Chapter 52: Kings of the High Frontier
CHAPTER 52 Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. -- Helen Keller 19 August "Coming up on perigee," Tammy Reis said quietly. She addressed the other nineteen people onboard Space Station Volnos. Her words also crossed the vacuum of Space via radio, where a number of communications satellites rebroadcast it to Earth and to the other spacecraft orbiting the planet. Volnos orbited in an attitude that put its longitudinal axis in line with its orbital trajectory so that the limb of a dazzlingly bright Earth lay just barely visible at the edge of every viewing port. Whether it was a top, side, or bottom edge depended on the pod which one occupied. Below the cockpit windows lay the endless blue of the Pacific. Above hung the trackless void of Space. Tammy checked pressure in the fuel tanks while Franck said, "We'll burn it all down to fumes if we have to, but that won't leave us much for air and water." "Let's do it," Tammy said, "in P-Minus five, four, three, two, one, ignition!" Small amounts of hypergolic fuels in the engine igniters mixed and instantly burst into flames, lighting the hydrogen/oxygen mixture that weakly flowed into each of the thousands of tiny combustion chambers. "Well, we know we can relight them," she said. "We're getting a good burn, but it's not adding up to much delta-v." The onboard computer registered the change in velocity detected by the inertial navigation and guidance system, compared it to GPS signals, and displayed a running commentary on the outcome. Before any of the passengers detected the feeble effect the low-pressure engine burn had overcoming the massive space-ring's inertia, the sixteen engines sputtered and shut down one by one, like the flames of a gas range flickering out when deprived of fuel. In Pod Three, Joscelyn Donahue's heart rate shot upward, as did Grant's. Their precious fuel had been used up; oxygen that would have provided the air for the space station, hydrogen that they would have combined in fuel cells to provide electricity and water. She kept her gaze riveted to the computer screen as the ship's software performed a quick estimate of the burn's effectiveness. The slight increase in their orbital velocity ought to decrease the eccentricity of the orbit. The next apogee should be lower, and -- they hoped -- the next perigee should be higher. She gazed at the recalculation, knowing that Reis and Franck and Marcus and everyone else read the same information simultaneously. "Not enough," Tammy's voice muttered on the intercom. The tension and disappointment in her voice mirrored the emotions of all onboard. Grant nodded, running a hand over his short, sweat-soaked hair. Droplets clung to his forehead like a clear gel. "Are we in a more stable orbit? Something that could last a few weeks or months?" "Yes. But you blew all your money putting this thing up. How can you pay for and build a refueling vessel in time to save us?" "If I may interject a word?" came the soft Missourian tone of Rex Ivarson. "You most certainly may, sir." Grant's tone, Donahue noted, was similar to that of a young man addressed by a grandfather whom he deeply respected. "I admire your entrepreneurial spirit in building this amazing space station, and I thank you for bring my wife and me up. However, it's obvious you have gone as far as you can on your own. As nice as rugged individualism is, sometimes you can achieve even more with a little cooperation. You might think about calling the Cooper widow and asking that she turn her next flight of Starblazer Aurora into a fuel-ferrying one." *** Joseph Lester kept up communication with GSN, acting as a temporary spokesman for S. S. Volnos. The newspeople on the ground, in return, kept him apprised of the status of the other adventurers. He signaled Tammy over the intercom. "Aurora's in a high-inclination orbit," he said. "Nomad made it up, and Crockett's spacecopter just landed safely in Central Park." "Yes," she replied in a drained voice. "The joint is jumping." In her mind lurked the image of Space Station Volnos breaking up, its crew incinerated or perhaps dying in agony as they plummeted in pieces toward the Earth. Falling, falling. "There's no way either ship could reach us, is there?" Tammy sighed. Even a science reporter such as Lester grasped little of the enormous complexity of space flight and the tremendous energy differences among the infinite variety of orbits possible. Once placed into a particular angle of inclination, at a particular altitude and eccentricity, a satellite or spacecraft required vast amounts of fuel to change its orbit significantly. Her thoughts turned to Ace Roberts and she wondered what he must be thinking about two of his former helpers making it into Space while he still tinkered in his driveway. Maybe he felt far safer building something he only intended to fly, rather than actually ever flying it. And forget the Shuttle, she thought acidly. Even if Vandenberg could launch Atlantis and it could dogleg far enough to achieve an equatorial orbit and still carry enough fuel to help them, neither Space Command nor NASA would actually lift a finger to help them. Her thoughts shifted back to Freespace. She suspected that the only reason NASA helped them was that they probably expected Aurora to fail. Now the agency was trapped by the little upstart company's success. The same thing had happened a few years before with a commercial satellite launcher, whose unexpected non-failure backed NASA into a corner, forcing them to support subsequent flights. Maybe Ivarson had picked the right people to ask. Maybe the Starblazer could fly again. How, though, to avoid the prohibition on launching from Vandenberg over the entire continental United States? Her eyes, so dark with meditation, brightened as she punched her intercom for a private line to Pod Three. "Paul!" she said. "I have a way they can save us!" "How?" "Have them launch from Kennedy instead of Vandenberg!" "Of course! I'll get right on it!" *** The message -- relayed from orbit to Earth and back to orbit -- had lost some meaning in the translation. Chemar frowned and said, "Boss, someone from GSN says that their reporter on Space Station Volnos said that Grant said he needed our help." Wrinkling his nose at the tangled sentence, Poubelle said, "What can we do?" "Loan Freespace our seven-four-seven to fly Aurora from Vandenberg to Cape Canaveral." Poubelle grinned. "Of course. A refueling flight. A liftoff at KSC would allow them a low enough inclination to open up a fair-sized rendezvous launch window. You hear that, Karl?" "Roger, big guy." Bischoff -- now safely back at Mojave -- acted as Earth-to-Space communicator for the Dædalus Project. "Guess someone else will have to take the mic while I warm up old Susy." "Right. And make sure our own people handle the crane. They mounted it once before." He grinned over his shoulder at D'Asaro. "First day here and already the neighbors ask to borrow our tools!" Proceed to Chapter 53 Return to the Table of Contents