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  John leans back into the calculations. It will be mid-morning before the final assessment can be made on whether an early rescue launch is possible, and the decision will not be his.

  And despite his hostility to Geoff Shear and his megalomaniacal tendencies, he shares the same nightmarish worry: Another shuttle loss from pressing safety limits is unthinkable.

  Chapter 16

  ABOARD INTREPID, MAY 17, 5:44 P.M. PACIFIC

  It’s sunset when Kip awakens.

  There are sixteen sunsets per day in low Earth orbit, and at first he has no idea which one he’s looking at as Intrepid flies backward, eastbound around the planet.

  He glances at his watch, startled at how late it is back in California. He’s been asleep for hours, and it’s dark in Mojave, where he and the spacecraft should now be parked. He was supposed to be drinking champagne right now at a postflight party.

  In sleep there were dreams he almost recalls, confused, kaleidoscopic, but dreams of his kids and meadows and for some reason a fast convertible that kept trying to get through a snow-covered pass in the Rockies with his father aboard.

  But he’s pretty sure what he’s perceiving now is reality, and it sucks. All the excitement of being where he is, seeing what he’s seeing, floating in zero gravity, is ruined by the reality that he’s stranded and in grave danger.

  He laughs, a short, loud expression of disgust. Danger? Is that what I’m in? Try doomed! Try dead!

  Another small wave of buzzing dizziness passes over him and he realizes it has nothing to do with the zero gravity and his inner ear and vestibular balance system. It’s his mind working overtime to reject this reality, like a kid with his fingers in his ears mouthing “na-na-na-na-na!” as loud as possible to drown out unwanted information.

  So, what, exactly, is going to kill me? Am I going to run out of food, water, oxygen? Maybe die of boredom?

  Kip can’t believe he’s chuckling, but the chuckle is building to a laugh, and he’s laughing hard enough to draw tears.

  That’s it. I’m going to die of boredom long before running out of air!

  Ground school details are coming back, and he remembers the discussion about the air cycle machines and the fact that the life limit isn’t oxygen. It’s getting rid of carbon dioxide—the same problem that threatened the Apollo 13 crew.

  So how long do I have? he wonders, attempting to keep the question clinical, ignoring his shaking hands.

  It has to be written down somewhere, he thinks. Maybe in one of the checklists. He starts pawing through the nearest one, locating a table in the back in small print, a grid with the number of people aboard plotted against the capability of the CO2 scrubbers.

  Five days. One person, five days. So that’s it. In five days I’ll sit here and keel over from CO 2 poisoning. Probably not an unpleasant death.

  At least, he figures, without communication he won’t have to listen to Sharon say, “I told you so.” That in itself is a blessing, but the forced joke falls flat and he finds himself reviewing the arrangements he’s made.

  The life insurance will pay, and they’ll all be financially okay without him. Besides, even if there was no insurance, her well-heeled father wouldn’t let her go wanting. The house in Tucson will be paid off and there will be a million left to put into investments, so they can live off the interest. He’s left careful instructions.

  The pragmatism evaporates, leaving his heart exposed, and he thinks about how eager he was to take this flight, and how right Sharon was to worry, and how much he misses his kids. The twins, Carly and Carrie, are barely five. Kip knows they’ll remember their father mostly from family videos and snapshots. He will easily be replaced, as long as Sharon can find an appropriately obedient male to dominate, someone who by definition will be good to the girls.

  Julie, however, is thirteen, and losing her dad will be devastating. She’s bonded with Sharon, but never lost the effects of the trauma of her mother’s sudden death.

  Thank God, Jerrod is on his own now. He’ll miss him the most, mainly because of the unfinished business between them, and the anger he’s never been able to defuse.

  Some of Bill Campbell’s words return, something he said just before dying about their being in an orbit so stable they could stay up here for fifty or sixty years.

  My God, Kip thinks, Jerrod will be almost eighty before this spacecraft falls into the atmosphere and my long-dead body burns up on reentry. How awful for Jerrod and the girls to know their dead father is flying by overhead every ninety minutes your entire life.

  Or maybe it won’t happen that way. Surely some spacecraft will eventually be assigned to come open the hatch and see what happened, retrieve any data files from the computers and deal with the dead. Maybe then all they’ll do is give it a push toward Earth.

  Or maybe he should just save everyone the trouble and when the air is all but unbreathable, just shoot himself out of the airlock with Bill’s body. The two of them would hardly be a flash in the sky on reentry…or would they just be floating alongside Intrepid for decades?

  Strange, he thinks, that even death should be so meticulously planned.

  Every couple of minutes he looks around as if rediscovering where he really is, and with each such moment the wave of depression breaks over him again, a rising tide drowning all hopes. He pushes the images of Sharon and his children out of his mind for now. The need to decide his own fate is far too strong, and he finds himself facing it with an unexpected equanimity.

  Do I have any chance at all?

  No rescue flight. They made that clear, but doesn’t ASA have another spacecraft? He remembers their talking about it—and the fact that it was damaged. Which is probably why the last-minute warning that there was no rescue potential if anything went wrong.

  So the cavalry won’t be on the way.

  Is there anything I can do?

  He already knows the answer. He’s punched every button, read and reread the checklists ad nauseam, and it’s inescapable that the meteorite that killed Bill also took out the engine, or at least the ability to fire it.

  No, face it, kiddo. We’re dead in five days. Period.

  So, he wonders, how does one spend five remaining days on—or in his case, high above—the Earth? Not that the choices aren’t severely limited, but his mind is sharp, even if saddened and stressed and panicked.

  He remembers the notes he was starting to write in the laptop. But no one’s going to read it…for at least a bunch of years. Maybe even sixty.

  But surely someone will eventually find and download and study everything he puts on that hard drive. So maybe he should write a narrative and copyright it to his kids and grandkids, just in case the story could bring some money.

  Who knows? he thinks . They pay ridiculous sums to read the stories of criminals and the seriously disgraced. Why not a dead dad from half a century before?

  He remembers a fantasy he’s nurtured his entire life in which he owns a beautiful wooden-hulled sailing ship at least a hundred feet long with an incredible master cabin, several guest rooms, and a small, ornate, walnut-trimmed captain’s office. He sees himself every evening repairing to his little office to open a big, bound, blank notebook to write in a clear and ornate hand beautifully phrased passages about the day, his feelings, the state of the ship, and his life.

  Every night, without fail! How wonderful that would be. Like being his own Greek chorus and his own reflective, calm, and intelligent critic.

  But the image is too ludicrous a contrast to the reality of an overscheduled dad who has been known to fall asleep from exhaustion before even having a chance to brush his teeth.

  Kip looks around, aware there’s not a scrap of wood aboard Intrepid, but finding sudden similarities between where he is and that mythical ship’s office—and his nightly journal. His imagination could panel the walls, especially now. And maybe he could even imagine the creak of heavy ropes and the slap of waves on the hull.

  There’s no bound, blank
book, but there is a laptop aboard.

  And there will be an audience someday.

  And there are five days left, which is a lot more than would be available to some poor soul T-boned to death at an intersection on the planet below.

  The word “epitaph” comes to mind.

  Chapter 17

  UNITED STATES AIR FORCE ACADEMY,

  COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO, MAY 17,

  6:33 P.M. PACIFIC/7:33 P.M. MOUNTAIN

  Cadet Jerrod Dawson has never been summoned to the commandant’s office before, let alone in the middle of the evening and immediately on return from a field trip. He’s already reported, saluted, and waited for an explanation from a major and a lieutenant colonel in the room when one of the academy chaplains comes through the door, raising his level of alarm.

  “Sir, may I ask what this is about?” Jerrod can feel his stomach contracting in fear. He’s purposely avoided watching or reading any news reports during the day, not wanting to even seem to be endorsing his father’s self-indulgent flight. But now…

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Sit down, please, Mr. Dawson,” the colonel directs, and Jerrod sinks into the nearest chair, his eyes darting among each of them.

  “Is this about my dad?”

  The glances among the three confirm that much, and the colonel finally finishes fidgeting long enough to speak.

  “Cadet, you are aware your father was participating in a civilian spaceflight today, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. Please tell me. Has something happened?”

  “We don’t know if he’s all right or not, but we got a call from your mother…”

  “My mother’s dead, sir. That would be my stepmother.”

  “Right. Well, let me tell you in as much detail as we have it what we know.”

  NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM, WASHINGTON, D.C., 8:05 P.M.

  PACIFIC/11:05 P.M. EASTERN

  It’s late evening in the Beltway, past 11 P.M., and the black tie reception and dinner, attended at the last minute by the head of NASA, is winding down. The guests are taking their leave, winding beneath the amazing displays of space and aeronautics, past the suspended Spirit of St. Louis, Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, the Wright Flyer, and the Mercury Project capsule. The men look sharp in their tuxedoes, their wives and girlfriends mostly stunning in their expensive evening gowns—some featuring necklines which plunge giddily.

  Geoff Shear is uninterested in both the pomp and purpose, though he’s made nice and uttered the appropriate comments—especially to those who’ve fawned over his presence. His purpose for being there is waiting just ahead in a semi-private alcove.

  She turns, elegant but appropriately conservative, her last-minute invite a puzzling request to the museum since her apparent mid-level position with the Agency would hardly put her in the same league as the mainstream crowd.

  “Dorothy?”

  “Mr. Administrator.”

  “Thanks for responding at the last minute. Anybody, ah, keeping track of you?”

  She’s smiling, considering her answer as she glances back toward the thinning crowd. “There is one young Senate staffer who keeps trying to strike up a conversation and get lucky, but otherwise, no.”

  Geoff smiles and follows her glance, seeing no one in particular.

  “Sorry to spoil the possibilities of the evening.”

  “It was yours to begin with, considering the source of the invitation. What can I do for you, sir?”

  He motions her into a side room where the displays of the evolving history of rocketry are arranged in the form of an open maze. He turns, his wineglass still tightly gripped and only half drained.

  “Dorothy, I have a mission for you. I’ve been ordered by the President to do everything NASA can to mount a rescue launch for ASA’s apparently stranded spacecraft. You know this?”

  “More or less.”

  “Okay. A presidential order is an order, but NASA cannot afford suddenly to throw caution to the wind. I need you to go to Reagan at seven in the morning and get down to the Cape. Should you ever be asked by some damned congressional committee, then these are my formal orders: You’re there to coordinate and ensure safety for the Agency. You were asked to go down there by your supervisor.”

  “Understood.”

  “But…”

  She’s reaching out to him, her index finger actually touching his lips, the level of familiarity and the knowing smile a bit disturbing.

  “I think I understand. I know how you think, and how you feel about these private efforts. This launch attempt must not take place if there is too much risk, and I might just discover that there’s far too much risk…the type the boys down South just didn’t see at first.”

  He’s nodding, admiringly. “I’m glad you see it that way. As you well know, I can’t trust anyone at the Cape.”

  “There’s one thing I want.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve enjoyed being your fix-it agent, so to speak, especially after eight years in covert ops for the Company. At least no one’s been shooting at me here. But I’m ready now to come in out of the cold, as the old reference goes. That desk you promised me?”

  “You really want to fly a desk?”

  “Can we make this my last assignment?”

  “Why not. Although I’ll need your help recruiting someone new. The one thing I learned early on in this town, Dorothy—if you don’t have your own eyes and ears, an administrator can never know what’s really happening in the trenches. You’ve done that well.”

  “Deal, then? Last assignment?”

  “Deal.”

  “You want reports back from me?”

  “No. We need plausible deniability at all turns. We may have said hello here at this party, but that’s it. In fact, amazingly, there will be no record of your having ever been here tonight.”

  “I figured. In that case, I should evaporate,” she says, placing her empty wineglass on a nearby ledge and leaving without another word.

  Chapter 18

  CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE

  COMMAND, COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO,

  MAY 18, 4:08 A.M. PACIFIC/5:08 A.M. MOUNTAIN

  “Here’s our problem, General.”

  On one of the huge screens an amazing furball of moving blue dots is gyrating, the dots orbiting the planet they’re almost obscuring. General Risen has seen this many times, the 3-D depiction representing the orbiting garbage dump of space junk whirling around the Earth. But now a single object begins to blink red, and the senior master sergeant controlling the display adds a circle around it and then drops out all but it.

  “How long until impact,” Risen asks, “…and are we absolutely sure?”

  “Six hours, twenty-four minutes, sir, and the answer is yes, it’ll be a high probability of a conjunction—a direct hit. There’s a kind of football-shaped zone of probable flight path around it, but…it looks potentially fatal to me.”

  “How large is the object? Any estimate?”

  “General, we’re sure this is one of the shroud halves off a 1986 Soviet Proton rocket. That means more than a hundred pounds.”

  He leans forward, scanning the waiting, worried faces of the six men in front of him as they sit in the middle of the main Cheyenne Mountain war room. As commander, he’s rolled his staff car through the vaultlike blast door and climbed into the six-story, spring-mounted building too many times to count, but each time there’s been a crisis or an alert, a special quiet tension fills the place like nowhere else. That biologic electricity now crackles unseen among them as they wait for their commander to assess what their computers discovered less than an hour ago.

  The call to his predawn bedroom brought him running.

  “Did ASA use Space Command’s clearance procedures for this orbital insertion? In other words, that piece of junk has been up there one helluva long time and we’ve been tracking it. How come they used this precise orbit and we’re only now seeing the
conflict?”

  “Their orbital flight plan terminated yesterday, sir. They weren’t supposed to be where they are.”

  Chris Risen drops his head and grimaces, the know-all senior commander caught in a simple but embarrassing mistake.

  “And that dumb question, guys, was just my daily reminder that I’m a carbon-based unit and thus imperfect, stars or not.”

  “Easy mistake, sir.”

  “We’ve talked to ASA?”

  “Yes, General, we’ve already alerted ASA’s Mission Control, but…they have no contact and can’t do anything to alter the spacecraft’s course.”

  He nods, aware of the consternation NORAD’s call will have caused in Mojave.

  “Sir,” the duty controller, a colonel, adds, “I’m stating the obvious, but the collision won’t be survivable.”

  “Understood.”

  “And, sir…worse is the fact that we calculate literally thousands of individual debris orbits will result, quite a few of them becoming elliptical and threatening other altitudes. A broken-up shroud would present far less hazard than the rain of fragments from a shattered spacecraft.”

  Chris meets the colonel’s eyes for just a moment, getting the message. There are a few top-secret defensive abilities that are known to only a tiny handful of NORAD senior officers, officially denied capabilities that are never to be spoken of in the presence of uncleared individuals. Not even the highly trained control room personnel.

  Risen gets to his feet, ever mindful of the delicate balance between approachable leader and the strong, impeccable commander. “All right. Carry on. I’ve got some calls to make.”