Delta-v, page 32
“I’m creating plastic feedstock for the 3D printers, using carbon monoxide.”
“You create plastic from a gas?”
She tapped at the diagram. “I use a nickel or cobalt catalyst under heat and pressure to cause an exothermic reaction that creates polymer strands.” She looked up from the hologram. “Which can cause an explosion if not properly controlled.”
“And here I’ve been sleeping so well lately.”
She laughed. “It’s fine.” She tapped a virtual button and it expanded into an entire plastics production control panel. “I refine the molecules into different types of plastics. They can be fed into our 3D printers, deposed into polyamide films or into laminates to repair hab walls, or to manufacture mining containment bags, new bladder tanks, to build frameworks for the return tugs—you name it.”
Tighe felt reassured. “So we’re actually up and running.”
She pointed. “Look, I’ll show you what I’m working on. Hop onto that telepresence station and jack in to Valkyrie-5.”
Tighe sat at a nearby desk and opened a UI that listed available telepresence robots. He selected V-5 and waited as his crystal went opaque. Moments later he was gazing out from the POV of a 2-meter-tall robot with stereoscopic camera eyes. It was standing in a charging bay inside the refinery reaction chamber. As he looked around, he saw the chamber walls were punctured here and there by louvers, valves, lights, cameras, exhaust ports, and a sealed pressure door. The walls were stained multiple colors from past, violent chemical reactions.
He examined his metallic arms and hands. A second up-armored, all-metal Valkyrie stood in a charging dock on the far wall. “All right, I’m here.”
Tsukada’s voice spoke close to him. “See the white object in the center of the reaction chamber?”
Tighe activated his VR controls and marched, as a robot, on magnetic feet toward a several-meter-long plastic object resting in the center of the reaction chamber. A wire ran from it to a plug in the ceiling. The object appeared to be two halves of a long open mold, the inside of which was a complex corkscrew pattern. “An injection mold.”
“Right. A high-fidelity polymer mold of an Archimedes’ screw—printed from a 3D model. Notice the wire. It powers a conduction heating element inside the mold. Do you remember our harvested metals—the nickel, iron, and cobalt—that we stored in the form of liquid carbonyls?”
“Sure.”
“What I’m doing is called chemical vapor deposition—or CVD. It allows us to create high-quality metal parts for our mining machinery.”
“Do I need to move back?”
“No, you’re fine where you are. See that the mold is empty?”
“I do.”
“Close it for me.”
He moved toward the mold and closed it with his robot hands. “Done.” He stood up straight.
“We need 200 atmospheres of carbon monoxide for this iron-carbonyl reaction to take place.”
Tighe watched as a growing globule of orange liquid formed in microgravity at the end of a pipe. He assumed this was the iron-carbonyl liquid.
“The interior surface of the mold is being heated to a precise 175 degrees Celsius. Then I wait.”
“For what?”
“In this atmosphere the carbonyl vapor from the liquid will begin to depose onto the interior of the mold as solid metal.”
“The metal accumulates out of thin air?”
“Correct.”
“And only inside the mold?”
“Correct.”
“How?”
“Chemistry. Exposed surfaces at 175 degrees will attract metal deposition. The rest of the chamber is cooler. If we wanted openings in our mold, we simply don’t heat certain spots of the mold. The metal that forms is so pure it won’t rust, and much stronger than if we forged it in a furnace.”
Tighe leaned his robot forward to examine the open end of the mold and noticed that a uniform metallic film was indeed beginning to coat the interior. “This is steel?”
“Cobalt steel—an alloy. The same stuff they use to make high-speed cutting tools back on Earth. Exceptionally durable and heat resistant.”
“You don’t need a forge?”
“Nope. I can stop the process early to create a hollow auger, or let it continue until the entire form fills solid—creating a solid machine part. I think we’ll make this just a few centimeters thick to keep it light. See if that works for the Honey Bees.”
Tighe studied the accumulating metal with his robotic eyes. “I had no idea this technology existed.”
She laughed. “It’s existed since Ludwig Mond invented it back in 1890.”
“I’ve honestly never heard of it.”
“Back on Earth it’s less toxic to just use a blast furnace. Up here in space, though, CVD is going to be critical for precision manufacturing.”
The metal was already getting thicker. “It’s like alchemy.”
“No, it’s better than alchemy—it’s science.”
CHAPTER 32
Lottery
JULY 8, 2034
Despite their resentment toward Joyce, mining production at Ryugu continued to increase. The robotic systems steadily improved as Morra, Chindarkar, and Adisa kept iterating improvements to hardware and software—and Tsukada produced durable steel parts for their designs.
Tighe and Jin programmed and unloaded the Honey Bees, feeding regolith into the refinery and removing full bladder tanks of water ice, liquid nitrogen, ammonia, methane, CO2, and metal carbonyls from the refinery bays. A growing storage yard of 7-meter- and 2-meter-diameter spherical polymer bladder tanks had begun to take shape, linked together by a printed latticework of polymer beams fashioned by Archinaut ULISSES 3D-printing robots.
The Konstantin mining operation was beginning to find a rhythm as the crew gained experience. To their great annoyance, Joyce turned out to be right: the workload began to ease even as their production increased.
Well rested now, Tighe spotted something unusual during one shift. An ARS robot pulled an 8-meter-diameter boulder from Ryugu’s surface, trailing a minor cloud of regolith dust. The work lights of Tighe’s remotely piloted mule illuminated the cloud, but something glittered in the hole the boulder left behind.
After the cloud settled, Tighe popped thrusters to bring the mule closer.
At the bottom of the hole he spotted a black boulder, perhaps 3 meters in size. The rock didn’t look like anything else he’d seen on Ryugu. It wasn’t ash-colored at all. It sparkled beneath the work lights.
Tighe activated the mule’s lidar and did a 3D scan of the new surface. With a few taps at the AR image, he added the black boulder to the ship’s topographical map. The mining software dubbed it Boulder 134, and with another tap Tighe added it to the harvest queue. A few weeks from now, one of the ARS robots should pull it.
He studied its surface for several more minutes before moving on.
JULY 29, 2034
Tighe stepped off the lift and opened the Fab Hab pressure door, moving out into Chindarkar’s robotics lab. She had classic hip-hop music playing while she fixed a broken inspection drone.
She looked up in surprise as he stood nearby. “Hey, J.T. What brings you to our gravity well?”
Tighe curled a finger for her to follow. Curious, Chindarkar got up to follow him as he walked around the hab’s round metal core. En route he and Chindarkar crossed into Tsukada’s chemistry lab.
Chindarkar answered Tsukada’s curious expression with, “J.T.’s up to something.”
“What?”
“Don’t know.”
They all three descended the gangway to the lower deck of the Fab Hab. Here, the level was dedicated to additive manufacturing systems—3D printers, computer-controlled milling machines, chains, hoists, overhead rails, worktables, and storage lockers. Part of the space was occupied by Nicole Clarke’s geology lab.
Clarke had a piece of carbonaceous chondrite under a microscope, but her head was on her hand, as though she were dozing. She looked up as the trio entered. “Hey, guys.” Then her facial expression changed. “What’s wrong?”
Tighe said, “Nothing’s wrong. Well, nothing serious. The centrifugal sorter on Honey Bee 3 is damaged.”
“I thought we solved those problems with the change from aluminum to cobalt steel.”
Tighe waved her off. “We did. The metal is fine. It was just jammed. I couldn’t fix it with a mule or a Valkyrie. So Jin and I had to EVA.”
“EVA? Your cumulative radiation exposure is—”
“Everything went fine. It turned out the centrifuge was jammed—with this.” He held up a clouded crystal the size of a hand grenade. Tighe handed it to her.
Clarke’s eyes widened as she hefted the crystal. She grabbed a loupe from her worktable and studied it closely. “Where the hell did this come from? This isn’t Ryugu regolith.”
“A black rock. About 3 meters across. It was buried near Boulder 92. Looked different from the others. So I pulled it.”
Clarke rotated it. “Ureilite.” She looked up at Tighe. “This is older than Ryugu. It must have impacted Ryugu millions, maybe billions of years ago.”
“So it’s a meteorite?”
“Ureilites are a rare class of asteroid from before the formation of the planets—from when protoplanets were colliding to form the Earth, Venus, Mars, and the rest. They’re rich in carbon. The early collisions created enormous pressure—over 20 gigapascals.”
“So it’s carbon.”
She laughed and held it up to the light. “More specifically—it’s a diamond.”
Tsukada and Chindarkar gasped.
“Get out.”
“A space diamond.”
Clarke hefted it again. “Must be a few hundred carats at least. Back on Earth this would be one of the largest diamonds in the world.”
Chindarkar laughed. “Really?”
“Yes. Diamonds are ridiculously common in the universe. They’re just carbon subjected to immense pressure.” She handed it to Tsukada.
Tsukada held it up to the light. It was coated in black. “It must be worth something.”
“It’d be worth something on Earth—for now, anyway.” Clarke spoke into her comm link. “Hey, Ade, I’m sending you a video feed. J.T. just found this clogging the centrifuge of Honey Bee 3.” She motioned for Tsukada to hold up the crystal.
Adisa’s voice came in over the link. “A diamond?”
“I knew you’d recognize it.” Clarke eased the diamond out of Tsukada’s hand. “I used to polish stones as a child. I even took gemology courses.” She used her crystal’s optics to zoom in on it. “Priya, could we use some of the robotics equipment down here to programmatically cleave the facets—if I showed you where to make the cuts?”
Chindarkar shrugged. “Sure. I could put together a diamond-cutting rig.”
Clarke studied the crystal again. “This would make an impressive pear brilliant—probably 250 carats. It’d be a nice after-hours project.”
Tighe looked up at the company surveillance cameras he knew were watching. “So do we send it back with the return tug next year?”
Clarke handed the diamond to Priya, as she also looked up at the nearest camera. “No, I say we hold on to it. Bring it back to Earth in person. We can hand it to Nathan Joyce once we’re all back safe.”
“So it is worth something, then.”
“On Earth, probably a billion dollars.”
The others laughed and whistled.
“Jesus.”
“But out here . . . well, diamonds are space dirt. In fact, did you guys find any other diamonds in that black boulder?”
“A few . . .” Tighe paused. “. . . thousand. Much smaller than this, though.”
“Catalog them, and we’ll figure out what to do with them later. Abrasives, probably.”
* * *
—
Over the next few weeks Clarke and Chindarkar used their personal time to cut and polish the huge diamond in the Fab Hab. In the meantime, they kept the gem under wraps, refusing to show it until they were ready.
By the early August hab rotation, Tighe, Jin, and Tsukada had been assigned to Hab 1 with Clarke, and after the now-weekly update meeting with Catalyst mission control was over and they’d signed off, Clarke placed an object wrapped in a chamois cloth on the galley table.
The other four crew members watching via AR from Hab 2 were still online to notice.
Clarke looked tired but happy.
Abarca asked, “What’s that?”
“Priya and I have been working late.”
“No wonder you look exhausted.”
“Worth it. I’m really pleased with how it turned out.” She unwrapped a glittering pear-shaped white diamond the size of a kiwi fruit.
Everyone in both habs leaned forward.
“Holy shit.”
“That’s amazing.”
Clarke held it up to the company’s surveillance camera. “There’s your rock, Nathan. Come and get it.”
Morra laughed. “Nice work, Nicole.”
Clarke smiled. “Thanks to Priya it turned out well.”
Chindarkar nodded. “My pleasure. I’ve never created a robot to cut a diamond before.”
Clarke said, “It’s near flawless.”
Tsukada held out her hand. “May I?”
“Sure.”
Tsukada lifted it up to the light. “So, a billion dollars?”
“Probably more. But I wouldn’t invest in diamonds if I were you. Asteroid mining is going to make them more common than they already are.”
Tighe leaned in. “Maybe we should make it a lucky charm for the ship. Something to hang from the rearview mirror.”
Adisa’s AR projection said, “The largest diamonds on Earth are usually named for the places in which they were found.”
Clarke scowled. “Please, not Ryugu. That’s a terrible name for a diamond.”
Morra added, “Endless Void is a worse name.”
Adisa continued. “One of the biggest diamonds is called the Star of Africa. Your diamond could be called the ‘Star’-of-something—given that it was found in space, and it glitters like a star.”
Jin looked to Tighe. “You found it, J.T. You should name it.”
“I do like the ‘star’ idea, Ade.”
Tsukada tapped the diamond. “We found it farther away from Earth than anyone has ever been. That’s significant, right?”
Tighe said, “The Far Star.”
The others murmured and nodded.
Clarke nodded. “I like that.”
Adisa said, “Maybe this diamond should belong to whoever has gone farthest from the Earth.”
“You mean, like a trophy?”
“Ooh, I like that.” Tsukada smiled and passed the diamond around her table.
Chindarkar rubbed her chin. “A billion-dollar trophy is overkill, isn’t it?”
Morra shrugged. “Why not? It cost a lot more than a billion to get us out here.”
Clarke shook her head as if to stay awake.
Tighe asked, “You okay, Nicole?”
“Just exhausted. Too much time staring into loupes.” She stood and headed toward her quarters. “I’m going to get some rack time.”
Everyone spoke at once. “’Night.”
Tighe hefted the billion-dollar diamond, holding it up to the light. “Well, at 92 million miles from home, the Far Star belongs with us . . . for now.”
* * *
—
Within a few weeks, everyone in the crew could tell that Clarke was ill. At first it manifested as constant fatigue. However, now that the Far Star was finished, set in a cobalt mount, and floating on a chain in the Central Hab, bed rest did not seem to help her. She often failed to rise in the morning with the rest of the crew.
By the third week of August, Clarke looked gaunt as she attended the weekly meeting with obvious difficulty. Now assigned to Hab 2 with Tighe, Abarca, and Chindarkar, she eased down into a seat at the galley table. Hab 1 beamed in via AR.
Clarke spoke plainly. “Before we begin the meeting, I have . . . unfortunate news. Isabel has run tests and consulted with the flight surgeons back at mission control. They tell me that I have a fast-moving cancer—lymphoma.”
Chindarkar placed a hand over her mouth. “Oh god, Nicole.”
Morra sighed and shook his head and looked grimly to Adisa, who was sitting next to him in Hab 1.
Jin just stared down at the galley table.
Tighe looked to Abarca. “What’s the prognosis?”
Clarke fielded the question. “It’s okay, Isabel.” Clarke turned to Tighe, her eyes red-rimmed. “In the absence of advanced treatment—the closest being 107 million miles away—my case is terminal. They estimate a month, maybe two.”
Tsukada teared up. “My god. Nicole, I’m so sorry.” She looked to Abarca. “Are you certain?”
Abarca nodded. “We sent the radiology back to Earth. Specialists there confirmed the initial diagnosis. The most likely cause is galactic cosmic radiation, but there’s no way to be certain.”
Jin looked pained. “How can we best help you, Nicole?”
“You keep going.” Clarke hesitated, then said, “I don’t regret coming on this journey. I’d do it again. I think about how I spent my life on Earth. If I stayed there . . .” Her eyes teared up. She gestured to the ship. “To change the future for the better . . .” She smiled slightly. “Well, that’s worth dying for. Isn’t it?”
Most of the crew wiped away tears. Abarca hugged Clarke close.
Clarke shook her head. “Don’t feel sad. I’m luckier than almost anyone who’s ever lived. What an adventure this has been.”
* * *
—
Clarke lasted longer than the doctors predicted—all the way through September and October. She had good days and bad days, and on October 31, she was able to sit at the galley table and celebrate Jin’s thirty-eighth birthday with rehydrated cheesecake. She insisted on attending, her blue jumpsuit hanging loosely on her thin frame.
