Canticle Blue

29. Castel

Music - The Last Ships by Firekites

The first part of the Castel mission called for silence as well as stealth. Pa'Keh would search for satellites. In what had initially been lauded as the beginning of a new space age on Havel, two mutually distrustful nations had launched orbiters in the most recent decade. They had been the first efforts to re-enter space since the early terra-forming days on the planet. Not much was known about them except what had been revealed publicly (though each of the governments involved viewed the launches as likely demonstrations of potential weapons-delivery systems).

After after completing ship diagnostics, Pa'Keh turned the Castel eastward and accelerated to intercept the nearest probe. Except for planned status updates sent to the island mission team, he was quiet for several hours. His first unscheduled transmission was a text message to the team. "Castel to Mission: The older satellite is in a decaying orbit. There is no telemetry from it. It will likely begin to encounter the upper atmosphere in less than a year."

It was a relief to hear from him in more ways than one. Tor Stym, at the mission desk, replied, "So good to hear from you Pa'Keh. These silent intervals will probably be quite taxing here for awhile. Proceed at your discretion. I'll be going off-watch now; Cian will be coming on."

He responded, "Acknowledged, Tor. Changing course now."

After another long interval, he sent an audio message. "Pa'Keh to Cian: I have reached the second satellite. As reports about it have said, it is merely a beacon. It transmits a repeating tone. There is only one communication antenna, and no imaging devices."

Cian called back, "Message received, Pa'Keh. How is the Castel performing for you?"

He replied, "The ship is excellent, Cian; no anomalies. I am now turning away from the planet to deploy E-matter collectors and will head toward the inner moon of Havel at reduced speed. You should be receiving ship and collector data soon. The R-drives will remain in stealth mode."

There were twelve exotic-matter collectors in all, arranged in divergent pairs from cylinders mounted at six points along the fuselage. Once deployed, the pairs were offset from each other by fixed angles to prevent any collecting surface from being blocked by another.

The matter collection did not go well at first. Pa'Keh called the island, "Castel to Mission: I'm seeing that there is too much energy in matter-collector impacts. Much of the E- matter is not adhering but deflecting. I will have to reduce my speed further for the collectors to work. Also, Cian, it appears that there are lower concentrations of this matter away from the planet and that speeds and trajectories of the particles vary widely here. So I will try collecting in deeper space also. Perhaps we could try coating one side of the collectors with n-type matter on future missions. Those surfaces could measure concentrations and impacts while protecting the collectors until conditions were suitable. Then they could be rotated."

Cian responded. "Some good observations and ideas, Pa'Keh. Your advice is certainly appreciated. I'll inform the rest of the team. Everything you're sending will be stored in the Deep Core, of course.

"We're looking at your collector data down here at the moment. It looks like you're making progress."

"Yes," he agreed. "That is good to see. What does the mission team want me to do when the containers are full? We had originally talked about returning at that point."

She answered, "They still feel that would be best. If anything were to go wrong, we would have no way to help you. We've probably subjected you to too much risk as it is. So we look forward to your return and promise to keep someone near the radio for you at all times. They do request that you continue on your current course until you decide to return."

Pa'Keh replied, "We will need a secure channel to discuss that part of the mission."

Cian selected the predetermined channel and waited for Pa'Keh to speak.

"At this distance," he continued on the new channel, "initial indications are that the trajectory of the ancient colonist vessel, Terreska, has changed. It is much closer to the orbit of the inner moon, Innis, now."

Cian responded, "It's probably too early to ask, but do you think the Terreska is in any danger in the near term?"

"I don't think so, Cian," he answered. "But it will likely be captured by the gravity of the moon on its current pass. The new orbit will be difficult to predict."

"So," Cian replied, "We may have to put our best minds to work on this and see if a rescue mission is possible."

Pa'Keh said, "I could not offer my mind. It would be boastful."

She couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. But it didn't matter; she was laughing so hard, she couldn't speak. When she regained some composure, she said, "I'll boast for you, then."

He was surprised to have made her laugh and decided to count it as an accomplishment.