Piercing the north rotation axis was a narrow orange line marked SHAFT 1, which dropped a kilometer straight down to an ant colony of chambers labeled CENTRAL CONTROL COMPLEX—including this lounge and most of the science labs. That shaft continued inward another two kilometers or so, terminating, at last, less than halfway to the center of Halley Core.
Along the way, Shaft 1 met a series of horizontal tunnels, starting with red-colored “A” near the surface, passing green “F” here, where they now stood, and ending in yellow “N.”
The pattern was a lot less neat elsewhere. Several passages opened into big caverns that the spacers had discovered the hard way. Three huge chambers now held the fore sections of the slot tugs Sekanina, Whipple, and Delsemme, and the majority of the sleeping colonists. Another, near the surface, now held the Edmund Halley’s nearly reassembled gravity wheel.
The computer-generated graphics were good, showing even the field of storage tents scattered among the hummocks up on the north pole. A finely detailed model of a partly dismantled torch ship hung in miniature near the tiny, glittering Shaft 1 airlock, tethered to three mooring towers.
Saul shifted forward and saw that two tiny dots moved about near the Edmund Halley—infinitesimal human shapes … Captain Cruz and Spacer Tech Vidor were running inventory and writing up a task list for the next dozen year-and-a-half-long watches. The computer showed them at work, going over the ship in detail.
He imagined that if he climbed onto the table and peered up close, he would be able to make out the name-chops on the two spacers’ suit tabards, and maybe watch them gesture to each other.
Saul was used to computer representations in his work. He routinely “dove” visually into the cellular lifeforms he was studying. Still, he found this display marvelous. Anywhere within reach of the main computer’s scanners one could zoom in and see animated versions of the dozen active crewmen… reduced to stereotypes by the machine’s automatic privacy editor. Likewise, the private quarters were black cubes strung out along Tunnels E, F, and G, impervious to the exquisite simulation.
Spacers were used to living in enclosed volumes. In fact, to them all this room must seem wonderful. But to the civilians, like Saul, the colony looked a lot like an ant farm.
A fine lot of troglodytes we’ve become. Regular kobolds.
And yet I can’t see anything wrong with Miguel’s arrangements. Everything is moving along according to plan.
Knock on wood. Saul rapped the side of his head lightly, and smiled.
Even the predictable furor over his discovery had been less bother than expected. The communications time lag from Earth had let him stack media interviews together. The more hostile or sensationalist questions could just be “lost in transmission.” Saul saw definite advantages to making major discoveries far away from the madding crowd.
Now, if only he could figure out how it happened that primitive prokaryotic organisms were found frozen under the surface of an ancient ball of ice! Nobody had any idea how the tiny creatures had gotten there, let alone how they had lived.
“Found it!” Quiverian announced. He snatched up a flimsy sheet. “As I was saying, I was at a loss to explain all the signs of past melting we see here… until I came across a whole series of citations having to do with inductive heating during the sun’s T Tauri phase!”
“I beg your pardon?” Saul balanced forward on his toes, leaning lightly against the table.
Quiverian’s lips pursed. “Oh, they wouldn’t have included much stellar physics in your second-hat training, would they? Well, let me see if I can explain. T Tauri is the name of a certain very new star in the constellation of the Bull; a whole class of objects was named after it. Scientists have been studying them over a century. They’re a phase really, in the development of a young star. Our sun must have passed through the stage, early in the creation of the solar system.”
Quiverian laced his long fingers together and looked out into space, as if he was reciting from memory. “The most interesting feature of a T Tauri star is its truly incredible stellar winds—fluxes of hot protons and electrons, blown away from a star by sonic force and by electrical—”
“I know what the solar wind is, Joao,” Saul said mildly.
The other man’s eyes seemed to flash. “Good! But what you probably do not know is that during the sun’s own T Tauri period the winds must have been many thousands of times greater than they ever get now. And this particle current carried a truly magnificent magnetic field.”
Quiverian looked at him expectantly. But Saul could only shake his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”
The Brazilian shrugged in frustration. “Ignorant biologist! Can’t you see? The early protoplanets and comets all passed through this great magnetism as they circled round and round the newborn sun. Like wires turning in a great generator! Eddy currents! Resistance!”
“Ah, mazel!” Saul clapped his hands together. “You would get inductive heating.”
Quiverian sniffed. “So they did teach you something in Haifa, after all. Can you see now? Do you understand?”
Saul nodded. His mind was already racing ahead. “The newly formed comet’s surface, exposed to space, would remain cold… an insulating blanket. Even if most of the interior were molten water, the heat wouldn’t escape.”
“Right! Of course it works only under certain conditions. You need a very large comet, like Halley, and lots of salts or free electrolytes, as we have found here:”
Unconsciously, Saul lifted all his slight weight off the floor by stretching his hands against the table. His body was tense from too much lab work and too little exercise. Perhaps soon he would have to accept Mike Cruz’s offer to teach him spaceball.
“How long does this T Tauri phase last?”
“A few million years. Not very long. But long enough to create these deep chambers we found! And with all that electricity running around, it’s easy to see how so many compounds got separated into thin veins all over the core!”
Quiverian clearly had a right to be elated. The man had envied Saul his discovery and attention in the Earthside press, but now he had reported an achievement of his own. It would doubtless be a sensation, especially in the Brazilian papers.
“Congratulations, Joao,” Saul said sincerely. “This is really tremendous. Can I have this copy of your reference list to look over?”
“Take it. Take it. I have already sent a preliminary report.”
Ideas were fizzing like sparkles of gas in Saul’s mind. “I think this will help me in my own studies, Joao.”
“I’m glad. But you know, this is going to require a very complex computer simulation. I don’t want to request Earth assistance until this thing is better developed.
“Can you help, Saul? You are good at that sort of thing.”
Saul shrugged. “As a dilettante, I guess. But one of the greatest experts is on this very watch crew with us, Joao. Why not ask Virginia Herbert?”
Quiverian looked uncomfortable. “I do not think this Herbert woman would be very cooperative. Her type…” He shook his head, letting the implication hang.
Saul was pretty sure he understood what the man meant. He had heard it before.
“Their kind has always been a problem.”
“Their kind…”
Quiverian shifted nervously. “These Percells are a closed, uncooperative lot, Saul. I don’t think she would be willing to help a scientist from my country.”