The Orion Protocol

by Gary Tigerman

  But as it happened, there was something more contagious than the NSF excitement over their find. Within hours of retrieving the first core samples from Dunsinane, signs of severe viral infection began to appear at McMurdo.

  The work was halted, the tunnel sealed over, and the dig site decontaminated, but it was too late: everyone exposed to the Dunsinane samples was quarantined, many developing high fevers and vomiting. The little science colony at the pole now realized that the ice samples held hibernating viruses that had been “switched on” by the relative warmth of the Quonset huts and were then released: twelve-thousand-year-old bacteria to which human beings were no longer immune.

  By the time Bertrand arrived, thirty-five scientists and engineers were being extracted, including the McMurdo medical staff members who had treated the first sick ones and then fallen ill themselves. Augie Blake’s astronaut trainees, wintering over, had not come into direct contact with the virus but were evacuated as a precaution. And all evacked personnel were sequestered for treatment in a military hospital in New Zealand.

  There had been no fatalities, but the worst was not necessarily over. After securing and cleansing the Dunsinane site, bundled-up Army engineers and National Science Foundation glaciologists now gathered to bring Captain Bertrand and his Spec Ops crew up to speed.

  Bertrand peered at a dim, greenish video screen set up on a workbench in the main Quonset: the only remaining connection to the prehistoric forest down below was via the camera on their broken nuclear-powered drill.

  “How far down is that?”

  “About two thousand feet.” The lead scientist pointed to a 3-D map.

  The tiny reactor with its tank tracks and titanium bit had tunneled into the glacier efficiently enough. But weather at the South Pole is changeable in the extreme, with temp swings of as much as one hundred degrees in a six-hour period.

  “How cold was it when you had to shut her down?”

  “Yeah, that was the bitch. About minus eighty-five degrees, Fahrenheit,” an engineer said. Approaching ninety below, running anything mechanical that required lubrication was to court failure. “The hydraulic fluid froze.”

  “That’d do it.” Bertrand scratched at his jaw with a thermal glove. The rasping sound of his day-old beard was audible across the room. There was not exactly a vast array of options: restarting the drill and taking it out under its own power was out of the question. At least they were still getting video.

  “How hot is it?”

  “Celsius or rads?”

  An Army engineer showed him the two readings.

  “Jesus. We got us a little Chernobyl, gentlemen.” Bertrand gestured toward his crew. Each man took a turn checking out the monitor, but they were all getting the picture: ground truth at ninety below was a sobering bitch.

  “If you all will excuse us . . . ?”

  Bertrand herded his guys together, away from the anxious civilians. It was his task to assess, make recommendations up the chain, and then ultimately implement whatever decision came back down.

  While the Spec Ops team huddled, the heavily dressed foundation scientists stood around looking exhausted and depressed, arguing about how to handle the next press cycle.

  The media had either been tipped off or somehow read the Web-traffic tea leaves and had gotten wind of the Antarctic evacuation. CNN, MSNBC, and the wire services were pressing McMurdo Station hourly for details. So far, the NSF had only put out a cryptic, one-page press release from McMurdo saying there was no “general evacuation,” that a dozen people were being “normally rotated out,” with the exception of a doctor who “needed an unexpected operation” and a few astronaut trainees who were simply “homesick” and taking advantage of the unscheduled air transport out.

  But the numbers, like the story, didn’t really add up. There were going to be questions about the military hospital in Auckland, demands for interviews with the personnel flown up there and others still remaining on-station. It was a mess. And until they had a solution in place, in progress, the situation totally “under control,” they were terrified of involving the media.

  “Captain?” the lead NSF scientist called across the hut. He hadn’t slept much the last seventy-two hours and his voice sounded ragged and impatient.

  Captain Bertrand turned away from his huddle and focused on the civilians. There was no magic wand to make this all go away. They all knew that, but he said it out loud anyway.

  “Well, in and out and nobody gets hurt? We cut the goddamn drill loose, let it melt its way down as far away from people as it’ll go, and then we seriously close that hole. But I suppose there is a good argument against that.”

  In his fur-lined hood, the lead scientist looked bleak. When he spoke, angry little puffs of condensed air formed in front of his face like clouds.

  “We’re standing over the first and only pristine prehistoric biosphere on the planet. To contaminate it with radioactive machinery would be a criminal act, not to mention the grossest possible violation of the UN no-footprint rules. American science would be disgraced, banished, and we’d all be out of our jobs.”

  “That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”

  Captain Wesley Bertrand and everyone else knew that any real solution to this mess would be slow, nasty, dangerous, and seven-figure expensive with mega lift-tons of blame to go around. All the science folk and Army engineers could do was put in their two cents and wait until Bertrand’s official recommendations set the process in motion. For the civilians, the scientists, this was not what they had worked so hard to be down here for. Not to preside over this huge messy disaster that could only blight their careers.

  But Bertrand was here because, for him, disasters were kind of fun.

  “All righty, then,” he said, already dividing the operation into doable pieces, organizing, prioritizing, and saving the craziest, most risky “fun” for himself. “The way I see it, we’re looking at mechanical retrieval of the drill; complete biohazard and radiation containment and cleanup; airlift and disposal of all contaminated water, ice, materials, and equipment. I see at least three lift sorties, maybe five, and we’re gonna need hazard experts, radiation experts, one helluva winch that will still work at fifty below, plus a shitload of support from HAZMAT, the NRC, the Air Force. And is there someplace down here where my boys can get hot coffee and take a warm piss?”

  Everyone in the freezing hut grinned and looked visibly relieved for a moment. The lead scientist did the honors, heading toward the insulated doors.

  “This way, gentlemen.”

  Hundreds of what-if and if-then concerns began beating their wings inside each person’s brain as the group shuffled out in their boots and bulky clothes. That the crisis would be resolved seemed a bit more certain. Bertrand certainly inspired confidence.

  Whether the unexplored ancient biosphere in suspension beneath them would have to remain unexplored was harder to determine. At least for the paleobiologists and glaciologists it was still too early and too painful to think about that.

  13

  Old Executive Office Building/Washington, D.C.

  Sandy Sokoff had had discreet meetings with military and intelligence people at the Pentagon, at CIA headquarters in Virginia, and at the vast NSA facility at Ft. Meade in Maryland.

  Each intelligence officer or general officer questioned about Project Orion professed to have either no knowledge or very limited knowledge, operating within the limitations of institutional cutouts that prevented anyone from seeing the whole picture. And none of those Sandy interviewed were willing to speculate, at least not in front of the President’s counsel. Many had seemed more intent on pumping him for information than on illuminating matters for the White House, which Sokoff found both curious and irritating.

  Nevertheless, certain impressions were evolving, specifically that both inside and outside government, support for the building out of a vastly expensive space-based weapons system was wide, deep, and not justified by any military or terrorist
threat that made any sense whatsoever.

  It was a truism that the easiest way for a terrorist to deliver a nuclear bomb to any city in America was to hide it in a shipment of dope. And against this basic street reality, as far as Sandy was concerned, all the ICBM-killing Star Wars crap in the world didn’t mean squat.

  So, why the big push for Orion, if it was just some leftover big-ticket, pre-9/11 China-containment boondoggle in Republican geopolitical drag?

  Sitting in his office in the Old Executive Office Building with the clock ticking, Sokoff stared at his list of spies, former spies, and closemouthed generals. He then consulted his computer address book, made an impulsive phone call, and booked himself on the earliest morning flight to Atlanta.

  14

  January 30/Atlanta, Georgia

  The next day, at a dead-end lot in one of Atlanta’s sprawling suburbs, he stood and watched as former President Jimmy Carter banged away at the frame of a two-story house with a claw-head hammer, hanging Sheetrock for Habitats for Humanity.

  The young intern who had met Sokoff at the airport said something to Carter, who just nodded and then finished knocking home the last nail before belting the hammer and wiping his hands on his overalls.

  Turning toward him, Carter smiled and looked so fundamentally happy in that moment that Sandy felt a pang of remorse for bothering him.

  But if “Jimmy,” as he was called at the worksite, was feeling bothered, it did not show on his beaming octogenarian face. Motioning Sokoff toward a Dodge pickup parked out front, he stolidly led the way.

  “Come on and step into my office.”

  Sandy followed, mindful of not getting mud on his boots as he crossed the unlandscaped yard. Climbing up into the cab of the 4 × 4, he slammed closed the passenger-side door.

  “Mr. President, we appreciate this very much.”

  “My pleasure, Mr. Sokoff.” Jimmy’s eyes twinkled as they shook hands. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about Project Orion, sir.”

  Carter’s cheerful demeanor faded slightly to a pensive smile as he turned over the truck engine and revved it a couple of times.

  “Well, now. Are they about to test it?”

  “A final test has been authorized, sir. The President asked me to provide some deep background before he takes any further action. But I’ve been encountering a lot of . . . well, reticence to discuss. I was hoping you might be able to help me not make a fool of myself.”

  The former Democratic President studied Sandy for a moment as if wondering what else he already knew and how frank he might be.

  “Of course,” he said, “but I think you better buckle up.”

  Carter grinned, adjusting his own seat belt, and then gunned the shiny Dodge truck out of the cul-de-sac and off to what Sokoff would later remember as the best beef brisket and hot links he’d had east of Louisiana and a top-fiver among the most extraordinary conversations he would never be allowed to share with his wife, Juana, back home in Austin.

  It wasn’t until three hours later, while he was waiting in the VIP lounge at the Atlanta hub, that a new plan began to suggest itself to the President’s counsel about how to complete his task.

  15

  Little Cosmograd, Ukraine

  Dr. Sergei Sergeivich Berenkov, senior scientist, kept a closer eye than usual on the data stream from the photon laser. He knew the crucial parameters of Project Orion by heart. He had, in fact, written them himself, but project managers always got so hysterical before a test.

  Of course, this was not just another computer simulation. This was it.

  Through the glass walls in front of him, American aerospace giant TRW’s Orion laser cannon loomed in all of its forged-titanium glory. The danger inherent in firing the six-story-tall chemical/nuclear device was a given: they could all be incinerated in a blink, shadows burned into the ground. Not an atom or a particle identifiable as a project manager or a Sergei Berenkov would even be left to wonder what went wrong.

  Berenkov shrugged off the risk with his usual fatalism.

  So, why worry? he thought, pretending to concentrate ferociously on his computer screen.

  Setting aside the chance for catastrophe, the principal fear in the Little Cosmograd lab outside the Ukrainian capital was about their “employment future” becoming an oxymoron. The plain fact was, if the Orion test worked they had a future. If it didn’t, they probably didn’t. A loudspeaker came to distorted life.

  “Stations for pretest. We are calling pretest stations.”

  White-coated technicians hurried anxiously past Berenkov’s workstation. He straightened the tie he was wearing for the occasion underneath the clean but shopworn lab coat that his wife, Ilyena, had laundered for him the night before. He owned only the one and she had a hard time getting it away from him long enough to wash it.

  Delayed paychecks, stalled projects, physicists moonlighting as cabdrivers and waiters: to be a Russian scientist at the dawn of the twenty-first century was to be condemned to a not-so-genteel poverty. But at least the former dictatorship of the proletariat was also no longer a police state.

  “Project managers, please report to the test director.”

  Exercising the newly acquired freedom of speech—“We are free to speak and they are free to ignore us”—Berenkov complained openly these days about the remnants of the former Yeltsin kleptocracy, the greedy oligarchs snapping up national resources at fire-sale prices, and the continuing abject neglect of Russian science. His colleagues would nod and ruefully agree with him about rampant corruption and Mafia entrepreneurs run amok. They listened to Berenkov’s witheringly critical, often hilarious rants against the Duma leadership in Moscow, laughed at the painful truths, and then dubbed him with the nickname “Mr. Grumpy.”

  “Test programmers, take your stations for the duration of the test. Security, please clear the chamber.”

  Wishing desperately for a smoke, Mr. Grumpy stayed put at his station and sipped tepid tea instead, unconsciously avoiding the familiar chip in the ceramic cup as his eyes wandered to a dark blank space on the wall behind him.

  A proud group photo had hung there, with many old friends and colleagues standing in front of a Titan-class rocket engine: Russia’s part in a multinational space effort to study Mars in the ‘90’s. Launching and then losing control of the plutonium-powered spacecraft with its hundreds of millions of dollars in international experiments had marked the nadir of the Russian space program.

  Delivering their key contributions to the International Space Station years late and millions over budget had not redeemed Russian space science, either. So, to Berenkov and everyone else, it was obvious: the success of the Orion test was absolutely crucial.

  “Recalibrate and reset your instruments for Primary Alpha.”

  He had already recalibrated, but he did it again. Listening to voices around him, he smiled: the murmured litany of the final checklist sounded like an Orthodox church full of penitents petitioning the God of Physics for mercy.

  “Project Orion. Primary Alpha testing. Prepare for countdown.”

  Glancing up at the observation platform where former KGB politicos huddled nervously with U.S. military and aerospace VIPs, Berenkov also reflected on how, in the Church of Space Science, the parishioners made such strange bedfellows.

  Soviet space weapons work countering the Americans’ SDI, the so-called Star Wars program, had made him proud during the Gorbachev years. He’d felt as if he was “defending the Motherland” against President Ronald Reagan, that charismatic cowboy actor, and the reckless arms buildup of the West. By the time Reagan proposed sharing Star Wars technology with the Soviets in Helsinki, Gorbachev already knew the game was up: the Russians were too broke to go on.

  Emerging from long years of post-perestroika depression, they were now in a new, more hopeful era, though with the U.S. aerospace industry largely funding the Russian side of joint laser defense research, it all seemed a bit surreal. Was he now defending the Motherla
nd for TRW?

  “Project Orion Primary Alpha testing in minus five minutes.”

  An alarm began to pulse and the tension around him rose perceptibly.

  And so it begins, he thought. Berenkov saw the countdown numbers appear in a window on his new IBM PC, a nice thing: he didn’t have to look up to follow the rolling count.

  The new CPUs they all had now were a gratifying improvement, with Russian-language software and blazingly fast Pentium upgrades. Of course, in the old Soviet days they had gone into space on a slide rule and a stopwatch, a fact he brought up to his computer-mad younger colleagues at every opportunity.

  “Elegant and sufficient to the day,” he would say as they shook their heads and rolled their eyes. “Those days were truly heroic, a time of greatness.”

  “Primary Test Alpha. Initiation in minus ninety seconds.”

  The senior scientist glanced through the wall of tempered glass at the huge, imposing laser weapon. An insistent bell heralded the opening of automated sections of the lab’s domed articulated roofing, irising wide to the night sky. Berenkov noticed that he seemed to be the only one interested in what might be a last look up at the stars.

  “Primary Alpha Test. Initiation in minus sixty seconds.”

  With the verbal count under way, the entire facility became eerily quiet, heads bowed over each piece of the streaming status data in digital meditation.

  “Minus . . . thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . . twenty-seven . . .”

  Above them large monitors displayed various views from geosynchronous satellites and the U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis. Cosmonauts manning cameras aboard the ISS Alpha could be heard locking down their videos and chatting.