Transmat World: Chapter 10, Episode 2
Between the Earth and Moon; Wednesday, October 6, 2145 A.D.
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“I’m fine, Rousseau. Calm down. It must have been a micrometeoroid. Check the other side of my leg to see if there is another hole,” said Enrique.
“Sorry. Yes, I will calm down. The thought of explaining to TecHed why I was riding the corpse of my current lessee down to the surface of the moon was upsetting. I am now in full control of my emotions. Also, I believe — “
“Rousseau, check the other side of my leg to see if there is another hole,” said Enrique.
“There is no other hole. The particle must have lodged in your calf. Do not drink any more fluids. Dehydration will stop any bleeding that may occur. The only concern now will be for the alien DNA that could infest that particle and may at this very minute be converting your body to an alien form of life, perhaps silicon-based, which could be a nice upgrade — “
“Rousseau!”
“Yes, Enrique?”
“There is the matter of the air being lost.”
“But a Transmat will replace that air.”
“Its maximum capacity is below the amount of air being lost. I can tell because I have it cranked all the way up and the suit is still slowly losing pressure. Did you bring duct tape?”
“Let me check my pockets. Wait, I have no pockets. I don’t even have any clothes. Why is that, Enrique?”
“Because you’re a grasshopper, and grasshoppers go naked. Now, will you focus on the current problem? Can you dial something up that will seal the leak?”
“I am going through data bases now. Yes, you’re right. I can dial up an epoxy that hardens in vacuum. There are two Transmat thrusters going into a common chamber before going out the back. I’ll bring up one part of the epoxy out of each thruster, and they will mix in the common chamber, but there is a problem. If I glom this stuff onto the leak, in the time it takes the epoxy to set, the pressure from the suit will form an escape channel through it,” said Rousseau.
“In that case, make sure your thrust tube opening is good and tight against the suit and centered over the leak. Bring in the epoxy at enough pressure to go through the hole until there is a big wad of epoxy inside my suit leg. This way, when you remove your thruster, the pressure will squirt the epoxy out, but it will set before it’s all gone, and that will stop the leak.”
“Okay, I’m looking for a non-toxic, quick-setting epoxy with low off-gassing qualities … got it.”
“It’s not rocket science,” said Enrique peevishly.
“No, I mean I found it. I’m dialing it up now,” said Rousseau. With that pronouncement, he squatted on Enrique’s suit leg where a tiny stream of vapor was coalescing into crystals. Rousseau centered the smooth lip of the thruster outlet over the hole, attached his hind claws and middle claws in four places equidistant around the thruster, and pulled the suit fabric with force against the nozzle. Even then, some of the epoxy leaked out around the edges.
Chuck was watching a telescopically enhanced screen and now put down his coffee and picked up his hedset. “What the hell is that little hedbot doing? Hey, Enrique, is that alien spacehopper taking a dump on your suit leg?”
“I’ll have you know the alien spacehopper is taking a dump inside my suit leg,” said Enrique.
“Chuck, Chuck, Bo Buck, Banana Fanna–” Rousseau said.
“Rousseau, please do not be insulting or profane to the captain or crew of Lunacy One,” said Enrique. “They may wind up saving our ass. Well, my ass and whatever it is of yours that passes for an ass.”
“Yes, Enrique,” said Rousseau in a desultory tone and added a nearly inaudible, “I have a fine ass.”
“I can feel that stuff against my calf. Some of it is coming all the way through. It’s lumping up there, so some must be going between the layers of the suit and building up. Let up, Rousseau, and see if it will set.”
“Are you sure y’all are okay over there, Enrique?” asked Chuck.
“We’re fine, Chuck, it’s just a little hole in the suit.”
“Well gaaawdamn! That does not sound like y’all are okay.”
Rousseau lifted his tail thruster off of Enrique’s suit leg, but with difficulty. The jagged plug of epoxy broke off, adhering to the suit. A matching surface could be seen inside the lip of Rousseau’s thruster. Small looping extrusions of epoxy oozed out of the plug on Enrique’s leg, slowed, and stopped. The patch was successful.
“One thing we did not think about is nullifying the insulating properties of the suit at that point,” said Enrique. “It is already cooling down there. Dial up some warm air to blow on that patch and heat it.”
“You’re right. I’ll blow hot air on and around the patch and heat it up. That should work. Here we go.” The hedbot pointed its thruster at the patch, but no warm air came out. “I’m sorry, Enrique. I seem to be constipated. My thruster is full of set-up epoxy.”
“That’s not good. Any other ideas?” inquired Enrique.
“My heat dissipation vent is located under my thorax. I will position myself on your leg with the vent close to the patch. Even though there is no air for convective heat, maybe stray heat radiation from my inner parts will act to warm it,” said Rousseau, positioning his cooling vent as close to the patch as possible.
“That’s not doing much of anything, Rousseau,” said Enrique a few minutes later.
“Sorry Enrique. On a positive note, perhaps that hole in your leg will freeze shut.”
“Thanks for cheering me up.”
“No problem,” said Rousseau.
“Enrique, are you sure you don’t need any help?” asked Chuck.
“Thanks, no. I’m too close to quit now,” said Enrique.
An alarm went off on Enrique’s visor. They were coming in too fast. They had to increase the rate of deceleration. Enrique’s knee-jerk reaction to the alarm caused him to twist the throttle control harder than he planned.
“Rousseau, are you okay?” asked Enrique.
There was a pause of a few seconds.
“I fell off, Enrique. The sudden change in deceleration caught me by surprise. I am now accelerating under the moon’s gravitational pull. My thruster is jammed so I can’t fly back. Enrique, don’t worry about me. Don’t come after me. The suit is not designed for impromptu search and rescue missions. Your controls aren’t delicate enough, and your field of vision isn’t large enough. Just complete the mission. Remember, you can always get another hedbot, even another grasshopper hedbot.”
“Don’t say that, Rousseau!”
Rousseau’s quiet, calm delivery of his predicament scared Enrique the most. The moon had been climbing into Enrique’s vision for the last twenty minutes as he angled toward the southern pole following the Solar Positioning System’s orders. The features of Tycho were coming up in the lower left of his peripheral vision. Enrique was 600 miles above the moon’s surface but had 3,000 to traverse before arriving at Base Alpha. Rousseau arced off from this path, taking a much more direct route to the moon’s surface. Rousseau was right. Trying to rescue Rousseau with the suit would be a pig without a sense of smell trying to find a truffle.
“Chuck, can you do anything?” begged Enrique.
“I’m sorry, Enrique, we are too close to the moon’s surface. I might catch up with him but we’d be going too fast. The thrust needed –“
“I understand.”
