Soon after contact with the ground, Mati and Sata reached out and clasped hands. The bone-jarring vibrations seemed to go on forever.
All the crew members of the Manessa Kwi had learned to trust their faithful ship in many different situations, but as they slowly decelerated on the icy plains of the twelfth planet, they knew that not even Manessa had any control over what was happening. The situation felt strangely familiar to at least four of them.
Boro kept his stomach under control by sheer force of will. When he thought the vibrations might be lessening, he knew from his console they had only been rolling through the ice and snow for about two minutes. He was sure, however, that he would need at least two hours to recover.
Rini at his station, Kibi in the command chair, and Ilika at the steward’s station, all managed to keep their teeth from rattling too much as the ship finally rolled to a stop, somewhere in the half-light of a frozen little planet far out in the solar system.
After a deep sigh, Kibi remembered she was in command. “Um . . . status reports, everyone. Pilot?”
Sata hung her head. “I’m sorry, Kibi,” she muttered. “I don’t know why I
. . . froze back there when you said turn. I think . . . I really like navigating.”
Kibi smiled. “Will it be easier next time?”
Sata nodded as she made eye contact with the acting commander.
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Mati, until that moment still and silent, grinned and touched the navigation console to get the ship’s position, one of the few things she knew how to do at that station. “That was about like riding a donkey at a trot,” she informed everyone as a small orange circle appeared on the planetary chart.
“We rolled almost sixty kilometers.”
“You sound okay,” Kibi responded. “Boro?”
“Um . . . need to leave . . .” he said in a muffled voice.
Kibi saw that he had his hand over his mouth. “Go, go, go! Rini?”
While Boro dashed to the back of the passenger area, Rini made a selection on his console, then snickered. “Ready for visual?”
“I
suppose . . .” the commander responded with suspicion.
The external view that flashed onto their displays revealed the surface of the planet on top, and a star-studded sky below.
Ilika, Kibi, and Mati burst out laughing. Sata managed to smile.
“You still have maneuvering thrusters, Sata?” Kibi inquired.
“Um . . . yes.”
“Could you . . . you know . . . turn us over?”
“I . . . think so . . .”
Sata’s first try caused the ship to spin completely around several times.
Luckily, they felt nothing and only the external view tumbled.
Mati laughed. “We’re on ice! Manessa, minimum power on the maneuvering thrusters.”
Sata tried again, with much better control. After a few tries, she got the little ship almost upright. Mati pointed out the landing strut controls, and a moment later the Manessa Kwi rose out of the ice and snow and became perfectly level.
“You okay up there, Ilika?” Kibi asked, turning her head.
“I’m just sitting here feeling very proud of my ship and crew!”
With frayed nerves, everyone carefully checked the status of all systems, then shut down their consoles. Rini stepped into the galley to make tea.
“Welcome to Sonmatia Twelve,” the captain said, taking a seat at the table.
“The commander will brief us about that mysterious course change.”
“Oh, that,” Kibi said from the head of the table, brushing the concern away
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with her hand. “It was Melorania. Who else?”
Rini nodded knowingly from the galley.
“Any idea . . . why?” Mati inquired.
“No idea,” Kibi admitted with a shrug. “Maybe she’ll tell us someday.”
Ilika laughed. “Don’t hold your breath! She did things during my training that I still don’t understand.”
“Mysterious lady!” Boro concluded, returning from the toilet room.
After a moment of silence, Kibi took a deep breath. “The navigator will tell us about interesting things we can walk to.”
Mati and Sata looked at each other, and Mati pointed at her friend.
“Um . . .” Sata began as she craned her neck to glance at the chart. “Just about nothing, but ice and snow, for a long way in every direction. Oh . . .
except now there’s a gouge in the ice about sixty kilometers long going back the way we came. That might be kind of interesting.”
“Yeah!” Boro proclaimed with a big grin while others chuckled. “I wanna see that!”
When the laughter died down and cups of tea arrived, Ilika took on one of his serious looks. “Something you all have to understand.”
They looked at him over their steaming mugs.
“It may look like ice and snow, but it’s actually solid hydrogen and helium, and it’s just as hard and sharp as any metal.”
Rini pretended to pout for a second. “No snowball fights?”
“No,” Ilika answered. “Extreme caution, every step.”
“Can we . . . get a sample?” Kibi asked.
“It would probably explode as it warmed up, and soon be nothing more than a little bit of invisible gas.”
She
frowned.
“But the mountains look like they’re made of rock . . .” Rini pointed out.
Ilika nodded. “And they’re a long way from here. We might have to wait
‘til we have all engines running.”
Kibi looked forlorn. “I guess souvenir hunting would be a pretty poor excuse for overriding the head of the Transport Service.”
Everyone else nodded and laughed, and Kibi cracked a tiny smile.
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Ilika, as acting steward, led the first excursion through the airlock.
The tiny crystals they called “snow” crunched as Sata carefully placed her feet. Boro examined the larger crystals, sometime half a meter high, and found them tough and sharp, and determined to snag his space suit. All three soon retreated to the nearly-smooth avenue the ship had created as it rolled to a stop.
Sata looked around at the dimly-lit landscape and the starry sky. “About like our planet at night with a quarter-moon out.”
Boro chuckled. “Except that it’s early afternoon!”
Sata looked up at the sun, now just the brightest star in a black sky. “Our world is up there somewhere, right Ilika?”
“Very close to the sun, from this point of view.”
“And yet . . .” A long pause followed as Sata continued to gaze in the direction of her home planet. “And yet, I’m safer here than I would be most places in my kingdom.”
“And you could get to your parents’ inn quicker from here,” Boro added,
“than you could from the monastery in the mountains.”
“We could do it in seconds with the star drive,” Ilika informed as they all began walking along the avenue, away from the Manessa Kwi.
“The star drive . . .” Boro pondered aloud. “That’s next, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Ilika replied. “This is the end of Sonmatia, not counting a few little asteroids and comets. Thousands of years from now, if your people take good care of their planet, they’ll come this far. But try as they will, they can go no farther.”
Boro nodded. “That seems like . . . enough. Why would anyone want more than one beautiful planet, and a few hotter and colder ones to explore?”
“I don’t know, but they usually do want more.”
“I can see that,” Sata said as they walked along. “On our world, ship captains get all boastful when they find a new island with no one around to claim it. They talk like they’re masters of the sea, but more often than not, they drag their ships home with broken masts and leaking hulls.”
“And sometimes they never return,” Boro added.
Sata nodded slowly.
They walked for another minute, then drifted to a halt.
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“All looks the same,” Boro observed, “and no sign of any rocks for a souvenir.”
The others silently agreed, then began slowly crunching back toward the ship, a golden sphere gleaming in the dim light about half a kilometer away.
After hearing Boro’s report on the complete absence of souvenirs, Kibi, Rini, and Mati agreed it would be best to stay fairly near the ship.
They examined the snow and ice, wandered a hundred meters down the avenue, and gazed at the black daytime sky. Mati reported a little pain, but could walk if someone held her right hand. Rini was happy to be that person.
When they were just about to turn back, the eastern horizon began to glow.
“Looks like the moon is coming up,” Mati said.
Rini frowned. “That’s impossible!”
“Ilika?” Kibi called. “What’s causing the horizon to glow? Anything we should worry about?”
“I’m looking into it. Rini’s right, it’s not a moon.”
“I think we should . . .” Rini began.
At that moment, a bright, white ball appeared on the eastern horizon and quickly grew larger and higher in the sky.
“Comet!” Ilika yelled into the intercom. “Get under the ship, quickly!”
Rini started to stride toward the ship, but remembered too late he was holding Mati’s hand. She spun and lost her balance, then instinctively leaned where her crutch should be. Rini’s outstretched arm was not ready to catch her. He tried to hold on as she fell, but was pulled off balance. Mati slowly tumbled onto the ice and cried out in pain. A half second later, Rini landed on top of her, causing her to scream again.
“I’m so sorry, Mati, it’s all my fault . . .” Rini began pouring out his guilt as they struggled to untangle themselves.
The bright ball of light was now almost directly over them, and had grown huge. A sparkling hazy glow seemed to spread from horizon to horizon in every direction.
Before Rini could make any sense of the situation, Kibi lifted him to his feet. “Under the ship! Run!”
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“But it’s my fault . . .”
“I can carry Mati, you can’t!”
Rini couldn’t make his legs move until he witnessed Kibi scoop up his precious friend and begin striding toward the ship. He ran along beside, his mind spinning with guilt and the desire to help. Before they had covered forty meters, tiny chunks of white ice and black rock started pelting the ground.
“Don’t stop for anything!” Ilika commanded. “I’m rotating the ship so the airlock will be right in front of you!”
Suddenly something knocked Rini’s legs out from under him, and he slid onto the ice, face first. He looked up to see Kibi’s back getting smaller, and Manessa’s airlock coming into view. A feeling of happiness filled him, knowing Mati would be okay.
A second later he was overwhelmed with anguish, realizing the grief she would go through if he died there on the ice.
He focused on the falling rocks, hitting the ground hard and often burying themselves deep in the ice. One of them had knocked him down. The next, he knew, would probably end his life. With all his might, he scrambled to his feet, ignored several flying shards of ice, and ran as fast as his legs would go.
The airlock was too exposed, Kibi decided.
Mati screamed again as she was dropped onto the ice, then quickly dragged under the ship. A few seconds later, Rini dove under and skidded to a stop beside her.
Kibi breathed once to clear her mind. “Suit checks!”
Both Mati and Rini felt for their bracelets and tapped in the code.
“I’m . . . good . . .” Mati began with a shaking voice, still dealing with pain,
“. . . as long as . . . I don’t have to . . . bend my knee again.”
Rini’s heart throbbed in his throat. He had to blink away tears before he could remember Kibi’s command. “My suit knows something hit it, but there’s no breach. I’m so sorry, Mati . . .”
“It was an accident, forget about it! What hit you?”
“Rock, I guess. That’s why I was a little behind.”
The couple fell silent as they listened to Kibi and Ilika talking on the intercom. A moment later, the ship above them began to change shape,
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extending a wide brim over the airlock. Beyond, ice and rocks continued to fall from the sky, but seemed to come less often as the comet neared the western horizon.
“Rini,” Kibi began as they all started wiggling out from under the ship,
“would you like to take Mati in? I’ll come after.”
Kibi could see the gratitude in Rini’s eyes, even through his face plate.
Inside, Ilika quickly spotted the place where a rock or ice fragment had caught Rini in the leg. The suit was tagged purple for repair.
Rini continued to apologize to Mati several times each minute as they stowed the space suits. Kibi and Ilika kept their mouths shut.
The problem was solved when Mati stepped into the lift. Instead of making room for Rini as she usually did, she turned and blocked the entrance.
“You stay down here until you quit feeling sorry for yourself.” Then she rose out of sight, leaving Rini nursing his guilt, and Kibi trying very hard not to laugh.
“That was close!” Ilika began as Boro and Sata reheated left-over soup.
“Comets don’t often come that near a planet without . . . worse things happening.”
Boro, in the galley, demonstrated an explosion with his hands. “Boom!”
Rini, now happily holding hands with Mati, chuckled.
“Everyone did well,” the captain continued. “You were about one layer away from a suit breach, Rini. I noticed you hesitate when Kibi ordered you to run.”
The freckled lad turned to his second-in-command with a slight cringe.
“I’m sorry, Kibi. It was my guilty feelings . . .”
Kibi smiled. “I used to be the one who acted on feelings too often. I learned. You?”
Rini nodded. “I realized that if I died out there, Mati would go through even more pain . . .”
Mati looked him in the eyes. “And don’t you forget it!”
Ilika smiled. “It’s very natural to want to help after causing a problem. It’s the honorable thing to do. But honor is a human value. Comets and other
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dangers don’t know about our values. Next time your commander says run
. . .”
Rini turned red as everyone looked at him. “I’ll run, I promise!” he squeaked.
Everyone else clapped.
“Want to watch my back on a short excursion?” Boro asked the lad as he passed out bowls and spoons.
“Sure . . .” Rini agreed, “but why?”
“An hour ago there wasn’t a souvenir in sight. Now they’re all over the place!”
Rini smiled and nodded, and felt Mati squeeze his hand.
“First we all get some sleep,” Ilika declared. “Tomorrow we say good-bye to this little planet . . . and the entire Sonmatia system.”
All around the table, the eyes that looked up from their soup bowls sparkled with much excitement, and squinted with more than a little fear.
Deep Learning Notes
What experience had four of the crew members had that allowed them to relate to the ship (rolling to a stop with no control of any kind)?
Why would hydrogen ice explode if brought into the ship?
What makes Sata’s kingdom less safe than a frozen, airless planet?
Beyond the planets, but still part of the solar system (because they orbit the sun) are many smaller object of rock or ice, collectively known as the Oort Cloud. Some comets have long elliptical orbits that penetrate deep into this region.
We have visited, with the Pioneer and Voyager unmanned probes, all four of our gas giants, but not little Pluto. The probes are slowly leaving the solar system. The Voyager probes are still sending back some data, and are
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expected to do so until about 2025.
Whose responsibility was it to know the comet was coming?
A comet is a dirty snowball, constantly shedding material, and showing a long, glowing tail when it interacts with the charged particles of the solar wind. The tail always points away from the sun, regardless of which way the comet is moving.