Saturn Run

55.

Fang-Castro watched the rearward screen as the Celestial Odyssey closed on them. If she cut the engines, they’d arrive in ten minutes. She had no intention of doing that, because there was little doubt that the Chinese ship could fire up its engines to keep up with the slowly accelerating Nixon. The Chinese were two kilometers to starboard, well out of the path of the VASIMR engines’ exhaust and safely distant from a collision course.

“Let’s hear the hail,” she said.

Summerhill, the comm officer, said, “It’s recorded, on a loop.”

He touched a button and Zhang came up, in the middle of a sentence: “…are in need of immediate assistance. Please respond.” After a couple of seconds of silence, the recorded message started from the beginning. On the second repeat, Fang-Castro ordered it muted.

“Put me through to the Odyssey,” Fang-Castro said. Summerhill touched another button and then pointed at her: “You’re up, ma’am.”

“Celestial Odyssey, this is the United States Spaceship Richard M. Nixon. We’ve received your distress call. Please stand by.” She signaled the communications officer to close the channel. After a quarter minute, the muted distress message loop cut off.

“Good. They’re listening full-time,” she said. “Mr. Crow? Mr. Francisco? Anything you want to say before I proceed? This is for the official record.”

Crow shook his head: “We’ve talked it through. Speaking officially and for the record, as the President’s representative, I’m satisfied that we have prepared as well as we can for… whatever eventuality. I agree that under the accepted laws of space, we are required to perform a rescue of a ship in distress, if we are able to do so.”

“Thank you,” Fang-Castro said. “Mr. Francisco?”

“I agree with Mr. Crow, ma’am.”

Fang-Castro signaled Summerhill to reopen the channel to the Chinese. “Ship in distress, Celestial Odyssey, this is Admiral Naomi Fang-Castro. What is the precise nature of your emergency and what assistance do you require? Over.”

“Admiral, this is Admiral Zhang Ming-Hoa. I am very happy to hear from you. I will keep this brief: my ship was badly damaged during our aerobraking maneuvers at Saturn. Most of our hydrogen tankage is gone. Our remaining tanks cannot carry enough reaction mass to get us back to Earth before our life-support or engineering systems fail. We have expended almost all our reaction mass just to match velocities with you. In your vernacular, we ‘need a lift.’ Otherwise, we are all dead. Over.”

Crow said, to no one in particular, “There it is.”

Fang-Castro: “Admiral Zhang, do you need immediate retrieval? How much time do we have? Over.”

Zhang: “We are not at imminent risk, but we cannot match your acceleration indefinitely. We will exhaust our reaction-mass reserves in less than half a day. Over.”

“Admiral Zhang, we will consider your request and get back to you. Over and out.” She turned to Crow and Francisco. “Let’s adjourn to the conference room, where we can sit down and talk this out.”

A moment later, settled into the conference room chairs, she said, “Thoughts?”

Francisco: “I suggest we drop the whole thing back into Zhang’s lap. He’s the one with the real problem. Supposedly. What should he do to convince us? He couldn’t imagine we would take him at his word. He must have thought out what his next move would have to be. Let’s see what that is.”

Fang-Castro nodded: “Good point.”

Fang-Castro asked Comm for a channel to the Celestial Odyssey. When Zhang came up, she said, “Admiral Zhang, we have considered your request. If your situation is as you state, we will take your crew on board. But—there is no delicate way to put this—you must understand that we are skeptical. We need to be persuaded that you are really in need of aid. Over.”

“Thank you, Admiral. I understand your doubts. In your position I would share them. I have a proposal. We exchange delegations. Two of us will come over from the Celestial Odyssey. You may send as many of your crew as you would like to our ship to inspect it. You may ask any questions you wish of the crew; half of them speak English.”

He continued, after a pause: “To ensure that this does not appear to be a useless exchange of hostages, I propose that I and my first officer come to your ship. We are willing to arrive at your ship before you send your representatives. The people you send to our vessel can be of as low rank and… frankly… expendable as you wish. Over.”

Before Fang-Castro could reply, Crow silently raised a finger and slid it across his throat. Fang-Castro said, “Excuse me one moment, Captain Zhang. I will be right back.”

When she’d closed the comm channel, Crow said, “This is extremely abnormal behavior for the Chinese. If Zhang is being honest with us, I can understand his coming over, if for no other reason than to be able to talk with you face-to-face and privately. The stakes are extremely high for him. But, he would be accompanied by their political officer, the highest-ranking party official on their ship. He’d leave the first officer in charge.”

Fang-Castro understood that, in her blood. She nodded and reopened the channel: “Admiral, I am puzzled by something. I would expect you to be accompanied by your political officer rather than your first officer. Can you explain? Over.”

Zhang: “Ah, you have some familiarity with our protocols. The explanation, unfortunately, is extremely simple. Our political officer is dead. She died with half my crew in the antimatter explosion at the alien facility. We have barely enough personnel to operate this ship. We are running with a below-minimum complement. I’m offering to send over our two most senior command to help convince you of the gravity of our situation. Over.”

“Thank you for that information and my sincere condolences on your losses. I’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. Over and out.”

Crow shook his head: “I don’t see how we can refuse.”

“A suicide mission?” Francisco suggested.

“I don’t believe it,” Fang-Castro said. “But we could insist on a scan before they board us.”

Crow said, “That would also define the relationship. We’re not just being friendly.”

Fang-Castro: “Unless somebody has a better suggestion, I would assign Sandy Darlington to go over, with his cameras, so we can see in real time what he’s seeing. He can take direction from Martinez and Greenberg, and if they kill him, we still get back, because he’s not critical to our operations. And you, Mr. Crow. Since you speak Mandarin, you might overhear something—”

“And if they kill me, you still get back,” Crow said, with a grin. “That works for me.”

Francisco nodded in agreement.

Fang-Castro reopened a channel to the Chinese captain.

The extensive and unrestricted videography was acceptable to Zhang. He was eager to proceed; he reminded Fang-Castro that unless she decided to order the Nixon’s engines shut down, their two ships would start to separate in less than half a day and rescue operations would become increasingly difficult, maybe even infeasible.

“I will order the engine thrust reduced, which will allow the radiators to continue operating,” she said. “They’re a little touchy, and we don’t want a cold restart. My first officer will speak to yours, about the details of the rendezvous.”