Текст книги "Orbit"

Автор книги: John Nance

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Chapter 14

HEADQUARTERS, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, MAY 17, 2:35 P.M. PACIFIC/3:35 P.M. MOUNTAIN

Christopher Risen looks at himself in the mirror of his private bathroom, wondering why his father is staring back. He doesn’t feel more than two thirds of his fifty-two years, but the perfectly shined four stars on his Air Force uniform would never adorn the shoulders of someone in his thirties.

He sighs as he buttons the coat, wondering for the millionth time if he should have tried to get into test pilot school right out of F-15s instead of taking the fast-burner track to the Pentagon, and now CINCNORAD, his official title, Commander in Chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Back then the path to being an astronaut seemed to wind through Houston. Lately, the dawn of private spaceflight had shifted the possibilities, and now this.

The small team of senior officers and one very nerdy captain are waiting with the patience and respect appropriate to being in the presence of four stars, and Risen retakes his seat at the end of the coffee table, mindful that once again his first challenge is to get them sufficiently at ease to talk openly.

He fixes the young captain with a smile and gestures to the papers he’s clutching.

“Sammy, go ahead and tell me what you found.”

“Yes, sir. As you know, we reran the tapes of everything and downloaded NASA’s images to take a close look at the gyrations around the end of Orbit Two. We assumed he had a control problem, but what we’re seeing is all the reaction jets firing in staccato sequence. As the sequence continues and the craft stabilizes, the patterns calm down, as if the pilot is learning.”

“She’s not on automatic, in other words? The astronaut is on the controls manually?”

“Someone is. I mean, we’re not trying to be NRO analysts or anything, sir, but if you want a guess, mine would be that those reaction controls were being manually fired by a person who did not have the training of an astronaut.”

There is silence as Chris Risen glances at the two other officers present, a colonel and a brigadier.

“Bill Campbell is the pilot up there, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the one-star answers.

“And you’re saying that… like listening to a telegraph operator’s patterns in the old days, you can tell that isn’t Bill?”

“Not quite, sir. More like just saying that whoever’s on the controls is an amateur with a very steep learning curve.”

“And… that would be the passenger?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, shit. Which means that Campbell is hurt or worse.”

“You know him, sir?” the colonel asks.

“It’s a small fraternity, our service. Yeah, I know Bill. But what’s important here is not who’s alive up there but that someone is. And here’s our challenge. There’s a renegade rescue going on at NASA now that’s already gotten the chief astronaut fired, but one of the other space programs will probably try to launch and save whoever remains. We’re going to provide full support up to and just short of revealing any classified capabilities. I don’t care whether it’s the Russians, NASA, ASA’s other little ship, or even the Chinese, whoever wants our help in this gets it full bore.”

The chorus of “Yes, sirs” fills the room as they get up to disperse. When the office is empty, Risen pulls out his own cell phone and dials a number in Houston, dispensing with the formalities as the circuit is completed.

“John, I’ve got some bad news about Bill Campbell’s situation.”

THE WHITE HOUSE, 2:45 P.M. PACIFIC/5:45 P.M. EASTERN

Even after three terms in the U.S. Senate and countless visits to the White House, Mitch Lipensky still feels the rush of history and power when he walks into the Oval Office. He supposes it should always be so—never should he become complacent about the responsibility bearing down on anyone in this place.

The greetings and smiles befitting a white-haired committee chairman and member of the President’s own party lubricate his passage through the hallways to the east entrance and the waiting President.

He’s had thoughts of running for this office, dreams of being the leader of the free world and making the tough decisions. But in truth, the fire has never been hot enough in his belly, and the brutality of the campaign and the compromises which stand like huge peaks before any contender are simply beyond him.

He greets the President like the old friend that he is, refusing to call him anything but Mr. President, and they settle onto opposite sides of the coffee table before the fireplace, the Chief of Staff taking a side chair. There are only so many chits even a senior senator can call on for an immediate audience, and this one has been costly but necessary. NASA is his committee’s responsibility, and the disturbing call from a man in Houston he considers an American hero has triggered a telephoned explanation and now this.

He knows Geoff Shear all too well, and sometimes even respects Shear’s iconoclastic invulnerability to even the strongest congressional pressure.

But an order from the President would be a different matter.

“NORAD is telling me the pilot may be hurt or dead, Mitch. Is that what you have?” The voice is distinctive, tinged with the Virginia accent of his youth, and it’s met by the equally familiar warm growl of the senior senator from Texas.

“Yes, sir. I have the same report. But the important thing, to my mind, is that someone is alive up there with a few days of air left, and he apparently can’t fire his engine and get out of orbit.”

“Understood. So no self-rescue. But is this something we have the ability to do?”

“We don’t know, Mr. President, because our esteemed NASA administrator has rejected even the most rudimentary attempt to find out.”

“You made it clear you want me to order John Kent reinstated.”

“Yes, sir, I do. He’s the best man to spearhead any attempt we might make. But there’s a good reason beyond that. Way beyond that. All through the cold war, all through the space race, all through our history of manned—sorry, I mean human—spaceflight, our nation has maintained a steadfast consistency on the value of even one human life. For God’s sake, even Stalin said the loss of one life is a tragedy.”

“Yes, and the rest of that quote is that a million deaths is a statistic. Terrible thing to quote in part.”

“I’m a doddering old senator with a selective memory. Sue me.”

“Go on. I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“Mr. President, we’re the nation that refused to let the Apollo Thirteencrew die. The Russians killed dozens in their space program and refused to be moved. I submit we not change that now just because the stranded human is in a private spacecraft and is not a certified NASA astronaut. He’s an American, and…”

“I get it, Mitch. That’s an eloquent speech, but you can stop now. I get it.”

Mitch’s hand is out. “Let me finish. We need to have these words ringing in our minds. The business of America is business. Calvin Coolidge said that and we should be teaching it in every elementary school. Are we going to let a bureaucratic bureaucrat like Geoff Shear reject a rescue only because it involves someone shot into space by a mere American corporation and not our mighty government? Not to mention his personal animus against Richard DiFazio. If this was a current NASA astronaut up there, would there be any question? Aren’t we dedicated to encouraging our companies, including private spaceflight ventures?”

“You know my stance on that.”

“Then, dammit, Mr. President, you have to rein in Shear. He’s out of control.”

“Mitch, he’s defending our ability to carry anyone into space. How long have we been operating with only two shuttles? Six years?”

The senator chuckles with a knowing smile. “He’s already called you, hasn’t he?”

The President is smiling back, almost embarrassed. “Well… you know Geoff. He’s a Beltway pro. He got to me before Kent got to you.”

“That’s unimportant. The order of contact, I mean.”

“He’s not an evil force, Mitch. He’s got a point.”

“He’s on a personal vendetta, sir. You remember the fallout from that rather infamous hearing.”

“Yes, but he still has a point.”

“You going to let him cloud the bigger picture?”

The President laughs. It’s more of a snort than a laugh, but he ends it by looking at his shoes before shaking his head. “Of course not.”

“You still hate bureaucrats?”

“With a passion. But they have their uses.”

“True. Landfill, for one.”

There’s a resigned sigh. “Mitch, if we lose a shuttle in this, can you steer the Senate to adopt the replacement bill at long last?”

“No guarantees, but we can probably do it. And you know we’ve got more than enough satellite lift capability without ever flying another shuttle.”

“Sad, but true.” The President slaps his thigh and stands, holding his hand out for Mitch to shake. “I’ll issue the order.”

“Rehire Kent and get a rescue mission ready if possible?”

“Yes. Shear may resign, Mitch.”

“And, Mr. President, your point would be what?”

They both laugh as the senator takes his leave.

The President picks up the phone. Within a minute the requested voice comes on the line.

“Geoff? This is your leader. What the hell are you doing upsetting senior citizens like Mitch Lipensky?”

ASA MISSION CONTROL, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, 3:05 P.M. PACIFIC

The very sound of Vasily’s voice on the other end of the surprise phone call is comforting, buoying Richard DiFazio’s spirits.

“There is a chance, Richard. I did not realize we were as far along in our preparations as we are.”

“How soon could you launch?”

“This is the space station resupply mission, you understand. We would have room for two, and only to transport them to the station. From there, one of the escape capsules would have to be used to return.”

“For one?”

“Or both. We don’t have enough seats to do our mission and return two of your people.”

“One may be badly hurt, or worse. We may have only one alive.”

“If only one, we can bring him back after the resupply rendezvous.”

“How soon?”

“Five days.”

“Oh jeez, Vasily, they’ll be dead by then.”

“Not if they’re careful. There are conservation steps, even with CO ₂scrubbers.”

“Yes, but we can’t tell them. We can’t talk to them.”

“And we cannot move any faster. But if there’s only one alive, you have twice the time, no?”

Silence while Richard grapples with that possibility.

“And… there is one thing, Richard. I’m sorry, but in the new Russia we still count every ruble, and this is a substantial change.”

“How much, Vasily?”

“Twenty-five million.”

Richard feels his blood pressure rising, simply out of the question. Unless…

“Can’t we get that lower? This is a humanitarian rescue, an emergency. Suppose you need us someday?”

“Then you will name your price, too.”

“Vasily, we don’t have that kind of money.”

“One of your backers, Butch Davidson, certainly does. He makes more than that every week in interest, I think. Is good idea, true?”

Why he’s hearing the word “okay” coming from his mouth is a mystery. He knows Davidson’s true penny-pinching nature that contrasts so gratingly with his publicly magnanimous reputation. The thought of approaching him for such a sum scares him.

“I have two million I can wire you as a down payment,” Richard tells him.

“Okay. The rest you can get from Davidson.”

“Please tell me you won’t demand payment in full before launch.”

The pause scares him again, but the chuckle from Baikonaur Cosmodrome is reassuring. “No, we will extend you credit, my friend. But the money comes due whatever happens up there. Success or failure, you agree?”

“Yes. Five days, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll need coordinates and everything from us then?”

“No, we already know precisely, Richard. I shall e-mail you the bank account information within the hour. And then we begin.”

Richard replaces the receiver in shock. Two million dollars without so much as one line on paper. Not to mention the remaining twenty-three million.

He shudders thinking of the reaction when he tells his board, which includes Davidson.

He stands suddenly, as if considering bolting. The deal he just verbally inked is based on a colossal set of assumptions, chief among them that NASA’s chief is as good as his word and there will be no American rescue attempt.

What if NASA decides to do the rescue? How much do I owe the Russians then?

Clearly, the two million will be lost the moment it’s wired, but it’s a risk he has to take. He reaches for the nearest computer keyboard and punches up his e-mail. The bank information message from Vasily is already in place.

Chapter 15

ASA OFFICES, MOJAVE, CALIFORNIA, MAY 17, 5:03 P.M. PACIFIC

It was inevitable, Diana thinks, and in some ways she’s surprised it took this long. It’s minutes past five P.M. western time and the sun is hanging low, Intrepidhas been gone for almost ten hours.

The six flat-panel TV screens arrayed along the wall at the end of her desk are one-by-one posting their versions of a breaking news alert, adding file photos of ASA’s spacecraft, first on Fox News and now on MSNBC. She’s trying to keep up, toggling on the sound one by one to hear the same basic message: “A private spacecraft launched this morning has lost communication and may be in trouble.”

Two secretaries are handling the rising tide of media inquiries, and she’s staying out of contact to think and write a statement for Richard. She sees no easy or quick solution to this nightmare, and despite her concern for both Bill Campbell and Kip Dawson, her job is to play this situation with infinite grace.

The tie-line from Mission Control rings.

“Diana? Richard. You called?”

She briefs him on the approaching media storm, before adding the essence of the storm warning, “There are satellite trucks being scrambled right now in L.A., and I’m working on a statement, but I need about fifteen minutes. You aregoing to be our face, right?”

“No. I want you to be the face.”

“Not a good idea, Richard. You have the major skin in this game. They look at me as a flack.”

The sigh she hears from the other end worries her. He’s a good man and a good leader, but in the last six hours he’s been all but falling apart. This may be a major mistake.

“Whatever you think, Diana,” he says. “When do you want me over there?”

“Within the hour, if you can. Any changes?”

“No.” His reply is a bit too curt. She knows something new has happened. “Who got it first?” he adds.

“The story?”

“Yes. Who broke it?”

Strange he’d ask that.

“The Washington Post. They slammed it on their Web site twenty minutes ago and gave it to their partners, MSNBC and NBC, and it’s been mushrooming since then.”

“ABC and CBS?”

“They’ve called, too. I’m not returning calls for another hour, but the girls are handling it. Oh, Richard… someone did talk to Kip Dawson’s wife, right?”

“Arleigh was going to.”

“If he didn’t, she’ll find out the wrong way within minutes.”

“Hold on.” Within half a minute he’s back. “Yes, thank God, he did it.”

“Anything else I… need to know?”

More silence. Telling, pregnant silence, unbroken by an offered explanation, and she elects to sidestep it.

“Okay, you tell me whatever you think I need to know when I need to know it. Just don’t let me twist in the wind.”

“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Are we going to get them back, Richard?”

She fears the answer to the question she’s blurted, but beneath the facade she’s struggling to maintain, she feels like a frightened little girl watching the twisting trails of a shattered Challengeragainst the blue of her mind’s eye.

“I don’t know, Diana. I do know we’re going to try everything.”

JOHNSON SPACEFLIGHT CENTER, HOUSTON, TEXAS, 5:12 P.M. PACIFIC/7:12 P.M. CENTRAL

The chief of security leans into John Kent’s newly reoccupied office with a grin on his face and something in his hand, aware the chief astronaut is concentrating totally on the deluge of papers before him.

“Hey, John?”

Kent looks up, more curious than startled, and smiles. “Daniel. Missed the fireworks, did you?”

Daniel walks in, fanning the air with a small plastic security badge. “I was crushed I didn’t get to escort you out at gunpoint myself.”

“Yeah, right,” Kent laughs, recalling the hours the two of them have spent talking about security matters on one of the post-9/11 committees.

“But I’m happy to bring you back a new badge, freshly minted with zero limitations and even a nice, fresh clip.”

“Didn’t know you made house calls.”

“Oh, indeed. When one gets a call from the office of the President directing immediate reinstatement of even an Air Force guy, I hop to.” He lays the badge on the overburdened desk, his expression turning serious. “I heard what you’re working on. Can we do it? Launch that fast, I mean?”

Kent meets his eyes. “I don’t know, but the President says it’s a national priority to try, so… I’m working on it.”

“I’ll leave you alone, then.” He hesitates halfway to the door. “I knew Bill Campbell, too, you know.”

John is nodding, aware of the past tense. “Could be he’s still with us, Dan, and just hurt.”

“Could be.”

“But we’re going up regardless.”

“Yeah. You might call the alternative Shear madness.”

John shakes his head, a sworn enemy of puns. “Get out of here.”

“Yes, sir.”

The door closes and John works back through a list just e-mailed in from the Cape. His clandestine effort has now become the twenty-four/seven focus of the entire Kennedy Space Center, and the orbiter is already on its way aboard the crawler-transporter from the vehicle assembly building to Pad 39B, the nearly fourteen million pounds of launcher and spacecraft moving at less than a mile per hour.

John stops for a second, placing the pencil he’s been using on the desk and sitting back to clear his head.

He doesn’t envy Bill Campbell’s current dilemma, whatever it is, but he’s watched the project in the Mojave with a certain longing for the last five years, knowing he’s in Houston nursing a dinosaur that doesn’t see the asteroid-sized meteor coming. To be able to just flyinto space rather than blast and claw a sixteen-story building into orbit each time should have been the national focus for years. But here they are with only two ships left, both of them essentially flying museum pieces. It’s no wonder, he thinks, that all versions of Star Trekwere so popular in the space community. For NASA, watching the possibilities of twenty-third century technology each week was the equivalent of a centurion of ancient Rome getting a look at M-16 rifles, F-15 fighters, and cruise missiles.

John leans back into the calculations. It will be mid-morning before the final assessment can be made on whether an early rescue launch is possible, and the decision will not be his.

And despite his hostility to Geoff Shear and his megalomaniacal tendencies, he shares the same nightmarish worry: Another shuttle loss from pressing safety limits is unthinkable.

Chapter 16

ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 17, 5:44 P.M. PACIFIC

It’s sunset when Kip awakens.

There are sixteen sunsets per day in low Earth orbit, and at first he has no idea which one he’s looking at as Intrepidflies backward, eastbound around the planet.

He glances at his watch, startled at how late it is back in California. He’s been asleep for hours, and it’s dark in Mojave, where he and the spacecraft should now be parked. He was supposed to be drinking champagne right now at a postflight party.

In sleep there were dreams he almost recalls, confused, kaleidoscopic, but dreams of his kids and meadows and for some reason a fast convertible that kept trying to get through a snow-covered pass in the Rockies with his father aboard.

But he’s pretty sure what he’s perceiving now is reality, and it sucks. All the excitement of being where he is, seeing what he’s seeing, floating in zero gravity, is ruined by the reality that he’s stranded and in grave danger.

He laughs, a short, loud expression of disgust. Danger? Is that what I’m in? Try doomed! Try dead!

Another small wave of buzzing dizziness passes over him and he realizes it has nothing to do with the zero gravity and his inner ear and vestibular balance system. It’s his mind working overtime to reject this reality, like a kid with his fingers in his ears mouthing “na-na-na-na-na!” as loud as possible to drown out unwanted information.

So, what, exactly, is going to kill me? Am I going to run out of food, water, oxygen? Maybe die of boredom?

Kip can’t believe he’s chuckling, but the chuckle is building to a laugh, and he’s laughing hard enough to draw tears.

That’s it. I’m going to die of boredom long before running out of air!

Ground school details are coming back, and he remembers the discussion about the air cycle machines and the fact that the life limit isn’t oxygen. It’s getting rid of carbon dioxide—the same problem that threatened the Apollo 13crew.

So how long do I have?he wonders, attempting to keep the question clinical, ignoring his shaking hands.

It has to be written down somewhere, he thinks. Maybe in one of the checklists. He starts pawing through the nearest one, locating a table in the back in small print, a grid with the number of people aboard plotted against the capability of the CO ₂scrubbers.

Five days. One person, five days. So that’s it. In five days I’ll sit here and keel over from CO ₂ poisoning. Probably not an unpleasant death.

At least, he figures, without communication he won’t have to listen to Sharon say, “I told you so.” That in itself is a blessing, but the forced joke falls flat and he finds himself reviewing the arrangements he’s made.

The life insurance will pay, and they’ll all be financially okay without him. Besides, even if there was no insurance, her well-heeled father wouldn’t let her go wanting. The house in Tucson will be paid off and there will be a million left to put into investments, so they can live off the interest. He’s left careful instructions.

The pragmatism evaporates, leaving his heart exposed, and he thinks about how eager he was to take this flight, and how right Sharon was to worry, and how much he misses his kids. The twins, Carly and Carrie, are barely five. Kip knows they’ll remember their father mostly from family videos and snapshots. He will easily be replaced, as long as Sharon can find an appropriately obedient male to dominate, someone who by definition will be good to the girls.

Julie, however, is thirteen, and losing her dad will be devastating. She’s bonded with Sharon, but never lost the effects of the trauma of her mother’s sudden death.

Thank God, Jerrod is on his own now. He’ll miss him the most, mainly because of the unfinished business between them, and the anger he’s never been able to defuse.

Some of Bill Campbell’s words return, something he said just before dying about their being in an orbit so stable they could stay up here for fifty or sixty years.

My God,Kip thinks, Jerrod will be almost eighty before this spacecraft falls into the atmosphere and my long-dead body burns up on reentry. How awful for Jerrod and the girls to know their dead father is flying by overhead every ninety minutes your entire life.

Or maybe it won’t happen that way. Surely some spacecraft will eventually be assigned to come open the hatch and see what happened, retrieve any data files from the computers and deal with the dead. Maybe then all they’ll do is give it a push toward Earth.

Or maybe he should just save everyone the trouble and when the air is all but unbreathable, just shoot himself out of the airlock with Bill’s body. The two of them would hardly be a flash in the sky on reentry… or would they just be floating alongside Intrepidfor decades?

Strange,he thinks, that even death should be so meticulously planned.

Every couple of minutes he looks around as if rediscovering where he really is, and with each such moment the wave of depression breaks over him again, a rising tide drowning all hopes. He pushes the images of Sharon and his children out of his mind for now. The need to decide his own fate is far too strong, and he finds himself facing it with an unexpected equanimity.

Do I have any chance at all?

No rescue flight. They made that clear, but doesn’t ASA have another spacecraft? He remembers their talking about it—and the fact that it was damaged. Which is probably why the last-minute warning that there was no rescue potential if anything went wrong.

So the cavalry won’t be on the way.

Is there anything I can do?

He already knows the answer. He’s punched every button, read and reread the checklists ad nauseam, and it’s inescapable that the meteorite that killed Bill also took out the engine, or at least the ability to fire it.

No, face it, kiddo. We’re dead in five days. Period.

So, he wonders, how does one spend five remaining days on—or in his case, high above—the Earth? Not that the choices aren’t severely limited, but his mind is sharp, even if saddened and stressed and panicked.

He remembers the notes he was starting to write in the laptop. But no one’s going to read it… for at least a bunch of years. Maybe even sixty.

But surely someone will eventually find and download and study everything he puts on that hard drive. So maybe he should write a narrative and copyright it to his kids and grandkids, just in case the story could bring some money.

Who knows?he thinks . They pay ridiculous sums to read the stories of criminals and the seriously disgraced. Why not a dead dad from half a century before?

He remembers a fantasy he’s nurtured his entire life in which he owns a beautiful wooden-hulled sailing ship at least a hundred feet long with an incredible master cabin, several guest rooms, and a small, ornate, walnut-trimmed captain’s office. He sees himself every evening repairing to his little office to open a big, bound, blank notebook to write in a clear and ornate hand beautifully phrased passages about the day, his feelings, the state of the ship, and his life.

Every night, without fail! How wonderful that would be. Like being his own Greek chorus and his own reflective, calm, and intelligent critic.

But the image is too ludicrous a contrast to the reality of an overscheduled dad who has been known to fall asleep from exhaustion before even having a chance to brush his teeth.

Kip looks around, aware there’s not a scrap of wood aboard Intrepid,but finding sudden similarities between where he is and that mythical ship’s office—and his nightly journal. His imagination could panel the walls, especially now. And maybe he could even imagine the creak of heavy ropes and the slap of waves on the hull.

There’s no bound, blank book, but there isa laptop aboard.

And there will be an audience someday.

And there are five days left, which is a lot more than would be available to some poor soul T-boned to death at an intersection on the planet below.

The word “epitaph” comes to mind.