Glass Sky (14 page)

TANIA WIPED RAIN off her cycling glasses with the back of a wet glove. Legs burning, she pedaled round the final soggy switchback to the UNBio campus. A morning to test the soul. It would have been so easy to step into a grid car.

A dozen yellow shapes appeared, sharpening into protesters, wrapped in rain jackets, clutching plastic signs.
Weird. What could they be protesting?
She slowed down so that she could read the signs.
Maybe I inspired them. I’ll send them to the federal building in Denver.

The group was huddled against the rain, turtled in their jackets, and didn’t notice Tania until she was quite close. When they spotted her, they raised their signs, waving them above their heads. “He rains down fire and burning sulfur upon wicked people. Psalms 11:6,” read one sign. “Jesus is comming and will punish yoo”, read another.

What on Earth?

Tania rolled to a stop in front of a man whose sign didn’t have any spelling mistakes. While spelling ability wasn’t the only indicator of intelligence, a coherent spokesperson wasn’t likely to spell “you” with two o’s.

“I don’t understand? What are you protesting?”

He stared at her with the familiar expression of somebody who couldn’t quite place her. Then his eyes bulged and his lips pulled back in a snarl.

“It’s her!” he yelled. “It’s Tania Black.”

Shouts. Angry movements. Tania scrambled back onto her bicycle as an object whistled past. Something smacked against her jacket, red goo oozing down the plastic. Tania pawed at the mess on her chest.
Blood?

Whap. Side of the head. The stinging pain was followed by a cold sticky sensation of something sliding down her neck and into her clothing.
Tomatoes. They’re throwing tomatoes.
She wobbled in her pedals, cursing herself for being in the wrong gear.
Shift!
The derailleur ground in protest. For a moment she thought she’d jammed the chain, but then it caught.

“Sulfur is God’s punishment for the wicked,” someone yelled behind her. “You are interfering with God’s plan to cleanse the earth of a billion sinners.” More tomatoes splattered as she escaped through the front gate.

Tania hurried to the security office. The head of security was already waiting for her.

“Do you mind telling me what the fuck is going on?” she asked.

He grimaced. “That appearance on the Witty show may have made you popular with the public, but God apparently had a different opinion. He spoke to Jimmy Barker after your appearance.

“Jimmy Barker? The television preacher?” Tania fiddled with her ear. She could feel a seed sliding around inside.

“There are passages in the Bible that speak of sulfur. So when sulfuring started ten years ago, Jimmy Barker saw it as a sign of the end times. The famines only strengthened that view.” His gaze shifted warily to the monitor as a car glided through the front gates.

“He rains down fire and burning sulfur upon wicked people,” said Tania, lowering her voice to imitation preacher. “They’re lunatics. But what does this have to do with UNBio?”
Am I really having this conversation?”

“Barker said the shield must be stopped and that sulfuring must come back,” said the security chief. “He mentioned you by name.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Tania. “That man has some major problems with reality.” The monitor showed the protesters in the same place, right at the edge of the property line, shadows in the rain. “Are they dangerous?”

“The police say it’s nothing to worry about.”

“That’s
not
reassuring,” said Tania. The New York protest and her growing friendship with Ruth had shifted her picture of security forces. “Could I shoot one of them in self-defense? That would probably move them back a bit.”

“Maybe – but I don’t think it’s a great idea.”

“I’m not serious,” said Tania. “I’m a leftist. I don’t even carry a gun. But it
pisses
me off. When citizens protest the rape of the earth, it’s terrorism and sedition. But when the nut brigade wants to bring back sulfuring because they think the billion who will die are sinners, it’s protected speech.” She ran her fingers through her wet hair. “What a fucked-up country.”

***

Tania skimmed the UNBio Preserve Assessment Report, trying to get a sense of it. Incomplete biodiversity audits. Missing species migration plans. Wildlife corridors promised but not built.
How much damage was done under Jimmy Wong? How much has been lost forever?
A few of the mountain preserves were still doing well, protected by the dual good fortune of being inhospitable to humans and climatically varied. But far too often, the numbers spoke of collapse.

Tania placed her gorilla coin on the desk and stared at the worn face. “I know,” she said. “I promised no more bio-harvests. But I don’t think I have a choice.”

Where do I start?

She brought up the self-audit the Ethiopian government had submitted. The writing looked like somebody’s high school science project. She laughed out loud when she saw the species inventory. Tigers! So they weren’t extinct! They’d simply moved to Africa!

Good a place as any.
She walked down the hallway to the open door marked “Auditing Department – Ramon Hernandez.” Ramon was bent over his desk, his neatly parted black hair facing her, fingers clacking at his keyboard. He looked up, raising his thick eyebrows.

“Our first viability audit should be Ethiopia,” said Tania. “Can you put me in contact with their environment minister? It’s time I got into the field.”

Ramon frowned. “Ethiopia’s not the most stable country – I don’t think they
have
an environment minister.”

“Well, somebody else in their government then.”

“I don’t know that they have a government.” He glanced down at his omni, which was following the conversation and had already pulled up the relevant information. “Nope. But they do have two rival warlords.”

Tania groaned. “Well, we must have been paying somebody to protect the park. Or did we just drop loads of money out of a plane? Figure out who it is, and have them call me.”

***

Two hours later, Tania’s omni finally buzzed. A surly man in military clothing glowered at her. “I understand you want to audit one of our UNBio preserves.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Tania. “I’d like to bring in a viability assessment team to…”

The man cut her off. “Impossible right now. There’s a rebel group operating in the area. When we have the situation under control, we’ll let you know.”

“We’ve given you a lot of money,” said Tania. “And the rebels, too, for that matter. I want to see the preserve.”

The man smiled smugly. “Under the UNBio charter, member countries have jurisdiction over safety. Check the regulations.” He moved to hang up.

“That’s a bullshit excuse,” said Tania. “You’re afraid that I’ll order a bio-harvest if I don’t like what I see. Which means you’d lose your funding.”

“So do the bio-harvest without the audit,” sneered the man. “See how that flies with the public.”

He hung up.

Tania glared at the blank screen.
Fuck! Should I ask Tengri for help?
But she suspected he had problems of his own.
And if I back down on this and pick an easier target, the word will spread that I’m weak.

A thought occurred. She picked up her omni. “Ruth,” she said.

A few moments later, Ruth was beaming out of the screen. “Hey! Tania! I’ve been meaning to call you. That garden planet vision you painted on the Witty Show really got some traction. Your work in Guatemala is still a top ten search.”

“I impressed the crazies too,” said Tania. She told Ruth about Jimmy Barker’s followers at the gate.

“You’re lucky it’s just tomatoes they threw,” said Ruth. “Barkerites murdered those stem cell researchers a few years back, remember? Gunned down in their own homes. And they castrated that sex education teacher.”

“You’re not helping.” Tania peered out of the window to see if the protesters were still there, but the rain had intensified, stealing what visibility remained. Ruth’s face sharpened as she tapped the call to a monitor, but the background was uniform privacy gray.
Where is she? Europe?
Ruth never revealed her travel plans. “You’re better off not knowing,” was always her reply.

“So, what’s up?” asked Ruth.

“I need another favor,” said Tania. She explained the Ethiopian situation. “I know it’s a longshot, but do you think there’s a way you could get me in?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be working on the shield?” asked Ruth.

“That’s up to the engineers now,” said Tania. “My focus is to make sure that we have a plan in place to make proper use of the shield. Which starts with figuring out what shape the planet is actually in. Hence sneaking into Ethiopia to take a look around.”

Ruth laughed. “And you think that just because I’m with Green Army I can do covert stuff.”

“Ummm, well, yes.”

“Why not jump straight to a bio-harvest of the preserve?” suggested Ruth. “I mean, is there any chance it’s still intact? I’m sure that once the warlords see that you’re serious, they’ll cooperate with the harvest for a shot at the salvage payment.”

Tania shook her head. “It would look terrible. I can’t sit in an office and make the decision to wipe out an entire ecosystem. I have to see it with my own eyes.”

“So you’re going to visit every preserve then?” asked Ruth.

“Just this first one,” said Tania. “If I’m going to have blood on my hands, I want to own it. Not make the decision from behind a desk.”

Ruth sighed. “I’m not the one who has to commit ecocide. I’ll look into it. On one condition…”

Tania felt a stab of disappointment.
Of course there’s a condition. Ruth has her own agenda. And I’m well connected.
“What’s the trade?”

“Ooohhh, you look so suspicious,” said Ruth. “What will I ask for? Top secret papers? I know, I want you to place a bug on the President. Next time you two are hanging out.”

“I know you think you’re funny…”

“Backpacking,” said Ruth.

“Backpacking?”

“Yes. Take me backpacking the next time we’re both in town. Overnight. I haven’t been in ages, and I’d love someone to go with. And you’re going to blow a fuse if you don’t take a weekend off.”

Tania laughed in surprise. “You don’t have to
buy
my friendship.”

“No,” said Ruth. “But given how busy you are, buying your
time
seems fair game.” She leaned forward. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Ethiopia’s a rough place.”

Rain spattered the window, big drops now, mixed with sleet. “Tian Jie is going to the moon this weekend,” said Tania. “The least I can do is drive across an unguarded border.”

JIE EASED HIS way onto the rust-stained platform. The imposing form of a Long March 7 rocket, attached to the launch tower by little more than a few clamps and hoses, vanished into pipes and scaffolding below. He gripped the handrails. Gravity seemed stronger at this height, more unpredictable.

“Beautiful day to leave the planet,” said Sharon, shifting her helmet under her arm. She beamed, a decade younger in the dawn’s pink glow.

Jie plucked at the folds of rubber duck yellow fabric around his stomach. “My suit looks ridiculous,” he complained. “I can’t believe we have advertising. And Great Burger of the People? Didn’t you tell them I was losing weight?” Only Isabel’s suit was uglier, garish red in support of an energy drink.

Sally started giggling. Again.

“GBOP isn’t
that
bad.” Sharon shuffled to the end of gangway. She wore a Save-Rite Retirement logo. “They’re marketing me as some relic forced to return to space because I haven’t managed my savings. But I’m happy to be a billboard if it gets us into one of these fancy new suits. Low Earth orbit tourism has significantly improved our comfort. The 30’s suits were like walking inside a leather balloon.”

“When I was a young astronaut, I walked 10 kilometers to school every day,” quipped Isabel. “Uphill. Both ways.”

Jie smiled. The good-natured griping was helping keep his mind off the cold dread wrapping around his heart. He turned towards the sun, savoring the warmth on his face. No clouds blemished the sky, and only a hint of breeze wafted from the glassy sea, carrying a tangy salt smell. The fishing boats had gone.
In case we transform into a flaming cloud of debris.

Sally touched his shoulder, sympathetic eyes softening the strong angles of her face. ‹You OK, Jie?›

‹Just saying goodbye,› said Jie. ‹I’ve finally given up on a last-minute reprieve.›

My turn.
The few remaining support vehicles were scattered like children’s toys on the tarmac below. The narrow gangway led under the bullet-shaped payload shroud, which hung on a winch, ready to protect the lunar descent capsule from the violence of the launch.

Jie shuffled across and took his first look at the capsule hidden underneath. “Tā māde! We’re flying in that?” The LDC looked like a soda can without the logos, barely big enough for one person, let alone five. It seemed to have been mounted on the engine as an afterthought, by a design team without the correct measurements. Its flat roof was stacked with cargo, apparently by the same people who overloaded the roofs of the rural “chicken buses” that still served parts of India.
That’s what they build in five weeks.
Sensors protruded randomly out of the crumpled exterior. “It looks like it’s wrapped in tinfoil!”

“It
is
wrapped in tinfoil,” said Sharon. “It protects us against micrometeorites. Don’t worry, we won’t need aerodynamics in a vacuum.”

Two technicians guided Jie into the cramped descent capsule, which was only slightly bigger than it looked. Rajit lay at 45 degrees in one of two front seats, an easy arm’s reach from the captain’s console. Jie eased into one of the three rear seats. Sharon followed, sliding in next to Rajit. “Three hours to go,” she said. “Can you believe it? I never thought I’d get a second chance.”

“Imagine how surprised
I
am,” said Jie. A strip of tape padded an uneven weld on the ceiling above him. His eyes landed on the cluttered control panel between Sharon and Rajit. “I thought we were remotely guided.”

“It’s a backup,” said Sharon. “We couldn’t test it all in time.”

Sally and Isabel entered. The technicians clanged the hatch shut behind them. There was a whining noise as the payload shroud was lowered into place, and with a thud what little light had penetrated the windows vanished. Jie’s heart pounded a techno beat against the hiss of the air circulation system.

They waited.

Scrolling text and images on the front displays measured each step towards launch. From time to time, Sharon toggled switches, calling out their progress. “Engine pressure go. Engine cooling go. Fuel valves go. Gimbal motors go.”

The video feed showed vehicles driving away one by one until the rocket sat alone on the launch pad.

“Hold-down release clamps go. EDS coupling go.” Ten thousand critical systems. Ten thousand potential failures. With each successful test, another yellow dot on the schematic turned green. “Stage separation bolts go. Fire suppression go.”

With a loud beeping, a red circle started flashing. Jie’s nerves jangled.  He looked at the schematic on the monitor.
That’s right outside the capsule.
He’d seen dozens of launches on TV over the years, but right now all he could remember were the failures. Sharon leaned forward.

“Capcom, do you copy the warning on the shroud release bolts?”

“We see it. We are instituting a launch hold at 19:07,” said Capcom’s familiar voice. The capsule communicator was another astronaut, somebody who could understand what it was like to be on the pointy end of the rocket. Jie had met him in the simulator once; he would lead their replacement crew.

A half hour wait. The monitors showed a van driving up to the rocket’s base, and a few minutes later Jie heard muted clanks outside the capsule. He fought a wave of claustrophobia.
I could have said no.

“They’re fixing it. That’s a good sign,” said Sharon. “On my first moon trip we scrubbed three times.”

The alarm light snapped off. The van drove away. The launch timer resumed, eating away the seconds. At 16 minutes the timer stopped again for nearly an hour, a builtin hold.

Bored nervousness.

Tick. 15:59. 15:58. “Helmets on, everyone. Prepare for launch.”

***

Jie’s hands shook so badly he had trouble twisting the metal collar onto the neck-mount. He finally seated it and did up the clasps. “Has anyone screamed the whole way into orbit?” The words echoed in the glass bubble, stripping the humor out of his voice and making him sound small and scared.

“We mute the microphone when that happens,” Sharon replied through the helmet speakers. “Have to preserve our reputation for bravery.”

“Five minutes. Wind is four knots west. Shield One, you are go for launch.”

Don’t stop now. I don’t know if I could do this again.

“Two minutes.”

“One minute.”

Is that me shaking? Or a motor?

“Fifty seconds. The launch stack is on internal power. All systems nominal.”

“Thirty seconds. Everything looks good, Shield One.”

Adrenaline raced through Jie’s arteries, a fight or flight response, useless to somebody strapped atop a 100-meter cylinder of rocket fuel. Each second ticked slower than the last. Isabel breathed in ragged gasps. Sally lay next to him, jaw clenched.
They’re as scared as I am.

“Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, we have main engine ignition.”

The five massive primary-stage engines exploded to life. The rocket shook like a wet dog as the engines built to full strength, straining against the hold-down arms on the tower.
No turning back now.

“Three, two, one.”

Time stopped for a beat. The solid fuel boosters ignited, their fiery chemical stew leaping to the aid of the first stage engines. Bang! Explosive bolts fired down the length of the vehicle, hurling aside the hold-down arms before the straining giant tore itself apart.

“We have liftoff. Main engines at 109%.”

Jie clutched his seat in a death-grip as the rocket howled upwards, pressing him into the couch.
109%? Is that good?

Fuel poured out at 15,000 kilograms per second, balancing the rocket on a tower of flame. In the surrounding slums, millions prayed for their future. Billions more watched on their televisions as the spacecraft vanished into a fiery cloud of steam and smoke.

“Six seconds. You have cleared the launch tower. Commencing roll program.” The noise fell off as they exited the steamy backsplash from the millions of liters of cooling water pouring off the launch tower. A scrap of ceiling insulation dropped onto the floor.

“Twenty seconds. Altitude 800 meters. Velocity 300 kilometers per hour.”

The rocket plowed through the dense layers of warm air, sluggish, bloated with fuel.
Do the engineers know the vibration is this bad?
Could Sharon and Rajit even reach the controls in an emergency? Will my equipment survive?
The engines hurled out fuel as fast as a hundred years of research could pump it. Every shred of acceleration cut the gravity losses – the fuel burned just to keep them falling back to Earth.

“Thirty seconds. Roll is complete. Your trajectory looks good.”

Through the fish-bowl bubble of Isabel’s helmet Jie caught a manic grin of gleeful terror.

“One minute. Altitude 6000 meters. Down range 2000 meters.”

Acceleration nailed them to their seats, the vibration lessening as the air thinned. A million kilograms of fuel. Gone. The vehicle was becoming more responsive as they shed mass.

“Coming up on solid booster separation.” For a moment they held collective breaths. A lurch. The empty booster rockets detached, traveling so fast that they wouldn’t reach the top of their arc for several minutes.

“Solid boosters have separated at two minutes. Altitude 30 kilometers.”

The ascent’s most dangerous phase had passed. Sharon lifted her hands in a double-thumbs up. For the next eight minutes the five first stage engines powered their ascent; their tanks were still full from crossfueling with the boosters. The ride smoothed out. The vehicle wobbled as the engines gimbaled to keep them on course.

“Tell the engineers she’s riding beautifully,” Sharon said.

Acceleration crept to 3.5 Gs as the vehicle continued to lose mass and the last drag of atmosphere vanished. Invisible fingers tugged at the flesh on Jie’s face. His heart and lungs labored to pump his heavy blood.

“Coming up on ten minutes. Shield One, you are go for staging. Prepare for main engine cutoff.”

“Aaahhhh!”
Jie felt like he was being hurled towards the ceiling. An illusion, he knew. A moment of pure, raw terror caused by the sudden switch from nearly 4G to total weightlessness. His arms flailed, and his vision blackened as the pooled blood in his feet rushed back into his head.

No wonder I had to exercise. Calorie blockers might help with weight loss, but no pill could prepare me for this.

A loud bang cracked through the capsule like a thunder clap.

“First stage explosive bolts,” said Sharon. “We have to make sure we detach.” She was enjoying herself. Jie could hear it in her voice.

“Shield One, you have a clean first stage separation. You are go for shroud separation and orbit.”

Orbit.  The word sent a tingle down Jie’s spine. A moment of thrust from the single remaining engine pushed the Earth departure stage and its attached crew capsule clear of the spent first stage. Another jerk, smaller this time.  The payload shroud, which had sheltered their passage through the atmosphere, split into four, like a silver flower, its petals opening to the sky before fluttering to a fiery end below. A shaft of sunlight stabbed through the window, casting a moving circle of light in the cabin as they climbed ever higher.

***

Zero Gravity! Jie started rotating as soon as he unbuckled, spinning from his chair as if pulled by some invisible force. Out of instinct, he reached to the wall for support, which sent him wheeling about, flapping his feet to try and steady himself. He kicked Sharon in the head.

“Don’t flail or I’m strapping you back in,” she snapped. She grabbed one of Jie's legs – none too gently – and stopped his spin. “Let your legs drift behind you.”

Jie maneuvered to the window to join Rajit and Sally, the barest push with his fingertips enough to get him moving.
Move slowly. Don’t spin again.
Now that the falling sensation had passed it felt like he was floating in invisible water, but without drag or wetness. Rajit flipped himself upside down, hanging expertly above the window to make more space.

“Showoff.”

“Like a bicycle. You don’t forget microgravity,” said Rajit. His curly hair tried to escape in all directions. Maybe that was why the women had cut theirs short.

“Rajit, the XPOS is matching our telemetry data perfectly,” said Capcom.

“Great,” grunted Rajit.

“What is XPOS?” Jie asked.

“X-Ray Pulsar Positioning System,” said Rajit. “I was one of the designers before I volunteered for this mission. Works like a GPS, but uses X-ray pulsars as timing signals. Five-centimeter accuracy anywhere in the solar system. As we get further from Earth it can be hard to get an accurate position using conventional means, because any earthbound signal we triangulate on is essentially collinear. So we’re trying something new.”

Jie crowded between Rajit and Sally, a tangle of legs and arms around the porthole. Their launch trajectory had taken them over the Bay of Bengal and the Himalayas. Now China rolled 400 kilometers below, Earth’s curvature just visible if they pressed close to the glass. The land was brown with thirst; white snow still frosted the wrinkled mountaintops.