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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Epigraph

  24 DECEMBER 2095: ON THE SHORE OF THE METHANE SEA

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  24 DECEMBER 2095: HABITAT GODDARD

  23 DECEMBER 2095: THE DAY BEFORE

  23 DECEMBER 2095: HABITAT GODDARD RECEPTION AREA

  DATA BANK: TITAN

  24 DECEMBER 2095: CHRISTMAS EVE PARTY

  25 DECEMBER 2095: MISSION CONTROL CENTER

  25 DECEMBER 2095: CHRISTMAS DINNER

  TIMOSHINKO’S MESSAGE

  26 DECEMBER 2095: MORNING

  27 DECEMBER 2095: AFTERNOON

  27 DECEMBER 2095: EVENING

  28 DECEMBER 2095: BREAKFAST

  28 DECEMBER 2095: NANOLAB

  28 DECEMBER 2095: STORAGE BUILDING

  28 DECEMBER 2095: URBAIN’S OFFICE

  28 DECEMBER 2095: NIGHTFALL

  29 DECEMBER 2095: TITAN ALPHA

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  31 DECEMBER 2095: MORNING

  THE ICE MOUNTAIN

  31 DECEMBER 2095: NOON

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  THE ICE LAKE

  2 JANUARY 2096: MORNING

  5 JANUARY 2096: AFTERNOON

  TITAN ALPHA

  7 JANUARY 2096: EVENING

  8 JANUARY 2096: MORNING

  8 JANUARY 2096: NOON

  8 JANUARY 2096: AFTERNOON

  8 JANUARY 2096: EVENING

  TITAN ALPHA

  9 JANUARY 2096: MORNING

  9 JANUARY 2096: EVENING

  10 JANUARY 2096: MIDNIGHT

  16 JANUARY 2096: REGISTRATION DAY

  31 JANUARY 2096: MORNING

  16 FEBRUARY 2096: THE SOLAR MIRRORS

  TITAN ALPHA

  16 FEBRUARY 2096: EVENING

  17 FEBRUARY 2096: FITNESS CENTER

  17 FEBRUARY 2096: CAMPAIGN SPEECH

  18 FEBRUARY 2096: MORNING

  18 FEBRUARY 2096: AFTERNOON

  18 FEBRUARY 2096: EVENING

  19 FEBRUARY 2096: MIDNIGHT

  TITAN ALPHA

  20 MARCH 2096: SIMULATIONS LABORATORY

  20 MARCH 2096: EVENING

  21 MARCH 2096: MIDNIGHT

  21 MARCH 2096: EARLY MORNING

  21 MARCH 2096: MIDMORNING

  21 MARCH 2096: EVENING

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  29 MARCH 2096: EBERLY’S OFFICE

  12 APRIL 2096: MORNING

  12 APRIL 2096: LAUNCH

  12 APRIL 2096: THE FIRST DEBATE

  12 APRIL 2096: INTO THE RING

  12 APRIL 2096: ENCOUNTER

  12 APRIL 2096: RINGSIDE PICKUP

  12 APRIL 2096: PANCHO’S RIDE

  12 APRIL 2096: RETURN

  13 APRIL 2096: THE MORNING AFTER

  13 APRIL 2096: URBAIN’S OFFICE

  14 APRIL 2096: MORNING

  16 APRIL 2096: LATE AFTERNOON

  16 APRIL 2096: EVENING

  17 APRIL 2096: MORNING

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  1 MAY 2096: THE SECOND DEBATE

  2 MAY 2096: NANOLAB

  4 MAY 2096: MIDMORNING

  4 MAY 2096: EVENING

  4 MAY 2096: NIGHT

  20 MAY 2096: SIMULATIONS LABORATORY

  27 MAY 2096: MISSION PLANNING SESSION

  28 MAY 2096: DEPARTURE

  28 MAY 2096: TITAN ORBIT

  28 MAY 2096: TITAN ENTRY

  28 MAY 2096: FREE FALL

  28 MAY 2096: TITAN LANDING

  28 MAY 2096: INTERFACE

  28 MAY 2096: CONTACT

  28 MAY 2096: DIALOGUE

  28 MAY 2096: MISSION CONTROL CENTER

  28 MAY 2096: TURMOIL

  28 MAY 2096: ACTIONS

  28 MAY 2096: DEATH

  28 MAY 2096: REBIRTH

  30 MAY 2096: INFIRMARY

  30 MAY 2096: THE THIRD DEBATE

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  20 JUNE 2096: MORNING

  TOR BOOKS BY BEN BOVA

  SYSTEM FAULT

  Copyright Page

  To the memory of my friend, the truth-seeking David Brudnoy.

  And with special thanks to Dwight Babcock,

  who coined the “Lazy H” name for one of Titan’s seas.

  It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

  —William James

  24 DECEMBER 2095: ON THE SHORE OF THE METHANE SEA

  It was nearly dawn on Titan. The thick listless wind slithered like an oily beast slowly awakening from a troubled sleep, moaning, lumbering across the frozen land. The sky was a grayish orange, heavy with sluggish clouds; the distant Sun was nothing more than a feeble ember of dull red light smoldering faintly along the horizon. No stars in that smog-laden sky, no lightning to break the darkness; only the slightest hint of a faint glow betrayed where the giant planet Saturn rode high above.

  The ice-covered sea was dark, too, with a brittle, cracked coating of black hydrocarbon slush that surged fitfully against the low bluffs that hemmed it in. At their bases the bluffs were ridged, showing where the feeble tides had risen and then fallen back: risen and ebbed, in the inexorable cadence that had persisted for eons. In the distance a methane storm slowly marched across the sea, scattering crystals of black hydrocarbon tholins like a blanket of inkdrops swirling closer, closer.

  A promontory of ice suddenly crumbled under the relentless etching of the sea, sliding into the black waves with a roar that no ear heard, no eye saw. Slabs of frozen water slid into the sea, smashing the thin sheet of blackened ice atop it, frothing and bobbing in the water for a few moments before the open water began to freeze over once again. All became still and quiet once again, except for the low moan of the unhurried wind and the ceaseless surging of the waves. It was as if the promontory had never existed.

  Titan rolled slowly in its stately orbit around the ringed planet Saturn just as it had for billions of years, as dark and benighted beneath its shroud of ruddy auburn clouds as a blind beggar groping his unlit circuit through a cold, pitiless universe.

  But this slow dawn was different. A new kind of day was beginning.

  A sudden thunderclap boomed across the ice-topped sea, so sharp and powerful that shards of ice snapped off the frozen bluffs and tumbled splashing into the dark crust below. A flash of light lit the clouds, casting an eerie orange glimmer over the shore of the sea.

  Through the clouds descended a thing utterly alien, a massive oblong object that swayed gently beneath a billowing canopy. It descended slowly toward the rounded hillocks that edged the dark, turbid sea. As it neared the icy surface another flash of brilliant, searing light burst from beneath it with a roar that echoed off the ice mounds and across the wavelets of the murky sea. Then it settled slowly onto the uneven surface of one of the knolls, squatting heavily on four thick caterpillar treads as its parachute canopy sagged down to droop over its edge and halfway to the black encrusted sea.

  The creatures living in the ice burrowed deeper to escape the alien monster. They had neither eyes nor ears but th
ey were delicately sensitive to changes in pressure and temperature. The alien was hot, lethally hot, and so heavy that it sank through the soft surface mud and even cracked and powdered the underlying ice beneath its bulk. The ice creatures moved pitifully slow; those directly beneath the massive alien were not fast enough to avoid being crushed and roasted by its residual heat. The others nearby wormed deeper into the ice as quickly as they could, blindly seeking to escape, to survive, to live.

  Then the black tholin storm reached the cliffs and swirled over the alien monster. Silence returned to the shore of Titan’s frigid sea.

  PROFESSOR WILMOT’S ORAL DIARY

  Today Urbain and his science chaps land their probe on Titan. The real work of this habitat will begin.

  Ten thousand men and woman locked inside this orbiting cylinder. In the two years it has taken to arrive in orbit around Saturn we’ve survived one murder, one execution, and an ugly spot of police brutality. We’ve had an election, of sorts, and established a government—of sorts.

  The scientists are happy. They’ve been studying Saturn’s rings and even made some startling discoveries. Now they’re sending that ponderous landing vehicle of theirs down to the surface of Titan. Bloody monster’s going to trundle around the place under control from up here in the habitat.

  I’ve been moved out of power, of course. It’s better that way. If Eberly hadn’t pushed me I would have removed myself. Nasty bit of blackmail, though; not pleasant at all. Nevertheless, my task here is to observe these people and see what kind of a society they ultimately produce for themselves. An anthropologist’s dream: watching a new society being created.

  Ten thousand men and women. No children, of course. Not allowed. Not yet. Exiles, most of our population. Political dissidents and disbelievers who ran afoul of their faith-based governments back on Earth. Locked into this artificial world, this man-made habitat. It’s pleasant enough, physically. Better environment than most of them had on Earth, actually. But I wonder. Many of these people will live here permanently; they won’t be allowed back to Earth.

  Ten thousand hotheads and nonconformists. Physically they are adults, but they behave much like teenagers. Few of them accept responsibilities; they live to play, not work. Except for the scientists, of course. And the engineers, I suppose. Actually, one shouldn’t be surprised by their adolescent attitudes. What with their long life expectancies and the rejuvenation therapies that can stretch their life spans into centuries, why shouldn’t their adolescent years extend into their forties and fifties?

  But it troubles me. It would only take a few of these aged adolescents to cause enormous troubles. They could spread dissatisfaction and rebellion through the whole population, like a viral infection. A few malcontents could wreck this habitat. A handful. Perhaps only one. How can they protect themselves against the outbreak of that kind of disease?

  It’s going to be interesting to observe what happens.

  24 DECEMBER 2095: HABITAT GODDARD

  Titan Alpha has landed!” the mission controller sang out. “She’s down safely.”

  With a loud howl of triumph he yanked the communications plug out of his ear and tossed it to the steel-beamed ceiling of the crowded control center. For the past six days the teleoperated Titan Alpha had spiraled through the radiation-drenched vacuum between the massive habitat Goddard and Saturn’s giant moon, cautiously orbiting Titan a dozen times before attempting to enter its thick, smoggy atmosphere. Now it had landed safely, and it was time for celebrating.

  Eduoard Urbain felt an urgent need to urinate. He realized that he had been standing in front of the mission control center’s main console for more than six hours, and now that the controllers were whooping and pounding each other on the back, he felt he could breathe again. And pee.

  But it was not to be. Not yet. Standing beside him was Jacqueline Wexler, president of the International Consortium of Universities, from whom funding and promotion and prestige either flowed or was withheld.

  At this moment of triumph, Dr. Wexler was all smiles and accolades.

  “You’ve done it, Eduoard!” she enthused over the bubbling chatter of the elated scientists and engineers. “A successful landing. It’s going to be a happy Christmas for us all.”

  Urbain heard champagne corks popping, the laughter and the raucous horseplay that comes when nerve-twisting tension is suddenly released. Although he felt the same joy and satisfaction, he had no desire to celebrate, no urge to behave foolishly. All he really wanted at this particular moment was to get to the urinal.

  Wexler was not about to release him, though. She grasped his forearm with fleshless talonlike fingers, hard enough to make Urbain wince, and began to introduce him to the other Important Persons who had flown all the way out to Saturn for this momentous occasion.

  She was hardly an imposing figure. Dr. Wexler looked hard, brittle, Urbain thought: a short, bony woman with an intense birdlike face and plain brown hair cut short, wearing a tailored tunic and deep blue slacks designed more to disguise her skeletal figure than to make a fashion statement. Yet she had power and the ruthlessness to wield it. Back on Earth she was often called “Attila the Honey.” Not to her face, of course.

  Urbain himself was quite elegant. He had given a lot of thought to his wardrobe for this morning’s event, and—with his wife’s help and eventual approval—had selected a trim gray business suit with a soft Persian blue silk cravat.

  Jeanmarie was in the crowd of onlookers, he knew. Searching for her, he finally saw her watching him, her eyes glowing with his success. She is beautiful, Urbain thought. Beautiful and happy, at last.

  Thirty-seven university and news media VIPs had flown on a high-velocity fusion torch ship to this habitat in orbit around Saturn, courtesy of Pancho Lane and Astro Corporation. Normally, the men and women who directed the International Consortium of Universities preferred to remain on Earth and spend their money on research or teaching. Normally, news network executives sent their reporters afield while they remained in their opulent offices. But Pancho Lane was heading for habitat Goddard and had invited the ICU and the news media to send a contingent along with her, so here they were.

  Urbain suffered through what seemed like an endless round of introductions. Wexler even introduced him to Professor Wilmot, who had been aboard Goddard from the outset as its chief administrator—living and working with Urbain for nearly three years now.

  “Good show today, Eduoard,” said Wilmot jovially, as they clasped hands while Wexler beamed approvingly. “Hope everything goes this well tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow, Urbain thought. Christmas day. When they begin to turn on Titan Alpha’s sensors and start the exploration of Titan’s surface.

  “Have some champagne, Eduoard.” Wilmot proffered his own untouched plastic cup. “You’ve earned it.”

  “Er, not just yet, thank you,” Urbain replied. “There is something I must do first.”

  23 DECEMBER 2095: THE DAY BEFORE

  The successful landing of Titan Alpha on the cloud-shrouded surface of Saturn’s largest moon was not the only startling event aboard habitat Goddard. A day earlier, Pancho Lane had provided fireworks of a different sort.

  Although she had officially retired as CEO of Astro Corporation, Pancho still had enough clout to commandeer the fusion torch ship Starpower III for a six-week flight to distant Saturn. And to bring a gaggle of ICU bigwigs and news executives with her, as well as her personal bodyguard and lover.

  Pancho made her way up Starpower III’s paneled central passageway toward the bridge to watch the torch ship’s approach to Goddard through the bridge’s glassteel ports. Once an astronaut herself, she had no patience with sitting in her compartment and staring at a video display of the approach and docking. Nor was she in a mood to mingle with the passengers in the central lounge: flatlanders, most of them. Earthworms who had never been farther than the comfortable cities on the Moon and only traveled deeper into space in the luxury and safety of this commodious torch s
hip.

  If the ship’s captain or crew members felt uncomfortable with the retired head of the corporation poking around their bridge, they did their best to hide it. Pancho sat at the vacated life support console, where she could gaze through the bridge’s sweeping windows of heavily tinted glassteel as Starpower III neared Goddard’s main docking port.

  It took an effort to keep her eyes off Saturn. The planet bulked huge and looming, nearly ten times bigger than Earth, striped with soft tan and muted yellow clouds whipping along at hyperhurricane velocities. White clouds circled the pole. Or was that an aurora? Pancho wondered. It’s summertime down there in the southern hemisphere, she thought. Temperature’s prob’ly gettin’ close to a hundred and fifty below zero. They must be clouds, ice formations.

  The rings were tipped so that Pancho could see them in all their dazzling complexity, glittering, glistening broad bands of gleaming ice chunks hanging in emptiness, stupendous rings many thousands of kilometers across, yet so thin that the stars shone through them. This close, Pancho could see that the rings were braided, countless individual rings woven together like a rich circular tapestry made of brilliant diamonds. Some of the scientists claimed that there were living creatures in those ice particles, extremophiles that thrived at temperatures near absolute zero.

  Compared to gaudy Saturn and those radiant rings, the man-made Goddard was not much to look at, Pancho thought, as she watched the massive habitat growing larger. It was a thick, ungainly cylinder, twenty kilometers long and four across, rotating slowly to produce an artificial gravity for the ten thousand men and women living inside it. It reminded Pancho of a stubby length of storm drainpipe hanging in the emptiness, although as they neared it she could see that its surface was pebbled with observation bubbles, docking ports, antennas and other projections studding the cylinder’s curving flank. And at about two-thirds of the way along the cylinder stood the ring of solar mirrors standing like a collar of flower petals, drinking in sunlight for the habitat’s farms and electrical power and life support.