Authors: Jack McDevitt
Among those who’d been on the missing spacecraft were several close friends, a former lover, her favorite bridge partner, most of her work crew, and God knew who else. She’d find out when they were off the plane and she could get a look at the passenger manifest. Right now nobody was saying anything official.
They slipped nose-first into their cradle. The bulkheads moved past and steam leaked out of gargantuan fittings.
People behind long observation panels bent over consoles and talked into microphones. The bulkheads slowed, and there was a mild bump.
“This is Captain Culver.” The pilot sounded as if he’d just concluded a routine flight. “Please remain in your seats until the light has gone off.” He paused. “We were glad to be able to assist you, and I want to thank you for your cooperation during a difficult flight,” The cabin lights blinked. There’ll be representatives of the Lunar Transport Authority waiting in the deplaning section to answer any questions you might have.”
A minute later the warning sign went out. Andrea unbuckled and watched her fellow passengers get up.
They took her name as she went down the ramp, gave her some clothes, and assigned a room. She asked if it would be possible to get a passenger manifest for the lost flight. “Sorry,” a woman in an emerald LTA jacket said. “They’re not available yet.” Then they asked whether she felt all right and did she want to talk to a counselor?
Andrea declined and went looking for her room. It was on B deck in an area usually reserved for flight crews. It had a gorgeous view of Earth, which was sunlit and peaceful and moving gradually from right to left across her picture window. She studied it for a minute or so, taking strength from it. Then she stepped but of her clothes and turned on the scrubbers. Ten minutes later, feeling clean again, she collapsed naked on the bed, grateful for the chance to stretch out. But despite her weariness, sleep wouldn’t come.
She gave up after a while and went down to the main promenade to look for food. Almost all the shops were shut down. But there were a couple of restaurants. She selected Mo’s, which was decorated heavily with a Three Stooges motif.
It was crowded. She looked around for familiar faces, saw a few from the plane, but settled alone into the only available table. A television mounted over a central bar car
ried news reports from groundside. Someone was talking about a memorial service for Henry Kolladner. It struck her that the president of the U.S. had died and she’d scarcely noticed.
She studied the menu, decided she wasn’t really hungry but just wanted to chew on something that wasn’t space-plane fare. Toast and coffee looked good. She punched in her selection and propped her chin in her hands. The tears she’d kept at bay for so many hours dribbled down her cheeks.
Mo’s was too public a place to come apart, so she fought down the crying jag that threatened to erupt. Then a woman In a NASA jumpsuit was looking down at her.
“Hi,” she said. “Mind if we share?”
She had dark hair, alert brown eyes, and an amiable expression that immediately changed to concern when she got a good look at Andrea. “You okay?” she asked.
Andrea sniffled, wiped her nose, and smiled. “I’m sorry. Yes, please. Of course, sit down.”
The woman eased into a chair. “Lose somebody?” she asked carefully.
Andrea nodded and felt the tears come with a rush.
“Let it go,” the woman said. “It’s okay.” She took Andrea’s wrist, squeezed it reassuringly, “I’m Tory Clark,” she said when the storm subsided. “I work at the Orbital Lab.”
“Physics?”
“Astronomy.”
Andrea nodded. “Must be an exciting time for you.” She saw the sudden bleakness in the other woman’s expression. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It’s all right. It’s been hard on everybody.”
Andrea felt as if she were moving through a dream. “I’m Andrea Bellwether.” She extended her hand and smiled.
“Famous name.” Tory smiled back.
Andrea nodded. “He was my father.”
“Oh.” Tory bit down her embarrassment. “Open mouth, insert,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”
They sat watching while an attendant brought two glasses and filled them with water. “Listen,” Tory said, looking at the menu, “I think I need a real drink. How about you? My treat.”
AstroLab. 3:11
P.M.
Cynthia Murray had been the director at Kitt Peak for six years. She’d taken a leave of absence and come to the AstroLab to work with Feinberg on the effort to map cosmic directionality. And, more significantly, to understand it. She’d already established a reputation for her work in macrogalactic structures, and now, like everyone else in the field, had been diverted by events into the Possum watch. And specifically into tracking POSIM-38.
Cynthia had gone through five husbands. One had died; the others had grown wearisome for one reason or another. The only passions Cynthia had were for her two daughters (by the second and fourth spouses) and for the galaxies. That was, of course, a shortcoming in the eyes of most men, even other astronomers. But she couldn’t help it, didn’t want to help it, and had finally accepted the fact that she was simply not meant to be somebody’s wife.
She recognized a mirror image of sorts in Feinberg except that he was lonely, although he’d never admit it. She, on the other hand, had felt alone only during those hours she was forced to spend in domestic harness, away from the telescopes.
Cynthia had been drinking coffee and watching the Possum after it struggled out of the atmosphere. Its velocity had diminished considerably, and of course it had emerged with a new heading. It had lost about five percent of its mass during passage.
Her display extended Possum’s trajectory out over a long narrow arc, and then brought it back.
It was still too early to be sure. But her instincts told her that Feinberg was going to be right. Again.
She finished her coffee, sighed, and reached for the phone.
AstroLab. 3:36
P.M.
Feinberg sat in his-white Fleetwood under some trees (a contractor was pouring blacktop in the parking lot), looking up at the AstroLab. The building was a flat swirl of steel and glass, two encircling wings emanating from a crosspiece. At night, when the light was favorable, it resembled an
SBa
, a barred spiral galaxy. Now, in the middle of the afternoon,
this
afternoon, it looked vaguely like an oversized bat hiding from the daylight. He did not want to go inside. He’d hoped the Possum would just go away, had hoped the run through the atmosphere would not slow it down excessively, would give it a decent trajectory. So he’d pushed it away from his thoughts, much as he’d have liked to push it away from the planet, and gone home to sleep. To hide from it, knowing that if things
did
go as he expected, Cynthia would call.
And Cynthia had called.
The jangle of the phone had been enough. He’d looked at-his watch and known before he picked it up, before Cynthia had simply breathed his name. It was all she’d said.
“Apogee?” he’d asked.
“Two hundred thirty-seven thousand k.”
No surprise there.
“Perigee?”
“Close.”
How
close?
“Looks like a bell-ringer.”
Two hundred thirty-seven thousand kilometers. That
sounded like. Tuesday. They weren’t going to get much of a breather.
He climbed out of the car and started walking toward the lab.
It was a brilliant April afternoon, lazy and cool, the wind whispering in the trees, the Sun high and bright. The acrid smell of blacktop brought back memories of his boyhood in south Boston, where the streets were eternally being repaved. And where the future stretched on forever.
He trudged up the long, curving gravel walkway, mounted the wide stone steps, and pushed in through the glass doors. The security guard in the lobby looked up and smiled. “Good morning, Professor Feinberg,” she said. She was about twenty-five, pretty in the way all women of that age are pretty. Her eyes lingered on him a moment too long, almost flirtatious but not quite. Her name was Amy, and she was, he had heard, recently engaged.
She looked at him, frowning. “Are you okay, Professor?” she asked.
Her pleasant air-conditioned world, with its automatic dishwashers and its video call-ups and its relative security, was crashing in on her. He wondered whether she understood that, “Yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
Cynthia was waiting for him. “I’m sorry, Wes,” she said.
“Well, we knew it was going to happen, didn’t we?” He pulled off his sweater and threw it across the back of a chair. Half a dozen of their associates were already there, gathered around the displays, talking in low voices.
He took time to go over the numbers, hoping to find a mistake somewhere. When he didn’t, he sat back and massaged his forehead. Four fifty-six
A.M.
Tuesday. “We’d better let the president know,” he said.
9.
Micro Passenger Cabin. 3:47
P.M.
CNN was covering a press conference conducted by the senior senator from Idaho. She was the mouthpiece for Tom Clay, the majority leader and Charlie’s probable opponent in November. Even Clay, he thought, should be willing to get behind the White House now.
But that wasn’t the way it was going. “…should seep down,” she was saying, looking directly out of the screen. “Don’t misunderstand me. I have no wish to attack Charlie Haskell. I saw some electronic bumper stickers already this morning saying that Haskell’s a rascal, and I don’t much like that kind of mindless mudslinging. But I can understand why people are outraged. We all know the president would like to dissociate himself from the policies of Henry Kolladner. But he can’t. The country no longer trusts his party, it no longer trusts
him
, and we just can’t go on this way. The life-of the nation’s at stake. We need to move forward and to move forward fast. Consequently, it would be in everybody’s best interest—”
Charlie killed the sound and stared at the woman. Pompous, arrogant old bitch, willing to take a chance with national survival to accrue immediate political advantage. Evelyn had been watching from her seat.
“I wonder how these people ever manage to get elected,” he said.
She looked at him oddly.
“What?” he asked. “What’s so amusing?”
“Your friend Rick Hailey specialized in getting people like that elected.”
“Including
me
?” he demanded.
Her eyes narrowed as she appraised him. Charlie had been in the arena too long to be concerned by blatant political attacks, but Evelyn’s opinion seemed unduly important.
“No, Charlie, not including
you
. You were something of an anomaly in his career. You must explain it to me sometime.”
Charlie was getting reports of isolated uprisings in the heartland. The crazies, spurred by the national crisis, were swarming out of their nests and proclaiming independent sovereignties, threatening local law enforcement officials, and in some cases committing murder and taking hostages. Several towns in Montana and Idaho had been seized and were broadcasting claims they had seceded from the United States.
He wished there were a way to get some privacy other than by retreating to the washroom. He found-himself phrasing his remarks to Al Kerr, and to the others with whom he spoke, with an eye to their effect on the other passengers. When, for example, he advised the governor of Idaho to act against the rebels, to be assured of full presidential support, he found himself toning down the message.
We don’t have time or resources for sieges
, he’d wanted to say.
Send in the Guard and shoot their asses off if they don’t cave
. Instead, he’d delivered some mealy-mouthed comments urging appropriate state action and promising it would have the full support of the government.
Saber’s voice came over the PA: “You folks might want to lookout to port.”
“Which way’s port?” asked the chaplain.
A set of lights was moving among the stars. The cavalry had arrived.
They shook hands all around and congratulated one another. Morley went live, captured the celebratory mood, and noted for his audience that there was only a two-hour air supply left. It struck Charlie that the journalist would have been happier had it been more of a close thing, with people passing out as the
Lowell
drew alongside for a last-minute rescue. Well, Transglobal couldn’t have everything.
He made a final trip up to the flight deck, where Saber
greeted him with a broad smile. “Thanks,” Charlie said. “For everything.”
She shrugged, suggesting it had all been in a day’s work. “Glad to help, Mr. President.”
It had been, to say the least, a harrowing flight. Charlie Haskell, in a way, had been no more than one among equals. He’d grown accustomed to traveling with aides at his side, like Rick, or foreign dignitaries, or journalists. And security people. He was always the vice president, and never Charlie Haskell. Haskell had gotten lost somewhere, but during the last seventeen hours he’d come back.
The chasm had opened again when he’d been sworn in. Even Evelyn had withdrawn after the ceremony. The sense of camaraderie that he’d shared with them at Moonbase and during the early hours of the flight had receded. Why? His mere accession to the top job should not have replaced the barrier that had been breached by the fire of common danger. Yet it had happened, and he knew that he was partially responsible. He spent most of his time now squirreled away with his cell phone, talking to the makers and shakers. The affection in his fellow passengers’ eyes had been replaced by respect. He wondered whether he wasn’t paying too high a price for political power.
Saber was listening to her headset. She swung the mouthpiece forward and nodded. “He’s standing right beside me,
Lowell
” she said. “Wait one.” She pointed Charlie into the right-hand seat.
“Charles Haskell,” said Charlie.
“Mr. President, the
Percival Lowell
sends greetings. We’re pleased to have the opportunity to provide transportation for you, sir.”