TURNAROUND
On my mark,” Pancho’s voice came through the intercom, “turnaround in thirty minutes. Mark.” Dan sat up in his bunk. He had just drifted to sleep, it seemed, after staring at the compartment’s overhead for what had felt like hours. We’re well inside the Belt, he thought. The ship’s working fine. We’re heading for the outer reaches to scout around for a good, solid M-type body.
And there’s a leak in the coolant that keeps the superconductor cooled down enough to maintain the magnetic field around us that protects us from the hard radiation of solar storms. Sounds like the house that Jack built, he said to himself, trying to shake the feeling of foreboding that plagued him.
He grabbed a fresh pair of coveralls and marched to the lav. I need a shower and a shave, he thought. And you need to get that leak fixed, a voice in his head reminded.
He wished it didn’t bother him so much. Pancho wasn’t worried about it; neither was Amanda.
Damned good-looking woman, Amanda, he thought. Even in loose-fitting coveralls she’s dynamite. Better make it a cold shower.
The only tricky part of the turnaround maneuver was that they had to shut down the main thrusters. Not the fusion reactor itself; the procedure was to kill the ship’s thrust during turnaround, and use the reactor’s exhaust gases to turn the ship by venting a fraction of the exhaust through maneuvering jets set into the sides of the propulsion module.
Dan headed up to the bridge after his shower. Both pilots were in their places. No music was playing.
“All systems ready for turnaround,” Amanda murmured. “Check, all systems go,” Pancho replied.
Standing behind their chairs, Dan asked, “Where’s Fuchs?”
“Prob’ly still in the sensor bay,” Pancho said, “playin’ with his toys.”
Amanda frowned slightly as she touched the comm screen. “Turnaround in five minutes,” she announced.
Glancing over her shoulder, Pancho said, “Boss, you oughtta find a chair.”
He scowled at her. “I’ve been in micro-g before, kid.” Before you were born, he almost added.
He could see Pancho grinning in her reflection on the port in front of her. “Okay, you’re the boss. Footloops on the deck and handgrips on the overhead.”
“Aye-aye, skipper,” Dan said, grinning back at her.
“Thrust cutoff in two minutes,” Amanda called out.
“Two minutes. Check.”
When the main thrusters cut off, Dan felt completely at ease. The feeling of gravity dwindled away to nothing, and he floated off the deck slightly. Grabbing one of the handgrips, he hung there and watched the pilots working their touchscreens.
“How’s Fuchs doin’ back there?” Pancho asked.
Amanda tapped the central screen and it showed Fuchs strapped into the fold-up chair in the sensor bay, looking a little pasty-faced but otherwise okay.
“Maneuver thrust in two minutes,” Amanda said.
“Check,” Pancho replied.
Dan worked his feet into the loops on the deck without letting go of the overhead handgrips. The maneuvering jets fired and he felt as if somebody suddenly shoved him from one side. He remembered from childhood his first ride in a people-mover at some airport: he’d been standing facing the doors, and when the train lurched into movement he’d nearly toppled over sideways. Only the grownups crowded around him had prevented him from falling.
“Phew,” Pancho said, “this bird turns like a supertanker: slow and ugly.”
“You’re not flying a little flitter now,” Dan said.
“Turn rate is on the curve,” Amanda pointed out, tracing the curve on the touchscreen with a manicured fingertip. Her screen’s background showed the white cliffs of Dover.
“Uh-huh,” said Pancho. “Still feels like we’re pushin’ freight.”
Amanda said, “We are: all that deuterium and helium-three.”
The fuel weighs a lot, Dan realized. Funny. You think of hydrogen and helium as being light, almost weightless. But we’ve got tons of the stuff in our tanks. Dozens of tons.
There was nothing much to see through the port. No panoply of stars swinging past. No asteroids in sight. Nothing but emptiness.
“Where’s the Sun?” Dan heard himself ask.
Pancho chuckled. “It’s there, boss. Hasn’t gone away. We’re just angled up too much to see it through the windshield, that’s all.”