Forecast (9 page)

“That’s okay,” she replied calmly. “But someone should have at least acknowledged me beforehand.”

“I did try to call you at the hotel and I left a message with the receptionist for you to contact me. I assume you didn’t get it.”

Hennessey remembered the phone had rung when she’d been in the bath, but she had been disinclined to answer it. “Let’s just forget about it, shall we?”

Sutcliffe nodded. “So, where exactly are you from in the States?”

She blew at the wisps of steam curling from her cup before taking a sip. “Born in Sullana in Peru, but lived my youth in Illinois with my parents. These days I spend most of my time at the base in California, not too far from L.A.”

“Quite a change for you, isn’t it? Going from high
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speed jets to balloonist?”

“Not really. My objective is to carry out research on the stratosphere, something I can’t do from an X
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43A scramjet.”

“Do you have any questions?”

Sutcliffe’s voice was sincere and she found herself studying him, liking him, respecting him. “I haven’t given it too much thought, to be honest.”

There was a brief silence, just the sound of coffee being slurped, until Hennessey broke it when she decided to talk to Sutcliffe about her mission. Engrossed by the American, her way, her voice, her mannerism, her peculiar but soothing accent, something in her eyes hit him right in the gut. He hadn’t thought about it until now, just how beautiful she was.

“Tell me about your training,” she insisted.

The training? Where to start? Sutcliffe, Matthews, Burch and Faraday had all flown to Moscow to join the ATLAS Aerospace company to train as ‘Space Tourists’ a while back. The intensive course specialised in space training, final countdown preparations and ground
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based, complex space simulators. The crew had been fortunate enough to spend two days at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre thirty seven miles northeast of Moscow using the same simulators used by cosmonauts to prepare for space travel. They had also performed a work session in the Hydrolab under-water facility used to prepare cosmonauts for spacewalks.

“We enrolled at the ATLAS Aerospace company in Moscow four years ago.”

“Four years ago? Have you done any refresher courses since then?”

“No, we just haven’t had the funds to go again. We’ve done several parachute jumps, you know, just in case we need to abandon the balloon and most of us have hundreds of flights under our belts. Plus we keep ourselves physically fit with regular exercise and what have you.”

“How about your spacesuits? Have you trained in them?”

“A little, not much.”

“Listen, Brad, have you ever tried tying your shoelace while wearing boxing gloves?”

He frowned. “No.”

“Well, that’s what wearing a spacesuit is like. You’ll be working inside a body
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shaped pressurised balloon. A long, inflexible balloon at that. I suggest you practice working in one and encourage your crew to do the same over the next couple of weeks. I’ve trained in zero
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gravity conditions, practiced high angle
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of
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attack manoeuvring, difficult landing flare techniques, and also flying under adverse environmental conditions. But I still have difficulty performing basic tasks in a spacesuit.”

After all his doubts, all his prejudices, Sutcliffe felt reassured having Hennessey on the mission. In the unlikely event of adversity, the research pilot would be a valuable asset to the team.

A sunrise so eloquent and absorbing took on a surreal brilliance, flirting with the Atlantic Ocean on the desolate horizon. Not a breath of wind in the air, the sea calm, just as the weather experts had forecasted.

More than five thousand people had already congregated on the cliffs of St. Ives to watch the historical event. Some spectators had arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning to snag a prime viewing position. People were camped down on the beach and out to sea was a colony of sailboats, fishing trawlers and speedboats. Boat owners had anchored their machines and were out on deck ready to wave and cheer the Fable
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1 team on. On land, fathers attended to their children and mobile vendors tempted tourists with muffins, baps and hot drinks. Meanwhile, police officers in lime yellow jackets watched over the excited masses and everybody was out in good spirits.

Two enormous TV monitors were being fed with live images from cameras scattered about the cliff
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top where cameramen had judged the perfect spot to snap footage of the event, giving the spectators an alternative view. At various sections of the gondola, technicians were checking and rechecking the weather instruments onboard Fable
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1. The helium balloon had been brought out to a marked area long before sunrise prior to the arrival of spectators. Every inch of the balloon’s fabric had been examined for tears and holes. The enormous, red gondola, which had retractable wheels, had also been thoroughly checked for wear. Larger than most cars, it had been designed to accommodate five seats which encircled the perimeter. In the centre, an enormous chest with access points on all four sides accommodated the solar
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wing camera equipment, ten pressurised oxygen tanks and NASA’s new project: a cosmic dust collection device attached to a large, deflated balloon. All apparatus were tied down firmly with straps. Despite its size and sturdiness, the gondola was lightweight and could survive in both air and water, if necessary. The ultra
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thin polyethylene envelope attached to the enormous gondola was secured to the ground by steel frames mounted in the earth. Manually activated squibs joined the gondola to the frame.

The momentous cliff
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top event ran on a live feed into Sutcliffe’s laptop computer connected to satellite internet. Inside the White Room sitting beside Sutcliffe on the bench were Claris Faraday and Jen Hennessey watching the screen in a pensive silence. The launch was not for another hour, but time was moving fast. The time told seven already, the launch scheduled for eight. The tension in the room was visible.

“It doesn’t look like the world’s largest balloon,” Hennessey commented.

Sutcliffe nodded. “When a story this big is represented through the reductive lens of a camera, the image is always translated less effectively.”

Much to Sutcliffe’s disappointment, the White Room had not been painted in time, as promised, and the presence of paint and a stepladder in the middle of their preparation made the expedition seem a touch unready. That was not the only thing that disgruntled him that morning. Just three weeks earlier, NASA had announced a change of plan in the Chandra project. There was to be no Chandra project. The observatory telescope had ‘malfunctioned’ according to Hennessey, passing on the information from her superiors at NASA. Instead, a new project had been approved. The payload: a cosmic dust collector nicknamed Akroid. Akroid, which would be attached to another balloon, would capture cosmic meteoroids whipping about in the stratosphere. It included several xerogel samples strategically placed to capture microscopic meteoroid particles and would be remote controlled through radio frequencies by operators from NASA. That was all Sutcliffe knew about it. Hennessey and Thorndike and just about everyone else he’d spoken to at NASA were being very secretive about the details.

The sudden, inconvenient change had left him peeved. He had been resentful of the Chandra project but had prudently bitten his tongue. Then his opinion changed when he learnt what Chandra II had to offer and after he’d learnt that Hennessey was as nice as she was good
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looking. Now his opinion had changed again because the NASA
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Hennessey package was causing more trouble than it was worth and last minute modifications to the gondola to accommodate the new project had caused unnecessary stress and cost.

Sutcliffe shut down the power on his computer, folded down the top, picked up his morning newspaper and read the front page. The headlines were about foreign immigrants in Great Britain, as usual, though the words were not registering in his brain. Just letters in combinations. He was thinking what it would be like as soon as they made their way to the balloon outside. Restless, he discarded the paper on the bench. So much was at stake. They were under a lot of pressure. A lot of pressure.

Around the room, the crew used their own rituals to combat nerves. Matthews sat with his back against the wall tapping his foot on the floor in a rhythm. He looked calm and prepared because he relished the celebrity spotlight. Sutcliffe, on the other hand, hated being recognised; the unsought gazes in the street, the finger-pointing, the nitpicking. He disliked people chatting to him as if they knew about every department of his life when they knew nothing at all. While he appreciated the support of strangers, he didn’t feel comfortable with the constant attention. Beside him, Hennessey and Faraday made conversation. They were discussing the cost of domestic flights and fuel tax, comparing prices in their respective countries. Hennessey was nervous about the launch. She had spent most of her career risking her life for the evolution of flight. That did not shake off the images of the three astronauts who perished in a fire that consumed their Apollo 1 spacecraft while it sat atop its launch pad in 1967, the seven crew of the space shuttle Challenger who died in 1986 when it blew up just seventy three seconds after liftoff, the seven STS
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107 shuttle astronauts lost in the 2003 Columbia accident when it broke apart during re
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entry. Then there were the research pilots who’d died during flight experiments. They were the unsung American heroes killed by the unpredictable forces of nature and because science failed them. Keith Burch was out in the lobby by the elevator chain
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smoking cigarettes like no tomorrow, still insisting that he wasn’t nervous when everyone knew that he was. He lit his third cigarette that morning, telling himself that he would wait until it had been smoked, as a further time
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wasting device, before going back in.

“Anyone got the time?” Faraday asked.

Matthews glanced at his Rolex watch. “Quarter past seven.”

Sutcliffe had been partnered with Matthews for almost six years now, but still there were times when he considered the man an enigma. An individual, very quiet about his personal life and he seemed to be a man of layers. On the top layer was a man confident, outspoken and indecorous. The lower layers were comprised of anxiety and paranoia and suspicion.

“Does anyone have any headache tablets?” Hennessey asked.

“In the toilet on the left. You will find all sorts in the cupboard,” said Sutcliffe.

“Thanks.”

Hennessey shut the door and opened the toiletry cupboard where she found an assortment of pills for basic ailments, a box of plasters and something for heartburn. She popped two painkillers in her mouth and sunk them with water from the sink. Closing the cupboard door, she saw tucked into the corner of the mirror a picture of Fable
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1 inflated during tests. It greatly impressed her. She sat on the toilet and put her head in her hands thinking about her parents. They had always been proud of her. Would they be proud now? She felt uncommonly on edge and scared and cursed herself for succumbing to nerves. After all, she’d flown in countless aircraft at death
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defying speeds. What was a balloon flight in comparison? Perhaps that she didn’t have control over the vessel. Yeah, that was it. Fear God and he will take care of you, she told herself.

Burch stepped back into the room, but only for a moment. He stood anxiously, not knowing what to do with his hands, so he popped another cigarette in his mouth and began patting his pockets for his lighter. An arm came over his shoulder holding one and he dipped the cigarette into the fire, turning to see Matthews the person holding it.

“Cheers,” said Burch. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t,” Matthews said, and walked away.

“Haven’t you smoked enough of those this morning?” Faraday complained. “I hate to imagine the state of your lungs.”

Burch shrugged, brushed off the comment and left the room. Sutcliffe was admiring the Russian
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made spacesuits hanging in the glass display cabinet. Six suits, made to the specific measurements of the five balloonists, one serving as a spare. The suits comprised several layers, which included polyester structural restraint layers with folded and pleated joints and an anti
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abrasion outer layer. Worn beneath the suit was a liquid-cooling and ventilation garment – a one
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piece mesh suit made of spandex and zippered for front entry. The garment had water
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cooling tubes running through it to keep the wearer comfortable during the flight. The extravehicular communicator attached to the upper portion of the primary life support system at the back of the hard upper torso allowed the crew to talk amongst one another.

Burch and Hennessey returned to the White Room at the same time and Sutcliffe instructed the crew to start getting ready. Nobody spoke as they undressed and hung their clothes on the hooks. The first stage involved putting on the one
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piece spandex mesh suit, followed by a unit for the lower part of their bodies containing pants, knee and ankle joints, and lower waist. The boots went on before the metal connect ring joined the upper half of the unit. Upon reaching space, the suits would be pressurised at 4.3 pounds per square inch and the gas in the suit would be one hundred percent oxygen, which was twenty percent more than ground level. The suit was also equipped with an in
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suit drink bag filled with 1.9 litres of water with a small tube near the mouth. Around their crotches sat an absorbent diaper designed to collect urine and faeces while the crew worked in the stratosphere. The last piece of equipment fitted to the torso was the primary life support system, which included two primary tanks of oxygen pressurised to 850psi and a secondary oxygen tank for backup, giving the crew a total of fifteen hours of oxygen. Also in the primary life support systems were carbon dioxide scrubbers and filters, four and a half kilos of cooling water, a radio, electrical power, ventilating fans and warning systems. Emergency parachute packs overlapped their life support systems. The helmets, with two mounted EVA headlamps on either side for extreme dark places, completed the spacesuit. Before they fitted their helmets on, visors were rubbed with an anti
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fog compound to prevent the build
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up of condensation.