Analog SFF, December 2007 by Dell Magazine Authors

Author:Dell Magazine Authors
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2010-12-15T07:07:50.262000+00:00

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Short Story: “DOMO ARIGATO,” SAYS MR. ROBOTO

by ROBERT R. CHASE

Illustration by Vincent Di Fate

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The thing about the legal games is that both sides can play them....

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Making adjustments to the landing sequence even though I'm not fully awake yet. That's the purpose of these repeated simulations. Make the responses so automatic that I can almost do them in my sleep.

There is also a reason why I am unconscious to begin with, though I can't think of it now. Not a problem. It's back there somewhere. It will surface if I really need it.

Squawk of static. “You there, Calley? Rise and shine, amigo, or you and Wildcat going to splatter yourselves all over the inner solar system."

Maria Theresa Gonzales. The sweetest voice conceivable to a boy a million kilometers from home. In my imagination, I see her in the communications center trailer, dedicated to the mission but eager to get off shift so she can work out to deal with what she imagines to be her weight problem. I shake my head, aware that I am just about to drift off. I try to answer, but my mouth is so dry that my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Something between a grunt and groan emerges.

The numbers on the radar altimeter flicker too quickly to be read. I extend my hand to the control console. It feels like a block of wood, only now I am getting the pins and needles sensation as the blood flow returns. I flex my fingers to get more feeling into them. Hitting the wrong buttons now would be disastrous.

Here's the reason for the simulation. 2009 AP15 orbits the Sun at something like twenty-five kilometers per second depending on its position in its very elliptical orbit. Escape velocity from Earth is 11.2 kilometers per second and I will actually be going about thirteen kilometers per second. That may sound like I have a lot of delta vee to make up, but Earth itself orbits the Sun at twenty-nine kilometers per second in pretty much the same direction and plane as the asteroid. So I actually have to dump velocity by doing clever things with my launch time and slingshotting around the Moon, as well as the brute force expenditure of propellant.

When I get in the vicinity of the asteroid, I have to dock with it—I say “dock” rather than “land” because the surface gravity is nearly nonexistent. Since it has a six-hour rotational period, I descend in a controlled spiral, so as not to skip across the surface like a stone across a pond.

This could all be done by a computer program. There is a reason I have to do so much of it manually. That is something else I know that I know, even though I can't remember it right now.

I look up from the illuminated instrument panel, currently the only source of light in the cockpit, to check my approach through the window. The asteroid looks different from previous simulations.

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