Orbit

by John J. Nance

  But he’s agreed with himself to try the rocket one last time, on the chance it might make a difference. And now, sitting in front of the command panel, the thought hits him that if it fires, he’ll then have an incredibly complicated flying machine to guide through the atmosphere but without benefit of flight training. Not to mention figuring out how, and where, to land it. Succeeding in a spacewalk repair, a deorbit burn, and a reentry, only to crash and die in a botched landing would be awful. Worth a complaint to DiFazio himself.

  And the thought makes him chuckle. Yeah. If they kill me with inadequate ground training, I’ll never speak to them again.

  The humor masks the fear that’s contracting his stomach, and he’s already flipping through the checklists looking for the very page that turns up now, a reference to another checklist he hasn’t seen—one for emergency reentry.

  The discarded headset is floating to his left, disturbed by his movements, and he wonders if he should put it on and try the radios one last time.

  No point in wasting time with that. Whatever I was messing with out there didn’t have anything to do with the antennas.

  The storage compartment for the ship’s manuals is just out of reach, and he has to unbuckle again to lean far enough over to open it, worry now rising that he won’t be ready in time.

  There!

  The checklist is in his hands and he opens it, reading too quickly, having to force himself to slow down and reread it.

  God, if I’d seen this before, I could have turned the ship automatically!

  Someone down there, Kip thinks, decided that with one astronaut aboard each flight, it made good sense to write the checklist so that a rank amateur could follow it.

  And even with a dozen glider flights and basic stick and rudder skills, and a couple of fixed-wing flights in a single-engine Cessna in his head, Kip has never felt so much like an amateur.

  He checks the time. Twelve minutes to go. Just time enough to learn how to place the small bullet-shaped icon on the attitude indicator in the arms of the moving “V” that is the flight director, the key to keeping the ship in the proper attitude on the way down.

  He keeps looking for the information on how to punch an autopilot button and let the ship fly itself, but it either doesn’t exist, or he can’t find it. He’ll have to manually follow the small, projected dot on the attitude indicator all the way and hope for the best—flipping the tail assembly into the split reentry configuration at the right moment, reconfiguring on time, and keeping the engine pointed in the right downward direction until coming through ninety miles up.

  Like drinking from a fire hose, he thinks, realizing that he’s actually thinking of reentry as a real possibility and getting way ahead of himself. After all, if the engine doesn’t fire, the rest of it is academic.

  CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE

  COMMAND, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO,

  10:38 A.M. PACIFIC/11:38 A.M. MOUNTAIN

  “We have a live picture, General,” the duty controller announces, bringing Chris Risen’s eyes around to the front of the room where the slightly fuzzy image of Intrepid is swimming into view, a telescopic shot from the Russian crew.

  “Where are they?” Chris asks, moving alongside the controller, a sharp young female captain.

  “Twenty-one miles and closing, sir.”

  “So, we’ve got a sudden telemetry reactivation, good pressure, Kip apparently back inside, and the cosmonauts within spitting distance. I’d say his impending demise has been greatly exaggerated.”

  The captain glances up at the four-star, wondering if she has permission to chuckle, or the need to give him a charity laugh.

  She does neither.

  “Bastardized Mark Twain,” Chris explains. “Sorry.”

  “He has a chance, sir, provided he doesn’t light off his engine.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s coming up to a retrofire point for coming down at Mojave in just six or seven minutes, and if he knows that, and doesn’t know the Russians are coming…”

  “And if he’s fixed his engine as effectively as he’s apparently fixed some of the radios…”

  “Yes, sir. He might try to deorbit, and he’s not a pilot. I mean, I understand he’s had some glider training toward a license, but that’s it.”

  The thought of an untrained, unlicensed pilot trying to guide a spacecraft through a precise series of return maneuvers sends a chill up his spine, and he forms a small prayer that, regardless of Kip’s mechanical prowess, the engine won’t fire.

  “ASA is trying frantically to reach him and tell him to just sit tight,” the captain adds.

  “But no contact?”

  She’s shaking her head. “Nothing yet. The Russian crew is trying to signal him with a low-powered laser. But there’s no response.”

  Chris Risen glances at the frozen crawl from Kip Dawson’s laptop.

  “And he’s written nothing more.”

  “Yes, sir. I noticed that.”

  “Which means he’s getting ready to try. Captain, get a line to Baikonaur’s Mission Control and make sure the Soyuz crew is informed what might happen.”

  “Yes, sir. See, that’s what I was getting at, General.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The Soyuz is behind Intrepid, a bit lower but right along his orbital path. If he retrofires at a slight downward angle, he may be thrusting right down the cosmonauts’ throats.”

  “Oh, Jesus! Hurry up!”

  Chapter 41

  ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 21, 10:38 A.M. PACIFIC

  Kip sits in the command chair staring at the western edge of the planet, wondering why a bright blue light had been sparking intermittently on the horizon line.

  But his mind is consumed by a thought that pulls him away from what he’s seeing.

  Here he is, ready to die. But what if he doesn’t?

  Maybe, he thinks, the CO2 is winning at last. He feels clearheaded, yet his longing to return and have another stab at life—his desire to see his kids again and use the insights he’s gained—seems somehow cheapened. It’s as if his impending death has suddenly been deemed privileged and noble, and an escape back to life anything but. It’s like the narrative he’s been writing for some future reader—the angst of one solitary man—is actually somehow a small contribution to humankind.

  This is stupid, he thinks.

  But there’s a part of him protesting that to live through this is to cheat himself of a legacy, to be just a mere survivor, not an example.

  An example of what? An example of foolishness? Crying in my laptop for days before figuring out what to do?

  Yet the feeling is all too real. It astounds and depresses him. As if deorbiting would be a cop-out, a cowardly retreat.

  Kip snorts out loud at the irony.

  But that’s not it, he realizes, his eyes flaring wide as he sits up a bit straighter with a smile on his face.

  No, that’s not it at all!

  What it is, is his father again. It’s his dad’s template for life imprinted in his brain like an indelible operating program, looking for a way even in the eleventh hour to impose duty and sacrifice and stoic acceptance of responsibility over any breath of self-determination.

  He is, he realizes, being drawn back to that myopic world like a sailor lured by Sirens, believing not what fills his eyes and his consciousness, but what fits his parental rule book yet again: That doing something for himself is wrong. That speaking his truth is wrong.

  My God, I’m thinking like a Calvinist! Surviving is wrong if there’s a chance I might enjoy the result. The only thing missing is a hair shirt.

  How tired and old and sad his father had seemed toward the end, and suddenly he understands why. No wonder visiting him was like tiptoeing to the edge of a black hole.

  My father’s manual for enduring life. But this time I’ve caught you red-handed, Dad! He looks around at Bill’s bagged remains as if the bag also contains the part of hi
s father that he’s never put to rest.

  His voice booms through the diminutive interior. “No more, Dad! No more. I’m going to give this my best shot, and if somehow I succeed, I’m going to have a go at really living like you never did. Like you should have. And you know what? I’m going to do it, even if I die trying. I’m bidding you good-bye, Dad, wherever you are. I love you, but I’m not listening to you anymore. And it’s…it’s time for you to go…to the light, whatever that is, or wherever. Just…go.

  There is a tear in the corner of his eye he didn’t expect and the feeling of a weight lifting from him. Only his imagination, of course, but he could swear something slipped away from this small enclosure, something dark and sad.

  He turns back forward with a renewed spirit, the laptop keyboard beckoning. But there are only four minutes remaining.

  For some reason it feels good to speak out loud, after so many days of silent thoughts, at full volume, and now that he’s started, he likes the broken silence.

  “So, are we ready?”

  He looks at the attitude indicator, noting the target dot nestling snugly where it should be in the “V” for retrofire. Five minutes of rocket thrust at more than three g’s of deceleration will be required to get home. If he’s slow in firing, he’ll drift eastward, away from Mojave.

  He pulls the laptop over suddenly, unable to resist.

  Okay, I have two more things to say. First, I’ve just been outside and tried to repair this little craft, and I have no idea whether I made any difference, but I’m going to try to fire the engine once more in a few minutes. Second, I have finally realized something that to me is very important: It turns out that I have never been Kip Dawson until now, until I was forced to be honest about my life. But a few minutes ago, in effect, I buried my father and gave him back his book—his operating program. I am electing life on my own terms, and even if I have only a few minutes of it to enjoy, it feels wonderful. I get the point now. Self does matter.

  Just under one minute left.

  Kip positions his hand on the sidestick controller, fanning his fingers and waiting as he forces from his mind the fatalistic “reality” that the motor will not fire. Of course it’ll fire. He’ll simply will it to fire. All positive thoughts. Mind over matter.

  Faith can move mountains, but dynamite works better, someone once said. So he’ll use both—faith and the dynamite of determination. He demands that the friggin’ engine fires, so it damn well has no choice!

  So there.

  Why do they say T minus? What does the T stand for? He wonders, watching the secondhand crawl below ten seconds, unable to resist the urge to voice his own countdown.

  “Nine, eight, seven…”

  The words seem to echo in the small cabin, something he hasn’t noticed before. He’s bracing for the thrust in his back.

  “Two, one, and we have ignition!”

  Kip’s left index finger shoots toward the ignition sequence button and presses hard. He can feel the click of the switch.

  And that’s all.

  For just a second he sits with his finger still depressing the switch, as if the engine is just thinking about it and may get around to firing in a few seconds. But the seconds start moving toward a minute as he pulls his finger back and presses the switch down again and again, not frantically, but with a determination to get his message across: You are hereby commanded to fire!

  The engine, however, isn’t complying, and where he’s expected to feel either instant acceleration or great angst at a failed firing, he feels strangely composed and calm. Like he’s entering a zone reserved only for fighter pilots and astronauts with Chuck Yeager’s right stuff: perfect tranquillity in the face of disaster and anything but acceptance.

  Kip pulls his hand away, his mind moving steadily back over the checklist items needed to fire the engine. The checklist is in his lap, and he finds the right page and begins moving down the list, double-checking every switch, aware that more than a minute and a half have already passed and he’ll commit himself to landing somewhere way east of Mojave if they light off. The thought of waiting for another orbit flickers across his mind and is just as quickly swept away by the reality that he doesn’t know how much breathable air he has left.

  “Ignition primary and secondary bus transfer switches should be off. They are. Ignition emergency disconnect relay one and two guarded on. Where are those? Oh yeah, they’re positioned right.”

  He stares at the switches whose name he just spoke. Small red plastic covers known as “switch guards” cover each toggle switch to prevent a sleeve or wayward hand from accidentally flipping the tiny lever.

  So are they off or on when closed? he wonders, opening one of the guards to expose the metal toggle lever inside.

  It’s off. So when the guard is closed and down, the switch is off.

  “Wait a minute.” He flips open both guards and moves the switches to the “on” position, double checking the language in the checklist.

  “For God’s sake, don’t tell me that’s why the engine didn’t fire four days ago!”

  Were they open or closed then, those guards? He read the checklist items very carefully on the first day, but the image in his memory of the two little switch guards is flip-flopping between whether they were open or closed. Up or down. He can’t remember.

  At least now, he figures, they’re in the right position.

  His breathing has accelerated and he can feel his heart pounding and his face reddening, more from embarrassment than anticipation. All this because he didn’t follow the checklist four days back?

  Yet the thought is instantly calming, and in the space of only a few seconds he gets over it, embracing the thought that what he’s learned in accepting his own demise is worth a lifetime, and the thought that if the problem is that simple, then hallelujah! He’s going home.

  Once again his index finger stabs at the ignition switch.

  ABOARD SOYUZ, 10:39 A.M. PACIFIC

  “One thousand meters, closing at five per second,” Mikhail intones in the calm voice of a man serenely on the razor edge of his technology.

  Sergei Petrov nods, his eyes still focused on the radar screen and the just-received message from Baikonaur Mission Control that is wrinkling his features.

  “You believe we should drop down in case he retrofires?” Sergei asks, knowing the finite amount of fuel in the maneuvering jets and estimating how much it will take to change orbit even that slightly.

  “The warning came from NORAD, no?”

  “Yes. NORAD. Not from Houston.”

  “You’ve been watching with the binoculars, Sergei. Have you seen any movement? Any evidence that he’s seen the laser I’ve been flashing?”

  “Nyet. Nothing. But let me look again.”

  Sergei plucks the instrument from where it’s been floating by his face and focuses once more on the forward windows of the backward-flying American space plane. The image steadies and suddenly looms larger, as if he’s triggered a zoom lens, and he shakes his head in confusion before pulling the glasses away and finding the very same zoom happening in his unaided vision.

  “What am I…”

  “Sergei!” Mikhail is barking the words. “He’s coming! Coming at us!”

  The mission commander grabs for the controls, time dilation already slowing the sequence as the American craft looms larger in the Soyuz window, coming directly at them, Sergei recalling now the sight of a burst of something alongside the craft just as it started zooming in.

  Sergei’s hand reaches the firing control and jams their main engine to life, thrusting forward while canting the angle of firing downward, but the oncoming vehicle is accelerating toward them.

  A rapid calculation flashes through Mikhail’s mind pairing five hundred meters with the steady acceleration of the ASA ship and yielding a catastrophic closing speed by the time it reaches them.

  Intrepid is looming large now, its relative closing speed marked more by how fast it seems to be growing in
size than by any lateral movement, but at last the two cosmonauts can feel their craft thrusting ahead of the oncoming space plane’s trajectory as it approached soundlessly.

  It’s too late to do more, and as the American spacecraft fills the forward window both men cringe in anticipation of a thunderous impact that doesn’t come.

  As if it were a holographic projection, as soon as Intrepid fills their eyes, it flashes past, missing their craft by a tiny margin they can only guess at, shooting through the empty space around them, no wake turbulence to rattle their craft, and nothing but the accelerated heartbeats in the Soyuz capsule to mark its passing.

  “He fired his engine!” Mikhail says.

  “You think?” Sergei says, staring into the same void with a death grip on the control stick. “The phrase they use in Houston is: No shit, Sherlock!”

  Chapter 42

  ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 21, 10:40 A.M. PACIFIC

  Kip doesn’t have a spare second to be confused.

  No time to wonder about what flashed past the forward windscreen less than a minute after ignition. Maybe a satellite. Maybe nothing. Whatever it was, it seemed so incredibly close, yet, it whooshed past without a sound, like an illusion—some computer-generated sequence projected on the windscreen. He still has the mental image of what the thing looked like somewhere in his memory, and it’s a familiar shape somehow, but his attention is too focused on the forward panel to think it through.

  Kip’s right hand is working the sidestick controller constantly with small, intense movements, and there’s a tiny flash of pride that he’s already learned not to overcontrol. Three g’s of thrust are pressing at his back and pulling at his face, but it’s all as handleable as the ascent was four days ago.

  The physical impact of the light off was nothing compared to the psychological shock that the engine really fired. His mind is still trying to work through how that happened. At the same time, he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t do anything else terribly wrong, like face the rocket engine the wrong way and boost himself on a one-way trip to outer space. He’s already figured out that, with enough fuel left to subtract seventeen thousand miles an hour of momentum, this spacecraft, if turned in the opposite direction, could easily reach the escape velocity of twenty-three thousand miles per hour and soar away from Earth’s gravity forever.