"Frozen Orbit"

Patrick Chiles has been fascinated by airplanes, rockets, and spaceflight ever since he was a little kid growing up in South Carolina. How he ended up as an English major in college is still a mystery, though he managed to overcome this self-inflicted handicap to pursue a career in aviation.

He is a graduate of The Citadel and a Marine Corps veteran, a licensed pilot, and an aviation safety manager. In addition to his novels Farside and Perigee, he has written for magazines such as Smithsonian’s Air & Space. He currently resides in Ohio as an expatriate Southerner with his wife and sons, two lethargic dachshunds, and a bovine cat.

Chiles applied the Page 69 Test to his latest novel, Frozen Orbit, and reported the following:

From page 69:

“It means be quiet. People are sleeping.” Had no one thought to put a simple volume knob on the intercom?

UNDERSTOOD, it said, matching his volume and logging a new subroutine to do the same in the future. DO YOU STILL WISH TO KNOW OUR DISTANCE FROM EARTH?

“Now that’s interesting,” Jack said. “I never answered your first question about frame of reference.”

IT SEEMED LIKE A REASONABLE GUESS, DESPITE OUR ORBIT BEING SUNCENTERED.

“You guessed right. And whole numbers are fine.” He’d have to ponder over what process led it to a “reasonable guess” later. This could be an interesting side project if they ended up going the full distance to Pluto.

AS OF TWELVE HOURS MISSION ELAPSED TIME, MAGELLAN IS EIGHT HUNDRED SIXTY-NINE THOUSAND, FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY-FOUR KILOMETERS FROM EARTH’S BARYCENTER.

“Thanks. Back to sleep now.” A status light by the speaker blinked from green to amber.

Overnight they’d sped out to over three times the distance to the Moon. In just a few weeks they’d cross Mars’ orbit, though the planet itself would be a million kilometers distant during their passage. A few weeks after that, they’d have a first-person look at Jupiter while using its gravity to add more velocity. Even after all that, it would be another six months to Pluto. It had taken New Horizons nine years to make the same journey. Swift as they would be, the distance was still intimidating. Space was just too big.

“Save any for me?”

Traci’s voice startled him. Jack looked up to find her hopping off the ladder and into the galley. “What?”

She laughed. “Coffee. Java. Breakfast of champions.” She pointed to his mug, still sitting in the machine. “Is that for me, or do I hope for too much?”

“It’s mine,” he said, and removed it from the dispenser. “But you’re welcome to it. I haven’t contaminated it with sugar yet.” A quivering glob of black liquid spilled out in the low gravity, which he managed to sweep the cup underneath to catch before it had a chance to splatter in slow motion onto the deck.

It’s an early taste of the character interplay that develops through the rest of the story. Jack Templeton’s life aboard the Magellan is largely going to be defined by his relationships with two crewmates—Traci Keene, his shift partner, and “Daisy,” the artificial intelligence which helps run the ship. When he’s not busy deciphering forty-year-old transcripts from the derelict Russian spacecraft they’re heading out to meet at Pluto, he’s learning how to navigate through his feelings about both his human and digital partners. He’ll be in very close quarters with Traci for at least a year—and is trying to squelch his attraction to her for the sake of the mission—while Daisy appears to be on the brink of achieving sentience. He’s not sure how to handle either one of them.

Visit Patrick Chiles's website.

--Marshal Zeringue