Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  “When full-capacity shuttle flights resumed, we built the rest of Silver Tower using cargo bay-sized modules. We now use the Skylab section for living and recreation quarters. For those purposes, there’s more than enough room.”

  “That must be your gymnasium over there,” Baker said, pointing to one area of the module.

  “Uh huh, everything today’s astronaut needs to keep his body fit,” Walker said, accenting his voice like a camy pitch-man. “Treadmills and Soloflex weight—you shall forgive the expression—machines here, exercise bicycles over there. At the other end a videotape and audio tape library, computers, television.... We get two hundred channels from all over the world.”

  Baker examined one of the “weight” machines. “Clever,” he said. “Using thick rubber bands to create resistance. Obviously a typical weight machine won’t work up here.” He studied the treadmill. “How does this work?”

  “Same as a regular one except you strap on this bungee cord belt first. You can adjust the tension of the bungee cords to increase the resistance. The skipper—General Saint-Michael—practically lives on the treadmill. No one can keep up with him and he’s forty-three years old.”

  They made their way to the sleep module, a series of small chambers that looked like curtain-covered horizontal telephone booths arranged like two-tiered bunkbeds. Each end of the module had two very large rooms, bathrooms.

  Walker peeled back the sides of a sleeping bag in the chamber. “You can adjuust the elasticity of the sleeping bag covers. We’ve learned by now that crew sleep better if they feel at least a little of the sensation of gravity. Sleeping while floating around weightless isn’t all that comfortable. We’ve begun using those zero ‘g’ vacuum showers like the Russians have, but they can be a real pain. By the way, the sleep module—actually the whole station—is coed. No separate facilities. We haven’t had too many women on Silver Tower....”

  Ann wondered what it would be like bunking with a dozen men. They’d probably feel more uncomfortable than she would. A battleship commander’s daughter, she’d grown up seeing men being men. She also liked men, too often more than they returned the favor. . . .

  The group moved down to the next hatch; this one double-sealed and leading up to another docking module like the one connected to the command module. According to Walker this docking area was better suited for transferring supplies and fuel from a shuttle or an unmanned cargo vehicle. He motioned to the lower hatch. “That leads to the storage and supply module, and below that is the MHD reactor. MHD, as Ann can tell you, Dr. Baker, stands for magnetohydrodynamics—a way of producing massive amounts of electromotive force in a very compact unit. We’ll cut across here to engineering.”

  Engineering was much like the command center. “It’s really the computer center,” Walker told them. “The kitchen—uh, galley—is located here as well.” He continued on, pointing to a hatch at one end of the computer module. “There is your office, Ann—the control module for your laser, Skybolt. Nobody’s been in it except when it was connected and tied into the rest of the station last month.”

  They opened the hatches and entered the module—or tried to. Unlike all the other pressurized modules, the Skybolt control-and-exper- imentation center was choked with equipment, wiring, pipes, conduit and control consoles, with a lone work space tucked in a far comer.

  “Wh—where do I work?” Ann said. “I mean, where’s my lab, my instruments, test gear? It’s—”

  “It’s all there,” Walker said, trying to sound upbeat. “But it’s been compacted to fit into this one module. Your control console is over there, plus a few other panels on the ceiling.” He understated, Ann thought. The main control consoles were on the module’s ceiling, surrounded by built-in handholds and footrests. She forced a smile in Colonel Walker’s direction, but she was getting dizzy just looking at the overhead console.

  “Welcome to Silver Tower.”

  CHAPTER 3

  June 1992

  DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, VIRGINIA

  “All right, Mr. Collins,” George Sahl, deputy director of operations of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. “You’ve got my attention— and apparently the attention of your section chief.” He looked warily at Preston Barnes, in charge of the KH-14 Block Three digital photo imagery satellite. “Spill it.”

  Jackson Collins, associate photo analyst under Barnes, cleared his throat and stepped up to Sahl. “Yes, sir. The Russians are going to invade Iran.”

  Barnes closed his eyes and muttered a “Collins-you-idiot” to himself and not audible to the others, he hoped. Collins noticed the deputy director’s shoulders slumping. Before Sahl could say anything Barnes turned angrily toward his young photo interpreter. “Collins, didn’t you ever learn how to give a proper report—?”

  “Easy, Preston,” Sahl said, raising a hand to silence his division chief. “I’ve scanned your report and your analysis, Mr. Collins. Now I want you to tell me. Briefly, please.”

  “Yes, sir.. .. The military buildup around the southern TVD Headquarters at Tashkent is inconsistent with either a fall offensive in Afghanistan or the army’s seasonal maneuvers scheduled for this month. The offensive—”

  “What offensive?” Barnes said.

  “A CIA report circulated through the division last month about a suspected, unusually large-scale Russian push into Afghanistan sometime this fall.”

  Barnes shook his head. “The CIA calls every resupply mission to Afghanistan an offensive. Overland routes into the central highland have been cut off recently by bad weather and the Afghan government has all but folded its tents. Naturally the Russians have had to step up supply flights.”

  “But, sir, not with as many as six Condors.... Those photos showed hangars large enough for An-124s—”

  “Condors?” Sahl didn’t like to hear that. “Where did you see Condors in the southern military district?”

  “It’s... an educated guess, sir. Those large temporary hangars I mentioned in the report are large enough to accommodate Condors—”

  “Or any other Soviet aircraft flying,” Barnes said. Collins looked away—he’d never expected to have to fight off his section chief.

  “What else?” Sahl prompted him. “Your report mentioned the rail units. You counted forty percent more activity in the Tashkent yards. What about that?”

  “Yes, sir, the actual count is up thirty-seven percent from activity this same time last year, also several weeks prior to maneuvers, and up twenty-four percent from the Soviets’ last real large-scale offensive into Afghanistan two years ago, when they put down the Qanda- har uprising. And that had been the largest Soviet offensive since their invasion of Czechoslovakia. Whatever they’re planning now, it’ll be larger than either of those—”

  “Collins,” Barnes said quickly, “you can’t make conclusions like that based simply on the number of rail cars in a switching yard. There could be dozens of reasons why there were more cars there.... Look—” and he softened his voice—“these reports can set a lot of things in motion. Things that cost a lot of money and a lot of effort by a lot of people. Dangerous things. They get a lot of attention. If we’re wrong and we send all these men and machines off on a wild goose chase....”

  Collins’ face hardened. He dropped two eleven-by-fourteen black- and-white photographs on Sahl’s desk. “You can’t ignore this, Mr. Sahl,” he said, pointing a finger at the first photo. Sahl studied it.

  “What...?”

  “It’s a computer-enhanced KH-14 image of one side of one of the large two-acre hangars at Nikolai Zhukovsky Military Airfield at Tashkent.” Sahl peered at the highly magnified photo. Trailing behind the hangar was, he saw, a fuzzy, rectangular object. Almost no firm detail, though. He studied the photo for a moment longer, looked up at Collins. “It’s a scrub photo.”

  “Sir, it is a photo of a GL-25 missile launcher. There are—” “Collins, it’s a scrub photo,” Sahl repeated. “Magnification, contrast, grain, background—it’
s not worth piss for analysis. It’s a scrub photo.”

  “Sir, I counted seventy of this same weird-looking rail car in Tashkent. All of them surrounded by guards, all of them bracketed by security rail cars. I understand no certain judgment can be made on the basis of this photo, but an educated guess can easily be made— it’s a GL-25 long-range cruise missile launcher, mounted on an allterrain carrier. Here, look—two missile canisters, the control center—”

  “It looks like a concrete container to me,” Barnes said. “Or a gravel container. There’s nothing unusual about it.”

  “The KH-14 wasn’t properly stabilizied,” Collins said, “but you can still make out the—”

  “Collins, you can’t make out that kind of detail on a scrub photo,” Barnes snapped.

  “I can. I did, sir.”

  “If you look at a photo—any photo—long enough,” Sahl said quietly, “you’ll likely see what you want to see. That’s why we have parameters for how much a photo can be enlarged or cropped.”

  “Then I’d like to request another overflight by the KH-14,” Collins said. “We need more photos of those rail cars.”

  “All right, all right,” Sahl said. “I agree. I can start the request for some air time on KH-14 for Tashkent, but I’m not sure if they’ll approve it.”

  “Sir, I realize you suspect this is just another junior photo interpreter trying to score points, but it’s not. I really believe there’s something going on. Something big.”

  Sahl tried to hide a wry smile, took one more look at the photos, then tossed them on the desk. “You mentioned Iran. Tell me, Collins, how could six invisible Condor transports and seventy alleged GL-25 mobile missile launchers in Tashkent lead you to the assumption that this is all part of an Iranian invasion group?”

  Collins hesitated. Too late to retreat now, buddy, he told himself.

  “It wasn’t just the missiles or the transports, sir. It’s the buildup of Russian ships in the Persian Gulf and the Brezhnev carrier battle group that sneaked into the Gulf last month. It was that unsuccessful counterrevolution in Iran that CIA said was sponsored and financed by the Russians. It’s—”

  “It’s also bull, Collins,” Barnes cut in. “Your job isn’t to come up with a wild hypothesis based on second- and third-hand information. Your job is to take KH-14 imagery and describe it. Period.”

  “I thought my job was analysis. This is important, I know it. And I know it’s urgent enough to require special attention—”

  “Are you sure it’s not you who wants the special attention?” Barnes said, fixing him with a drop-dead stare.

  Stahl raised a hand.

  “That’s enough for now, Preston. I believe Collins is one hundred percent sincere. Give him that.” He turned to the photo interpreter. “Hot dogs come by the gross around here, Mr. Collins. Plenty of people want to make the splash, but they do it knowing that they don’t have to take the heat—the real heat—if they’re wrong. Are you willing to take the heat?”

  His question hung in the air for a moment, a long moment; then Sahl said, “Why don’t we try a little experiment? I’m going to put your name on this report. I’ll clear it for the director’s review and put it on his desk with a recommendation based on your findings that we follow up on this with another series of KH-14 overflights. If there’s any heat from the director’s staff, you take it. Sound good?”

  Collins looked frozen in place... .It’s not a KH-14 Block Three analysis, he thought, or a Satellite Photo Recce section report—it’s my report. A Jackson Collins report. Okay, damn it, I asked for it. . .“Yes, sir—with one request. That I be given another week to make the presentation my way.”

  Sahl glanced at Barnes. “What’s wrong with this?” and glanced at the thick report on his desk.

  “It’s a standard section report, sir. As it stands it doesn’t convince anyone of the seriousness developing at Tashkent. I mean, it didn’t convince you!”

  “And whose fault is that?” Barnes said.

  “It’s mine, sir. I’d like a chance to fix it.”

  Sahl was impressed. This wasn’t what you’d expect from a youngster. “I’m putting it on the director’s staff-meeting agenda for Friday,” he said. “This is Tuesday. You have until Friday morning to redo the report and refine your presentation. If you can’t do it by then, forget it. This division doesn’t operate on your personal timetable or mine or anybody’s.”

  No hesitation this time from Collins. “Thank you, sir. I'll be ready.”

  He hoped.

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  “Your turn.”

  Ann selected two fifty-pound tension bands, slipped them onto the bars on the Soloflex machine, and floated over to the bench and sat down.

  “One hundred pounds. Very impressive,” Ted Moyer, an electronics tech said approvingly. No reply from Ann.

  “You’re very quiet today.”

  “Living in space,” Ann said, “definitely isn’t as glamorous or as ‘cosmically uplifting’ as I thought it’d be.” She rubbed an ache out of her left tricep. “At first, it was all very exciting—orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. But the novelty has definitely worn off.”

  “Well,” Moyer said, trying to boost her morale, “we’re doing something that only a few hundred people have ever done.”

  She acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “Take weight training. I love to run, but pumping iron—or, in space, pumping rubber—was never my idea of fun.”

  “You’re good at it.”

  “I do it because it helps keep me fit and because we’re required to do it. I could spend hours on the bicycle or treadmill, but after a half hour on the Soloflex machine I’m ready to volunteer to change C02 scrubbers, vacuum the walls, anything.”

  Moyer gave a sympathetic nod.

  Ann laid down on the machine’s bench, centered the bar above her chest—and found herself immediately focusing on a hand hold on the ceiling and consciously controlling her breathing.

  “Still getting the spins, Ann?”

  “Damn,” she said as she fought for control. “They told me it would only take a matter of days and I’d get over it. But it’s just not going away.”

  Moyer let her lie quietly on the workout bench for a few moments. Then: “Better?”

  “Yeah,” she said, blinking and taking a few deep breaths. She tried performing a few more repetitions but the nausea returned.

  “Why don’t you call it a workout,” Moyer said, realizing she had a ways to go before she was fully acclimated.

  “It’s okay... ?” she said.

  “Sure. You’ve been at this for an hour. That’s enough for today.”

  She flashed a grateful smile, then made her way “down” the exercise module, through a vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.

  If you were in a bad mood, she decided, the sleep module could be a depressing place. Because of Silver Tower’s lower than Earth- normal atmospheric density, and because the real noisemakers on the station—the four attitude-adjustment thrusters—were almost two hundred yards away on the ends of the station’s center beam, the station was already a very quiet place to be. But the sleep module, which was well insulated and isolated from most of the station’s activity, was even quieter; and, despite its light, cheery atmosphere, its plants and its decorations, it resembled a mausoleum. With three groups of two horizontal telephone-booth-sized curtained sleep chambers on each side of the module, she could not suppress the thought of rows of caskets stacked all around her.

  Putting the sleep chambers out of her mind, Ann retrieved a bathrobe and headed for her PHS, personal hygiene station.

  Showers in space were little more than complicated sponge baths. She first donned a pair of plastic eye protectors, like sunbathers or swimmers wear, then wet a washcloth with a stream of water. As she directed a short stream of warm water along her body, the blobs of water that didn’t shoot out in all directions like soft BBs made eerie amoeba-like puddles. The puddles moved eve
rywhere—up her back, up her legs, under her arms—as if they truly did have tiny little legs.

  Next she sprayed a little liquid soap on the washcloth, scrubbed herself with the cloth and a handy water blob, then rinsed. Even a relaxed vacuum shower used about five gallons of water; the occupant might actually drown in floating water blobs if there was more than five gallons of water loose in the shower.

  Before opening the shower door and reaching for a towel, she activated a rubber-covered button. A powerful fan built into the shower floor sucked the water blobs from their orbits all around her down to collectors in the floor. She swept a few persistent blobs from the shower walls, took off the plastic eye protectors, opened the stall and reached for a towel. A wide mirror mounted on the wall caught her reflection, and as she had done three weeks before in the visiting officer’s quarters back in Vandenburg she stopped to take stock. Space was murder on a woman. Even though daily exercise had kept her face naturally lean, fluids and fat cells had redistributed themselves, giving her a slightly Oriental look, which contrasted with a noticeable increase in height—microgravity had awarded her three extra inches—and a loss in body weight of about six pounds.

  Well, maybe as usual she was too hard on herself, but she certainly didn’t feel too desirable at the moment, although normal female desires were intact. Part of it, she knew, was that her work on Skybolt had gone forward in fits and starts, with more problems to overcome than she’d anticipated. Any time her work was not going well her self-image took a hit. She knew it was irrational to link her desirability as a woman with her progress in the laboratory, but she couldn’t separate the two.... She had been using her intelligence and professional acumen to win acceptance for so long.

  Telling herself to cut it out, she promptly ignored her own injunction, wondering what the station’s commander, Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael, thought of her work so far. A strange man, Saint-Michael. Difficult to get a fix on. Considering what Colonel Walker had told her about the general’s sponsorship of her project, she had expected a warm welcome from him. But their first meeting the day after she arrived had been a very perfunctory affair indeed. When the conversation turned briefly to the laser, he had shown little enthusiasm. It seemed he was preoccupied with something else and not really listening to what she had said.