Read Online Portal-eARC by Eric Flint, Ryk E Spoor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eric Flint, Ryk E Spoor
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have gone about three hundred thirty meters, or a thousand feet for the Americans listening.”
“Hey, I resemble that remark,” A.J. said, “and I use metric all the time. I can’t help it that my country insists that it’s better to use arcane systems from the dawn of time.”
“More to the point,” Madeline said, ignoring A.J., “are you saying that we could launch to Odin in only one month or so?”
“That depends on how well we get everything established here. We can’t afford to leave until the modifications to the Nebula Drive controls are tested and shown to work—both in reducing the volume and thus power demand, and in maintaining the same shielding effectiveness,” Brett answered. “We sure don’t want Munin taking off unless we are one hundred percent certain that we’re not going to need Munin to keep us going.”
“We are definitely agreed on that. One thing that we have to also do is check on the supply division; the last thing we need is to discover that while we have enough of everything, all of some vital material or component is on board only one of our ships, so that when Munin is gone one or the other of us is suddenly short.”
“Food probably won’t be a problem,” A.J. said, “but the vital supply of Joe Dinners may be tight.”
Maddie gave a small chuckle at that. “True, true,” she said, “but if that’s our biggest problem, I think we’re in pretty good shape.”
Chapter 9.
“The E.U., it did not advertise that its astrophysicists were expected to do heavy physical labor,” Anthony LaPointe said with dry humor.
Helen laughed as she tried to position her piece of the huge gray-white mass of material. “I don’t remember them specifying that for their xenopaleontologists, either,” she said.
“Yeah,” Larry said, “but at least paleontologists spend their time breaking rocks regularly. We astronomical types look at computer screens and expend our heavy effort lifting coffee cups.” He pulled perhaps slightly too hard on his piece and it slid up and slightly over him so he had to back up, and tripped, falling in slow-motion. “ Bugger , as some of our Down-Under friends would say.”
Helen restrained another giggle. Larry’s protest was of course mostly pro forma and exaggerated the stereotype; on Earth, the best observatories were generally in areas of the world which remained both remote and challenging, while any space-based operation required top-flight fitness; Larry had shown his physical capabilities while helping to build Ares’ fledgling colony. “Is this thing built like our shelters on Mars?”
“Not really,” A.J. said. He wasn’t physically participating, but mainly because he was once more being the nerve center for coordinating several operations at once; it was something ideally suited to him and Maddie had made sure to emphasize that, both to prevent anyone else from resenting the sensor expert’s apparent indolence (not that many were likely to) and just as importantly to prevent him from feeling guilty that he was inside while most other people were doing “real work.”
“On Mars,” A.J. continued, while Helen and the others finished spreading out the largest of the shelter units Munin had been carrying, “we used mostly the old ‘tuna can’ hab units, like the ones we lived in on the way here to Jupiter system, plus the Cascade-SAIC designed subsurface inflatables. But there we could take advantage of the Martian soil, bury stuff underground and insulate with the native material.
“Here on Europa, we’re dealing with ice frozen so solid that digging through it is like trying to take a shovel to steel. Athena can cut through it, yeah, but can you imagine how long it’d take to keep repositioning and running Athena in order to clear out anything of reasonable size? So we can’t really go underground, at least not for quite a while.”
“Actually, the original plan would put us underground anyway,” Horst said,
“Hey, I resemble that remark,” A.J. said, “and I use metric all the time. I can’t help it that my country insists that it’s better to use arcane systems from the dawn of time.”
“More to the point,” Madeline said, ignoring A.J., “are you saying that we could launch to Odin in only one month or so?”
“That depends on how well we get everything established here. We can’t afford to leave until the modifications to the Nebula Drive controls are tested and shown to work—both in reducing the volume and thus power demand, and in maintaining the same shielding effectiveness,” Brett answered. “We sure don’t want Munin taking off unless we are one hundred percent certain that we’re not going to need Munin to keep us going.”
“We are definitely agreed on that. One thing that we have to also do is check on the supply division; the last thing we need is to discover that while we have enough of everything, all of some vital material or component is on board only one of our ships, so that when Munin is gone one or the other of us is suddenly short.”
“Food probably won’t be a problem,” A.J. said, “but the vital supply of Joe Dinners may be tight.”
Maddie gave a small chuckle at that. “True, true,” she said, “but if that’s our biggest problem, I think we’re in pretty good shape.”
Chapter 9.
“The E.U., it did not advertise that its astrophysicists were expected to do heavy physical labor,” Anthony LaPointe said with dry humor.
Helen laughed as she tried to position her piece of the huge gray-white mass of material. “I don’t remember them specifying that for their xenopaleontologists, either,” she said.
“Yeah,” Larry said, “but at least paleontologists spend their time breaking rocks regularly. We astronomical types look at computer screens and expend our heavy effort lifting coffee cups.” He pulled perhaps slightly too hard on his piece and it slid up and slightly over him so he had to back up, and tripped, falling in slow-motion. “ Bugger , as some of our Down-Under friends would say.”
Helen restrained another giggle. Larry’s protest was of course mostly pro forma and exaggerated the stereotype; on Earth, the best observatories were generally in areas of the world which remained both remote and challenging, while any space-based operation required top-flight fitness; Larry had shown his physical capabilities while helping to build Ares’ fledgling colony. “Is this thing built like our shelters on Mars?”
“Not really,” A.J. said. He wasn’t physically participating, but mainly because he was once more being the nerve center for coordinating several operations at once; it was something ideally suited to him and Maddie had made sure to emphasize that, both to prevent anyone else from resenting the sensor expert’s apparent indolence (not that many were likely to) and just as importantly to prevent him from feeling guilty that he was inside while most other people were doing “real work.”
“On Mars,” A.J. continued, while Helen and the others finished spreading out the largest of the shelter units Munin had been carrying, “we used mostly the old ‘tuna can’ hab units, like the ones we lived in on the way here to Jupiter system, plus the Cascade-SAIC designed subsurface inflatables. But there we could take advantage of the Martian soil, bury stuff underground and insulate with the native material.
“Here on Europa, we’re dealing with ice frozen so solid that digging through it is like trying to take a shovel to steel. Athena can cut through it, yeah, but can you imagine how long it’d take to keep repositioning and running Athena in order to clear out anything of reasonable size? So we can’t really go underground, at least not for quite a while.”
“Actually, the original plan would put us underground anyway,” Horst said,
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