She couldn’t sleep.
Sharing the cramped tent with John had kept her warm, but her mind raced, refusing to settle. John didn’t exactly snore, but his breathing had grown progressively louder and more strained sounding, as if he were lifting a heavy object with each exhale. How could Aether stand sleeping with him for all those years? And then Aether was all she could think about.
It was unlikely that Aether was dead. Objectively, this much was certain, and true as well for the rest of the station team. Even those flung directly away from orbit were not in immediate danger. An EV could sustain two people for at least a week. Water supply was probably the biggest limiting factor. If properly rationed, a pair could stretch an EV’s water tank over 8-10 days. They’d all have their SSK supply of calorie bars after reinitiation, but food would outlast water. So dehydration, Minnie determined, was how anyone stuck on an EV would die. That is, if they didn’t take other measures first, such as shutting down environmental.
This was how she preferred to think of Aether going: by choice. Not the slow, agonizing churn of dehydration. No, no going, period. No goddamn going for Aether.
Eventually, Minnie moved on to a thorough dissection of EV design and evac procedures.
Why had the pod systems been programmed based upon optimal station orientation and coordinates in the first place? Pods should be designed to assume worst-case scenario: station chaos. In what fantasy world did evacs take place under optimal conditions?
EVs should have full propulsion and guidance systems programmed with specific coordinates based upon layers of redundant sources: GPS, magnetic field, land feature recognition, and above all, direct, on-the-spot user input. She knew why they didn’t. They were built and coded 35 years ago based directly upon the even-older pods used in local system research. They’d never once received an upgrade and no one on the station ever gave them half a damned thought—Minnie included. And if anyone had, obviously, pod enhancement would forever remained buried beneath an ever-growing mountain of higher priorities.
She could have done something. She was Little Miss Think of Everything.
But as much as her subconscious wanted to lay some amount of blame on her shoulders, she knew that software and guidance systems could only do so much. It wasn’t like she could have retrofit the pods with new launching mechanisms or propulsion. EV thrusters were next to useless if a pod experienced a dud launch (detached from dock without a booster blast), or was spinning out of control, or was shot beyond orbital arc by greater than 20, even in the hands of a skilled pilot.
It was true though, and some small hope, that when it came to piloting, Qin was the most capable of the bunch. John had asserted that EV assignments were based upon “mission factors,” not skill and survival probability rating, but it was certainly interesting that the one person on the station that he cared about above all others was assigned to an EV with the individual most able to control and land it. Then again, John pairing himself with Minerva would seem to refute the theory. Despite her consistently superior SP rating, she was the last person he’d want to be stuck with, and vice versa. Oh, how he’d hated being number two at anything. And, oh, look how big of him to congratulate her each time she beat him.
Exhaustion finally dragged Minnie into the black of a dreamless sleep.
She awoke a little over four hours later—groggy, yet with a new determination. Exiting the tent without waking John, she shivered at the still-chilly air and quietly pulled her survival bag out with her.
Two hours later, a list of if-thens continued growing in her fone’s project management interface.
Communication with the rest of the crew was paramount, but without the Backup Habitat as a comms relay for the little transmitters in the SSKs, she and John would need to return to the EV to salvage the integrated comms units.
If the BH did survive, then her first task was to attempt contact with it. If she established contact with the BH, then she could initiate comms with the other EVs. If she could communicate with other EVs, she could talk to Aether.
While this seemed like a mission in itself, it wasn’t strictly for personal reasons. If Qin could set their EV on a course for entry, he could probably instruct the other errant EVs to do the same. Maybe he was already working on it, or maybe his judgment was clouded and he was sitting by doing nothing useful. They could simply need a nudge from an outside voice.
To even attempt comms with the BH, they needed to leave the cave. And if they were leaving the cave, they might as well return to the EV and salvage all of the laser-based comms components.
If Hynka were still scratching around the EV, then she needed to find a way to draw them well away from the area. If she successfully earned enough time with the EV, they could potentially recover one or both skimmers and fly the equipment back to their hideout. With a single passenger, the skimmers could zoom up to 180 km/h, and if they went out light on equipment, one flyer could support both of them, albeit slower.
So it looked like the EV factored into every branch of her chart. More pure water, comms, power, transportation—the skimmers alone were essential mission assets.
This branch was but one small section of the expansive, growing flow chart, all of its initial boxes splitting off into multiple options based upon various outcomes, and then branching off again and again.
John either found it all too overwhelming or had decided to curb his commentary. Minnie found the process relaxing, centering. Until everything was all laid out, the future—both near and distant—was far too murky and anxietous.
“We’re up to fourteen,” John proudly proclaimed from the other end of the cavern.
“That’s great,” Minnie murmured as she sat nestled in her survival bag, leaning against the cavern wall, now fleshing out various foot-travel scenarios in her flow chart, in the event they were unable to recover one or both skimmers.
“It’s amazing how quickly the temperature in here normalizes,” John said as he moved one of the tiny unisensors onto a head-height stalagmite. “If we’re still here in forty hours, I think I can have it stabilized at twenty-two degrees.”
“Mm-hm,” Minnie replied, and then actually considered what he was saying. She looked up, frowning. “Do you think it’s a good idea to be raising the temp in here so much? I mean, it’s probably been essentially the same for thousands of years, or more.”
John appeared to think it over. “I’m not sure what it could hurt. It’s not going to affect structural integrity, no animals to consider—”
“Well, we don’t know what kind of microorganisms are in here. Maybe you’re affecting something’s metabolic rate. Just a thought.” She shrugged. “Also, we didn’t scan for dormant bacteria or anything. Remember, we still haven’t been inoculated against anything on Etsy.”
“I’m well aware that we haven’t been able to do our inocs. And it’s true, we could have caught any number of bugs in here. I’ll have the heater standby at sixteen.”
I know you’re well aware.
Minnie shook her head and chuckled quietly, but, in the cave, no sound escaped the other’s ears.
“What’s funny?” John said, walking back to their little camp area.
“Nothing. Okay, something. It’s just that, I know that I’m a know-it-all, but you’re like the definition of Mr. Know-It-All. I guess it would be less distracting if we could have a conversation wherein you didn’t feel the need to assure me of what you already knew, thought, anticipated, etset. It’s unnecessary information.”