Текст книги "Orbit"

Автор книги: John Nance

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 34

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA, MAY 21, 5:00 A.M. PACIFIC/8:00 A.M. EASTERN

Once the “Enter” key is pressed, she knows there will be no going back.

Dorothy Sheehan thinks over the steps again, restraining herself from sending the benign bit of computer code into the system until she’s as certain as she can be that all bases are covered. The entire assignment has been an exhilarating contest of wills, a shadow fight between Griggs Hopewell and herself, but she’s thinking ahead to the good life to follow in the Beltway, with only an office job and real weekends to herself. Of course maybe she won’t be happy unless she’s walking a tightrope somewhere. Her years with the CIA were terrifying and wonderful at the same time, mainly wonderful because she never ended up caught or compromised.

Okay. Here goes.

Amazing, she thinks, how the tiny click of a key can be the beginning of a causal chain that blocks a billion-dollar launch. She waits for the tiny string of computer code to add itself to the appropriate program and gets the return message before signing off and shutting down. If it works as planned, the minute alteration will disrupt things just long enough to scrub the launch, the code alteration then disappearing.

At least, in theory that’s the way it should go. And if it does, Geoff Shear will have to follow through on his promises.

Dorothy carefully wipes off the keyboard and anything she’s touched before moving back to the door of the empty office, one she selected some days before on learning the normal occupant was out of town.

She thinks back to the close call last night and the wisdom of always figuring out from the outside of a hotel which is her window and checking for lights when she comes back. Otherwise she would have walked right in on whomever Hopewell had sent to search her laptop. There was nothing to find, of course, and she hadn’t planned to use it for a mainframe insertion, anyway. Much too risky, and for the past forty-eight hours she’s hoped that one or more of the legitimate problems she’s found can be accelerated into an aborted launch.

But she’s found that Griggs Hopewell comes by his can-do reputation honestly, and item by item, problem by problem, he’s kept working his magic and driving his team, four hours before liftoff, with everything still a go.

She waits with the office door cracked slightly until she’s sure the hallway is clear, then slips out. Her temporary office in an adjacent building is sufficient for monitoring what’s happening, but its computer terminal absolutely can’t be used outside the boundaries.

Dorothy chuckles at the thought of the people waiting right now to catch her computer’s numeric signature entering the mainframe. They’ll be waiting in vain, of course, but their trap was cleverly laid, and when she got bored enough to go look for it on the mainframe, she almost didn’t find it.

She checks her watch—8:12 A.M. Eastern. The slightly delayed Chinese launch should be happening right now. She knows Shear will be calling the President for permission to scrub the second someone else achieves orbit, and if so, the little adjustment she made may never even make an appearance before it evaporates.

The possibility that Hopewell and company might somehow defeat her, or worse, catch her in the act, is unfortunately part of the game. And she fears that if she gets in trouble, Shear will turn on her completely and play mister innocent while she twists in the wind.

But that’s not going to happen,Dorothy thinks. All my bases are covered. And besides, I’m not forcing anyone to make a no-go launch decision. I’m just helping them with their rationale, and saving the nation one hell of a lot of money in the process.

ABOARD INTREPID, 6:03 A.M. PACIFIC

For perhaps the first time since his voyage began, Kip wakes up without falling.

He isfalling, of course—continuously around the planet—his Newtonian tendency to travel in a straight line continuously warped into an orbital curve by the centripetal force of gravity pulling him down at the same rate inertia tries to take him straight on into space.

Kip rubs his eyes, aware he’s getting comfortable with his weightlessness, this feeling of floating. He lets some of the explanations from high school physics replay until he’s jarred back to reality.

Oh my God, this is day five, isn’t it?

According to the scrubber charts—and he’s checked them dozens of times—there can’t be a day six.

The panic buzzing in his head is almost overwhelming and he closes his eyes, trying to fight back hysteria. The fifth day is no longer an inestimable series of sunrises and sunsets in the future. It’s today. Sometime in the next twenty-four hours it ends.

And so does he.

I’m going to die today,Kip tells himself, but the words in his head aren’t believable enough, so he speaks them out loud, having to clear his throat to finish.

“I’m going to… I’m going to die today. So, what do I think about that?”

Reality sucks, is what I think!But there’s no humor in a line that usually makes him chuckle.

I thought I was resigned to this. I thought I was ready.

But if so, why are his hands shaking? He’s known for four days he wasn’t going to make it, but facing it now overwhelms him.

He forces a deep breath, suddenly remembering he should carefully sample the air first. But either the odor from Bill’s decomposing remains has abated or he’s become used to it. In any event he thinks he can last the day now without a spacewalk. After all, he thinks, a spacewalk would be a very dangerous thing to try.

Wait a minute! Dangerous? Jesus!

He’s actually embarrassed that he’s sitting here with hours left to live and worrying that a spacewalk might be an unsafe thing to do.

So what if it’s dangerous? I could play with matches today, run with scissors, insult a serial killer, or rat on the mafia with complete impunity!

At least he’s coaxed a chuckle out of himself.

He’s read that death row inmates, no matter how brazen and sociopathic, lose their bravado just before execution, and he sees why. It’s not hypothetical anymore. Leaving this life and this body is about to be his new reality. Every human’s fear of what lies on the other side drowns all the neat Biblical assurances in a tsunami of doubt.

Kip works to control his breathing, which has become fast and shallow. He feels his heart rate declining.

This is my last chance to say whatever I want to say,he thinks. He’s typed so much—hundreds of pages if he includes what he erased—he needs to go back and read it. But there’s no time.

What happens, he wonders, when scrubbers saturate? Will he just suddenly feel light-headed? Will he keel over? Or will it be long and agonizing?

He catches sight of the unfolded emergency space suit floating near Bill’s bagged remains and wonders why the idea of putting it on and going outside is tugging at him. Should he do it to die out there? Would it be any easier?

No, something else, some reason that he almost recalls from a dream and can’t put his finger on.

The tool kit, that’s it!

The suit has a small tool kit like nothing he’s seen before. They showed the components in ground school but he barely paid attention. Now he turns and pulls the suit to him, searching for the correct pocket and pulling out the silver-plated kit.

That is what I remember!he thinks, finding a pair of wire clippers and three colors of electrical tape along with several garden-variety wire nuts. The thought about a spacewalk wasn’t for hurrying his demise, it was all about trying to repair whatever had been screwed up by the object that hit them.

He can visualize himself wiggling into the suit, figuring out how to pressurize it, stuffing himself in the tight little airlock, and floating outside. Maybe another meteor will get him, fast and painlessly. Or cosmic rays sterilize him (not that there’s any chance of that being a problem now). And he’d be doing all that struggling to play in-flight mechanic? Get real.

Yet he thinks, it’s like guzzling chicken soup for a cold. It may not help, but it can’t hurt.

Whether the fatigue he feels suddenly is emotional he can’t tell, but the thought of flailing around trying to put on that complicated pressure suit is exhausting, and he decides not to decide for a few hours. After all, there’s another delectable cereal bar and much more to write before he’s ready to think about trying. And maybe it would be a lot more comfortable just to stay inside and slip away slowly.

But there it is again, that misguided feeling of hope, a glimmer that there could be some way out he hadn’t considered as he turns back to the keyboard.

NASA HEADQUARTERS, WASHINGTON, D.C., 6:10 A.M. PACIFIC/9:10 A.M. EASTERN

The fact that it’s ten minutes past nine and his phone hasn’t rung can’t be good.

Geoff Shear opens the tiny instrument and finds the symbol that confirms the ringer is set to on. It is.

The Chinese Long March missile boosting their crew capsule into low Earth orbit should have cycled through first– and second-stage cutout by now and their astronaut—all by himself in a three-person craft—should be approaching orbital velocity.

The cell phone suddenly corks off, startling Geoff who didn’t realize he was that jumpy. The practiced act of sweeping the phone toward his face while flipping it open is completely unconscious.

“Yes?”

“The Chinese scrubbed, Geoff. This is Jake at NRO.”

“Shit! How’re the Russians doing?”

“Still on countdown for a noon-our-time liftoff.”

“I knew the Chinese would fink out.”

“I think they tried hard, but there was a major fuel leak early this morning, and they couldn’t resolve it. One of my people speaks Mandarin and we had him patched into their comm channels.”

“So they’re completely out?”

“Yes. I’ll call you back, as things progress at Baikonaur.”

Chapter 35

CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, MAY 21, 8:41 A.M. PACIFIC/9:41 A.M. MOUNTAIN

“What now?” Chris Risen asks, glancing at the chief master sergeant and noting his sudden shift of attention to the commercial television feed being displayed on his console.

“The Secretary of State, sir. They were just interviewing him coming out of the White House. Kip set off another controversy by recommending a type of death penalty for countries that don’t cooperate with the civilized world.”

“And the Secretary has to respond.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are we on the countdowns, Chief?”

“At the Cape they’re at T minus eighteen minutes. At Baikonaur, T minus nine.”

In the old days of the Soviet Union the idea of a live video feed from the Russian spaceport would have been James Bondish, a fantasy. But now, Chris thinks, we’re sitting here watching that very video feed live and in color, as are the Russian people.

He can see the liquid oxygen venting from the Russian proton booster assembly, the gantry now moved out of the way, the scene looking very similar to the video feed coming in from the Cape.

“Chief, do we have a pool going on whether NASA will cancel if the Russians lift off?”

The chief is grinning. “A pool, sir? You mean, as in gambling? As in a chief master sergeant informing the commander of NORAD that his people are violating regulations?”

“Sorry. Of course I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Put me down for twenty that we scrub.”

“Yes, sir. But for the record, I know nothing.”

LAUNCH CONTROL, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA, 8:44 A.M. PACIFIC/11:44 A.M. EASTERN

“Out of limits means out of limits, Griggs!” The launch director is standing now, hands on hips, one of his people standing beside him, the computer screen showing the excessive temperature readings displayed on his master console.

“Stand by, Cully. Do notdeclare a hold yet.”

“Look at the count, Griggs! How long do you need?”

Griggs has a receiver to his ear and a prepositioned computer team on the other end, physically stationed at a hastily constructed war room one building away.

“Two minutes.”

“You’ve got forty seconds.”

Cully Jones shakes his head and turns back to the screen, rolling his eyes at the engineer waiting for direction on what to do with the temperature indication climbing in a tank that could theoretically explode if it, in fact, was to heat up another twenty-five degrees.

“Watch it like a hawk. If it tops redline plus thirty, we open the vent and hold the countdown.”

“Got it.”

Cully turns back to Griggs, aware of what he’s doing but equally aware that a high reading can’t be easily written off as just another artificial computer-generated anomaly. Like a pilot’s guiding philosophy of instrument flight, safety demands belief in your gauges, until you have solid, almost irrefutable evidence they’re lying.

Cully can feel his blood pressure inching up, something he can usually control, but the series of bad readings and interrupted communications that have marked the last ten minutes are either evidence of a serious, systemic computer glitch—as Griggs insists without much evidence—or a launch sliding toward disaster. This does not feel right.

Griggs turns back to him.

“Okay! Cully, check it now. We’re reading raw pickup data and bypassing the distribution processor that’s been causing so many bad readings.”

The display blinks and the high temperature suddenly drops thirty critical degrees into the green.

“Jesus Christ!” Cully snarls, his eyes on the reading lest it rise again. He turns to Griggs. “That’s real? I can trust it?”

“You bet. This is just more of the nonsense we’ve been fighting all morning. The basic distribution processing program is apparently corrupted and we have no time to reboot the system.”

Another engineer is in his ear on the intercom, and Cully closes his eyes to concentrate on what he’s saying.

“Talk to me.”

“I have a complete data dropout on the SRBs. Total.”

“Stand by!” Once more Cully Jones turns to Hopewell, who is still hanging on to the receiver with his emergency computer team on the other end.

"Griggs?"

“I heard, goddammit! Hang on.”

“I’m declaring a hold.”

The countdown is descending through T minus sixteen minutes, the tension in the control room increasing exponentially.

Chapter 36

ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 21, 8:44 A.M. PACIFIC

Kip leans into the keyboard once more.

Having now solved all of mankind’s problems (the doomed passenger says, facetiously) it’s time to turn my attention to some of my own. The challenge is how and when I should pull the plug, or should I just plan to slip off to “sleep.” That problem has been rattling around my head all morning (as measured by my watch, of course, rather than the continuous ninety-minute cycle of sunrises and sunsets that have me humming the song from Fiddler on the Roof,and shedding tears.)

The other thing that has me fibrillating is an embarrassment: If I had a boat that sprang a leak, wouldn’t I at least tryto plug the leak? Of course. But I’ve sat here for days waiting for Godot, assuming that nothing more can be done, even though deep down I’ve known all along it’s not true. There is one more overt, physical thing I can do, or at least try.

I’m going to wiggle into Bill’s space suit and see if there’s anything I can repair outside. What are the chances? Below absolute zero. Yes, I’m somewhat mechanically inclined and I can wire up a mean set of speaker wires. Actually my BS degree in electrical engineering is really a smoke screen, since I never used it, and especially not with high-tech messes caused by high-speed objects hitting spacecraft.

And what’s the worse case? I die outside instead of inside, but better with my boots on… space boots though they may be.

You know, I’m feeling a little punchy. I wonder if the CO ₂buildup has already begun? I feel more loose. Or maybe just feeling relieved we’re getting close to the end. Relieved and scared out of my mind. That, I think, is the real reason I’m going to go outside and play with the vacuum. I need something to do besides sit here and wait for the inevitable.

I hope you understand—whoever you are and whenever in the distant future you read this—just knowing another human is absorbing all this verbiage has given me a form of companionship. I thank you for that! I thank you for sitting through my grumbling and pontificating and crying and the poor expressions of how I would do things down there if I had the proverbial magic wand.

If any of my kids are still alive when this is found and read, please see that they get the separate letters I’ve written to all four individually. And as for Sharon, in case she is still alive, just this: I’m sorry. I wish things could have been better for us as a couple.

And there is one last overall message I guess I want to leave.

I want for all of you a future in which every human has firmly in his or her mind the scene the three Apollo 8astronauts saw back in 1968 when this tiny, beautiful blue marble we live on rose over the edge of the moon as they raced along the far side—an almost iridescent oasis of beauty in an endless, star-speckled sea of black nothingness—and they realized they were looking at spaceship Earth, their home. Suddenly wars and borders and conflicts based on economics and theories seemed utterly stupid, and while in reality we’re a long way from being a species that universally shares that startling view, we must—you must—keep moving in that direction.

That goal of harmony and love that a man from Galilee tried to teach us in amazing simplicity so long ago is still the goal we should strive for, regardless of what labels we put on the message. “Us” seems a strange concept, since I’m leaving. But I was a part of spaceship Earth and the human family, a pioneering species that is still relatively blind to a very profound truth that’s so hard to see when you’re working hard and paying bills and raising kids: We are all so very connected! Even me, here, waiting to die in space. I’m connected to everyone down there, and… you know, it’s amazing… as soon as I type these words I feel the warmth of uncounted prayers and a sea of good will and good wishes, as if the entire population of the planet was somehow telepathically saying, “Everything’s okay. Regardless of what happens, it’s okay.” I know that virtually no one down there can discern a single thought of mine, and may never read a word of this. But since I’ve been up here I haven’t felt as enfolded as I do at this moment. But now it’s time for some pro forma struggling. Some self-help that I have to try, so that I will know I didn’t just sit here and ignore options, no matter how bizarre and impossible they may be. So, if I don’t get to write another word, thank you. I left this life as calmly as I could. Not bravely, just calmly. And you know, after everything is said and done, I have been very, very fortunate.

Kip sits back and rereads the last few lines, hoping to feel a rush of satisfaction. But the only closure is that now he can’t wait any longer.

The space suit is floating behind the command chair as he unstraps and moves into position to use the breadth of the small cabin for the struggle. Bill was at least ten or fifteen pounds lighter and a little shorter.

He unzips and prepares it as best he can before shucking his flight suit, finding it surprisingly easy in zero gravity to pull the legs and arms in place, hauling a bit to get his head in and up through the metal helmet collar. He can feel the fabric of the shoulders pressing down firmly because of the difference in their height.

Item by item, gloves, boots, zippers, interlocks, and air packs, he assembles the space suit until the only remaining items are the helmet and pressurizing.

He checks the “Emergency Donning” checklist again, puzzling through some of the nomenclature and finally finds the appropriate lock once the helmet is in place, the white inside hood pulled over his head. The small control panel on his left arm is already glowing with a small LED annunciator, and he pushes the button to power it up and pressurize, hearing the tiny fans come alive as the oxygen mix floods the suit and the arms and legs go semirigid.

He checks the clock on the forward panel. Twenty-five minutes have elapsed.

Not bad for a rank amateur,Kip thinks, checking that the small tool kit is secured inside the Velcroed pocket before floating to the airlock.

Even for a small, naked man slicked up with grease, the airlock would be a challenge. For a moderately sized man in a pressurized space suit, it’s like folding himself into a post office box, and at first Kip all but gives up.

This damn thing must be here for show only!Kip thinks after trying first an arm, then a leg, then his head through the inner door, and finding that either the service pack with the air supply and batteries or some other appendage catches on the door sill each time. He feels an urgency propelling his struggle and cautions himself to slow down. A ripped suit or damaged service pack will doom the entire effort.

Okay, then, let’s go back to headfirst.

He rotates himself around until he’s floating on his back and slowly guides his head and shoulders and torso inside, curling forward as he carefully pulls in his legs, folding them just enough to let the boots clear.

Like crawling into a front-loading washing machine,he thinks.

He pulls the inner plug-type door closed and works the locking mechanism until a small green light illuminates on a panel he barely can see.

There are several switches to be thrown before the pressure dump valve will motor open, and he goes through the sequence carefully until he’s down to the last button push.

Kip takes a deep breath, remembering almost too late to unfold the nylon tether strap and hook it into the metal loop within the lock. He assumes the outer door is supposed to remain open while he’s outside. Nothing else would make sense.

The button pushes easily and he takes a deep breath, as if the air in his suit was going to be sucked out as well. The pressure gauge begins dropping in pounds per square inch, moving toward zero, but nothing changes in the suit except the sudden increase in the rigidity of the arms and legs.

An orange zero-pressure light illuminates on the panel, and then a green light on the latch mechanism, and Kip begins rotating the vaultlike wheel to remove the latches, surprised at how easily the door just swings open into the void.