by Carl Rackman
Schlitzky paged through the server files. “They’re stamped with mission time. Give me a second to work it.” He pulled a slide rule from his shirt pocket and jotted down a few rapid calculations. “The first was taken, or stored, at 1922 hours UTC on September first. The final one came at 2052 hours UTC, same day. In fact, the last four frames were barely fifteen minutes apart.”
Everyone fell silent.
Jerry held his head in both hands and let them drop. “They must have encoded a roll command – just to show they could control the probe. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. We don’t have grounds for plausible deniability.”
“The hell we don’t!” exploded Brymon. “Voyager is twelve billion miles away! It’s travelling at thirty-seven thousand miles an hour! It’s taken almost forty years to get out there in the most inhospitable environment anyone can imagine. The idea that there are people out there tampering with the probe is beyond ridicule. You’d need to be crazy to believe it!”
Jerry shouted back at him, “Morris! Have you even heard of the internet? There are thousands, maybe even millions, of people out there who seriously believe that Apollo was a Kubrick film! It took a national scientific effort - twenty billion in Sixties dollars! Forty thousand people contributed across every major university and laboratory in the country, and twelve astronauts walked on the freakin’ moon! But still these people choose to believe some bullshit about Hollywood! People will believe anything, Morris. They are crazy! And if you deny it and say, ‘Hell, no, there’s no people out there, here’s the science to prove it’, they just say, ‘Oh, sure you guys are denying it, you’re part of the conspiracy’! You can’t win with these people. Callie’s right. We should sit on this and not give them the goddamn satisfaction.”
For once, Brymon didn’t grab the last word. He slumped heavily into the chair next to Callie’s with a deep sigh.
Callie knew she had a consensus. “Listen, guys. We are the only people who have seen the last three images, including the money shot with the hand. We don’t breathe a word – you got that? I don’t care how hard it is, you keep this quiet from everyone and anyone. I don’t see any other way of keeping Voyager One alive.”
As she spoke, red and blue flashing lights began reflecting against the blinds from outside. She heard car doors slamming and the crackle of radios.
“Looks like the cavalry’s here,” she said. “Vijay, get that data off the server and ready to transfer. Leon, leave the final image up so Petersen sees what we’re up against.”
“I’ve already got the data, Callie.” Aggarwal handed her the small data stick. “Each raw data downlink and the decoded image for each frame. It’s all there.”
“Great work, Vijay,” she said, smiling.
The Indian beamed with a headshake in modest thanks.
There was a commotion of voices from the corridor. Callie was about to open the door when it opened from the outside. Two uniformed security guards from the Lab looked at her quizzically.
“Is DD Petersen with you?” she asked cautiously.
The first guard didn’t acknowledge her. The one behind stepped forward, his proximity forcing Callie to step back into the room.
“Ma’am, the deputy director will be here shortly. Please instruct your staff to step away from the computers and show their hands.”
“Excuse me?” Callie put on her sternest grade school teacher face – it worked pretty well on interns, but it wasn’t doing much to impress the grim security guard.
“Ma’am, I’m giving you the opportunity to comply.”
“Seriously?”
“I can relieve you of your authority and place you under arrest. That’s your other choice.”
Callie again felt the hot flush of embarrassment from her neck to her cheeks. When she turned, the men were loyally waiting for her command. “Okay, guys. I need you to stand in the centre of the room, hands by your sides and palms facing outwards toward me.”
The engineers did as she told them, and she joined them adopting the same pose.
“Thank you, ma’am. The Deputy Director—”
“That’s enough, Kirkwall.” The booming voice of the former general was unmistakable. The people in the room involuntarily straightened as he entered the room. He was large, maybe six feet two and over two hundred and fifty pounds, with the thick neck and meaty shoulders of a football lineman. His face was pug-nosed with prominent brows that hooded his eyes. Those eyes were keen and bright; they stared from his fleshy face and pinned Callie to the floor.
With her hands turned outward and artificially still, she felt like an exhibit skewered beneath his unwavering gaze.
“I’m sorry for all the theatrics, people. Dr Woolf, I’ve dismissed your staff for the night. They still need their phones back – but apart from that, they know to keep quiet. From my initial questioning they saw two anomalous photographs, which could have been processing artefacts. I’m happy to let them get on with their lives. But I need to know what the rest of you saw.”
Callie didn’t feel any threat in the words, merely his curiosity. She motioned for Petersen to sit in front of the monitor still showing the fully enhanced hand picture.
He said nothing, but just stared; his eyes danced all over the frame before concentrating hard on the subject. For a full minute he just took in the image, saying nothing.
Callie started to say, “Sir, this is the final frame, the others—”
Petersen held up his hand for silence.
Callie felt belittled in front of her staff. First the security guard, and now the DD. She glanced back at the small group still standing awkwardly behind her.
They shrugged, understanding her discomfort.
Petersen still hadn’t spoken. His jaw worked hard while gritting his teeth. Finally, he inclined his head towards Callie but didn’t take his eyes away from the screen.
“Dr Woolf, you remember what the note and e-mail said?” he asked.
She felt the clench in her gut again. Her eye caught Jerry’s raised eyebrows. None of them knew about the security breach. “Sir, I didn’t notify my team about the e-mail—”
“Okay, Dr Woolf.”
He turned his chair around to look at the men. “Busy weekend, huh?”
They nodded not really knowing what to say.
“Listen, guys. This is now a matter of national security. I’m impounding your servers and handing these files over to the FBI. I’m placing you all on administrative leave as of now. You will receive your normal pay, and it will not count as part of your annual entitlement. The Voyager program is suspended until the Feds give it the all-clear.”
The men’s faces had changed from shock to relief to joy, and then abruptly back to shock again.
Jerry opened his mouth to speak, but Petersen shot him a warning look.
“This is non-negotiable, gentlemen. Go home. Spend time with your families. Hell, go on vacation for two weeks. I don’t expect this to be quick, but from here on it’s going to be security-cleared personnel only.
“I have one condition. You do not speak a word of this to anyone. You’d better get this one straight, guys. This program is now under federal lockdown. A word of this leaks out – and I don’t care if it’s 60 Minutes, Facebook or pillow talk – I will slap a federal injunction on all your asses. As of now, there are seven people in the world who know about this: me and you guys. And you can be sure I won’t be telling anybody.”
They all looked stunned. These old men and Callie, who was not far behind them in years, were suddenly off the team. They knew Voyager might have to shut down over this, but they weren’t prepared for this abrupt goodbye.
“That’s all I needed to say, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to thank you for the great job you did getting this to work. And Dr Woolf – you made a good call handling this event. JPL and NASA owe you a debt of gratitude for your clear thinking and sound management.”
Callie felt the flush again - pride more than discomfo
rt this time. She felt Jerry’s hand grip her shoulder and the prick of tears in her eyes.
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Director,” she replied. “I can truly say, and I know these gentlemen will agree, it has been the greatest honour and achievement of our lives to work on Voyager. I’m just sad to see it end like this.” She stopped as her voice started to tremble.
She turned to the guys and hugged them in turn. This felt like goodbye, but it was too little – and too soon.
“I’ll be in touch soon, guys. We’ll give Voyager a proper send-off,” she said after regaining her composure.
Petersen reasserted his control. “Now listen, gentlemen. Pick up your cell phones from Kirkwall on your way out. Keep them on at all times. I might need to find you.”
They mumbled their agreement and began to gather their things.
She saw each of them out of the door and noticed Vijay pausing before he left. He looked meaningfully into her eyes. Whatever it was, she missed it while overwhelmed with the moment.
Once they were gone, Petersen shook her hand firmly and said, “Hell of a thing, right?”
“Yes, sir.” There wasn’t much else she could say.
“Well, you’d better get on home, Dr Woolf. My office will contact you, but I recommend you get away somewhere until we have tracked the source and plugged the leak.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ll consider that.” She left Petersen behind in the control room, received her phone back from the threatening Lab guard and swiped out at the front desk.
She stepped out into the cool night air and involuntarily looked up at the starry sky. Somewhere up there, twelve billion miles away to the left of the Cassiopeia constellation, Voyager 1 was in its death throes, though it neither knew nor cared. But Callie did.
She reached into her purse to make sure her key fob was still inside, but instead her fingers closed around the flash drive Vijay had given her. She abruptly realised why he had given her that look.
She was about to turn around, but considered how things had ended and the decisive manner of the Deputy Director. Something inside, perhaps her sentimental attachment to Voyager, made her open the hybrid’s door and get in the car. The flash drive could wait.
Chapter Eight
Tuesday, 6th September 2016
The phone woke Callie from a well-deserved sleep at 8:30 a.m. She cursed herself for not setting it to silent. She cursed again when she saw it was Bryan. They hadn’t spoken in maybe six months.
“Callie Woolf,” she said on impulse, but it grated to use his surname when speaking to Bryan. Only the convoluted security procedures had made her keep her married name; she would have gladly reverted to Callie Martin given an easier choice.
“Hi, Callie! It’s Bryan. Long time no hear!”
He was his usual brash self, as if they were still best buddies. It was one of those once endearing qualities now grown repulsive with the years.
“What is it, Bryan?”
“Okay, straight down to business. No problem.”
Why was he so annoying?
“Callie, listen. This is all on the QT, okay? But it’s important, so I think you should know.”
Callie was interested, despite herself.
“Look, I know you can’t discuss certain things about your work, and neither can I. But my firm has just been hired by a national media outlet to sue JPL under a refusal to grant freedom of information access to a story lead.”
Callie’s guts turned to sand. She swallowed hard before trying to answer as neutrally as possible, “What story, Bryan?”
He dropped his voice. “Apparently there’s something going on with one of your deep space probes. My client claims to have evidence it sent back proof of extraterrestrial life.”
Callie’s head swam. She struggled to think of something to say. “Uh, why would they think that? That’s ridiculous!”
“I’m going way beyond client privilege here, Callie. Should I be worried?”
It’s me who should be worried. “Worried about what?”
“About bringing a federal freedom of the press case against a national institution if they can shoot me down.”
He always makes everything about him, Callie thought. Her indignation caught her off-guard. “Drop it, Bryan. You’re going to get fried if you take this on.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a second or two.
“So…it’s not true?”
“Why the hell would it be true? Little green men posing for pictures in outer space? Give me a break, Bryan.”
“Listen, Callie,” he began as she heard him rifling through pages, “I think you need to look into this at your end. These guys have a source. They have a recording of a signal that was sent by…let’s see…Voyager One.”
He‘s reading it; he couldn’t have known.
“It says they received image data, but they don’t have the resources to decode it. They claim NASA must have received the signal, and that it must have the decoded pictures. Know anything about that, Callie?”
Her head was spinning. The information could only have come from the people behind the hoax. They were trying to force the release of the pictures!
“Did they say who the source was?” she asked.
“No, not so far.”
“But they’d have to name them if it went to court, right?”
“Possibly, unless it was a matter of national security.”
“Then bring it on, Bryan. But don’t be surprised if JPL counter-sues your client for breach of national security.” She immediately squeezed her eyes shut in utter contempt at herself. She had let Bryan rile her again, and now she had blown it.
“Oh my God, Callie. It’s true? You took pictures of a UFO? Holy crap!”
“This conversation is over, Bryan. It never happened.” She thumped the phone down on her bed and fell back heavily into the pillows, her palms pressed into her eye sockets. She had never felt so ashamed.
Later in the day, Callie was in a mild state of panic. The phone hadn’t rung again, but she was dreading the sound. Petersen would surely be on the warpath as soon as Bryan went public. She was the only person outside JPL with a copy of the photos. The flash drive sat accusingly on the kitchen top, as if daring her to act. It was now too late to call Petersen and confess all; likewise, returning the drive at this point would incriminate her further. She thought of the one thing she could do to eliminate herself from the firing line, short of coming clean and spending time in federal prison.
Callie had an older brother, Robbie. These days he was known to most people as Robert, or more likely Mr Martin; a distinguished lawyer married to Fiona, a blue-blooded British woman he met while studying at Oxford. He now lived permanently in London, and Callie still played little sister even though they were both well into their forties. She taunted his accent, a strange transatlantic hybrid which made most Americans think he was British, and vice versa.
She checked the time. London was eight hours ahead of LA, so it was still evening and he should be awake, if not necessarily home yet.
She picked up the phone and dialled his number, a long series of digits blipped in a strangely musical sequence. There was a long pause before the odd double ringtone of the British phone system.
“Hello, Callie.”
She felt a wash of relief hearing her brother’s clipped vowels. He sounded like he was in a quiet place, perhaps his home office.
“Robbie, hi.”
“What’s wrong, Sis? Is Bryan being an arsehole again?”
The British slang version of the pejorative sounded good. Callie felt tears welling up. “God, Robbie… I’m in a situation here. It’s work, but Bryan just made it a whole lot worse.” With a lot of help from me, she wanted to add, but decided to trade on the sympathy Robbie would provide.
“I’m really sorry, Cals. Do you need anything?”
“Rob, I need you to do something important for me.”
“Sure, if I can. And if you pay me eno
ugh.”
She could hear the smile in his voice and laughed a little in spite of herself. He was always joshing with her, and right at that moment it felt very good.
“Robbie, I’m going to send you something. You have to keep it secret and hidden until I tell you, okay? It’s just computer files, but…well, it’s important.”
“No problem. Do you want me to get it FedExed over for you? I’ll keep it in our company safe as though you’re my client. Believe me, it’ll be very secure.”
“Please. If you can get it picked up in the next hour – I don’t care how much it costs, I’ll pay you back.”
“Yeah, right. You still owe me for my skateboard.”
“Thanks, Robbie. I love you.”
“Love you, too, Callie. Make sure you’re in for the pickup. I’ll text you, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Hang tight, Callie. Whatever it is, I know you’ll get through it. Even though you’re a dork.”
“Thanks, Penis Breath.”
He laughed. That had been her primary insult for him since watching E.T. It seemed appropriate in the circumstances.
“See you, Sis.”
Callie felt so much better. She began to look for wrapping to disguise the flash drive.
It was late afternoon by the time the FedEx guy had collected the packaged device. Callie felt more relieved at getting shot of the evidence. She could have simply erased it, but it seemed too precious to lose. Something inside told her to keep hold of it despite the anxiety of the conversation with Bryan, which still gnawed at her.
The phone still hadn’t rung. On a whim, and perhaps prompted by Bryan’s sudden intrusion into her day, she decided to drive out to their condo in the Palisades. It was hers as part of their divorce settlement, but she hardly ever went there. She also figured it would be better to be far away from the Lab for the time being.
By the time Callie finished packing enough to last the weekend, dusk had fallen. It was a good hour’s drive, but the evening was cool, the stars were appearing through the smog, twinkling like nowhere else on Earth, and she reminded herself that the condo had a fully stocked drinks cabinet, water bed and cable TV. It sounded like the perfect retreat for a weary rocket scientist.
