45.
Zhang Ming-Hoa glanced at the date readout in the corner of his view screen: Tuesday, April 3, 2068. They were a billion, three hundred million kilometers from Earth and orbiting Saturn. That was the good news.
“Mr. Cui, cut those alarms off. They’re not telling me anything I don’t know and they’re making it hard to concentrate,” he said.
The captain of the Celestial Odyssey was a large, stocky man, with a reputation for being imperturbable, bordering on the impassive. He also had a reputation for being something of an irresistible force in the elite Chinese Yuhangyuan Corps. It went with his bulk.
The culture of the Corps favored yuhangyuan—astronauts—who were slight of build. In the early days of Chinese space travel, when each additional kilogram put into orbit greatly increased the cost and difficulty of a mission, this tradition had meant something. Small spacefarers made for smaller, lighter weight spacecraft. The Chinese space program could not have advanced as rapidly as it did with average or larger-than-average yuhangyuan.
That was decades in the past, but tradition changed slowly. The only group that put more of a premium on small size and weight were racing jockeys. Zhang’s imperturbability, merged with single-mindedness, had carried him through the training academy without any disciplinary incidents, despite the hazing of his classmates. The nicest nickname he’d ever had there was “big ox.”
His instructors, despite their skepticism over his physical suitability, knew officer material when they saw it. Faced with difficulty and even outright hostility, Zhang remained calm, quiet, and thoughtful. Very little fazed him.
For that reason, the bridge crew began to worry when he repeatedly muttered the obscenity ta ma de to himself. That was more what they expected of First Officer Cui. Cui Zhuo better fit the image of the stereotypical yuhanguan: she was small and wiry, even by Corps standards, and entirely perturbable. Where Captain Zhang carefully pondered a course of action, First Officer Cui responded instantly and instinctively.
Her quick reactions were also what stood between her and a captaincy. Within hours of entering the academy, an upperclassman, noting her unusually slight build and reddish brown hair, dubbed her “Mouse.” Within a day that had changed to “Ferret,” and freshman Cui had the classes’ first disciplinary mark.
Her instructors noted her ability to command respect, but felt she needed thorough tempering before she’d be ready for command of her own. She wasn’t there, yet.
The alarms died, and Zhang said to Cui, “Well, we’re alive, anyway. For now. Is there any other good news?” He looked to Navigation. “Mr. Sun, what do you have for me?”
Sun checked her console. “We are in orbit about Saturn, sir. The aerobraking maneuver and retro burn were… successful.”
“You don’t look very happy, Lieutenant. I take that to mean it’s not a very good orbit.”
“I’m afraid not, sir. It’s very eccentric—we’re barely captured. Apoapsis will be, umm, about half a million kilometers. It’ll be about two days before we make a close pass by Saturn again and can do another retro burn to circularize our orbit.”
“Cui, you and Peng look even less happy than our navigator. Enlighten me.”
The first officer and helmsman had been worriedly conferring over his console. Cui looked up.
“Sir, the external tanks took a lot of damage during aerobraking. One or more of them may be repairable, but we’ve lost what reaction mass they still had. That’s about six hundred tonnes of liquid hydrogen gone. The internal tanks won’t provide enough delta-vee to get us into a proper orbit and rendezvous with the alien operation. We’re going to need to aerobrake again on the return pass, to shed enough velocity.”
Zhang’s mood turned grimmer than it already had been. “Those ben dan and their damned simulations. The plasma sheath was nowhere near wide enough to protect the upside tanks. We’re fortunate the whole ship didn’t burn up.”
He looked around the half-empty bridge: another brainstorm of the groundpounders in Beijing. The decision-makers had decreed that stripping the ship of all nonessentials, both people and equipment, was the path to beating the Americans to Saturn. By the time the designers had gotten done repurposing the Martian Odyssey, they’d turned it into one of the most automated ships that had ever flown. The Celestial Odyssey could get by with half the operational crew of a typical ship of its size.
It was a damned stupid idea, in Zhang’s judgment. That judgment, he’d kept to himself. Another tradition of the Yuhanguan Corps: you not only followed the orders that were handed down, you made believe you were enthusiastic about them. Once you were in space, you could pretty much do what needed to be done, but until you got there…
Zhang knew it was the same for the Americans who went to space, and the Indians and the Brazilians, when it came down to it. It wasn’t culture, it was politics.
Those same politics had him here at Saturn. He’d seriously considered turning the assignment down. He’d been told the choice was entirely his. What they hadn’t had to say was that if he did turn it down, his career would come to an end. He’d shrugged, maintained his placid exterior, and thanked them for the glorious opportunity.
Well, it was a glorious opportunity, and it had gotten him to a part of the solar system he never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would see. However, it would be nice to live long enough to enjoy the memories, and he was starting to have some concerns about that.
Zhang said, “Well, nothing to be done for it. Mr. Cui, see how much repair work the crew can manage in the next two days and send me a report. You have the bridge. I’ll be in my office.”
He pushed himself free of his chair, his weightless bulk moving easily across the bridge and down to his private office. Once settled at his desk, there were plenty of other reports to be studied.
The external tank situation was, indeed, bad. Beijing had been crazy to order that desperate midcourse boost. He’d been even crazier to pretend to believe their reassurances that the aerobraking maneuver would come off without a hitch. But their best experts had been so confident, ben dan every one of them, and he wasn’t going to disobey a direct order on nothing more than a sinking feeling in his stomach.
They’d cut free the downside reaction-mass tanks. Those would’ve burned away during aerobraking anyway and probably taken the whole ship with them. That lightened the ship, but cost them a third of their storage capacity. They still had the three upside external tanks, plus the internal tanks. That would provide them enough delta-vee capability to get home in a little over two years. It was well within the safety margin of life support and supplies. Control thought it an entirely workable plan that would get them to Saturn nearly a month sooner. They might even still beat the Nixon if the Americans suffered more bad luck. Zhang suspected the Nixon’s troubles involved more than luck.
Except, Beijing’s plan hadn’t worked well enough. The Americans had beaten them to Saturn by over a week. The preliminary damage report stated that the aerobraking maneuver had irreparably breached one of the external tanks; maybe the other two could be repaired. The downside bay doors looked to be inoperable; half their complement of runabouts and service eggs were useless unless they could get those doors open. That was going to substantially slow down refilling the reaction-mass tanks. He hoped the repair team could do something about the doors, and do it quickly.