Greg hated Titan. After spending
nearly 3 weeks crammed into the tiny ATMOS-cabin that had been issued to him
when he arrived on the moon of Saturn, he had gone slightly insane. All he had
was a virtual library of books and films to comfort him. And WAID.
The little robot was officially
named a Working-Class Artificially Intelligent Companion-Droid, abbreviated by
Titan’s miners to WAID, and “his” sole duty was to assist Greg in locating and
mining carbonite on Titan. His appearance was based on the old Pixar character
WALL-E and only came up to Greg’s knee in height, but he was Greg’s secretary, co-worker
and companion all rolled into one.
Pretty good for a bunch of wires and circuits, Greg thought.
Getting out of his bed, he glanced
at the interactive Corning interactive glass wall/mirror that dominated one side of
his sparsely decorated cabin. The wall’s surface listed the weather outside,
(pouring down with liquid methane rain), his appointments, and a newly found
carbonite deposit. He tapped the flashing announcement and investigated the
situation.
The deposit was located on an exposed
mountain range not 50 klicks away from his shelter. It was a small open-air
deposit, camped up next to a cliff. It was the first he’d seen of that type,
and it seemed to Greg odd that it had not been sighted earlier by one of six
satellites orbiting Titan, scanning the ground density for carbonite. He had
seen the entire chain of operations when he had first arrived; first it was
discovered by the one of the satellites, scanned thoroughly to check whether or
not it was a substance of similar density, and later examined by a scout who
travelled to the site and made a test drill. Finally, its location given to the
miner living in that sector to start work on the excavation and removal of the
deposit. There were 308 miners located on Titan, each with their own sector of
about 270 thousand km², or about the same area as New Zealand back on Earth.
An open-air deposit, however, would be
immediately seen from a satellite and soon after have its location relayed to
the miner. Carbonite was extremely detectable due to its distinct light-blue colour
and would instantly stick out from the black ice and orange dirt that covered
Titan’s surface.
Greg harrumphed. “Unbelievable that
they wouldn’t alert me earlier, eh WAID?”
Upon the utterance of his name, WAID
sped out from his charging port underneath Greg’s bed and whipped around to
face him. He noted Greg’s appearance (dishevelled), and stature (stooping),
before using his pre-programmed body language scanner to assess Greg’s mood. When
WAID had deduced that Greg was tired and hungry, he quickly prepared Greg’s
breakfast.
“Good boy,” Greg said happily.
Greg quickly dressed himself in a
Hurley t-shirt and jeans, his usual work-clothes that he wore beneath his Hazardous
Environment suit (or hazard suit for sake of convenience). The hazard suit and
its helmet contained his life-support system, kept his body temperature at a
stable 37.5°C, contained a host of convenient and essential electronics, and
protected him from Titan’s atmosphere and environmental dangers.
More importantly for Greg, was the
suit’s ability to collect oxygen from the frozen water on Titan’s surface, and
to collect nitrogen from Titan’s atmosphere. When the two gases were mixed in
the correct ratio of oxygen to nitrogen, it simulated Earth’s atmosphere and he
could breathe.
Greg suited himself up and made his
way towards the airlock, a small hatch in the side of the cabin, with WAID
following closely behind him. He entered and closed the hatch. A small red LED
light illuminated the cramped space as the compression sequence started. It
only lasted a minute or so, and then the outer door opened.
He walked out, surveying the area
around his lodgings. A methane storm was brewing in the distance. His visor told
him roughly how long it would take to reach him, 18 minutes. After staring at
the oncoming storm, he activated the hazard suit’s severe weather mode and felt
the exterior of it shift and prepare for taking damage from wind-blown debris,
then turned around and walked towards his makeshift garage.
Opening the door, Greg eyed the relatively small hover-bike that
he used for day to day mining trips. It had already been equipped with the
suitable gear he would need to extract the deposit. He opened its fuel hatch,
took a few nuggets of carbonite from a pouch in the left forearm of the
hazard-suit, and dropped them inside. The nuggets on their own would easily get
Greg from one side of his allotted sector to the other, nearly 520 km. He then
closed the hatch and climbed onto the bike, waiting for WAID to attach himself
to the back of the bike.
When that was done, he fired up the bike’s engine and zoomed out
of the garage, leaving only a slight disturbance in the orange dirt behind him.
Upon nearing the mountain range the deposit was located on, the
storm was nearly upon them. Greg could hear the wind whipping against his
visor.
God I hope
this is quick, he thought to himself. If
it picks up any more, some boulders could be dislodged.
As soon as he reached the deposit, he got off the bike and pulled
out from its gear compartment a self-assembling platform that would surround the
deposit and provide a stable space for working. He set that up and then started
the extraction.
After he’d anchored the bike to the platform, Greg hurriedly took
out a laser “pen” and a handheld diamond-edged circular-saw. The pen was for taking
away the bulk of the surrounding dirt and the saw for cutting the
carbonite into a shape that would easily fit into the bike. He worked hastily,
not wanting to be blown off the platform by the fierce winds that had picked up
within the last few minutes.
As he neared completion and tucked the second last piece of
carbonite into the bike, he was swiftly picked up by the wind and hurled
against the cliff. Although the hazard-suit protected him from most of the
damage, the air was forced from his lungs. Abruptly, the wind changed again,
this time threatening to push him off of the platform. It managed a final sharp
gust and Greg fell off, at the last second clutching at the edge of the
platform, regretting not harnessing himself to it beforehand.
He hung there for a few minutes, each second of it spent
struggling to pull himself up. Of course he didn’t want to die on a godforsaken
planet. Greg glanced down, instantly regretting the action. He’d spotted a
methane lake directly below him. If he fell now, he would land in the lake and,
due to his suit’s weight of nearly 40 kg even in Titan’s low gravity, sink to
the bottom immediately. He’d survive the sudden landing into the lake and the
sinking but he would not be able to surface, leaving him to slowly run out of
air and suffocate at the bottom.
At least I
can take a look at possible wildlife, Greg thought. Maybe I’ll bring WAID down . . . WAID . . . Wait a minute!
Suddenly reminded of one of his most trusted companions, who had
apparently not seen his near demise, Greg yelled out for WAID. The voice–recognition software in the helmet of the suit picked up his cry and sent an assistance request
to the little robot.
Greg looked up and saw WAID’s head peeking over the platform. He
dropped a high-strength carbon-fibre rope down to Greg and anchored himself to
the platform.
Not entirely trusting his strength, Greg gently swung himself over
and caught the rope. WAID pulled the rope up and Greg clambered onto the
platform.
“Thanks little guy,” Greg breathed with relief. “Thank you.”
He looked over at the carbonite deposit, at the final piece, and
decided it wasn’t worth it. Maybe another day he would collect the platform, of
which he had dozens more of Greg walked over to his bike, attached WAID to the
back (while giving him a pat on the head as show of thanks), detached it from
the platform, placed a small GPS beacon in the dirt beside him and left, with
WAID purring happily from another day of mining.
