Grounded!

by Claremont, Chris

  “Hear talk of Cobri, Associates financing an equatorial needle,” the co-pilot noted.

  “That’ll be a treat,” the pilot replied with a chuckle, “take an elevator out of this world.”

  “It’s been hypothesized for years,” Nicole said. “In theory, it does seem a far more efficient means of moving goods and people up and down the primary gravity well.”

  “I dunno,” the co-pilot shook her head. “The thought of a forty-thousand-klick elevator ride up to synchronous orbit makes me just a tad nervous. Even assuming you could overcome the construction difficulties. I mean you’ve got all manner of torque to contend with. No land mass is that stable. I mean, how do you anchor the damn thing?”

  “Not that many places to put it, either,” offered the Fuzzy. “Ecuador, I suppose, that’ll give you a head start in terms of ground-level altitude. Maybe the Kenyan highlands. Otherwise you’re talking Zaire, Sumatra, and Borneo. And the Galapagos Islands.”

  “If anyone could pull it off, though,” the pilot said, “you’ve got to admit, Cobri’s the one. Think how many people thought he was nuts when he set out to turn Baumier’s FTL theories into reality.”

  “Man should’ve left well enough alone, y’ask me.”

  The pilot cocked a querying eyebrow towards the woman in the right-hand seat, who shrugged emphatically and pressed on with what she was saying: “Some blue suits get to play Captain Kirk, zooming hell-for-leather around the galaxy, big deal. What’s that do for the rest of us who get left behind?”

  “Probably heard the same opinion, Ruthie”—the Fuzzy chuckled—“about Columbus.”

  “And maybe, Lou”—she half turned in her seat to face him—“with good reason. The arrival of the Europeans wasn’t exactly a blessing for the Indians who met ’em on the beach. Who’s to say we won’t be the same?”

  “Depends on your point of view, Ruth,” the pilot said, “who’s to say we’re the ‘Indians’ in this scenario. The Hal could be just as leery of us. But all the wishing in the world won’t make a whit of difference, this is the way things are, we simply have to learn to live with them.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cobri.”

  “Better say that with a smile, Ruthie,” Lou said, “the man, I hear, has a long reach.”

  “You have to be impressed, regardless of what you think of Cobri personally,” the pilot was talking more to Nicole now. “In his lifetime, he’s pretty much single-handedly transformed the world even more than the Wright Brothers did in 1903, with the first powered flight. Or Henry Ford, with the first mass-produced automobile. Still”—he thought a moment, before returning the conversation to its original topic—“the ‘needle’ would take a lot of the romance out of the business.”

  “That’s what folks want,” the co-pilot said, “to go from point to point with as little hassle, and especially ‘adventure,’ as possible.”

  “Who’d’ve thought, though? I mean, my gramps can remember when every launch of the shuttle had folks’ hearts in their mouths, praying it wasn’t Challenger all over again. Look at us now, flying the same route as easily as driving to the office.”

  “The times,” Nicole said musingly, “they’re always a’changing.”

  “That, Major, is a fact.”

  “You ever met one,” Ruth asked her. “Of the Aliens,” she finished when Nicole looked confused.

  “I work full-time at Edwards, hard not to these days.”

  “We flew with one the other week.” Nicole knew that, had helped Kymri prep for the flight. The other woman was shaking her head. “I mean, was it weird.”

  “Didn’t know his job?”

  “Not that. Just... him, I guess. He isn’t human, except we’re supposed to treat him like one of us.”

  “Hey, Ruthie,” this from Lou in a gently chiding tone, “you were a lot more vehement about those guys from the Gulf.”

  “Don’t get me started, Lou.”

  “There was a problem?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Major, I have nothing against individuals of that national or ethnic heritage... ”

  “Oh, Ruth,” the pilot said with amused approval, laying it on thick in the way that only old working buddies are allowed to get away with, “that’s very diplomatic.”

  “In your ear, Clark,” Ruth retorted in the same vein. “And that’s a whole lot more than could be said for those... gentlemen, thank you all very much. Clark and I”—she faced Nicole—“we’re professional flight officers, both qualified left seat and fully rated command pilots to boot, and as far as I’m concerned you don’t bring any attitudes onto my flight deck. Political or social. I don’t care how you live at home or what you believe, this vehicle has its own rules and operating realities and when you’re flying, they get paramount respect. I mean, the nerve of that son of a bitch!”

  “I’m at a loss, I’m afraid... ”

  “It was a qualifying flight,” Lou explained, “with Ruth as check pilot. Not a problem, it’s part of her job, she and Clark rotate. Only our trainee didn’t like working with a woman, especially one in short sleeves. Made some rather uncharitable comments.”

  “Lou, he called me a bloody whore!”

  “In Arabic,” the Fuzzy said, “you’ve got to give him that.”

  “What, I’m supposed to cut him slack because he cusses me in a language I don’t understand? Far as I’m concerned, it’s the thought that counts.”

  “Let me guess,” Nicole said, “you had a translation program linked with the com system?”

  “Did indeed. Standard procedure. But,” Ruth said with grim pride, “I’m a professional. I behaved professionally. I passed him, in terms of flight proficiency. And the minute we touched down, I ripped his lungs out.”

  “Right there on the flight line”—Lou grinned—“it was a sight to behold.”

  “I think I heard about that one. Formal grievances filed, the whole works.”

  “Total toad,” Ruth grumbled. “And that moron Russell wants to hand us over to the likes of him?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Hey, Major, you trying to tell me the United States is going to end up first among equals in a world government consisting mostly of scumbarge little nations who’d like nothing better than to screw us blind and piss on what’s left? Gimme a break!”

  “Sometimes, you’ve got to give a little to get. A little less clout on Earth for a lot more possibilities in space.”

  “Great, for the vacuum riders. Which most of us ain’t, aren’t likely to be, and have no interest being. And for some folks, you give that little, they figure it’s ’cause you’re weak, so they demand more. And more. And more. Not the most equitable of trade-offs, understand what I’m saying?”

  “Ten minutes to turnaround,” the pilot said quietly, deliberately breaking the thread of the conversation and reminding everyone of why they were here, “pull the ascension checklist, please.”

  “We have a hold,” Ruth said, “coupled with”—she paused while the information flashed onto her display—“a lateral shift in our approach. Absolutely brilliant,” she muttered with a shake of the head, “we’ve got a ‘smudged window.’ Initial vectors bring us too close to Patriot. The mods should give us decent clearance.”

  “What a mess,” the pilot agreed, his tone a match for hers. “Damn thing’s been up there my whole lifetime, been a derelict Lord knows how long, you’d think somebody’d get off their butt and do something about it.”

  Patriot was the first American permanent space station, launched at the turn of the century. State-of-the-art at conception, rendered totally irrelevant within a decade as the Baumier StarDrive turned the world’s attention from near-Earth space to the far reaches of the galaxy. It was simply too small to be practicable for the facilities required by the starships, and not really designed to be expanded to accommodate them. Those same deficits prevented its use as anything more than the most preliminary of staging areas for the Lunar and out-planet habitats that were suddenly being yan
ked from archival memory banks. Its heyday was during the construction phase of Sutherland, where Patriot served as the orbital base camp for the work crews, and then a few years later—when all concerned had thought such conflicts behind them—as an eye-in-the-sky strategic observation platform during the Second Gulf War.

  After that, with Sutherland fully operational, giving birth not only to DaVinci StarPort on the Moon but the two L-5 stations, Hightower and Hawking, as well, Patriot became more and more the redundant backwater until it was finally abandoned altogether. Unfortunately, when it had been touted as a “permanent” installation, the NASA flacks spoke far better than they suspected (in their wildest dreams); it had somehow found the ideal orbital niche, with an absolute minimum of the atmospheric drag that had doomed such earlier attempts as SkyLab and Mir. Even untended, the station would stay up—it was now acknowledged—easily through the next century. And nobody wanted to knock it down en masse, because its size—although a fraction of Sutherland—guaranteed that enough would survive the incinerating heat of reentry to strike the ground with significant force. The obvious solution was to cut it into more manageable bits and either recycle them elsewhere or drop them where they’d do the least harm. Trouble was, any and all proposals along those lines appeared perpetually bogged down in the natural maze of the Space Administration’s bureaucracy.

  “Has there been any trouble with flaking?” Nicole meant debris tumble-flying off the main body of the derelict, bound to happen from time to time.

  The pilot shook his head. “Surprisingly little. Who’d’ve thought the ‘lowest bidder’ could’ve built so well.” He grinned. “You know, of course, Major, the place is reputed to be haunted.”

  Nicole smiled. “That I’ve heard. The occasional ghost transmissions, vaguely coherent reports of activity aboard... ”

  “Yup. Been looked in to, too, a bunch of times. No joy, of course. Place is dead as can be, stripped pretty much clean of everything movable.”

  “Mission’s on-line, Clark,” this from Ruth, after a verbal acknowledgment of the transmission, “window’s open, we’re released from the hold, cleared to lift. Parameters on-screen.”

  Second stage of the ascent required cycling the engines from air-breathing jets to fully self-contained hydrogen-fueled rockets, then boosting out of the atmosphere along a slightly shallower ascent curve that more resembled a standard aircraft climb than a rocket’s lift-off. The mission profile was to match track and velocity with Sutherland Station, at the three-hundred-kilometer level, so that when the station finally caught up with them (it was now about a third of the way around the planet to their rear), the two vehicles would be almost perfectly in sync, thereby making docking a proverbial piece of cake. Worked fine in theory. Of course, a glitch anywhere along the way meant either a stern chase to catch up with Sutherland, or a long wait to try again the next time it rolled ’round. Neither of which looked too terribly good on any crew’s flight record.

  “Black sky,” Ruth announced quietly as the soft blue of the atmosphere faded below them, then she switched over to the cabin PA to inform the paying passengers. “As some of you may have noticed,” she said calmly with the relaxed ease of someone for whom this was no more a big deal than a stroll around the corner for a magazine, “we’ve just made the transition from Earth’s atmosphere to the lower regions of outer space. In a few more minutes, we’ll be in zero gravity, which for those making their first trip should be quite an experience. For your own safety, however, and that of your fellow passengers, please keep your seat belts securely fastened. If assistance is needed”—and Nicole grinned at the memory of an unwary traveler, during one of her first high flights, lunging after a pen that had decided to go drifting off across the cabin, only to find himself overshooting the mark in a moderately mean somersault that bounced him from the ceiling upside down into her lap—“please use your call buttons to summon one of the crew, who’ll be more than happy to assist you.”

  Nicole scanned through the menu of her HUD, a quick review of ship systems, their progress from launch, their position in relation to target, their approach to docking. Satisfied that all was well, she craned forward as far as her restraints would allow for a view through the canopy. They were still in a nose-up attitude, the Earth a bright splash of light and color beneath them. The sun dominated the way ahead, a small, blinding golden dollar of fire so intense the crew wore sunglasses. Not much to see at the moment in the way of stars, that would come with more altitude and the turn to nightside.

  “Like the view?” the Fuzzy asked.

  “Always.”

  “You one of those, then?” That was from Ruth.

  “ ‘Those’?”

  “SkyBoys, we call ’em.”

  “I know the term.” Didn’t much like it, either. Went into the same dump for her as calling the Hal Pussies.

  “Well?”

  “I got the rating, Ruth, same as you.”

  “That’s what I thought,” and the other woman’s mouth turned down in a dismissive sneer.

  “You make it sound like it’s a crime to be an astronaut.”

  “Some dreams maybe should stay nothing but dreams. I ask you, Major, is it any more of a crime to be afraid of the consequences? Space isn’t a fantasy any longer, it’s in our face. I’m sorry, I don’t like it.” She sighed, thought a moment. “Destiny isn’t ours to control anymore.”

  “Was it ever, Ruth?”

  “Yeah, Clark. I think. Maybe because there was no alternative. Our world, love it or else, ’cause we got nowhere else to go. Now, we do. The pressure’s off, who cares how badly we shit where we live, we can always zip off somewhere else. Only problem is, someone else may be out there first. Jesus Mary and Joseph, guys, we can hardly live together on this dirtball an’ we’re at least all the same species! Now we’re expected to act sane, to play well”—she put a viciously mocking twist to the words—“with others? Too much, my friends, too fast.”

  “You’re probably right,” Nicole said and the woman flashed a glance of angry suspicion that she was being patronized, “but that choice was made the moment the first starship completed its first successful round-trip.”

  “Nah,” Lou said, “for me it was when they found the Pussies.”

  “I’ll tell you,” Ruth agreed, “I’d be a whole lot happier if that rendezvous had never taken place.”

  Sutherland was a wheel, a giant torus taking two-hour turns around the world below, at the same time spinning on its own axis about the core spoke with sufficient velocity to create a one-G environment on the outermost ring, the effect weakening as a body progressed towards that central axle until it became weightless. The core itself was so huge, the entire Patriot Station could be accommodated with room to spare. It was here that passengers and cargo made the transition from the spaceplanes that brought them up from the Terrestrial surface to the short-haul Heavy Lifters, pure space vehicles that would carry them the rest of the two-day journey to either the Moon or the two L-5’s.

  There was no reservation for Nicole in the housekeeping system and she was directed to wait in a nearby anteroom while the glitch was dealt with. The room was a standard module, bare walls and ceiling, chairs and worktables, sockets for power cords and data/com links. Nicole dimmed the lights, then keyed in the display code, and one of the main walls seemingly dissolved into a real-time presentation of space outside, the view away from Earth. Panoramic ebony, liberally splashed with pinpoint dots of light.

  Stepping clear of the furniture, Nicole pulled her feet free of the deck and kicked herself into a forward roll. She straightened her body as she somersaulted so that she was spinning face-forward, like a propellor, and flexed her shoulders to give her a lateral rotation as well. Technically, a miserable motion, guaranteed to make most sick just to watch, much less give it their own try. Then, as she neared the center point of the room, she twisted her shoulders the opposite direction, arching her body backward, sweeping her arms down almost as though she
were swimming. The spin, she stopped; the roll, not quite.

  “Impressive,” Althea Maguire said.

  “Hardly,” Nicole replied, flushing at the spectacle she must have presented, instinctively stiffening to attention, ignoring the absurdity of doing so while her momentum gradually spun her forward and down, out of reach of any surface and unable to reorient herself without making an even greater fool of herself. But Maguire didn’t seem to notice or mind as she stepped confidently towards her and held out a hand.

  “You’re looking well, Lieutenant,” she said, gently restoring Nicole’s contact with the floor. “Gravity suits you.”

  “Way things seem to be going, I guess I’d better get used to it.”

  “I’m afraid you may be right.”

  The Marshal stood average height, her body built more for power than fashion. Hair cut shorter than Nicole’s, a red-shaded sand liberally sprinkled with gray, styled to emphasize the strength of her features. A square face, severity seriously undermined by a dusting of freckles from cheekbones across the bridge of her nose. The eyes, surprisingly, were a cobalt blue that Nicole wasn’t used to seeing in a redhead, with a level, assessing gaze that gave the sure and deliberate impression that the woman didn’t miss a thing. Uniform was a black jumpsuit, and over the left breast pocket she wore the crested shield of a Senior Marshal. As First Deputy Chief, she was operations boss for the entire spaceside command.

  She held out a small bag. “Before I forget,” she said, although Nicole seriously doubted the Marshal ever “forgot” anything, “all your ID’s, please. For our security as much as your own. Officially, you’ll be logged out on the next departure. In reality, you’re my shadow, your identity a reflection of mine. You’ll go home as someone brand-new and completely different.”