by Homer Hickam
Medaris called Virgil and me to the cockpit after lunch. We would need a slight midcourse correction, he said. Virgil put Paco in his box and then came back up and lay down on the deck and grabbed foot-loops. I strapped myself in beside Medaris, in the pilot’s seat. When Big Dog fired, there was just a bump and it was over. Medaris pulled out all his nav stuff again, putting the laptop through its paces, and checking the star trackers. Finally, he announced that we were back into the hands of Isaac Newton and precisely on course.
We still can’t see the moon. Yesterday, I was starting to feel an affection for it. I dread it now as we begin to fall into its sterile embrace. I look back at the warm earth and find no solace there either. It seems I am happy only on my Armstrong Sea.
Penny climbed over the pilot’s seat, settled down into it. She had left Paco’s hairbrush attached to the forward panel. Jack was in the commander’s seat, reading a book and keeping one eye on the computer display. He sniffed the air as she turned to fly back out of the cockpit. “You smell good,” he said.
He’d said it as if it was a surprise. Penny remembered the time when they’d first been in orbit and she was still in stinky diapers. Perhaps that was why he’d said it. It was another slam in her direction. “Go to hell, Medaris,” she snarled.
He frowned. “What for?”
“I smell good. Thanks,” she said sardonically.
“No, really,” he said sincerely. “You do. Sort of like”—he cocked his head, sniffed—”like sage, I think.”
“Sage? You’re saying I smell like a tumbleweed?” Penny considered slapping him. This was going too far.
“No, sage is sort of like fresh grass, I think. With a tang. All women seem to have a distinctive odor.... Are you wearing something?”
“No.” She eyed Jack critically. “Do you go around smelling women? Is that how you get your kicks? And women have an odor? An odor ? God, what a geek you are!”
Jack shrugged. “Sorry.”
“You’re a jerk, Medaris.”
He went back to his book. “Remind me not to ever try to compliment you again about anything.”
“I will,” she said, pulling over the seat and soaring off. She couldn’t resist having the last word. “And if you ever need to know how to give a compliment, Medaris, ask me. I will try to teach you.”
“I’d like to teach you....” Jack grumbled, trailing off.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, dear.”
MET 7 DAYS AND COUNTING . . .
THE DOOMSDAY COMMAND
Farside Control
Starbuck proudly watched his Farside software engineers working, diligently calling up each weapon, interrogating it, studying its health and status. Besides the BEMs a weapon known as the Homing Overlay Experiment (HOE), a fifteen-foot-diameter umbrellalike web of metal strips, a powerful radar, and a battering-ram attitude, was stationed at the fuzzy boundary behind the moon. HOE had proved difficult to bring up. Starbuck’s suspicion was that a transistor located in its communications transceiver was operating intermittently, probably due to the intense heat and cold inflicted on all the devices in the Farside orbit. HOE had worked over Kwajalein Island in the Pacific several times in the 1980s against Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from California. If it had worked then, Starbuck was certain it could work again. He had his engineers assigned to it search the drawings and tinker with the software to look for alternate routes for the current.
The BEMs had proved almost savage in their demeanor. “Have a look,” the BEM lead invited Starbuck. “I asked them for health and status. They transmitted routine parameters and then I got this.”
The screen read:
letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego letmego
lover
Starbuck peered at the screen through his half glasses. “What do you make of it?”
“It wants to be let loose to find something and then kill it. BEMs are like tigers. They’ve got this killing instinct.”
“Does it repeat itself indefinitely?”
“No. It stops there at lover for an hour at a time and then starts up again. I went back and looked at the code and there’s nothing there that would cause this. This is a load that went up without documentation.”
Starbuck frowned. “Documentation’s not worth a shit on most of this stuff. SDI was pushing us so hard, I had to let everybody get on with it, figuring we’d go back and do the paperwork later. God only knows what’s missing. The guy who did this last piece of code managed to kill himself in a hang glider. He was a crazy sonuvabitch. You got any idea what’s going on during that hour of lover?”
“Yeah.” The lead wore jeans and a T-shirt, the standard uniform of the Silicon Valley warrior. He keyed in a command, bringing up a string of code. “Take a look. I had a hunch and dropped down in the comm mode and found this.”
Starbuck studied the symbols. “It’s interrogating us,” he said, softly whistling. “What does it want?”
“It wants to know if we’re still alive. Remember, these things are built to fight during a nuclear war. If it’s on manual, and the Air Force base controlling it gets blasted, it wants to know that.”
Starbuck whistled again. “It can take itself off manual override?”
“I think so. If we lost power I think one of these things might just cook itself off.”
“Break contact and attack on its own?”
“Yep. I think your crazy man embedded a doomsday command. If we’re not responding, the BEMs are going to assume we’re nuked and take off to destroy anything they find.”
Starbuck pondered the information. “We’d better fix it if we can. Can you figure it out, maybe backtrack into the code? If it’s interrogating us and we’re responding, there has to be a hook and a scar in that code.”
BEM Lead nodded but looked dubious. “I’ve tried but so far no go. If there’s a scar, it’s embedded.” He brightened. “I did figure something out while I was digging into the documentation. There’s a microchip in the nav hardware that’s capable of making tones. You want to make the BEMs talk?”
Starbuck’s eyebrows lifted. “In what way?”
“I can give you a voice-emulating transducer, no sweat.”
Starbuck grinned. “Hell, yes! How about comm otherwise?”
“Give me a freq and you got it.”
Starbuck went back to his Exalted Leader pedestal. This was going to be even more fun than he’d thought. It appeared that he would be able to talk to his target before destroying it.
Starbuck eagerly rubbed his hands and looked down at the backs of his engineers, the lines of code streaming across their consoles as they joyfully hacked. On the port virtual panel screen the BEM XJ-249 was shown. Its two bright aluminized visual acquisition ports seemed to be inspecting Starbuck, contemplating him. He checked the BEM screenload. It said:
lover
Starbuck shuddered involuntarily. The BEM was interrogating him, hoping he was dead. He looked up and the antennas on XJ-249 were twitching. It seemed to Starbuck that it was an angry gesture.
LOW LUNAR ORBIT
But if in vain, down on the stubborn floor
Of Earth, and up to Heav’n’s Unopening Door,
You gaze To-day, while You are You—how then
To-morrow, when You shall be You no more?
—Edward Fitzgerald,The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
ARRIVAL
Columbia
The moon was huge, completely filling Columbia ’s cockpit windscreen. Awestruck, Jack observed its approach. It seemed to be bulging toward him, so close he felt as if he could reach out and to
uch its plasterlike surface. Penny joined him to gape at the formidable sphere. “We are going to miss it, aren’t we?”
He turned from the moon to look into her eyes. They were as wide and deep as space itself. He liked that, liked everything about the way she looked, one toe hooked in a footloop, relaxed, that fabulous body floating in zero g, her breasts restrained only by the spandex top she favored. Zero g did wonders for any woman’s figure but for High Eagle... Jack fought against the stirrings of lust. He reminded himself of Penny’s argumentative nature, her arrogance, her... but, God, she did look fine, didn’t she?
“Medaris? Are you listening to me?”
He snapped out of his musings. “Will we miss the moon? Yes, High Eagle, we will. Unless the laws of physics take a holiday.”
Penny was quiet for a moment. “Tell me about her, Jack. Kate.”
Jack was ambushed by her question and it made him feel ashamed of the desire he’d just felt. Kate was so near now. How could he have feelings for someone else? He lurched around for an appropriate response. “I can tell you this much,” he said, finally. “Kate would have loved this.”
“Is it true she designed the Big Dog engine?” Penny probed.
“She did the preliminary work,” Jack acknowledged. “Everything MEC has done was based on her work.”
“That must make you proud, that you were able to complete what she started.”
Jack nodded and pulled away from Penny, using the handrails to go back to the cockpit. She followed him, settling into the seat beside him. “Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about her?”
“To you, yes,” Jack said honestly.
She blinked her big browns. They were filled with innocence. “Why?”
Jack ignored her, opened up a monitor, began to tap in instructions. “Got to get Big Dog configured to circularize our orbit.”
“You don’t want to talk about her.”
Jack closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “Yes, High Eagle. You’re right. I don’t want to talk about her.”
“What is it, Jack? Is she the reason you’re here?”
“Not now, High Eagle.” Sweat had broken out on Jack’s forehead.
“What could possibly be on the moon that has anything to do with Kate?”
“I said not now!” He kept working. “Later, maybe,” he relented when she kept staring at him. “But not now.”
“Later, never, you mean,” Penny huffed.
Jack kept working. Columbia was coming in over the lunar surface at an altitude of fifty miles. Gravity would swing her around the far side, but to stay in lunar orbit Big Dog would have to be fired to slow Columbia down.
“Am I right, Medaris?” Penny demanded. “Never rather than later?”
Jack gritted his teeth. “Yes, you’re right. Happy now? Strap yourself in, High Eagle. This will be a big kick in the pants.”
Virgil came up from the middeck at Jack’s call, strapped himself into the seat behind the cockpit. Paco was already stowed in his carrier. Penny stayed where she was, strapped in beside Jack, looking him over as if at any moment he was going to suddenly break down and confess why he was really at the moon. Jack kept his head down, immersed in his work. At the appropriate moment he gave the GSC computer the go-ahead and Columbia rotated around, tail-first to its direction, and Big Dog made its guttural roar for three-plus minutes, pressing them back into their seats.
Jack called up the data on the GSC to check the orbit. “All balls,” he announced, meaning only zeros had come up in the computer’s discrepancy analyses. “We won’t need an OMS burn. Only a little tweak to the RCS to bring Columbia into a nose-first, cargo-bay-down attitude.”
Columbia soared from behind the moon and began her first lunar orbit. Jack pointed at the earth as the great globe edged over the horizon. “This was always a happy time for the Apollo boys,” he said. “They’d call Houston and tell them to celebrate, they were in lunar orbit.”
“Shall we do the same on the SAREX?” Penny asked him.
“Why not?”
High Eagle pushed out of her seat and went down to the middeck. Jack followed her.
LUNAR ORBIT ACHIEVED.
The SAREX whirred. Almost instantly a message came back.
BEST NEWS EVER. BE CAREFUL. WE LOVE YOU.
Penny poised her hands over the keyboard.
WE LOVE YOU TOO AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE THERE.
The SAREX whirred, transmitted, and received.
SAY HELLO TO THE MAN IN THE MOON.
BATTLE IN SPACE (1)
Farside Control
When Starbuck gave the command, the Farside commsat locked on Columbia and relayed her position to the designated BEM. The BEM instantly fired its engine and soared toward an intersection with the target. A virtual panel at Farside Control tracked the converging orbits. “Whoa, put on the brakes!” Starbuck ordered.
BEM Lead moved his mouse, and dragged the acceleration parameter toward zero. On the panel the BEM bullet slowed. “Rendezvous in six minutes,” Lead called, his voice tight.
“Copy,” Starbuck replied calmly, working hard to maintain an attitude of nonchalance. He knew pressure should never be applied by the director of a control room. He’d learned that the hard way from SDI generals who’d screwed up a couple of the tests at Kwajalein Island, getting everybody uptight by bellowing orders.
On the virtual panel Starbuck watched the BEM come in behind Columbia and hover over her tail. Its data stream showed XJ-249 begging for permission to attack. Starbuck sent back a negative code and then put the BEM under manual joystick guidance control. He’d take it from there.
Columbia
Jack tenderly watched Virgil dozing in the pilot’s seat, as if he were looking at a child. The big guy deserved the rest, he thought. He wasn’t liable to get much over the next day or two. Jack was checking the software code on the lander when he heard a scraping sound. He turned around just as Virgil jumped out of his seat, cracking his head against the rows of deactivated switches on the ceiling console. Jack pulled up beside Virgil and found himself looking into the silvery eyes of a monster. Virgil was trying to form words but all that came out were little gasps. When his voice finally came, it was a bellow: “My God, what is that?”
Jack knew exactly what it was. “I’ll be damned,” he said, marveling at the thing bumping and scratching at the cockpit windscreen.
Penny arrived. She screamed when she saw the thing and clutched Jack’s arm. He pried her loose. She had squeezed him so hard, it still hurt after she let go. “SDI,” he told her. “Strategic Defense Initiative. Star Wars stuff, High Eagle. This device is called a BEM, a bug-eyed monster. It’s a killer satellite.”
“You think it followed us here, Jack?” Virgil asked, obviously still shaken.
“Most likely been here the whole time, Virg. What a great place to go about your business undetected!”
Jack leaned forward, inspecting the “bug.” It backed off and then steadied itself with little puffs of gas. It was apparently inspecting him as well. He waved in what he hoped would be interpreted as a friendly gesture and then waited to see what it did next.
Farside Control
Carl Puckett was in a side room watching the activities on two monitors. One monitor observed the control room. On the other, in crystal-clear color, was a view as seen by the BEM. A man in Columbia ’s cockpit was waving. Puckett put on a headset. “Are you just going to look at them, Starbuck? Ram them!”
Starbuck came back, his voice nonchalant. “The BEM contains no warhead, Carl. I’m not sure of the results of a bows-on strike. The life-support system pallet would be the best target or maybe the OMS. But I want to talk turkey with them first.”
“Listen, you nerd,” Puckett brayed. “I’m paying about a million dollars an hour for this rig. Ram them, I said, and get it over with!”
Starbuck didn’t respond. Puckett stood up and tried the door. It was locked.
Starbuck switched Puckett’s comm off. “BEM Lead,
can you give me the voice transducer?”
“Ready, Exalted Leader.”
“Go for contact. You have the con. Easy now.”
BEM Lead eased the joystick forward. Starbuck watched the data, the BEM fussing a bit, asking for permission to ram. The transducer would allow voice communications through vibrations. It was crude but if the crew aboard Columbia put their ear to the windscreen, they might be able to understand him. This was going to be fun! He was going to talk to the hijackers!
Columbia
Jack put his hand on the windscreen. He could feel the vibration as a staccato of gas from the bug’s control nozzles hit Columbia. Then the eye cover of the BEM touched the glass. He put his ear closer. “High Eagle, get me a stethoscope out of the medical pack.”
“On my way,” Penny said compliantly. She headed below, was back within a minute with the instrument.
Jack used the stethoscope on the windscreen. “Greetings, earth people,” he said, interpreting the tinny voice coming through the stethoscope. “Go to UHF two five nine point seven for voice.” He took off the instrument and handed it to Penny. “I think we’d better do as it says.” He settled into the commander’s seat, called up Columbia ’s central processor and activated the UHF power amplifier circuit, selected the 259.7-MHz UHF simplex, and then activated the audio distribution system. He put on a headset. “This is Columbia,” he said. “Are you receiving me, Mr. SDI bug-eyed monster?”
“You know what I am?” The voice sounded surprised.
“I’ve studied SDI a little,” Jack allowed, and then probed, trying to engage in conversation with whoever was electronically connected with the little killer bug. Any information he could get would be helpful to figure out its intentions. “Isn’t it illegal for you to be in lunar orbit?” he asked. “The Outer Space Treaty prohibits any weapon of a strategic nature to be in the vicinity of the moon.”
