Authors: Ben Bova

Titan

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Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Notice
Epigraph
24 DECEMBER 2095: ON THE SHORE OF THE METHANE SEA
PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY
24 DECEMBER 2095: HABITAT
GODDARD
23 DECEMBER 2095: THE DAY BEFORE
23 DECEMBER 2095: HABITAT
GODDARD
RECEPTION AREA
DATA BANK: TITAN
24 DECEMBER 2095: CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY
25 DECEMBER 2095: MISSION CONTROL CENTER
25 DECEMBER 2095: CHRISTMAS DINNER
TIMOSHINKO’S MESSAGE
26 DECEMBER 2095: MORNING
27 DECEMBER 2095: AFTERNOON
27 DECEMBER 2095: EVENING
28 DECEMBER 2095: BREAKFAST
28 DECEMBER 2095: NANOLAB
28 DECEMBER 2095: STORAGE BUILDING
28 DECEMBER 2095: URBAIN’S OFFICE
28 DECEMBER 2095: NIGHTFALL
29 DECEMBER 2095:
TITAN ALPHA
PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY
31 DECEMBER 2095: MORNING
THE ICE MOUNTAIN
31 DECEMBER 2095: NOON
NEW YEAR’S EVE
THE ICE LAKE
2 JANUARY 2096: MORNING
5 JANUARY 2096: AFTERNOON
TITAN ALPHA
7 JANUARY 2096: EVENING
8 JANUARY 2096: MORNING
8 JANUARY 2096: NOON
8 JANUARY 2096: AFTERNOON
8 JANUARY 2096: EVENING
TITAN ALPHA
9 JANUARY 2096: MORNING
9 JANUARY 2096: EVENING
10 JANUARY 2096: MIDNIGHT
16 JANUARY 2096: REGISTRATION DAY
31 JANUARY 2096: MORNING
16 FEBRUARY 2096: THE SOLAR MIRRORS
TITAN ALPHA
16 FEBRUARY 2096: EVENING
17 FEBRUARY 2096: FITNESS CENTER
17 FEBRUARY 2096: CAMPAIGN SPEECH
18 FEBRUARY 2096: MORNING
18 FEBRUARY 2096: AFTERNOON
18 FEBRUARY 2096: EVENING
19 FEBRUARY 2096: MIDNIGHT
TITAN ALPHA
20 MARCH 2096: SIMULATIONS LABORATORY
20 MARCH 2096: EVENING
21 MARCH 2096: MIDNIGHT
21 MARCH 2096: EARLY MORNING
21 MARCH 2096: MIDMORNING
21 MARCH 2096: EVENING
PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY
29 MARCH 2096: EBERLY’S OFFICE
12 APRIL 2096:
MORNING
12 APRIL 2096:
LAUNCH
12 APRIL 2096: THE FIRST DEBATE
12 APRIL 2096: INTO THE RING
12 APRIL 2096: ENCOUNTER
12 APRIL 2096: RINGSIDE PICKUP
12 APRIL 2096: PANCHO’S RIDE
12 APRIL 2096: RETURN
13 APRIL 2096: THE MORNING AFTER
13 APRIL 2096: URBAIN’S OFFICE
14 APRIL 2096: MORNING
16 APRIL 2096: LATE AFTERNOON
16 APRIL 2096: EVENING
17 APRIL 2096: MORNING
PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY
1 MAY 2096: THE SECOND DEBATE
2 MAY 2096: NANOLAB
4 MAY 2096: MIDMORNING
4 MAY 2096: EVENING
4 MAY 2096: NIGHT
20 MAY 2096: SIMULATIONS LABORATORY
27 MAY 2096: MISSION PLANNING SESSION
28 MAY 2096: DEPARTURE
28 MAY 2096: TITAN ORBIT
28 MAY 2096: TITAN ENTRY
28 MAY 2096: FREE FALL
28 MAY 2096: TITAN LANDING
28 MAY 2096: INTERFACE
28 MAY 2096: CONTACT
28 MAY 2096
:
DIALOGUE
28 MAY 2096: MISSION CONTROL CENTER
28 MAY 2096: TURMOIL
28 MAY 2096: ACTIONS
28 MAY 2096: DEATH
28 MAY 2096: REBIRTH
30 MAY 2096: INFIRMARY
30 MAY 2096: THE THIRD DEBATE
PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY
20 JUNE 2096: MORNING
TOR BOOKS BY BEN BOVA
SYSTEM FAULT
Copyright Page

To the memory of my friend, the truth-seeking David Brudnoy.
And with special thanks to Dwight Babcock,
who coined the “Lazy H” name for one of Titan’s seas.

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

—William James

24 DECEMBER 2095: ON THE SHORE OF THE METHANE SEA

I
t was nearly dawn on Titan. The thick listless wind slithered like an oily beast slowly awakening from a troubled sleep, moaning, lumbering across the frozen land. The sky was a grayish orange, heavy with sluggish clouds; the distant Sun was nothing more than a feeble ember of dull red light smoldering faintly along the horizon. No stars in that smog-laden sky, no lightning to break the darkness; only the slightest hint of a faint glow betrayed where the giant planet Saturn rode high above.

The ice-covered sea was dark, too, with a brittle, cracked coating of black hydrocarbon slush that surged fitfully against the low bluffs that hemmed it in. At their bases the bluffs were ridged, showing where the feeble tides had risen and then fallen back: risen and ebbed, in the inexorable cadence that had persisted for eons. In the distance a methane storm slowly marched across the sea, scattering crystals of black hydrocarbon tholins like a blanket of inkdrops swirling closer, closer.

A promontory of ice suddenly crumbled under the relentless etching of the sea, sliding into the black waves with a roar that no ear heard, no eye saw. Slabs of frozen water slid into the sea, smashing the thin sheet of blackened ice atop it, frothing and bobbing in the water for a few moments before the open water began to freeze over once again. All became still and quiet once again, except for the low moan of the unhurried wind and the ceaseless surging of the waves. It was as if the promontory had never existed.

Titan rolled slowly in its stately orbit around the ringed planet Saturn just as it had for billions of years, as dark and benighted beneath its shroud of ruddy auburn clouds as a blind beggar groping his unlit circuit through a cold, pitiless universe.

But this slow dawn was different. A new kind of day was beginning.

A sudden thunderclap boomed across the ice-topped sea, so sharp and powerful that shards of ice snapped off the frozen bluffs and tumbled splashing into the dark crust below. A flash of light lit the clouds, casting an eerie orange glimmer over the shore of the sea.

Through the clouds descended a thing utterly alien, a massive oblong object that swayed gently beneath a billowing canopy. It descended slowly toward the rounded hillocks that edged the dark, turbid sea. As it neared the icy surface another flash of brilliant, searing light burst from beneath it with a roar that echoed off the ice mounds and across the wavelets of the murky sea. Then it settled slowly onto the uneven surface of one of the knolls, squatting heavily on four thick caterpillar treads as its parachute canopy sagged down to droop over its edge and halfway to the black encrusted sea.

The creatures living in the ice burrowed deeper to escape the alien monster. They had neither eyes nor ears but they were delicately sensitive to changes in pressure and temperature. The alien was hot, lethally hot, and so heavy that it sank through the soft surface mud and even cracked and powdered the underlying ice beneath its bulk. The ice creatures moved pitifully slow; those directly beneath the massive alien were not fast enough to avoid being crushed and roasted by its residual heat. The others nearby wormed deeper into the ice as quickly as they could, blindly seeking to escape, to survive, to live.

Then the black tholin storm reached the cliffs and swirled over the alien monster. Silence returned to the shore of Titan’s frigid sea.

PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

Today Urbain and his science chaps land their probe on Titan. The real work of this habitat will begin.

Ten thousand men and woman locked inside this orbiting cylinder. In the two years it has taken to arrive in orbit around Saturn we’ve survived one murder, one execution, and an ugly spot of police brutality. We’ve had an election, of sorts, and established a government—of sorts.

The scientists are happy. They’ve been studying Saturn’s rings and even made some startling discoveries. Now they’re sending that ponderous landing vehicle of theirs down to the surface of Titan. Bloody monster’s going to trundle around the place under control from up here in the habitat.

I’ve been moved out of power, of course. It’s better that way. If Eberly hadn’t pushed me I would have removed myself. Nasty bit of blackmail, though; not pleasant at all. Nevertheless, my task here is to observe these people and see what kind of a society they ultimately produce for themselves. An anthropologist’s dream: watching a new society being created.

Ten thousand men and women. No children, of course. Not allowed. Not yet. Exiles, most of our population. Political dissidents and disbelievers who ran afoul of their faith-based governments back on Earth. Locked into this artificial world, this man-made habitat. It’s pleasant enough, physically. Better environment than most of them had on Earth, actually. But I wonder. Many of these people will live here permanently; they won’t be allowed back to Earth.

Ten thousand hotheads and nonconformists. Physically they are adults, but they behave much like teenagers. Few of them accept responsibilities; they live to play, not work. Except for the scientists, of course. And the engineers,
I suppose. Actually, one shouldn’t be surprised by their adolescent attitudes. What with their long life expectancies
and
the rejuvenation therapies that can stretch their life spans into centuries, why shouldn’t their adolescent years extend into their forties and fifties?

But it troubles me. It would only take a few of these aged adolescents to cause enormous troubles. They could spread dissatisfaction and rebellion through the whole population, like a viral infection. A few malcontents could wreck this habitat. A handful. Perhaps only one. How can they protect themselves against the outbreak of that kind of disease?

It’s going to be interesting to observe what happens.

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