Space Relations Pt. 19

"If it were my choice, I would say the biggest one." The officer answered. "I would name that one Zeus. In the mythology, the consort of Chronos had a male heir. Chronos wanted to eat the baby, but his consort wrapped a large stone in a blanket and gave that to Chronos instead. Thanks to having his life spared, Zeus grew up and dethroned his father to become the mighty patriarchal deity we know him as."

Both Thor and Willow were looking at the captain and waiting for his response.

"Thor, let's set up a flight plan for reaching the largest planetoid." Washington nodded at him. "We will designate it as Planetoid Zeus. Willow, I want a more extensive analysis of this planetoid as we move closer to it and get more data."

"Aye-aye, Captain." The big Viking went to work. "A quick estimate will be four days until we get close to it. That's the fastest we can move in this syrup."

"I can run scans every eight hours." Willow said.

"That won't be necessary." Washington replied. "Not unless you want to do all that extra work. I suggest one thorough scan every day and more frequent scans only when we are on close approach."

"Roger, roger." Willow snapped to it.

Excitably, Cruz spoke up. "I can't believe I just named a planetoid!"

"Hardly a planetoid." Thor told him. "If we were in open space, that planetoid could rightly be called a planet. The radius of Planetoid Zeus is just under two thousand miles. That makes it bigger than Pluto and only slightly smaller than Mars. Roughly, Zeus is just under half the size of Earth."

As it turns out, they were able to make the journey in just over two days instead of four. This was mostly thanks to Thor and Willow adjusting the ship's magnetic fields on the fly. Increasing the attraction between them and the nearest planetoids would pull them and create velocity. By rapidly reversing polarity, the ship would be repulsed, creating a slingshot effect similar to what more primitive space vessels used to escape a planet's magnetic pull. The Space Relations was still pulling hydrogen from space to use as its power source, but at a lower rate because of the vast amount of helium the system had to filter out. Regardless, they were moving along at a good clip, but still nowhere near as fast as when they were out in normal space.

Washington did have a chance to study the data log they'd downloaded from the Beagle. The scientists on that ship were doing several things. Among these were the study of aurora borealis on the various Saturnian moons, and trying to determine if plasma discharges could have pierced lunar mantles all the way to magma chambers, in effect producing electrical volcanoes. The captain was even more intrigued when Cruz reminded him that nearly all of the patriarchal gods were attributed with the ability to hurl lightning bolts. These bolts were equivalent to plasma discharges such as those that took place whenever large bodies in space got too close to each other. One only had to consider the interactions between Sol and approaching comets to see plasma discharges, or mythical lightning strikes, regularly taking place from the perspective of Earth.

They were able to create a detailed analysis of Zeus during their approach. The planetoid had an atmosphere estimated at twenty times less dense than Earth. The planet was cool and not cold, thanks to the protective Saturnian sheath that served as an incubator. The semi-metallic fluid that surrounded Zeus kept it moving only at a very languid pace. Because it was so close to the surface of Saturn, they could assume that Zeus was nearly at the point of being ejected into open space.

As the time neared for their final inspection of Zeus before choosing a landing site, the entire crew made their way to the bridge. Thor was recording the latest findings on audio and text.

"Gravity is estimated at fifty-five percent of Earth Standard." The navigator was saying. "We have ice present at both poles and heavy concentrations of sulfur along the equator. Basalt has a heavy presence on the planet's surface. We can assume a molten core because of the electromagnetic field surrounding Zeus..."

Washington droned most of the technical information out. On the main screen, Willow was busy cycling through images of potential landing spots. The captain saw plains and valleys similar to what were seen on other inhabited planets. Many of these regions had thick clumps of vegetation on them. Because Thor was still speaking, the analyst sent a message directly to Washington's terminal.

No impact craters so far, it read.

That helped to put things into perspective. There could be no impact craters from meteors because the planetoid had always been in Saturn's protective sheath. It further cemented the idea that Washington and his crew would be the very first human beings to step on the surface of Zeus.

Thor stopped recording information into the ship's memory banks. He glanced up at the images Willow was showing to the others. "May I take over the main screen?"

"Roger, roger." Willow replied.

Using his terminal, Thor presented two separate large bodies of water. "We've only seen about sixty percent of Zeus' surface, due to the angle of approach and the slow way the planetoid turns. From the areas we have seen, I recommend setting down near these two oceans that I am showing onscreen. We have a lot of water condensation over both of them and only gentle wind currents moving pregnant clouds over land. This causes only a small portion of land to get rained on consistently. It accounts for the heavy layer of vegetation we see. Potentially, these two areas could have the most breathable amounts of oxygen on the planet."

"You did say breathable?" Washington asked.

"Yes, Captain. Clearly, we have a suitable ecosystem on Zeus. Maybe the entire planetoid isn't as people friendly, but these two areas certainly are. You have constant but soft rain because of the gentle wind currents, a small portion of carbon dioxide present on all sides, and a circulating nitrogen cycle keeping the vegetation thriving and oxygen regularly released into the atmosphere. I estimate the temperatures to be somewhere in the range of warm to tropical. I don't recommend landing too close to the coast because this is where all the runoff would occur going back into the oceans. With the amount of rain these locations get, I'm assuming most of the nutrients would be stripped away from the soil. This is all hill country, by the way. You wouldn't know it because of the heavy foliage, but there are a number of peaks and valleys down there."

"And rivers." Willow added.

"That is correct, Captain." Thor nodded. "We have plenty of flowing water leading through both of these areas. If you give us an hour or two, we will find a good peak to land on and survey from."

"Take all the time you need." Washington replied.