Dantes' Dungeon 

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Dear Susannah

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The slow atrophy of our muscles and bones is not the most serious threat we face. That comes from radiation. The onboard computers monitor solar activity on an hourly basis. The surface arrays (the instrument panels that cover Galileo’s hull like an infestation) never stop scrutinising the sun, like obsessives watching for a turn in the cosmic weather.

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The ship’s components include a radiation shelter, known as the Dungeon, located immediately adjacent to the engine cluster. We will be forced to retreat there in the event of a major solar flare. And there we will be obliged to stay until radiation levels subside. It’s not a prospect any of us find particularly appealing. Galileo is cramped enough as it is without such forced intimacy. A period of confinement in the Dungeon will be like living in one large room. No one in the crew is getting on my nerves but that could change very quickly if we find ourselves sealed in this small cell with its thick bastion walls. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

 

The radiation shelter makes me think of Edmond Dantes entombed in the Chateau D'If , dreaming of the vengeance he will one day unleash on his enemies as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo. 

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So far I have managed to hold my claustrophobia at bay but it’s always there, following me around the ship like a second shadow, like the ghost of Edmond Dantes, waiting to trigger the latent panic which I’m sure we all carry around inside us. Waiting for the spark of danger that will allow chaos to invade these long, dimly lit corridors.

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This is maiden voyage and test flight combined, a perilous undertaking for any craft, especially so for one designed to operate in interplanetary space. We are on our own Out Here. There are no ports to take refuge in if we have a problem, no rescue services that can come to our aid.

 

It’s do or die.

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