CHAPTER 21 By wire and wireless, in a score of bad translations, They give their simple message to the world of man: Man can have Unity if Man will give up Freedom. The State is real, the Individual is wicked; Violence shall synchronize your movements like a tune, And Terror like a frost shall halt the flood of thinking.' -- W. H. Auden
29 January "You mean you've both been building spaceships at the same airport and you've never met before?" Lester stared in disbelief at Poubelle. The billionaire puffed on the cigar and shook his head. He wore all white, from polo shirt and cargo-pocketed bush pants to running shoes only lightly laced with desert dust. "Haven't said word one. Know all about him, though, from your articles. Now that you're about to hit the TV screens, I think an historic encounter is called for." They walked along the tarmac from Poubelle's hangar toward Gerry Cooper's. "This treaty," Poubelle said. "Gibbon's been an enigma to me for years. Now I know what he's up to. He's been offered NASA posts and has turned them down in order to maintain his independence.' What he really aimed for all these decades was to become the top space bureaucrat for the entire planet." "And that's a problem for you?" Lester swung the wrist weights at the ends of his arms as they walked, his ankle weights rustling with the sound of small sandbags at every step. "When a man achieves a global ambition, he becomes a global problem." "And your solution?" Poubelle stubbed out the cigar and tossed the butt into an ashcan. With a wide smile as white as his clothing, he said, "Where's your cameraman?" Lester backhanded sweat from his forehead. "I just found out about this job yesterday. I recommended someone I've worked with before. If they approve, she can be out in a few days." Poubelle stopped and shook his head. "No good." Pulling a celphone out of his pocket, he switched it on and said "Braverman." Within seconds, the autodialer connected him with the office of the head of GSN. "Jane. Larry Poubelle. Let me speak to Billy. Thanks." He smiled at Lester's gape and flexed his robot arm. "Same country clubs. I beat his butt at golf and he beats me at squash. One time on Maui it started to rain and I took my arm off when it shorted. You don't forget a golfer who does tha -- Hey, Billy! I hear your news department's hiring competent reporters for a change..." After a minute or less of banter, Poubelle got to the point. "Bill, there's a young man here who's just started working for you and he needs a video crew pronto... For what? To cover me, you sandtrap miner. He's got someone in mind..." He looked toward Lester. "Hillary Kaye. Fort Collins Sentinel" "Her name's Hillary Kaye. In Fort Collins. Tell your Putzpuller Prize winner to fly her out to Mojave pronto... I tell you, Billy, it's news... Hey, all I do is flash my Erector Set arm and I make it news! Yeah? Sorry, I don't like the taste of implant... Yeah, you too. Twice on Sunday." He switched off the phone and grinned. "Braverman's a guttermouth. I have to reply in kind. Better call and warn her." He handed the phone to Lester and turned back toward his own hangar. * * * The Cessna Citation landed at Mojave in the frigid chill of a desert winter morning. Though it would be pleasantly warm within hours, Hillary Kaye wore a thick down jacket of forest green and dark brown slacks. An ambivalence about the entire affair permeated her thoughts. She specialized in still-camera work -- traditional and 3-D; she considered video a hobby, though she had amassed professional quality equipment over the years. Lester's phone call had come out of the blue, but the salary offer had come straight out of New Orleans: double what she made in Fort Collins. Times being as they ever were and always would be, she accepted the offer without hesitation. She scanned the flight line for a glimpse of Joe but saw no one. The plane taxiied to a stop and the co-pilot opened the hatch. She stepped out into the cold to see a man trot up to the steps. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph Lester," she said in shock. "Is that you?" Lester nodded. Kaye nodded right back. "You look as if you lost the equivalent of an English schoolboy. And I like the hair style." "Thanks," he said, running a hand through the short waves that had once been longer curls. "We don't have much time if we want to make the satellite feed for the morning news in New York, so grab your stuff and we'll set up in the hangar." "What's the deal? Someone declaring war?" "Could be. It may not sound like it right now, but I think what'll happen today is going to set the future of the human race for the next millennium." Kaye pulled her equipment cases from the luggage compartment. "So they'll have hot coffee and fresh donuts?" * * * The donuts were fresh, procured from the airport coffee shop whose cook prepared them in the time-honored manner. Kaye noticed that Lester, who once consumed a baker's half-dozen every morning, abstained, drinking a black coffee and glancing nervously in a small mirror. The Freespace Orbital hangar hosted three other news crews from local Los Angeles area stations with network affiliations. Lester, however, was the only reporter promised an exclusive interview after the press conference. Kaye fired up the Canon DigiVid II and verified that the optical disc pack was receiving the data. Then she mounted the hardware on her shoulders, lowered the monocle, and moved into position. The digital steadier compensated for her motion, so she closed her left eye and simply watched through her right. Lester, finger against earphone, received instructions from GSN and awaited his introduction. He nodded toward Hillary and looked into the camera lens. "Good morning, Bruce," he said to the distant anchorman. "The Mojave Desert is a wasteland of dry lakes and bristling Joshua trees. Today, though, the airport at Mojave is a beehive of Space-related activity as nuclear industry billionaire Laurence Poubelle -- the man behind the Dædalus Project -- calls a press conference at rival rocket designer Gerald Cooper's spacecraft hangar." Hillary panned the camera past Cooper's mockup of Starblazer and zoomed in on Poubelle, who stood with Cooper and D'Asaro on a platform in front of the model. Cooper wore his trademark dark suit, white shirt, and skinny tie, while Poubelle and D'Asaro were decked out in matching black and gold flight suits with Project Dædalus patches sewn prominently over their hearts. "Good morning," Poubelle said in the same voice he used to address soldiers in Vietnam and workers at American Atomic. "Two days ago, the United Nations approved a treaty that will signal the end of the American space program. Some may mourn its loss, but the truth is that NASA has done nothing to achieve a permanent home in Space for humanity since it let Skylab crash in flames in the Australian desert twenty years ago. The Moon, once promised as a new home for us, has been abandoned for nearly three decades. Our children have no memory of what it was like in those days, thinking that the future was within our grasp. "There is something more ominous, though, in the Interplanetary Treaty. It does not just abolish NASA and seize the Shuttle and Cape Canaveral. It also authorizes the UN to control or seize any private spacecraft or launch company. The creator of the treaty, Barry Gibbon, holds up the example of the Antarctic as a paradigm of how the UN should control Space. Antarctica, however, is a small continent full of life. Space is infinite and -- mostly -- sterile and dead. No world body has the authority to restrict anyone's migration into Space. "I'm here with my co-pilot on the Dædalus Project, Chemar D'Asaro, and my neighbor and fellow Space Cadet, Gerry Cooper, to announce the formation of an organization directly aimed at building a private, non-governmental presence in Space. It's called the Experimental Spacecraft Association, modeled after the venerable Experimental Aircraft Association, and as its inspiration does, it will serve to give experimental spacecraft builders a network of information, volunteer assistance, and moral support." Poubelle put his hands on his hips and gazed at the cameras with a smile that promised the world. "In order to inspire ESA members in this goal, whoever constructs a reusable, single-stage spacecraft that within the year puts a human being into orbit around Earth will receive, from me, the sum of five hundred million dollars." His words made Hillary's camera teeter for an instant, then recover. Thom Brodsky, there both as Cooper's friend and partner and as reporter for his Private Space Journal, shot his hand up to ask, "Why only one year?" "The treaty," Cooper interjected. "It becomes effective next January twenty-seventh. We feel that if we have spacecraft in orbit by then, the UN will have no way to enforce the treaty. They may be able to pin us down next year, but they have no way to bring us down once we're up there. These are peaceful, private efforts to inhabit Space, and the world would view any attempt to down such spacecraft as an unwarranted act of genocide against a minority group." "Minority group?" someone from a local TV station said. "Under the terms of the UN's own Genocide Treaty," Poubelle answered, "any government that acts to eliminate a political movement is guilty of genocide. We believe in the unrestricted right to travel into Space and create a free and prosperous culture there. As such, the ESA represents a politic--" "What about NASA?" Lester asked. "They've kept Starblazer on the ground for years. And Congress seems to have it in for you, Mr. Poubelle." Poubelle's smile twisted to an amused angle. "We won't let personal vendettas get in our way. And we urge the American people to write and call their representatives. You know"--he raised a finger, his voice shifting to a conversational tone--"Americans spend six billion dollars a year on makeup products, twenty billion on sports. If everyone who wanted to be out there in Space themselves within their lifetimes, instead of watching a handful of high-cost astronauts play with water globs, if they just sent in the cost of one lipstick or one football ticket or one movie or one cable channel, we'd be sending up rockets like the Fourth of July." He nodded toward the reporters. "I know I've used more than a sound bite or twenty, so I'll just leave you all with that half-billion dollar prize floating out there. I've got that in escrow. That's my personal fortune, it doesn't come from American Atomic or anything like that. And, by the way"--he winked at the cameras--"I intend to keep it by being the first up with Project Dædalus!" "There you have it," Lester said as Kaye turned the camera toward him. "A five hundred million dollar prize in the Great Space Race. How many contestants there will be and whether the governments of the world will permit such unbridled competition remains to be seen. Back to you, Bruce." "And... we're clear," Kaye said, lowering the camera. "Geez, I used the most clichéd opener and closer in the book!" "Joe, it's your first time. Take it easy. You were fine. Hey! They're still doing questions!" She switched the camera on and refocused on the trio. "No," D'Asaro said in answer to a question. "The Shuttle does not count. It is directly subsidized by the government." "But satellite owners pay to use it!" a reporter countered. "Paying a few hundred million when the actual cost of a flight is nearly a billion sticks the taxpayer with the deficit." "What if the government forbids the contest for safety reasons?" "Some governments may forbid it," Poubelle said, "but one can launch from anywhere to qualify. And if someone wanted to share part of the winnings with an impoverished equatorial country..." "Yet you plan to launch from right here in the USA." Poubelle nodded. "Damn' right. I'm an American. I fought and lost an arm for America. And I think anyone in government who tries to stop an American from settling this wild new frontier is just a grub-eating tinpot tyrant more concerned about limos and mistresses and obsequious lickspittles than about the future of the human race. I say, eat my exhaust plume!" "Fighting words," one reporter said into her camera, "in Round One of a new Space Race." "Hey!" Lester muttered to Kaye with a grin. "I ripped off that name first!" "Trite minds think alike, Joe." * * * Reporters gone, Cooper took Poubelle on a tour of the hangar, including a close-up look at the Starblazer model. "Even if I had the money," he told the billionaire, "I don't think I could have a prototype built within a year." "Why not?" Poubelle asked. "Nomad's only a few months away from completion. I figure a September launch--" "Look, it's not as easy as you seem to think. There is component testing--" "We're both using off-the-shelf. What's your problem?" "Safety is an important issue here, it... Look, what happens if your spaceplane crashes and takes a city block with it?" Poubelle narrowed his gaze. "What happens when an airliner with two hundred people does the same? A few headlines, a ton of lawsuits... Gerry boy, I think you've internalized all of NASA's propaganda over the years. The only difference between a rocket crash and an airline crash is that a rocket crash kills fewer people! If Chemar and I went down in flames and hit an orphanage run by nuns we'd get plenty of coverage. Not that I'd care, because I'd be dead. The death toll, though, would be less than an average holiday weekend on the highways." He grasped Cooper's shoulder in his robot grip. "Good God, man, if we worried about death all the time, we wouldn't go anywhere. And that's just what NASA and Gibbon want. Do you think the men setting out on the Oregon Trail worried whether they were leading their wives and children to death?" "Yes, I do." "But that didn't stop them, did it? A lot of them died. Hell, I can guarantee you there'll be people dead because of this race." He tightened his grip. "We all die, Gerry. We all die." His titanium fingers released the man. "Do you want to die later, gazing up at the stars from some rest home bed on Earth? Or do you want to die up there? And if you want to die among the stars, does it make a difference when?" Cooper stared at the man in black, speechless. His words were those Cooper might have used on doubters, years ago. He suddenly felt much older than Poubelle, weary of the world and the battle he had fought for so long. "Look," Poubelle said. "I think your problem is that even your simple Starblazer concept is made complex by all that plumbing for so many engines. If you want to win that prize, why on Earth are you using solid rocket boosters?" "When I redesigned the ship for a NASA contract, I wanted to use something that derived from Shuttle research that was also throttlable." "Did the original design need hybrid boosters?" Cooper frowned. "No." Poubelle walked toward a cad station. "It was reusable, though, right?" An arm of flesh and an arm of metal shoved Cooper down into the seat. Poubelle switched on the draft mode and called up the design of the blunt cone Starblazer, deleted the boosters hanging off the side, and began rearranging internal components with the mouse. "I've seen your original designs. They're based on Max Hunter's designs for SSTO's, so you know it's feasible. Just dump that NASA-pleasing mindset--" "I've never wanted to please NASA!" Cooper took the mouse from Poubelle's mechanical arm and raced through the changes, improving the LOX/LH2 design beyond even its original parameters. Poubelle smiled and stood back, content to observe the rebirth of Starblazer under Cooper's frenetic cad input and spoken notes digitally recorded and converted to text by a simultaneously running utility. He turned to leave only to encounter Sherry Cooper, who had been standing silently behind him during the entire exchange. "Thank you," she whispered. "I just witnessed my husband's return to life." Poubelle shrugged. "Business motivation seminar jabber coupled with a layman's interest in rockets. Preaching to the choir is important. It keeps them singing." He pulled a black cap with a Dædalus patch on it from one of his cargo pockets and put it on in order to tip it in a gentlemanly way toward the woman. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Cooper, I've got to go to my own hangar to ensure that your husband does not denude me of my fortune." He winked. "Although I wouldn't object strenuously to a dead-heat tie." * * * Onboard Constitution, barely controlled chaos reigned. "All I can tell you," Boyd said frantically into the microphone, "is that we must deorbit now for a medical emergency involving Congressman Woolsey!" "You're scheduled to de-orbit tomorrow. Is the emergency life-threatening?" Bryan Kirk's hand pressed against his earphone as if it could push the words deeper into his head so that no on else could hear. He stood in his office out of earshot of anyone else at Mission Control. No one else, as far as he knew, could intercept or decode the encrypted channel he used to communicate with Constitution. Several seconds passed. Boyd's voice was cautious. "I doubt it. Believe me, though, this mission is over." "What's with him, Scott? Spit it out!" "He's received multiple lacerations to his face. It's stopped bleeding, but he's going to need plastic surgery right away." Kirk's voice exploded into orbit. "Tammy! It was Tammy, wasn't it?" "Sir, she was--" He gripped the boom mic until it bent. "I want her restrained and put under guard. Pump her up with Thorazine if you have to. I don't want her endangering the orbiter. Keep this quiet until we can develop a contingency plan to explain why she went berserk." Boyd spoke in slow, precise words. "I don't think you'll want any of this to get out, sir." "We've got to handle her somehow." Jon Franck interrupted. "The government's handled her quite enough," the astronaut said coldly. "Woolsey tied her up and raped her." An icy sensation like the terror of free-fall seized Kirk's stomach. His voice lay trapped inside lungs that refused to breathe. After a long moment, he quietly said, "Initiate procedures for emergency deorbit." * * * Constitution landed safely at Kennedy, with Boyd and Franck at the controls. The usual half-hour wait for explosive fumes to disperse from around the orbiter passed at an irritatingly slow pace. When the ground crew opened the hatch, Woolsey disembarked first, his forehead bandaged. NASA issued a cover story that he hit a bulkhead while flying around in free fall and suffered a concussion. He angrily shoved aside any assistance walking down the stairway and stomped into the ambulance under his own power. Lights flashing, the van sped down the runway to a waiting congressional jet, destination not divulged to anyone at KSC. Reis stepped out of the orbiter to see the jet take off. Jon Franck could not tell whether she was merely squinting in the sunlight, or whether the smallest trace of a vicious smile momentarily crossed her face. A separate ambulance waited to receive her. * * * Doctor Culver was the best plastic surgeon at Bethesda, and in his time he had worked on a number of badly carved sailors as well as a politician or two. No facial laceration, though, had ever impressed him with the degree of creativity shown on the honorable Ludlow Woolsey's brow. Though Astronaut Reis had confined her damage to the congressman's forehead, each stroke sliced deep enough to touch his skull. "She can't spell, can she?" Dr. Culver muttered as he examined Woolsey. The raw crimson wounds combined to spell the epithet
"Fix it!" Woolsey said through the clouding effect of painkillers. "I can't have a trace of it visible. I've got to maintain my integrity. I'm a congressman, for God's sake!" "I'll bet she started to spell either 'rape' or 'raper,' then changed her mind and decided on 'rapist,' but it was too late to make corrections," the doctor mused. "Now it's spelled like a superlative. Rape, raper, rapest." Woolsey looked up at the doctor with searing hatred. "Shut up and fix it! Flawlessly. Or by God I'll personally legislate you into bankruptcy and suicide." The surgeon's firm hand on Woolsey's shoulder pushed him back onto the examination table. "I have no sympathy for you, sir. No woman would do this to another human being without cause, so I can only assume the worst." He sighed and signaled his anesthetist. "Still, I'm a military man and have to follow orders." He aimed one more light on his fleshy canvas. "If you hadn't taken thirty hours to get to me, though, this might have been easier. As it is..." He shrugged and waited while the anesthesiologist injected her customized cocktail into Woolsey's IV. After a moment, she said, "He's out," and turned to monitor his chemical slumber. Dr. Culver took a deep breath as his assisting surgeons flanked him. "All right, boys. The horizontal cuts we can hide in the creases of his brow, but these verticals and that runic 'S' are going to be problems..." * * * Tammy sat in the examination room feeling nothing like the heroic first female shuttle commander. Bryan Kirk, who before had treated her and the other astronauts like his own brood, had escorted her almost wordlessly to the medical center and left her there, alone. A nurse took an unusually large blood sample -- six tubes -- and departed. For a quarter of an hour, Tammy stared at the light green walls and the speckled tile floor and pondered her situation. Only confused and distorted thoughts tumbled through her mind, inchoate and at times incoherent. Should have killed the bastard. Then at least they couldn't cover it up as easily. Why are they keeping me waiting? Bastard. A woman in a white lab coat entered carrying a folder. "I'm Dr. Thomas. We're still waiting on the blood test. It takes awhile." "Blood test for what?" "EPF. Early pregnancy factor only shows up in trace amounts, but it can tell us just twenty-four hours after the fact if you're pre--" Reis raised her hand. "Wait. You're giving me a pregnancy test? Aren't you supposed to do some sort of exam to prove that he raped me?" Dr. Thomas looked uncomfortable. "We're assuming that... sex took place. What we want to establish is whether a pregnancy termination is--" "You go to hell!" she screamed. "Where's Kirk?" The doctor nodded toward the hallway. Reis stormed out and searched for him. "Bryan!" she shouted when she saw him. Kirk made gestures for quiet with his hands. She lowered her voice to an angry hiss. "What the hell is going on?" His silencing motions transformed into placating ones. "Tammy, things have gone crazy here. Upper management hasn't got a clue what to do about it. In here." He stepped inside an empty room, pulled a black box the size of a pager out of his pocket, and switched it on. The LED glowed green. "Okay, look," he said, satisfied that the room hid no bugging devices. "There's more here than right and wrong. I'd kill the guy myself, but the Shuttle's a tool of national policy and that means that what happens onboard affects national security." Reis glared at him. "The last refuge of a coverup." "The NSA's involved. I can't stop them." "Who's got the tape?" Kirk's face drooped into stunned confusion. "Tape?" "The son of a bitch videotaped the whole thing. While your damn' camera was off!" Kirk shook his head. "I don't know. I... Didn't you look for it?" "Boyd wouldn't let me anywhere near Woolsey. He said he looked for it, but I don't think he looked hard enough." "I'm sorry, Tammy, but it doesn't affect what's happening. I've got a meeting with Steve Milton slated for this afternoon. I'm telling you a black eye like this could... Woolsey's a vengeful man--" "I'm a vengeful woman." "We can't have it!" Kirk's voice verged on sheer panic. "We can't have anything other than the image of business as usual. Now, you'll be in on this meeting with Milton--" "What?" His voice leveled out to a dreadful tone. He gazed at her with eyes that displayed the management-level equivalent of raw animal fear. "If you want to save your career, you'll be there." * * * The mundane world intruded. Tammy returned to her Cocoa Beach apartment to find her mail box jammed with bills and junk circulars, her potted plants in various stages of droop, decay, and death, and the smell of something like rotting broccoli tainting the air. Now she felt truly down to Earth. She had left the hospital without learning the result of her EPF pregnancy test. As far as she was concerned, the incident was over, or so she tried to convince her turbulent mind. She locked the door, threw the deadbolt, and slid home the chain, yet the actions imparted no feeling of safety. She stood to gaze at herself in the mirror at the end of the hallway. Her shag of jet curls hung limply, a month of post-perm growth revealing over an inch of straight black hair at the roots. Around her eyes lay the crinkles denoting too much time spent in the sun, none of it recreational: desert survival maneuvers, tropical splashdown rehearsal, even orbital exposure to naked solar radiation unleavened by earthly atmosphere. Her rational mind knew the cause of this feeling of ugliness and tried to discount it. The feeling would not depart, though, and another more insidious emotion crept in: the thought that she somehow deserved this, that Woolsey had been the divine sword of retribution for some pervasive evil that had stained her life. She shook her head. Original sin. Unearned guilt. Can't believe how ancient nonsense survives. She could not shake the impression, however, that there was somewhere in her life a guilt that she had rightfully earned. * * * She showed up at Kirk's office the next day. The small, cramped office belied the importance of his position. She sat across from his desk waiting for the arrival of NSA chief Steven James Milton Jr. Kirk said nothing about their previous meeting, said nothing at all, in fact, merely sitting with his head bent over a stack of papers, reading and signing, reading and signing. Tammy suddenly felt an odd sympathy for the man; he spent his life sending other people into Space but would likely never follow them there. Most everyone at NASA was like that -- they burned with the dream of space flight yet were condemned to live that dream vicariously. Meanwhile, monsters who possessed not the least iota of interest in Space parlayed their power into junkets as if Space were their plantation and astronauts their slaves... "Tammy?" "Huh?" She looked up at Kirk. "Director Milton's in the building." Milton strode in a moment later, followed by two men who performed a physical and electronic security sweep. Kirk's office was clean despite the piled clutter of manuals and reports. "Bryan. Ms. Reis." Milton nodded at them perfunctorily and sat in the chair alongside Tammy. "To say we have a problem here is a gross understatement. The congressman has taken a two-week leave of absence, which we are attributing to the effects of a month in orbit. To say that he is not pleased with your actions is another understatement. He not only wants you out of the astronaut corps, Ms. Reis, he is ready to savage NASA's budget. This flight was supposed to convince him of the value of a manned presence in outer space." "Bribe him, you mean." Tammy's voice dripped loathing. "Ply him with fulfillment of his fantas--" "Tammy." Kirk's voice, level but deadly earnest, silenced her. "Meanwhile, we at NSA have encountered another threat to NASA's program. Our intelligence operatives have determined that something is afoot in the realm of subnational launch efforts." Tammy frowned, but refused to acknowledge her ignorance by asking what Milton meant. "Clues abound, all of them tantalizing but inconclusive: a shipment of imported solid-rocket fuel intercepted off the coast of Florida; forged interstate shipping papers for large amounts of lithium hydroxide that have apparently left the country; dummy corporation purchases of accelerometers, laser gyros, inertial navigation and guidance software, all of this during a downturn in ærospace business. All of it done with cash, not even ninety-day-net payments." Milton looked more often toward Reis than he did toward Kirk. "On the face of it, no single episode appears incriminating, but putting them all together one is faced with the ominous possibility that someone, somewhere is secretly building a missile, perhaps more than one group. We've already got that nut out in California trying to build a spaceplane. We're pretty sure he's just fleecing people, but we're keeping an eye on him. And of course there are those companies trying to build private launch systems that we're keeping in check via the regulatory route." The man shifted in his chair as if uncomfortable with the topic, as if something he was about to discuss deeply disturbed him. "I don't know if you've ever thought about it, but what if someone could secretly construct a manned spacecraft and put it in orbit?" Kirk, puzzled by the topic, said, "I suppose the military would shoot it down." Milton snorted. "The military. They're still trying to win the Cold War. The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization -- if it ever gets anywhere -- is set up to defend against missiles coming in toward the country. What if a missile launched from, say, Nebraska? Arizona? It would catch everyone by surprise. Even if the military could launch something in an attempt to intercept it, the clandestine launch would have precious minutes of lead time. To say nothing of operations outside the forty-eight. A launch from Hawaii? How about Ecuador?" "I don't understand," Kirk said. "What does this have to do with Tammy?" Milton leaned forward, as earnest as a child in a high chair. "Simply this. With the congressman in the mood he's in, NASA would be unable to withstand the humiliation of an unauthorized -- and cheap -- private launch. I don't mean Larry Poubelle's egotistical self-promotion, we can defuse that. Something more sinister -- a plot to turn space into a kind of orbital Bangkok. I'm talking about drug runners dropping their filth wherever they choose, insurrectionists broadcasting unrest from an invulnerable high ground, outright thieves holding satellites hostage, demanding ransom so they won't... I don't know, won't kick the Hubble telescope out of orbit. Ms. Reis, your country has a mission for you." "I already have a mission. On the Shuttle." Kirk cleared his throat so that she would turn to see him shake his head. "You've already been grounded. That was what I thought we were going to discuss." Milton splayed his hands placatingly. "That need not be permanent," he said. "Temporarily, though -- if you agree -- you'll be quitting NASA." Reis stared blankly. "No, I'm not." "You are for the record." Milton produced a file folder from his attaché case. The bright red folder bore the seal not of the NSA but of NASA. "You are quitting the space program in disgust with the way in which it is being handled." Reis's stomach tightened -- who finked? "You'll make it known to all your acquaintances," Milton said, "that your piloting skills are available -- for a price." "Why?" How could he have known it was what she had been contemplating in her moments of desperate frustration? "Your past is not invisible to us, Ms. Reis. When you were a teenager, you assisted a man named Roberts in the construction of a rocket, so we know you are familiar with some of the so-called 'civilian' space efforts. A few years ago, there were over a dozen transportation companies attempting to offer alternatives to the Shuttle. You more than most should appreciate how that might have bled business away from your agency. The Department of Transportation helped NASA quite a bit when they set up the licensing bureau. And international agreements to set limits on launch contracts have slowed attempts to privatize the Russians and Chinese agencies. There are only a couple of spacecraft manufacturers left in the US, and they're both contracted to the Air Force for stuff the Shuttle can't handle." "Unmanned missiles never threatened the Shuttle in the first place." "Don't play dumb with me, Ms. Reis. I know that you were concerned enough about one possible competitor to go as far as to direct interference his way." She gritted her teeth beneath her calm expression. "Everyone in your bloated agency--" "Hey!" Kirk protested. Milton continued without comment, "--knows the shuttle's overpriced even with heavy subsidies. The only reason you've survived this long is that you've got friends in Congress and DOT, not to mention the NSA. We're just as worried as you about space technology falling into the wrong hands." Reis frowned. "You just said the Russians and Chinese have been--" "Not the damn' Russians, girl -- civilians." The word sounded like a curse. "But we're civ-" "I don't mean NASA. I mean private people. Subnationals like your old pal Roberts. The yahoo on the street." Kirk lit up a cigarette -- he had taken to chain-smoking again -- and leaned in toward Milton's lecture. "You're worried about Tom Swift offering cut-rate service?" Milton turned away from the man's smoke to gaze out the narrow window at a sliver of the Atlantic Ocean. "The analysis sector of Puzzle Palace is worried. They want to determine the extent of the threat. Operations, however, wants a credible mole. An infiltrator to be invited in to filtrate." Milton smiled at his attempted witticism, then frowned when it was obvious Reis was unimpressed. "What they want is a double agent in the counter-economy." "The what?" "The underground. The black market. We have a fairly extensive think-tank report indicating how easy it would be for someone with a few million dollars to build a small, functioning spacecraft and put it in orbit." Reis glowered at the administrator. "The toilet in the Shuttle cost twenty million dollars -- no one could build a whole ship for -- " "According to this report, the counter-economy doesn't tolerate cost overruns. Things are done in the cheapest way possible, as you well know. We're not talking about people on the technological cutting edge, here. We're talking about Robert Goddard minds tinkering with Air Force surplus goods." "You're just talking about bad pr." Kirk stubbed out his cigarette to say, "Right. After the embarrassment of Challenger, a stunt like a civilian space launch could ruin the shuttle program. Why use a Cadillac when a Model T can get you where you want?" Is that all it is to you after a few years pass? she thought. An embarrassment? "You don't seriously believe that, do you?" Milton glanced at her, a genuine concern clouding his expression. "NSA does. That's why we want an experienced shuttle pilot out on the streets, waiting to be approached." Reis stood up. "I don't do cloak-and-dagger crap." "Then you don't do flying crap," Milton said. Kirk made a placating gesture with his cigarette hand. "Tammy -- how would you like to be the mission commander for the first construction flight of Space Station Unity?" "That's been five years away for the past fifteen years. With the UN treaty, it may never happen." She could not believe what she uttered. It sounded like bargaining. "Anyway, why should I have anything to do with NSA or NASA or..." She could not bear to utter Woolsey's name. "Because," Milton said, "your deepest desire is to be an astronaut. It's not simply a career goal with you, it's not just the 'top of the pyramid.' You need the space program and you know it's the only avenue for you. It's in grave danger, now, because Woolsey is going to take vengeance on the agency. You took a knife to a powerful and vindictive man, Ms. Reis, and an entire organization is going to suffer for it. Tens of thousands of employees may lose their jobs. Earth's only space fleet may be grounded forever. All because of one... amorous encounter in--" "I don't have to take this," she said, rising to stare down at the little man. "No," Kirk said. "You don't." He pointed toward Milton. "You told me you were going to make Tammy an offer she could live with, one she'd be eager to take. Now you're acting as if she's to blame in all this. Well, she isn't. Make that offer or get out." The edges of Milton's mouth inched upward to a near-smile. "In brief, pretend to quit NASA in disgust--" "That'll be easy," she muttered, still standing. "--and wait to be contacted by subnationals. Someone out there will want your knowledge and skills. If you hook a good prospect, we'll have Operations neutralize them. Quietly. Then I guarantee that Bryan and I will coordinate our efforts to secure your flight status in spite of any objections from certain legislative quarters." "How secure will that flight status be?" she asked. Milton smiled. "That depends upon what fish you net for us." * * * Reis spent the evening getting drunk with a couple of her crewmates in The Ablation Room.
"Putting me on furlough," Reis muttered to her Jack Daniel's. "What does that bastard Kirk want?" "Funding!" two of her friends said simultaneously. "No bucks," Mission Specialist Samantha Madison said, "no Buck Rod--" "Spare us," Jon Franck drawled. His lanky, mountain-boy looks seemed perfectly at home with a bourbon in one hand and a tumbler of branch water in the other. "Anyway, if Kirk is going to be that vindictive, we should call him on it." He muttered a low curse, taking a sip of the Wild Turkey. "Wouldn't that perk up the news for a week or two." "Yeah," Madison said, running her fingers through her light brown hair, her face a mask of confusion. "Just happened with Woolsey up there, anyway?" "Shuttle's the only way to go," Reis mumbled, staring into her drink. "We've got the space bug. Want to be up there. Who else is going to let us go? The Russians?" The others laughed. "Can you speak Japanese?" Franck asked. "If I thought they'd take me," Madison interjected, "I'd learn to be a samurai." Franck snorted. "If you knew the feudal history of the samurai, you'd know that's what we are right now." Reis had enough for the night. She rose to leave without finishing her drink. Outside, the night air from the Atlantic blew across her face and arms, cool and bracing. She maneuvered her car homeward, weaving only occasionally. Her night in bed passed without nightmares or dreams; the long hours drifted by in a sleepless and troubled jumble of confused thought.
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