This is part six of the Anton deGama story, Black Ice. Anton's crawler is sliding towards a deep trench on Titan. Anton has a cunning plan...
He could not stop the ice boulder
sliding, that was clear. But a judicious push might just alter its
course, and perhaps even its speed. Of course, pushing a
hundred-tonne block of ice would not be that easy. This chunk was
already just ahead of the crawler. He crawled warily to the left side
of the ice, and used the laser to melt a hole in the lower edge. He
leaned down, and shoved the cylinder into the ice, before gingerly
opening the valve. A jet of pure oxygen tore out from the side of the
boulder, turning the methane atmosphere into a highly explosive
cocktail.
Anton ran back towards the crawler, and leaped with a
little more grace back onto the walkway. The drop-off could be only
seconds away: he had no time to judge it carefully. He aimed the
laser, hung on tightly, and shot directly at the oxygen stream.
The atmosphere detonated in an orange
flower of blazing methane.
As always, comments welcomed!
Nice bit of chemistry.
ReplyDeleteThanks! My logic was that any half-way competent astronaut ought to know how to set off an explosion on Titan.
DeleteYou've kept the tension raised high during this whole sequence for what, like the last three or four snippets? Nice sequence with some strong and entertaining details. Looking forward to where you go with it.
ReplyDeleteThanks - don't assume the tension is going to lessen for a week or two!
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