Martin was most impressed by Saturn. The planet seemed to be affixed to the eastern horizon. It did not move its position because Enceladus always turned the same face toward it, like Luna, the Latin name for our moon, does toward Earth. From Martin’s perspective, the planet looked like a huge brown mountain that rose to an enormous height on the horizon. The rings, however, were only visible as a narrow line close to the horizon.
Directly on this line, like a bead on a thin string, Martin saw a bright sphere that looked to be as large as the moon of Earth. This was Mimas—sometimes called the Death Star, since on some photos it resembles the space station of Emperor Palpatine in the Star Wars movies. Martin could not see the huge crater, Herschel, that was responsible for this nickname. Maybe Jiaying will have more luck in the coming weeks, he thought.
“Enough sightseeing,” Hayato said via helmet radio. “We have plenty of work to do.”
He’s right. Martin stopped walking, straightened his knees, and almost lifted off. They must lower Valkyrie down to the ice. The mission planners had come up with a simple yet effective method—they would use a slide that would be unrolled, a pulley, some climbing, and a lot of muscle power.
First Hayato would have to climb 60 meters to the top of the metal scaffolding and attach the pulley.
“You’re sure you don’t want to do this job?” he asked Martin.
“Climbing up to the sixth floor? No thanks.”
However, since they weighed only two kilos each, climbing was neither as arduous nor as dangerous as on Earth. Hayato could proceed without a safety line. Despite this, Martin heard Hayato groan as he climbed. The bulky space suit is not exactly the perfect climbing outfit, Martin thought.
“Okay, the pulley has been hooked up,” Hayato reported.
The next station was the upper part of the drill vehicle. It had an attachment point for one end of the rope.
“Rope latched on to Valkyrie.”
While Hayato was climbing back down, Martin fetched the slide. It was a thick plastic tarp, about four meters wide. It was intended to show Valkyrie the way, and also to protect the lander. One end would be attached behind the drill vehicle, the roll would be passed underneath it, and then unrolled all the way to the ground. This time, it was Martin’s turn. I’m glad I only have to climb up a couple of meters.
“Slide attached,” he reported. In the meantime, Hayato had started to unscrew a bolt in part of the steel scaffolding that had secured Valkyrie in space. This was not dangerous as long no one gave Valkyrie a nudge. After he had loosened all of the bolts with his special tool, Hayato shoved the steel scaffolding away. It fell slowly and silently to the side, and he dragged it behind the lander.
Now the exciting part began. Hayato first secured himself to the lander with a short rope. He then took up the slack on the rope that ran through the pulley, while Martin unrolled the slide. Its upper end would give the rear of Valkyrie a push that was supposed to make the vessel lean and slowly slide down on the tarp. Hayato was to control how fast the drill vehicle moved through the amount of force he exerted on the pulley rope. On Earth, such a maneuver would have been impossible, but here a single man with a good safety line could control the movement of an entire vehicle by using a basic pulley system.
“And… go!” commanded Martin as he pulled on the tarp, so Hayato would pull the line at the right time. Valkyrie wobbled, but it did not tilt. He gave the tarp another strong pull. This time it worked. The drill vehicle started to slide down centimeter by centimeter. Hayato gave out the line a bit more, and it moved faster. Martin kept the tarp taut, so the vehicle had a clear path downward. He heard Hayato’s heavy breathing through his helmet radio.
“You are doing quite well, guys,” Francesca said.
Little by little, Valkyrie got closer to the ground. Its rear was now aiming directly at Martin. If Hayato lets go of the line, I will have to skedaddle. Martin started to laugh. It looked as if two people in spacesuits were coming toward him, but upside down, as the SuitPorts at the stern of Valkyrie were turned around by 180 degrees.
The pilot’s voice came through the helmet radio. “Everything okay with you?”
“It’s perfect, Francesca,” Martin replied. “Look through my helmet camera and you will understand.”
He heard the two women in the lander giggle.
“Watch out that they don’t catch you,” both women said, almost in unison.
“Don’t worry, I’m watching.”
After half an hour, Valkyrie was lying in front of them. Hayato detached the line and returned the pulley to the storage module. Then he walked toward Martin carrying two new rope pulleys.
“One for you,” Hayato said.
The rope on the pulley reminded Martin of fishing line. It was lightweight and thin, but very tough. Besides this, Hayato had brought a kind of gun and two diverter pulleys. First Martin latched a rope to each side of Valkyrie. He used the gun to shoot two anchors into the ice at the target location and attached pulleys to each. Then he ran each rope around one of the pulleys and returned to Hayato, handing off a rope to him. Now both men walked toward the lander. Pushing Valkyrie across the ice was harder than he would have thought. The vehicle did not even weigh 200 kilos. However, he and Hayato weighed only two kilos each. Due to this fact, they could not provide enough resistance to move the drill vehicle. Instead, they would have simply slipped. Therefore they had to use the help of the much heavier lander. They anchored themselves to it so they could use their muscle power and the ropes running through the diverter pulleys to move Valkyrie across the ice.
“Heave-ho,” Martin commanded, and they pulled as hard as they could. The lander gave them support. This was the hardest physical labor Martin had undertaken in the last several months. Those damn mission planners. They could have supplied a motorized winch. Things got easier after they overcame the static friction and could use a hand-over-hand method to maintain Valkyrie’s motion. Martin sweated. Water ran across his face, but he could not wipe it away. Damned spacesuit, he thought.
“Good. That’s enough already,” Francesca’s voice said. Martin stopped at once. Hayato complained since they had not reached the planned distance.
“That is 30 meters, and it should be enough,” the pilot said. “Believe me, those mission planners always exaggerate the safety requirements. What could happen, after all?”
Hayato did not say a word. He seemed to be thinking. He finally gave in. “Okay, then we are coming inside.”
Suddenly, Francesca said, “Just a moment—the laser concentrator. I would like to test it today.”
“Sure,” Hayato said, “let’s do it.”
The man obviously possesses too much energy, Martin thought.
The concentrator was a module that looked like a barrel with legs. Together they got it from the lander and carried it close to the launch point. Hayato used his nail gun to attach the legs of the barrel, which had a diameter of about 1.5 meters, to the ice, so it could no longer be easily moved. Then he took off the lid. Below it they could see the parabolic mirror that would focus the laser beam from the spaceship. After traversing several kilometers, the cone of light would definitely be frayed, the more so the greater the wavelength of the light was. Hayato pressed a button and a charging indicator appeared. The concentrator had a rechargeable battery on board to compensate for brief signal failures. However, it could only provide full energy for a few seconds, or, alternatively, backup power for a few hours. The charging indicator was red. Hayato pressed another button, and now a yellow LED showed the position signal was online. This allowed the mothership to aim the laser beam at the concentrator with pinpoint precision.