From the log of the Blue Yonder.
The last five days have been like I was a seven-year-old waiting for Christmas to come. The main probe has fully recorded the surface. We even found some swirly patterns that were visible from the outside. The little probe has fuel, but it still can’t go exploring inside very far before the radio link is lost. The spin axis comes out in a relatively solid spot on the other side; there was no place to go in there. No new news from the inner Solar System or the probe, and I’ve been killing time with Higuchi and Suzanne while waiting to arrive. Once we arrive, I’m going in.
Gosh, I can’t wait!
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Now I’m here. This Honeycomb meteor is bigger than my ship. I can see it through my screens, a huge, white, pocked, frozen piece of bubble. It might be the Honeycomb Comet itself, but now that I see it up close, my hunch is that it’s still just a fragment of something bigger. I don’t think I’ve reached my goal yet.
For the last couple days I’ve been out in the cargo bay unlimbering the space walker and loading it up with analyzing equipment. The Honeycomb meteors we’ve found before are mostly silicate. The probe spectrometer confirms this piece is too, so I’ve optimized the equipment for navigating and analyzing rock. I’ve also unlimbered gyros, a thruster, and some fuel tanks. I’ll send this piece of Honeycomb towards the inner Solar System and pick it up later. It’s big enough to build a ship, so what I make selling it will offset some trip costs, and won’t be easy for any planet-based mole to find.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Captain. All set, Honey?
Computer. You’re sure you want to go this early? We can set the gyros and stop the meteor spin in ten days. Then you can go anywhere you want safely.
Captain. Each day I’m here I risk my Earthly fortune. Let’s get on with it.
Computer. In that case, be careful not to wander further than 50 meters from the spin axis. That’s point-one G. If you “launch” from further out than that, I can’t catch you before your air runs out.
Captain. Got it.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Honey has done a good job; it’s taken less than ten minutes for the rover to carry the walker I’m in from the spaceship to the meteor here. I’m grabbing to the pocked surface only three meters from the probe.
It was an easy grab. Now I’ll head into the tunnel I’ve chosen from the surveys I’ve already done.
I feel less nervous now that I’ve got some rock between me and outer space. If I stumble and launch here, I just hit another tunnel wall, I don’t spin out into space.
The tunnel is a pure white. Now that I’m here in person I can see that the larger holes off the tunnel aren’t random, there’s some pattern, and these are more tunnels, not pocks. I’ll continue walking.
Computer. We’ll lose communication in about two meters.
Captain. Got it.
The walker’s onboard inertial system will always know where I am, and there’s no one who can come after me. But I have a spray-paint can and squirting mechanism mounted on one leg of it. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better knowing there’s a dotted line behind me.
The corridor I’m on is veering away from the spin axis. I’m gaining weight and a sense of up and down. I see some large rock fragments on the “floor”. These are the first loose pieces I’ve seen. Why didn’t the probe surveys detect any?
Aha! That’s why this meteor looks so tidy. All we’ve seen so far in probe views is the “ceilings”, and the zero-G surfaces. Vibrations from impacts would float loose fragments out of the zero-G area.
Captain. Honey?
No answer. I can speak into the log, but not to Honey.
I’m staying near the spin axis, abandoning my entering tunnel for a new tunnel that comes in from the ceiling. This little tunnel has quickly headed into another larger tunnel, filled with “swirlies”, that stays closer to the spin axis.
I’ve climbed up through the floor. Around me is rubble. This area is “inside” enough that vibrations haven’t cleared the floor of broken off rocks and chips. The tunnel I came in through is apparently a sort of drain for this tunnel. I’ll clamber up on the rubble and look around.
This new tunnel is really tube-shaped, not an elongated bubble. It’s constant diameter for as far as my lights show. The ceiling is full of swirly patterns. They’re artful, not completely regular but certainly not random. I can’t imagine a physical crystallizing process that could do this. I’m reminded of coral as much as anything. Could this meteor have been part of a world that had life?
I’m moving down the middle of the tunnel floor toward what appears to be a big room. The loose rubble is hard to walk on. My walker feet keep stumbling and shifting it around. I’m raising clouds of thin dust as I travel—sprays really, there’s no air to soften the particle trajectories and make the rounded, swirling dust clouds of an air world. I’ll turn for the edge of the tunnel, looking for an easier travel line.
I’ve spotted something.
I see it, but I don’t believe it.
Underneath one of the rocks is a piece of net. The rock is a boulder fifteen feet across, but as porous as the rest of the honeycomb. I’ll try to roll it off.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
The walker shook with the strain, but the boulder hasn’t budged. I’ll walk around it.
The boulder’s not on the tunnel floor, it’s on top of small rocks I may be able to pull from under it, so I can roll it partly away. It’ll be tricky; how far will it roll?
I’m pulling loose rocks from the far side, away from the piece of net I see.
Now there are just three rocks left holding up the boulder. I’ll try wrapping a cable around one of them.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Didn’t work. The walker howled at the unnatural contortions but nothing happened. Well, if you want something done right … There are still some things these old monkey bodies of ours can do that machines can’t. I’ll hop out of the walker and thread the cable behind one of the rocks.
I’m sweating, let me tell you! Being out of my walker while on a meteor feels like walking through Central Park naked; too many things can happen.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Okay, the cable is threaded. But there’s one more thing I have to do while I’m out here. I’m tying the other end of the cable to a small piece of rock that’s just lying free on ground, but that I can wrap the cable securely around.
Back in the walker. I’ve moved it well away from the boulder. I’ve positioned myself out of the way of the cable, and the path the little rock should take. I’ll use the walker arm to swing around the small rock I tied the cable to.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
All right, that took some practice! But I’ve finally got it really wound up, like a goddamn cowboy with a lariat. This is airless, so there’s no air resistance sucking up the energy I’m adding to this spinning system.
I just got this wound up to about five cycles a second and the walker started shaking, so I let loose! The small rock is flying directly away from the big rock under the boulder. When that cable goes taut, it should snap that big rock right out from under the boulder.
Shit! The walker is flying towards the boulder!
Whew! I’m upside down in my walker now. I forgot the reaction; when I let go of the small rock and cable, I went flying the opposite way! But I’m lucky: The leg shocks picked up most of the reaction. And now the dust has settled, the boulder has tipped over, and I’m staring at the bottom of it out of my floor window. But it’s not on top of me.
Damn! This is how people die in space! They get cocky. They don’t think things through. I’ve got to be more careful!
The walker’s top hatch is lying against the ground. I can’t get out that way and tip the walker over. Hmmm.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
I’m mobile again, a fly on the big rock. I gingerly clamped a couple legs on the boulder to see if I could shake it. The walker shook instead. So I clamped another leg on the boulder, the walker body lifted, and we climbed up to the top.
Temporary end of entry.
Log entry resumes.
Down beside the boulder again. The net is partly exposed, but not free. It really is net, not something that just looks like net. Well, I’m not going to move that boulder anymore.
I’m out of the walker, cutting off what net I can reach. It’s not as tough to cut as I expected. But then again, how old is it?
My first trophy, and what a trophy! Could this be anything but a civilized artifact?
I’ve now used about half of what time is safe. I’m not going to have time for another engineering project such as that, but I have time to scout more. I’m continuing on towards the big room.
The big room is huge. The ceiling towers 30 meters over my head. Protruding out from the walls are spherical sub-rooms that partly fill this big room. The floor is deep in rubble.
As I’ve walked across the room, I’ve seen more small pieces of civilized detritus—a piece of rope, some things like gloves. The magnetometer is showing tiny pieces of metal buried in the rubble. The more I see, the more I’m convinced this was a civilized room of some sort, and something has picked this place over and left behind what it considered worthless.
I guess I wasted a lot of time and effort for nothing getting that first piece of net. Had I walked another 30 meters, I could have just picked up a piece of civilization, not used ingenuity or risked my neck. Such is life.
Life! I have found signs of life, civilized life!! Yahoo!!!
It’s time to head back. There’s a lot for me to think about.
End of entry.