Orbit

Chapter 22

The sudden resumption of noises he doesn’t want to know about from his parents’ bedroom startles him for a second. But Alastair’s attention quickly returns to the screen and the alert he’s about to send to thirty-three of his e-mail friends, what were once called pen pals around Australia and the world. Especially Becky Nigel, the only girl he really likes, who keeps in touch despite her British father’s moving his family all the way back to the U.K.

Hey, mates! I’ve stumbled on a really cool, hardworking scam artist trying to wind me up. He sez he’s stranded in a private spaceship. LOL! The bloke’s creative, I’ll give him that. And other than the mushy stuff about his first love and all, thought you might want to have a look. It’s coming across as a continuous scroll so you have to record it yourself. I’m sending the first stuff I captured.

He includes the Web address and triggers the screen back over to the evolving message from Kip.

Sorry to break the narrative, but something really strange just happened up here. Of course, here I am apologizing to a hard drive. But hey, a human will read this someday, won’t you?

Yesterday I got all excited when something glimmered on the horizon and I started thinking about rescue craft. I won’t make that mistake again, but I swear I saw an explosion in the same direction a few minutes back… some sort of a burst of sparkles, of what looked like sparkles, as if metal was reflecting in the sun, which is behind me at the moment. Then it seemed to move to the left and disappear. Poor Bill would probably have known what it was… some space phenomenon all astronauts consider routine but gets an amateur like me all excited.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes. Growing up in my ideal family. At least I thought they were ideal, and I loved my folks, both of whom are gone now. Dad was an executive with a big mining company and an upright, reliable, serious, and dedicated father, who defined life as a series of challenges a man met with responsibility for those who depended on him. But I guess when he was programmed as a child, someone forgot to include the concept of fun and self.

The symbol for new e-mail pops up in the right-hand corner of his screen and Alastair opens a window to read it while still watching the evolving narrative.

To: Alastair

From: Becky

Message: Hey, blockhead! Guess what? There is a private spacecraft in trouble right now on orbit, and there are two men aboard, an astronaut named Bill and a passenger named Kip Dawson. Don’t you ever watch the telly? You’re too cynical, you know that? Ever consider this might be real?

Alastair triggers the reply button.

You’re kidding, right? This could be real?

He sends it back through cyberspace to Becky wondering what she’s doing on her computer at two in the afternoon in London, but before she can reply a host of other e-mails start snapping in from his friends, all apparently tuning in and reacting to the strange narrative.

If this is real, he thinks, the guy says no one can hear him on the radios. Do the space officials know about this?

He sits back, suddenly uncertain, as if he’s just witnessed a momentous adult event like a serious crime or terrible accident and he should be the one to alert the authorities.

He wonders how upset his dad would be if he tapped on their bedroom door now and asked for help.

No, not a good idea.

Maybe he can handle it himself, but he’s getting a really creepy feeling.

Dammit!

Diana is already coming through the door when Richard spots the bottle of tawny port he’s left on his desk. He’s not a teetotaler, but he abhors the idea of anyone thinking he needs to drink to get through even a day like this.

But she’s already spotted it and gone straight to the bottle, lifting it to examine the label.

“Good brand. Can I mooch some?”

“Be my guest. I was just, ah…”

Her hand is out, accompanying her shaking head.

“No explanation needed, Richard. Frankly, I’d worry about you if you weren’t drinking.” She pours an inch into a tumbler as she hands him his glass, then raises hers in a quick toast. “To NORAD and NASA and God knows who took care of that object.”

“I know.”

“So… who did?”

He’s shaking his head. “They won’t tell me, other than to say that the threat has been terminated and we would be best advised to never mention it.”

“Hookay. I’ll drink to that.”

“Still doesn’t get them back down.”

“No, but it sure solves the immediate problem.”

Richard looks at her, calculating whether to remind her that a few hours ago she’d found a positive side to a quick ending. No point, he concludes. It would sound like a slap, and she was only doing her best. Putting the best face on anything up to and including disaster is what she does.

His cell rings and Richard keys it on, a strange look crossing his face as he asks the caller to hold and raises his eyes to Diana.

“I hate to ask you…”

“But you need some privacy. No problem. I’ll be down the hall.”

She picks up the bottle of port and shoots him a questioning look.

“May I?”

“Please.”

“Good stuff,” she says on the way out.

Richard pulls the phone back to his ear. “Go ahead, Vasily.”

“Well, my friend, it has been a busy last few hours, no?”

A cascade of caution stops his response. Do the Russians know what the Air Force just did?

“Which, ah, nightmare of mine are you referring to?”

There is a chuckle on the other end. “That NASA has decided to get the shuttle ready to go up and do what you’ve retained us to do, Richard. I had a long talk with John Kent. I believe this would be STS193.”

“They’ll never make it in time. At least, I don’t think they will.”

“We don’t think so either, but you know what happens when NASA has a blowtorch to their ass. They usually move. In fact, in my humble experience, that’s the only way to get NASA to move fast.”

“But… you’re still going to try, right?”

“Of course. But things have changed. Now it has become a political matter and a matter of Russian honor.”

“Excuse me?”

“Our president, Andrei Kosachyov, has become involved, and when he discovered that NASA was going to try and probably fail, and that we were getting ready to do this for you for a price, he directed us to cancel the charge and be the ones to pluck your people back as a humanitarian gesture.”

“Really?” Richard replies, thinking of his two million dollars now in a Moscow bank. “Without charge?”

There is a pause and then brief unrestrained laughter. “Yes, Richard, without charge, and your deposit is already being wired back to you. Good for you, no? Bad for me. No commission.”

“Hey, I can take care of that.”

“No charge means no charge, but we are on schedule now. I thought you needed to know.”

“Thank you, Vasily!”

“Oh, one other thing. The Japanese Space Agency’s Hiragawa just called me. He said the Chinese are about to make a similar decision to help.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. It may get crowded up there.”

“Well, aren’t you guys going to coordinate?”

“If coordinate means defer to them, the answer is no. We have our orders. We will get your people. This is no time for the Chinese to be messing around.”

People first, Ronald Porter thinks to himself, smiling. It’s the reason he came aboard as Chief of Staff, jumping political parties for a man who keeps earning his respect.

The President doesn’t notice Ron’s smile. He’s talking to one of his Secret Service agents whose wife has just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s, comforting him as best he can.

They’re passing over Bolling Air Force Base on the east bank of the Potomac as the President turns his attention back to why Ron has decided to hop aboard a routine Air Force One flight to New York.

“So how is the Commerce Committee going to vote?” the President asks.

“That’s… they’re with us. But there’s something else we need to discuss.” He hands the President a one-page summary of an intelligence report less than an hour old.

“What’s this, Ron? The Russians?”

“Our buddies in Moscow have decided to ride to the rescue and go after the ASA spacecraft.”

“A special launch?”

“Actually, they’re moving up a scheduled ISS resupply mission.”

“Don’t they know we’re going to send the shuttle?”

“They don’t believe we can.”

“Well, hell, Ron, get someone on the phone to set them straight. Have Shear make the call.”

“It all started with Kosachyov a few hours ago. He’s determined to be the white knight. So, should we stand down?”

“Cancel our effort?”

“Yes. I talked to Shear. He heartily advises it.”

“I’m sure he does. I had to order him to get cracking.”

“He may have a solid point.”

“About safety?”

“Safety and cost. As he says, we only have two shuttles left, and when you push something on an emergency basis, you cut corners and take additional risks.”

The President sits back in thought, his eyes watching the forested beauty below as the Marine One pilots begin the descent to the presidential ramp at Andrews, where one of the two specially built Boeing 747s used as Air Force One is waiting.

Suddenly he’s forward again, in Ron’s face.

“There’s a principle here, Ron, and in my view it’s worth the risk. One, we protect our own, civilian or government. Two, we may have only two shuttles left, but we don’t have to plead for help because we’re afraid to use them. Three, this goes to the heart of American trust of and pride in our capabilities, and in NASA, and four, I know what Kosachyov is up to. There is a commercial purpose behind it I can’t ignore. This is like letting Airbus snag a U.S. Air Force contract, something that will never happen on my watch.”

“So, we fly?”

He’s nodding. “Damn right we fly. Unless there’s a solid, no-foolin’ safety concern beyond the routine.”

“I’ll tell Shear.”

“Oh, we need to do more than that.” The President’s already pulling the receiver out of its cradle in his armrest.

“You’re calling Moscow?”

A naughty grin that would fit a much younger man breaks across the President’s face.

The connection to the Web address carrying the alleged transmission from space has apparently frozen, and Alastair thinks he knows why.

The e-mails pouring into his own mailbox from addresses he doesn’t recognize have overloaded it.

And now the frozen transmission.

He pulls up another screen and calls up a bulletin board he’s found, a site for people nuts about space travel. Sure enough, the message from the man calling himself Kip is there, too, and still actively scrolling!

Right! They’re retransmitting it.

Another excited message from Becky has made it to an alternate mailbox and he opens it quickly.

So why are all my messages to you on the normal channel getting bounced? I don’t want to see another of those @%!^#$ “Mailer-Daemon” things! If you get this, let me know. Your stranded spaceman’s transmission is exploding. Someone’s retransmitting it everywhere and I’ve already seen it on eight sites. And Ali-boy, I think the poor guy IS really up there and is really, REALLY screwed! And the story he’s telling is so amazingly rad.

Me

Alastair checks the time, amazed to find it’s nearly two-thirty in the morning. He feels like he just sat down. The only light on in the room is the gooseneck over his keyboard, but suddenly he feels the need for more. It’s chilly and he’s already pulled on a sweater, but it’s not enough. He snaps on the ceiling light, aware of how closely his dad monitors the electrical bill, but there’s still too little heat and he pulls a small ceramic heater from the closet, the one he’s been told never to use, before sitting back down at the keyboard.

Whatever all this is, he decides, it is way more than he can handle now. But there is one thing he hasn’t done yet that just has to be accomplished. He checks his notepad for the e-mail address he wrote down of the company in California that launched the spacecraft, and writes as simple a message as he can.

Dear American Space Adventures,

I don’t know if it’s real or not, but there’s a guy saying he’s a passenger in your spaceship Intrepidand he’s sending a continuous letter into the Internet, and I’m forwarding the Web site address. It’s frozen up on me, but you can see it being retransmitted at two other places. I’m sending a file with my record of the first part of what came in.

If there really is a problem, I hope everything turns out okay.

Your friend, Alastair Wood.

Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia

Jeez, what would it feel like to be up there all alone? he wonders, knowing that some of the words he first read—words he thought were part of a scam—might hold the answer to that.

Maybe he should reread them.

But first, he decides, he’ll take a look at his jammed-up mailbox. He opens the long list and pages to the latest one, not believing the address: ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, his national network.

Dear Sir or Madam: We have been forwarded a copy of an e-mail you sent to several friends last night with a Web address that apparently is the only live transmission from a stranded space tourist on an American craft in orbit. If this is true, and you are the one who somehow found it, we would very much appreciate the opportunity to interview you this morning as soon as possible. We would like very much to know how you managed to come across such a transmission, and how you reacted. Won’t you please call us at our toll-free number in Sydney? Wherever you are in Australia, we can send a camera crew to you.

James Haggas

Executive Producer

The number is at the bottom and Alastair sits there staring at it, wondering what to do and remembering that the way this thing started was by his hacking into a private transmission. Not terribly legal.

I should get on the telly and tell the whole bloody world? I don’t think so!

Suddenly the urge to shut down the computer and hide overwhelms him.

Can they find me through an unregistered e-mail address? he wonders, his stomach contracting with worry. Dad will kill me.

He snaps off the ceiling and desk lights and dives under the covers. The bedcovers always feel like the best defense against a world gone mad.