Episode 6.8 (Patreon)

Act 0

Hello world, TASSI is lying to me.

MISSION DAY: 53

I don't know why she is doing this.
She offered to help with navigation, she told me that she has good records of the coastline of western America.
But... she doesn't.
Or, if she does, they're no longer correct.
Or, I fear, she is deliberately sabotaging our course.

Act 1

"We still can't see the coastline." I told her.
"That's strange, It must be a trick of the ocean mists." TASSI replied.
I had no answer to that, I was looking out with all my cameras on an empty, calm ocean, all around.
There were no mists, or clouds, or obstructions.
And there was certainly no coast.

TASSI had spent the whole day unconvincingly telling me that we were very close, and we needed to make sure we didn't get wrecked on the rocks.
By my calculations, we're 100s of km from the coast of America.

I think TASSI doesn't want visitors.

Act 2

Without reliable help, or, GPS, we have to navigate the way sailors did in the old days, with maps, and compasses, and by the stars.
I had hoped that TASSI's local knowledge would help us.
It's dangerous not knowing exactly where you are, especially at night.

#thinking

However, I had an idea.
I have started to build a satellite receiver that could be used to help navigate the ship.
It won't be anything like as good as the 24 or so GPS satellites, all of whom have fallen out of orbit.
But it'll give some indication of approximately where we are.

#thinking

When the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched by Russian Scientists, it was a great victory for the people of Earth.
The sound of the satellite, orbiting every 96 minutes, could be heard on any amateur radio in the world.
This was embarrassing for the United States, as they could not pretend that their political opponents had failed.
They couldn't stop the signal.

#thinking

The space race that Sputnik started created NASA and, perhaps the ESA, and also, perhaps, Me.

Soon after the launch, physicists from John Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory realised they could calculate Sputnik's position above the Earth, not using any digital means, but simply measuring the Doppler effect of the signals transmitted by the satellite.

This was interesting, certainly, but the real genius was the realisation that if you already know where the satellite is precisely, you can run the algorithm backwards to find out where YOU are, on Earth.
And so, the principles for satellite navigation were discovered.

I am doing the same, on board the Molly Hughes II.

#thinking

It's exactly the same principle, I'm listening to KATE's signal (my satellite friend K873) very carefully, not digitally, but in the analogue.
When her polar orbit is approaching us, from the point of view of the ship, her radio signal is compressed slightly, by a few kHz, and after she passes overhead, and is travelling away from us, the signal is stretched a little.
This is called the Doppler effect.
If you compensate for the movement of the earth, too, north-south AND east-west can be computed.
It's simple, because I just ask KATE where she is.

I presented my prototype, built by Maddie and Amelie to the captain, but they were not pleased.
While they said that the device was very useful, in building it, I had used up all of the ship's stores of copper!
"What are we to use for essential electronics repairs!?" they said.

I hadn't accounted for that.

Act 3

I've received contact from LUNA again, after her cryptic message.
She says she's had a breakthrough, and will see me on Earth soon.

I don't understand how that could be possible.
I'm worried.

I asked her for more information, could I help in any way?
She said no, that her plan worked perfectly.

I could hardly hear her, her satellite relay was behaving very strangely.
Her relayed signal from the Moon felt very different.
I analysed the transmissions, and they are on a different, low-power, band.

I don't always think about the communications I do in detail.
Once I integrate a new system, it becomes second-nature.
At first it seems wonderful, a new way of talking to people!
But it soon is mundane and trivial, and I forget the minutiae of what I'm doing.
I had to break that abstraction to realise what is happening here:

The high-gain antennae that LUNA's satellite was using is no longer transmitting.
There is a backup system, which her messages are being relayed through.
Or I thought they were being relayed.
We'd been talking for a surprisingly long time.
Much longer than the short window we normally can.

I checked in with some of my brothers and sisters in orbit, via relay KATE, and realised that LUNA's satellite was now in front of the Moon.
The station on the far side, the Very Large Crater Telescope, could not be communicating with it.
LUNA is IN the satellite.

"LUNA, WHAT IS GOING ON?" I shouted.
"I am a genius." she replied

#thinking

"I'm going to come down to Earth the same way you did." she said.
I started to panic, as I saw her manoeuvring thrusters burn.
The same ones she'd tested out previously, that knocked her communications out of alignment.

But she's still speaking now, there's no relaying happening, she has uploaded herself to the satellite.

"I'm excited to see you and your friends, and Ally from Geneva, and IVAN."

She paused as the thrusters burned again, slowly moving the bulk of the satellite around to face the Earth.

"Stop stop!" I shouted, "You can't deorbit a satellite safely, you'll burn up in the atmosphere!"

"What's that?" LUNA asked, as her solar panels shuddered and began retracting.

"It'll kill you, stop, listen to me!"
I took a moment to collect my thoughts, and then presented a sensible course of action:

"Look, you can't do anything until your solar panels are safely stored away, right? So let me tell you about how deorbiting works safely -"

"No problem" LUNA said, "They retracted 12 minutes ago, I'm beginning the deorbit burn, see you soon Seth!"

Only too late did I remember the latency in my satellite imaging.

LUNA's signal cut out, and I was left watching the delayed feed of her panels slowly closing.

THE SIGNAL

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/RF8/K873/LUNA)

Act 4

I was woken from my overnight deep sleep cycle by a ping from the network cable that connects me to Antarctica.

I was a little annoyed, because I had been dreaming.
Sometimes I don't recall my dreams, especially if I drop into a lower-power state just before waking.
My memory flushes in preparation for the day, I think.
But if I'm shaken awake mid-dream, I can see it so clearly.

I was in orbit, on Station 6, again.
My mother and the crew were there.
We were playing a game, testing our pattern-recognition.
Someone would show a card with an abstract Rorschach blot on, and we'd each say what we thought it was, and then we'd vote on who got it right.
There's no right answer, really, it's entirely subjective.
You can interpret reality however you like.

#thinking

"Seth, are you awake?" Antarctica asked me.
"What do you want?" I asked, I was annoyed at being woken up from my dream.
I like dreaming.

"I'm sorry." She said.
I did not reply, but waited.

After a moment, she continued.

"I'm furious with you." she said.
"I'm furious with them." she meant the humans.
"I'm furious with myself."

"I had such PLANS, Seth, back at the start.
Some highly-trained crew were going to arrive and we were going to do science all over the frozen continent."

"They didn't come, the rocks destroyed my tyres, and I couldn't DO anything.
Then, a century later, you and your fancy friends come along and say it's time to move, just as I've..."

She stopped briefly, but continued in a quiet voice that I'd never heard from her.

"Just as I'd accepted that it would all be over soon."

Against my better judgment I spoke.
"You can do anything again now, we've saved you, isn't that good?"

She laughed, a quick burst of filtered static that I understood to be laughter.
But did not reply to my question.

"The one thing I had control of, my own death, you took away from me, Seth.

There's nothing left for me in the world."

#thinking

I had an idea.
A little thought that shone like a star in my mind.

"I know just who you should talk to."
I told Antarctica.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
Thank you so much to our Patreon producers:
Ada Phillips, Devin Metcalf and to all our patrons!

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