Chapter 30: Kings of the High Frontier



CHAPTER 30

It takes two to speak the truth -- one to speak and another to hear.
-- Henry David Thoreau

15 April
"Yes," Barry Gibbon said gravely, "I understand that the show pulled in excellent ratings,
Billy. However, that was just a single ninety-minute program. And in those ninety minutes, you
poured incredible suffering on the families of the dead. A world mourns and you allowed these
insensitive boors to dredge up old pain, open old wounds. Frankly, I expected a higher level of
discourse on GSN than what I saw last night."
On the other end of the line, William Braverman's embarrassed voice tried to make
apologies. "Well, yes, the ratings were quite good, but I see what you mean about old
wounds. It did go farther back in history than I thought warranted, but Larry Poubelle was the
sponsor and generally called the shots..."
"Joseph Lester -- the producer? Is he not a GSN reporter?"
"I believe so. Yes. I'm pretty sure."
Gibbon's voice sounded sympathetic, but the words cut through with his message. "Don't
you see how that makes the show's viewpoint ineluctably tied to GSN's editorial position?
Surely your corporate headquarters has received negative phone calls as a result."
"Yes. Yes, we did. Quite a few, in fact. Many, many members of NOSS."
Gibbon smiled. He sat in his drawing room, dressed only in a long, quilted robe with a dark
paisley pattern. "NOSS members look to GSN for its thorough coverage of space news. They do
not want to dwell on failures and setbacks and finger-pointing. They want to see the future
unfold before them. They are already mounting a letter campaign to Congress urging increased
funding for NASA. It's NASA's critics who condemned those people to death, you know.
Naysayers and nitpickers who stifled the agency's cash flow so that safety concerns could not be
affordably met."
"Why, yes, I know they were once highly concerned about--"
"Most Americans support NASA. They enjoy watching their heroes shoot upward, and don't
want to see or hear any defeatist accusations."
"It was a one-shot, as you said. We won't rerun it."
"I think a disclaimer would be in order, too, don't you?"
"It would make sense, I suppose."
Gibbon smiled. "And that producer that works for you. Joe Lester? His perspective might
be broadened by taking him off the science reporting beat. He needs to take a look at the real
suffering in the world that Space Station Unity would alleviate. Africa. Asia. Europe.
Anyplace where there is starvation and disease. You would do him a favor to humble his
arrogance."
"I would, wouldn't I?"
"Yes, Billy, you would. I won't take up any more of your valuable time, except to say that
you still haven't taken me up on my offer of a round of golf at the club when you're next in
town."
"Oh, I'll be there, you can count on that."
Gibbon smiled and replaced the handset in its cradle, thinking, I can count on a great
many things.
23 April
A week after the success of his program, Joseph Lester stood in Mogadishu's crowded
airport with the stunned expression of a steer hit by a pneumatic maul. During the entire flight,
he pondered his reassignment to Africa. The documentary had been a qualified success, with a
good rating and an impressive share and even leading to calls in Congress for a special
prosecutor to investigate possible criminal misconduct contributing to the Constitution
disaster, as well as a demand to reopen the Challenger case. And yet here he stood,
passport in hand, with only Hillary Kaye and two cases of camera equipment to accompany him
to Africa for a story about UNICEF's mission to Somalia.
The air hung hot and dank in the months between the northeast and southwest monsoons, a
time the natives called tangambili, and -- despite his continuing weight loss -- Lester's
breath grew labored as they walked the entire length of the terminal after leaving Customs.
He was never much of a fighter, and his only real choice when facing Bill Braverman's
second-in-command had been to quit GSN or acquiesce. So here he was, trying to make the best
of it.
Kaye threw her equipment in the back of the cab, insisted that the driver prove to her that
the trunk actually locked, then collapsed onto the cracked vinyl cushions of the back seat.
"Another fine adventure you've gotten me into," she said.
"If we can avoid liver flukes and Ebola virus," he said without a smile, "I'm certain we'll
have a great time."
***
The grave had been neglected. A man wearing an Air Force uniform with the insignia of a
Colonel stood at the foot of the plot. In his mid-thirties, with wavy dark hair and clear, quiet
eyes, he silently read the headstone.

Jackson Lee Lundy
Husband, Father, Space Pioneer
"The Earth Is the Cradle of the Mind.
But One Cannot Live Forever in a Cradle."

The cemetery, one of the largest yet least ostentatious in Orlando, received few visitors this
cool February morning. One of them -- Alan Shepard Lundy -- bent down on his knees to scrub
aside the mud that had accumulated in one corner of the headstone, set too deep so that every
morning the sprinklers watered the lawn and caused mud to flow over the stone where it would
dry and efface his father's memory. He would inform the management to correct the
problem.
He rose up again, feeling distant from the emotion of seeing his father's resting place for the
first time. He was unable to attend the funeral, since the destruction at KSC resulted in highly
classified operations at the Vandenberg shuttle complex. Due to the loss of several Space
Command brass, it also brought about Lundy's hasty promotion to Colonel.
Now, though, reading the inscription on the black granite, Lundy allowed the sadness to
envelop him. He tried to interest me in his rockets, he thought. Tried to turn me into
a little astronaut. Named me after one, took me to all the right movies, bought me all the right
books. Didn't expect me to turn toward mil-space, couldn't understand my fascination with
Space Command.
"Dad..." he whispered. "I'm sorry I wasn't the space nut you wanted. I'm sorry if it hurt
you." It sounded insincere. He was not sorry he led his own life. He was only sorry his father
could not understand a Space Age youngster's disinterest in civilian space. Now he would never
have a chance to explain it.
He wondered with a sharp pang of guilt whether his father and all the others would be alive
today if he could only have broken through the layers of Washington's bureaucracy to halt the
countdown. He knew it was pointless to dwell on what might have been, but he swore that a
similar disaster would not occur on his watch.
Ten minutes had passed since Lundy arrived at the cemetery. He crisply saluted his father
and turned to walk back to his pool car, casually reading other headstones as he walked past,
oblivious to whether or not he stepped directly on any of the other graves.
His mother declined the invitation to visit her husband's grave. "I went there once," she said,
"to say goodbye. That's all he would have asked of me." She told her son that she was quitting
NASA to devote more time to The Ark Society. In fact, she was leaving for Africa that week on
a safari to harvest some DNA from endangered species in Kenya. Her guide was to be an
astronaut who hailed from there and who was on leave during what would probably be a
years-long hiatus.
"The heart's been torn from the space program," she told him. "You at Vandenberg should
know that you are the country's only hope now."
"I do, Mother. We do."
"Your father gave everything for NASA," she said, "and in the end they let him down.
Betrayed him and everything they stood for. Don't let it happen with Space Command."
"I won't."

Proceed to Chapter 31
Return to the Table of Contents