kind of range.”
“Would it help if you could have an onboard control node?”
“Well of course it would, but—” he broke off and then whacked himself on the head in reprimand. “Of course, there’s got to be onboard comm and programming nodes for the drive dust. Maybe real simple—”
Mia shook her head and smiled. “Not very simple, no. We assumed that various types of nanodust might be used, including in the future some quite complex ones. All we need to use them as interfaces are your protocols and security codes.”
A.J. hesitated, instinctively unwilling to hand control of his Faerie Dust over to anyone else—even if, as was true here, it was likely that all he was doing was just letting someone else talk to it so he could control it more efficiently. “Er…Yes, of course, you’re right.”
“What will we get out of that, Mia?” asked Anthony LaPointe.
“ Lots more information, that’s what,” said Dan Ritter. “We had a lot of built-in sensors throughout Odin , but the whole system was pretty much destroyed by the accident, and for all I know some of what Fitzgerald did might have wiped other parts by accident. We stopped getting any significant updates from the main PHM systems onboard once the main net went down. If we can get A.J.’s much smarter smart dust spread through the crucial areas, I’m sure I can figure out where the worst leaks are, help the general plug them, and maybe even find how to activate some of the backup air supplies that still have to be on his chunk of Odin .”
“All right,” Madeline said. “Let’s assume we can help General Hohenheim seal Odin better and preserve enough air so that he has several months instead of weeks. We still have to get Munin filled with reaction mass, and we can’t just detach Munin from Nebula Storm without losing our shielding.”
“We’re about ready to deploy Athena ,” Horst spoke up. “She was designed with piping to help dispose of water as it was melted, and Jackie and I have put together fittings that will take that water and put it directly into Munin ’s tanks—and another set that will do the same for Nebula Storm ’s tanks. Water is not the very best reaction mass, but it is the best compromise we have—abundant, stable, noncorrosive, easy to handle, no need for high compression or any of that trouble.” As usual, only a slight hard edge on some of the consonants showed that German was Horst’s mother tongue.
“Athena does a roughly one-meter bore,” Larry said, “which means that you’ll get a metric ton of water for every meter or so she goes down.” He grinned. “Which is what Maddie meant about doing science while we rescue ourselves; we’ll be cutting a deep bore into Europa’s crust, studying this cross-section of the moon, and getting our reaction mass at the same time.”
“That’s…a long bore.” Hundreds of tons of water would be needed, A.J. knew—500 tons or maybe more for each ship.
“But actually pretty short compared to what we were looking at on Enceladus,” Anthony pointed out. “Sure, where the vents are seen, there the crust must be very thin, but if we wanted a place thick enough to stay on without it cracking apart, we might have to find a place with kilometers of ice crust.”
“Good enough,” Madeline said, “but what about the Nebula Storm and the fact that we need to maintain a radiation shield? Those of us left behind could just retreat inside Nebula Storm ’s main hull, I suppose, but…”
“Not necessary, Maddie,” Joe answered. “Given the problems we’ve already had, Brett and I have been modeling various changes to the Nebula Drive interface, and there’s ways of running a reasonable-sized shield version of the drive with a lot less power. If Munin fully charges our ring batteries before leaving, I think we can keep everything going a lot longer than we used to.”
Maddie smiled. “Excellent. So we believe we can keep General Hohenheim alive long
“Would it help if you could have an onboard control node?”
“Well of course it would, but—” he broke off and then whacked himself on the head in reprimand. “Of course, there’s got to be onboard comm and programming nodes for the drive dust. Maybe real simple—”
Mia shook her head and smiled. “Not very simple, no. We assumed that various types of nanodust might be used, including in the future some quite complex ones. All we need to use them as interfaces are your protocols and security codes.”
A.J. hesitated, instinctively unwilling to hand control of his Faerie Dust over to anyone else—even if, as was true here, it was likely that all he was doing was just letting someone else talk to it so he could control it more efficiently. “Er…Yes, of course, you’re right.”
“What will we get out of that, Mia?” asked Anthony LaPointe.
“ Lots more information, that’s what,” said Dan Ritter. “We had a lot of built-in sensors throughout Odin , but the whole system was pretty much destroyed by the accident, and for all I know some of what Fitzgerald did might have wiped other parts by accident. We stopped getting any significant updates from the main PHM systems onboard once the main net went down. If we can get A.J.’s much smarter smart dust spread through the crucial areas, I’m sure I can figure out where the worst leaks are, help the general plug them, and maybe even find how to activate some of the backup air supplies that still have to be on his chunk of Odin .”
“All right,” Madeline said. “Let’s assume we can help General Hohenheim seal Odin better and preserve enough air so that he has several months instead of weeks. We still have to get Munin filled with reaction mass, and we can’t just detach Munin from Nebula Storm without losing our shielding.”
“We’re about ready to deploy Athena ,” Horst spoke up. “She was designed with piping to help dispose of water as it was melted, and Jackie and I have put together fittings that will take that water and put it directly into Munin ’s tanks—and another set that will do the same for Nebula Storm ’s tanks. Water is not the very best reaction mass, but it is the best compromise we have—abundant, stable, noncorrosive, easy to handle, no need for high compression or any of that trouble.” As usual, only a slight hard edge on some of the consonants showed that German was Horst’s mother tongue.
“Athena does a roughly one-meter bore,” Larry said, “which means that you’ll get a metric ton of water for every meter or so she goes down.” He grinned. “Which is what Maddie meant about doing science while we rescue ourselves; we’ll be cutting a deep bore into Europa’s crust, studying this cross-section of the moon, and getting our reaction mass at the same time.”
“That’s…a long bore.” Hundreds of tons of water would be needed, A.J. knew—500 tons or maybe more for each ship.
“But actually pretty short compared to what we were looking at on Enceladus,” Anthony pointed out. “Sure, where the vents are seen, there the crust must be very thin, but if we wanted a place thick enough to stay on without it cracking apart, we might have to find a place with kilometers of ice crust.”
“Good enough,” Madeline said, “but what about the Nebula Storm and the fact that we need to maintain a radiation shield? Those of us left behind could just retreat inside Nebula Storm ’s main hull, I suppose, but…”
“Not necessary, Maddie,” Joe answered. “Given the problems we’ve already had, Brett and I have been modeling various changes to the Nebula Drive interface, and there’s ways of running a reasonable-sized shield version of the drive with a lot less power. If Munin fully charges our ring batteries before leaving, I think we can keep everything going a lot longer than we used to.”
Maddie smiled. “Excellent. So we believe we can keep General Hohenheim alive long
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