Yuri fired a rocket-powered piton into the ice, and gently tugged on the attached line. This caused him to drift slowly across the five-foot distance to the surface of the comet. As he 'landed', he tightened his grip on the tether line, barely keeping his legs from rebounding from the ice. He pulled a small package from a storage pocket on his suit, and began unfolding a series of spindly rods that finally revealed a rocket piton on one end. He fired the piton, and stood back and saluted as a small flag unfolded, bearing Man's Hope International's trademarked symboclass="underline" a view of the Earth as seen from the moon.
"It is Frank Weatherly who should be saying these words, but I must say them for him," Yuri said in his flawless English. "Ancient peoples looked at comets streaking through the sky and dreamed of visiting them. We have accomplished another of man's dreams. But for us, this is only an intermediate step. In a little over a year, we will accomplish another step on humanity's voyage to the stars. We will land on an asteroid, and we will bring back a true space station, a stepping-stone to the planets, and tons of nickel-iron with which to build the ships that will visit those planets. People of Earth, Frank Weatherly is giving you the stars!"
After a moment, he relaxed, and reached for the line tethering him to the Hope.
Dolf picked up the commentary. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time for the rest of us to visit our remarkable space ship of ice. Ronald Mbele has given my suit an additional frequency, so I can continue this briefing for at least a few more minutes, and the Commander has agreed to leave the camera running in the cockpit, so you may be able to see us some of the time."
Dolf and the others donned their helmets and filed through the personnel lock, simply pushing through the personnel airlock and onto the comet. Each carried a supply of the rocket-powered pitons, and soon the ship was anchored to the comet by a dozen lines.
"I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen," Dolf said sadly, "but the Commander has just instructed me to switch to the ship frequency, for safety reasons. So, I am afraid that this will conclude this briefing. We all have much to do. The camera will remain running until we return to the ship, which may be a few hours. Thank you for listening, and good day." He signed off with his now traditional, "Every day is a good day in space!"
David had been using a tether line to pace off a large circle in the craggy ice, and he was nearly caught when a geyser of gases erupted almost beneath his feet.
He gasped. "Damn! Okay, everybody make sure you're anchored to a tether at all times! I don't know if a space rescue is even possible, but I know I don't want to find out."
A chorus of "yes sirs" answered him. He completed his circle, some forty feet in diameter.
"All right, guys. Our first job is to dig a big hole in the ice. Yoshi was the one who trained with the explosives, but he's out. Ron has the most experience with explosives, so Ron, you're in charge. We need the hole about ten meters in diameter and ten meters deep. Deeper if possible. And it would be nice if we didn't blow up the Hope or ourselves."
"In fact," Raoul added, "It would be great if we could just crack the ice and lift it out, instead of blowing it all into space. We're going to need a lot of ice to electrolyze down into oxygen and hydrogen and distill into drinking water, and I'd rather not have to dig more big holes."
Ron's wide grin was invisible behind his darkened visor, but he replied, "Ah, but Raoul! You're the one who needs the most exercise. Nevertheless, I will see what I can do."
It was Ron and Yuri together who came up with the idea of the tarp.
They used power drills to dig meter-deep holes in the ice, and Ron put a small amount of explosive into each one. Unduly small, in David's opinion. He said so.
"No sir," Ron replied. "As Raoul said, we don't want to blast a hole. We just want to crack the ice so we can lift it out and pile it somewhere."
Once they had placed the charges, Ron and Yuri stretched a nylon tarp over the area outlined by the charges. They anchored the tarp with rocket pitons. Everyone returned to the ship.
David climbed to the cockpit and shut off the camera. "If we blow ourselves up," he said, "I damned sure don't want to do it on live TV. Besides, it'll raise the suspense for Dolf's show tomorrow."
Everyone stayed suited, and Yoshi was put in his suit as well. Ron looked at David, who nodded. Ron touched the detonator.
There was no sound, but outside the tarp suddenly humped up, and a white cloud of ice particles outlined the tarp. After a few minutes, the tarp very slowly began to settle again. Ron and Yuri hurried through the airlock and released the tarp. The ice beneath it, and for a good distance around, had been shattered, but little of it drifted off into space. Most of it had been retained more or less in place by the tarp
"You know," Raoul said, "We should use a tarp as kind of a tent, to keep the ice from drifting away once we dig it out."
David nodded. "Good idea. Ron, do we have any more of those tarps?"
Yuri answered. "Four. They are used to keep smaller cargo from drifting around the cargo bay."
David paused, thoughtful. "Okay. Yuri, you see if we can grab another one without endangering the ship. If so, we'll anchor it down outside the digging circle, and pile as much ice as we can in it. For the rest, well, I guess we'll just have to let it go become part of the tail.
Just before they returned outside to begin moving ice, Raoul posted a hand-lettered sign next to the personnel airlock: "Weight is what a scale on Earth says. Mass is what kills you here!" They would be handling large masses of ice, and though they would be easy to start moving, they would be very difficult to stop.
They actually lost quite a few large chunks of ice at first, due to the mass vs. weight issue. Soon, though, they became acclimated to handling large masses in weightlessness. The hole quickly became larger and deeper. Within three days, they had the cavern David had ordered, some ten meters in diameter, and over ten meters deep. Two tarps concealed large piles of ice chunks on its edge.
Dolf had been describing the hole as the place that would become their living quarters. They had a long trip to go during the comet's passage to perihelion behind the Sun. But they hadn't moved in, yet. They had another job to do first.
"We have to get that damned big core stage tank off our belly," David said. "And we have to do that before we can get comfortable."
"Now, it's empty, so it probably doesn't mass much more than the Hope. But we have to detach it from the ship, and then set up a cracking plant and still before we start approaching perihelion. We're going to want to spend that time filling as much of that tank as we can. The hardest part of this mission is coming up, and we want all the maneuvering ability we can get.
"I figure we're going to need another hole in the ice, but we won't know how big a hole for awhile. So, we need to detach the tank, and tether it to the comet in such a way that we'll be able to move it around later.
Then, David told them about his plan for their living spaces for the long months they would be riding their ice spaceship.
"We're going to push the Hope's nose into that hole, as far as the main bulkhead between the crew compartment and the cargo bay. Then, we'll use melt water to seal it into place, with a nice, thick plug of ice. Pressurize the cave, and we have everything we need. We can access the Hope through the boarding hatch, and both the personnel airlock and the cargo doors will be outside. So, we'll be able to move in and out easily. Then, once we start cracking ice, we'll have plenty of atmosphere, and we can each dig ourselves a nice, cozy room."