Robert L. Forward - Return to Rocheworld

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Return To Rocheworld [Book 2 of the Rocheworld Series]

by Dr. Robert L. Forward and Julie Forward Fuller

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Copyright (c)1992 by Robert L. Forward and Julie Forward Fuller

Fictionwise

www.Fictionwise.com

Science Fiction

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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

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Dr. Robert L. Forward and Julie Forward Fuller

Represented by:

Russell Galen

Scott Meredith Literary Agency

845 Third Avenue

New York, NY 10022

(212) 245-5500

All Rights Reserved

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*ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS*

The authors wish to thank the following people, who helped us in several technical areas: Dana Andrews, Paul L. Blass, Carl Richard Feynman, Charles W. Fuller, David K. Lynch, Patrick L. McGuire, Hans P. Moravec, Jef Poskanzer, Daniel G. Shapiro, Vernor Vinge, and Mark Zimmermann.

The "Christmas Bush" motile was jointly conceived by Hans P. Moravec and Robert L. Forward, and drawn by Jef Poskanzer using a CAD system.

All final art was expertly prepared by the great group of graphic artists at Multi-Graphics in Marina Del Rey, California.

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*CHAPTER ZERO -- LEAVING*

The crew of the first interstellar expedition had already experienced its share of troubles; opposition, discord, mutiny, treachery, pestilence, and death. Now, six of them were in a race for their lives...

Barnard, the star they had come to visit, loomed large and red on the horizon, its disk five times larger than that of Sol. But even though they were now very close to the red dwarf star, its dim red light did little to warm the sub-zero poisonous atmosphere outside their crippled aerospace plane. They were now gliding through the thin ammonia-laden air over the dry cratered surface of the moon-sized planetoid Roche -- one lobe of the double planet Rocheworld. Behind them, hanging motionless in the sky and covering almost ninety degrees of the sky, was the other lobe, Eau, covered with a deep ammonia-water ocean. Far off in the distance was the only other planet orbiting Barnard, the large gas giant Gargantua, with its retinue of twelve moons.

The two lobes of Rocheworld orbited around each other with a period of six hours. The centrifugal force from this co-rotation was enough to keep their mutual gravity from pulling them together, but the tides from their close proximity were so strong that they pulled the two planetoids into distinct egg shapes, with the two pointed ends separated by only eighty kilometers distance.

The pointed part of Roche was a region of giant volcanos and deep fissures. The volcanos were now in full eruption because of the greatly increased tidal strains on the crust from the close approach of Rocheworld to Barnard during this part of its highly elliptical orbit. The pointed part of Eau was a one hundred fifty kilometer high mountain of water with sixty degree slopes, held that way by the unusual gravity field pattern produced in the region between the two massive planetoids. Although Roche was dry during most of its short year, this was the flood season, and there was now plenty of water, a veritable wall of water that had come from a gigantic waterfall that occurred once a year during the time of close passage -- an interplanetary waterfall from the top of the water mountain of Eau onto the volcano covered dome of Roche.

Ahead of the wall of water raced an airplane, striving to reach the return rocket before the wall of water got there. Designed to fly in any atmosphere, the aerospace plane had a nuclear rocket in the tail for long range flights, and VTOL fans in its long, glider-like wings for hovering. But the rocket engine had failed and the fans were damaged. The only thing keeping them in the air was the skill of their pilot, Arielle Trudeau.

Arielle made one tiny adjustment to the controls, tightened her seat belt and shoulder harness, then put her hands into her lap, allowing the semi-intelligent computer of the airplane to act as autopilot during their long pre-programmed glide. She turned to look at George Gudunov out of her helmet, her glowing personal imp arranged across her short curly light-brown locks in a combined hairband piece and pilot earphones.

"We have hard landing," she reminded him.

"And just ten minutes to get the six of us up the side of the lander," George said as he tightened his seat belt and held a conversation with chief engineer Shirley Everett through the colorful robotic imp riding on his shoulder inside his spacesuit.

"You four get into the exit lock and cycle it, but don't open the outer door until we've stopped moving. Put your backs to the front wall and take some bedding to protect your helmets. Jinjur will never forgive us if we add anyone to her butcher bill."

"Are you and Arielle going to have time to cycle through? We could cram in six."

"You forget someone has to land this thing, and I'm not leaving Arielle up here all alone." The minute we stop I'm blowing the front canopy and Arielle and I will go out over the nose. Carmen! Are you monitoring?"

"Yes," Carmen Cortez replied from the rocket lander at Rocheworld Base.

"Is the winch on the lander down?"

"Yes," came the voice of Red Vengeance over the radio link from the lander. "Ready and waiting. Hurry up!"

"I see the bore on the scanner video, it's gaining on us," said Richard Redwing from the science console half-way down the aisle of the plane.

"Give us a last reading on time difference, then get in that air lock!" commanded George.

"Eleven minutes," interrupted the distinctive voice of the airplane's semi-intelligent computer, Jill. "Get into the airlock, Richard," it bossed. Richard obeyed the computer and trotted to the rear of the plane and the lock door closed behind him. George and Arielle were left with the hiss of air passing over the silent airplane and the distant throb of air-lock pumps going through their motions on almost non-existent air. George could now see the rocket lander, sticking up forty-five meters into the air, its dark outline just to one side of the setting globe of Barnard.

"Bad luck," complained George. "We're flying right into the sun.

"No! It's good!" said Arielle. "I can now see rocks easy because of their big shadow." She banked the plane slightly to pick a path that was relatively clear of boulders and gave up the last of her altitude for speed.

"BRACE YOURSELF!" screamed Jill to everyone but Arielle through their suit imps. Arielle pulled the plane up into a stall.

"Flaps!" she commanded, both her hands busy, one with the airplane controls and the other operating the fans at full reverse thrust. George pushed at the flap controls but found that they were already moving.

"Flaps, down," he and Jill said at the same time. The plane started to drop heavily to the surface, but Arielle dipped it just enough to bring it under control again, the forward speed almost gone, and slid the plane through the sand directly at the lander.

_We're going to hit!_ thought George, his voice too tight to speak.

Arielle wrenched the rudder around at the same time as she twisted the fan controls. The _Magic Dragonfly_ went into a broadside slide and came to a stop with its nose on one side of the lander and the left wing on the other, not ten meters from the legs of the lander.

"I made ringer, George!" shouted Arielle with delight.

"BLOW THE HATCH!" came Jill's sharp command in George's ear. His thumb flipped up the safety cover, but his suit imp, running rapidly down his arm, beat his gloved finger to the switch. There was a loud BANG! and the cockpit windows flew into the air. The ammonia-methane atmosphere rushed into the plane and there was a dull THUMP! as the inflowing gasses burned with the residual air in the plane. George clambered out on the nose and jumped to the surface, then turned to catch Arielle. Together they hurried toward the distant lander. Jill, her voice turned into that of a martinet, drove them with verbal whiplashes broadcast through their personal imps.