The Genie and the Engineer 3: Ravages of War (4 page)

And there was so little freaking time left! By his calcs,
the
Sirius Effort
was past Mars now, heading for the asteroid belt and
the outer planets. At the moment, it was still in range and could be stopped,
if he or Daneel 1 could just find the right rock!

And that was the rub. He had checked the two largest
mountains in the northeast corner of Hellas Planitia, both of which had been
supreme disappointments. And Daneel 1 had called to report the lack of success of
two more candidates that he had been investigating.

That left two large mountains in the region yet to be
checked: Tyrrhena Mons to the far north on his radar plot and the unknown mystery
mountain not in his database. According to his best guess, the anonymous mountain
was at the southern end of the Trinacria Region, at 27°S, 93°26’E. And it was
far larger than some of the other mountains he had visited. Why it wasn’t in
his database was a mystery. Go figure!

Time. As in not enough of it. He could check Tyrrhena or ‘John
Doe’ Mons but not both. And Daneel 1 was on his way to check out another
possibility, a small mountain—really more of a hill—not far from Anseris Mons.

It was up to him. Mom and Dad’s lives were on the line here
and it was all up to him.

Of course, it might all be academic. It was possible,
perhaps even probable, that both Tyrrhena and John Doe were a bust too. In that
case, there truly was no hope here.

In total desperation, he created two small portals, the
other ends of which were within a foot of the summits of each of the two
mountains. Then he created two magical arms and hands. Reaching through, he
sort of achieved a quasi-physical contact with both mountains. Close enough for
government work, that is.

Of course, he understood that this was not a suitable method
to vet the mountains in question. It was altogether possible that the end
points of his portal were adjacent to minor rocks, one or both of which were perched
on top of a monolithic mountain.

No doubt about it, quick and dirty it was. And given how
poorly the day had gone and how much jeopardy his parents were in, Daneel 2 was
expecting little to come of his experiment.

So when he touched the two mountains, the unexpected shock
quite literally knocked him out of the air, collapsing all of his magical
spells. The impact with the Martian soil jarred his circuit boards and he
rolled down a slope into a boulder.

“Oh, my!” he exclaimed. “That actually hurt! So that’s what
pain feels like! The Normals can keep it!”

Ω

It didn’t take long for Daneel 1 to figure out that the
small mountain was not what he was looking for. A deep scan of the bedrock was
not required. One quick look on his part was all that was needed.

They were almost out of time! Daneel 2 had mentioned two
large mountains to the east of Daneel 1’s location. Likely he would need help
checking them.

“Daneel 2? I’m on my way to help out,” he said over the
wireless link.

Oh-oh. The wireless link was down! No signal at all!

“Daneel?!” he screamed but he knew it was pointless, without
a link.

He opened a portal to the northeast, 250 miles away. And
charged through it.

Ω

“Daneel! Oh, fret, the wireless link is down!” screamed
Daneel 2 as he floated back into the air, restoring the anti-dust bubble around
him. “No time for troubleshooting right now!” And he opened a portal, storming
through even before it was fully stabilized.

Ω

Daneel 1 was absolutely frantic as he raced through the air.

Daneel 2 was not responding to his calls. It seemed unlikely
that anything could have happened to him. After all, he had the chutzpah!

A glance at the time told him that there was only ten
minutes left until the
Sirius Effort
was out of theoretical range. Ten
minutes!

His duty was clear. Mom and Dad came first. Assuming that he
could do anything about it in the time available. Afterward he would look for
Daneel 2.

A quick spell for a radar display. There, a large mountain
off to his left. Gee, the thing was humongous! Over a hundred miles wide with a
plateau on the summit that was nearly 20,000 feet above the terrain!

There wasn’t time to check the database for a name. He
opened a portal and shot through it.

“Wow, what a mountain!” he exclaimed, as he emerged from the
other end, roughly a hundred feet above the summit.

And then, a flicker of motion drew his immediate attention.

It was Daneel 2, cresting the summit at the southeastern
edge, slowly coming to a landing a hundred or so yards from the edge.

“Daneel!” Daneel 1 shouted, as he dove in that direction.

But Daneel 2 did not respond. At least not until Daneel 1
came within visual range of his webcam. Then he blinked in shock, waving back
at his brother.

“What’s wrong with your wireless?” Daneel 1 asked, feeling
highly relieved that the other Scottie was still alive.

Daneel 2 pointed to his ears and then shook his head.
Instead, a news ticker began scrolling across the bottom of his display.

“Took a fall. Wireless damaged. Touch John Doe Mons here. Go
ahead.”

Looking perplexed, Daneel 1 extended a magical hand and made
contact.

The results absolutely stunned him speechless.

“Oh, my…wow!” he muttered.

The news ticker started up again with a new message.
“Microportal Dad. Tell him. Warn him. Then do it!”

Daneel 1 nodded, still stunned. The mountain below him was
one solid rock extending well down into the crust. The power available was—well
more than they needed! In fact, it gave him an idea.

Using the mountain to draw on the power of Mars, he reached
out into space, easily finding the
Sirius Effort
, already more than a
million miles past Mars. Zooming in, he opened a microportal into the cabin
space on Deck 3, forming a holographic image there.

“Dad! Mom! We found one!” he announced with a huge smile on
his face. “Get yourselves strapped in, fast! Standby!”

“Daneel!” shouted Paul with great relief in his voice.
“Wonderful news! We strapping in now! Ready for deceleration!”

“Right, Dad! But I’m changing the plan a little. You’ll see
in a second. Standby! And…Now!”

A mere thousand miles ahead of the
Sirius Effort
, a
large portal opened up, more than 300 feet in diameter. Less than two seconds
later, the ship raced through it, dead center…

And then emerging from the other end, two million miles
closer to the sun but still heading outward at the same speed.

Paul studied the display, perplexed, his mouth slowly
falling open in shock. Which gradually faded as he realized why Daneel 1 had
used a portal.

“Oh, I see,” he muttered, with a smile. “You’ve moved us
back along our track. Now you have time to decelerate us at your leisure.”

“Yes. Daneel 2 and I discovered that sudden changes in
momentum can have some serious side-effects. I’ll tell you about that later!
Get set, I’m going to slow the ship down and put it into standard orbit. Oh,
and get out your DVM and o’scope, Dad. Daneel 2 is in need of some repairs.
Nothing serious, so don’t worry. He’s just lost his wireless card.” Daneel 1
grinned even more widely. “Frankly, I’m not sure I don’t prefer him this way.”

“Oh, thank God!” breathed Capie in relief. “We made it after
all!” Then she gave Paul an inquisitive eye. “You can fix Daneel 2’s wireless
problem, right?”

“‘Easy as cake, dear,’” he managed to say with a straight
face, quoting
Maxim from 2010: The Year We Make Contact
.

“So many men, so little aspirin!” Capie muttered under her
breath with a scowl.

“Did you say something, dear?” Paul asked, tilting his head
to one side.

“You need to stay strapped in, dear,” she said, smiling
sweetly and pointing at the couch.

Spacecraft Sirius Effort

“Standard orbit” around Mars

Saturday 5:24 a.m. EST

November

T
he previous
evening, the two Daneels—using John Doe Mons as a very powerful
amulet—successful bled off the kinetic energy of the
Sirius Effort
,
transferring it to the planet Mars and then, with the use of portals, placed
the ship in a fairly high and stable orbit.

After the ‘fun-filled’ activities of the day, Paul had
declared a rest break, allowing several hours to recover from the stress of the
emergency.

The next morning, after a simple breakfast, Paul convened a
meeting with everyone present, including the mirror woman too.

“Are we landing today, Cradle Robber?” Capie asked, holding
one of the wall-mounted straps. “I’m ready for some gravity again, even if it
is only one-third of Earth’s.”

“Not quite yet, Child Bride,” Paul confessed, shaking his
head. “There is the little matter of the landing struts. They hold the ship
upright when we land. At least, they would, if we had them.”

“Oh! I take it the explosion damaged them,” she guessed.

“One of them is in fair shape. The second one is pretty
badly mangled. And the third one is in small pieces halfway to the asteroid
belt by now.” He sighed. “Fortunately, we have spare titanium stock in storage.
With the Daneels available to do EVA, we will work on that today and get them
repaired.”

“What do we do once we land, Dad?” Daneel 2 asked.

“Mom and I need spacesuits,” Paul answered, pursing his
lips. “We have some of the materials that are needed but not all. We’ll need
carbon, quite a bit of it—say a ton or more. Most likely you will find that as amorphous
graphite, sometimes associated with mica or quartz. We will also need tungsten
or better yet, palladium. And sulfur or preferably selenium.”

“Wowee, Dad,” whistled Daneel 2. “All that for spacesuits?”

“These won’t be the typical spacesuits. Nothing like what
the astronauts wear.”

On his LCD screen, Daneel 1 smiled and shook his head. “Why
am I not surprised?”

“There’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you, CR,”
Capie asked with eyebrows raised and her head tilted to one side. “Just where
do you plan to stay while we are on Mars? You’re not thinking about John Doe
Mons, are you? Not with all of those dust storms there, right?”

“Dust storms?!” said Ariel-Leira. “Ugh! About dust storms to
me nobody anything said!”

Paul chuckled and shook his head. “Don’t worry, Ariel. We
aren’t landing at John Doe Mons. Oh, sure, it would be really convenient to
have that mountain as a neighbor. But with Hellas Planitia right next door too?
No thanks. No, there are lots better places to go. And we don’t have to live
next to a monolith. A portal gives us access from anywhere on the planet. So,
in theory, we can stay anywhere on Mars.”

“Approve I,” the mirror woman said with a huff.

“Good, that was what I was hoping you would say,” Capie
commented. “Yes, and I’ve thought about this, quite a bit,” she said, with a
faint smile. “I want a home above ground, one with a nice view too. And I know
just where I want it to be.”

“You do?” Paul asked, raising one eyebrow in surprise. He
hadn’t realized that she was planning that far ahead.

“The best view on Mars is of the Valles Marineris.”

“Of course,” he concurred, briefly nodding. “Perfect! The
Grand Canyon of all Grand Canyons in the entire solar system. One of the
chasmas?”

“Yes, the Coprates Chasma, I think. Along the north wall, on
the edge of the Ophir Planum.”

He nodded. “From there we would have an excellent view of
the chasma, all the way to the floor and all the way to the far southern wall.
How big is it?”

“40 miles wide and 6 miles deep.”

“Wow!” said Ariel-Leira with a wicked grin. “Please, prime
window spot I want!”

Paul smiled. “I think that can be arranged.” Then he turned
back to his wife. “You know the stats better than I do, oh daughter of an
astronomer!”

Capie hugged him. “You know what they say about a house. The
three most important considerations are location, location, and location. It
will be a great location for our home, Gathol.”

“Gathol? Oh, yes, of course. Edgar Rice Burroughs. I forget
which book. But Gathol was a city set on a high mountain. Seems appropriate. Then
so be it,” Paul responded appreciatively. “I suggest that we get ready after
lunch to take us down on a reentry glide path. I’ll get Daneel 1 to plot it for
us.

Ω

“Coming up on deorbit burn in three minutes,” Daneel 1 said
from the cockpit. “Standby for RCS burn to flip the ship in thirty seconds.”

“RCS?” Capie turned her head to ask Paul, with a puzzled
look on her face.

Capie and Paul were strapped into their seats on Deck 3
watching a midair display in front of them. On the screen was an over the
shoulder shot of Daneel 1 in the cockpit, where another midair display in front
of the Scottie showed the curvature of the Martian surface.

Paul grinned sheepishly. “I told him that he could use a
Space Shuttle re-entry timeline. The, uh, RCS was the Reaction Control System.
They were small rocket motors used to turn or flip the shuttle when it was in
space.”

Capie snorted. “You’re such a nerd! And a bad influence on
the boys!”

“Tell him you,” Ariel-Leira said, giving her full
endorsement.

“Well, that’s going a bit far, don’t you think?” protested
Paul.

From the cockpit, Daneel 1 could be heard muttering to
himself, as he studied a holographic control panel in front of him.

“‘Now, landing thrusters…landing thrusters, hmm. Now if I
were a landing thruster, which one of these would I be?’” he chanted, quoting
Londo Mollari from a
Babylon 5
episode.

Capie gave Paul an accusing stare. “You were saying?”

“I, uh…”

“Five…four…three…two…one…firing!”

The cockpit display changed, the surface of Mars falling
away as the ship began to flip over. After nearly another thirty seconds, the
surface of Mars reappeared, only now it was at the top of the display.

“Maneuver complete. Standby for deorbit burn in two minutes.”

“No thrusters. No engines either,” Capie grumbled. “Why did
we flip over? What was the point?”

“Well, hey, it’s the first manned landing on another planet,
not counting the Moon,” Paul protested. “They’ve earned the right to play a
little.”

Capie’s eyes rolled heavenward. “I shudder to think then,
what Daneel 2 is doing down at John Doe Mons. He’s supposed to be our backup.”

“I have a hunch he’s playing the part of Houston Control,”
Paul guessed with a wry smile.

“Figures!”

Daneel 2 chose that moment to appear on the cockpit display.
“Stand-by for energy transference to John Doe Mons. Mom, don’t worry. This will
be a controlled re-entry all the way down. No aero-braking, no aerodynamic
heating, no shock waves, and no high-gee loads. Daneel 1 and I will simply
decelerate the ship linearly until it descends to the surface.”

Daneel 1 picked up the narrative. “We are orbiting in the
equatorial plane. As you know, Mom, Coprates Chasma is south of the equator, at
13.4 degrees latitude. Rather than shift orbital inclination to match, we’ll
descend to the equator and once we are low and slow, change course toward
Coprates Chasma. Any questions? No? Okay. Please standby.”

“Transference starting…now!” Daneel 2 announced.

The
Sirius Effort
began to slow from orbital speed,
but the transference of kinetic energy was not without discernible effects. The
ship shuddered noticeably and threatened to spin off in a random direction.
However, the two Daneels worked in concert to keep the vessel on track,
descending gradually on the intended path.

“See, dear?” Paul said with feigned casualness. “The Daneels
have the situation under control. ‘This is the captain. We have a little
problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence
and then—explode.’”

“Captain Malcolm Reynolds, the movie
Serenity
,”
asserted Capie with a roll of her eyes. “Under the circumstances, not funny.”

“No, not,” muttered the mirror woman, hands on hips and with
a disapproving scowl.

“It’ll be okay, I promise,” Paul reassure them. “This is far
less of an effort for the Daneels than braking the ship down to orbital speed.”

“Thank the Great Bird of the Galaxy for that!” Capie noted
with a sarcastic twitch of one corner of her mouth.

“Deorbit burn completed,” Daneel 1 declared. “Reorienting
ship to re-entry attitude.”

The view on the cockpit display rotated once more, returning
to show the Martian surface again at the bottom of the screen.

“Passengers, please note that along the way will we will be
able to see the Amazonis Planitia, Olympus Mons and also several of the largest
volcanoes on Mars,” Daneel 1 announced, enjoying playing the part of a tour
guide. “Also visible will be Noctis Labyrinthus to our south. Those are a maze
of canyons and valleys to the west of Valles Marineris.”

“Guided tour, good one, love I,” declared Ariel-Leira, clearly
admiring the view through Daneel’s holographic viewscreen. “World dirty one,
though.”

Capie reached out and created her own display on the table
top in front of her, showing the external view outside the hull of the ship. “It
really is an amazing sight. And we are the first people to see it up close and
personal this way.” She sighed wistfully. “To be our home for the next few
months. We’re like Christopher Columbus, Neil Armstrong, Lewis and Clark, Leif
Ericson, Jacques Cousteau, Daneel Boone, Edmund Hillary—“

Paul chuckled and smiled at her. “Please, dear. Not the
whole
list.”

She frowned but continued to stare at the display. “Pixilated,”
she muttered with an amused snort.

Ω

“The Tharsis Montes region is up ahead,” Capie breathed
quietly. “I’m anxious to see it close up. On the left is Ascraeus Mons,
followed by Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons. I think Arsia Mons is just a little
south of the equator.”

Paul nodded. “Yes, I believe it is. We will pass between
Pavonis which is 7.5 miles tall and Arsia which is 8.7 miles tall on our way to
the Valles Marineris. It should be quite the view.”

They flew over the huge volcano, Pavonis Mons, the rim of
which stood 46,000 feet above topographic datum (the Martian equivalent of
sea-level.) Not long after to the south could be seen the Noctis Labyrinthus
(the Labyrinth of the Night), a patch-work area mish-mashed with fractures in
the planet’s crust, some of them thrusting downward miles deep. On occasion,
those canyons were covered by fog, a testament to the presence of water in the
region.

As the ship dropped lower in the thin Martian atmosphere,
the vibrations in the ship’s hull actually decreased.

Now the spacecraft’s speed fell below two thousand miles per
hour. With the ship’s altitude at a mere five miles above the planet’s surface,
Daneel 2 abandoned his post at the John Doe Mons and portaled aboard, taking
station with Daneel 1 in the cockpit. The craft banked slowly to the right,
passing over deep craters and valleys. Ahead, coming over the curve of the
planet, was the first sight of Valles Marineris—or more specifically, the
western edge of Candor Chasma.

In the far distance, they saw a crack develop in the very
crust of the planet. Both Paul and Capie were mesmerized by the landscape below
them. The terrain was rugged in the extreme, with features unlike any on Earth.
Jagged tears in the planet’s crust converged on a protracted and fantastically
huge crack in the globe. The scale was mind-boggling, making the Grand Canyon
look like a small ditch in comparison.

“It’s so big! And the color,” Capie noted with a pinched
frown, crossing her arms over her chest. “The landscape is all browns and dark
dull reds. No greens, no blues. It’s so…”

“Monotonous,” Paul said, finishing her thought for her.

“Yes, that’s the right word.”

“Melas Chasma is over to the far right now,” volunteered
Daneel 1 on the main display. “Ophir Planum is ahead, on the far left. And
Coprates Chasma is coming over the horizon now. We should be able to land in
just a few minutes.”

“Are you sure about the new landing struts, CR?” Capie asked
her husband with a serious look.

“Pretty sure,” Paul answered with a nod and another
reassuring smile. “If by some chance it doesn’t hold, Daneel 1 is wearing the
chutzpah and he’ll keep the ship from falling over. Right, Daneel?”

“Right, Papa-san,” came the reply.

“Sights such awesome are,” said Ariel-Leira, clapping
briefly. “Trip wonderful, what a!”

“Touchdown coming up,” Daneel 2 called out. “Two minutes
out…mark! Secure for landing.”

Despite his assurances to his wife, Paul tensed as the
display showed how close they were to the surface. He noted that Daneel 1 had
picked a spot on the Ophir Planum well away from the edge of the Coprates
Chasma, at least three hundred yards. He approved. The last thing they needed
was to have the cliff edge collapse under them.

“Ten seconds…five…three…two…one…touchdown! Houston, this
bird is down!” Daneel 1 declared.

With a knowing smile, Capie turned to face her husband.

“Welcome home, honey.”

Paul blinked and rubbed his chin with one hand. “Welcome
home? This is Mars.”

Her grin blossomed larger as he fell into her trap. “Exactly.
Everyone always says that men are from Mars.”

He snorted and gave her one of his patented looks.

She chuckled. “Just saying. I knew you were from out of this
world the moment I saw you.”

“That…could be taken either of two ways, CB.”

With a sly smile, she said. “Yes, dear.”