Read Online Portal-eARC by Eric Flint, Ryk E Spoor - Free Book Online
Authors: Eric Flint, Ryk E Spoor
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questions.” Madeline said briskly.
“Concocting stories to mislead and confound the enemy?” Joe inquired as everyone stood up. “And I thought you gave that up for Lent.”
“Oh, don’t spoil her fun, Joe.” Helen said, and gave a delighted chuckle herself as she saw a touch of pink on Madeline’s cheeks.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Joe answered. “She’s never quite happy if she doesn’t have SOMEONE to confuse,” he continued, with a fond look at Madeline, “and I’m just too easy a target to be worth it.”
Challenges, N:
1. Calls to engage in a contests, fights, or competitions.
2. Acts or statements of defiance; calls to confrontation.
3. Demands for explanation or justification; calling into question.
4. Tests of one’s abilities or resources in demanding but stimulating undertakings.
Chapter 8.
“So why Athena? ” Madeline asked, watching the melt-probe’s interface and pre-start prep screen. So far, all good.
In one corner of the HUD, she saw Helen, who was helping position one of the anchor sections, grin. “My goodness , Maddie, I think this is the first time you’ve ever managed to surprise me by not knowing something.”
She returned the smile at the gentle dig. “My publicity greatly exceeds my only very slightly superhuman abilities. I know the name of course, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, sprung full-grown from her father Zeus’ head. And I can I suppose see that a probe of any sort gathers information and so could be named Athena , but it seems quite a stretch.”
“Very true,” Mia Svendsen put in from her position directing the assembly of the anchoring structure for Athena ’s deployment, “but as you very accurately stated, Athena was also a goddess of war, and it was she who, during the war with the Titans or Giants, plunged her spear directly into the Giant Enceladus.”
“That does make it a much more appropriate name. But you had the probe onboard long before we even discovered Enceladus would the target.”
Helen blinked. “Oh…yes, of course, they had to. They didn’t have any opportunity to go back and get one built.”
“That’s right,” Mia admitted, “And so the probe was originally just MP-N-1, Melt Probe, Nuclear, #1. We knew that there were several major bodies in the outer system which had icy surface layers which might require melt-probe operations, so such a system was included on Odin ’s manifest as a matter of course. Once the destination was determined, a name became a priority and that one was an obvious choice.” She raised her voice slightly. “Horst, Jackie, the support deployment is on schedule. How’s the startup check going?”
“Everything looks good so far,” Jackie answered. “Maddie hasn’t seen any alerts, so Athena seems to have come through without any damage.”
“How long before the support framework is ready?” Horst asked. “Pre-start checkup on Athena will be done in a few more hours.”
“Longer than that,” Mia answered. “We are in very low gravity, which makes support less of an issue than it would be on Earth, but we cannot afford any level of preventable risk. Based on Anthony’s analysis I’ve expanded the support radius considerably, with more anchor points. We’ll be able to start Athena in two days or so, I would say.”
Maddie nodded to herself. Anthony, with some input from Larry and modeling by Brett, had determined that there was a small, but significant danger from the quakes, and that they certainly should be bracing everything for potential shocks. A probe trying to tunnel into the depths of Europa was, obviously, one of the things most at risk, even though it was designed with that possibility in mind and could, in fact, tunnel backwards if it had to in order to get back up a partially-collapsed shaft. But it did need to retain a good connection to the surface to do that. “Good enough. Horst, I’ll keep an eye on the interface, but I’m switching over to team
“Concocting stories to mislead and confound the enemy?” Joe inquired as everyone stood up. “And I thought you gave that up for Lent.”
“Oh, don’t spoil her fun, Joe.” Helen said, and gave a delighted chuckle herself as she saw a touch of pink on Madeline’s cheeks.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Joe answered. “She’s never quite happy if she doesn’t have SOMEONE to confuse,” he continued, with a fond look at Madeline, “and I’m just too easy a target to be worth it.”
Challenges, N:
1. Calls to engage in a contests, fights, or competitions.
2. Acts or statements of defiance; calls to confrontation.
3. Demands for explanation or justification; calling into question.
4. Tests of one’s abilities or resources in demanding but stimulating undertakings.
Chapter 8.
“So why Athena? ” Madeline asked, watching the melt-probe’s interface and pre-start prep screen. So far, all good.
In one corner of the HUD, she saw Helen, who was helping position one of the anchor sections, grin. “My goodness , Maddie, I think this is the first time you’ve ever managed to surprise me by not knowing something.”
She returned the smile at the gentle dig. “My publicity greatly exceeds my only very slightly superhuman abilities. I know the name of course, Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare, sprung full-grown from her father Zeus’ head. And I can I suppose see that a probe of any sort gathers information and so could be named Athena , but it seems quite a stretch.”
“Very true,” Mia Svendsen put in from her position directing the assembly of the anchoring structure for Athena ’s deployment, “but as you very accurately stated, Athena was also a goddess of war, and it was she who, during the war with the Titans or Giants, plunged her spear directly into the Giant Enceladus.”
“That does make it a much more appropriate name. But you had the probe onboard long before we even discovered Enceladus would the target.”
Helen blinked. “Oh…yes, of course, they had to. They didn’t have any opportunity to go back and get one built.”
“That’s right,” Mia admitted, “And so the probe was originally just MP-N-1, Melt Probe, Nuclear, #1. We knew that there were several major bodies in the outer system which had icy surface layers which might require melt-probe operations, so such a system was included on Odin ’s manifest as a matter of course. Once the destination was determined, a name became a priority and that one was an obvious choice.” She raised her voice slightly. “Horst, Jackie, the support deployment is on schedule. How’s the startup check going?”
“Everything looks good so far,” Jackie answered. “Maddie hasn’t seen any alerts, so Athena seems to have come through without any damage.”
“How long before the support framework is ready?” Horst asked. “Pre-start checkup on Athena will be done in a few more hours.”
“Longer than that,” Mia answered. “We are in very low gravity, which makes support less of an issue than it would be on Earth, but we cannot afford any level of preventable risk. Based on Anthony’s analysis I’ve expanded the support radius considerably, with more anchor points. We’ll be able to start Athena in two days or so, I would say.”
Maddie nodded to herself. Anthony, with some input from Larry and modeling by Brett, had determined that there was a small, but significant danger from the quakes, and that they certainly should be bracing everything for potential shocks. A probe trying to tunnel into the depths of Europa was, obviously, one of the things most at risk, even though it was designed with that possibility in mind and could, in fact, tunnel backwards if it had to in order to get back up a partially-collapsed shaft. But it did need to retain a good connection to the surface to do that. “Good enough. Horst, I’ll keep an eye on the interface, but I’m switching over to team
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