SFWoE is proud to showcase the talents of poet Theodora Goss and artist Peter Taschioglou, as they combine their talents to present "The Great Space Collision."

Pygmalion:  A Trans Scorpio Interstellar Freight Service 550 Meter Armored Freighter

     Above is a pirated image, found in the memory banks of a stolen Interstellar Image Collection Droid, previously owned by the Trans-Jupiter News Service. Pictured is the 550 Meter Armored Freighter Pygmalion, one of 12 such vessels operated by the Trans Scorpio Interstellar Freight Service. It is likely the vessel in this picture is preparing for a time-compression sprint in route to New Cyprus 3 in Earth Year 2245. The Pygmalion cycled the inter-system void along this route as many as six times per Earth Year before her collision off Jupiter in 2251.

     The actual contents of the ship's cargo is the subject of ongoing research, but it is probable that she often carried several thousand metric tons of cryogenically preserved goat's milk along with several room-sized blocks of frozen Chilean herring. She is also rumored to have transported sizeable numbers of precision designed machine tools, which were utilized on New Cyprus 3 to manufacture what was euphemistically called "hill-climbing equipment."
[(TJ News Service Annotation--) "Hill Climbing Equipment" = several different types of well-designed, but very environmentally-invasive, mining vehicles used in the cobalt-rich mountains of Sector 45-48 South on New Cyprus 3; 2245 - 2256.]

     The July, 2251 collision between the Pygmalion and the Asteroid Mining Scout Vessel Tobolsk resulted from a series of events arising from a rare tractor beam error aboard the Tobolsk.

     The Tobolsk onboard tractor beam, for several seconds, had latched the vessel toward an uncharted interstellar cloud of nickel-iron dust. A student navigator noted the error, but evidently failed to notify his superiors, who ought to have been able to correct the situation without altering course. In an ill-fated attempt to skirt the cloud of particles, the young navigator vectored his vessel 205 kilometers outside the assigned routing parameters. Meanwhile, the Pygmalion emerged earlier than usual from trans-warp displacement along the Juliet November Jupiter return sector, due to warnings regarding the same cloud of particles. A subsequent thorough investigation, revealed the particles to be the aggregate of years of illegal dumping upon emergence from trans-warp by Trans-Scorpio freighters, which included the Pygmalion.

     A sizeable portion of the cargo aboard these freighters included components for environmentally-invasive mining equipment, which was utilized illegally on both New Cyprus 3 and New Cyprus 5. In order to minimize the likelihood of questions surrounding this issue, the Trans Scorpio executives accepted kickbacks from the several mining corporations on both worlds to "make disappear" millions of tons of ore filings (heavily-laced with toxic heavy metals), spent drill bits, explosive residues, and discarded equipment.

     Upon realizing their impending collision with the Pygmalion," the crew of the "Tobolsk" immediately "punched out" in their emergency stellar lifeboat. Fourteen seconds later, the Pygmalion evidently plowed into the aft section of the Tobolsk, shearing off her engines. The engines exploded immediately, which annihilated the Pygmalion. The forward sections of the Tobolsk continued for another 2,500 Meters (one second) before also detonating with tremendous force.

     The crew of the Tobolsk seem to have survived and presumably have found refuge among the many outlaw mining outfits vying for control of the mineral-rich Mars - Jupiter Asteroid Belt.

     Remarkably, a passenger on a Mars-Jupiter Shuttle captured this image through quick reaction to the flash she saw outside her viewport.

Collision of the Pygmalion and the Tobolsk near Jupiter in 2251

NINE SECONDS                    by Theodora Goss Nine The hull has opened, like a silver flower. She tries to grab a hatch. The handle breaks, And fragments, spreading like serrated knives Or jagged petals, float against her arm, Then float away. She thinks of the alarm, The red light flashing in the corridors, The impact and the grinding and the rip, Remembers running, being lifted up, Floating above the floors, then floating out In jets of oxygen and nitrogen. She reaches toward the hull, remembering In space you have nine seconds, fails to hold. Eight The motion sends her farther from the ship. She sees the ruined modules with debris Floating around them, and the ruptured shape. She thinks, I should feel something more than this Dispassionate regret, like grief or fear. But fear has drifted off and floats somewhere Among the reinforced aluminum That moves in shards through random fields of glass. She thinks, it is a dream, but knows no dream Has this exquisite clarity. Seven                                                         In space, She thinks, you cannot hear the clashing sound That metal fragments make, like kettledrums. They drift and crash in mute cacophony. She mouths her name, the multisyllables Of her identity, but makes no noise. It has no meaning now, and she discards It like a scarf that drifts and disappears Into the silence. Six                                         When she notices She cannot feel her hands, she turns to look, Sees hands that flicker red, then flicker out, Then flicker red in intervals that match The intermittent flash of the alarm. They are not hers. She wonders who has lost Two hands like hummingbirds. Five                                    She thinks, at last The universe reveals itself. The eye Perceives directly, not through panes of glass But naked and uncertain. Look, the stars Revolve erratically, like fireflies Glinting above the surface of a lake. Four She dives into the water, hears it rush About her ears. The lake is dark and still, And on its bottom blooms a silver flower. Three She reaches for it, but the scattered lights Of phosphorescent fish are winking out. Two She must dive deeper, so she spreads her mouth And drinks the darkness in. One (For Geoffrey Landis, who first told me that a body in a vacuum has about nine seconds of useful consciousness, and whose web site was my primary source of information.)

(Artist Peter Taschioglou on the making of The Great Space Collision:  I actually created the collision illustration using colored pencils, with the intent of scanning them into Photoshop, and making a few adjustments. The scanner did such a poor job of capturing the colors that I ended up with an entirely different illustration by the time I was finished with it. My first intent was to include more debris and little flame. I decided, however, that at a closing speed of 4 kilometers a second, two colliding vessels, totaling over a million tons mass, are going to really explode even where there is no ambient air to support prolonged combustion. To me, the illustration is reminiscent of newsreels of anti-aircraft missiles bashing into jet drones during military exercises.)

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