Titan

12 April 2096: Ringside pickup

“Can you see him on the radar?” Wanamaker asked, standing tensely beside Pancho in the spacecraft’s tight little cockpit.

“With all that backscatter from the rings? Only chance we got is gettin’ a Doppler fix on him.”

Wanamaker nodded and pecked at the control board’s central display screen. It showed a schematic of Gaeta’s trajectory and their own craft’s course. The two lines intersected neatly, well below the plane of the rings.

“That’s ancient history,” Pancho said, jabbing a finger at the display. “We’ve gotta pick him up a lot sooner’n that.”

“But that will take us toward the ring,” said Wanamaker.

“Yup. We’re in for a helluva ride, Jake.”

Holly stared at Wunderly’s screen.

“Pancho’s going to pick up Manny closer to the ring? Isn’t that dangerous?”

In the light from the display screen, Wunderly’s heart-shaped face looked ashen. “It’s worse than that, Holly. The course she’s on now will take her right into the ring itself.”

“But she’s not supposed to go into the ring!”

“She’s doing it. Otherwise she can’t pick up Manny soon enough. He’ll suffocate inside his suit.”

For the first time, Holly realized that Pancho was risking her own life. She could get killed! Holly said to herself.

“Can we talk to her?”

Wunderly hesitated a moment, then shook her head. “Don’t distract her, Holly. She’s going to have her hands full in a minute or so.”

Wanamaker peered at the radar display. “There!” He pointed to a smeared-out blip moving against the scintillating background. “That must be him!”

“Hey Manny,” Pancho called into the control panel’s built-in microphone. “You outta the ring yet?”

“Can’t see a frickin’ thing,” Gaeta’s voice answered. “Visor’s iced over and external sensors are out. I oughtta be out, according to the timeline.”

Turning to Wanamaker, Pancho commanded, “Jake, slave the forward camera to the radar and put it on max magnification.”

With a nod, Wanamaker played his fingers across the keyboard. The main display screen showed an expanse of glittering white ring particles.

“There,” Pancho said, pointing to a tiny oblong object moving across the field of view. “That’s gotta be him.”

“Wish we had a better fix on him.”

“I can eyeball it,” Pancho said, pecking at the controls.

A surge of thrust made them sway in their floor loops. The figure in the telescopic camera’s view grew larger, took on shape. They could see arms and legs now.

“He must be encrusted with ice,” Wanamaker muttered.

“You better get into a suit and go to the cargo bay,” said Pancho.

“Right.”

Wanamaker ducked through the cockpit hatch and pulled one of the nanofabric pressure suits from the narrow closet built into the bulkhead. He wriggled his arms and legs into it, a tendril of apprehension worming through him as he pulled the hood up over his head. Space suits should be big, bulky things, Wanamaker thought. This nanosuit looks like a plastic raincoat. But Pancho had used one, back on the Moon. And anyone who could afford it was switching to the nanofabric suits. Unlike the older pressurized space suits, a nanosuit could be put on in seconds and provided better protection against vacuum than the heavy hard suits Wanamaker was accustomed to.

Still feeling uneasy despite his attempts to reassure himself, Wanamaker floated weightlessly to the cargo hold and sealed the hatch behind him. The bay was a metal shell not much bigger than the back of a midsize van, empty except for the man-tall cryogenic freezer that would hold the sample boxes Gaeta would bring back with him.

Wanamaker knew he could operate the airlock from where he was and stay safely inside the bay. But Manny’s going to need all the help he can get, he told himself. Pancho’s good, but she won’t be able to match velocity vectors exactly.

So he pulled an air bottle from the bulkhead rack, slipped it over his shoulders and plugged it in to the collar of the nanosuit. Then he rolled the visor over his face and sealed it to the collar; it was like pressing a Velcro seal shut. The hood inflated into a fishbowl shape as air from the bottle filled it.

“You ready to open the airlock?” Pancho’s voice came through the hood’s built-in speaker.

“Opening airlock,” Wanamaker answered, leaning his nanogloved palm against the control panel.

Okay, sailor, he said to himself. Time to be a hero.

“What’s she doing?” Holly asked, her insides quivering with anxiety.

Wunderly tapped on her touchscreen and the display changed to show a real-time image of Saturn with two hair-thin lines arcing across it.

“The red line is Manny,” she said, pointing. “He’s just coming out of the ring now, if he’s still on schedule.”

“’Kay,” said Holly.

“This green line is Pancho. She maneuvering the spacecraft to pick up Manny here, where the two lines intersect.”

“That’s practically in the ring!”

Wunderly nodded. “Pancho’s velocity is going to push her right back into the ring and out the top side—if she doesn’t hit something big enough to damage the ship.”

“What are the chances that she’d get hit?”

“Pretty damned good,” Wunderly said somberly. “Most of the ring particles are tiny, like snowflakes or pebbles coated with ice. But at the velocity Pancho’s going, even a pebble can have the force of an iceberg.”

Standing alone in the cockpit, Pancho could see through the observation port that the ring was rushing toward her. It’s gonna be a rough ride, she told herself, snuggling her feet deeper into the plastic loops that anchored her to the deck.

She saw in the telltale lights on the control board that the cargo bay’s airlock was open.

“Jake, you outside?”

Wanamaker’s voice replied tightly, “I’m in the airlock. Outer hatch is open to vacuum.”

“You tethered?”

“Two tethers. One for me and one for Manny.”

“Get ready. We’re gettin’ close.”

“I don’t see him.”

“You will.” Pancho kissed the maneuvering thruster control with a fingertip. Easy does it, she told herself. No big moves. No sudden jerks.

Hovering at the lip of the airlock hatch, Wanamaker felt the slight surge of thrust. He had to half-close his eyes against the dazzling glare of Saturn’s rings. Close enough to touch, he said to himself. Hell, we’ll touch them plenty in another few minutes.

“You see him?” Pancho asked.

“Not ye—wait! There he is!” He saw the figure of Gaeta’s massive suit, arms and legs jutting out stiffly. “He’s coated with ice, all right.”

“I can’t see a shittin’ thing,” Gaeta announced, sounding more annoyed than frightened.

“It’s okay, Manny,” Wanamaker called. “I can see you. I’m coming out to get you.”

“Wait!” Pancho yelled. “Lemme pull in a smidge closer.”

Gaeta’s figure grew slightly, then steadied in Wanamaker’s view.

“Okay, that’s as good as I can get it,” said Pancho.

Wanamaker judged Gaeta was about fifty meters outside the hatch, moving slowly across his field of view. The tether in his hand was fifty meters long, he knew. No time to get another tether and connect the two. This is going to be close.

He took a deep breath and launched himself out of the airlock into empty space, forgetting that all that stood between him and dead vacuum was a monolayer of nanomachine fabric.

Gaeta looked like an ancient mummy, gliding past him, moving out of reach. Wanamaker unhooked the tether clipped to his waist and snapped it onto the end of the tether he held in his hands. Gripping the doubled tether as tightly as life itself, he floated out to Gaeta’s ice-coated figure and wrapped the free end of the tether around the chest of the suit.

“Don’t you have any attachment points on your damned suit?” Wanamaker grumbled.

The doubled tether pulled taut. But held.

“Under the ice,” Gaeta replied, then coughed.

Not daring to let go of the tether, Wanamaker held it firmly in place around Gaeta’s chest, under his arms, then locked its end with a click his hands could feel but that he couldn’t hear because they were in vacuum. For an instant he looked out and saw that they were floating in the middle of emptiness, Saturn’s huge striped bulk and its brilliant rings hanging above them, nothing but the infinite star-filled space below. Wanamaker swallowed hard and felt bile burning in his throat.

“Okay,” he muttered, “here we go.” He started pulling the two of them back to the spacecraft’s airlock, hand over hand along the tether.

“I still can’t see a damned thing,” Gaeta mumbled.

“It’s okay, Manny. I’ve got you. We’re getting there.” Damned slowly, Wanamaker thought.

“You got him?” Pancho called.

“Got him,” Wanamaker answered, puffing from exertion. “We’re coming back to the airlock.”

“Better make it snappy. We’re headin’ back into the ring.”