Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1)

by Gina Marie Wylie

  He chuckled. “I have a terrible feeling about where this is going.”

  “You don’t have any idea. When we started on the hull, the company making the titanium blocks decided it would be more economical to fabricate them here. Their titanium floated right by Hawaii on its way to Southern California, you see.

  “So, they looked around and found a retailer who wasn’t making as big of a bundle of money as the hull builder was offering. They handed the keys of the local supermarket over to them, and in a few weeks they were happily fabricating titanium pieces for the hull.

  “They’d even overcome the problem about having enough electricity by offering to split the cost of a new line into the area, 90-10 with the local utility company, which was having trouble meeting the local demand anyway.

  “That was in the first few weeks of the project, John. Slowly, steadily, it’s been snowballing. Other space-based businesses found that it would be more economical to have local offices. They were willing to pay more than the locals, and quickly priced everyone out of the market.

  “As more offices moved in, the more attractive it became for newcomers to move here. Aside from the idiots at the Space Service, everyone believes that Ad Astra is the just the first of dozens, maybe hundreds of ships that will be built at Maunalua.”

  “I can’t fault that logic,” John told her. “Assuming someone gets the Space Service off its can.”

  “John, the homes here are fairly expensive. Even so, some of them have been sold to various business enterprises. People are raising a little fuss now, but the instant the next construction contract is let, we’ll get an avalanche of newcomers, one that dwarfs what’s happened to date.”

  Stephanie stuck her finger in her throat, miming gagging. “If my father was here, he’d kill me for suggesting this. I mean it; I would be at risk of life and limb. It goes against everything I believe. But John, Maunalua Bay is an ideal site for this. Two words: eminent domain.”

  He whistled. “Even the President won’t be able to do that on his own. It’ll take an act of Congress. Steph, the presidential elections are in a few weeks. He’s not going to do it, not now. Nor will Congress.”

  “I figured. No, we’ll want to hit them up the first thing in February. Let everyone get their oaths of office under their belts; let them get their new office drapes installed. I was thinking, the State of the Union. Something about how we must all sacrifice for the conquest of space — particularly the poor people here on the southeastern end of Oahu.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “How did I do?”

  “Is that it?”

  She nodded.

  “God, I don’t know, Steph. I have a house on Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. You wouldn’t have sold me.”

  She nodded seriously. “Don’t think I’m upset, John. The purpose of tests and rehearsals is to correct things early on.”

  Anna Sanchez poked her head into Stephanie’s office. “Boss, the powers that be just dumped mission control for this rescue in our lap. You want to sit in on the conference call an hour from now about what we’re going to need to do?”

  “Yes, of course. Call Howard and tell him what’s happened. He knows what they’re going to want and we can get started on it now.”

  She turned to John. “There are times when I think the topmost priority of the Space Service is to make sure I fail at each and every thing I attempt.”

  “Times? Stephanie, it occupies their entire waking existence.”

  Anna interrupted. “Boss, they want to send a shit pot of their own people.”

  Stephanie woke when nudged. “They’re about to make the last course correction, Professor,” Anna Sanchez told her.

  Stephanie looked around the control center, now fully staffed. Even the gallery was packed. It was a hell of thing. The problem had always been, everyone who flew cared. You couldn’t tell them not to come, you couldn’t tell them not to pay attention.

  She knuckled the sleep out of her eyes and then walked to the communication positions at the control center. The mission communicator saw Stephanie and bobbed her head. “Professor, now twenty minutes to final approach. Everything is nominal.”

  “Roger that,” Stephanie told her.

  John Gilly was a few feet away, intent on a discussion with one of the mission liaisons. He looked up at Stephanie. “It’s going good.”

  She shook her head. “It’s just not going badly. If Pilot Officer Malcolm can get close, then everything will depend on his ability to maintain a meter separation with the surface.”

  “Roger that, Professor,” the mission communicator confirmed.

  Stephanie looked at the woman and shook her head in wonder at the obtuseness involved in the reply. The clock ticked on and on.

  There was a crackle of static. “Malcolm here. They report four fatalities, trying to stop the cold front. I am now down and hovering. The auto-separation software appears adequate. We are maintaining a steady one meter separation with the body. My copilot is aft, preparing to help the survivors board and direct them for stowage.”

  The communicator looked at Stephanie who returned the look with no expression. The communicator spoke into the microphone, “Roger, Trojan Rescue. Continue per the mission plan.”

  She finished speaking and Stephanie pointed a thumb at the woman and jerked it away from the hot seat. Since there was no way the Space Service mission specialist could say no, the woman got up, leaving her headset for Stephanie.

  The woman flipped Stephanie a bird, turned and stalked away.

  The problem with the woman’s response was that at the moment the spacecraft were more than one and two-third's billion kilometers away, and the radio signals would take ninety-three minutes to get there, one way. Telling them to continue the mission would arrive three hours and six minutes after Malcolm had done whatever it was he planning after his last report.

  Stephanie put the headset over her head and looked at the communicator. “You understand, that I understand, why you’ll never have this job again? If you can’t figure it out, go check the message turnaround time up there on the wall.”

  The familiar voice from quite some distance away continued on. “We continue holding at the nominal distance above the surface! The lidar and the control feedback loops are working perfectly. We are holding at 1.00 meters above the surface and loading has commenced. Pilot Officer Lambert is stowing our passengers.”

  There was another pause.

  “Loading is going a little slower than anticipated. What’s happening is that they are walking one at a time across the surface, hopping aboard, and then Pilot Officer Lambert is stowing them. The assistant manager, Miss Kelly, was briefed in advance and is making the life support connections. That’s going nominally. It’s just that they are taking more time than originally planned to board.”

  Stephanie nodded in understanding. At a couple of degrees Kelvin, you didn’t want to stand around waiting while the person ahead of you was being hooked up. They were coming only once they had an all clear. Only sensible!

  Another lengthy pause.

  “Lambert says we’ve just loaded number twelve. That leaves twelve more. I expect we’ll be about eighteen or twenty minutes over nominal on the loading time.”

  Stephanie nodded. Not that bad, even though they’d already added a substantial fudge factor to the loading time.

  Time passed and Malcolm reported the last person aboard. “Lambert is buttoning up. We’re going to fill the cabin with about four pounds of nitrogen and two of oxygen. It’ll be a little thin, but if anyone runs into a snag with their life support, it’ll give us a little extra time to fix it. Assistant Manager Kelly, as per the plan, is now in the right hand seat. Lambert’s standing in front of the main hatch.”

  In spite of Malcolm being as brave as one man could be, there was definite relief in his voice when he stated, “Now starting the departure maneuver.”

  John Gilly approached Stephanie. “Professor, the President is on the lin
e. He’d like to speak to Pilot Officer Malcolm.”

  “Let me talk to him instead,” she replied.

  In a moment she had another familiar voice in her ear. “Professor Kinsella, I’d like to talk to Pilot Officer Malcolm and at least one of those brave folks he’s rescued.”

  “Mr. President, it’s not possible. I’m not even talking to him. He’s departing the target asteroid and now has to rendezvous with the vehicles waiting for him. This is a critical maneuver, sir. But the fact remains that he won’t hear anything you say to him for an hour and a half, and any reply he makes won’t be here for another hour and a half after that.”

  The President chuckled. “So, I guess that would be a 'no'. How about after they link up?”

  “Sir, those three vehicles are more than a billion miles from Earth. There is a measurable chance that something will fail between now and when they are safely down at Kennedy. If I were you, sir, I’d announce that the people were loaded aboard the escape vehicle and that vehicle will rendezvous with the other ships within the hour. Ask for people’s hopes and prayers to go with these folks, sir.” And ignore the fact that the actual rendezvous had taken place a half hour before the President started talking to her, and they wouldn’t know the results of that for yet another hour. Einstein was cruel, that way. “We’ll keep you posted on events, sir.”

  “Do you think the risk is high, Professor?”

  “Sir, check with NASA. Their private nightmare was a shuttle to land safely, and then have a hypergolic leak into the cabin, killing the crew. There’s a reason the first vehicles to reach the shuttle were ‘sniffer’ trucks and the very next thing was crew egress. These people won’t be safe, sir, until the bird is sitting still on the runway and the medics have them in the hospital.”

  “I’ll defer to your judgment. What do you think the odds are at this point?”

  “Much better than they were, sir. My original guess was one chance in ten to getting at least one survivor off the asteroid. Now, I think there’s a chance in ten they all can reach Earth orbit.”

  “My, aren’t you a ray of sunshine!”

  “No, sir. I’m a pragmatist who isn’t going to count her boobies before they’re hatched.”

  “I’m afraid the reference eludes me.”

  “James Thurber, sir, an under-appreciated writer these days. A piece called ‘There’s a Unicorn in the Garden.’”

  “Well, carry on. You’ll keep me updated?”

  “Well, sir, your liaison will, I’m sure.”

  He chuckled and cut the line.

  Stephanie turned back to the console. Captain Gilly spoke quietly, just to her. “One of these days, Professor, you’re going to push the man’s buttons one too many times.”

  “For someone who is supposed to be politically astute, who is surrounded by people who are nominally supposed to be very politically astute, he wanted something that was bone-headed and dumb. And would have made him look really bad if it had gotten out.”

  John Gilly sighed. “Yes. But does your vocabulary extend to please and thank you? Or, ‘Sir, may I suggest...’”

  “No.”

  The mission clock continued to run.

  At rendezvous minus eleven minutes and forty-two seconds, the person monitoring the rescue vehicle’s telemetry broke in on the occasional comments on the communications channel. “Temperature warning, main cabin! Pressure warning...” the man’s voice stopped. “Telemetry link has dropped from Rescue One!”

  There was nothing, not anything, any of them could do except curse. And there was a lot of cursing.

  The speakers crackled. “This is Rescue Four. We had the camera on Rescue One, but I was looking away when the event occurred. Right now, all I can see is a huge cloud of out-gassing atmosphere.” The pilot paused, clearly taking his time to think. “If Rescue One was still under acceleration, they’d have emerged from the gas cloud. They haven’t, so I don’t think they have fans.”

  There was a pause of nearly a minute. “Mission Control, Rescue Four again. I can see a light now, coming from the lower quadrant of the gas. Yes! I’ll be damned! He’s on fire! How can you be on fire in a vacuum?” There was a voice in the background and the pilot came back. “My copilot says it’s most likely the oxygen from the life support systems passing over something flammable. Wait!”

  There was another significant pause.

  “He’s tumbling! I just got a glimpse of the bird! The fire’s out, now, I think. There’s quite a gas cloud, but it’s beginning to disperse. I got a glimpse of the spacecraft. They are tumbling on several axes, but not terribly fast. Wait another one.”

  The wait seemed to stretch out towards infinity. When he spoke again the pilot’s voice was dull. “The main cabin’s split open, about half the length of the vehicle. There’s visible smoke and flame damage apparent on the outside of the vehicle. One wing is badly damaged by fire as well — evidently the fuel and the oxygen met, at least for a time.”

  There was a very short pause. “Negative contact with spacecraft. I say again, negative contact with the spacecraft.

  “My copilot is working on the videotape we shot. We’ll have to take down the voice link, but we can send you a couple minutes of tape here shortly. I’ll use the time to evaluate options.”

  Five minutes later they saw a picture of the spacecraft, looking pretty much like the Gulfstream V that it had started out as. Then, without warning, it was shrouded in an expanding cloud of fog. As an event, it was pretty unspectacular, as whatever was happening was totally obscured by the gas cloud that had escaped the spaceship.

  There was a break, then the picture started up again, this time showing a flash of light that was too orange to be anything other than fire. A few seconds later, the spacecraft emerged from the cloud. There were indrawn gasps at the extent of the damage.

  At the end, the camera swung around, and was clearly stopped down, before it settled on a distant point of very bright light.

  “I want that film cleaned up,” Stephanie said levelly, “and then I want frame by frame stills. Yesterday!” People started working it, glad for something, however trivial, to do. “And, those of you who’ve studied the record, go back and look at the pictures of the damage to Apollo 13. It isn’t over until the fat lady sings!”

  “Rescue Four,” the distant pilot reported again. “As you can see, it’s a slow tumble. On my own authority, I’m going to match the tumble and try to get closer. I will not come into contact with the vehicle without good reason.”

  He continued, “There seem to be two axes of rotation, an end-over-end component and something that appears to be a flat spin. I don’t think there is any significant risk to matching vectors. At the end of the video, we put the camera on the sun. It’s the brightest star in the sky and looks like an arc-welder a hundred meters away. Nonetheless, that way’s home. I promise, Mission Control, I’m not forgetting that.”

  There was a lot of technical talk, as Rescue Four undocked from the other spacecraft, then flew close to Rescue One.

  “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” the pilot of Rescue Four said, during the approach. “But someone is signaling us with Morse code from Rescue One’s command deck using a flashlight. It’s really too bad that none of us know Morse code.”

  Two hours later, it was, to all intents and purposes, wrapped up. Everyone in the main compartment of Rescue One had died. The assistant manager of the habitat had managed to secure the hatch between the cabin and the passenger area after an explosion had occurred in the passenger area. The command deck had lost pressure, but they’d both been in vacuum suits and the heat and smoke had been kept out of the command deck.

  The pilot of Rescue Four was laconic. “We have no idea what caused the explosion. Even so, we closed with the vehicle and took off Pilot Officer Malcolm and Assistant Manager Kelly. On my own authority, I’m leaving the bodies here, although only about half of them remained in the cabin. We’ve got a reading on the orbital elements. I
consider the risk too great to attempt to bring them aboard.”

  Stephanie knew that the mission liaison had already told the President about what had happened. So, she was a little surprised to find John Gilly calling her into the main conference room for a private chat with the President.

  “Professor, I realize that a lot of people are going to be going over the entire mission with a fine tooth comb. Do you have any early guesses?” the President asked her.

  “Back in the Apollo days, they had a fire on the launch pad, in one of the early Apollo capsules. In those days they ran pure oxygen, at a pressure that matched the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere. Do you understand?”

  “Yes. They were running at a couple PSI, pure oxygen.”

  “Yes, sir. An electrical fire broke out, and it flashed because of all the fuel and oxidizer... the capsule wiring supplying the fuel. In this case I’m not sure what burned, sir, because the views we have of the cabin show melted aluminum, not vaporized aluminum. It was hot, too hot for humans to survive, but not hot enough to vaporize aluminum — so call it less than a thousand degrees.”

  “Who is going to get the blame?” the President asked bluntly.

  Stephanie restrained her anger. “I think the blame goes straight to our ignorance of the varied environments we face in space. Odds are, Pilot Officer Lambert saw something; something that if he were alive to tell us, would explain the events. But he’s dead, and I’m certain he was professional enough that he would have reported at once, if he saw something he recognized as a hazard. Mr. President, a lion snuck up behind those people and killed them.”

  “You’re saying that there’s no one to blame?”

  “Sir, probably in few months or maybe less, we’ll know exactly what the problem was. Odds are, someone else will get killed learning it.”

  One of the technicians walked into the room and placed a piece of paper in front of Stephanie and hastily left.