"Cassutt, Michael - More Adventures On Other Planets" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cassutt Michael)

╖ ╖ ╖ ╖ ╖


During the next week, the elements on Europa move into position. Element Earl stays in Pathfinder mode, blazing a trail to the crevasse picked out years ago by prior orbiting imagers. Element Rebecca follows, and deploys her drilling rig. Element Asif sets up nearby, a portable power station for the submersible operation. And the cargo element begins its trek from Hoppa carrying the submersible that will soon be sinking through Europa's ice into the mysterious darkness below.
The operations run relatively smoothly, with only nagging glitches caused by momentary loss of signal and a few jounces from J-quakes.

Here's the funny thing about elements like Earl and Rebecca: they are only being operated during critical maneuvers, perhaps a few hours out of every twenty-four. The rest of the time, when not powered down or recharging, they are autonomous.

There is a persisent feeling among all operators that their elements retain some of their personalities, even when the link is gone. It's silly, of course. As Earl's idiot instructor once said, "A turned-off light bulb doesn't remember that it used to give light!" To which Earl, in spite of his agreement with the instructor's point, answered, "A mobile computer with several gigabytes of memory is not a goddamn light bulb."

Every time Earl and Rebecca go back into operation, they find that Earl, no matter what his last programmed position, has returned to the crevice where Element Rebecca chews through the ice. "I think it might be a case of love at first bite," Rebecca tells Earl one night, as they walk along the dock, hand in hand.

Earl's response is to kiss her, though he stops a bit sooner than she would like. "I won't break," she tells him, playfully.

"I might, though." Earl feels frail, or dishonest. He has told Rebecca everything the doctors told him, that the growth is malignant, but that chemo and radiation and even some experimental genetic treatments might knock it down. For the first few days after being slammed with the news, he almost laughed it off, knowing he could fight and win. But the first rounds of chemo left him shaken. The horizon of his life has drawn closer, like that of an ice plain on Europa compared to the Pacific.

"I'll be gentle," she says, kissing him again. Rebecca's intensity has helped. It's as if she is offering her own strength as another form of treatment.

This is an evening in winter, with the marine layer already rolling in from the west, shrouding the hills of Point Loma across the bay. Earl is lost in them. "Still ploughing snow on Europa?" she says, fishing for a connection.

"No. Thinking about a trip I've wanted to make." He nods out to sea. "Catalina Island's out there, a hundred miles away. I've always wanted to sail up and never have."

"Doesn't AGC give vacations?"

"Sure. But nobody wants to take one with an op in progress."

"This one will end."

"For you," he says, meaning Element Rebecca, who only has so much drilling to accomplish before she is shunted off to the side, to a secondary mapping mission for which she is ill-equipped. "Sorry," he adds, realizing how shitty and snappish he sounds. "I justЧ"

She touches a finger to his lips. "Sshh. I know exactly what you mean. I knew the ops plan when I signed up."

Within a few steps they reach the Atropos, and the sight of it bobbing in the twilight raises Earl's spirits. By the time he has finished rigging it for an evening sail, he feels strong enough to face anything, and slightly ashamed of his earlier weakness. "Love at first byte," he says, laughing. "I just now got it."




╖ ╖ ╖ ╖ ╖


As the drilling proceeds, Element Earl is relegated to geological surveys of the area further to the north and east of the site. He finds it smoother, icier and flatter than the terrain around Hoppa Station, and Earl himself wonders again why that location was chosen, only to be told by Haas that it provided easier access to the crevasse. Or so it seemed.
In any case, the flight control team and the science support group are completely consumed by the descent of the submersible element through the ice and "the beginnings of the first real search for life in the history of human exploration of the solar system"Чat least, according to the AGC Website.

The cargo unit has replaced Element Rebecca at the drillhead, and she has been moved off to her secondary mission as well, mapping to the south and east of the hole in the ice, her data combined with Element Earl's to give a multi-dimensional picture of the terrain. They amuse themselves by giving completely inappropriate southern California names to Europan landmarks: Point Loma for an ice lake, the Beach and Tennis Club for a jumble of ice boulders, Angeles Crest for a jagged crevasse, Catalina Island for a passageway visible on the far end of Point Loma.

Neither element can venture too far away, of course, since they need to be in line-of-sight comm every few hours. Whenever Earl suits up, he finds himself strangely comforted by the sight of Element RebeccaЧshiny, box-like, asymmetrical, and smallЧthrough Element Earl's sensors.