“Stay attached to the lower half, use your rocket pack to try to guide it back to the upper half, then do an EVA and we’ll try to figure out some way to reconnect the upper and lower halves.”
“I’ll take the second option.”
There was a pause.
“Gary, the second option stands a snowball’s chance in hell. There are dynamics playing out now that we cannot even begin to get a handle on with the way the wires are behaving, and the harmonics are still playing.”
Both options were near to impossible, Gary realized, but at least with the second, there was a chance, a very slim chance he could still save the Pillar.
He sighed.
“You sure this is a secured line?”
Franklin paused, shouting a query to his communications director, and she gave the reply he wanted.
“It’s secure.”
“I’d rather die trying to save our dream than die trying to save my own ass, Franklin. You got that?”
A pause and then just one word.
“Yes.”
“Send up the programming to control the thruster to Kevin on the station; he’s the pro with this. He’ll send it back down and try to coach me through controlling the burn. Who knows, I just might save it after all.”
He could hear the tension in Kevin’s voice as the guidance data was sent up to the station.
“Damn it, Doc, you know it should be my ass in that pod, not you!” Kevin snapped, while Singh loaded in the guidance information that would then be downloaded to the pod’s onboard computer.
“I think you got a more important job ahead of you,” Gary replied.
“Cut the crap, Doc. We both got jobs ahead of us, so don’t lay any more guilt on me than I already feel.”
Gary chuckled, glad for the reassuring voice of his friend. Franklin asked if he wished to talk with Eva, but when told that half the world would be trying to listen in, he had refused, telling Franklin to give the excuse that he was focused on this effort to save the tower.
There was no old-fashioned joystick to grab hold of and maneuver, not that he would even remotely know how to use one, though Victoria would. A flash thought of her. Thank you, God, this is about me rather than her. For this burn, he was just along for the ride; it would be Singh and Kevin who would be doing the fine-tuning from above.
“Burn in five, four, three…”
He felt the rocket pack beneath the pod kick in, pressing him sideways. He actually wondered how many terabytes of data were running this show, calculating not just the movement of the pod but also the mass of the wire he was still attached to, its fluctuations from both the harmonics and the fact that it was cut free, then trying to match it all up with the end of the wire floating above him and now more than a kilometer away.
“We have good burn, Doc,” Kevin whispered, voice tense.
He did not reply. Eyes glued to the monitor, the topside camera supposedly focused on where the bottom of the severed strand was located.
“Still a good burn. We are closing in, Doc. You’re doing great.”
“I’m not doing a damn thing,” Gary whispered back.
“You will once we got rendezvous. Your suit pressurized, full oxygen load, ready for EVA?”
“Yes on that.”
He always felt that saying “Roger,” “Affirmative,” or “Check” would sound stupid coming from him.
“Hey, Franklin.”
“Here, Gary.”
“Bet you got the entire world watching this.”
“We’ve shut it down, Gary.”
He said nothing, glad to hear that. He was petrified. Strangely, he was not fearful regarding the next few minutes but about whether the tremors of Parkinson’s would somehow hinder him once he was EVA. That would be an utter humiliation, to be so close to saving the Pillar but then have his own disability prevent it.
“Depressurize cabin, then open the hatch but stay strapped in for now. If we score this, you’ll have to move fast,” Kevin said.
He did as ordered, and for a moment he actually did catch a glimpse of the upper half of the tower. Inwardly he sighed.
He knew that they knew; the radar aboard the pod would already be showing it. They were moving to directly underneath where the wire had once been, but already it had drifted more than a kilometer upward and was accelerating away from him, its lateral movements random and out of control, orbital dynamics swinging it up and away.
No one spoke. He could feel the thrust shifting, the adjustable nozzle moving directly underneath him despite the threat that the wire coiling beneath the pod might be cut by the high-intensity flame of the hybrid oxygen and solid propellant engine.
The pod started to thrust upward. He watched the monitor, the amount of fuel remaining, the gauge dropping down, color coding on the computer screen.
“Three percent fuel remaining,” Gary whispered.
“I know, Doc.” It was Kevin, his voice trembling.
“We’ll make it.”
“Of course.”
He could see the wire—at least, the onboard radar could—so tantalizingly close, less than half a kilometer above, but shifting several hundred meters now to his right.
Even more than in a plane, where at least if you had your stick or wheel directly wired to the ailerons, elevator, and rudder you still had some control, in space, once you lost thrusters, you were locked on the trajectory, fated to follow the path in your last second of burn. The engine, never designed for this kind of duration of burn, or for nudging such a mass back into position, sputtered out. The drag of the wire he was still attached to rapidly slowed his upward thrust.
“Doc, abandon the pod! If you EVA now, you might be able to grab the upper wire,” Kevin shouted.
Gary actually laughed.
“Then what, hang there until I run out of air?”
“We could think of something. Sending a spinner down ASAP might work.”
“Dream on,” Gary replied. “Remember, I designed most of this. It’ll never work.”
He didn’t speak after that, ignoring Kevin’s repeated appeals to go for the EVA, instead just watching the monitor, the upper half of the tower, the focus of a lifetime of dreams so close and yet now an eternity away.
Upward velocity of the pod ceased as the thousands of miles of wire beneath him acted like an anchor line. He gazed at the radar image of the wire above, smiled sadly, then switched off the image.
“Franklin, can you patch me through to Eva and Victoria?”
* * *
The choice was easy enough once made. There were enough oxygen and supplies on board the pod for four days. Four days of what? Melodrama? Breathless, teary-eyed reporters flooding the Internet and airwaves with hourly bulletins? The already sick demands for exclusive interviews by tabloid writers trying to get into Tower Control? There was one piece of scum who had cornered Victoria at the Purdue airport and offered her a million dollars for a ten-minute exclusive. If Gary had been on earth, he would have knocked the guy flat. When he heard how physical her response was—about the shrieking reporter writhing on the pavement as her flight took off—he actually forgot his own situation for a moment and laughed. That was indeed his girl!
He still had friends at Goddard and in the government, who opened up a very secure channel so he could chat freely with his “girls” as they raced to New Mexico to catch a supersonic four-hour flight to Kiribati, personally piloted by their British friend.
It did give him time to compose his thoughts and, amazingly, even to sleep for a while. He had a wonderful dream, very private, of a time early on with Eva, and he awoke with a smile.
The retrograde motion of the lower half of the wire was increasing. The point of near impact by the missile had finally fractured completely from the stress loads. On the ground at the platform they were hurriedly trying to reel in the lower two hundred miles of wire. Parts of the wire farther up were into the upper atmosphere with enough velocity to burn up, with more fractures break
ing other sections apart. He thought he could actually feel the vibrations of those breaks—or was it that so much of his soul was tied to this dream that he could feel it breaking apart and dying?
He clicked on one of his favorite albums by Constance Demby, Sanctum Sanctorum. It was comforting; there was a spiritual sense to it that had always moved him and seemed so appropriate now. Novus Magnificat: Through the Stargate was perfect for his ride up, but now? Sanctum was the comfort he needed as he gazed out the window of the pod, soaking in a sunrise, the moon setting on the western horizon and, above him, the sea of stars. Some more messages, to old friends, professors who had helped; a general message to Goddard to read to the staff sometime in the future, leaving it to Franklin to determine when; and a less-than-pleasant sign-off to Professor Garlin and her anti-technology friends. To be able to plan all that out and deliver it diverted him for a few hours and actually gave a certain pleasure, especially the messages to his favorite composer and friends.
Again settling back. What the hell, he had the finest view ever offered to an inhabitant of earth. He wondered just how many billions over the course of history had looked heavenward and would have gladly offered their lives just for a few minutes of the view he now had, especially when facing what he now faced. Far better than the ceiling and fluorescent lights of some damn hospital emergency room with a bunch of strangers staring down at him, he realized with a smile.
No longer locked to one place, and due to the vagaries of the lower part of the tower as it broke apart, he even caught a flash of what he assumed was part of it burning up on entering the atmosphere. He actually found himself feeling light, even free, though the sight of parts of his tower burning up was painful.
He was, of course, weightless, though confined by his EVA suit. Such a wonderful sense of freedom … He spent nearly a quarter of an hour talking with his friend Dr. Bock about the potentials of space for medical treatment in the near future, as a destination for those who were paralyzed or suffering from a debilitating disease who, in lower-gravity environments, could regain the freedom of movement of a child. The hours he had spent playfully somersaulting the length of the station while Kevin, imitating Superman, just glided back and forth, were times of joy and forgetfulness, even if after enjoying the antics one was then condemned to agonizing hours on the exercise machines to keep in tone.
And then word finally came up from Franklin.
“Gary, Eva has just come in with Victoria. I’m clearing the room so you three can talk. Our friends with NASA assure us the comm line is absolutely private, and I am leaving the room as well.”
“Thanks, my good friend.”
“Gary?”
The image of Franklin filled the screen, and he could see the tears.
“What, Franklin?”
A pause.
“Thanks.”
Gary smiled.
“And thanks to you, even now. Thanks, you dear friend. Now keep the dream alive.”
“Give my best to Erich when you see him,” Franklin whispered, and turned away.
A moment later Eva and Victoria filled the screen. He smiled gently, telling them to not cry, and for more than an hour they spoke. At times he asked for Victoria to leave the room so that he and his wife could share a private memory, and then he asked Eva to leave the room so he could offer Victoria some fatherly advice and reassurances.
And then he knew they were dragging it out, that they did not want to let go, that somehow if they kept talking, what was to come would never happen. But in life—everyone’s life, he told them—such a moment does come, and they should consider it a blessing that they had been given the time to share just how much they really loved each other.
“Victoria?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Remember what I said about being afraid?”
She nodded, trying not to sob.
“Don’t be afraid unless I see you’re afraid,” she whispered.
He smiled again.
“I’m not afraid, angel. Now do me a favor.”
“Anything, Daddy.”
“Work with your mother and get this job done. My love will be with you always.”
Before they could see his own tears, he switched the private comm link off, but then switched on the open link—audio only, no video.
He had already depressurized the pod; opening the hatch was easy enough. He bent double, the Parkinson’s making it difficult to control movement, but he felt no frustration that it took a few extra seconds. And then he pushed free of the pod.
His suit had a small, built-in thruster-control backpack, only a few pounds of propellant, but enough to turn him about so he was looking straight down at earth.
Such a magnificent view, a magnificent world.
“Earth is the cradle, but we cannot remain in the cradle forever. It is time now to reach for the stars,” he whispered, knowing that the world below was listening. “My God, it is such a heavenly view.”
Then he unlatched the faceplate to his helmet and raised it.
And it was indeed a heavenly view.
20
Fourteen months had passed since the death of Gary Morgan, the collapse of the tower, the near collapse of Franklin Smith’s financial conglomerate, and all was now coming to a head … at last.
Like the harmonic waves that had set the stage for the disaster, harmonic waves of public opinion, debate, point, and counterpoint had swept the entire world.
As for who had actually launched the two missiles, at least in the realm of public media that was still declared to be a mystery. There were rumors aplenty and more than a few books out on what was called the “mystery of the century.” The focus was on the oil interests in the Middle East and there was evidence that quite a few billion had certainly flowed through various accounts in an unexplained manner to North Korea. At times a good accountant can be almost as dangerous as a commando.
Fragments of the first stage of one of the missiles had been recovered by a deep-diving submersible. The design was Russian, which triggered hot, even threatening denials, with the Russians pointing out that such systems had been built in China as well and that the few identification markers were forgeries; the Chinese responded with equally angry denials. Shortly thereafter, a mysterious explosion in a submarine pen in North Korea destroyed two of their submarines. This caused a new flurry of speculation, with Western sources just shrugging and saying someone over there must have screwed up, while North Korea claimed sabotage. But then, after the usual bellicose rhetoric from that tragic nation ruled by insanity, there had been no further military response to what was apparently a brilliantly engineered strike by forces unknown, at least publicly.
In terms of a potential war, the situation cooled down rapidly, almost too rapidly for more than a few who wondered if there was a deep conspiracy to take out a revolutionary new technology that most definitely would have global economic impacts. As with all such impacts, there would be winners and also some major losers.
There had been other changes in the wind. The moribund issue of the future of NASA had taken a decided upswing in the recent presidential election when one of the two candidates had forcefully declared that she felt it was time to resume the dream of Jack Kennedy and reach for the stars. This time, not as a race against a former foe but as a broader mission for all mankind, to open a pathway to the heavens that any with peaceful intent could use, as well as to seek a source of limitless energy that could transform the world of the twenty-first century.
It was a unique welding of two constituencies that traditionally had been at odds, with those who were “green” and saw global warming as a top priority finding common ground with those who saw high technology, especially space-based technology, as the path to the future. There had even been a super PAC ad of a beloved but aged star of one of the most popular sci-fi series in history standing side by side with one of the remaining Apollo heroes, challenging voters to support the pro-space candidate and thus “boldly go
where no one has gone before.”
For a wide variety of reasons she had won the election, and those who had been frustrated supporters of NASA for so many years again felt some hope for the future.
But there was a countercurrent as well: those who supported Garlin. She had actually made a bid for elected office as a congresswomen and gained a seat, then pushed for a position on the committee that oversaw the NASA budget in the house. She became one of the agency’s fiercest critics. Garlin appealed to all those who believed that the problems of earth had been created on earth, and until such problems were solved, it was all but obscene to carry such problems to other worlds.
A private venture to reach Mars had been launched with great fanfare, and had actually succeeded in touching down with ten on board, five couples who were to establish the first permanent base on that planet. It had been a one-way trip, their ship named Mayflower One. It was a wild venture and ended in disaster. Only one was still alive, but would not be for much longer. Plans for hydroponic food raising, and the conversion of subsurface water to oxygen and even fuel, had not worked as planned. The European firm that had sent them up continued to praise their spirit of discovery—which it indeed was—pointing out they had all been volunteers … But the firm was already bankrupt, and a rescue mission costing tens of billions of dollars to save the last survivor, who would most likely perish before help arrived, had long since been abandoned. The daily broadcasts from this dying “Martian,” unlike Gary’s, were profoundly bitter and now distinctly anti-exploration; he asserted that Mars was useless for humanity other than as a fantasy to waste huge amounts of money on that would merely be scooped up by a cynical few back on earth while the idealists they sent out died.
A sick reality show had even been built around the experience and had millions of followers. There was something perverse about watching a person slowly die, although Gary Morgan’s final hours, by contrast, had been marked by quiet dignity, and the utter refusal of his wife and daughter to make a single comment about his passing had drawn universal admiration and respect … and woe to the reporter who tried to seek an “exclusive” with millions in hand. More than one got the same treatment as the heartless fool who had tried to corner Victoria as she set off from Purdue to Kiribati on the day her father died.
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