Orbit

Chapter 23

For the previous agonizing day and a half, Arleigh Kerr has had to deal with the reality that without communication a flight director has virtually nothing to direct. Two of the staff have kept Mission Control operating in the hopes that somehow a data stream or other useful information will once again start pouring through their monitors, but nonetheless it’s felt like a deathwatch.

And now, from the most unlikely quarter, contact?

Arleigh stands at his console, waiting for the room to fill, as his people rush back in, each wearing cautious expressions. When the room is back up to strength, Arleigh leans down and looses a flurry of keystrokes into his computer keyboard, then glances up at the largest of the screens before them, waiting for the text to appear.

“What’s this, Arleigh?” the flight dynamics controller asks.

“It’s coming in through an obscure site on the Internet, one of the servers we’ve used for e-mail. We would have never seen it except for someone way out in the boonies of Australia. The guy e-mailed us a half hour ago where to find this.”

“But what is it?”

“We think,” Arleigh says, “that it’s our passenger, Kip Dawson, trying to communicate. But apparently he doesn’t know anyone’s listening… or reading. I’ve got a lot more, and if this is truly him, it tells what happened yesterday.”

Arleigh highlights the first portion about the impact and Bill Campbell’s demise and lets it sink in.

“I want everyone to read everything he’s written, then punch up line eighteen to pick up with his real-time transmissions. I don’t know what we can learn that can help him, since we can’t talk back, but I want you to scour every line for facts that might help us get him down.”

“How is this being transmitted, exactly?” the woman in charge of capsule communication asks.

Arleigh shrugs as he looks around the room. “Who has the details on this computer interface to the Internet. Janet? How is this possible?”

A tall woman with her hair severely pulled back meets his gaze with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.

“Well… theoretically… I mean, we included a downlink in the S band transmitter package, which is a dedicated line out to the server, and there are no restrictions on your reaching the Internet with it, but we’ve lost all the S band transmitters.”

“Could that be a separate transmitter?” Another of the team wants to know. She’s starting to shake her head when an adjacent engineer stands.

“Yes. Yes, it is separate. We put a very small transmitter package on there to handle the volume of downlinked photo files so the passengers could reach their loved ones by Internet if they wanted. It weighs just a few ounces, and uses the same antenna array. But it’s powered separately.”

“Then it’s two-way?” Arleigh asks, excitement building. “We can send as well as receive?”

“No. Unfortunately, we only set it up for downloads. The two-way function is done with a regular transmitting array that’s off line. But, Arleigh, I don’t understand how he could possibly know to use this. He wouldn’t be getting any response. No replies, no e-mail, no indication of a successful transmission.”

“I’m told,” Arleigh replies, “that he seems to have no idea anyone is watching or reading.”

“Oh, okay. Then it’s just a single downlink transmitter that somehow remained online.”

“But… how did he trigger it?”

The engineer shrugs. “I don’t know, unless one of the autoconnect features on that laptop kicked it in. Wait a minute.”

“What?”

“Arleigh, are you familiar with what they used to call ‘spyware’?”

“No.”

“Programs that record each keystroke in an endless string and store it in some nondescript little file. I think our programmers put one of those in the computers on Intrepid as a kind of digital recorder. If somehow the output of that keystroke recorder got routed to that individual transmitter, it would explain why we’re only getting what he types when he types it.”

“Somebody get the programmers who worked on this thing and find out, okay?” Arleigh asks.

“Are we relaying this to NASA?” the engineer adds.

A commanding feminine voice fills the room from behind, and Arleigh turns to find a startled-looking Diana Ross standing in the entrance.

“Arleigh? Everyone? It’s not just NASA getting this. Thanks to a sharp reporter at the Washington Post, what we’re apparently doing… our server, I mean… is relaying this to the world. Most of the media have picked up on it, and they’re breaking in everywhere with it.”

“Breaking in?” Arleigh asks.

“All the cable news networks. I haven’t read everything that’s come down yet, but… the poor guy thinks he’s dying and I guess he’s writing about his life. Very private stuff.”

There’s a slight glistening in the corners of Diana’s eyes and Arleigh realizes she’s tearing up as she turns to go. She’s hoping no one reads back far enough to see a brief reference to her. Not that his kind words about her are a problem, but they’re personal, and instinctively she knows that he’ll be going into the most intimate details of his memories.

Oh my God, if we could only warn him or shut off that feed!

Behind her in Mission Control a stunned silence prevails as one by one the controllers read what’s been written so far, then tune into the live feed. The letters are marching in stop-and-start staccato fashion, exactly as they’re being written, making it seem almost like the writer is sitting right next to them composing with an imperfect hunt-and-peck technique. They can almost feel his fingers touching the keys, hesitating, punching some more, forming the words as he thinks of them.

As if his voice were in the room.

You know, I never knew it could be so much fun to describe moments like that one in the backseat, on that mountainside. We were lucky, Linda and me. We were too young and I too inexperienced and uninformed to worry about accidentally making babies. I just wanted her. I felt I’d go mad if I didn’t have sex with her while my head—full as it was of warnings about duty and responsibility—knew that the responsible thing was to never have sex without love. So I loved her as well as made love to her.

And there was something else funny about those years, as testosterone-soaked as they were (something girls will never understand is the insanity of that period for a guy). I was born and bred to measure my life by accomplishments, and I really and truly considered Linda an accomplishment. I don’t mean a notch-on-the-bedpost type, I mean the fact that I made her feel good, and I cared for her that summer, and she became a part of my life, however briefly, and I a part of hers. If time is really eternal, then we’re still out there doin’ it in the backseat of that old Chevy. Was that an accomplishment? I guess I’ll find out from a Higher Source in about four days, but I always thought it was. And as long as I could point to something and say, “See, I was productive, I accomplished that!” it was okay, even if ultimately it was the wrong decision.

Daylight is streaming into the room as Alastair wakes up seconds before his alarm clock corks off. He reaches for the clock to silence it in time, liking that he can pull off being the last to bed and the first up, when he’s startled by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Heavy footsteps.

Dad!

The events of the preceding night are slow to return, but in a sudden rush he remembers all of it and the e-mail from ABC in Sydney, and fear looms with his father’s footfalls. He can hear a television on somewhere in the house.

The door opens and Dad walks in, pulling the curtains open.

“Alastair, wake up!”

“I’m awake, Dad. What’s happening?”

His father’s hands are on his hips but he looks more puzzled than mad.

“I’ve been watching the news, son, and there’s something on now you’re going to want to hear. I know I’m on you all the time for being on the computer so much, but, well, get on a robe and come downstairs.”

Alastair is already in motion, sliding from beneath the covers and grabbing for his robe. “What is it?”

“There’s the most amazing message coming down through the Internet from a guy stranded in orbit on a private American spacecraft, and they wouldn’t have found it if some hacker right out here in Western Australia hadn’t broken into someone’s computer.”

“R-really?”

“Yes. He’s a bit of a hero and they’re looking for him. They think he may be a student. He may also get a twist in his knickers for the hacking, but overall he’s got a thank-you coming. Come on down and see this. Could be someone you know.”