But as for himself, Mackey certainly had never risked serious injury in his work, let alone seen the injury or death of any colleague. Was that the right word? Co-worker? Comrade-in-arms? Companion? Who were these people to him, given the situation? What was he supposed to feel now?
The desire for revenge seemed too hackneyed, too much of a conceit for a film or a cheap novel. Justice without punishment was merely an accounting of events. He wanted answers, certainly. But how would that help? What sort of answer, what sort of investigation would make him feel better about what he had just witnessed?
And yet, what his mind was filled with now were not emotions, or the strong will to act, but questions such as these. And questions, to Mackey's mind, could only be satisfied by answers.
Mackey was fine physically, but his suit had been splattered with blood. He and Thompson both received new, standard Bureau suits. Mackey's didn't fit as well as his own suit, but at least it was dark grey. As Mackey tied his full Windsor, he saw that Thompson's suit did fit him, rather well in fact. The man looked quite dapper with a tie, rather than the utilitarian Forest Service uniform. It was a nice improvement.
Mackey fully believed in suits. Certainly they were not practical for the mountains and forest, but back here in bureaucratic territory, everyone looked better dressed in a suit. Thompson retained his Forest Service overcoat, in the cool chill of the bay night.
When they left the infirmary, a shuttle car brought Hopper, Mackey, Thompson, and the helicopter pilot across the dark runways to the administrative office complex.
"Now that we finally have a moment," Hopper said, turning to them in the shuttle, "and Ms. Ross is no longer flying a large cargo aircraft, allow me to introduce you all. Mary G. Ross is one of the finest engineers working for the Aeronautics and Space Technology Bureau, primarily in the field of ballistics and orbital physics. She and I have worked closely together a number of times before. I planned to take a few moments to speak with her while we were out here at Ames, and here she is, having come to us."
Mackey was floored. This was the famous Mary G. Ross! Engineer of some of the first interplanetary rockets, the largest weaponized rocket systems, and countless other projects. Every engineer in the Department, no matter their bureaucratic literacy, knew of Ross.
"You can thank your lapel transponder for my quick arrival," Ross said quietly, smiling. "I just follow the heartbeat tones on the radar screen."
Well, at least that accounted for one of Hopper's mysterious tricks, Mackey thought.
"This is Fred Mackey, a new associate of mine, working in the Electromagnetic Bureau. Mackey is an expert in bureaucracy, and also very handy in a crisis, as I continue to find out. We've only just met Gene Thompson, recently of the Forest Service Rangers, about whom I expect we'll learn more soon enough."
They all shook hands. "This is an honor! Although I must say, I wouldn't have figured that it was you," Mackey said as he shook hands with Ross.
She eyed him coldly, through her unassuming Cherokee features. "And why not?"
Mackey blushed, not anticipating the remark to come off as condescending. "Oh no—I just meant that while I know of a few engineers who fly helicopters, I've never met one who packs a machine gun."
She smiled now, opening her flight jacket and pulling out the weapon, slung under her shoulder on what he now saw to be a clever counter-weighted, self-retracting harness. She released the magazine and pulled out one of the rounds. It was oddly asymmetrical, rectangular, with a cartridge that protruded far below the bullet on the bottom side.
"It's a weapon of my own invention and manufacture, from powder to projectile, from sight to muzzle. I've managed to do some interesting things with the ballistics, but it required a trained hand to master. Can't let just anyone fire a double-charged projectile, or it will come right back at you like a boomerang."
She pushed the cartridge back into the magazine, inserted it into the weapon, and allowed the sling to retract the weapon back under her jacket, swung around to the small of her back. It was completely invisible, revealing no lumps on her frame.
They entered the large glass and steel structure of the central Ames office building, moving at Hopper's usual pace. The construction was brand new, rendered in a magnificent Depo-Federal style, not revealing the history of the Center in the slightest. Large multi-story windows across the front of the building allowed those in the lobby full views of the glowing lights of the Moffett runway, where a number of odd-looking aircraft, both scientific and standard issue, waited for takeoff. The white steel beams crisscrossed above them, holding open the space in an unusual and breaktaking geometric grid. The lobby looked like a space station, Mackey concluded, trusses and struts that might as easily hold solar panels and habitat modules as the weight of the offices above.
Hopper did not pause to admire the architecture. Her briefcase moved purposefully alongside her, controlled in her right hand. Showing her identification, her real one this time, Hopper led them to an elevator and up to Secretary Webb's office, although the guards took a long look at Thompson, given the Forest Service coat, most likely.
Mackey was more than a bit pleased he was about to meet James Webb—the man in charge of space operations! He checked his new jacket for lint or dust and straightened his tie. His hat was still aboard the sub-orbital, he assumed, forgotten in the confusion. But he still looked fairly presentable. He noted that the Assistant Secretary had managed to keep her hat on her head without incident throughout the entire murderous affair.
But when they arrived at the carpeted outer office, they were met by an Edgar Winslow, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Facility Operations Section. His hair was slicked to one side, and his linen suit was pale yellow. It seemed to Mackey that bureaucratic fashions must be slightly more sunny out here on the West Coast. He was again very glad his suit had come in a standard dark grey.
"I'm sorry, Director Webb was called into a confidential meeting this evening, and I can't disturb him at this time. Perhaps there is something I can help you with?"
Hopper paused, as if considering her response. Winslow waited patiently in front of the four of them, arms clasped behind his back. There was something odd about this man, but Mackey couldn't quite place it. But the tumblers of his mnemetic lock were turning. The phone back in Webb's office rang, and Winslow went to go answer it. Then suddenly, it hit Mackey who Winslow was.
He quickly leaned and whispered to Hopper, "He is Commerce—well, formerly. He used to be with the Census Service, up until last year. He was the Assistant Director of Personnel Management. I don't know why he left, but I saw the directory change announced in a circular. And not only that—he and Alfred Gregory, the man from Mount Weather, worked together. A number of projects in relation to data formats and personnel records."
Hopper nodded. "Interesting. I wonder what caused his change of allegiance? No matter, we won't waste any more time here." She shooed Mackey back with a wave of her finger, as Winslow replaced the receiver and came back out to them.
Hopper gave Winslow her disarming smile. "It's of no great importance, we'll simply try back when he's out of the meeting." She turned and motioned to the rest, and they returned to the elevator. Mackey could feel Winslow's eyes follow them.
Inside the elevator, Hopper shook her head with a smirk—the first such expression Mackey had seen from her. "I specifically told him to be there alone when we arrived! I wonder what sort of malarkey they came up with to distract Webb. Hopefully they didn't have to put anyone's lives in danger."
"Do you think that Winslow and Gregory have something to do with it? Census must be involved somehow . . ." Mackey asked.
"Hard to say. It's certainly a coincidence, but inter-Departmental transfers happen. We'll do this the old-fashioned way, rather than through channels. Thankfully we have Ross here already. And we'll track down Jack. I know he's up at Ames this week."
&n
bsp; Back in the lobby, Hopper accessed a directory terminal, handing her briefcase to Mackey with an eye. He held the case tightly in his arms with both hands while she typed.
"It says he's out at the test stand. Let's get a shuttle car." She took her briefcase back, and the odd group of four followed her outside.
The shuttle car, shorter than most P-cars but still with room for the group, had a map of the facility with touch buttons embedded into it. Hopper tapped the button for the test stand area, pushed the magnetic edge of her credentials into the computer, and the car whirred off towards the water of San Francisco Bay, at the north end of the facility.
The primary stand was a massive white gantry structure, but the activity was happening around a nearby trench that terminated at a large concrete wedge at the bay's edge. Hopper showed her identification to the security officer positioned at the shuttle car unloading platform.
They descended a set of stairs cut into the tarmac and entered a double door into an underground bunker. Down a short hallway and up a short set of stairs was a control room with heavily shielded, angled windows bubbling up from the ground level like a wart, with a view onto the blast trench. Technicians were everywhere, hurrying about busily, most wearing tinted goggles. Hopper grabbed four sets from a table near the entrance, and distributed them to her group.
"It appears Dr. Parsons is in the middle of a test." Hopper gestured. "We'll have to wait until we can interrupt him."
So it was Jack Parsons that Hopper was looking for—another engineer of some renown. Mackey had heard some strange stories. He was excitable, eccentric, and entirely self-taught. But a brilliant mind in the field of rocket propulsion.
"Are we ready already?" yelled a man wearing a thin black tie, and a mustache after the same fashion. His jacket was off, his sleeves rolled up, and there appeared to be quite a bit of dust on his shirt. Mackey marveled at this odd character who somehow seemed to be in charge, and assumed that this must be the eccentric figure they had come to find.
Without waiting for a response to his question, the man slammed a red button on the control panel by the windows, and klaxons sounded everywhere, releasing a outburst of activity from the technicians. The Assistant Secretary secured her goggles on deftly, without removing her hat. Mackey, Ross, and Thompson struggled to quickly place theirs over their faces.
"Start it up, Priscilla! Give us 10%!" A young woman in a lab coat with blond hair behind her expansive goggles put her hand on the controls and began throttling upwards. The console screens around the room jumped into life, and white smoke began pouring out of the trench. A mild shaking began resonating through anything not fastened down, including Mackey himself.
"Fuel pressures nominal, thrust approaching 10%!" someone shouted over the din.
The smoke pushed back out of the trench as the wind began following the thrust of the engine back towards the concrete baffle on the bay end of the trench. When the smoke cleared, Mackey could see what the subject of the test was. It was a very small rocket engine, perhaps only the size of a desk chair, but producing a massive amount of flame.
"Bring us up to 40%, when…you know…as soon as you can!" The man with the mustache was focused intensely on the engine in the trench, both hands against the frame of the viewing portal, all his words yelled into the glass.
"Pressure is elevating, 80% design capacity!"
"Bring up the thrust! We have to see if the turbine can handle it!"
The flame from the engine was condensing, focusing into a pencil point of heat. Odd, mechanically-scalloped edges to the engine bell were flexing, pulling in around the flame, molding its shape.
"Pressure is at 100% capacity!"
"Go to 80% thrust!"
Priscilla waved her hands in exasperation at another technician, who hustled over to the man in the mustache. Whispering was impossible over the vibrations of the building, and so the technician had to shout, "Dr. Parsons! Even with the augmented model, this is all it can take!"
He wheeled around, grabbing the technician's coat by the lapel. "I said 80%! You know the timetable we're on!" He leaned out, waving his arms. "Priscilla! Come on!"
Priscilla shook her head, only to herself, and pushed forward on the throttle controls. The extra pairs of goggles on the table vibrated until they clattered to the floor. Paper fastened to the wall drifted down lazily in the chaos. The flame grew intensely bright, even through the darkened glass of the goggles.
"Pressure is at 115%!"
Parsons leaped across the room and gripped a set of controls. "Now watch this! You'll see!"
As the man gently squeezed the levers together, the scalloped edges of the engine bell expanded outward, and the shaking in the room diminished.
"Pressure is down to 105%! Now 95%!"
"Thrust to 100%!" Priscilla pressed down on her throttle.
The flame narrowed, and went nearly invisible, to dark blue. Odd, shimmering pulses became visible in the line of flame. They grew brighter, at a rigid, equal distance from each other, extending down the trench. Little bright blue diamonds, standing out in the flame. Like a lens flare on a photograph, but tight, directed, like lenses in a telescope, like gems set into the blade of a crystal sword.
Parsons laughed in what could only be described as a maniacal voice. "Haha! You see, you see! Stable mach speeds, and no afterburner! Impossible for a rocket hybrid this size, they said!"
There was a sudden lurch in the room, and all the technicians grasped onto something. Suddenly, flame was building at the forward end of the trench.
"Supply line rupture! Emergency shutdown, now!"
A klaxon tone sounded, and Priscilla scrambled to pull back the throttle, but it was too late. Flame leapt up around the engine, and then with a sun-bright flash, the entire thing went up with a solid boom.
"Holy smoke!" said Thompson, to Mackey's general earshot above the noise. Mackey wanted to throw his hands up over his face, but was unable to give up his view of the fascinating destruction. The shockwave bent the visible light as it pushed back on the heavy glass of the windows, and then all was blocked by an expanding cloud of smoke and a rain of debris. Parsons reached overhead and pulled a handle marked "Fire," labeled again in a more vernacular way with a hand-lettered cardboard sign which read "NEVER PULL!" Red lights flashed from the ceiling, and some technicians ran to get out of the tunnel to the tarmac while others simply rubbed their tired faces with their hands, leaning forward onto their consoles.
"I told you," Priscilla said to Parsons, shaking her head.
"The pressure was fine, it was the test stand that blew. The engine works! Or it did—I swear by the gods, I'll have Facilities' ass in the bay for this!"
Parsons removed his goggles as he whirled around towards the stairs, and then caught sight of Hopper. His eyes widened, and the mouth below his mustache broadened into a smile.
"Why, Grace! How lovely of you to stop by. Poor timing, though! Come with me, we need to go pick up the pieces of my engine. And Mary Ross, as I live and breathe!"
Hopper introduced Mackey and Thompson, who both shook hands with the dynamic man as they all briskly walked out the tunnel to the tarmac.
"Dr. Parsons is directing a number of experimental programs for ASTB," Hopper explained. "He's normally down in Los Angeles, or out in the desert somewhere; we're lucky to catch him here."
"I'm no bureaucrat, you understand," Parsons said to Mackey, clapping grubby hands onto the shoulders of his new jacket. "No offense, of course. I just can't stand the desk. But ASTB does have the best toys, so I let them talk me into having an office." Parsons' demeanor was quite off the cuff, but he had a twinkle in his eye that was a bit unplaceable. "And a Forest Service ranger, I presume? What an odd new acquaintance to be joining us at an ASTB rocket fire!" He winked as he shook Thompson's hand. Thompson looked at Mackey, and they both shrugged out of a confused camaraderie.<
br />
"If we could just have a few minutes of your time, Jack, I'd very much appreciate it."
Parsons was already forging up the stairway to the tarmac. "I wish I could, Grace! But we've just blown any chance of another test until we get the second unit out of the shop, so I need to head over there with Priscilla—Priscilla Denton, meet Grace Hopper, and—this is . . ."
"Fred Mackey—"
"Fred Mackey, Gene Thompson, and of course, you know Mary Ross. Priscilla, do you know how they are doing over at the shop?"
Priscilla had been keeping pace, clipboard in tow. "Bill said he would call, the last time I called, and told me to tell you to stop having me call him every fifteen minutes."
The party emerged into the California night, darkness expelled outside of a bright dome of emergency floodlighting, bringing an unnatural white gloss sheen onto the scene from a circle of metal towers, along with rotating emergency beacons, flashing red. The previously clear tarmac was showered with pieces of metal from the exploded engine. A fire crew had almost finished spraying down the trench with foam. The shuttle car that they had left on the nearby track not five minutes ago had a twisted piece of pipe lodged in the roof, piercing the splintered Perspex bubble. The security officer at the track platform was apparently engaged in saving his checkpoint shack, which was currently on fire.
Parsons bent down and picked up a thin band of metal from between his feet. "D'ya think Bill wants me to send this back to the shop?"
He dropped it to the pavement with a clank and turned to Hopper. "Look, Grace. I'd love to chat, but my engine is now distributed over four acres of parking lot. Could we postpone?"
Orthogonal Procedures Page 7
