Pegasus In Space
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Серия: Talents #3
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «Pegasus In Space». Краткое содержание книги:
For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. But there are those who, for motives of their own, want Padrugoi to fail. Standing in their way are the Talented, men and women gifted with extraordinary mental powers that have made them as feared as they are respected--and utterly indispensable to the colonization effort. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who is going to save the Talented?
Pegasus in Space is the tale of Peter Reidinger, first Tower Prime!
"Where will Padrugoi be then?" Johnny asked quickly.
Peter had his answer ready. He'd done his homework. "Padrugoi will be at the same altitude but two hundred and twenty degrees away from us."
"Why?"
"Because our elliptical orbit takes longer to complete than Padrugoi's circular orbit. Padrugoi will have made a full orbit and nearly two-thirds of its next one before we're back down to the same altitude," Peter answered smoothly. He took a deep breath and continued. "At that point-if all systems are go-we will initiate our translunar orbit insertion and head out to the Moon. That burn will be TLI-3. Just short of five days from now-by 36.5 minutes-we will be on the far side of the Moon and initiate our lunar landing insertion burn, designated LLI-4. At that point, barring some short maneuvering burns to handle the effects of lunar mass concentrations, we'll be locked in for a landing at First Base fifty-nine minutes later."
"And how much fuel will be required?" Johnny asked, continuing the interrogation.
Peter refused to be rattled. The admiral had lectured him on fuel requirements often enough.
"Our propellant to payload ratio is 2.00," Peter said, "but because we also want to take the Limo with us, we have to provide fuel for it, too. So the total propellant ratio is 2.2l."
"And how much fuel should we have on board?"
Peter sensed a trick question. "Our fuel is liquid hydrogen, which we burn with liquid oxygen. We burn twice the volume of hydrogen as we do oxygen. Limo-34 in its current configuration masses 2,203.5 kilograms, and our payload including crew and passengers masses 11,004 kilograms. Total final mass at First Base will be 13,207.5 kilograms. Or 13.2 metric tonnes. That will require 3,246 kilograms of liquid hydrogen and 25,968 kilograms of liquid oxygen."
He glanced at his display "But we are carrying a ten percent fuel reserve that changes the fuel loading to 50.1 metric tonnes."
"What's Limo stand for?"
Peter grinned. "Lunar insertion, Moon orbit, sir."
Johnny allowed the silence that followed to stretch out uncomfortably but Peter knew he'd answered correctly and fully. "Sir, we are in position for OAM-1."
"Roger," Johnny said, "initiate OAM-1."
"Aye, sir," Peter said, aware that he had passed the test. "Departure, this is Limo-34, we are go for OAM-1."
"Limo-34, OAM-1 at your discretion," Padrugoi Departure responded.
Peter let Limo-34's remaining five computers start OAM-1.
When the shuttle's three main rocket engines fired off with a gentle kick, Peter added, "OAM-1."
"Roger, OAM-1 for Limo-34," Padrugoi Departure confirmed.
As soon as the engines shut down, Departure radioed back. "Our computers have you in the green on that burn, Limo-34."
Peter checked the shuttle's computers. He frowned, ran diagnostics on MPU Five, and said, "Computer five is voting against the solution, sir."
Johnny had followed Peter's diagnostics on his control panels. "I see."
Xiang Liu snorted. "That's why we carry six computers on board. They're always going down."
"Sir," Peter said, remembering his drills, "flight rules state that we report when we fall below five voting computers."
"If we tell them, Peter, we won't be going anywhere," Johnny replied at his drollest.
"Let me see if I can jog it back on-line," Lieutenant Liu offered. "And I'll look at MPU Two while I'm at it." He got out of his seat, graceful in free fall as he pulled himself over to the MPU control rack and started pulling off access panels.
"Good idea, Mr. Liu," Johnny agreed.
Peter was still uncomfortable. "Sir, I was told that there were no old, bold pilots."
Johnny snorted at Peter's re-rendering of the old saw: There are old pilots and there are bold pilots but there are no old bold pilots.
"Mr. Reidinger," Johnny said, "we have seventy-one minutes until OIM-2. If we can't get one of the computers back by then, we'll abort the mission. In the meantime, I want you to stand watch while Mr. Liu and I troubleshoot these wonders of electronics provided to the space station by the lowest bidder."
"Probably Russia," the copilot murmured, but only Peter heard him.
Xiang Liu managed to get MPU Five back on-line after jiggering with it for some minutes.
"Okay, now we'll be go for OIM-2," Johnny told Peter. "I'm going to head aft and suss out the rest of the crew and the passengers."
Before he gave permission to unclip safety harnesses, Johnny gave the usual reminders about the hazards of free fall, the procedures to take in the event of nausea, and the action-reaction phenomenon. He advised the newbies to keep one hand on something. Anything a luminous pale blue was safe to grab. Peter quickly recognized who had traveled in space before. The noncoms floated gracefully up and away from the safety seats; two of the Japanese army officers moved with equal facility and were encouraging their tentative and nervous comrade. The solar heating engineers, all civilians, were very cautious about moving at alclass="underline" obviously the matter of action-reaction had been emphasized in their briefing for this journey.
Johnny checked readouts with the copilot and then assigned watches. Sergeant Bat Singh and Corporal Gopal Ahn were getting crew pay on this leg of the journey and Peter was to get experience. Then Johnny called a coffee break.
"This your first time in space, Reidinger?" one of the noncoms asked, watching Peter glide easily toward the galley while evading the clumsier movements of the engineers.
"I've done some EVA," Peter replied modestly, grinning. "Great feeling, being weightless."
"Not that you carry much," the sergeant remarked, eyeing Peter's light frame. Bat Singh had massive shoulders, a heavy torso, and arms disproportionately long for his height.
"Wrestler?" Peter asked.
Bat Singh shrugged and nodded, pleased by the guess.
Just then one of the engineers vomited. Liu hurriedly slapped the access panel back over the control rack to prevent any further accidents occurring with the ship's computers.
"There's always one," Singh remarked in an undertone that only Peter was near enough to hear as the sergeant pushed off the side of the cabin to get a spew-bag.
The sicker was strapped into his bunk in the sleeping area where he was assured he would recover.
"What if I don't?" he asked anxiously as he was assisted aft.
"I haven't heard of anyone who hasn't," Bat Singh replied genially. "Not if you passed phobics."
Peter was relieved of his watch by Xiang Liu who told him with a certain amount of disgust, "Those computers are always going down and I'm sick of babying 'em. Why don't you take a break? You did real good, Mister Reidinger." He grinned as he gave the thumbsup of approval. "You can come back up for OIM-2."
"Yes, sir," Peter said, happily floating toward the rear of the cabin.
The passengers were all grouped around the ports, looking at Earth. Peter found himself following the Earth's geography and referencing the list of gestalt-capable generators at the same time. Let's see, he said to himself. Dhaka had the Ehrain Station, then Hong Kong, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Midway, Honolulu, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego all at once, followed by Denver, Dallas, Jerhattan, Miami, and Buenos Aires. Then there were no big stations until Europe. Peter hadn't worked with many but he'd seen pictures of the huge installation built by the CERN people in Geneva.
He did know that the nice people at the Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire had been the first to put together gestalt circuitry. They were trying to understand how psychic powers worked in the physical world, so the gestalt was more of a scientific curiosity than a practicality for them. Peter remembered hearing Rhyssa comment once about how the CERN and FermiLab physicists were vying for the very small amount of research time the Eastern Parapsychic Center allotted for telekinetics. If Professor Gadriel had not had some minor telekinetic ability, that vital research might never have been as enthusiastically pursued. And Gadriel was always trying to get complete use-energy readings for his investigations-like those that Peter and Johnny had been generating for their Padrugoi contract. Peter made a note to contact the professor and see about giving him copies of the data.