“Math is math,” the old man shrugged. “Is hard to argue,” though his words hinted at a history of having to do exactly that. Owen saw something change in his eyes, like a barrier had been breached or a vault unlocked. “Please, Mr. Harriman of NASA, we have bantered enough,” Rhyzov said as he shuffled toward the study, waving Owen along. “Come, we have much to discuss.”
As his host poured tea, Owen wandered about Rhyzov’s crowded little office. It spoke of a life filled with family and work. Two families, really, because if a man loved what he did, it didn’t feel so much like work. Owen suspected there had been precious few opportunities like that in the former Workers’ Paradise. Yellowed photographs of children, cousins, and grandparents were interspersed with those of other men and the massive rockets they had constructed together.
His arm rested along Rhyzov’s desk next to an ungainly contraption of lenses and polished aluminum tubes. He guessed it was some type of sextant, perhaps built for an aircraft, more likely from a spacecraft given where it now rested. He wondered if it had in fact been flown in space.
“You like?” Rhyzov asked as he sank into a well-worn chair beside him. “It is from Zond L1.”
“The one you guys flew around the Moon?” Owen admired it with newfound awe—this was actual flown Soviet lunar hardware. “So it wasn’t just an empty capsule?”
“No, not empty,” the little man sighed. “It was fully equipped for human occupants. If they had listened to us, it would have carried a cosmonaut and your Apollo would have been also-ran. Moon race, over. Mother Russia for the win, as you might say.”
Owen laughed. “You were a graduate student on the navigation team then,” he said, letting Rhyzov know they’d done their homework. “Quite an accomplishment, though nothing compared to your nuclear pulse drive.”
“Ah. Now we get down to business, Mr. Harriman. You have dossiers on me as well as Project Arkangel.”
Owen answered with a knowing smile. “Took a while for the spooks at Langley to tease that one out,” Owen said. “Suitably imposing name, too. I’m surprised the party leaders were okay with using Christian imagery for something this grandiose.”
He dismissed it with a wave. “Random codeword. Arkhangelsk is city in Siberia, near Murmansk. We often name projects for cities. But again, you would not be here if there were no questions.”
“Questions are the one thing we aren’t short on.” Owen tapped the file. “This project had a level of secrecy I’ve never seen. If our government knew about it, nobody’s owned up to it.”
That drew a laugh. “Someone knows. Someone always knows. Perhaps right people just wouldn’t pay attention, or someone who should have didn’t and hid his mistake.”
“You’re probably not wrong,” Owen sighed. “There had to be some signal intercepts. Maybe it was lost in the noise at NSA.” His dive into decades-old intelligence uncovered long-forgotten suspicions that the Soviets had been building an orbiting military complex that eventually became Arkangel, believed to be abandoned in the late eighties along with any CIA interest. Owen presumed some bureaucratic dweeb hadn’t figured it out fast enough and hid the evidence just to avoid professional embarrassment.
“Communications and telemetry were tightly controlled,” Rhyzov explained. “Encrypted signals, burst transmissions at random intervals. Ship was too far away for us to control mission anyway.”
The old heads at Star City must’ve loved that, Owen thought. “Still, we should have at least seen the evidence when you lit up that pulse drive.”
“Chemical stage pushed it out of Earth orbit,” Rhyzov explained. “Nuclear stage ignition timed to occur behind Moon’s shadow. Would not have seen.”
“But it burned a lot more than that one time,” Owen said. “Even if our early-warning satellites weren’t looking in the right direction, astronomers would have noticed.”
“Recall that gamma ray bursts were thought to be confined within galactic plane until your Compton satellite demonstrated otherwise,” Rhyzov pointed out. “Late 1991.”
Right about the time when Arkangel went dark. “So those bursts within the plane weren’t natural.” Or as far away as everyone thought.
“Who can know?” Rhyzov smiled, enjoying the game. “We had advantage of launching vehicle before most of your orbiting observatories were operational. Lost in noise, as you said.”
Owen wondered how many astronomers were going to have to reevaluate data from back then. “I keep coming back to one question: Why do something this monumental and then sit on it? Why didn’t they come back? Was there some catastrophic failure?”
“Failure was not in spacecraft.” Rhyzov creaked open a drawer to remove a thick bellows folder. Ruddy brown and worn by age, it was held shut with a simple string clasp. Dust wafted up from its creases as he dropped it onto the floor between them. “Was crew. They malfunctioned. And if your NASA superiors are considering a similar adventure then you must be ready for whatever it may bring. We certainly weren’t.”
3
This is Mission Control.
After three years of intense preparations, we are at L-minus two days and counting until the Magellan II crew departs Earth for their expedition to Jupiter and the outer solar system.
Astronauts Roy and Noelle Hoover, Jack Templeton, and Traci Keene have spent the last week in prelaunch quarantine at Kennedy Space Center and are now conducting their final integrated simulation with the flight control team here in Houston. Once their spacecraft Magellan is under constant acceleration from its advanced pulsed-fusion engines, within days they will have traveled well beyond any timely communication with Earth due to the signal delays over such great distances.
After they have crossed the orbit of Mars and traversed the asteroid belt, they will make a close flyby of Jupiter for one of the most critical events of the mission. As they enter Jupiter’s influence, they will intercept the Cygnus cargo ship which is already racing toward its own encounter with the gas giant. The following day, the crew will launch a series of probes into the planet’s turbulent atmosphere and across its icy moon Europa before performing a gravity-assist maneuver to increase their velocity and shift the plane of their trajectory for Phase Two: the mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Their flyby of the gas giant promises to be a momentous time for the astronauts of the Magellan II expedition and America’s Human Outer Planet Exploration program. Today is the crew’s final opportunity to test themselves before they must perform this for real at Jupiter.
♦ ♦ ♦
The simulated Magellan control deck, from its overhead lighting to its touchscreen instrument panels, was awash in red. The lighting the crew had dialed in to preserve their night vision accentuated the simulated planetshine of Jupiter, filling the small cabin with a carnival glow. The high-definition screens outside their windows presented towering cloud formations in swirling pastel streams of orange and purple, their digital tops sheared away by simulated supersonic winds. When time came for the actual flyby in a few more weeks, the real view promised to be spectacular and completely ignored. That so many mission-critical events would coincide with their sideswipe of one of the solar system’s most remarkable sights was one of many cruel realities of spaceflight.
Mission pilot Traci Keene almost hoped for a primary control failure during the actual supply intercept, as it would give them an opportunity to hand-fly the ship if they were forced to revert to the backup plan. “Cygnus’s docking target just pinged us. LIDAR is locked on. Relative velocity four meters per second.”
“Rog.” Roy Hoover showed no such desire to look outside. His Zen-like discipline might have come effortlessly in the sims but it was a no-less-vital trait for a mission commander. While he might have been indifferent to computer-generated visuals, his crew also knew he was that much of a stoic.
“He means, ‘Yes, I acknowledge your report and concur we are on target for rendezvous,’” came a soothing voice from behind her. Noelle Hoover was accustomed t
o filling in her husband’s unfinished thoughts; her crewmates were convinced it was the main reason they’d been assigned to the mission together. Without her, two years in deep space would be agonizing with a boss who conserved words like water in the desert.
“We appreciate the translation. They’re gonna miss you at Capcom, especially the Europeans. They won’t have anybody left to gossip with in their own language.” If the big shots in the Astronaut Office had wanted another crewman who was the commander’s polar opposite, they could scarcely have done better than Jack Templeton.
“Perhaps I’m the one who will need them back here to gossip about you.”
“That’d be a mistake,” Traci said. “Jack’s been listening to French language lessons in his sleep.”
“And how is it you know this?” Noelle quipped.
“Focus, people,” Roy growled over Jack’s snickering while Traci searched in vain for a good comeback. “SIMSUP’s throwing us a nice softball right across home plate. Screw this up and we’ll get to spend our last night on Earth practicing intercepts.” It was the most consecutive syllables he had uttered all day.
“The oracle speaks.”
“I’m serious, Templeton.” His tone carried a warning.
“So am I, boss. I’d rather be sitting at the beach house with a cold beer. It’s the girls cutting up this time,” Jack protested. “And by the way, relative velocity’s down to three m-p-s. We’re standing by with the claw.” One of Jack’s duties as Magellan’s flight engineer was to grab the resupply vehicle with their remote manipulator arm in case the two pilots somehow lost primary control.
“Can you behave, Mrs. Hoover?”
“Yes, love,” she groaned, and turned off her intercom to lean in toward Jack. “You think he’s cranky now, wait until we’ve been living off of freeze-dried food for a year.”
“He’ll be even crankier if we blow this sim,” Jack said, “and he’s right. It’s kind of a tradition for the trainers to take it easy on our last run, so we need to lock down the grab-ass. You ready?”
“I am.” Jack always found her Mediterranean French accent to be soothing. It hadn’t been the least bit surprising when she and Roy had announced their engagement not long after a joint tour on the Space Station—she’d probably lulled him into hypnosis.
Putting a married couple on the agency’s longest-duration mission had been the obvious choice. As for Jack’s and Traci’s assignments, he hadn’t been so sure. Maybe it was the center director’s idea of social engineering. Two years’ worth of training alongside each other in close quarters had offered as many opportunities to learn each other’s quirks as marriage would for anyone else.
“Visual on the care package at two o’clock,” Traci said. “I’ve got her centered in window one right.”
Jack spotted the computer-generated stack of gleaming aluminum cylinders in the porthole by his flight station behind Traci. “Tallyho. I have visual on Cygnus in window two right.”
“I have positive control with the remote,” Traci said. “RCS check.” She tapped a control stick and the animated supply vehicle pitched and rolled in response as pixelated reaction jets puffed along its length. If all went as planned, the stack of logistics modules and propellant tanks would dock itself with the portals nested inside Magellan’s open support truss. Failing that, Traci could remotely fly it in. If the whole system went belly-up, Roy would bring them in close enough for Jack to grab Cygnus with the manipulator arm. If that failed and they missed their resupply rendezvous, they’d be forced to turn tail-first and slow down enough for Jupiter to sling them back toward Earth while looking forward to long weeks of basic rations during the flight home.
That was a whole different level of simulation which Jack was certain the others were just as sick of as he was. After two years of near-continuous rehearsals of every critical event and conceivable failure, it was nice to have everything working as planned for once.
“Twenty meters, closing at point five,” Traci said in her coolest, nothing-but-a-thing pilot voice. “Cargo ship’s still responsive. Switching back to auto.”
“Arm is secure,” Noelle said, just as cool for different reasons. “Docking nodes are clear.” Are we sure we can’t stay at Jupiter for a while? she left unsaid.
“Ten meters,” Roy said. “Hang on.”
The simulator rocked gently as their virtual cargo hit its imaginary target. There was a series of dull thuds as their displays told them the craft had seated itself against Magellan’s spine.
“Hard dock,” Jack said. “All latches are barber-poled. Stand by for propellant transfer check . . . okay, there we go. Positive pressure in the manifolds. That’s all, folks.”
“Roger that,” Roy said. “Waiting for acknowledgment from Houston.”
“Can we hit the ‘time warp’ button for that one?” Traci chimed in. “Because I really have to pee.”
A new voice sounded over their radio net. “Not necessary. SIMSUP is closing this session. Congratulations, guys.”
There were whoops from the technicians out in the sim bay as they began shutting down the platform. Jack blew out a relieved sigh and sank into his flight couch. No words were spoken as they celebrated with a round of silent fist bumps. Traci tossed off her headset and fluffed her hair. “How about that beer, partner?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Launch day breakfast had been a tradition since Al Shepard’s first fifteen-minute hop above the atmosphere. It would be their last face-to-face human contact without being surrounded by technicians before leaving the planet for two years, so today was especially significant. While grand send-offs threatened to become melodramatic clichés as spaceflight became more routine, today’s gathering had been kept more private than usual. Perhaps because they were about to leave for the outer edges of the solar system, the mood at the astronaut beach house was subdued.
As they shuffled into the dining room, Jack was struck by how few people were here. His launch to the International Space Station years earlier had hosted more people. Today there were only three guests: Grady Morrell, head of the astronaut office; Owen Harriman, their mission manager; and one rumpled old guy he’d never laid eyes on before. Jack stole a glance in Roy’s direction; their mission commander’s pursed lips signaled that he was just as surprised.
Other than their unexpected guest, everything else was normal: pitchers of juice and coffee, a plateful of fruit, platters of scrambled eggs and breakfast steaks all laid out on a buffet behind them. A single sealed envelope sat at the center of the dining table.
They each took coffee and sat without a sound, eyes locked on their hosts. Owen, to his credit, didn’t waste time. “I’m sorry to spring this surprise on you but it was unavoidable,” he said as he pushed the envelope across the table at Roy. “This is going to be a bit of a working breakfast.”
Roy’s gaze remained fixed on Grady and Owen as he turned the envelope over, cocked an eyebrow and tore open the candy-striped “Eyes Only” security tape.
Owen narrated while Roy began pulling out briefing papers. “Inside you’ll find mission-critical information that we’ve been forced to withhold until the very last minute. We apologize for the secrecy, but once you’ve had a chance to digest it I think you’ll understand.”
“That remains to be seen,” Roy grumbled.
Jack peeked over Roy’s shoulder and saw that most of the contents were in Russian. He looked back across the table. “Who’s our guest?”
Owen laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Dr. Anatoly Rhyzov, formerly of the Aviation and Space Agency of the old Soviet Union.” He paused as the crew did a double take and Traci almost spit her coffee.
“Dr. Rhyzov was enjoying his retirement in Moscow until I found him and screwed it all up.” The thin smile that crossed the old man’s face suggested he hadn’t been all that bothered by it. “The state department agreed to give him a worker’s visa, and he’s been our guest in Houston for the past three years.” Almost the sam
e amount of time they’d been in near-total immersion training for the Magellan II mission.
Noelle spoke up. “Should we assume the doctor has some particular relevant expertise?”
Jack reached over to lift a stack of the Russian-language papers from Roy. “A good astronaut never questions the pretzel logic of crew assignments,” he said, staring over the files at Grady. “But at this point I suppose it’s worth the risk.” He waved the papers for effect. “I’m assuming this has something to do with my spot on the crew?”
“Of course it does, genius,” Grady drawled. “You used to be a Russian cryptologic linguist. That put you at the head of the line.”
Jack scanned the cover sheet and flipped through the first few pages at random. “Nothing coded,” he said laconically, “but lots of ‘Top Secret’ banners in Russian. It’s about a project called ‘Arkangel.’”
Owen leaned forward to speak before the Russian laid a wrinkled hand across his arm. “I ran Arkangel, very long time ago. Any questions you have, I will answer.”
Jack began to spread the papers out across the table and stopped with a foldout diagram of what appeared to be a space station with a Soyuz crew capsule mounted on its forward node. The rest became less familiar the closer he looked. “This looks like an old DOS-7 core module,” Jack said. “Same thing you guys used to build the Mir and Almaz stations, right?” He traced a finger farther along the diagram. “Docking node’s at the top of the stack, not centered in the core. Everything’s linear, along a single axis . . . ” His voice trailed off as he stopped at an enormous disk at the base of the complex, mounted to the spacecraft by a brawny cluster of pistons. “Is that what I think it is?”
Roy took the foldout, impatient to see for himself. “Good Lord. You actually built a nuclear pulse drive?”
The Russian beamed like a proud grandfather patiently watching the children connect the dots. “Da. Other than shock accumulators, most difficult part was strengthening the docking node against torque.”
Frozen Orbit Page 3