Exo: A Novel
Page 24
I said, “You work it out with him. He’s back home, right? I want to put the bird up on Sunday.”
Tara blinked. “Can we watch?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Watch? It’s not like a rocket launch. There’s no ground-shaking roar of flames and all.”
“You have to suit up, right? If we’re going to work with Cory on making more suits, I want to see how it works. We should all see it but Jade will have to wait until she’s back from Europe.” Tara looked down at her hands. “I understand if you don’t want Joe there.”
Grandmother was watching me very carefully.
Tara put her hand to her mouth. “Oh. Uh, about Joe—”
I waved my hand. “Grandmother knows. My parents don’t, though.” I was scheduled to transport Joe back to Stanford in January, when it was time for them to start winding the next prototype. I hadn’t counted on having to transport him—to touch him—before that.
“If he wants,” I said.
* * *
Saturday afternoon, I picked up the USB thumb drive with the edited audio from the apartment Tara shared with her mom in New Prospect.
“It’s the file called beacon.wav,” she said. “We did six messages, as discussed. And Joe does want to come tomorrow. What time are you doing it?”
I felt nauseated.
Tara took one look at my face and said, “You said he could.”
“Nine Pacific. I’ll pick you all up here, is that okay?”
Tara said, “Mom’ll be here.”
“Damn. Right. Behind the coffee shop, then. At ten A.M. Mountain. Make it straight up ten, so you don’t freeze your butts off.”
“Our cute butts,” said Tara.
I smiled but it wasn’t very convincing.
* * *
Back at the Eyrie, I listened to the recording with my computer. They’d switched up the wording on the message each time, but always conveying the same information.
Joe did three different voices, one extra deep, one natural, and one in a dead-on pommy BBC accent. Tara did one of hers natural, one with a deep southern accent, and, to my surprise, one in Diné. Each of them was separated by “Johnny B. Goode” and the Morse tones for AOS-Sat One and, damn them, a vocal sting in two-part harmony of the first five notes from Also Sprach Zarathustra. The root, major fifth, and octave were hummed, but that dramatic last two notes were—you probably guessed—“Space Giiiiiiiiiiiiiirl!”
I laughed until I cried.
Well, I laughed and then I cried.
I made a copy and edited out every bit of Joe’s voice until there was just Tara and Chuck and the Morse tones and loaded that one onto the satellite.
When I powered up the satellite, it took five seconds before the broadcast started showing up on Dad’s portable radio-frequency scanner. When I plugged in earphones, it came across, loud and clear.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
I powered the bird down, reconnected it to my computer with the USB cable, and put Tara’s original version back on the satellite, “Space Giiiiiiirrrrl,” and Joe and all.
TWENTY-THREE
Cent: 2100 Kilometers
I jumped to the rooftop of Krakatoa ten seconds before 9 A.M., breathing oxygen and dressed in my undersuit outfit, but with my long wool coat and sheepskin boots over that. When I peeked over the parapet at the back, Tara and Joe were below, cupping something hot in Krakatoa’s distinctive paper cups. Their breath fogged the air around them.
I scanned up and down the alley, then checked out the side street as well. All seemed clear.
I appeared behind Joe, lifted the edge of the mask and said, louder than necessary, “Ready?”
“Shit!” he said, jerking around.
For a second it looked like he would drop his cup, or maybe squeeze it so hard it would pop the top off and spill his mocha, but to my disappointment, he managed to hold onto it.
Tara put one hand over her mouth. After a second she said, “Ready.”
I jumped her to Cory’s lab where she burst out laughing. “That was mean.”
I said, through the mask, “Who’s doing the laughing? Were you there long?” Did you talk about me? What did he say?
Tara tilted her head to one side and studied me. “We were inside for fifteen minutes but we’d walked out back about five minutes ago. You should go get him. It’s friggin’ cold there and your boy has gotten used to California.”
I nearly snapped at her. He’s not my boy anymore. Instead I jumped back to the rooftop of Krakatoa and peered over. Joe had put his back to the wall so I couldn’t appear behind him again.
Still, when I popped in six feet in front of him, he inhaled sharply.
I beckoned with one hand and said through the oxygen mask, “Let’s go.”
He stepped forward warily.
I used to teleport him face-to-face, sometimes while kissing. Sometimes jumping him led to a different sort of jumping him.
This time I did it Dad’s way, jumping behind him, grabbing his coat, and jumping away without pause.
When I released him in the lab he staggered forward and caught his balance on the workbench.
“Dammit, Cent. I dropped my coffee!”
I looked down at the clean floor, then realized he meant back where I’d grabbed him. I jumped back to the alley and there it was on the ground, a brown puddle.
I tried to feel vindicated, but it just made me feel petty. I picked up the lid and cup and threw it away in a nearby Dumpster.
Five minutes later I reappeared in the lab and put a fresh medium mocha down on the bench. Rather than say anything, I just turned my hand palm up.
He picked up the cup, avoiding my eyes. “Thanks.”
Tara stared at me and raised her eyebrows. I turned to the end of the workbench and said, through the mask, “This is our satellite.”
That distracted them.
Three thirty-centimeter-square solar panels were mounted to aluminum angle iron, forming a triangular prism with the circuitry mounted in the space within on insulated ceramic standoffs. The top was closed by an aluminum sheet so thin that it almost qualified as foil. The bottom was open, allowing access to the master power switch and the USB port. An antenna with three cross pieces was mounted at one of the corner edges, pointed the same direction as the open end. Directly opposite the antenna, the base socket for the mast was through bolted into the aluminum angle iron, and its bundled extension sections and the terminal fist-sized counterweight were strapped to it with Velcro.
“What’s this?” Joe asked, pointing at the top of the satellite. On the thin aluminum sheet I’d written 2100 K, 6.859 KPS, 45 deg true, 0 lat.
“We’re going for a circular orbit at twenty-one hundred kilometers. Technically, that’s just outside of LEO, but it’s far less crowded than the lower orbits.”
“More radiation, though,” Joe said.
“A bit, yes, which is why this mission will be very short.”
Cory and Dad wouldn’t be there for another fifty minutes. I’d told Cory we’d be doing the checklists as a training exercise but that he could verify things after.
I made Tara read each item off and had Joe do the steps, except when the steps had to be done by me or when I had to show him how a latch worked, where a seal was, and where supplies were kept—the desiccant, soda lime, and batteries.
Cory showed up just after we’d finished recharging life support, filling the hydration bag, and turning on the circulation fans and satellite phone. Dad stuck his head in a bit after Cory positioned the radiation dosimeters and double-checked everything we’d done.
Tara complained, “Hey! We used the checklist and everything!”
Cory nodded. “Good. We double-check, though, because while the chances of you messing up are slight, the consequences of you messing up are death. And not your death, right?”
Tara blinked. “Oh. Right.”
Joe didn’t say anything, but his eyes got bigger.
“Trust but verify,” I said. “Let’s put it on.”
Cory relaxed the suit and I kicked off my boots and took off my coat. I did a last-minute check of the undergarments to make sure all the seams were flat and none of the cloth was bunching.
I looked up to see Joe staring and I glared at him. He cleared his throat and looked away.
Dad held my oxygen mask while I jumped into the suit, and I resumed oxygen breathing before Cory tensioned the fabric. After he tightened it we did our bend and stretch.
Cory held up the okay hand sign. “Comfy?”
I held up my hand, thumb up, then pulled the Nomex/Kevlar coveralls on, complete with our newly created “Space Girl” patch on one shoulder and “Apex Orbital Services” patch on the other.
I let Tara lace up my boots, though the suit was flexible enough for me to do it myself. When she finished and settled back on her knees, I put on the comms headset, took off my oxygen mask, and held my breath while Cory lowered the helmet into place.
We went through the final checks: purge valves, backup oxygen, GPS, camera, and lastly, gloves.
Cory did a two finger salute. “Cleared for deployment to twenty-one hundred kilometers. Don’t linger.”
Dad nodded to me and held up our “base station” cell phone.
Tara grinned and held up two thumbs.
Joe looked stricken.
I picked up AOS-Sat One and jumped.
* * *
Dad called first, of course. “Space Girl, how do you read?”
“Loud and clear, Capcom.”
“So, whatever happened to Apex One?”
I sighed. “Talk to our very annoying director of marketing and public relations.”
“Hey!” I heard Tara’s voice in the background. “I’m right here, you know!”
Dad came back. “Right. Space Girl. Status?”
I said, “Staging orbit.” This is what we were calling my usual starting place: 345 kilometers above the Marshall Islands, booking along northeasterly at 7.72 kilometers per second.
“Right. ECLSS would like a status.”
Cory, he meant. ECLSS stood for environmental control and life-support systems.
I wiggled my fingers and toes. “Optimal, Capcom. Breathing easy. Temperature good. I’m transitioning to target orbit now.”
“See you on the flip side.”
“Right.” We weren’t going to be talking during this next bit. The target orbit was fourteen hundred kilometers above the Iridium satellites and we weren’t expecting to get a signal.
I got it pretty close on the first try, a forty-five degree inclined orbit at twenty-one hundred kilometers, booking along at seven kilometers per second but not circular, not yet. After a few tuning jumps I settled at 2,097 kilometers above the earth and 6.86 kilometers per second.
I watched the readouts for another two minutes. Vertical speed was at a mere three meters per second, putting perigee and apogee within sixty kilometers of each other, well under half of a percent of eccentricity.
Earth looked different this high. I could see all the way from Papua New Guinea to Hawaii. I was tempted to just float there and watch, but I’d agreed with Cory that my max exposure at this altitude would not exceed ten minutes. I’d already used three.
I ripped open the Velcro closure on the mast bundle and the sections started unfolding. I gave the counterweight a push toward the ocean below, and then backed off so the camera could record the self-assembly. The elastic contracted, pulling the sockets together in short, percussive jerks, leaving the entire assembly—satellite, mast, and counterweight—oscillating back and forth, the midpoint on the fiberglass rod moving a good meter side to side.
I could already see that it was damping, but I didn’t want to take the time to linger and watch the entire thing calm down, so I moved to the counterweight and began working my way from joint to joint, making sure each socket was fully engaged, and using my mass to damp the last of the vibrations. By the time I was up to the solar panels, the oscillations were negligible.
I turned on the master power, double-checking that the switch was fully engaged, then I took thirty seconds to record some selfie footage in front of the satellite.
I held the camera at arm’s length, twisted to the side so that the new Apex Orbital patch was visible, then did the same with the other arm to get the Space Girl patch.
The last thing I did was move back five meters and position the camera so it took in the entire satellite, counterweight, mast, and all. I carefully released it trying to get the camera to just hang there but it took me three tries before it was still enough. I jumped back into the frame, hanging in space beside the mast, the entire arc of Earth’s horizon floating behind and slightly below. I waved. I did a two finger salute. And then I held my arms out to the side and jumped in place adding spin, revolving slowly, but then pulling arms in like a figure skater and speeding to a blur. I held that for a two count and then jumped back out of frame, to the camera, spin killed.
My mouth filled with saliva and I thought I was going to vomit.
Don’t you dare, Cent.
I grabbed the camera and jumped back down to my staging orbit over the Marshall Islands and stared at the horizon, breathing deeply. It took several breaths before I felt good enough to snap the camera into its mount and then hit the redial button.
Dad answered. “I read you, Space Girl.”
“Capcom, the package is deployed. I’m back in my staging orbit. You want to patch me through to Matapang?”
“Roger that.”
When Roberta answered I said, “It’s a beautiful morning in orbit. Our baby should pass two thousand ninety-seven kilometers over Hawaii in about five minutes. Do you still have access to that U of H radio?”
“What? Oh. It’s up—did you say two thousand?”
“Yeah. Cleaner vacuum up there and all.”
“Harder to deorbit, though. Oh, that’s right. You’ll just go get it, won’t you?”
“That’s the plan. The radio?”
“Yeah, we’ve got access, if they aren’t using it. Uh, now’s a good time—it’s predawn there. Less competition. Give me a few minutes.”
I heard her typing rapidly on a keyboard. “And frequency is…” More typing. Then I heard her say, “What? Chuck Berry! Oh, that’s PERFECT.” She pushed the cell phone against something and I heard, “—never learned to read or write so well.” And then she was back. “Loud and clear. Are you going to be sued for copyright infringement?”
“I hope not. We licensed it for a year.”
“Okay. What’s the catalog number?”
“For ‘Johnny B. Goode?’”
“No. The satellite catalog number.”
“Oh. Who assigns that?”
“USSPACECOM. Usually at launch, though it took them a week to assign Lost Boy a number after you attached it to the Delta Stage.”
“Ah,” I said. “My very next call. Thanks!”
I disconnected, then used redial to call Dad back. “As discussed.”
“Time to be good space citizens? Right. Putting you through.”
One of the reasons I’d chosen Sunday was because I hoped this call would go to his voice mail, but he answered immediately.
“Sterling.”
“Good morning. Don’t you ever take a day off?”
“Ah, Space … Girl. This phone routes to my cell when I’m not in my office. And what are we up to today?”
I went with the literal. “I’m at three hundred forty-five kilometers right now,” I said. “But earlier I was at twenty-one hundred. I think that might be a new nonlunar record.” I knew it was. Gordon and Conrad reached 1,371 kilometers during Gemini 11.
And, yeah, I was bragging.
“Congratulations. How many astronauts went farther?”
“Twenty-four.” All men.
“I see. And what were you doing so far out? Dropping off? Or picking up?”
“Dropping off. Our first satellite. Who do we talk to about getting a satellite catalog number?”
“Oh, that counts as our first delivery. Today was our first satellite. AOS-Sat One. So we thought we should let SPACECOM know. I mean, you’re going to notice it soon enough when it crosses your fence. It’s a lot bigger than five centimeters, after all.”
“When did you do this?”
I looked at the time display on the GPS. “Nine minutes and forty-three seconds ago. It has an audio beacon at one hundred forty-five point nine nine megahertz. I deployed it over the International Date Line near the equator, but it will be over North America pretty soon.”
“Did you do a collision assessment?”
“Within our limited means. But that’s the reason we put it out so far, you know? Way outside most of the junk in LEO. Also why I called. You guys are all about the tracking.”
“Christ on a crutch. Young lady, that’s no way to run space operations!”
“Hey, how much space debris have you guys deorbited? And I did call. You don’t want us to tell you guys when we put something up? Isn’t that what the Chinese do? If there’s a potential collision, let me know. I’ll be happy to adjust it.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. It sounded like Dad when he’s getting ready to yell. I put my hand over the headset button, ready to hang up if he exploded, but however tempted he was, he held it together.
He sounded almost resigned when he said, “Give me as many of the orbital elements as you have.”
“I left it at two thousand ninety-seven kilometers so the semimajor axis would be—” I added Earth’s radius to the altitude. “—eight thousand four hundred seventy-one kilometers. Inclination at forty-five degrees. Eccentricity is darn close to zero. The longitude of the ascending node is approximately one hundred eighty west. Velocity was six thousand eight hundred sixty meters per second. Changes in altitude were less than three meters per second but, frankly, that’s within the error bars of my GPS.”
I heard a pen scratching as he took the numbers down. “A two-line element set would be better,” he muttered.
I knew about two-line elements but I didn’t quite understand them. They didn’t cover that in high school physics. I changed the subject.