Skyfall

6

“Flax, I am going to blow the whistle on the whole thing, so help me I will.”

“Patrick, think first! Put it into gear. You weren't born yesterday. You know you have to compromise in politics and politics is what keeps NASA going. You don't need me to tell you that.”

They stood inside the heavy glass door looking out at the setting sun, a red ball of fire on the horizon. It was air conditioned inside the building but still warm outside in the Russian evening. The two MPs beyond the door, one Soviet the other American, had dark patches under their arms and looked wrinkled and hot. The road beyond them was empty.

“You told me she was on the way,” Patrick said.

“The plane landed, the car was waiting. But you know the kind of delays the Russians get into at the airport here.”

“Ely knew something was happening. Remember that bet? He knew or guessed. But who'd have thought they'd pull this! Not they, this is too big a con even for the NASA brass, I can smell Bandin right behind this whole mess.”

“No mess. Pat. She's a qualified doctor….”

“The world's full of doctors, but very few fit for space crew. You know what they used to call him when he was first in the Senate? Rubber Bandin. He could stretch in every direction and always snap back. The last of the old wheeler-dealers.

You don't hear it much any more. The PR boys sold him to the American public like a bunch of bananas. But he's still plain old Rubber Bandin. Anything for a vote or a buck.”

“He's not a bad president---”

“And not a very good one either. Maybe not as crooked as Tricky Dicky, but he's craftier. Look at this bit. He may louse up the entire Prometheus Project — but by God he's really latched onto the women's vote and the black vote. But I'm not going to buy it.”

“Patrick, relax. Think clearly.” Flax had him by the arm, his fingers hot and damp through the thin fabric. “You've been in the space project what, nine years? It's your career and this flight is the topper, the big one, and you're the pilot. If you say anything you'll get chopped. The people who own the newspapers are on Bandin's side and they own the people who write for the papers. No one will ever know what you were talking about — and you'll be down the chute and out of a job. They'll make it look like sour grapes and crucify you. And Prometheus will still take off on schedule with another pilot. Is your backup as good a pilot as you? If not — you'll be jeopardizing the project. Just by opening your mouth.”

“It's dirty, Flax. You make it look black and white, but it's politics and it's dirty.”

“Patrick, you know better. It's all politics. Remember the old science fiction stories about rockets to the Moon? Some rich industrialist builds one in the back yard, or a mad professor puts one together out of wash boilers and off they go. None of those writers got it right. None of them ever wrote about middle-aged Army and Navy pilots landing on the Moon. None of them ever thought of the fact that the space race would be just that. A race. National glory and wave the flag. If we don't get there first the Soviets will. Hurry hurry and pour the money in, take chances and hope you luck out.”

“There's a car coming. And you're trying to tell me it's still that way?”

“You had better believe it. The Soviets have the big boosters. We've the rest of the hardware and the technology. Neither of them alone could get this project off the ground for another ten years — if then. Putting the cooperation package together has been the biggest piece of creative politics in the history of mankind. Don't louse it up at this late date. All right, Bandin's making political hay out of it. So what? If it works it works for us all and that's the name of the game, buddy boy.”

A black Lincoln Continental, American flag snapping on its hood, pulled to a stop outside. A full Colonel and one of the embassy aides climbed out, then turned to help the other passenger. Patrick watched, trying to hold down his doubts and his anger, still not sure what to do. A girl climbed out and walked towards the entrance.

She was here. Smallish, just up to the shoulders of the two men who flanked her. Dark skin, not very black but dark enough. Hair cut short and neatly curled. Pretty. Nice features, almost an Egyptian nose. Good figure too in the cream summer suit. Sound hips, practical legs, good walk. Christ, what was he doing? Judging a beauty parade or looking at the space medic who could make or break the flight?

Then they were inside and introductions all around. Her hand was cool, her grip firm. It didn't last long and then they were alone with Flax.

“I'm sorry to put you right to work, doctor, but the interview was scheduled….”

“Coretta, if you please Dr. Flax.”

“The same in return, Coretta. Flax is what everyone calls me. As you can guess we need good PR. Newsweek has seen things pretty much our way and they have a reporter out here now to do the lead for their special issue. Name of Redditch, one of their top people. He's talked to most of the others here and should have left but he waited for you. If you're not too tired.”

“Not in the slightest. It was a lovely flight, and I'm still excited. I'd love to talk to him.”

“Great. In here. Patrick, you know the way.”

It could have been no accident that the large window of the PR lounge faced the launching pad where Prometheus stood. The giant spacecraft was framed neatly and stood out against the rose clouds of dusk. Coretta stopped involuntarily and clasped her hands together.

“Ohh, my goodness! That is something, really something!”

“May I quote you on that?” he asked, a thin stoop-shouldered man by the bar with a drink in his hand. He had big ears and a potato nose and radiated a sort of shambling good will. But his eyes were attentive and he missed nothing.

“Dr. Samuel, this is Mr. Redditch of Newsweek magazine,” Flax said. “Would you like something to drink before we begin?”

“A bourbon on the rocks, not too strong.”

“I'll get it,” Patrick said, turning to the well-stocked bar. The best booze was always brought out for the press. He poured himself a large Chivas Regal with soda and a Jack Daniels Green Label for the girl. They were sitting round the coffee table now and the reporter had a tape recorder in the center of it. Flax shook his head no when Patrick lifted a drink in his direction, eyebrows raised. Patrick put the drinks on the coffee table and joined them.

“I hope you people realize that I'm no science reporter,” Redditch said. “Our technical boys have been producing figures and charts and we'll have plenty of that. But I'm doing the lead. I'll do the personal pieces, readers like personalities, and all the general non-technical stuff. All right?”

“Most fair, we're happy to help,” Flax said.

“Fine. If I could start with you, Coretta, since you're the newcomer and the only one I haven't talked to before. Can you tell me something about yourself?”

“I can't add a thing to that press release you must have seen. Just school, then research, then more research with NASA.”

“I'm sure your life has been much more interesting than that. Certainly a woman succeeding in a man's field is something people will be interested in. And a black woman as well. You've come a long way against what must have been difficult odds.”

“I don't see it that way,” she said calmly. “America's a civilized country and given the skills a woman can do as well as a man. And skin color doesn't enter into it.”

“Really?” Redditch said, his eyebrows lifting. “That'll be good news in the ghettos.” He made a note on his pad. “Can I be frank, Coretta? I've been a newsman for a number of years and I know the facts. And I can't stand bullshit.”

Her face was calm but her voice was icy. “I'm giving you the facts and they're not bullshit.”

Redditch threw his hand up in mock surrender. “Okay! No fights. You call them as you see them and I'll write it down.” He flipped through a wad of NASA releases. “No, in this copy about you, it doesn't seem to mention anything about either your marriage or your divorce.”

“You've been doing your homework,” she said calmly, then sipped at her drink. “The marriage lasted less than a year. An old school friend. It was a mistake on both our parts. There were no children. We're divorced but still see each other once in awhile. Would you like names and dates?”

“No thank you, I have all that. Just your personal point of view. Another question if you don't mind. Do you think there was anything political in the fact that you, a newcomer to the space program, were chosen to go on this flight?”

This was the cruncher, the big one, the question that Red-ditch had been setting up. The early stuff was just teasing. Patrick sat unmoving and saw the sudden reddening of Flax's neck. Neither of them said anything. Redditch made an adjustment on the recorder while Coretta sipped her drink, then put it down.

“I don't think so,” she said in a calm, unhurried voice. “I'm no newcomer to NASA, in fact I have been connected with space research for five years. I have always wanted to practice my specialty in its proper setting, in space. I'm sure my age helped me. Some of my colleagues are senior to me but they may not have the physical resiliency for a long space flight. I was just lucky that my number came up now, for a flight as important as this one. I am very happy to be a member of the crew.”

Well done, Patrick thought, then went to pour himself another drink. Cool delivery, no fluster — and every word smacking of the NASA speech writers. She had learned her lines very well. Redditch was going to have a hard time flustering this baby.

Redditch never did. He asked the same question from a couple of angles then appeared to lose interest. Was Coretta's smile a bit wider as he turned his back? Flax was at the bar and pouring himself a large glass of ice water, then a second. Red-ditch flipped the cassette over and turned to Patrick.

“Now the sixty-four thousand dollar question. I know you have been asked it about three hundred times already but I hope you won't mind if I ask again now. What is Prometheus for? Over to you.”

“Before I say what the project is for, or designed to do, can I fill in with a bit of history?”

“Say it any way you like, I have all day. But keep it non-technical. I'm the guy who failed first-grade arithmetic in the eighth grade. Take it from there.”

“Right. First, think of the energy shortage. No politics now, greedy Arabs, profiteering oil companies, all that stuff. Just the physical reality that, at the present rate of consumption, we're going to burn up all the Earth's oil in a couple more years. So we've got to do something drastic about it. Prometheus is that drastic thing. Oil is really two things. Not only the stuff we burn in our cars and planes, but a basic raw material for most industries, chemicals, fertilizer, the lot. So every drop we burn is a drop wasted for this other vital need. Therefore if we get our energy needs from something other than petroleum we have all the oil for its other uses. Okay so far?”

“Perfect. Clear as a bell. More.”

“Right. Alternative sources of energy. Primarily all our energy comes from the sun.”

“I don't get that. Coal? Oil? Wind? What do they have to do with the sun?”

“Everything. Coal and oil contain solar energy stored away by plants millions of years ago. The sun heats our atmosphere and it moves and we get winds. The wind blows and makes ocean waves, so even wave power is direct solar power. The time has come to utilize the non-polluting, eternally available energy of the sun directly. The Prometheus Project.”

“Slow down. It's going to take billions of dollars to even begin this project. Wouldn't that money be better spent on Earth, say tapping the solar energy in the desert?”

“Negative. The atmosphere interferes, the sun doesn't shine at night so the supply isn't continuous, construction is expensive, a number of things make it difficult. It should be done, yes, but it can never equal the size and sheer efficiency of Prometheus. Eventually Prometheus will supply all the world's power needs, supply free power forever. That's what we plan.”

“How?”

“Look outside the window. The largest spaceship ever to be launched. The first of fifty. This is a big and overpopulated world we live on and it needs a lot of power. Fifty shiploads for this project, then who knows how many after that.”

“That sounds expensive.”

“It is,” Patrick said. “But once launched the project will be self-sustaining. The electricity will be sold at a rate of two and a half cents a kilowatt hour — which will be enough to finance more launchings and generators. Once the payload is in orbit the generation of electricity is simplicity itself. The biggest part of our payload is the same kind of plastic you wrap around leftovers when you put them in the refrigerator. Since there's no gravity in orbit, no friction from the atmosphere either, this very thin plastic can be spread out to cover square miles of space. It's coated with aluminum so it acts like a big mirror to reflect sunlight to a focus where it will heat a fluid that will, in turn, drive a turbine that will generate electricity. Simple.”

“Very simple. But you haven't told me how the electricity gets back to Earth. Isn't this where the death ray bit comes in?”

Patrick smiled. “The old rumors are the hardest to kill. Any kind of radiation can be called a death ray — but only if it's strong enough and concentrated enough. A light bulb will warm your hand, but stand in front of a military searchlight and you'll be fried. If you've a small boat you can get a radar set that will help you find your way. Yet if you could manage to get at the focus of a big search radar you would find yourself cooked, coagulated like a hard-boiled egg. Degree and concentration. Once the electricity has been generated in space it will be converted to radio waves, low density microwaves, and beamed back to Earth. The double directional aerial will beam to a receiver in Siberia and another in the State of Washington. The amount Russia receives will supply most of her Siberian needs. What we get will supply the five western states. Free power from space.”

“Sounds okay but I hate to leave the death ray so quickly. It seems to me that the amount of power to do all that, even in the form of radio waves, might be a little strong when it hits the Earth?”

“Absolutely correct. Firstly, the radio beam is locked onto the receiver and is self-correcting. Secondly, if despite this the beam should waver too far it will be automatically shut off. The theory suggests that the beam of radio waves will not be strong enough to cause damage on Earth, but as a further protection the receiver will be situated in the mountains, miles from the nearest habitation.”

Redditch reached out and snapped off the tape recorder.

“That makes sense — and it seems to wrap it up. Thank you for your time. I'm going to run, there's a plane I can make.”

There were polite good-byes and the door closed behind the reporter.

“Now I can have that drink,” Flax said, heaving himself up to the bar. “I was afraid to even look at booze with that son-of-a-bitch reporter here. You want a refill, Coretta?”

“Yes please.” She sat, poised and at ease, her hands folded neatly in her lap. Patrick poured another drink for himself and wondered how she could remain so calm.

“You're just out of Houston,” he said. “Hear anything more about Doc Kennelly?”

“Just what you probably know. The operation was successful and prognosis fine.”

“Quite a coincidence, wasn't it?”

“What was a coincidence?”

“His getting sick at this time. And whatever happened to his backup, Feinberg? Wasn't a Jew ethnic enough for Prometheus…”

“Patrick,” Flax broke in. “Why don't you just shut up and let Coretta get some rest, she must have had a long day.”

“No, let him talk, Flax. Let us get this out in the open. I have no idea of what happened to Dr. Feinberg. No one bothered to tell me. I was just started on a hush-hush space orientation program about seven weeks ago. Centrifuge, free fall in the plane, all the rest. Just two days ago I was told I was going on Prometheus. That's all I know.”

Patrick laughed without humor. “That's all we know too — Seven weeks! That bastard Bandin has been planning this all along. I wonder if Doc really had a hot appendix. They could have faked that too — “

“That's enough!” Flax said, heaving his bulk forward between them. “Get to your quarters, Patrick. You've had a lot to drink, go sleep it off.”

“No,” Coretta said. “Will you please move aside, Flax. This thing has been started and we're going to finish it. Right here and now.” She stood in front of Patrick, looking up at him, fists clenched and emotion showing for the first time. She was angry. “It's pretty obvious what you're thinking. That bastard Bandin, as you call him, has been playing politics. The Commies got a woman into the space program which gave him a shot in the political eye. Now if he could see them with another woman, then raise them with a black woman, he would be having a shot in the political arm instead. Was it possible! Could Kennelly get sick enough to drop out of the program? His backup could have been replaced earlier for other reasons, no problem there. If this were done — who could be pulled in quickly enough to take Kennelly's place? Why look, there's nice little Dr. Coretta Samuel way in the back of the NASA lab, not only proving that NASA is an equal opportunity employer, but she's really good at analyzing calcium samples. She should be. She's been doing it for five years. Why not give her a chance at a place on the Prometheus team? That's what you are thinking, isn't it — or something very much like that?”

She leaned close to Patrick in her anger, so close he could feel her breath warm on his face. He did not speak, but only nodded slowly in response. Coretta leaned back and sighed, then turned away.

“Well do you know something, Mr. Pilot — that's what I have been thinking too.” Then she wheeled about and stabbed her finger at him. “I think the way it was done stinks and the stink is of politics so strong I can smell Washington right from here. But you want to know something else — I don't care! However I got into Prometheus doesn't matter a damn. I'm here! Mr. Redditch knew I was lying about the place of the black man in America. Not to mention the black woman. But I'm not making race propaganda out of Prometheus. Others are doing that. All I've to do is go along for the ride. And I can do it. I can hack the job. I'm going into space and I'm going to do the work I've been trained to do then come back to the roars of the crowd. I've worked hard and come a long way to get where I am now. There was a great man in the history of this country, name of Martin Luther King. They killed him for what he was doing and his wife carried on his work. God knows how many thousands of little black girls were named after her — I'm just one. Now I'm going to take that name into space and do my job. It will be a woman who'll have done it and a black woman who does it and they'll never be able to take that away from us.”

She slammed her glass down so hard onto the table that it jumped and fell over and ice and bourbon spilled across the shining surface. Before anyone could say anything she had turned and was out of the door and gone.

“Reilly, this whole damn thing is a plumber's nightmare. Not made any easier by the fact that I can't read a word of it.”

“I will teach you, Duffy, ten bucks a lesson. Well worth it. In a little while you will speak Russian like a native and will also be earning, like me, an extra fifty a week for being bilingual.”

“Not me. I barely speak English. Now tell me, what are all these squiggles at this junction?”

“Standby bilateral fuel transfer pump tank 23 feed line 19 to feed line 104 tank 16B pressurization point switch normally off 734LU.”

“Thanks, I feel a lot better for knowing. “

The master schematic for the section was spread out on the deck; it measured two meters by two and was in six colors. Duffy muttered to himself as he checked the circuitry. He blinked once, lost his place on the diagram, then sat up to rub his back.

“So we check the circuits,” he said, pointing to the open panels and dangling electrical leads. “So great. We have continuity between the flight cabin controls and the computer and the relays and sub-unit motors and servos. But so what? We gotta take tovarich and his buddies on trust. All the Russki plumbing's sealed away and pressurized with nitrogen and we can't even get to look at it. “

“They checked and double checked. You've seen the records.”

“Yes — but how do we know?”

Reilly shrugged and picked his teeth with the positive probe from the digital voltmeter, watching the numbers flicker on the readout. “I guess we don't. Take it on faith, baby. Give them credit where credit's due — these big bastards really fly. Raw power and up and up they go. Multiple motors and fuel supplies so if one motor or pump kicks out the others keep on functioning. They really lift.”

“They really blow up too, or is that just a rumor?”

“One of them did, we're pretty sure of that. A satellite photo in 1968 showed one of the first of these big babies on the launching pad. Picture taken next day showed that it was gone — and so was the launch tower and all the buildings for a mile round. It must have blown right on the pad. But that was an early model.”

“So you say.”

“It's on the record. They've done all their launches for a couple of years now with these boosters, and all of them have worked and worked well. They've had their troubles with their shuttles and they dig in their toes and lift.”

''Time for a coffee break yet?''

“No. We do this one next.“