Chapter 35: Kings of the High Frontier



CHAPTER 35

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a
thing to be achieved.
-- William Jennings Bryan

19 June
In the world of high-tech counter-economics, goods and services flowed in certain directions
while the paperwork -- or digital information -- moved in other, far different ones.
The 11,520 individual thrust chambers -- each one a rectangular block 25 inches long by five
square with an hourglass-shaped interior combustion chamber tapering down to three inches at
its narrowest -- came from a manufacturer in Wichita, Kansas, based on a CAD-CAM design
delivered by Joscelyn Donahue via computer. All the Wichita firm knew was that the finished
pieces were to be shipped to New Orleans by rail. There, Donahue faxed paperwork showing
them shipped to an oil field in Belize when they in fact they were barged to Fort Lauderdale,
trucked to Orlando, and placed onboard the airplane carrying Haley to Somalia. There, the
containers were marked as plumbing parts to be delivered to World Habitat Missions. Plug
nozzles, cryogenic liquids, composite structures, and miscellaneous tools and cargo all arrived
by even more complicated routes, while the digital bits indicating their bogus official
descriptions for tariff and permit purposes moved along entirely fictional paths. Any errors or
discoveries by vigilant bureaucrats were dealt with in two traditional ways: bribery and/or
blackmail. Murder -- an option so far unused -- remained the last resort for only the most
recalcitrant of government employees.
Luckily, Donahue's search for crew members involved less chicanery. The fiery end of
NASA trickled down through the ærospace industry as, one-by-one, contracts collapsed,
funding evaporated, and projects died. Many a skilled technician and able scientist discovered
that their talents were useless to an earthbound society. Donahue had her pick of them.
She had her pick of pilots, too. Despite Grant's objections, she wanted astronauts. Due to
Constitution, all sat on the sidelines on semi-permanent furloughs. Many quit, unable to
envision hanging around a moribund NASA waiting out the years that may pass before the
remaining shuttles made a comeback. Rumor that the slowly reconstituting agency -- filling up
with newcomers more familiar with paper-shuffling than with spacecraft -- would once more
"redirect its priorities" and abandon the STS created a hemorrhage of workers at all levels except
management.
When Joscelyn hacked into NASA's personnel computers to search their employee lists, she
found that the finest people, as rated by their periodic reviews, were long gone. These she
tracked and located all around the world. One, whom she had seen passed out in a bar in Cocoa
Beach some time back during her preliminary investigation, particularly came to mind.
22 June
Tammy's phone warbled like a strangled songbird. She rolled over in her sweaty sheets to
reach out blindly toward the offending intruder.
"What?" Her voice growled with the mellifluousness of library paste. Abdominal cramps --
aftermath of the pregnancy termination -- seized her with sudden, numbing pain. Gritting her
teeth, she listened as a computer-distorted voice of indeterminate gender greeted her. "Good
morning, Dr. Reis. I understand that you're fed up with NASA."
"Who is this?"
"You'll find out eventually. I understand that you have recently resigned and you're
seeking new challenges."
"I'm not exactly receiving a pension," Tammy said, suddenly wide awake, heart racing, pain
forgotten.
"Are you interested in a piloting job?"
"I'm not interested in airline work, cargo transport, smuggling, flight instruction, foreign
military, or barnstorming. Does that still leave you in the running?"
"Yes," the eerily inhuman voice replied. "Are you prepared to 'disappear' from
family and friends?"
A chill ran through her. After a moment, she quietly replied, "Yes."
"Do you have a current passport?"
She laughed with an inadvertent amusement that made her hung-over head throb. "Hey, I've
been around the world nine hundred eighteen times!"
The altered voice on the other end of the line betrayed no humor. "Do you have a
current passport?"
"Yes," she replied soberly. "As an astronaut, I traveled worldwide, for training, research,
and goodwill tours."
"Fine. A limo will arrive at six tomorrow morning to take you to Orlando. Bring only
carry-on luggage."
"Wait a sec. How do I know--"
The caller hung up. Tammy immediately punched in her call return code. A telephone rang
somewhere in the world. Once. Twice.
"Heat Shield," the familiar voice of Ed Laird said.
"Ed?" she said in utter shock. "Ed, this is Tammy! Who was just on the phone?"
She could hear Ed's shoulder-shrug in the sound of his voice. "Tammy, I'm setting up
bar. How should I know?"
"This is important, Ed!"
After a pause, the baritone voice said, "Sure, kid," and grew faint as he asked
someone nearby. In a moment, he came back to say, "Nobody, Tammy. It's been on the
blink. Ricardo said he's been trying to get a dial tone for the last fifteen minutes."
She muttered thanks and goodbye, then pressed a finger against the hangup button. She next
called Steven Milton, the only man she knew to contact now that Bryan Kirk was dead.
"What do I do?" she asked after telling him of the offer.
"You accepted. That's all you have to do. I'll be over in half an hour with... someone I'd
like you to meet."
***
Tammy examined the gift she held between her fingers, a gold Shuttle Astronaut pin
identical to hers. This one, though, contained a microchip and power supply that emitted an
encrypted signal detectable by satellite. The signal -- to anyone not in possession of the
decryption key -- would be indistinguishable from background radiation. Red noise.
"We won't desert you," the nameless visitor who arrived with Milton told her. He was a fat
and smiling man with a beard and long, thin red-brown hair and a T-shirt that read THE ONLY
THING CONSTANT IN MY LIFE IS PLANCK'S. "In the event of a life-threatening emergency
or an imminent launch," he explained, "gently bend both wings of the shuttle upward-- that alters
the signal from tracking to distress. We'll be on your tail within minutes."
"What will happen to the group I infiltrate?" she asked.
Milton spoke with pleasant coolness. "Leave that to us."
For the second time that night, Tammy Reis felt a chill in her soul.
***
"Tammy?"
Reis turned at the sound of the voice. She stood in the room to which the limo chauffeur
had led her. The face she turned to see was just as familiar as the voice -- Jon Franck entered,
led by another chauffeur. Dressed for travel in light loose clothing, the same as Reis, the
astronaut gazed at his former crew mate and grinned in bafflement.
"What in the hell are you doing here?" she demanded in a tone more terrified hiss than angry
whisper.
"I got a phone call," he said. He looked tanned and relaxed. "I thought I'd finally take some
vacation time and view the world from a new perspective. You too, I see."
Tammy clasped her hand over her throat in a gesture of concern -- and an unconscious
attempt to cover the tracking pin. "You don't even know what you're getting into."
Franck shrugged and hefted a stuffed carry-on bag onto his shoulder as if it were a deer
carcass. "Neither do you. Isn't that the essence of adventure? Isn't that what we joined NASA
for?"
This may be a bit more adventurous than you suspect or I want, she mused as he sat
in the lounge chair next to hers.
The room wasn't much, one of many empty offices converted for use as a passenger
holding-pen. A few chairs, a self-service bar, some packaged snack food. An overhead speaker
played light instrumental music. Outside the tinted window rumbled jets coming and going to
one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world.
Nobody had noticed them coming in, a couple of travelers amid hundreds of others.
Astronauts no longer held celebrity status. There was an irony in that. The Mercury Astronauts
-- most famous because they flew the first missions -- served little more function than human
ride-alongs, performing far fewer flight-related duties than the average shuttle astronaut. Yet
their names and faces burned on in the memory of an entire generation. Gus Grissom's perpetual
hangdog expression, John Glenn's clear and steadfast gaze, Gordo Cooper's brash and youthful
look of derring-do. They were all old men now, some of them dead, and except for the one who
turned his fame into political currency all could now pass unrecognized on any American
street.
Even though they had been dead or comatose only six months and were mourned as heroes,
the Constitution Eight probably could not have been identified in a lineup by more than a
small percentage of Americans, most of them schoolchildren.
"So how did you get involved in this?" Franck finally asked.
Reis avoided his inquisitive gaze. "Phone call, same as you."
"Meet with anyone?"
Her pulse suddenly quickened and she felt a flush warm her face. "Nope. You?"
"Nope. This is like some spy game I used to imagine as a kid. Globetrotting,
man-in-a-suitcase kind of intrigue."
Totally unexpectedly, she said, "It's not too late. We can bail out now."
Franck smiled and ran a hand through his wavy blond hair. "Why would I want to do
that?"
"This could be dangerous. We could get killed!"
Franck's laughter broke through the perpetual buzz of airport chatter. Completely free of
sarcasm or fear, it was the laugh of a man who -- because he loved life -- viewed death as an
unimportant consequence.
"And we're safer with NASA?" was all he said.
***
She stared out the window at the sunshine and blue skies above. The 747 flew straight and
steady above an endless expanse of Atlantic waters. She stayed awake for the entire flight,
gazing out the window. A pilot by inclination and profession, she rarely encountered the
opportunity merely to sit and appreciate the scenery.
Franck sat beside her, not talking much for the entire flight. The only other passenger, a
man who introduced himself as Chad Haley and said nothing more, sat in a seat on the opposite
side of the sky lounge, working away at a permanently installed computer workstation. He
stayed there for the entire flight, erasing his screen whenever curiosity got the better of Reis and
she wandered over to attempt conversation.
She detected the change in attitude before she heard the engines alter their whine.
"Ladies and gentlemen," the captain said over the speakers and headphones,
"We're descending into Madrid and will be landing at Æropuerto Barajas within twenty
minutes."
Tammy touched the shuttle pin on the lapel of her aquamarine floral print blouse. Her heart
raced with anticipation. With only one piece of luggage, she was about to embark on a journey
that could lead anywhere, even to her death. What sort of gamble was that? Violated by
Woolsey, savage in her revenge, she saw little chance of NASA actually delivering on its
promise to reinstate her to the flight schedule. Certainly not before the STS became chattel of
UNITO.
Why was she doing it? she wondered. Was her devotion to NASA so strong that she still
clung to the belief that it was her only road to Space? So much so that she would infiltrate and
betray a rival enterprise? Or -- the very thought of it made her feel edgy -- was she searching for
kindred spirits? Someone on the planet who looked up into the night sky and saw the
possibilities she envisioned?
She fought back the urge to remember the past. Too much joy and pain lurked there for her
to visit it yet again. Instead she looked forward, out of the window.
I wonder what happens next?
She did not have to wait long to find out.
***
Somewhere in Fort Meade, Maryland, a tiny orange dot slowly moved across a
computer-generated map of the world. Steven James Milton Jr. watched the computer project
the path toward possible destinations for a moment, then placed a call to an agent in Spain.
***
After an overnight in Madrid -- their mysterious benefactor had arranged rooms for them at
one of the more expensive hotels plus ten thousand dollars in walking-around money -- they
boarded yet another flight, this one to the Mediterranean and south across Africa. Tammy took
three hours out of the short stay in Spain to change her hair style at a renowned boutique. When
she joined Jon in the limo to the airport, her raven hair sported a straight pageboy, oriental style,
that curled gracefully inward at the neckline. Her bangs, straight and severe, cut across her
forehead just a fraction of an inch above her eyebrows. She wore an outfit -- also purchased at
the boutique -- that perfectly matched her new look: a shiny black patent leather jumpsuit
designed more to show off her figure than with any thought of function. Unless its function was
to follow her form.
"Whoa!" Jon cried out at first sight. "You win the spy costume contest!"
She flinched at his use of the word. Either he knew something -- perhaps Milton had
enlisted him, too -- or his joke simply hit too close to home.
Franck wore clothing more suited to their suspected destination: light white woven shirt and
matching cotton cargo-pocketed pants cinched at the waist with a military web belt. He held in
his hand a white Panama hat with a light grey band. His own gold Shuttle pin glittered on his
lapel. Tammy wondered whether it, too, sent out a signal.
They said little on the flight from Madrid to Mogadishu. When they arrived, the mysterious
Haley gave them directions to their next flight, bade them farewell, and set out to oversee
unloading of the pallets and crates of cargo.
As the pair of astronauts acquired their next set of tickets from a small, recently erected
ticket counter for an obviously new and tiny company called Velocet Airways, Franck merrily
said, "Have you wondered who has the money to do this?"
"Not the Russians, that's for sure."
"I figure it's some up-and-coming Asian government. One that may still be an international
pariah."
"That narrows it down," she said in a biting tone.
"Tammy--" His voice grew suddenly serious as he put an arm around her shoulder. "I want
you to know that I've been watching you..."
She tensed up, this time consciously fighting to keep her hand away from her shuttle
pin.
"And I'm very proud of you for not having a drink during the entire flight."
Her eyes widened a bit, then -- despite her conflicting emotions in the crowded terminal of
the densely populated little city-state -- she smiled. It was as warm and honest a smile as had
escaped her in years.
"Thank you, Jon. I don't seem to feel the need anymore."
He nodded. "We're wild dolphins."
"What?"
"Dolphins. In the wide open sea, they lead pretty normal lives. In captivity, though, where
they have to jump through hoops to please the crowd, they behave neurotically: nervousness,
aggression, sexual dysfunction, depression. Human beings are the same as dolphins or rats or
just about any other animal: crowd us together"--he wedged past a cluster of Somalis gazing at
the strangers with inquisitive, vaguely suspicious glares--"and we go nuts. Give us our elbow
room and we grow civil again."
"Elbow room?" she said, using that part of her own body as a wedge and a defense through a
sudden crowd surging toward a gate. "The old lebensraum argument?" She handed her
boarding pass to a Bantu woman in a maroon flight suit with grey trim. They boarded a small
eight-seat Cessna Citation.
"Not exactly. Lebensraum with no one else lebening in it. Space changes all
our notions of what constitutes Land. Land was always something nearly mystical to some
people, since there was only so much of it on Earth. It was a form of property different from
others. It had to be -- you couldn't manufacture more, you could either stack more people on
what you had or go out and settle what little unclaimed Land remained. In Space, though, the
concept becomes irrelevant. You could plop down onto a planet and have a whopping huge
increase in the amount of Land available, or you could stay up there in the void and have
something even greater: a vast volume in which to build structures with all the attributes of
Land, such as dirt to farm, air to breath, water to drink, yet different from Land: you can move it
anywhere you want and you can make more of it."
He took a seat and stuffed his bulging flight bag in the overhead compartment, then flopped
down into the comfortable first class accommodations. She sat next to him, sliding her case
under her seat.
He continued. "A new frontier to settle, without the accompanying necessity -- or
opportunity -- to seize Land from others. If you can build your own Land, you're more likely to
do that than try to take someone else's, especially when someone else can pick up and move.
Imagine if the Jews could have taken their pieces of Israel with them during the Exodus. Not
just goods and livestock, but the Land itself, leaving a void, leaving nothing for the Pharaoh to
grab? What if Cæsar rolled into Gaul and found nothing but a gaping chasm? What if the
Poles could have moved Poland out of Hitler's grasp? Or out of Stalin's?"
"Sounds like a lot of moving."
"Maybe 'Luna Celeste' should change the name of her book."
"What book?"
Franck pulled a diskette out of his shirt pocket. The label read: The Orbital
Settlers' Guide. "Maybe she should have called it The Orbital Nomads'
Guide."
"Who's 'Luna Celeste'?"
"I have no idea, but she's written the longest anti-NASA screed I've ever read. Must have
bottled it up for years."
She turned the disk over as if expecting to find jacket copy written on the other side. "May I
read it?"
Jon smiled. "If you have time. I suspect our mysterious benefactors will want to get their
money's worth out of us."
Her voice dropped to a whisper close to his ear. "What do you think we'll be flying?"
He shrugged. "Something that requires our unique skills. Say"--he gazed around the small
aircraft at the sound of the hatch sealing shut--"we're the only ones onboard!"
24 June
The desert-beige Range Rover that met them at the small airstrip in Kismayu was driven by
a Bantu named Ali. Tall and lean, he maneuvered the truck over the dusty road, all the while
asking questions."
"You speak Italian?" he asked. "My Italian be much, much better than English. Whole
family live in Moqdisho -- in Italian Somaliland -- before independence. You hot in that
outfit?"
Reis had to admit that she sweltered, but she had not found time to change and just wanted
to get to wherever they were headed so that she could shower and rest. "Where are you taking
us?"
"Lovely place. Lovely. Just outside town. New housing development. Very modern. You
both Americans, right?" The Rover hit a pothole in the dirt road and flew into the air, landing
with jarring impact. Ali seemed not to notice. "Yes. America help us big. Very big." His
words bespoke gratitude, his tone, caution. "End starvation. End civil war. Very happy to have
America here."
"There are still US troops here?" Tammy asked.
"Just a few. Just with UN. Just up north. Nothing bad happens down here."
Jon frowned. "Then why do you have that gun beside you?"
With a wide grin, Ali patted the 9mm automatic. "Because we learn from Americans: better
to have a gun and no need than need a gun and no have, yes?"
Tammy snorted, her gaze scanning the horizon. As they cleared a hill, something
completely anomalous came into view.
The twisting road lead down to a small vale. In the center at the road's end, bright yellow
Caterpillar and dark green John Deere equipment dug at the brown earth, digging a precise
circular scar twenty feet deep, about the same wide, and half a football field in diameter. In the
center of the circle stood ten single-width mobile homes that served as temporary facilities,
around which grew small patches and swaths of grass. The ubiquitous small herds of cattle that
roamed the land tended by nomadic Somalis gazed across the dry moat with miserable desire.
The land outside the circle sported the usual scrubby brush and dry grasses on which they eeked
out their existence. The one bridge to the center consisted of a railroad flatbed car sunk level
with the edges of the channel. A cyclone fence extended several yards in either direction to
support the gate guarded by a lone Somali sitting under a bright yellow beach umbrella.
Most striking, though, was what straddled the ditch. Six bulbous structures -- hemispherical
on top, tapering, truncated half-cones from midline down -- sat atop rusty steel girders placed
across the circular chasm. Two more sat on massive truck beds awaiting placement by a titanic
crane nearby.
"What the hell is that?" Franck said.
Ali steered the Rover toward the bridge. "That's going to be big new hotel. Bring lots of
guests to visit." He waved at the guard, who opened the gate.
"A hotel without windows?" Tammy muttered to Jon as the Rover rumbled across the big
ditch.
***
"Looks more like an oil-tank farm." Franck lowered his flight bag to the patio deck of one
of the mobiles to gaze around at the activity. Workers swarmed around the six identical pods.
An airy framework of scaffolding encased the two pods on the ends. Sparks flew here and there
from the blue-white centers of heli-arc and TIG welders joining the edges of the spheres
together. Something clanged with the jarring sound of metal against metal. Drills whirred,
riveters pounded away, and air-driven wrenches whined like a hundred tire-changers gone mad.
The muggy air hung thick with smells: engine oil, scorched aluminum, perspiration, exhaust
fumes, and the pervasive odor of cattle.
"Dr. Franck! Dr. Reis!" an unfamiliar voice cried out. They both turned to see a slender,
auburn-haired woman run up to them. "I'm Joscelyn Donahue," she said. "Your official
welcoming committee."
Tammy took her proffered hand and shook politely. "Then you're the one we get to
interrogate about all this."
"Certainly! Step inside the office and we'll get started."
***
The half-hour briefing, complete with VR presentation of the construction and launch of the
SSTO space station left Jon and Tammy limp. They stared at each other, then at Donahue. Jon's
left eye developed a tic. Tammy, filled with terror and awe, attempted to convert her emotions
into an aire of ebullience.
"That was great! What do you call it?"
"It's technically called a Neuffer Ring, in honor of its designer. Mr. Grant calls this
particular structure Grant One."
"It's an astounding concept," she said. "In one step you'll -- we'll -- accomplish
something that's eluded NASA for decades! Can we meet Neuffer?"
Donahue bit her lip. "I don't think so. He designed it in the early Nineteen-Sixties. NASA,
of course, rejected it totally as part of their tacit Not Invented Here policy. We..." her finger
traced a circle on the monitor screen, then tapped it twice lightly, "sort of... lifted it from
some microfilmed proposals Mr. Grant discovered."
"About this Grant guy," Franck said, caution in his tone. "Who is he?"
"Just a shrewd businessman."
"I've heard otherwise," Reis said. "About the business part, not the shrewd part. The news
media call him a smuggler and money launderer. And worse."
Joscelyn smiled. "Bring it up when you meet him. He's convinced me of his
intentions."
Tammy's fingers unconsciously gripped the chair arms.
***
"She did what?" Grant stood and rammed both fists onto the desktop. This gesture
-- made in Long Beach, California -- converted into electronic bits and became a similar
movement on The Net, which Haley saw from his vantage point in Kismayu, Somalia.
"Two astronauts. Ex-NASA. Both with extensive piloting
exp--"
"Put her on. Now!"
Haley -- in goggles and glove inside the office mobile -- reached over to punch the intercom.

"Speak," her voice erupted tinnily from the speaker.
Haley said, "I'm on The Net. Get on it. Grant wants to ask you something."
"Uh-oh."
"You've got that right."
She found Grant had summoned up his own persona -- Orson Welles as Harry Lime, the
black marketeer from The Third Man -- and was waiting for her in an
encrypted room designed in Early Foreign Intrigue: dense wicker furniture, bands of light and
shadow striping through the bamboo blinds, and a slowly rotating fan overhead. Joscelyn
entered as Honey West, tied up her ocelots, and faced the music.
"I specifically ordered you not to hire astronauts," he said in a tone made all the more icy by
the computer reprocessing.
"Constitution made them all ex-astronauts," she said in terse reply. Long,
perfect nails tapped impatiently against the table top. Behind her, one of the digital cats yawned
and stretched. They served as security program icons, constantly checking the room for attempts
to decrypt their message thread.
"The only ex-astronaut is a dead astronaut," Grant shot back. "Their loyalty to NASA is as
fanatical as the Schutzstaffel's was to Hitler. They're a threat and I want them out."
Joscelyn stood her ground. "The two I hired are nothing like that. Jon Franck was passed
over for advancement and then furloughed with everyone else. Tammy Reis quit in disgust after
that medical incident on--"
"Tammy Reis?" he nearly shrieked. "She's the worst of them all! She's their little
press darling, their poster girl for NASA recruiters!" Harry Lime's mesmerizing eyes knifed at
the woman. "I want her out of there before she compromises the entire project."
"Marc," Joscelyn said with a firm intransigence, "I located her in a bar where she'd been
drunk for a month. She quit NASA within days of her return from orbit. Something happened
up there, something neither she nor her crewmate Franck will talk about. I've seen the tabloid
stories, though. Rumors that Congressman Woolsey was stabbed onboard Constitution
and that's why he was in the hospital for weeks afterward. Even a man can figure out what must
have--"
"We don't need someone prone to violence, either. Get rid of her."
"No, Marcus. She and Franck already know too much for us to let them leave. They've been
into Space, Marc. They can tell us what to expect. We need experts now, and astronauts
are experts."
Grant paused, deep in troubled thought. The fan turned quietly, blade shadows crossing his
face. "Keep them out of my way when I get there. I don't want to meet them, I don't want to see
them. And I don't want them to see me. Not even a photo, understand?"
"No, I don't."
"Just do it, Joscelyn. I leave them to you and I pray it doesn't jeopardize the project. If one
of them betrays us, we'll all be dead."
"I'll watch them, Mr. Grant."
Moving to another room on The Net, Grant questioned Haley. "Did you check them for
tracking devices?"
"No," he answered slowly.
"All right"--Grant rubbed at his chin--"I want everything moved up. A December launch
leaves too much time for more leaks. Let's all crack the whip and aim for a September launch.
Early September. Dædalus hasn't even started test flights and Freespace just had a
fire on the pad. We'll beat them both by weeks or months if we do that. How are you on the rest
of the crew?"
"Eight people already here, four on their way. Donahue's contacting the last few this
week."
"Get them. I want intensive seminars for everyone, especially for their input on the cargo
manifest. I've made my estimates and everything's on order, delivery dates over the next three
weeks."
Haley frowned. "Early September just gives us ten weeks. I don't know if I can have the
whole thing ready for launch by--"
"Nothing is impossible when price is no object. I'm putting everything I have into this. I'm
closing down or cashing out all operations."
"Putting your eggs all in one basket?"
"No -- I'm taking them out of Earth's basket. Now let's move!"

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