Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

27 - Search

"Where?" replied Susan, leaning across in front of her.

"Here, running down the back of the cylinder. It feels like they're glued down."

"Where do they go?"

"Have a look yourself. You've got a better idea of the layout than me."

Ria moved completely out of the space and let Susan move against the sidewall to get as clear a look as possible of down the back of the suspect bottle. She gingerly reached her fingers around behind it and felt the wires. Ria waited patiently as Susan traced them down the bottle and into the metal bracket at the base.

"As far as I can tell, which isn't very far, they disappear through a hole beside the clamp. There's no valid reason for wires to be attached like that."

"It's not part of the system to detect how much oxygen is left in the bottle?" Ria suggested.

"No, a sensor inside the regulator does that. Whoever put this in did a very neat job, but they must have been a team leader in one of the installation teams to get this through the security checks and sign it off."

"How do we remove it?"

"Just release both the clamps and off it comes," Susan replied, stepping back out through the hatch.

"No sign of any booby-traps?"

"No tamper switches or anything like that, but those wires are a concern. Without getting behind the side panel that the bottles are attached to, I can't see what they connect to. Disconnecting it could trigger something."

"Trigger? You think the cylinder is a bomb?"

"It's the perfect vessel to hide plastic explosive in. You could remove the valve, squeeze plastic explosive, something like PE-4 or RDX, in through the neck until it's almost full and then insert a suitable detonator. The wires might just be to power the detonator or they could be connected to other systems and be waiting for a signal."

"I want it off this ship, as soon as we safely can."

"I'll get Phil to get a Hall effect sensor on the wires. If there's current flowing, he should be able to detect that. If the wires are dead, then we can probably assume it's power for the detonator."

"Probably?"

"Unless we disarm it and dismantle it, it'll be impossible to be absolutely sure of anything. Of course, if it goes off, then we can be sure it's an explosive of some kind."

Ria hoped her face had not gone as pale as she feared it had. "By placing it in here, it would destroy our air system."

"Maybe a very small charge would do that, but if that oxygen cylinder is full of plastic explosive, I'm guessing it would rip the Command Module in two," Susan replied, slowly shaking her head.

"Hang on, let's see if Foxy can help," said Ria, lifting her head towards the ceiling before continuing. "Foxy, do you know the internal volume of the emergency oxygen cylinders in the air processing plant? Can you tell me how many kilos of PE-4 explosive you could fit inside one of them?"

"Yes, Commander," came Foxy's instant reply. "If the PE-4 explosive is of standard mix, there is capacity for approximately ten point seven kilos."

"Can you simulate the effect of that much PE-4 exploding in the air processing plant?"

"A detailed simulation will take several hours, Commander."

"Just a quick estimate will do, Foxy. We don't need the detail, I just want some idea of how much it will damage Hesperian."

"Please wait, Commander. That will take approximately three minutes."

"Just notify me when you've done it, Foxy."

"Yes, Commander."

"Thanks, Foxy. Next question for us, Susan, is how do we get this thing safely out of our ship?"

"Once we've detached it, there's only one practical route," Susan replied. "We'll have to carry it down four decks and pass it to someone who is waiting and suited-up in the Hatch Room. That someone must take it out of the airlock and throw it off the maintenance platform above the ion drives."

"You make it sound straightforward," Ria replied.

"I'm not sure about the last bit."

"How do you mean?"

"We don't know what the explosive is inside that canister, but any explosive material is going to get angry if it falls through the plasma plumes from the ion drives."

"I thought explosives weren't effective in space?"

"A lot less effective," Susan agreed. "You won't get a shockwave as you do in air, but if you get fragments of a metal cylinder smacking into the ion drives or fusion reactors at a few thousand metres per second, we won't be landing on Proxima B."

Ria suddenly realised that she had not told the three most recently defrosted crew members about the plan to hitch a ride with their Pathfinder vessel and redirect to Proxima C. Now was not a good time to discuss that.

"Best if we avoid that one. Can we throw the bottle sideways off the platform and avoid the plasma plumes?"

"Possibly, is there a line-of-sight from the maintenance platform? We don't want it to bounce off any of the other modules. A bad outcome would be if the bomb ends up travelling along with us and goes off sometime later."

"Agreed," said Ria. "We must ensure it's on a course away from us."

"Whoever carries it out of the airlock will have to make that judgement call when he or she is out there."

"She," said Ria.

"She?"

"Yeah. I'm going to do it," Ria replied.

"I'm sure that's not necessary, Commander."

"I know, but I'm doing it anyway."

"I've got more E.V.A. experience than you, you know?"

"I know. I think everyone who's awake has more than me, but I have enough to do that," Ria replied.

"Okay. I'll get Phil to check out the wires, see if he can pin down what they are for."

Ria was just about to reply when Foxy beat her to it.

"Commander, I have the results of the explosion simulation you requested."

"Good, let's hear it."

"The force from the estimated explosive charge would comprehensively breach the hull of the Command Module causing debris to perforate all the supply and fuel modules. This will result in the disintegration of Hesperian and the loss of all lives."

"We need to get rid of that thing as soon as possible," Ria said.

Susan nodded. "I'll get Phil."