by Homer Hickam
Cecil had decided not to follow his father and grandfather into the fishing business. He had been the first in his family to attend college and had gone on to law school at the University of Florida. Because he loved the place, he returned to Cedar Key, set up practice in an office just beside the B & B—mostly working real estate, some criminal law on the side—married a local girl, had a son and a daughter barely a year apart. Cecil anticipated a quiet life working small law on a small island. That was, of course, before MEC arrived. Since then life had been a bit more complicated.
MEC had leased the old abandoned Harper Aviation hangar at the airport and Cecil had drawn up the lease. With the arrival of MEC it was as if the heart of the sleepy island sped up a few beats. The MEC workers moved into town and became a part of it, hanging out in the bars at night, shepherding big trucks filled with machinery and things covered with canvas into the hangar by day. For the price of a beer they were only too happy to regale the locals with tales of the glory days of space, of the Atlas booster, which they called the Beast, and the Titan, which they called the Old Lady, those grand machines built for war but used to explore the heavens instead. And, of course, they spoke in reverent tones of the great old Saturn, the rocket to which some of them had given their youth, others too young to work on it but knowing its design as if it had been their own.
In the process of working the property deal Cecil had gotten to know the president of the company, Jack Medaris. When Terri, Cecil’s wife, had been hired as Medaris’s personal secretary, Jack gradually became a family friend. Cecil had given Jack a standing invitation to go out to fish and sail anytime he had a minute free. A couple of times Jack had taken Cecil up on his offer. During those day trips on Cecil’s small sailboat he and Jack had gotten to know each other, spent hours talking about philosophy and politics. Cecil had come to admire Jack but was never certain he ever understood him, at least not until Jack finally told him about his wife and what had happened to her in Huntsville. Another time, during a visit to the plant, Jack had walked Cecil through the bustling little factory, leading him to a big rocket engine on a hardstand in the center of the hangar. “That’s the nozzle and there’s the combustion chamber,” Jack told him, not even asking if he wanted an explanation. “Controlled explosions occur in the chamber and then hot gases flow through the throat of the nozzle and out the bell. That’s the action. The reaction is motion. It’s Newton’s third law, Cecil. Do you understand?”
Cecil didn’t, not entirely, but he claimed he did and kept listening. Cecil remembered Jack circling the engine, his hand reaching out but not quite touching it. “That’s the physics involved,” Jack said. And, in fact, this is an advanced hybrid engine. It combines the best features of liquid and solid propellants. “But do you know what really makes this rocket fly, Cecil?”
“No, Jack. What really make this rocket fly?”
Jack had touched the engine, caressed it, Cecil thought. “This rocket flies on dreams.”
Cecil turned at the beach road, contemplated the lapping sea. To his delight he found Paris and Helen and their kit, Magnus, feeding in the shallows. He stopped his truck and smiled at the dolphin family. They ignored him, intent on the hunt, but Cecil didn’t mind. It was enough that he could enjoy the sight of them. He watched as little Magnus darted between his doting parents. Paris was big but moved quickly past the fry, which reacted by condensing into a tight, protective ball. He circled them, building up a vortex, and then Helen clipped the ball, taking her fill. She touched Magnus with her fin and the stubby dolphin-child followed her example, gulping in two quick bites of fry-ball. Paris then went in hard, going for the center, the silvery fish scattering like a shattered mirror. Cecil felt like applauding as the dolphin family vented for air and then eased out toward deeper water. “Good luck,” Cecil wished the family. He wished the same for himself.
After the MEC hangar had burned on that dark night back in February, Jack and his people had gone into a shell for a while. They’d kept to themselves, working, it seemed, night and day. Cecil could see the lights on at the old airport far into the night. Then Jack had taken a big chance, telling Cecil, an officer of the court, about what he and his people had decided to do to meet the terms of their contract with Isaac Perlman and the January Group. Jack must have known it was entirely possible that Cecil would run straight to the FBI. He hadn’t, of course, but he had certainly thought about it. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought his friend and the hardworking, good people of MEC, including his wife, might be involved in such a scheme. It had taken a lot of quiet walks along the beach road, and arguments with himself, and long discussions with Terri, before Cecil made up his mind to help. After a while he wasn’t certain why he had joined the project except that Jack was his friend, and obviously determined to do the thing, no matter what it took, and also because Cecil wanted to keep the MEC people, including the mother of his children, out of prison.
From that moment Cecil had kept himself strictly above the details of what MEC was doing. He worked only on matters of law involving the legitimate contract involved. Although Cecil knew it could be argued otherwise, he had not, to his knowledge, broken any law—just followed it to its arcane letter. Cecil had once discounted classmates who argued there are times when principle and purpose must be above the law, no matter how moral the law itself. Now he finally understood why that was so.
Cecil had also arranged for Jack to sell the patent for his sling pump, saw to the division of the money to the thirty employees. Jack took nothing for himself. MEC was out of business, perhaps forever.
The strange thing was when you came right down to it, all this effort was for dirt. Cecil pondered that as he walked up the old wooden steps that led to his office. It seemed to him there was always something else Jack was after, something that he kept from everyone.
Cecil looked through the stack in his in-box and then went to his desk and had a slow cup of coffee and watched cable news. As he knew they would, the announcements concerning the shuttle finally came on. The correspondent, a frowning woman with a puffy blond hairdo blowing in the Cape Canaveral breeze, reported that Columbia had gotten off but there were irregularities still unknown. “If you only knew the half of it,” Cecil said to the television set. He put down his coffee cup and picked up the phone. It was time to get the plan going.
He dialed the Department of Transportation number he had memorized. A woman answered, explained that the officer Cecil asked for was on vacation (as Cecil well knew), and asked if she could be of assistance. Cecil identified himself. “I called to tell you,” he said, following the script he had rehearsed a dozen times, “that I have received word from my client that, pursuant to the clause in paragraph four dot five dot one of contract Alpha one dot two dot two four three five, the company known as MEC is notifying the Department of Transportation as required in said contract that it is initiating its physical study of the capabilities of the Space Transportation System in a modified mode, utilizing the orbiter Columbia and having provided experts in the field of pilotage, navigation, and engine design for safety purposes as according to OSHA regulation four seven nine dot two dot three dot—”
“Wait a minute,” the contract officer interrupted, exasperated. “I’m not familiar with this agreement.” Cecil heard the click of fingernails on a computer keyboard. “Okay, here it is. Now would you mind telling me what you just said, only in English this time, okay?”
Cecil cleared his throat. “The clause I just cited requires MEC to notify the Department of Transportation that it has invoked the clause in their contract with you that allows them to fly a space shuttle in order to conduct tests.”
The DOT woman still didn’t get it. “Fly a space shuttle? In a DOT contract? That doesn’t sound right.”
“It’s in the contract,” Cecil replied, trying hard to sound nonchalant. “MEC has paid the United States government in the form of two checks drawn on a bank in Grand Cayman, British West Indies, a sum of
one million dollars each to DOT and NASA as specified. That seems to be about it. Are there any questions?”
There was a short silence and then the contracting officer asked, in a voice so faint, Cecil had to strain to hear, “Would you say again about the shuttle thing, the Columbia ?”
“Yes, of course. That, as authorized in the contract, MEC is conducting its tests in the orbiter Columbia.”
There was a strangled sound and then the woman, in a voice suddenly loud, demanded Cecil’s name. He calmly gave it again along with his telephone number and then asked her if she wanted him to fax a copy of the contract showing where the DOT officials had signed. “Yes, right away, please,” she said, her voice so tight Cecil thought it could have been plucked like a violin.
Cecil hung up the phone, asked his secretary to do the faxing, and patiently waited. An hour later he heard a polite tap at his door. His secretary escorted in the town constable, Sergeant Buckminster Taylor, Trooper Buck, as he was called. Buck hefted his bulk into the chair nearest Cecil’s desk. “Damnedest thing, Cecil, got a call from the FBI just a few minutes ago. Asked if I’d mind baby-sitting you for an hour or so. There’s a couple of agents on their way from Tallahassee to see you. You in any kind of trouble?”
“Let’s just say I think I know why they’re coming.”
“Why’s that?”
“I believe I’ll hold fire on that for now, Buck.”
Trooper Buck, who kept an eye on everyone on the Key, didn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t I see your missus leaving town last night with both the kids?”
“A little vacation,” Cecil said.
“I almost believe you,” Buck said, turning in his chair. “You expecting trouble?”
“Trouble?”
“Where’s Jack Medaris these days, by the way? Went out to the plant, everything’s deserted.”
Cecil nodded. “Believe I’ll hold fire on that one, too, Buck.”
POSTINSERTION CHECKLIST (2)
Columbia
“Houston, this is Penny!” she yelled into her headset. “Houston, answer, dammit!” Then she remembered she hadn’t heard anything since the big technician had “fixed” her headset. “Shit!”
Penny stopped and listened. She heard nothing except the sound of her own shallow breathing. It was unnerving. “Hello? Who’s here with me?” she called, but no one answered. She didn’t know whether to unstrap or not, what she should do. She squinted, a habit when she was worried or scared. Was there enough air in the cabin? Did something need to be done to turn the oxygen and nitrogen banks on, to get the filters scrubbing?
“Houston, come in, Houston!” she yelled into her mike, but no one answered. She’d seen Cassidy dragged through the open hatch. What had happened to him? And where was the big technician? And the man who had somehow climbed past her to the flight deck during ascent? My God, he had to be strong to do that! Penny had been unable to even raise her arm at the time.
The middeck was dark, gloomy, a pale blue fluorescent glow from a single square ceiling panel providing the only light. She sniffed the air, wrinkled her nose. The cabin’s stale, sour smell, like a mix of old athletic socks and detergent, made her wonder how many unwashed bodies had camped out inside the tiny compartment. She tried to focus on the frost-white lockers in front of her but couldn’t get a fix on them. Up and down seemed to have no meaning. Her LES suit felt light, crinkly, as if it were made of paper. Then she saw a tiny silver circle, a washer, wobble past her eyes. She watched it, fascinated by its independent trajectory, wondering what bolt it was supposed to encircle and what else had been left undone on Columbia. It was an old bird, after all. Not it, she recalled from her PR briefings, she, her: the shuttles were feminine, the same as ships. Columbia, then, was an old lady. Penny had been in middle school when the world’s first shuttle had made her maiden voyage into space. That had been more than twenty years ago. God only knew what else was wrong with the damn ancient thing!
Penny snapped back to her situation. Those men—who the hell were they? Only one answer fit: She was probably on board with hijackers. And then—in a tumble of thoughts—she realized that whatever had happened, or was about to happen, it was going to make one hell of a story. The end result, if she survived, might be the attainment of all that she had ever desired: superstar status, perhaps even love. She reveled in that thought for a split second before cursing herself for having had it. What manner of insecure person was she that, in the midst of disaster, she was pondering if her public would love her for it? Still, if she lived... she was Penny High Eagle! Her public had to be served. And what a hell of a story!
Penny’s internal debate was interrupted when she heard movement behind her seat and then the ingress technician’s voice. “Jack?” she heard him call out. “Jack?” Then there was the unmistakable sound of vomiting. Penny wrinkled up her nose again.
Then the man who had climbed to the flight deck came floating headfirst through the hatch, pulling himself hand over hand down the ladder. He was dressed in the flight coveralls of an astronaut and Penny reflexively thought perhaps there had been some kind of mix-up at launch, that in fact she was still in the hands of NASA. Then she saw the ugly red scar that ran from the man’s left jawbone around to the back of his neck and she knew he was no astronaut. “Dr. High Eagle?” He was upside down, his head above hers. “I don’t know how you got aboard but just tell me this. What happened to the rest of the crew?”
Penny scrutinized the man. She had learned to memorize features to help her in recreating people for her articles. Even wearing coveralls and upside down, she could tell he was trim and athletic and probably in his early forties. He had black hair, dabbled with silver threads, and a strong chin. His clear brown eyes seemed to brim with intelligence. She thought about not talking to him but then dismissed the idea. Who else was she going to talk to? “The last time I saw them they were on the elevator,” she said, pulling off her helmet. She let it go and it drifted away. She watched, mesmerized by its motion. “I came up alone in the other one.”
He seemed to study her. Penny had the sense he was trying to make up his mind about something. “I’m Jack Medaris, Dr. High Eagle. I think I’m going to need your help to get this spacecraft configured.”
She looked up at him, squinting. “Would you mind turning right side up? You’re making me sick to my stomach.”
“Do you have SAS?” It sounded like an accusation.
“S-A-S?”
“Yes,” he said, his upside-down eyes looking deep into hers. “Do you have it?”
She turned away from him. The man talked in riddles, the same as every other NASA engineer she’d run into during the past six months. “Who the hell are you, Jack Medaris?” she asked.
“I know you’ve got questions and I’ll get to them,” he replied, at the same time complying with her request and rotating until he was in a heads-up position relative to her. “But right now I need your help. How about it?”
“Why should I help a hijacker?”
“I’m not a hijacker. I have a contract.”
“What?”
“It’s top secret. As soon as we’re done, we’ll land. I’ll explain it all later. Got to look at my PLT and SMET. How about helping out? Start by activating the WCS.”
Penny’s head was spinning. “What’s a P-L-T and a smet? And what’s a W-C-S?”
He apparently had not heard her, or chose to ignore her. He disappeared beneath her seat. “Let’s have a look, Hoppy,” she heard him say.
Penny pulled off her gloves, released her belts, and disconnected her suit connections, then watched in dismay when her feet floated toward the ceiling. She awkwardly twisted around, grappled with the back of her seat, managed to pull herself into a position to look behind it, toward the aft bulkhead. Medaris was there, Cassidy beneath him, apparently unconscious. “Listen,” she said. “I need some answers.”
“Just a minute, Dr. High Eagle,” Medaris said in a mildly irritated voice.
“Listen, you...” She pulled over the top of the seat, expecting to drop down beside him, but instead she banged into the aft bulkhead, bounced off it, and went flying, arms and legs flailing, until she managed to snag a cloth foot restraint strap on the deck. She fully expected to be laughed at but Medaris was busy tightening a cloth belt from his overalls above a spreading red spot on Cassidy’s right thigh. A haze of red seemed to hover above it and Penny realized with a shock they were floating blood drops. “Medaris, what happened to him?” she asked, shaken.
“Remain calm,” Medaris said, turning to look at her. “Moving around too much in preact isn’t a good idea. It can degrade several EC parameters to off-nominal. Are you going to get the WCS activated?”
Penny stared at him. “Can you speak English?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she put her boots together and launched herself at him, intending to grab his collar, make him talk sense to her. She crashed into the airlock instead, and bounced back, flailing. Her eyes filled with tears of pain and frustration. Then she seemed to lose her ability to focus. She closed her eyes, tried to figure out which way was up or down. When she opened them again, she saw Medaris pondering her from across the deck. “Is there any particular reason why you keep doing that?” he asked.
“Screw you,” she grumped.
He pulled to the bank of stacked lockers, opened one up. “The reason you can’t go where you want to is because you’re judging your trajectory based on one g.” He slid out a drawer, pulled shaped pieces of foam from it. He plucked out a white box by its handle. A green cross was inscribed on it. “Your brain is programmed for horizontal range as computed on earth,” he continued while she gaped at him. “Range on earth is the product of velocity squared divided by the gravitational acceleration constant and the cosine of twice the launch angle. Here in space the gravitational constant is essentially zero. That’s why you can’t hit your target.”