Saturn Run

by John Sandford

  “Really,” Chapman said. “Well, she’s the President, I guess she can do that.”

  Clover suspected that Chapman suspected that something was up.

  When Clover shut the cabin door behind him, Mr. Snuffles meowed before he had a chance to sit on his bunk and look around. The cat was still in its nylon carrying case, and Clover put the nylon case on the bed, sat beside it, and unzipped it.

  Mr. Snuffles stuck his head out, tentatively, looked around, and then hopped out onto the cabin floor. That was odd enough. Five minutes later, the cat launched himself halfway up the fabric-covered wall, dug in with his claws, and hung there, turned and looked at Clover, and meowed, something beyond a standard meow. More like a meow combined with a purr.

  Five minutes, and the cat had gone through a rebirth. His weight was one-tenth of what it had been in New Orleans; his heart didn’t have to work as hard, his arthritis didn’t hurt as much when it landed. He could jump again. In fact, he was jumping all over the place.

  After a while, Clover stretched out for a nap, and the cat snuggled on his chest. The cat, Clover thought, was thanking him, and that made him want to cry, although former WFL tackles didn’t do that.

  Hardly ever.

  —

  Crow spent two hours with Fang-Castro, locked in her bedroom with all the security measures up. “We’re going deep on all your crew members. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you’ve had a few unexpected transfers down. Those were obvious security problems. I’m not saying they are guilty of anything, I’m just saying that we’re not going to take any chances at all.”

  “I understand. I’ve been told that you’ll be the security chief on the trip.”

  “That’s not quite right. I’ll be your security chief. You’re the boss, I’m the underling. I’ll make that work: I’ve been employed by two presidents, both of whom are assholes of a magnitude you can’t even begin to imagine. But. I need you to pay attention to me. When it comes to security issues, I am rarely wrong.”

  “And if we have two conflicting issues, one involving security, the other the safety of the ship . . .”

  “Just like a ship’s captain to come up with the immovable-object problem,” Crow said with a grin. “If that should happen, I’ll give you my best advice and even urge it on you. But you’re the captain. I’m paid to give advice, you’re paid to make decisions.”

  Fang-Castro said, “Then we agree.”

  DAY TWO:

  Fiorella took Sandy aside, as they geared up for the first recording session. “I have to tell you, if we’re going to work together, that I probably will never like you very much. I grew up in the underclass and there’s something about rich people that causes me to itch.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sandy said. “You gotta be rich yourself.”

  “I’m affluent—now—but I don’t work with the assumptions of the people who are born rich. People like you. But: I can work with people I don’t like. I do it all the time. I just don’t know if you can handle that kind of relationship, without cutting me up. I don’t want to be cut up: this is my career. This is my life.”

  “No problem, then,” Sandy said. “I don’t watch much screen, but I’ve been told you’re very good at this. As long as you’re good, and you pay attention when I’m telling you camera stuff, we can do it. I’ll pay attention to what you say about your reporting requirements. You take care of the talk, I’ll take care of the pictures.”

  Fiorella nodded. “Fine. Now. How did you make that shot of me, at the window? I’ve never seen anything quite like it. My camera guys all have Reds, the same equipment you have.”

  Sandy shrugged. “I was an arts major and I’ve looked at a lot of paintings, and I actually did quite a bit of painting and color studies myself in the studio courses. When I saw that dark window, and the light on the people walking by, I saw a painting, a Caravaggio, that deep, dramatic lighting,” Sandy said. “The other thing is, most photographers want sharpness. That’s most of what they think about: sharp, sharp, sharp. But people can look too sharp—a little softness can really pop with a naturally sensuous face. The thing is, I was shooting you through the glass on the egg, and then through the view-port glass, and that degraded the sharpness enough to give you the glow. Instead of re-sharpening in-camera, I left it that way.”

  “You’re saying I look better if I’m fuzzy?”

  “I’m saying you look better if you can’t see every single pore,” Sandy said.

  She nodded: “Did you learn that with Naked Nancy?”

  Sandy smiled and said, “Did you know Naked Nancy once had an emergency appendectomy?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “None of her viewers know, either. It’s a very fine scar, like a white hair, but thinner than a hair, a half centimeter long. Anytime you get a full body shot of her, it’s done with a special soft-focus lens. It softens her imperceptibly, so that she looks perfect. Which she almost is. You see everything else, but you won’t see that scar, or any little skin blemishes.”

  “Why doesn’t she just go with makeup? On the scar?”

  “That would be sort of . . . anti–Naked Nancy. The word would leak. Her viewers have an aesthetic, you know. They want her naked. That’s why she doesn’t have any hair.”

  Fiorella said, “I gotta tell you, that never occurred to me. The aesthetic thing.”

  Fiorella was acting as a pool reporter. Her own services got an hour head start, but after that, it was on to three dozen networks—if the networks wanted it. “That’s why I was so worried about you screwing it up,” Fiorella said. “Right now, if you were to make a list of news stars, I’d be a Senior Star—maybe—but nothing like an Ultra. When I get done with this, I want to be an Ultra. I’ve got a shot at it.”

  Sandy rubbed his nose. “How bad do you want it?”

  “Real bad,” Fiorella said.

  —

  The first broadcast was to be twenty-two minutes long, leaving eight minutes for commercials at each end and the middle. With an Earth-side recording, there’d usually be three cameras, but Sandy would have to work it with two, one stationary, one on his StabileArm.

  The whole production took six hours on their second day in the station, squeezing out the twenty-two minutes of airtime.

  Fiorella had written a script before she left Earth, had edited it the night before, to take into account actual conditions, and then they cut it up into shooting segments.

  And they argued about costuming, they looked at colors against her skin and against the colors of the pipes and ducts inside the axis tube, against the blackness of space, against the white/beige colors of the eggs. They settled on her green-black jumpsuit with a gold-chain belt for the “reporting” shots, and a pale army-green blouse with a narrow V neck for her “commentary” shots. She wore a simple gold necklace that showed off her endorsement charms, and gold earrings, with both sets of clothing.

  She had to do her own makeup, though they found a crewwoman who could help with her hair. When they were ready, she took an egg out, slaved to Joe Martinez’s egg, while Sandy orbited around her.

  And they shot the first five hours.

  At the very end, sitting in a conference room looking at the vid on big high-res screens, Fiorella said, “We got most of it: we really did. The editors down there will turn it into gold. But: we need to reshoot the window.”

  “What? The window shot is perfect,” Sandy said.

  “Perfect Caravaggio—I looked him up,” Fiorella said. “Then I looked up a whole bunch of other pictures from the Renaissance, and you know what? I think we go for Sandro Botticelli. I’d like to make a costume change for the window shot . . . just for the window shot. We leave the green blouse for the other commentary.”

  “What costume change?”

  Fiorella said, “I got a blouse from Caroline. . . .” Caroline was the
hair helper. Fiorella dipped into a gear bag and produced the blouse and handed it to him.

  Sandy shook it out and said, “I don’t think so. It does have a nice casual look, but it’s so sheer that you’d see the brassiere lines under it and . . .”

  Fiorella was shaking her head. “No brassiere.”

  “No brassiere? You’re going to Naked Nancy?” Sandy was as shocked as a neo-Victorian. “You’re not Naked Nancy.”

  “No, I’m not. But. I’ve looked at all the vid, and it’s very, very cool. I’m very, very cool. I’ve always been that way and I need to heat it up a little. Everything in pop culture is about sensuousness now. That’s worldwide. Sex. Food. Perfume. AR games. MassageSilk. RhythmTech. I don’t want porn, or anything like it, but I need to add some heat. I’m looking for the hot librarian. We don’t have to send it—we can dump it, if it’s too much.”

  Sandy looked at her for a moment, then said, “You wanted Ultra Star.”

  “I do.”

  “Okay. But you’re walking on a scary edge here. Go too far . . .”

  “We won’t.” Fiorella went to change, came back a few minutes later. Sandy checked her out and said, “You’ll need some double-sided tape: you’ll need to stick the edges of the neckline to your skin, or you’re gonna show off a little more than you want. Not that that’d be a tragedy.”

  “Maybe not from your perspective, but like you said . . . I’m walking on an edge. I’ll get some tape.”

  When she’d taped the blouse down, she asked, “What do you think?”

  Sandy said, “Uh, Fiorella . . . you know, redheads, in my experience . . .”

  “Which I suspect is extensive . . .”

  “. . . may tend to have somewhat pale nipples.” He put up his hands to fend off objections, then continued. “If you have in your makeup kit something with a touch of rose to it . . .”

  “Go get in the fuckin’ egg,” she snapped.

  They worked for another hour, a windup shot that would last perhaps two minutes on the broadcast vid. Sandy didn’t want to quit, but Fiorella started to lose her voice, even with saltwater sprays. Back inside, they reviewed the footage.

  “You are so . . . venal,” Fiorella said, as she watched herself at the window. The gauzy blouse showed the finest, subtlest flashes of rose, almost as though they were part of the viewer’s imagination. “You are fundamentally an immoral, manipulative snake.”

  “So you like it,” Sandy said. “I had to kick up the red channel, and believe me, after I did that, it was hard to keep your red hair under control.”

  “We’ll send it down, see what my exec thinks,” she said.

  The exec called her the next morning and said, “Unbelievable. Unbelievable. You’re a fuckin’ ice cream cone, Fiorella. They’re gonna eat you up all over the world tomorrow night. Uh, the guy who shot this . . . is he around?”

  Fiorella looked at Sandy: “He’s standing right here. We were going to see if you needed another shot or two.”

  “Won’t be necessary. We’re good. Ask Randy . . .”

  “Sandy . . .”

  “Ask Sandy how much they’re paying him to take this trip . . .”

  DAY THREE:

  Becca was called into Fang-Castro’s suite on the morning of the third day: “They couldn’t find a better solution,” Fang-Castro told her. “They’re going with your idea, they think they can do something with the reactors that I don’t entirely understand . . . you’ll have to talk to them.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it ever since we talked the first time,” Becca said. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Boy, do I have a lot of work. I’ve got to get back down. Like right now. Fabrication is gonna be a bitch. Gonna make 3-D carbon-printer heads look like a kid’s crayons. I’ve been having nightmares, thinking about it.”

  “But it’s not impossible.”

  “No—but right there with the hardest things anybody’s ever built.”

  Five plus a cat went up, four came back down.

  Clover asked for, and got, permission to stay up, with Mr. Snuffles. “I wasn’t doing anything down there, anyway, that I can’t link into from up here. If somebody can throw out the garbage, lock up my house good, and send me up the rest of my clothes and some culinary supplies . . .”

  “We’ll see that it gets taken care of,” Crow told him.

  Crow talked to the President: “Fang-Castro and I spent six or eight hours talking about it, all told. It’s coming together: I think we’re good. And she’s better than good. Now we just have to screw down the security. If we can get six months, it’s a done deal.”

  13.

  Fiorella’s broadcast on the first night got a six-share nationally, and a two-share worldwide, as the first comprehensive on-site vid from what would become America’s first interplanetary ship. For her blog, a six-share was terrific. A worldwide two-share was even better.

  From there, it should have dropped off fairly sharply. But at midnight, Pacific time, she was running a twelve-share worldwide, meaning that twelve percent of the people in the world who were watching television were watching her.

  Vid Ultra Stars were lucky to get an eight. An analysis by Public Analytics implied that it was the cross-breeding of Serious Science News with the sensuality of the photography that kept people looking. A hack collective had blown the images to one thousand percent in an attempt to isolate actual nipple pigmentation, and had reported that it may have been some kind of chemical composition overlaid on Fiorella’s epidermis. It wasn’t clear whether the hackers had ever heard of makeup.

  Becca didn’t notice any of that. She got back to Georgetown and took up residence at the National Center for Mathematics. Somehow, the designs would go better, she thought, if the supercomputer were in the next room, so she could yell at the support techs if necessary.

  Clover learned that there was a twenty-two-pound underage on the next Virgin-SpaceX flight up, and got Crow to send up a cold case with a giant sack of raw medium shrimp, an uncooked chicken, a bag of rice, a box of smoked pork sausage, bottles of olive oil, Worcestershire sauce and New Mexican red sauce, onions, garlic, a couple of green bell peppers, celery, tomatoes and bay leaves, some chicken stock, sea salt and three kinds of pepper and a variety of other spices. Fang-Castro and Tomaselli were invited to the Midnight Special, as Clover called it, a secret dinner out of sight in the back of the cafeteria, and when they were done, Fang-Castro said, “Okay, we’re going to need some extra freezer room for specialty cooking . . . what would you call it? Can’t say, ‘Jambalaya for Important People.’”

  “Rations,” Clover said. “Special rations for morale purposes.”

  “Exactly. Rations,” Fang-Castro said. “God, this could kill my waistline.”

  Sandy bought two more Reds on his own, and had a long talk with Leica about optical glass for the new vid ports on the egg. Leica could produce the glass over the next six months or so and guarantee that it would meet stress requirements. They also offered an endorsement. Sandy turned it down; not that he wasn’t flattered, but he didn’t like the idea of wearing labels, and didn’t need the money. After being turned down, Leica offered the loan of a half-million-dollar ultra-zoom, which he took. He called Martinez with the glass specs. Martinez said, “Yeah, I can do that, but they’re quite a bit bigger than I’d expected.”

  “Believe me, it’s been thoroughly worked out by some of the top guys in the vid field,” Sandy said.

  By that, he meant Gunnery Sergeant Cletus Smith, who told him, “As a rule of thumb, figure out how big you need them. Then double that. Then double that again. You’ll wind up using all of it.”

  Outside the eggs, in space, he would carry his Reds in a special housing, adopted from dive housings. He got in touch with a French dive manufacturer and made arrangements to pay for three housings, to include battery-driven heaters and Leica glass. The housings woul
d cost him forty thousand dollars each, but Sandy didn’t care: it was faster if he paid himself, rather than wait for government approval.

  The dive manufacturer offered an endorsement. Sandy almost turned it down, but then thought of his surfer friend pushing brooms in Caltech’s Astro building. “Listen, if you endorse a friend of mine—he’s big in the surf world—I’ll talk about your dive gear when we get back and maybe we could do a vid on the equipment we use up there.”

  The deal was done; Sandy was walking down the hall the next morning when the surfer/janitor exploded from a machine room, off a crowded corridor, and wrapped him up in a hug and kissed him on the cheek. “Man . . .”

  “They’re looking at us strangely,” Sandy said.

  Sandy also needed every picture he could get, and every analysis he could find, of the environment in Saturn space. What was the light like? Would there be dust problems?

  His best secure access to the information on Saturn’s environment was through the Astro center, and Fletcher, with Crow’s encouragement, unhappily gave him a closet-sized office with nothing but a shaky wooden table, an uncomfortable chair, and a computer port.

  “The thing is, he’s got to look at this stuff, since he’ll be spending so much time out in the environment,” Crow told Fletcher. “We can’t have a guy who’s going to Mars being caught doing in-depth research on Saturn. He needs a computer with your security shield on it.”

  Sandy left the crappy furniture in the hall and brought in his own. He was working there late one night when he heard people running in the hallway, and looked out and saw an Astro Senior Star go by—a fat guy, running like an Olympian, really pumping his knees—and out of simple curiosity, followed.

  The fat guy knew Sandy was cleared for Saturn work, and so didn’t shoo him away as he called Fletcher, and sputtered into the secure phone.