FREE STORIES 2012(35)

No-one except Claire.

I remember that we had talked about the concept of functional immortality: the idea that if you could increase the functional life of something, be that an engine part or a human being, by just a small amount, even as small as one day. And if you could keep doing that day-in day-out, then the part would never wear out. It would perpetually be one day away from failure, but if that day could be pushed ever further into the future then it would never come, and immortality of a sort could be achieved.

Claire was convinced that the concept could be applied to our situation. If we could solve the problems of the day, and keep doing that day-after-day, then the final collapse would never come. To that end she worked tirelessly. She helped to increase the efficiency of the waste recyclers, she brainstormed with Tom and Beth and together they managed to increase the yield from aeroponics. At her insistence we even started eating together, all fifteen of us in one large sitting in the storm shelter, so that the sharing of food became easier and less was wasted. Everything she did helped to push that final day a little further into the future.

Her refusal to align with either camp made her something of a lonely figure, and her manic energy had gained her the reputation of a bit of a kook. But we all ate together anyway. And when she spoke, dissenting voices on both sides of the argument yielded the floor.

“Could we match orbit?” I asked. Fourteen pairs of eyes turned in my direction.

“I mean, its ice isn't it. That's what we need.”

Claire was beaming at me. Oh crap! Whatever faction Claire was in, it looked like I was in it too!

"Lori's right," Claire said. "The question is not whether we should go look at the comet; it's what we do when we get there. Do we just watch as it flies past the window or do we try and use it?"

"Now hang on," I said. "I wasn't-" but I was drowned out as the chamber exploded in furious debate.

"We're headed away from Earth like a bat outta hell and you want us to accelerate?" said Ed Carradine.

I didn't want that, I didn't even know if catching up to the comet was possible, I just knew that Beth needed water for the crops and we were going to pass within a few hundred kilometres of megatonnes of the stuff. Like Claire said: solve a day’s problems and keep doing that every day and you can live forever.

Craig Rowe hadn't stopped staring at me since I'd first spoken. It was like he'd just seen a hamster whistle the star-spangled banner and was wondering if it would do it again. Then he smiled and started making some calculations on his pad.

"Look at it this way," Claire said. “We're victims of a shipwreck and a lifeboat is floating right past us. It’s heading away from shore, but if we don't climb aboard we're going to drown."

"Tempel has a period of what, five years?” said Ed Carradine. “You're signing us up for a five year joyride out of the solar system."

"Better that than choking on carbon dioxide within five months," someone said from behind me.

"More than five years,” Tom said. “The next orbit won't bring us any nearer to Earth. But she's right. The one thing we need right now is water. With water ice and sunlight we can make all the atmosphere we need. With water and dry ice we can make fuel. We have enough phosphates and nitrates to grow food for years. All we need is ice and time. If we can catch that comet we'll have both.”

The vote was carried eleven to three with one abstention, mine. I left as soon as the result was announced. That night as I lay in my crib, I turned the noisy little air fans up as high as they would go so that no-one would hear me cry.





Personal Log: Lori Childs - Ice Miner

Date: 2/08/2037 (+7 Months 28 days)

Distance From Earth: 0.87AU





I'm becoming a pretty good welder. There's not much to it, ice is a much more forgiving material than steel and the new welding lances and hot knives coming out of engineering are much easier to use than the clunky first generation tools.

The Liberty is starting to look more like a snow capped mountain than a ship. We used the Mars Lander as a kind of manned grappling hook for the initial contact with the comet and then brought the bulk of the Liberty in by reeling in the tether. Soon after the ship was secured to the surface, we started to clad it with ice.

The ice was Claire's idea. Not only does it act as shielding against cosmic rays, but it also protects against micro-meteorites. With this extra armour we're less reliant on the storm shelter. The whole ship has become as safe as the shelter--safer even.

In the original layout, the storm shelter was an additional pressure hull inside the ship. An air-tight cylinder shielded both by our limited supply of heavy metals and also by the water tanks that encircled it. By adding the ice we have essentially taken our water stores, frozen them and fixed them externally to the hull. That's freed up a lot of internal space. There is already talk of cannibalising the storm shelter's metals and its triple-redundant, self-contained life support. It was supposed to be our last resort in an emergency, but as Claire pointed out in the last union  , every day is an emergency.