Back to the Moon (19 page)

“Jack—”

“Two minutes to Tee-drus L-O-S,” CAPCOM announced. LOS, loss of signal.
Columbia
in company with the Keyhole was moving into a blackout area where the TDRS tracking, data, and relay communications sats couldn't hear them.

“Jack, don't maneuver again without letting us know, okay? It's dangerous without us watching over you. How about it? We're kinda fond of that old shuttle.”

“Thanks but no thanks, Sam,” Jack answered amiably. “We can take care of ourselves.”

“You pigheaded sumbitch!” Sam growled.

“He's signed off, Flight,” Commtech advised.

Columbia

Jack had pulled the plug on Tate because an alarm had sounded. It was SAREX with word from the MEC control center now rolling across southern Mississippi.

BE ADVISED SPY SAT COMING YOUR WAY.

Jack guessed that MEC had tapped into the back rooms of Houston and Huntsville, getting their intelligence from the techie buzz over the loops. He keyed an answer.

COPY. ON TIMELINE. EVA TO UNPACK ET NEXT.

The laptop whirred.

ALL FINGERS CROSSED HERE.

“Here too,” Jack muttered to himself.

SMC

Sam answered the urgent call coming over the land line push. “And what can I do for the dear old Defense Intelligence Agency?” he growled.

It was Clay Corbin. “Mr. Tate, that was very unwise. This is considered black business. Do you understand? You are not authorized to tell the people on
Columbia
anything about what we are doing. Do I have to make that an order?”

Sam smiled at his controllers, who were all looking back at him with wide eyes. “An order? I don't think I'm in your chain of command, son,” he drawled, utterly delighted to have the opportunity to irritate one of the men who'd usurped control from Houston.

Corbin came back, obviously outraged. “I have my authority from the highest level. The highest level. Do you know who that means?”

Crowder tugged at Sam's sleeve. “Sam, maybe you better—”

Sam shook Crowder off. “Dr. Corbin, I am the flight director for this mission. I will do whatever I think is necessary for the safety of my spacecraft.”

Corbin's voice went up an octave. “Your spacecraft? That isn't your spacecraft. You let the bad guys steal it. Remember?”

Sam snarled and punched the land line off. He vultured his people, sending their heads diving back to their monitors. Then he eyed the shuttle's track on the big video screen. “What are you doing, Jack?” he breathed. “What are you doing?”

“What's that, Sam?” Crowder asked.

Sam didn't reply. He just kept looking at the screen, trying to figure it out.

Director's Office, JSC

Frank Bonner, just arrived from Washington and back in his office, received a call from Sam Tate. He listened, then repeated the name he'd heard. “That's right, Frank,” Sam said. “He used to be head of the Propulsion Lab in Huntsville.”

“I know who he is,” Bonner snapped, and hung up the telephone. He slumped in his chair.
How could it be?
He felt as if his mind had been torn from its hinges. Bonner sat, staring at, without seeing, his office wall blanketed with awards and autographed photos, all representing the career he'd built to replace the happiness the man had snatched from him.
Medaris!

Everything was swept clean from Bonner's mind, his hopes to be the NASA administrator, to get
Columbia
back and operational again. Nothing made sense except for one thing:
Medaris.
Bonner would see that this time he was destroyed. Permanently.

Columbia

Penny hung from a handrail, watching Medaris inside the airlock, checking the extravehicular mobility unit (EMU) suit he had worn on the burial EVA. There were three other suits stowed there. “I heard what you told Houston,” she chided. “You said your contract was for a commercial purpose. I thought it was top secret. You can't even keep your lies straight.”

“There are plenty of commercial activities that are secret,” Medaris answered, his voice sounding hollow from the airlock. “Company proprietary. I'm sure you've heard the phrase.”

“This ain't right, boss.” Virgil interrupted the argument to start one of his own. “It ain't safe for you to be outside alone.”

“You're in no condition to help me,” Medaris answered. “Don't worry. I can handle it.”

“Isn't it against the rules for only one person to go EVA?” Penny questioned.

Medaris stuck his head out of the airlock hatch, gave her
that
look. Penny felt like slapping his face. “Don't tell me. You went to the EVA class?”

“She's right, Jack,” Virgil said in a low tone.

Medaris shrugged. “You might have noticed I already did it once.”

“That wasn't right neither,” Virgil muttered.

Penny was starting to feel left out. “What are you going to do now?” she demanded to get back into the discussion.

“There's some gear in the base of the external tank. I'm going out there and get it. After that I'll start removing the shuttle mains.”

Penny looked at Virgil. “Tell me the truth, Virgil. You two are escapees from a nut ward, right?” She looked out of the corner of her eye to see Medaris's reaction but was disappointed when he turned away to work on his suit.

Virgil looked thoughtful. “Seems like that sometimes, ma'am.”

“Just in case Virg gets sick again, how about staying on comm with me?” Medaris asked Penny.

“Look, I told you. I'm not going to be a part of this.”

“High Eagle”—he sighed, coming back over to the airlock hatch—”Virgil and I have a job to do, one that we're going to do. And the quicker we get it done, the quicker you get to go home. All I'm asking you to do is answer the phone. How about it?”

“If only I knew what you're really doing....”

“One more time.” He sighed. “We're on a top secret
and
a commercial mission. And unless you can get limo service up here, you're going to have to stick around until we're finished. You can't go home until then.”

It popped out before she could stop herself. “I don't have a home.”

“What do you mean?”

“I just lease a place. I'm mostly on the road.”

“It's sad not having a home,” Medaris said. “I guess I don't have one either.”

“This is sort of our home now, ain't it?” Virgil offered.

“I guess it is,” Medaris said.

Penny looked around. “I never figured my home would have the bed and toilet all in the same room.”

“Consider it an efficiency,” Medaris said.

“You always have to have the last word, don't you?” Penny growled.

He pulled the airlock door shut. A faint hiss signaled the beginning of his oxygen prebreathe, necessary to avoid decompression sickness in the lighter pressure of the suit. Penny slapped the view port. “He's so damned full of himself!” she griped to Virgil.

Virgil nodded agreement. “Jack's got his ways, all right.”

Penny squinted at the big man. “Listen, I'm walking on the edge here. If I don't get the truth, I'm going over it and I swear I'll take you with me. I don't want to hear
nuthin'
about no damn contract, you hear? Tell me the truth. Start with him. Who is he?”

Virgil mopped his brow. “He used to be the head knocker up at the Propulsion Lab in Huntsville.”

Penny could see Virgil's space sickness was coming back. Very soon, she knew, he would make use of the vomitus bag Velcroed just within reach. “What is he now?” she asked.

“President of MEC. My boss.”

“And why isn't he still a wheel in Huntsville?”

Virgil swallowed a burp. “An engine he was testing went out of control on a test stand ten, eleven years ago. Killed one of his engineers. NASA blamed him for it.”

“Let me guess,” Penny said harshly. “Those engines hanging on the arm—they're the same kind as the one that went out of control?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Penny shook her head. She understood now. “He just had to do something to prove himself right. Even if it meant spacejacking a shuttle. Yes, I think I've got your number, Mr. Jack Medaris.”

“A couple of things you ought to know before you start bad- mouthing Jack, Dr. High Eagle.” Virgil's eyes were squeezed shut, sweat beading on his forehead. “The first one is that he's saved a buncha guys—rocket engineers, technicians like me—by giving us jobs when NASA didn't want us no more.”

Penny shrugged. “Saved them for prison, you mean?”

Virgil was holding the plastic bag just beneath his mouth, ready to use it. “The other thing was that the engineer that got killed, it was Jack's wife, Kate. Turned out she was pregnant too. He got that burn scar on his face and neck trying to save Kate and their baby.”

Cargo Bay, Columbia

Jack exited the airlock, tethered on to the guide wire that ran down the starboard sill of the cargo bay, and pulled hand over hand down it until he reached the vertical stabilizer. There, he set up a silvery reflector he had taken out with him. It acted the same as a convenience-store corner mirror, giving a wide view all the way down to the external tank. “Anybody see me?” he called.

“I see you, Medaris.”

Jack turned to look behind him, saw a figure at the aft flight deck view port with binoculars. “High Eagle?”

“Yeah. What do you want me to do?”

“Just keep watch.”

“Okay. But if you slip off, what then?”

“Well, at least you can tell everybody where you last saw me.”

“Medaris, look. . . we need to talk, okay?”

Jack hooked his feet inside the propellant feed lines on the external tank and used his waist tether to clip to an attach strut. “What about?”

“Everything.”

Jack eyed the curved base of the ET. There had been no way to train for this EVA and it wasn't going to be easy. “I'm kind of busy to talk about everything.” He reached for the strut to stabilize himself. “By the way, you haven't killed Virgil, have you?”

“Of course not. He got sick again. He's asleep.”

“Just don't lock the door on me, okay?”

“Don't put any ideas in my head.”

From a T-bar attachment that held a set of special EVA tools on his chest, Jack selected a pair of thick shears and used them to wedge out a chunk of ET foam. Underneath he found the loop of wire that Estes and Tribble had embedded for him. He snagged it and pulled. The wire cut a square in the foam as it came out, revealing underneath it a hatch. The effort had taken more out of him than he'd anticipated. Working in the pressurized EMU suit was not easy. He was breathing hard.

“Medaris, are you all right?”

“I'm fine,” Jack muttered, but he wasn't. Besides his fatigue he had suddenly felt a massive presence. When he looked up, he found himself turned away from earth, facing deep space. There was nothing, only emptiness. For the first time since he'd been in low earth orbit, he felt scared. “High Eagle?” he called, almost against his will. He hoped she wouldn't notice the strain in his voice.

“I hear you.”

“It's big out here. It's easy to feel. . . alone. The stars aren't much company.”

“I'm watching you, Medaris.” Her tone was casual.

“Thanks.”

“You're not welcome.”

“Hatch is off,” he grunted to no reply.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.

After an FBI jet dropped Cecil off at Ronald Reagan, an agent drove him to the Justice Department, brusquely directed him to a conference room, and left him alone. Cecil sweated out the silence for an hour and then a heavyset woman—Cecil recognized her as Attorney General Tammy Hawthorne—came in, followed by a retinue of dark suits. The AG wore a flowery print dress, big bug-eyed spectacles, and was clearly irritated. She snapped her fingers, directing the lawyers to the table and then motioning in quick choppy movements for them to sit down. Hawthorne was as formidable as he had been told.

She eyed him through her thick glasses. “My boys tell me you've been cooperative, Mr. Velocci. That is wise. I'm just a shit-tick from having you put into the dungeon we keep under the Washington Monument.”

Cecil squared his shoulders. “I've tried to be helpful, Miss Attorney General.”

Hawthorne harrumphed and consulted a sheet of paper one of her lawyers handed over, the list of the MEC employees Cecil had given the FBI. “Which of these bastards is on board the shuttle?”

“Jack Medaris, Virgil Judd, and Craig Cassidy,” Cecil replied, wondering why it had taken so long for anybody to ask him that question. It was a relief to get the information out. “According to the contract between the Department of Transportation and my clients, they are conducting a commercial enterprise. Admittedly, there may have been some communications problems with the ground crews at Kennedy Space Center, but if you will read the contract, you will see that DOT had the responsibility to inform NASA of our plans.”

“Yeah, right,” Hawthorne grumped. “I'm not buying it, Velocci. We'll be specifying the charges on your clients soon. Except for Cassidy. I don't think he's your client anymore. We hear he's dead.”

This was news to Cecil but he kept his game face on. Jack had told him there would be some rough spots during the mission, no matter how well he planned it. This sounded as if it was the roughest spot of all. “You say you're specifying charges?” he asked, his voice just shaky enough to betray him. “Have you determined what those charges might be?”

Hawthorne seemed to be studying Cecil, to perhaps find the lie. “You mean other than treason?” she said. “We'll go for murder of Captain Cassidy, and skyjacking, I'm sure. And kidnapping. That would be of Dr. High Eagle.”

Cecil kept his composure. “I believe I'll be able to show that Captain Cassidy was a bona fide employee of the MEC company. If he's dead, it must have been an accident. As for the skyjacking and kidnapping charges, could I ask you what evidence you have of either?”

The AG's eyes narrowed into two thick lines behind her glasses. If she had eyelashes, they were invisible. “Well, for one, NASA's missing a space shuttle, Mr. Velocci. For another, they're missing an Indian princess astronette. Your clients will be lucky if all they get is the death penalty.”

Cecil was beginning to believe this attorney general really
did
have a dungeon beneath the Washington Monument. “Ma'am, I can only restate that MEC has a legal contract with the government. And as for Dr. High Eagle—perhaps she went along to help.”

Hawthorne leaned forward, shook her finger at Cecil. “Let me advise you of something, boyfriend. President Edwards and Vice President Vanderheld are a couple of swell fellows, all gooshy and kind and worried about the poor people. Me? I'm the bitch witch in this administration. I've been a prosecutor my entire professional life. You break the law, I don't care who you are, I'm gonna come after you, make you wish you never crawled out of your dung heap. You want to bandy words with me, be my guest. In the end it won't matter. I'm gonna have my size tens up your ass. Got it?”

Cecil grimly nodded. He'd gotten it, loud and clear.

Hawthorne stood up. “I just wanted to lay my eyes on you, bud. I've done that, so now you can go as long as you stay within ten miles of this building. Bill Miller”—she nodded to one of the suits at the table—”will be your contact. Now get out of my Justice Department!”

HIGH EAGLE'S DECISION (1)

Airlock, Columbia

Jack was neither awake or asleep. He was in some sort of half-world, caught in a web of space and time, adrift in a current carrying him across the sweep of the galaxy, past giant red-hot stars, immense cold planets striped by streaks of gold and silver.. . . Then he was in a control room, the night outside cold and bitter, the consoles glowing, his team hunched over them. Kate was there. “No...” he said but it was unstoppable when it began. It had to play itself out. They'd all had launch fever that night, even Kate. Maybe especially Kate...

“What are you waiting for?” she said. “Go on and do it. You know you're going to anyway.”

The plan that night had only been to run software tests. But everything had gone smoothly, including the propellant loading. It would save them a week's worth of preparation if they just kept going. They were desperately short of funding. A week of work was a lot of money. Jack nodded, ordered the countdown to continue all the way through engine activation for a five-second hot fire test. With a clap and a cheer his team jumped to do his bidding.

There was still an hour to go before the hot fire when Jack heard a steady tone in a nearby monitor. An engineer ran his finger down his screen, tapping it twice. “We have an automatic hold on the TCDC,” he said. “The oxy FDP is showing a vacuum.” Jack puzzled over it. The FDP was the fine distribution pump. “I don't see how that can be. The FDP's wet. I can see it spiking but going negative isn't an option here.”

The TCDC was the terminal countdown clock, the computerized clock and operations software that monitored and controlled the steps toward ignition. Jack knew there was trouble but he couldn't identify what exactly it was. If the TCDC sensed an anomaly, it was supposed to put itself into an automatic hold, alerting the TCDC operator. A loss of pressure was the likely reason the TCDC had shut things down. But Jack was still puzzled. The weight of the propellant alone should have resulted in at least some pressure.

Kate brushed by Jack, sitting down at her monitor, her fingers playing staccatos on her keyboard. “Sensor problem, I think,” she said. “Need to replace number two dot six oh four three seven. On my way.”

“Send Joel,” Jack said as she stood up, pulling her headset off. “That's what he and the test stand people are paid for.”

“Joel's busy on the signal generators,” she replied. “No time. I gotta go. Won't take me a sec.”

“Be careful.”

She touched his shoulder lightly. All it took was a touch from Kate to stir his soul. She gave him a quick smile. “I will, Jack,” she said quietly, and then she was off, snapping her fingers at another engineer to follow her. Jack watched her plop on a hard hat as she went out the door. “Be careful,” he said again but she was gone, the door slapping shut behind her.

Jack turned to her monitor, to see what she had seen. There was an analysis of pump pressures. The points on her graph were distributed erratically. He accepted her conclusion. A bad sensor. Had to be.

“Hey, we're still counting,” he heard the TCDC engineer say excitedly. “That can't be right. The TCDC shut itself down.”

Jack leaned over the man's shoulder. “Show me,” he said.

He called up his previous displays. “See, a hold mode right there. Now everything is active again. The code jumped over the hold. It's not supposed to do that.”

Jack thought of the people out on the test stand, including Kate. “Shut it down,” he ordered harshly.
“Now.”

Penny swung open the airlock. Medaris was inside, mumbling something about a shutdown. She grabbed a leg and pulled him into the middeck. His lips were cracked and dry. She handed him a water bottle but all he did was bat at it. She held it for him, squirted water in his mouth. It bounced off his tongue, little crystal spheres. “Drink it, damn you,” she ordered. “You're dehydrated.”

Penny had watched the entire five-hour spacewalk. Medaris had taken six large sausage-shaped packages from the external tank and moved them to the payload bay, bungeeing them behind the tether satellite rig. She had listened to him breathing, gasping at times, the work with the uncooperative cargo apparently more difficult than he had planned. He had stopped between each of his trips down to the base of the tank to let the cooling capacity of his suit catch up but he kept sweating, he reported, his eyes stinging from it. She had watched him keep going, doggedly retracing his path back and forth to the tank and the payload bay. As soon as he got back into the airlock, she'd watched him get out of his suit, saw the color of his face, and knew he was in trouble. It occurred to Penny again that she had yet another opportunity to end the spacejacking. Virgil had taken his SAS medicine and strapped himself into his bag on the wall. Medaris was close to collapse. She could tranquilize them both, get on the horn, end this thing, and be America's hero forever. Something kept her from it. She didn't know what it was but whatever it was, it was frustrating.

Penny strapped Medaris to the floor and washed him down with damp towels. He fought her lightly and she slapped his hands away. “Stop it, Medaris! I've got to cool you down or you could die.
Stop it!
”

He subsided and Penny continued to wipe him down. She had noticed a small battery-operated fan in a locker. She got it and clamped it to an overhead panel, directing it on him. He had gone to sleep, his breathing deep and steady. She ran a wet towel over his chest, along his shoulders, then each of his arms and legs. Although it irritated her to do so, she couldn't help but notice that Medaris was a fine-looking man. His shoulders were wide, with muscles that rode along the surface, a swimmer's look to him, or maybe a climber, she decided, although his packed leg muscles indicated that he was a runner too. When she dabbed at his face, she noticed for the first time that the scar tissue along his jaw pulled down one corner of his mouth, giving him the sardonic look she had thought was always deliberately aimed at her. She used her long, delicate fingers to touch the scar, trace it down his neck. It ended abruptly halfway down it as if there had been something protecting him there. Penny thought of his wife, wished that she had asked Virgil more about her. What kind of woman designed rocket engines? What kind of woman had made this man love her so much that he would enter fire to save her? There had been a lot of men in Penny's life but not one of them, she thought, would have been willing to so much as wave his hand over a match for her. She doubted that she would ever inspire such love. She found herself incomprehensibly envying someone who had been burned alive. She felt Medaris's scarred jaw, ran the palm of her hand along it....

The SAREX suddenly rang and Penny jerked as if she had been shot. She felt embarrassed,
caught.
She carried Jack to the shortwave instrument so she could tend to him while answering. Everything was already set up. Virgil had recently been using it, probably asking MEC about his family.

WAITING FOR A REPORT ON ET UNPACK EVA.

Penny exploded. She was angry and ashamed at the confusing emotions she was feeling. “I'll give you a report, you bastards!”

IT'S OVER. BOTH YOUR BOYS ARE OUT OF COMMISSION. CALL HOUSTON. BRING US IN.

Penny glared at the screen, waiting. A minute passed, then another. Jack groaned. She used the plastic bottle to squirt more water into his mouth. The SAREX whirred.

YOU MUST HELP.

Penny's hands leapt to the keyboard.

GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON.

The laptop whirred.

FOR YOUR COUNTRY.

Penny studied the screen. She identified herself firmly with the Native American movement, had called for reparations and special consideration for all the tribes. She'd lobbied personally with President Edwards for an apology and she had heard it was in the works.

MY COUNTRY IS THE CHEROKEE NATION. TRY AGAIN.

The SAREX sat silently for a moment, then clicked and whirred.

BECAUSE IF YOU KNEW ME WE'D BE FRIENDS. MY NAME IS SALLY LITTLETON AND I'M FOND OF THOSE TWO BIG LUGS YOU'RE WITH. TAKE CARE OF THEM FOR ME PLEASE PENNY HIGH EAGLE.

Penny was startled by the reply. She stared at the screen for a long time. Despite her fame, friendship had always been difficult for Penny. Her father had died a drunk in a ditch before she was born, and her mother had died of tuberculosis a few years later. Her grandmother, a sour old woman who had never shown her a moment of affection, had taken her in, raised her, was forever quick to tell her how much of a burden she was, and how ugly she was. Penny had been a gawky, geeky child until she'd blossomed when she hit puberty. Then the boys were after her like bees to honey, but all they wanted was sex. Her grandmother was always quick to point that out. The other girls in her class were jealous of her, kept her at arm's length, made up spurious stories about her. Not much had changed since. The truth was, Penny High Eagle, one of the most famous women in the world, was profoundly lonely, would have done almost anything to find a friend.

The words kept hitting Penny between her eyes.

TAKE CARE OF THEM FOR ME PLEASE PENNY HIGH EAGLE.

Penny High Eagle. The truth was, there was no Penny High Eagle. She was an invention, created the day after Penelope Ingle, an insecure high school girl, had won a local 10 K road race.
FIRST NATIVE AMERICAN FEMALE WINS RACE
, the headlines had screamed. The importance of that headline kept growing to that girl. She desperately needed to have the attention it had brought. That was when Penelope Ingle realized there were lots of things that hadn't been done by a “Native American Female.” After she'd gotten her education through a series of scholarships, she found an agent—Oscar Pennington—and convinced him that she could turn “First Native American Female” into a profession.