Perigee (21 page)

A 24-inch flat screen TV, a station luxury, came to life with a familiar Mercator projection of the Earth. Their current position, marked with an outline of the ISS, showed up over the familiar yellow sine wave.
Austral Clipper’s
path then appeared in white, its position marked by a triangle. Gerard tapped a few commands onto the keyboard in front of him, and the paths gradually shifted position as he scrolled the time-stamp ahead. “You can see our trajectories will intersect in about four days.”

“And how close will they be?” asked Sergei.

“Not very,” Poole said. “Ninety miles at closest approach.”

He was met with more disbelieving looks. They would be the proverbial two ships passing in the night—close, but only just enough to watch each other whiz by. Poole knew he still had a hard sell ahead, just as Audrey had back on the ground.

“Houston’s had a pretty good look at trajectory analysis. We’ll only get one shot at it, but we should be able to manage prox-ops for a rescue,” he said, referring to another vehicle working in close quarters with the Station.

“With
that
thing?” Renee shot back, waving at the monitor. “Isn’t the whole problem that they have no maneuvering fuel? If they can change altitude, why not just do a retro burn and land? If their TPS can handle hypersonic acceleration, it’s probably strong enough to handle re-entry heating. Heat is heat, going up or coming down.” An obvious fact to her, it certainly should have been to rest of them. She wasn’t even a pilot, after all.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Doc. Again, you’re halfway right.” He could see her already thin patience wearing. “Their thermal protection
might
handle re-entry if they could decelerate enough. But they’re unable to either do that, or to change orbits and meet us.”

Poole gave that a moment to sink in. “But the ATV or one of our Soyuz vehicles can. Folks, they don’t have the fuel to do a damned thing. We have to go after them.”

38

Denver

Walt Donner stalked about the dark tool room and ran a hand across his scalp.
They’re gonna nail me good,
he kept thinking. No doubt the company was even now looking for a handy scapegoat to bail them out of the PR mess they were surely in. And they’d never blame the pilots…no, it would always be laid on the wrench monkeys. Always. The old aviation pecking order would prevail: designed by a PhD, built by a Master’s, broken by a Bachelor’s and fixed by a high school graduate.

A persistent buzz in his coat pocket competed for his attention. He grew more frustrated as he fished about, spilling a pen and some foam earplugs onto the floor. Finally, his hands found the phone. “Donner,” he answered sharply.

“Mr. Donner,” the voice said. “This is Leo Taggart. May we speak?”

He recognized the name, associated it with someone of importance in the company, but couldn’t be certain. “Sure, I’ve got all night. Who is this again?”

“Leo Taggart, VP of Business Operations.”

“Sure you got the right person there, Mr. Leo Taggart?”

“I’m certain, Walter. You’re a busy man so I won’t take up too much of your time. But I’d like to speak with you about the situation on 501.”

Uh-oh. Here it comes
. “Not without my union rep.” He expected that would either finish the discussion or provoke a fight. If anything, the voice on the other line became more controlled.

“No need for that, Walter. This isn’t about a personnel investigation or disciplinary hearing,” he said pleasantly at first, before turning firm. “But as an officer of this company, I’m requesting that you meet me outside by the southeast door in two minutes.”

Click
.

He stared at the phone, wondering what could possibly be going on now.

…

Exactly two minutes later, he slipped out the back door and cast a long look up and down the hangar. The building stretched on for at least a hundred yards in each direction, a four-story mass of steel sheeting and concrete. The soft yellow glow of sodium bulbs illuminated its length. Across the way, white lights along an adjacent runway shone through a light fog. He pulled up his collar against a chill breeze blowing from the north, made all the colder for the mist.

A thin figure stepped out of the shadows, likewise pulling his collar up close. Moving into the light, Donner saw he wore a tan London Fog coat over a black suit. A hand went up to slick back his hair, revealing smartly cuff-linked sleeves.

“Good evening, Walter,” the man said, extending a hand. “Leo Taggart.”

“Evening,” he replied cautiously.

“Smoke?” the man offered.

He was surprised that at least one other person at the company still smoked, especially a Veep. “Sure. Got any menthol?”

“Camels, unfiltered. I thought you’d be more hard-core than that, Walter.”

“Doc said I had to lighten up. Figured they were better than nothing,” he said, taking the cigarette and leaning into the silver lighter Taggart offered him.

Both men inhaled quietly, enjoying the brief rush. Donner nervously looked up and down the hangar again. Taggart seemed unconcerned.

“I’m taking a big risk talking to you like this,” Donner said. “The union would blacklist me for sure.”

“I understand your point. But it’s often in the union’s interest to be confrontational.” He could see Donner bristle at that. “You know that as well as I do, probably better. And frankly we don’t have any time for it. So let’s cut the crap, Walter.”

“But the company’s investigating. And they want to see my work records.”

“Of course they do—there’s no other way. Those people,” he said, pointing upward, “are counting on us. If they don’t come home, we owe it to everyone else to keep this from ever happening again. The company won’t survive if we don’t. If things ever come to that, it won’t matter how good your union is,” he finished sternly.

“True enough,” Donner conceded. “But you’re still looking for someone to hang,” he said, stomping out the cigarette under his heel. “And it won’t be me.”

“You understand this matter is of grave concern, and we need to make sure everything associated with it is absolutely above-board.”

“So why bother with me? Especially if you’re not the one doing the investigating?” he argued.

Taggart’s eyes flared briefly, signaling Donner that he needed to tread carefully. After a long pause, he answered. “Because I’m in charge of risk management, which means I have a personal interest in this company avoiding trouble,” he finally answered. “I know the people investigating, and they’re looking in all the wrong places. They think somebody
here
screwed up. I think the problem’s somewhere else.”

Donner couldn’t hide his cynicism. “So just what is ‘somewhere else’?” he demanded. “And you never really answered my question, Mr. Taggart.”

“Very well, then. I’ve been concerned about our parts quality for some time now. No doubt you’ve seen it out here working on the line.”

“All I know is these stinking birds break down a lot for being so new. Never seen anything like it. The eggheads always say we ‘just don’t understand the systems’. Bull. An airplane’s an airplane, some just go faster than others.”

“I would have to agree with that,” Taggart smiled. “So let’s get straight to it. We have a problem with substandard parts, and it may have led us into an enormous mess. You were the last man to work on 501; you’re one of our senior technicians,” he pointed out. “And that makes you the best one to tell us what’s really going on out here.”

That got Donner’s attention.
About time the suits started paying attention to us grunts out on the line
. “So what do you want me to do?”

“I need you to be my eyes and ears so we can make sure they’re not barking up the wrong tree. You give me your side of the story, every step of the way, and back it up with paperwork,” he said. “The work cards will support you, won’t they?”

“Damn straight,” Donner replied.
They’d better,
he thought.
I’ll have to make sure of that
. He wondered who was on shift tonight down in Quality Assurance, where all the master logbooks and work records were stored.

“That’s what I thought. I knew you were the right man for this job, Walter,” Taggart said solemnly, and gripped Donner’s shoulder for effect. “I’m counting on you to help make things right. Find the
real
problems.”

“That won’t be too hard,” the old mechanic assured him.

39

Austral Clipper

Marcy pulled a box of elaborately-packaged dinners from a small refrigerator and began sorting them by preparation time. They could spare precious little power to run the convection ovens, but without them they’d have even less to eat. She tossed the meals through the air one at a time to Whitney.

“What do we do now?” the young woman asked as she struggled to catch them all.

“We make dinner,” Marcy said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“You know what I meant,” she scoffed. “We can’t just stay up here.”

“I’m afraid we are,” Marcy answered as gently as she could. It did no good to sugarcoat the news at this point. “Trust me, nobody down there has forgotten about us. We do what we can up here to stay alive while they figure out what to do next.”

Tom had been adamant that she keep the passengers engaged, but finding enough for them to do was terribly difficult. Magrath’s other assistant, Carson, had at least discovered that just keeping the portholes clean of frost was nearly a full-time job. And the constant motion helped him stave off the cold.

Whitney’s boss had been keeping her busy with something on his tablet computer, no doubt trying to stay on top of his affairs as best as he could under the circumstances. Fortunately for them all, leaving power on for communications meant they still had regular contact with the world below. Occasional movies on the entertainment system had also become a welcome diversion that kept everyone from retreating into their own mental corners.

Marcy tried to change the subject. “So what’s he had you working on?”

“Research,” she said somewhat evasively.

“That must be hard,” Marcy observed. “Our data link and Wi-Fi are only up in short bursts. What kind of research?”

Whitney tried to shrug off the obvious probe. “Market trends, that sort of thing. Business never rests, you know.”

“Glad he’s keeping his head together,” Marcy said, hiding her skepticism. “I suppose he’s a busy man no matter what the circumstances.” She closed up the cabinets and floated past. “Come on, I’ll show you how to work the ovens.”

…

Colin Magrath hovered just around the corner and struggled to gather a blanket around him for warmth. To his mounting frustration, it refused to stay in place without having his arms tightly wrapped inside. He finally gave up, threw the blanket aside, and watched it float away. He reached into a hip pocket and surreptitiously turned off the recorder on his phone while pushing his way back towards one of the many empty seats. He buckled in, strapped his notebook to the table by his seat, and began typing furiously. An earbud from the phone floated freely about his neck. He occasionally glanced over his shoulder, but otherwise remained focused on the task he’d assigned to himself.

40

Houston

“So do we call Gene out of retirement for this or not?” Audrey’s telemetry officer joked. The legendary flight director had still been a regular presence around Johnson well past his tenure, frequently being called upon for consultation and motivational talks.

She looked down at her notes with a shake of her head at TELMU’s irreverence. He was reliable but too much of a class clown sometimes. This was not the time for jokes, and Audrey knew her fatigue would soon have the better of her if she didn’t get things moving.

Don’t try to do it all,
she told herself.
Give them their jobs, and then get some rest until it’s time to perform again.

It was simultaneously the defining characteristic of a good flight director and the biggest flaw they had to control: the type-A personality necessary for the job had to get out of the way and allow team members to apply their expertise. It had been likened to being a symphony conductor. She almost wished she had a baton to tap on the podium, a gavel to bang…something. She settled for firm silence, peering deliberately over the rim of her glasses.

“No, we’ll let him sit this one out. I think you guys are quite capable enough. We’ve done rendezvous and prox-ops a few dozen times now.”

“Except for that whole dead-ship-in-peril part,” another comedian piped up. It was FIDO, the flight dynamics officer. “The ATV’s never had to do a grab-and-go like this,” he said, referring to the automated transfer vehicle. “Are you sure ESA’s up to it?”

Audrey fought her rising impatience. “If not, I think the guys in the Trench are more than up to the task,” she answered coolly. “You always relish a good math problem, so figure out what we need to do to make this work. Up to and including delta-v changes from Station.”