Final First: the 7th Account

Final first: the 7th Account

Accounts of Commander Austin and the Director



The shine of the Laika’s antimatter annihilators was still visible from the windows of the Geo-Synchronous Station, though it had long since been effectively gone from the Earth’s night skies. From space, from orbit, it still held the same brightness as an average star, but its distance from Earth was only growing more rapidly and it was only dimming as it left the solar system behind. The two men staring out at the shining point knew that, and they were taking one of their last chances to see it with their own eyes while they could. More than a week had gone by since the Laika left. The ship had already passed far beyond the outer planets’ orbits and the Keiper Belt, and was already travelling at just under seven thousand kilometers per second. By most definitions it had effectively left the solar system. It was gone, and Max and Bird with it.

“He’s gone Ed.” Commander Austin spoke the reality aloud.

“Yeah.” Director Johns acknowledged the same, looking out the view port the two of them floated in front of, both staring at the one point of light twinkling and flickering more than any star around it.

“Naked eye sight’s gonna be gone in a few more days,” Austin added, “unless you literally stare at it the whole and don’t lose it. Then you might get an extra day or two before the other stars outshine it.”

“I don’t think I could stay awake that long anymore.” The Director admitted.

Commander Austin turned his head to his friend, looking quite amused. “You’re giving in to old age THIS prematurely? Come on, you’re only sixty-two; that’s only half way to average life expectancy. If you’re even remotely considering retiring you better have a seriously good explanation for what you’re gonna be doing the next sixty years.”

“Last time I checked it’s not me that has to answer to you,” The Director retorted in the same lax tone Austin had fallen into, “I’m the one at the top of the pillar. I’m pretty sure it works the other way around.”

“Not on this station.” Austin just reiterated himself from a week ago, before he pushed himself away from the window and back toward the station’s interior.

Director Johns watched his smirking comrade float off, and turned himself back to the viewing window once Austin had reach the door at the station segment’s far end. Johns remained where he was for a short while longer, still staring out into space. Max was out there . . . so far out, way past the farthest point any human had ever been. And in almost all likelihood, no one would ever be going out there again. Solar System confinement looked to be their future.

                                               ***

A door opened to allow Director Johns into the station’s internal control and communications center, a more dimly-lit room than the station’s other segments, with the majority of its light coming from data screens. “Director.” Someone turned and noticed his entry. They raised a hand to salute, after which all of the others inside did so as well, even the few who technically didn’t work for the agency.

“Enough,” he said to everyone, “back on your screens.”

On command everyone turned back to what they were either doing or monitoring, with Commander Austin standing out as the lone exception just drifting across the room from the other side.

“You’re STILL up here with us?” Austin questioned Johns as he brought himself to a stop.

“The climber goes back down tomorrow. I’ll go away and leave you alone as soon as I actually can.” Johns responded.

The Commander only smiled as he answered back. “Oh I’m never alone,” he paused to reach an arm out in each direction, placing his hands on the shoulders of two data center workers seated across from each other, “I’ve got a dozen people right here at any given time who can’t get away from me.”

The two comm agents looked over their shoulders at him, and then across the station segment at the Director after Austin let them go. They went back to their work quickly, after making sure they weren’t being involved any further.

“Yeah, I’m sure they take an immeasurable amount joy in that.” Johns commented.

“No, they don’t,” Austin said glumly at first, but after a second’s pause his grin shot right back across his face, “but I do!”

Director Johns caught a few eye rolls and eyebrow raises in the wake of Austin’s comments, though he ignored them just as much as his friend did. He pushed off into the room and let himself drift across to the far end of the station segment, passing Austin by without saying a word. His wordless passing-by earned an arm spread out from his friend first, and then a more settled, curious look in the following moment after. Austin would get the message and switch over into his rare, more serious demeanor soon enough; the Director was confident enough of that much to keep ignoring him. Johns had other concerns he had to focus on now. With the Laika launched and long on its way, he had to return to overseeing the agency’s primary focus: resource acquisition.

“Who’s monitoring the survey reports?” He asked openly.

“I am sir.” A younger, female data agent answered him, holding her hand up—relatively speaking—to direct him to her seat and screens.

The Director pushed off a nearby seat in her direction, and stopped himself with the back of hers. Commander Austin made his way over as well, having caught on to the Director’s changing mindset.

“What’s everything looking like for us now?” Austin asked as he brought himself up next to them.

The Director sighed deeply before he began recounting the current resource situation as he’d last been briefed. “Primary metals are fine, most of the grey-shades can be infinitely recycled but you should obviously know that. We’re still losing a percentage of copper to irreversible degradation but the rates we find it at are more than enough to cover up to five times our permanent loss rate,” he took a pause as the moment came to shift to the other set of outlooks, “gold and silver aren’t any less of a problem than they’ve been for the last hundred years. We might use them less than the others, but their permanent loss percentages are a lot worse. If all stays the same we’ve got six decades till the silver rates clash, a little bit longer for gold, maybe a century, maybe less.”

Austin pressed his pressed lips together for a second, though he said nothing.

“Uranium’s touchy,” the Director went on, “we’ve got a couple centuries if all holds together. But, that number changes a lot. We discover good bits of it, but it ends up being scattered in too small of a pocket set across the inner belt . . . it’s been over two years since we found a decent-sized asteroid with at least a whole number for its percentage composition. There’s still probably more deposits on Mars, but if history’s any indicator they’re gonna be few and far between just like the rest of them.” He stopped again, considering what little else he hadn’t summarized. When Austin didn’t respond with anything himself, the Director carried on to end of all he felt like saying. “Landers have given evidence of uranium on mercury more than once, but setting up operations there would be almost as insane as what we just pulled off, and if we ever try for it only the dark side’s going to be an option.”

“I have all of the latest resource survey data compiled for you sir.” The data agent they were floating beside suddenly said, turning twisting her head around to the Director.

“Bring it up.” He nodded back to her.

“There’s still coal in the ground if all else fails, right?” Commander Austin asked, finally making eye contact with his friend again. “I mean I know we didn’t burn it all before we stopped.”

“Yeah,” the Director answered through another sigh, “there’s enough, if we have to resort to that, but we’d have to set ourselves back in a lot’a ways. It’s good for power, but it won’t let us do half of the stuff we can do right now.”

“Sir.” The data agent addressed the Director again. Johns looked to the agent’s screen set, and so did Austin, just as she began to give the two of them an informative rundown. “All operations on the Martian surface are at normal capacity. There’s several pairs of unmanned rollers conducting pulsing deep surveys in some new areas in the planet’s western hemisphere but they haven’t come up anything substantial enough to warrant a mining operation yet.”

“How much of Mars’s surface have we thoroughly surveyed since it first began?” Commander Austin interrupted.

“Fifty-five percent, sir.” The agent answered.

Austin turned to Director Johns. “That’s what? Another hundred and twenty, hundred and ten years of potentials?” He asked.

“Maybe,” was all Johns responded with.

“We’ve also cataloged eight asteroids with optimal rare metal concentrations in the last two months, along with three larger targets with high iron and copper concentrations.” The agent reported further.

“That’s a lucky run.” Austin said to the Director, putting on something of a hopeful smile.

“Yeah,” Director Johns relaxed his own expression by a noticeable margin, “the belt hasn’t reported finds that good for almost a dozen years.” He switched his gaze back to the agent’s screens. “Anything else?”

“Yes sir,” the agent resumed, “Jupiter orbit’s reported potential indicators of rare metal deposit across several of the planet’s non-ice moons; most are silver in their chief composition, but two of the smaller areas of interest signaled back as possibly containing antimony.”

“Antimony?” Austin went straight into shock.

“We haven’t seen any of that in decades.” The Director spoke both of their thoughts.

“Jupiter orbit’s analysis suggests the antimony deposits could be scaled in megatons.” The agent added on.

The Director just nodded in silence while Austin looked from him to the screens and back again.

She went on again. “The first operational site in the Saturn moon system is running at seventy-five percent capacity and equipment for the second planned site—“

“—Shipping out over the next five years.” The Director cut her off.

“Yes sir,” she said, “expectations are for mining operations to begin in August of 2255.”

The Director nodded quietly again, and waited for a moment. When nothing came of it he addressed her again. “That’s it?”

“Yes sir.” She answered, and looked back at him with an expression to match her disappointed, apologetic tone.

For a third time Johns nodded, though not in silence. “Good. Thanks.”

Johns pushed himself away without another word to her or Austin, heading back across the room to same door he’d entered through. Austin, of course, followed him after a few seconds. He knew exactly where Johns was going, though he didn’t know he was leaving after making his way to the station’s communications segment just to spend a whole five minutes in it.

“Ed?” He called out as he exited the communications segment into the corridor connecting the station’s inner and outer rings. There was no answer, and no Director either. Austin kicked off, pushing himself down the corridor at an angle and leaving him having to kick off the corridor wall half way down. He touched the activator to open the door on the right side once he reached the outer ring, and it slid open quickly to show him just what he was expecting to see: the Director, floating alone in front of the same set of viewing windows they’d been looking out through only a short while ago.

The Director didn’t even react when the door opened, but that wasn’t really surprising. Austin pulled himself in, aiming his microgravity drift towards his friend who still didn’t show any reaction even as he floated straight at him.

Austin stopped himself with one of the numerous handles along the station segment’s outer wall. He glanced out the viewing window at the very same thing he knew his friend was looking: the shine from the Laika’s antimatter annihilators, still flickering amongst the stars.

“Everything we’ve developed since the crash,” the Director suddenly started saying, “and we’re still stretching thin . . . so much got poured into this,” he held his gaze on the Laika’s antimatter shine, which Austin took as an indicator, “it’s still in the back of my mind that it might have been a better decision for us all not to do this whole thing.”

“Everyone on Earth wanted this to happen.” Austin told him in a quiet, yet somehow firm voice. “Sixty-two’s too young nowadays to get Alzheimer’s; you can’t possibly have forgotten the votes?”

“Very funny.” The Director responded with absolute, almost absent flatness.

“Ed, the . . . what, highest majority in any political vote I remember from history back in school—way, way back in school—was some Canadian vote a long time ago that was like what? Eighty percent or something? That was astounding to people when it happened. We called for a vote on this twenty years ago, three times!” A momentary gap came between Austin’s last sentence and his next, just enough to way for things to sink into the Director’s head. “Ninety-one percent the first time,” Austin finalized his point, “ninety-three the second, and ninety-four the last time. You know the rest of the votes had more indifferents than opposition votes.”

The Director didn’t say anything, not at first. He just kept looking away until a whole minute of nothing passed.

Austin didn’t say anything either. It was rare for him to serious, so he wasn’t exactly comfortable or familiar with it. But he knew Johns would say something, eventually.

“Yeah,” the Director finally breathed out, “everybody voted for it. And nobody’s even going to be able to enjoy the arrival confirmation signal for forty years.”