As usual, Janet was right. I forgot about how my amnesia was starting to fail, and got to work figuring out how to put down at SN1. I had already scouted a couple of landing sites, but SN1 had never been one of them. Luckily, the topography of Harvey's World is so nice and gentle, it's actually pretty easy to put down almost anywhere. The only hard part is finding a spot on dry land, since most of Harvey's is ocean, and our ship was not designed to float. And although it was a new spot to pick, SN1 was pretty close to the Explorer, so the delta from my originally planned trajectory was not very big.

You might think that landing out of a geosynchronous orbit from directly over your target is pretty simple, but actually it's harder than from a conventional orbit. In a normal orbit, you first figure out how many orbits it will take to get down. Usually, it's something like 3.7292 trips around the planet, and then you're on the ground. The exact number of orbits is based on the mass of the planet, the altitude of your orbit, and the strength of your retro burn, and a dozen other factors. All you have to do is calculate the number of orbits the descent takes, back track in time from that point, and fire the retro rockets at the correct moment. In a geosynchronous orbit, you've got to do your descent in two steps. Since the number of orbits to come down is never a whole integer, you'll never end up directly below your starting point. The trick is to first descend into a conventional orbit, then calculate the number of orbits to touch down from that altitude, then execute the descent.

Orbital mechanics was never my specialty, but luckily Mother knows how to do those calculations in her head. I just followed along as she did them and made sure she didn't slip a decimal point or anything. Anyway, in about two dozen orbits I had us down, about one hundred meters from SN1. I didn't dare get any closer for fear of frying our survivors with our engine blast. As it is, I think we took out about fifty of the cows. Those dumb things just sat there, even with our ion jet screaming over their heads.

Janet wasn't taking any chances. She and George had drawn up a pretty detailed rescue protocol. George was to be the first, and only, crew member to leave our ship. He was to suit up in the armored e-suit, and would never return into the main part of the ship; he was going to spend the next ten months on the trip home in the airlock. Janet wanted to be sure that there would be no chance of an infectious agent entering the ship. I had to rig up a mini-airlock into the airlock chamber so we could feed George while he was in there, and then another mini-airlock so he could dump his waste into space.

Janet was taking every precaution to ensure that nothing, no matter how small, would ever travel back from the airlock chamber into the living areas of the ship from Harvey's World. She had me boost the air pressure in the airlock by 10 KPa over the atmospheric pressure on the planet, then I had to boost the air pressure in our ship to 10 KPa over the airlock. This way, air would always be forced out of the ship, rather than being sucked in. Hopefully, this positive pressure would keep any of the nasty little microbes on Harvey's World out of the ship.

As I worked on the new mini-airlocks, I kept on thinking about how the victims from Explorer started showing symptoms even before they had opened their hatch. Ok, so maybe the Explorer leaked a little, and some outside air got inside the ship before they had opened the door. I personally doubt if this had happened, but it was possible, and Janet wanted to be extra sure. And so what was I doing? I was cutting new holes into the airlock!

Airlocks are another of the thousands of mundane technologies widely used in space travel. "Mundane" perhaps, but not "simple." Whatever the pathogen was on Harvey's World that had wiped out the Explorer, it had to be pretty darn small. I'm a pretty versatile mechanic, but I've never tried to rig a hatch seal that has to prevent individual gas molecules from leaking across it, especially a seal that has to open and close routinely. I figured my chances of success in creating this seal were pretty small, not that it really would matter in the end. Oh well, who wants to live forever?

Janet also made us all take antiviral injections to rev up our immune systems. I hate these things, since they always have to shoot me in the butt, plus it gives me a low-grade fever and a horrible headache for about six hours afterward. I'm pretty sure the injections were George's idea, but Janet made it seem like hers so I couldn't complain too much about it. Also, since I knew the mini-airlock seals wouldn't hold, it did kind of make sense to try to inoculate ourselves against whatever viral microbes might have caused Harvey's Syndrome. I just hope that the pathogens that existed on Harvey's World were at least slightly susceptible to our artificially invigorated immune system. It would really aggravate me to learn that I felt like crap for six hours -- hours when I was supposed to be concentrating on making our descent -- and that the stupid shot did no good in the end.

While I worked, I also had time to think about Zweibel. He was the guy who died in Explorer. Thankfully, we never talked about him. Janet and George both knew what happened to him. I did too, since I was such a hard-working guy and had listened to all the log entries. I'm pretty sure that George hadn't pulled the psych records on Zweibel like Janet had. George wasn't the type to want to know what went on inside somebody else's head, like I was. Zweibel had been rock solid. There were no recorded instances of any type of emotional instability or psychosis either in him, or any members of his family. Zweibel hadn't made many log entries near the end, but the Explorer's Mother had been sufficiently alarmed at the events on Harvey's World that she was recording everything that happened in Explorer. Whatever demon had infected Zweibel, I'm sure the exorcism of it was quick, painless, and effective. A projectile weapon works pretty quickly and doesn't leave much behind when it blasts through the side of your cranium.

Janet's plan had George suiting up prior to us even breaking orbit. I kept our landing as gentle as possible. Janet wanted me to make it easy on George, who didn't even have a g-seat to ride in. I kept it gentle because I worried about damaging the delicate mini-airlock seals I had installed. On the back of George's e-suit was a big hook, to which we attached about two hundred meters of cable which was in turn connected to a winch which I rigged in the airlock. If George passed out, we'd just haul him back inside. George also carried a grappling hook which he planned to heave onto the prostrate bodies of Sarco and Jones. I'm not sure where we were going to put their bodies, or how we were going to give them medical attention, since there was only enough room in the airlock for a couple of people to stand. I guess Janet figured we'd deal with that problem when the time came.

Despite my familiarity with our ship, I've always been nervous about piloting the ship through major maneuvers. I was scared when we did our super-orbital loop around the Gas Giant, and I found myself pooping bricks during our descent to Harvey's World. I kept an eye on George, suited up in the airlock. The telemetry of his suit worked perfectly, so Janet and I got to see exactly what he saw, and we also had continuous readouts of his medical condition. Of course, I had Mother programmed to record and analyze each bit of data the e-suit produced. I had been a little annoyed when I saw Janet double-checking my programming of Mother, but I guess I had it coming to me after my last screw up.

George had instructed me to have Mother pay special attention to our adrenaline and endorphin levels, and well as our heart rates and EEG readings. She was to announce any unusual changes in these levels, and make period announcements of our status even if no changes were noted. At first, I was going to have her monitor and announce only George's physical reactions, but Janet suggested (correctly) that Mother should keep an electronic eye on all of us. Janet was not going to let some disaster sneak up on us. Maybe with enough warning, we could figure out what was going wrong and get the heck out of Dodge before we actually succumbed. It was obvious to all of us that the Explorer crew had not understood what was happening to them, at least not until it was too late. Of course, I pretty sure Zweibel knew what was happening at the end. I guess that's why he took the easy way out.

While George was getting suited up, Janet had me rig a deadman program with Mother. I was going to have to manually cancel a take-off order to Mother every thirty minutes. If not, the ship would take off automatically and head home, with distress signals blaring. I looked at Janet when she said this. "I don't have any way of making sure George's lifeline has been winched back in first," I told her.

"You'll have to sever it then," she replied icily.

"I don't think I can do that either," I said. Janet didn't say anything. We were mercifully interrupted by George's "all ready" signal, and she and I never discussed it again. I tried not to think about George being dragged into space at the end of a two hundred-meter line. Of course, he would first be burned to a cinder by the ion jets, so after the initial shock when the line went taught, he wouldn't have much time to worry about it.

We came down softly, landing just as I had programmed. Our touchdown tipped the load cells at less than 1.8g's, pretty good in this gravity field. Almost immediately, Mother started blubbering about our blood chemistry going haywire. Well, no shit, Sherlock! Of course our adrenaline levels and heartbeats were elevated; we had just landed on a death planet. Dumb stupid bitch computer.

Once we were down, Janet called to George to get the heck out of the airlock and get our guys. George seemed a little confused at first, and I must confess I was feeling a little strange. I had always wondered what the end of my life would be like. Would Death bring some bright light that I would walk into? Or would there simply be an enveloping blackness? I sure hope it will be the former, since I swear Mother turned down the lighting levels just after we hit ground. Normally the ship is kept very brightly lit, but Mother had inexplicably turned all the lights down to a dim twilight right as George was about to step out of the airlock.

George opened the outer airlock door, paused just a moment, then jumped down. There was a built-in ladder to help negotiate the 1.3 meter drop to the ground, but George ignored it for some reason and let gravity due it's dirty work. He landed kind of hard; I could hear him grunt. Something seemed wrong with his comm equipment, since the sound of his voice was kind of muffled. But he picked himself up and headed directly for SN1, playing out the line behind him. I watched him on the monitor and muttered to Mother, "Hold auto return." I think I heard her say something about acknowledgment, but I'm not sure because at that exact moment the lights all went out. Instantly, I was thrust into a smothering darkness.

The ship had slowed considerably, but was still closing on the asteroid at several times the normal touchdown speed when it hit. It had been in a tail-first retro configuration, but the side thrusters had added a horizontal velocity component, and spun the ship slightly off its vertical axis. The three legs of the landing empennage, which had been designed to support the weight of the mining ship only under the low gravity fields typical of asteroids, were far too fragile to absorb the impact energy at this high velocity. The leading leg, which contacted the surface first, simply snapped off and fell away. The second leg was ripped from the ship when its landing pad snagged on a small outcropping of rock. The third leg hit the surface and spun the ship into a wild tumble, then buckled under the load. A main support beam that formed a central member of the landing gear truss was sheared intact from its mount at the base of the ship and pierced the ship's hull in the lower deck. Water, the ship's principle reaction mass, poured from ruptured storage tanks in the lower deck and instantly froze into a fine snowy powder, creating a fog which drifted slowly in the low gravity field of the asteroid. The ship tipped over sideways and smashed into the asteroid. It tumbled end-over-end a few times, then came to rest upright, hidden in the center of the enveloping fog. The microscopic ice crystals in the fog slowly sublimated into invisible vapor in the cold, dry vacuum of space and disappeared, revealing the broken, dying ship stranded on the surface.

Had the ion jet not been functioning during impact, the damage would have been severe, but potentially survivable. Unfortunately, the jet had stormed back to life a half second prior to impact, and without the automatic dampening controls in place, it over-boosted and released more energy than the damaged reactor walls and waveguides could contain. The cracked flanges of the ion waveguides spewed ultra high energy protons upward into the ship, slicing directly through the main crew quarters and the bridge directly above it. In an instant the living quarters were consumed in fire, which was quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space as precious oxygen fled through the disintegrating hull.

I'm not sure if Mother had noticed the lights going out. I think she may have said something to me, but I was having trouble concentrating. I heard Janet's voice from far away calling to George, and George's reply saying something about the darkness. I think my mind must have wandered, because I noticed that almost a half hour had passed and that George was no longer heading toward SN1. I felt like a fog had settled over me, since I wasn't able to keep my mind focused on any one thought for more than a second. I haven't felt this bad since the last time I woke up hung over in a Baikonur alley. I wasn't sure where George was going or why the lights had gone out, so I went to find Janet to ask her if she knew what was going on.

Mother kept up a steady stream of worthless alarms. Everything from EEG numbers to blood pressure to acetylcholine data. Finally I had to tell Mother to keep quiet. I used language one does not normally use in the presence of a lady, which Mother most definitely is not. I finally got her to mostly shut up, but even then I often heard her annoying either me or Janet or George with her nonsense.

"Lifepod! Get to the lifepod!" screamed the Chief to his mate. The Chief looked around at the remains of the engine control room. The asteroid's low gravity now gave a semblance of up and down, and this seemed to clear the Chief's head as he struggled to make sense of the chaos around him. Even here, in the strongest part of the ship, everything was in shambles. The floor plates under him had buckled, and pipes and equipment protruded through a ghastly rip in the wall. A thick black smoke poured from the ventilator. The lights had failed, replaced only by the dim emergency lighting which was further dimmed by the smoke which hung in the air. The constant clanging of the evacuation alarm overwhelmed all other sounds, including the creaking and groaning of the ship's broken keel as it continued to settle lifelessly onto the asteroid's surface.

The mate lay dazed on what once again made up the floor. The Chief grabbed him and shook him to consciousness. "Get to the lifepod!" he screamed again. Then, looking in the direction of the escape pod, he realized that it was gone, blocked by a pile of rubble and bent, broken pipes. A fire started to burn near one wall where some lubricant dripped from a broken pipe. The Chief looked around in a panic, eventually spying an e-suit which had been brought down into the engine room for some preventative maintenance. It hung on one wall near the crumbled pipes.

The chief pushed the still dazed mate toward the e-suit. "Get into that thing!" he shouted. The mate stumbled awkwardly in the low gravity toward the suit, and started to fumble with the seals. Mercifully, the power to the evacuation alarm failed, and a strange silence filled the control room, only to be replaced by a hissing sound which grew steadily louder. A large crack was spreading along the floor beneath them. Through the crack, the Chief knew, the air that kept them alive was quickly leaking. "We'll be dead in a minute if I don't do something quick," thought the Chief.

I knew I had to find Janet, and together we had to figure out how to get the lights on. At the same time, I knew I had to keep Mother from doing something stupid. Unfortunately, my Alzheimer's was acting up, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what stupid thing Mother was going to do. This isn't as silly as it sounds, since there was always such a long list of idiotic things that Mother did, it was kind of hard to keep them all straight, especially with that blasted klaxon sounding in my ear. I probably could have thought this problem through, except for that stupid electronic bitch and her aggravating alarms. Still, I knew I had to get to Janet. She was the only level-headed person on board. She'd know what was going on.

The hatch to the lifepod was blocked by two meters of debris, and the lifepod itself was probably destroyed. The floor was cracking and hissing like a venomous snake. The Chief had to do something, and fast. The mate still was fumbling with the e-suit, unable to get both arms through the tight fitting opening. The Chief grabbed the man's arms and pushed him into the suit, only to hear him scream in pain and smell burning flesh. Quickly the Chief yanked the man out of the suit, then spun it around and saw the reason for the man's agony. The rear of the suit had been hit by a large hunk of jagged metal, and the suit's powerpack was glowing white hot.

I wandered all over the ship and finally found Janet sitting in her command chair in the main control room. She looked horrible. Those demons were present once again, involving her in some intense philosophical discussion about the nature of life. I'm pretty sure I called to her, but since she never responded, and I wasn't feeling too well, it may be that I just wanted to call to her and never actually said a word.⁽¹⁾ In any event, I never got through to her. Her eyes were glazed over. Her hair was a mess and half covered her face. I was just about to shake her when I smelled that smell. The ship, or more properly, someone on the ship, must be on fire because I smelled the unmistakable odor of burning flesh.

Suddenly, through the smoke and noise, the Chief saw a way out. A small maintenance access hatch to one of the reaction-mass tanks lay at his feet. It took all of his strength, but he was able to rotate the handle which held the tank hatch tightly closed, and pulled open the hinged door. His mate, who now lay crumpled on the floor, had to be yanked by his hair to get into a standing position. The Chief shoved the nearly limp man through the small hatch opening, then dove in himself. He re-dogged the hatch just as an explosion shuddered through the remains of the ship. The shock propelled him headfirst into the bulkhead. His forehead slammed into the wet inner wall of the water tank, and he was knocked out cold.

1. How could I be sure that I was hearing the sound of my voice with my ears, instead of the sound of my internal monologue with my mind? Ever since the accident at that asteroid, I've had hundreds of nightmares where I try to shout warnings to my crew mates, but they never seem to hear me. Was this the same thing happening now? Was I dreaming now, lost in a solipsist nightmare, or was Janet just too involved with her demons to respond to me? It probably was a sign of my current dementia that I bothered to even wonder about this stuff. Normally, I just push these thoughts away with the rest of the mental baggage I refuse to face.