Well, that's their Rosetta, which will land on the comet on Nov 12, 2014. Here is mine.
Amazon link (free from Nov 6 to Nov 10):
First Chapter:
Chapter 1
The Comet
“Rose,
I need to talk to you.” Leo appeared at the door with an open folder.
“I’m
leaving for the day.” Rose logged out the computer and briefly organized her
desk. It was related to the donation, she knew.
“About
the Rosetta project …” Leo looked down at his folder and frowned. He had a sophisticated
look when he frowned—she admitted—with neatly parted and moussed hair,
well-kept figure, and the slick sport jacket that must have cost him a fortune.
Yet whenever she saw him, the name of a four-limb reptile would pop up in her head,
lizard.
“We’ve
given them seventy-five million over the past few years. Seventy-five million! My
lady. And I just saw you added more last week. Why, why do we have to do this?”
“You
asked the wrong person.” Rose checked her handbag one more time to make sure
the envelope was still there before she left her desk. She was a tall woman
with springy curls and dark blue eyes—eyes in which men had claimed to see
moons and stars, while she enjoyed staring back at them from the same level.
“It’s from our Nebular Budget. Part of Nick’s will.”
“Nick,
my dear Nick. Yeah, I know it’s for science, but we are a profit company, and
…” He paused as an ambiguous smile crept up his face. “I’ve heard rumors …”
“Whatever
rumor you’ve heard, I can tell you it’s true.” Having been a widow for five
years, Rose had learned that the most effective way to stop gossip was to
acknowledge it immediately.
Though,
this time the rumor was true, indeed.
She
made no stop when she walked past him. It was five thirty, but through the
frosted glass door ahead she could still make out people’s moving silhouettes in
the hallway. Most of her employees would not leave before she did.
“Come
on, Rose!” Leo followed her. “They’ll be there tonight. It’ll be over soon—thank
God! We don’t have to do this anymore, do we?”
“Speaking
of rumors …” Rose turned back abruptly, her eyes narrowing. “Are you the one
who’s been proposing to spend some of the money on a movie instead? A movie that’s
been rated NC-17?”
He
looked away. “I thought it might be worth …”
“I
don’t want my company to be known that way. What’s that woman’s name? The so-called
plastic queen?”
“All
right, all right.” Leo retreated with his hands up. “Fine, Rose. It’s your
company, your money, your call!”
She
resumed walking, not wanting to be with that guy—lizard!—for another second. Were he not Nick’s cousin she would
have gotten rid of him long ago.
Before
she opened the door to the hallway, her secretary caught her up.
“Ms.
Melandroinno, Mr. Perez is wondering if you would like to have dinner with him tonight.”
“I’m
going to the Dipper. You knew that.”
November twelfth.
That was the day she had to be there.
“Yes,
but Mr. Perez said he would be truly disappointed if you turn down his invitation.”
“Then
wish him better luck next time.”
* * *
“That’s
it!” Matt exclaimed. “Right there! Look at its coma. It’s so pretty!”
Devin
smiled, resting in his chair and watching the first-timer pacing in front of a
window in the bridge of Rosetta. Whenever he saw Matt, he was reminded of his
honeymoon in Italy twenty-seven years ago. All those young men full of passion,
with their neck-length dark hair, polished manners, and an aura of readiness to
break into a dragon-guarded castle at any minute for the rescue of his captive
princess.
It’s
good to be young—Devin continued his thought—when you have all the potentials
to discover new worlds and have your name printed in textbooks. Devin was no
longer young, despite the agility of his mind and the sturdiness of his body. It
had more to do with the heart.
“I’ll
go get dressed!” Matt vanished from Devin’s view while his words were still wafting
in the air.
Devin
walked over to where Matt had been standing and peered outside. Right now they
were halfway in between Earth’s and Mars’s orbits. Since the ship and Comet
195F were flying toward each other, the distance was quickly diminishing. The
plan was to skirt to the back of the comet and approach it from behind.
And
then what? Devin sighed, rubbing his short straight hair and subconsciously
wondering when it would all turn gray. Or fall out. Since his last fruitless mission
to Planet Mullos 17b five years ago, there was no question that he had begun
fading out from NASA’s hot missions, like those projects related to the exploitation
of extraterritorial resources. And from the public’s eyes. This wasn’t the
first time for mankind to step onto a comet, and they’d just had the famous Colossus
last year and the Fireball four years ago. Devin and his colleagues were sent
here mainly because Comet 195F had a period of twenty-five hundred years, and
people didn’t want to “miss anything”. With a longitudinal dimension of only 2.2 km,
Comet 195F had nothing exciting and did not even deserve a name.
But
that was okay. Devin left the bridge and headed to his cabin. Now that the girls
were gone for college, he didn’t mind spending more time at home with Tracy.
* * *
An
hour later he and Matt were waiting at the front hatch of the ship, fully dressed
in their spacesuits. In between them stood the lander, which more or less
resembled a large metal suitcase with extra handles here and there. Devin bent
over and checked the tethers connecting their spacesuits to the lander.
“Do
we have to be chained all the time?” Matt said through the intercom, pointing
at the maneuvering units attached to their backs. Once they landed they had
been advised not to detach the tethers over the entire duration of the mission,
because of the comet’s low escape velocity.
“Even
if we escape,” Matt continued, “we
shall be able to fly back.”
“I
think it’s better to stick to the rules,” Devin replied. During his thirty
years’ career as an astronomer, he had learned enough lessons from colleagues
who had failed to take proper caution.
After
the inner hatch had been lifted, they rolled the lander over to the exit. Connor
checked with them briefly through the intercom to make sure that everything was
all right. Then the inner hatch was resealed at their back before the outer
hatch slid to the side.
“Now
I’m going to turn off the gravity,” said Connor. “Are you guys ready?”
“Yes,”
Devin and Matt said, each holding one side of the lander.
As
soon as the artificial gravity disappeared, Devin pushed a button on the
handle, and the lander began running forward at a preset speed. The comet was
right ahead of them, rotating slowly as it headed in the direction of the sun. It
wasn’t Devin’s first time to travel in outer space this way, but after a while,
he began feeling disoriented. He almost suggested to Matt that they went back
to the ship and took a break. Maybe drinking some water would help. But sensing
how anxious the young man was to proceed and trying not to appear weak in front
of a junior colleague, he decided to press on. Fortunately the condition
quickly went away.
As
they drew near, Devin knew they had also started orbiting the comet, based on
the way the star-field background was shifting, even though he could hardly recognize
his body movement. In the absence of gravity, humans’ perception of motion was
strange and unreliable, to say the least.
It’ll
be over soon, he said to himself, wishing that the earlier disorientation was
not a sign of age.
* * *
“Hmm,
it’s more regular than I had expected.” Matt said as they were carried along by
the lander. “Almost symmetrical.”
Staring
at the comet nucleus ahead, Devin agreed. He hadn’t been to one before, but
he’d seen pictures. They may resemble gigantic rocks on Earth, but their
surfaces were usually rougher because of the lack of weathering and erosion in
outer space, except for the solar wind they had to put up with every time they
came close to the sun. The surface of the comet in front of them, however, was quite
smooth. Overall, it looked like a filled basin attached with a long handle. And
as an astronomer, Devin couldn’t help thinking of …
“I’d
like to name it Dipper,” said Matt.
Exactly!
It reminded Devin of the Big Dipper.
As
they got closer to the comet, Devin sensed a readjustment of their speed and
direction. With a sensor embedded in its front, the lander constantly modified
its motion according to the current surface image and its location relative to
the comet. Eventually it would “lock” to the exact spot they had chosen for
landing and gradually pull up the distance.
For
a while, the two had nothing to do but hold on to the handles of the lander. Then
without warning, the dizziness struck Devin back, and the blood in his legs seemed
to have been drained off. To distract himself from fretting about his physical
condition, Devin tried to start a conversation.
“So
why did you choose this project, Matt? I heard they initially asked you to join
the Phoebe No. 6.”
In
fact, if Devin had met him earlier, he would have talked him into taking the
mining project. As a beginner, one was always advised to get in the most
promising line of missions.
“I came here because of you,” Matt said,
turning slightly to look at Devin. “You’re my role model, Devin. I’ve always wanted
to learn from you.”
Really?
Devin made no reply. He wondered if he deserved the young man’s worship.
Nevertheless, Matt’s words seemed to have abated his sickness.
“Ur,
Devin, do you mind if I ask …” Matt suddenly sounded hesitant. “About that
rumor, is … is it true?”
It
took Devin a while to figure out what he was talking about. “Of course not.”
People
were hopeless, Devin reflected, or maybe they were just jealous. Soon after the
project had taken off, they began receiving donations from a biotech company. And
he remembered going out to dinner with the donor once—normally Kenton was the
one who dealt with those kinds of things, but he had a family emergency that
night. Anyway, Devin couldn’t even recall what she looked like. Rose McLand …
Melandroinno. She was a tall woman; that was all he remembered. Over the years that
company had been quite generous to their project. Almost loyal. That was indeed
a little offbeat, considering the obscurity of this mission. But that was it.
Nothing like what his colleagues had speculated.
“Devin,”
Connor’s voice sounded in the intercom. “You’ll be landing in about five
minutes.”
Devin
pushed another button on the handle. An “umbrella” stuck out of the front of
the lander and expanded into four legs. Two minutes later, they were only a
dozen yards away from the surface. A harpoon shot out from the lander and plunged
into the surface. As the cable connecting the harpoon and the lander shortened,
Devil felt as if he were a kite being gradually pulled back to the ground. Soon
he and Matt were resting on the surface of the comet, while the lander beside
them wasted no time drilling and sampling.
“Can
you imagine we are sitting on something that hasn’t been touched for billions
of years?” Matt’s voice quivered.
Devin
smiled. He remembered being as excited as Matt was when he first stepped onto
an extraterritorial land. After all, how many humans had the opportunity to do
that? Space tourism was getting popular, but still not affordable to most
people. As he aged, however, he had started appreciating his daily life more
than his job. Yes, we may not see that comet again for the rest of our life,
but so may not with the friend to whom we said farewell on an ordinary day.
“We
have the surface temperature,” he heard Matt saying. The lander had a touch panel
to display the results as soon as they became available. “Seventy-nine Fahrenheit.”
They
were on the dark side of the comet. Devin reckoned the temperature must have exceeded
a hundred Fahrenheit on the sunlit side.
He
rose up and wandered on the surface, unable to go too far due to the restraint
of the tether. He walked past a few rocky areas and arrived at a soil-like spot.
Stooping, he fumbled inside a pocket on his pants and fetched out a portable
drill. The lander must be doing a better job than he was, but he’d like to get
a feel of it. That was why they sent humans here, wasn’t it?
At
first, the drill bored into the soil easily. Then he sensed some abnormal
vibrations and switched it off. Slowly, he pulled out the drill and examined
it. Something was coiling around the drill bit. He turned on his headlight and
carefully unraveled it. The cord-like thing had a textured skin. Pliable, but sturdy.
Kind of like a tree root …
“We
got the soil composition!” Matt’s announcement almost startled him.
Devin
tucked the thing in another pocket and turned to the direction of Matt, who was
bending over the lander and reading the panel.
“Silicates,
carbonates, water, metal sulfides …” Matt stopped abruptly, his posture freezing.
Devin
swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure about the exact items on the rest of the list,
but he had a feeling that Matt’s assertion about them visiting a place that
hadn’t been touched for billions of years was incorrect.
“Amino
acids and proteins.”
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Comments highly appreciated! - Fiona