curiosity. The invitation was not as much to eat as to sift Nathan for information.

"Captian I would be honored to share a meal with you." There was no reason to not let the captian have his chance at him.

"Sir," the tall crewman, obviously the first officer, interrupted. "We have priority clearance and all systems are green status."

The captain resumed his command. "Clear all moorings."

After a moment another crewman responded. "All moorings retracted. We are free and at station keeping thrusters."

"Execute Twilight Station Departure Profile number four."

The first officer repeated the command and the trio began to work. There was a slight shudder in the ship's deck and Nathan instinctively grabbed the zero gee railing even though the shoes he wore were more than capable of holding him in place against the minute acceleration.

Outside the ship, the landscape of Mercury began to drop away as Orion's Belt lifted skyward.

"Shield up," the captain ordered. A crewman obeyed and the rear part of the command dome went opaque. The reason became apparent as the ship rose and the fiery disk of the sun appeared above the horizon. Had the dome been completely clear, they would have been both blinded and cooked within seconds.

"Departure complete," the first officer announced.

The captain mused at the scene of the sun on his monitor for a long moment. "Mr. Mansita, set course for Mars and deploy the sail. We should be catching a photon front in about ten minutes. Bring the reactor up to twenty five percent and standby to cut in the fusion drive. When we are ten minutes from the photon thrust point, contact me. I will be in the lounge with our guest."

The captain entertained his passenger with a quick meal. As they ate, he came quickly to the point. "There are very few independent drive ships and we are rarely used for single passengers," he started. "This had better be important. I had a chartered flight of scientists and mineral developers scheduled to rendezvous with a rogue asteroid day after tomorrow. This ship was appropriated by MIRA for you. And you can bet MIRA isn't paying what those developers were."

"You are the captain of the Orion's Belt," Nathan pointed out, "you had the right to refuse to operate."

"I casually mentioned that," Delora admitted. "The agent that contacted me casually mentioned in reply that I was due an audit by the Population Liability Command."

Nathan could not help but chuckle. "They are still using that old gag?"

"Laugh if you want to," Delora scowled, "but some of the stories I have heard of the PLC are pretty scary."

"Let me assure you..."

Nathan was cut of as the bonus's tone sounded over the intercom. "Bridge to lounge: Photon thrust in ten minutes."

The captain touched a switch on the comm panel and acknowledged the notice. "Mr. Thomas, most space craft have internal control rooms and keep the observation decks shielded. Have you ever seen a photon thrust?"

The bridge crew were all seated at their respective posts when Nathan followed Captain Delora into the domed control room. To the rear of the ship off the port stern the receding shape of Mercury could clearly bee seen as a bright crescent in the dark. The planet was beautiful even though it was little more than a lump of heavy rock and metal.

But the true splendor hovered out to the front of the ship to the port and starboard of the bow. Like giant silver butterfly wings, the solar sail, a paper thin foil erected on slight metal tubes, caught the solar wind and propelled the Orion's Belt forward at a gentle, but steady acceleration.

"The solar wind doesn't have much substance," the captain explained, but what little mass is there is moving at close to the speed of light."

"Two minutes until we commence the first photon thrust," the first officer advised.

"Notify the crew," the captain ordered and then motioned for Nathan to follow him to a set of acceleration couches. The captain seated himself and affixed a restraint. Nathan followed suit. He had not had many chances to travel out of hypersleep and this was the first time he had been invited onto the bridge of any ship.

The first officer began a one minute countdown while the captain checked a few readouts from a monitor by his reclined seat.

"Photon thrust commencing in five seconds," the first officer concluded, "polarizers on line."

Suddenly the entire ship was bathed in a deep blue light and the sails flared brilliantly outside the ship. Equally as suddenly the ship lurched forward and Nathan was shoved hard back into his couch.

For two full hours, the ship remained under the heavy acceleration. Then without warning the blue glow disappeared and the acceleration dropped to a level barely detectable.
"Now that was something," Nathan made no attempt to hide his awe. "I have always been asleep through those things."

"We are scheduled for many more," the captain informed him. "They are rough on the body, but a necessary evil."

The three hundred and sixty solar powered lasers in orbit around the sun could push a solar sail with a highly concentrated burst of light. It was much more efficient than the solar wind, but because of the orbital periods of the lasers, each one could be aligned to a spacecraft for only a short time. It would be a few hours before the next laser was aligned to push them faster.

"We will accelerate like this for some time until we get to the roll over point. Then we will furl the sail and switch on the fusion drive and decelerate. We only have sufficient fuel to decelerate for about one day and that will be constant thrust."

Nathan pursed his lips thoughtfully. "The Radial Liners drop their passengers off on fly-bys. Wouldn't it have been quicker for me to take one of those? They accelerate longer and would have gotten me to Mars faster."

"They do accelerate longer," the captain admitted, "but because they are in low energy orbits, they must launch so that they make fly-bys of their destination. The next ship destined for Mars won't be leaving until next week. We, on the other hand, can leave whenever we want because we have a reactor and do not have to keep to an orbit."

"You said that you only carried so much fuel," Nathan asked. "What happens if you miss your destination?"

The captain grinned. "We have more than enough fuel with us to put ourselves in an orbit if we miss the target." He turned a pivoting display towards Nathan and pointed to a particular readout. "We carry enough heavy hydrogen to run the reactor at full power for twenty four hours. It will only take us about eighteen hours to decelerate. The excess can be used to make course corrections and, if necessary, put us in orbit until another ship can bring us fuel."

"Can't you use the sail to carry you back into the inner system?" Nathan asked.

"Not really." The captain hit a switch and a diagram of the Orion's Belt appeared on the monitor. "The sail can be used to move laterally to an extent, but unlike ships on a sea, there is no medium to sail through so we can't tack."

Nathan remained on the Bridge for several more hours. He sat through another photon thrust and partway through the following interval before deciding to explore the rest of the ship.