Survival Instinct. Chapter 1: Pole
02 Jul 2017Andrew Linton
"Get out."The peremptory command was spoken so calmly and quietly that Kit almost didn't hear it. He turned to Emer Vardy and saw the muzzle of the gun she was pointing at his heart.
He understood, and felt a fool to have been lured here by a fake rescue mission and then conned into bringing someone else along. He grimaced and shook his head slowly; he was angry at himself as much as at her.
"I knew I shouldn't have brought a co-pilot; shouldn't have trusted you."
"Yeah? Well you should have gone with your gut."
Emer Vardy was in her mid-twenties; she was short and slim with a lime-green bob and champagne-pink eyes. At her first meeting with Kit those eyes had looked so pleadingly as she told him of her concern for her friends who had disappeared on Colonia 2 A. She had begged him to help her find them; what had clinched it was that one of her missing friends apparently knew Lyra Capra. Kit had wanted news of Lyra ever since her father had died in a cryopod on board his Sidewinder; he needed to tell Lyra what had happened.
"So, no missing friends and no connection to Lyra. You certainly did your homework; you knew I was looking for her; you knew I collect escape pods whenever I find them and take them to safety."
Vardy now looked pityingly at Kit.
"You were such an easy mark," she mocked. "Just about everyone in Jaques' Bar knows your business; it was easy to invent this plan – and you fell for it like the gull you are."
Kit recognised his naivety when it came to dealing with people; ships and stars were the domains where he felt most confident, more at ease.
"All credit to you, though; you're quite an actress," he said, as though a compliment would make any difference.
She instantly transformed her face to show anxiety and timidity. Her eyes started to fill with tears.
"Like this, you mean?" she asked, and just as quickly the expression was gone, her face once more composed and relaxed. "Let's not waste any more time. My business associates are expecting this ship and I'm already risking my fast-delivery bonus."
"How does this end for me?" Kit asked.
"Like I said – get out. I want you to deploy the SRV and drive away. I don't kill people if I don't have to."
"Leaving me here with only the SRV is as good as killing me."
"Sure," Vardy replied coldly, "but there's no mess to clean up. Now, go!"
Kit boarded the SRV and deployed it. Even as he bounced on to the surface of Colonia 2 A and listened to the 'low gravity' announcement, the thrusters of his Asp Explorer fired up and the ship rose rapidly above the surface. He remembered in a flash the effort that had gone into acquiring and equipping the ship, and all he could do was watch as the landing gear retracted and the powerful surge of the booster carried her vertically to a height of two kilometres.
He had flown an unmodified Type-6 from Colonia back to the Sol-centric bubble and bought the Asp at Jameson Memorial. Then he visited Felicity Farseer, using the invitation he had received part way through his first journey to Jaques Station. With a level 5 frameshift drive modification the Asp had a range of 45 lightyears. That was how far away she might be when Emer Vardy punched in the 'Jump' command.
The ship was barely discernible against the backdrop of stars when there was a flash and she was gone. Kit immediately tried to recall the ship but to no avail.
He remembered how in his days as a harmless, penniless, and aimless pilot his Sidewinder had flown automatically into orbit when he wandered a couple of kilometres away from it. This was at Vespera Vision during his first journey to Jaques Station.
How he had panicked and fretted before realising that ship departure was a standard procedure. He had faced the possibility of being stranded on a moon with the SRV as his only means of survival.
Now it was real.
He was alone, sitting at the North Pole of Colonia 2 A, the location where Emer Vardy's supposed friends had supposedly been seen last. The differences between that earlier situation and now were huge. Kit was far more experienced, ranked as he was as an Elite Explorer. He was both knowledgeable and confident in his skills. This allowed him to sit calmly and assess his situation.
He knew that Colonia 2 A had an outpost and that driving there offered his best chance of getting out of this situation alive. But could it be done?
He looked at the system map and saw that Colonia Hub was quite close to the equator. He dug out his own notes to find the exact co-ordinates. The outpost was at: 14.5N and 22.45E. So he would have 75.5 degrees of latitude to travel. Looking at the system map again, the radius of the moon was about 1000 kilometres. Therefore its circumference was about 6,300km, from the expression: 2πr, where r was the radius of the circle.
Kit calculated that (75.5/360) * 6,300 gave a distance of 1,320km.
He wondered if this were possible. He opened the synthesis menu and looked at his options for managing the SRV. With the right materials, it was possible to refuel, repair, and rearm the scarab. Again he looked at the system map and saw that the moon should provide the phosphorus and sulphur needed for refuelling and rearming, and the iron and nickel needed for repair. If he were careful not to destroy the SRV he could keep going indefinitely.
If.
The next question in Kit's mind was how long it would take to reach Colonia Hub. He had no idea of the terrain that lay ahead but, estimating he could average 10 metres per second, Kit calculated that he would cover 36 kilometres per hour. At that average speed it would take (1320/36), or about 37 hours travel time to reach his destination.
Of course, the moon was not a perfect sphere; he could not travel in a straight line; there would be mountains and canyons to negotiate. Also there would be diversions to collect the materials which would keep the SRV going.
Kit pulled the emergency ration pack from its storage locker. He had put this together as a precaution after the Vespera Vision episode. This was the first time he had occasion to use it. He had ten litres of water, twenty ready-to-eat meals, and two blister packs of performance enhancers. It should be enough, he thought. He took a sip of water to wash down an enhancer and bit into an energy bar that tasted slightly less appealing than its packaging.
He put four pips into engines and two into systems and he was ready to start his journey; he would need the weapons only occasionally, when he was mining resources, and he could recharge them when he needed to.
The first task was to get onto a longitude of 22.5, then he could follow this line southwards. This close to the pole everywhere was south, so Kit drove south for a few kilometres on a longitude of -50 degrees. By turning to a heading of 090 he drove along the small circle that brought him to 22.5. Now he could turn south and keep to this longitude as much as he could.
He started slowly, very much aware that he needed to look after the scarab; if he broke it beyond repair he would live for as along as his supplies lasted. The terrain in those first few kilometres was not difficult; there were gently rolling hills and the boulders that littered the ground were not large. He opened the throttle some more until he was making fifteen metres per second. This was more uncomfortable and he started to weave from side to side to skirt around the larger features. A couple of times he misjudged what the suspension could handle and the shock of hitting some larger boulders took a few percent out of his chassis integrity. With practice he learnt that a brief burst of vertical thrust would help him to avoid these obstacles.
He monitored the fuel level; the scarab certainly seemed to be quite economical. The scanner told him there was an outcrop to the east of his course and even though he didn't need to harvest any phosphorus or sulphur just yet he wanted the comfort of confirming that those materials would be available when he did need them.
He targeted the outcrop and, to conserve ammunition, he fired five single rounds into the rock. Straightaway he saw the materials he needed and he scooped them. Later, he thought, he would check for the iron and nickel he would need to repair the SRV.
Kit turned south again to resume the journey. He looked at his position which was 89.1N, 31.5E. He was nine whole degrees to the east of where he was supposed to be, but it didn't feel like he had travelled very far. He was puzzled; what could be wrong that he was so far from his selected longitude? He tried hard to remember what his father had taught him about spherical geometry. He was confident that one degree of latitude was the same distance wherever you were but that the length of one degree of longitude depended on your latitude.
He looked up the formula. The radius of a parallel of latitude was calculated by multiplying the radius at the equator by the cosine of the latitude. At 89.1 degrees north this was only 15.70 kilometres. Therefore the circumference of the small circle which was his current parallel of latitude was: 2π times 15.70, which came to 98.7 kilometres. Finally, Kit calculated that the nine degree difference between his current longitude and where he needed to be was: (9/360) of 15.70, or 2.5 kilometres. That felt about right. At lower latitudes, of course, the cosine would be greater and a discrepancy of nine degrees would be much more significant.
To get back on course Kit decided that, rather than drive due west, he would drive on a heading slightly greater than 180 so that he would eventually return to 22.5 east.
After a few such excursions to investigate scanner contacts Kit adopted the mantra: High High Low Low. In other words if his longitude were higher than 22.5 he should steer on a heading higher than 180. Conversely, if his longitude were lower than 22.5 he should steer on a heading that was lower than 180.
Kit was clear in his mind that this would be a difficult and dangerous journey. He settled himself to it and was determined to succeed.