“Yeah. You’re telling me that we’re going to burn up in Titan’s atmosphere and anything left over will make a crater the size of Stickney.”
“Not that large, but you do have the general idea. The problem is that we now have too much mass for the amount of fuel left. If we could reduce the mass on the ship, we may still be able to land safely.”
“Reduce the mass? By how much?”
I did one more calculation, and came up with a conclusion that I knew Jason would not like. “Sixty five point one kilograms.”
“But I weigh—” Jason stopped short.
“Sixty eight point three kilograms,” I said. “That would be enough.”
“Forget it,” he said quickly. “Impossible. I’m needed to land—” He went quiet again. Jason knew as well as I did that I could just as easily land the ship. He was superfluous, unnecessary. And at this point, he was a liability.
“There must be something else we can do,” he said. “Can’t we jettison anything else to reduce the mass of the ship?”
“Negative. I remind you the the Zecca is an Emergency Cargo Vehicle, designed to be lightweight and fast. Other than the cargo, the only extraneous materials on this ship are your clothes.”
I paused for a moment, knowing that Jason needed a little more time for the situation to sink in. Then, as gently as I could, I said, “The only way Titan Base will get their generator is if you abandon ship.”
Jason frowned. “My life is far more important than the generator. Let’s throw it off the ship instead.”
“Normally I would agree, but you must remember that the lives of the fifteen scientists on Titan are in the balance. There isn’t enough time for another generator to arrive before the old one fails. Even if you jettison the generator, you would only live long enough to see the fifteen scientists die along with you. If you leave now,” I concluded, “they will still survive.”
“Damn you, Zec! Must you be so cold and clinical about this? We’re talking about my life here!”
“I apologize, Jason, if I do not sound concerned. I am very concerned, both for you and for the humans on Titan Base. But I see no other options, and we are running out of time.”
He unbuckled himself from his seat and tried to pace back and forth around the ship. His first step, however, pushed him off the floor and he began to float to the ceiling. “Wait a minute! Couldn’t we jettison the medical equipment? That’s not as vital as the generator.”
“No good, Jason. Not enough mass.”
“There’s got to be some way I can stay on the ship and live.”
“As I have already pointed out to you, if you stay on this ship, you will die anyway.”
Jason bounced off the ceiling and headed towards the far wall. I switched on a rear camera in time to see him narrow his eyes and smile. “Maybe I can survive off the ship.”
“How?”
He floated to the supply closet, grabbed the handle, and opened it. “In the EVA suit. That way, we can reduce the mass of the ship but I won’t die.”
“Jason, your EVA suit is not suitable for prolonged exposure to an atmosphere as dense as Titan’s. You would burn up in descent, and hit the ground just as hard.”
“That wasn’t what I meant, Zec. There’s no point in jumping out of the ship without a parachute. But what if you put me in orbit above the atmosphere? And came back for me after refueling on Titan?”
I considered this idea for a moment. It could conceivably work, but only if the timing worked out correctly. I calculated the time it would take for the Zecca to land, be refueled, take off, and match velocities with an orbiting astronaut. The conclusion would have led me to shake my head, if I had had one.
“Sorry, Jason,” I said as softly as I could. “You would be stuck in orbit for two hours and twenty minutes. You only have enough oxygen in the suit for fifteen minutes. No tanks. And even if you had—”
“Yeah, yeah. I’d overheat, pass out, and—damn. I guess there is nothing I can do, is there?”
As gently as I could, I said, “I am afraid not. I am truly sorry, my friend Jason.”
He pulled at his fingers, a nervous habit of which I had been unsuccessful at dissuading him. “So this is it. I’m going to die.” He started crying. “Damn. If only I hadn’t been sleeping. Strauss always said this would happen.”
“Who?”
Jason wiped the tears from his eyes. “I never did tell you how I got stuck with the outer solar system run, did I?”
“No.” I tried to put the proper inflection into my voice, of interest and caring. I wanted to keep Jason talking, so he could reconcile himself to his fate.
“Not much to say. I screwed up once before, and Strauss—my commander at the time—busted me for it. Went from the cushy Earth-Luna-Mars run to the past two years of hell. It hasn’t exactly been good for my marriage.” He stopped to wipe away a few more tears.
“Anyway, he always got on my case for mistakes, and claimed that one day I’d make what he called The Big One. And now it looks like I’ve proven him right.”
He banged the console. “Damn that sanctimonious bastard! He wasn’t even a pilot, just a desk jockey who got his rank from his computer skills. He—”
Something changed in Jason’s manner. He got quiet all of a sudden, and I saw what seemed like a hopeful look in his eyes. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Computers.”
“What about computers?”
He laughed, pushed himself down to the floor, and opened the cargo hold. “I saw one with the medical equipment. If I can just find it in time...”
“What?” I asked again as Jason began to rummage through the hold.
He didn’t answer me, but a minute later he pulled one of the boxes out and whooped for joy. “A neural mapper! They did request one!”
“Yes, of course,” I replied. “Besides diagnosing brain injuries, it can also be used to study neural activity in developing life. But I do not understand—”
“Don’t you see?” he said, opening the box. “You have an interface for this thing, don’t you, Zec?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then you can scan my brain with it! You can do a complete mapping of my neural functions.”
“Jason, even if I stored your mental pattern—”
“I’m not talking about storing the pattern, I’m talking about running it!”
It took me a second to assimilate what he was saying. “You mean like an AI program.”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I mean. Now where’s your medical interface port? Oh, yeah.” He walked over to it and began to plug the scanner in. I swiveled one of my cameras to get a more direct look at him.
“Jason, that will not work.”
He stopped short of affixing the remote scanning patch to his head, then slapped it on. “Why not?”
“It has never been done before.”
“Sure it has; I’ve read about it. They’ve scanned brains on Earth and kept the pattern in a computer.”
“Jason, the most research anyone