Бен Бова - Uranus

There were thirty of them, eleven women and nineteen men, their ages ranging from late teens to approaching senility, standing wide-eyed, gaping at the trees and shrubs and—beyond the Glassteel dome above them—the blue-gray clouds of the planet Uranus.

Pointing toward the bland-looking planet, their group leader said sternly, “That world’s name is pronounced ‘YOU-ra-nus.’” His craggy face dead serious, he went on, “I don’t wanna hear any wiseguys call it ‘Your-ANUS.’ Unnerstand me?”

The thirty newbies nodded and mumbled assent.

His ham-sized fists planted on his hips, Quincy O’Donnell nodded back at his new charges. “All right, then,” he said, the flat twang of his native Boston still unmistakable in his creaky tenor voice, “let’s get on with it. The minister is waitin’ to greet you.”

They were standing in the garden, a wide swath of Earthly greenery planted and lovingly tended by the inhabitants of Haven, the spindly ring-shaped space station swinging in orbit around the huge planet Uranus. In the distance, they could see several towers rising high above their level. And overhead there was more real estate: green empty acres, small clusters of towns that looked sparkling new, untouched as yet.

A whole new world, built inside the ring of metal and plastic that encircled them.

Not one of the dozen newcomers moved a centimeter. They were all gaping at the habitat spreading as far as the eye could see, even above their heads. They stared wide-eyed, frozen in wonderment.

It’s hitting them, O’Donnell said to himself. For the first time, the reality of it is making itself felt. You’re a long way from Earth, he told them silently. And there’s no goin’ back. This is your new home. Permanently.

“All right now, that’s enough of sightseein’. Let’s get moving.”

They stirred, reluctantly. But they moved in response to his command. Good. They’ll learn to obey orders, they will. Or suffer for their sins.

O’Donnell turned and led the newbies along the winding brick path that led through the profuse foliage to the waiting auditorium. Thirty more poor souls, he said to himself. Thirty more lost waifs searchin’ for paradise. Well, maybe they’ll find it here. If not here, I don’t know where on God’s green Earth they’ll find a place to rest their poor bones.

Then he reminded himself that they weren’t on God’s green Earth, not anymore. They were damned near three billion kilometers from Earth, out at the ass end of the solar system, swinging endlessly around the planet Uranus.

O’Donnell clenched his teeth tightly. There you go again, Quincy old boy, swearin’ like you haven’t been taught better. Remember to include that sin in your next confession.

“C’mon,” he shouted. “The minister is waitin’ for yez.”

Uranus is the third largest of the solar system’s eight planets, orbiting beyond beringed Saturn, out in the cold and lonely darkness of the Sun’s most distant children.

More than four times larger than Earth, Uranus orbits nearly three billion kilometers from the Sun. Uranus’s year is slightly more than eighty-four Earth years. It spins around its axis every seventeen hours and four minutes.

While the planet’s mass is 14.5 times more than Earth’s, its density is merely 1.3 times greater than that of water. Its atmosphere—at least the uppermost part of it—is composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, the two lightest elements, with significant amounts of methane and ammonia. The temperature of its cloud tops is truly frigid: more than 197 degrees below zero Celsius.

Uranus is weird . The other planets of the solar system have axial tilts ranging from Jupiter’s 3.1 degrees to 26.7 degrees for Saturn. Earth’s axis is tipped 23.4 degrees, a tilt that produces its seasons.

Uranus, though, is tilted 97.9 degrees from vertical. Its north pole points toward the Sun for part of its year, while half a Uranian year later (some forty-two Earth years) its south pole points Sunward. And unlike all the other planets, Uranus spins from east to west, retrograde, in astronomical parlance.

Uranus has rings circling over its equator. Thin, dark rings of meteoric bits of rock and metal, barely visible except on those rare occasions when they happen to catch a glint of sunlight.

Curious scientists from Earth sent dozens of unmanned probes into orbit around Uranus, and deep into the placid blue-gray clouds that cover it from pole to pole. They were only partially successful in unveiling the planet’s secrets. Something collided with Uranus early in the solar system’s history, the scientists reasoned, banging its axial tilt so far from vertical. Something apparently sterilized the planet-wide ocean that lies beneath Uranus’s methane and ammonia clouds. Unlike the oceans of Jupiter and Saturn, and even the more-distant Neptune, the ocean of Uranus is dead: no living creature has been found there, not even single-celled protoplasms.

Interest in Uranus faltered in the face of such discouraging discoveries. A sterile planet, dead, lifeless. Scientific probes were sent elsewhere. Uranus was a dead end, literally.

Until the self-styled Reverend Kyle Umber conceived his plan of building a haven for Earth’s poor, disenfranchised, forgotten men and women, in orbit around the planet Uranus.

Quincy O’Donnell led his thirty foundlings along the bricked path that led toward the auditorium. That’s how he thought of his charges: foundlings, orphans, the “wretched refuse” of their native Earth, poor, ignorant, hopeless.

But Reverend Umber will give them hope, give them learning, give them a reason to live and to praise God. O’Donnell had seen it happen to earlier arrivals at this mission station set in deep space.

Thanks to optical recognition technology the auditorium doors swung open automatically as O’Donnell led his little troop toward them. The thirty followed O’Donnell inside, goggling at the lofty ceiling, the broad expanse of pews, row after row of benches and—up atop the stage—a row of high-backed wooden chairs that looked stiff, stern, uncomfortable.

All empty. The vast, high-ceilinged auditorium was empty except for their little group. Unadorned. No pictures on the blank walls. No statues or images of any sort on the empty stage before them. Their footsteps echoed off the metal walls. They were awed into silence.

O’Donnell sat them in the front row of seats, grinning inwardly at their wide-eyed stares. The auditorium was bare, undecorated, windowless, yet it still astounded each one of them into silence.

For several moments, they sat before the raised stage, glancing around uneasily, unsure of what they were about to face.

Then the Reverend Kyle Umber came walking silently, smilingly, out of the right wing of the stage. He seemed to glow against the shadows behind him. Dressed in a simple suit of pure white, Umber looked down at the new arrivals with a smile that lit up his entire face.

It was an ordinary sort of face, roundish, with healthy pink cheeks and a full crop of reddish-brown hair swept back from his forehead and falling to his shoulders. Umber was short, thickset, with heavyish arms and legs beneath his immaculate white jacket and trousers.