Sunday March 11, 2012
Book 13: Random Access Memorabilia — Part II: Write

Transcript

TAGII: Commander, the falling rock has afforded me an opportunity to take some soundings.

Oisri's lithosphere is ringing like a bell, but everything below about sixty-two hundred meters is a completely reflective, non-propagatory mystery.

KEVYN: Brilliant work.  Now we have data.

TAGII: Also, the most distant nodes of the V.D.A. are reporting odd station-keeping requirements.

KEVYN: Interesting.  You and I can look into that as soon as I field this call.  Tagon looks angry and confused.  Again.

TAGON: Kevyn, there's something wrong with my handbrain.

Gus said Oisri has the mass of one-point-two Earths, but this thing insists that means we'd be pulling around sixteen gees.

TAGON: The suit tells me I'm only pulling about point-nine-three, so I'm pretty sure Gus didn't give me the gravity and call it the mass.

KEVYN: That calculation is correct.  Assuming a mass of Earth times one-point-two inside a radius of only point-two-seven-five Earth's, you should be pulling sixteen gees and change.

TAGON: Double-check my suit's measurements, Kevyn.  This is kind of important.

KEVYN: Sure thing.  Hang on a moment.

TAGII: It is more important than you think, sirs.  On a related note, I solved the mystery of the V.D.A. station-keeping problems.

Osiri's gravitational field appears natural, but only to a distance of three-point-three-one million kilometers.

TAGII: At that distance her mass appears to "jump" from point-oh-seven to one-point-two Earths.

TAGON: Tagii!  Less "math," more "important."

TAGII: You appear to be standing on a gravitational anomaly that is masking most of its mass.

If you find the button that turns it off, do not push that button.