Timeline Taxi: chapter 6
I remember growing up as a kid, following the live transmission as humans set the first foot on Mars. We had been chasing the Mars dream for multiple centuries and were finally there. A handful of centuries before that historical landing, billionaires had privatized the space sector and made it into their life's mission to be the first on Mars. They longed for something money could not buy, but none of them ever got to witness the landing. An endless chain of setbacks and disappointments had defined that space age.
I wonder how they would react, had they known they were looking in the wrong direction. Conventional propulsion was their biggest misstep. It would have never allowed humans to colonize Mars in a reasonable timeframe. The breakthrough came with the invention of antimatter pulsar engines, which could reach speeds no one thought imaginable. Suddenly the distance between Mars and Earth could be crossed within 30 days, then 25, then 20. Soon thereafter, we managed to reach near-lightspeed velocity. If the early pioneers would have had that technology available in their time, they would have been able to spend a year or two in near-lightspeed deep sleep to wake up in a new age. Instead, they died without the accomplishment they longed for, some even driven to insanity at the end of their lives.
And here I am — orbiting what used to be a desolate, dusty planet. It took almost 500 years from that first step in the Martian dust to make it into what it is today. The doctor’s looking out the cockpit window in awe. I’ve seen Mars before — a couple of times, not often, and definitely not in the stage it is today. I can relate. After a minute, maybe 5, maybe 10 — who knows — it’s back to work. We need to come up with a plan to refuel this ship. My fuel reserves are now almost empty, and getting from Mars to any other planet in a reasonable amount of time has become impossible. It needs to happen here and now.
“I suggest a couple of things.” I tell the doctor. It’s good having someone to bounce ideas off of, even if that someone has no practical experience with space travel, let alone how things work on Mars.
“First, I’ve changed our call sign. It’s one of the advantages of having an older ship: I’ve had to do several software upgrades throughout the centuries, which includes patches to its identification system. I kept the old versions as a backup though. I hotpatched the system to use my very first call sign.”
“Won’t they recognise it as an outdated call sign?” The doctor asks.
“Sure, but that’s not uncommon. There still are ships arriving occasionally in this period. Pioneers who bet everything they had on one very long near-lightspeed trip. So everyone still knows how to deal with these call signs, they are just not as convenient. It might give us a chance of not being flagged immediately.”
“Makes sense. What else?”
“There’s only one other thing I can think of: we won’t be able to refuel at any USN-owned station, that’s way too risky. But there are a handful of privately-owned stations in Martian orbit still. Not as many as I remember there to be, but we only need one. They tend to ask less questions about visitors. They are obliged to report to the USN once every month or so, which would mean trouble for us, but by then we’re already far gone. That’s the plan. What do you think?”
“Sounds… easy?”
“In theory it is easy, and no, I think this is our only option. I’ve refueled here a handful of times when the Martian reactors were still abundant and antimatter was cheaper here than on Earth. But that’s a long time ago. You better have some cash at hand, because it’s going to be expensive.”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve got you covered.”
“So, are you ok with this plan? Anything to add?”
“Just to be sure, are there any alternatives you can think of?”
“Nope, as far as I know this is our only option.”
“Well, then I’m good to go. You’ve done this before, let’s just act normal and it’ll be fine.”
“Normal,” I say to myself and chuckle half-sarcastically. If all goes well, we should be on our way to the Oort cloud in three hours; we escaped Earth a little over a week ago because I became a wanted criminal; I’m here with a doctor who apparently discovered time travel, and I don’t even know where we’re going. So yeah, let’s act normal.
“That reminds me”, I say, “I will need those coordinates before we can engage in a full powerup. And a full powerup takes half an hour. So, whatever timing fits you best, but I’m just letting you know.”
The doctor nods. “I’ll give them when refueling is done.”
Ok, here goes.
“Mars Station Alpha 2, this is Big Bertha calling out, do you copy?”
The doctor turns to me barely holding it together. “Big Bertha?” he mouths.
“I know. I found it funny back then, I was young. Shut up.”
“Big Bertha, this is Mars Station Alpha 2, how are you today?” The reply sounds a little more cheery than usual.
“Mars Station, we’re all good here, just arrived from a pretty long trip and we’re looking for refuelment, can you help us with that?”
“Big Bertha, that shouldn’t be a problem, what kind of engine are you running?”
“Mars Station, I’ve got two separate antimatter pulsar engines, both need full refuelment.”
“Big Bertha, please proceed to gate 8, we’ll have the injections ready for you there. Please be advised that each injection will cost 50MD”
50 Mars Dollars, with a current conversion rate of one to five; it’s gonna be expensive indeed.
“Mars Station, all fine. Big Bertha proceeding to gate 8. Thank you.”
I have to do some exotic maneuvering to be able to dock at gate 8, this station is so packed that the ship needs to be spinned sideways and extend the outriggers into their near-lightspeed flight configuration, just so that we can dock without crashing into anything. The ship has become as flat as possible, meaning we now just barely fit. We need to attach with our frontal dock — the rear dock is occupied by the shuttle — which makes things more difficult as the outriggers extend most frontwards. Ideally, I’d move the shuttle to the front, but I don’t want to risk spending another half an hour maneuvering around.
But I know this ship as none other, and we dock without problems. Less than a minute later, the frontal airlock beeps, indicating that the valet wants to board. I float to the lower deck and open the gate.
“Good morning, sir. I was told you need full refuelment for both pulsar engines, correct?” He’s tapping frantically on his tablet while talking, not looking up.
“That’s right, I need 10 injections per engine.”
“Can these engines be accessed from the inside, sir?”
“I’m afraid not, you’ll need an EVA to reach them. I can help if you want.”
“Oh that’s ok sir, part of the service. This is a pretty nice ship you have!” He exclaims as he’s looking around the interior.
“Yeah it’s one of the few they made in my era, my grandfather designed it, called it Hyperion. This is Hyperion-C, the third one they made. They are very reliable, I think all nine of them are still operating fine after all these years.”
“Hyperion, good name — yet you renamed it to Big Bertha!” He says as he chuckles.
“I was young…”
“Oh believe me sir, I get you, no worries. Ok so, refuelment will take 15 minutes. I will need payment up front though.”
“Yeah, that’s no problem, hang on.” I call the doctor downstairs. “This is my travel companion, he’s the one paying today.”
“Very well, sir. That’s 20 injections in total, do you want to keep the depleted ones or can we recycle them?”
“Feel free to recycle them,” I reply.
“Perfect, that’s 1200 dollars then, you can pay here.” He holds the tablet in front of the doctor. The doctor scans his biochip, and the payment succeeds. First step done.
“We’ll see each other in an hour and a half then?”
“Perfect, see you then, sir.”
We move back up to the cockpit, sit in our chairs and watch for a couple of minutes as four technicians start their EVA. We can’t see the back of the outriggers from within the cockpit, which is where the engines are located, but we see them going back and forth carrying depleted injections.
“So, doc, a couple of pre-flight checks. After refueling, we travel to a safe takeoff position. As soon as full powerup is done, we’ll start acceleration. It’ll be fast. Really fast. The ship’s equipped with g-shields, otherwise you’d be squashed in an instant. You’ll still experience a handful of g’s though. They were barely noticeable during our acceleration to Mars, but a full powerup to near-lightspeed does carry some discomfort. Probably 3 to 4 g’s. Some people get used to it, others faint and stay unconscious during the entirety of acceleration. I could already put you in deep sleep if you want but —”
“Don’t worry about it,” the doctor interrupts, “I have had proper high-g training a year ago. I’ll be fine.”
I have to admit, the doctor doesn’t disappoint me. He is prepared. Meanwhile the technicians have already started to load the new injections, they are efficient.
“Like I told you, I’ll need those coordinates before powerup, ideally when we’re leaving here. We’re navigating the Oort cloud at near-lightspeed, so the autopilot will need some time to calculate the best path.”
“I’ll share them with you as soon as we’ve undocked.” The doctor assures me.
“Ok, next step is to explain the first days of our journey and deep sleep, you might not —”
The airlock beeps again, someone’s at the door. I float downstairs and am surprised to see the valet with two armed guards as the airlock slides open.
“Any problems?” I ask. They haven’t finished refueling yet.
“As a matter of fact, sir. There is. The payment of the gentleman traveling with you triggered a problem while processing. It turns out your client is wanted by the UN, so I’m sorry to inform you that he will have to come with us.”
The guards and valet are still standing in the docking tunnel, so I have no more than two seconds to make a decision before they enter the ship. I only need one second though. I reach to the upper right corner of the airlock where the emergency disconnect button is located. In an instant, the docking port slides shut and we disconnect from the station. There’s a loud bang and the doctor shouts my name. I rush upstairs.
“Strap in.”
“What happened?”
“Strap in!” I repeat.
The four technicians are floating in front of the ship, making haste to get back to the station. The right outrigger has hit the station, but doesn’t seem to have suffered any damage, at least as far as I can tell. I RCS to back out as fast as I can and turn around. I trust forward into higher orbit.
“What happened?” The doctor asks again when we’ve cleared the station.
“You’re wanted by the UN! That happened. Most likely there’s a USN patrol on their way to intercept us, and those will be more heavyweight than the shuttles that chased us on Earth. I’m going to prepare for full powerup, once we’ve cleared Mars.”
“Wait, they weren’t done refueling yet!”
“I know, we’ve got 14 out of 20 injections. I’m afraid your trip has been canceled.”
“No that can’t be!” The doctor exclaims, for the first time seeming to lose his calm.
“Look, we can’t make the trip you wanted to, but we can still skip a century. Let’s hope the UN will have lost interest in us by then.”
“No, you don’t understand! There’s only one chance of going to the place we’re going to, and that’s now. A hundred year delay won’t work!”
“Doc, I’m sorry, we tried, but it didn’t work out. Unless you want to spend probably the rest of your life in jail, you’ll have to let go of your plans.”
“Wait, you said we’ve had 14 injections, right? That’s enough for a one-way trip, right?”
“I wanna go back, doc! I’m not going to give my life for your mission!”
“No, you don’t understand. You can get back. Ok look, I’ll tell you where we’re going, but you can already prepare the powerup?”
“I’m doing that anyway, start talking!”
“The holotype message contained coordinates somewhere in the Oort cloud. We did as much research as we could on it from Earth, and discovered a cluster of meteorites that could potentially contain tachyonium. We sent an expedition to it three years ago: two near-lightspeed capable ships that have been setting up camp within that region of space. There’s much more to tell you about them, but I’ll tell you when we’ve got more time. My mission is to join them. Both ships have antimatter reactors on board, you can refuel when we’re there!”
I take a moment to let the doctor’s words sink in.
“You have set up camp in the Oort cloud to mine meteorites?”
“We’ve been doing much more, but please, let’s hurry. Will you take me there?”
I still haven’t figured out whether to trust the doctor with my life or not. He continues without waiting for my reply. “You haven’t had any reason to distrust me! I’ve helped you every step of the way. I have every reason to want you to succeed, because if you don’t, I don’t either. Please.”
“Sure but you only need me to succeed halfway!”
“No, because we need your ship! I promise you, I’ll explain everything to you when we’re on our way, and you will get back home, please trust me.”
This seems to be one of those pivotal, life-altering moments where every choice seems to be the wrong one. I glance at Mars on the dashboard. I’ve never even set foot on it, but in this moment, with the prospect of traveling half a lightyear away, it feels as close to home as Earth. My life probably won’t be the same ever again.
I curse.
“Ok, doc, give me the coordinates.”