When Bull woke, his body was still bruised, but his mind was clear. As he breakfasted, he went over it one more time.
The choice was between two futures, a future rich and a future poor. He was in the Kuiper Belt now, and there was really nothing to keep him from staying here for years and years. He had plenty of supplies, boredom would likely strike before supplies ran out.
The choice concerned what he would come back to. Would he come back to the inhabited solar system penniless or rich? He had come back rich enough times to know how great the pleasures of solar system life could be. And he had seen enough down-and-out deep spacers to know what coming back penniless meant.
The Honeycomb might contain deep secrets, if he found it, but would those secrets be immediately profitable ones, or profitable at all? Probably not, so his choice was not between risking his Earth and Mars fortunes to find a fabulously wealthy gold mine-equivalent in the Kuiper Belt, but risking everything to find an interesting scientific phenomena and a modest mine of construction material. He was risking wealth to pursue an expensive hobby.
It was no choice, really, he would turn back, and curse the social system that was robbing him of his chance to pursue a dream. The Honeycomb was a hobby, and he was a human man. His life, his fortune, were in the inner Solar System. The secrets of the Kuiper Belt would have to be unlocked by someone madder than he.
He would turn back ... and blackly curse the social system that was robbing him of his hard-earned chance to pursue a dream.
As he finished breakfast he announced, “Honey, turn the ship around, we're headed home."
"Excuse me, sir, what about the probe? It makes contact with the meteor tomorrow, and if we turn back now, it will be lost. We’ll lose the probe, and have no meteor sample, either."
"How long must we wait?"
"It will depend on the mass of the meteor. It appears to be a large one, but if it's average density for a honeycomb, we can turn back tomorrow. The probe will catch up."
"Is it Honeycomb?"
"It's now 90% probable to be Honeycomb."
"How large is it?"
"Probe radar indicates it's a peanut-shape about 200 meters long."
"That's big, by far the biggest yet. Have you sent its trajectory into TC?"
"Not yet, I was waiting for confirmation that it was Honeycomb and not snowflake."
"Send it today, and we'll turn back tomorrow."
"That's a lot money for something we'll never use."
"Do it!"
Bull decided to take some more abuse from Higuchi. It was exercise, and if he was returning to a planet surface, he was going to need all he could get.
The next day Bull watched as the probe made visual contact. As soon as the meteor was on video, it was definitely honeycomb. First off, it was huge, it’s long linear dimension was ten times as long as the ship. Second, it was essentially a flat, slightly curved plate. There was a fairly flat wall on the inner curving surface, and lots of dainty pocked ridges and craters on the outer curved surface. The edges of the plate were angular and pocked with so many craters that it looked more like sponge than rock. It was also spinning rapidly, about once a minute.
"It’s a piece of soap bubble!” Commented Bull, “How does it hold together?”
“Given it’s spin, I suspect it’s as large as it can be,” Said Honey, “The centrifugal force on the outer parts would pull apart unreinforced concrete.”
Bull zoomed in on the spin axis. There the meteor was fairly thick and just as heavily pocked.
“Those craters look deep, Honey," Commented Bull.
"Radar confirms that, Bull. Many of these craters don't seem to have visible bottoms."
"That much spin, it's going to be tricky to tow."
"Very tricky. There isn’t much to get a purchase on; the whole thing may fragment if we add any stress; we can put a bearing in the tow line, but should that bearing fail, the probe will be wrapped into the meteor very quickly. Crashing into this meteor will likely be more stress than the meteor can take, and surely more than the probe can take.
“In fact, Bull, this meteor may not be stable. It is not spinning on its long axis, it’s wobbling. It’s surely in the process of changing its spin axis, and it may be shedding pieces as it does.”
“Then this thing is very new.”
“We may better off putting gyros and a thruster on this. That will slow down the retrieval, but ... Yes, Bull, that spin means it's probable that this is a new fragment.”
“Determine how old.”
The probe moved to orient itself on the spin axis of the meteor, then closed. As the probe moved within 50 kilometers, acquired data increased exponentially. Bull scanned the highlights. The probe stopped 500 meters away, and a small sub probe was released to actually make contact. With that much spin, the contact would have to be at an axial point, and the sub probe would be under power most of the time, the mission could only last 20 minutes or so.
"Send it in, Honey, start dead-on axial, let’s feel what we've got."
The sub-probe made contact, latched on and acquired the meteor's spin. A sample was taken.
"What color is that, Honey?"
"The video is calibrated, it's as white as it looks."
"As white as eggshell, light and porous, can this be a natural process?"
"Answering that will take consultation. Should I send out the data now?"
"Wait 'til we've finished exploring. Can we get in one of those holes?"
There was a pause.
“Yes, in fact, it should not be hard, there are lots of gripping points. Would you care to guide?"
"Yes, thank you," Bull gripped the twin joysticks
The image on the screen showed a porous white rock with deep roundish pocks in it. The pocks were large and small, and there were pocks within pocks. The edge that the probe was holding on to had sharp sheared off edges, as if this had been part of a larger structure, which had been cracked open, and this piece had come spinning off.
Bull felt the edges as best he could through the probe sensors. They seemed sharp. Was this a really a rapidly spinning piece of something that broke up recently--recently in geologic time, that is? Light color and sharp edges are not common in objects that endure eons of space vacuum while circling the sun. Micrometeorites dull edges and protons in the solar wind dull color to a moon gray. These processes worked a lot slower in the Kuiper Belt, but ten million-year old surfaces were still gray and dull. This was clearly not a ten-million year old surface!
Bull maneuvered the probe into the nearest pock big enough that it would fit in comfortably. As soon as the search lights reached for the bottom, it was clear that this hole wasn't a round soap bubble pocket, it was a tube, a tube leading deep into the meteor.
"How far in can I go, honey?" said Bull as he oriented the probe so that its 'legs' were generally pointing away from the center of spin and the probe could walk.
"Not too far, the porous nature of the rock is absorbing the signal," Bull maneuvered in, and the signal strength meter started oscillating in time with the meteor's spin. This tube was constant in width, not a bubble.
Then, way down the tube, just barely visible in the searchlight, Bull saw a swirl pattern in the wall. It stood out, it was not the "basic bubble" pattern he'd been seeing.
"You're as far as you can go," Said Honey.
"Honey, this is interesting. We will not be turning back today. I want to touch this personally as soon as possible. Send in the stats on this fragment right now, and keep an eye out for other pieces. This looks hot!"
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