Man's Hope

by Zellmann, William

  He turned to Susan. "Okay, we have our hideout. A few years ago, I lent a cousin a few thousand pesos to build a resort on a beach up the coast, just south of San Antonio. A lot of Filipinos who try to start a business don't have much business sense. But Jaymo is as sharp as they come. He's already paid off the loan, and he says he's bought the properties on each side of him to expand. We're going to take over the whole place. I'm afraid his business will take a hit, but I'll be paying him enough to make up for it and get a good start on that expansion after we leave. I used to go up there quite a bit, so I paid to have the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company run a special DSL line from San Antonio. That means Internet access will be no problem.

  "I think we can stop worrying. With Toro and the family on guard in Olongapo, and Inday and Marco and more family watching our backs in Subic city, and us sitting in a closed resort in San Antonio, I think we're pretty secure. Now I can get my mind back to the important stuff!"

  Susan was grinning. "'Jaymo'?"

  Frank nodded. "For some reason, many Filipinos pick up a nickname, usually before they can walk. 'Jaymo' is actually Jerrod Montero Fernandez. But I doubt he would even answer to 'Jerrod' anymore."

  Frank's 'bachelor pad' had two bedrooms, but he had turned one into an office, whose most prominent feature was a large computer with three monitors. "I can actually use it as three workstations," he told Susan, "or spread an image over all three monitors." After reminding her not to check her e-mail, Frank connected to a proxy server in Mexico, and then another in the U.S. before connecting to several news sites.

  It seemed that the U.S. was overplaying its hand. More and more editorialists and bloggers were repeating the question Brazil had asked in the UN General Assembly: Why? Why was the most powerful nation on Earth devoting so much effort and energy to the pursuit of one man? As one blogger put it, "Frank Weatherly is no Osama Bin Laden. He did not attack the United States; in fact, he tried very hard to avoid involving them in his project. He didn't kill over 3,000 Americans. He hasn't killed anyone. Man's Hope International has released all of their purchase records, and it is obvious that Mr. Weatherly did not violate the U.S. technology transfer laws, the only legal charge the U.S. has filed against him. What is the U.S. government hiding? What does Frank Weatherly know that the U.S. fears he will disclose?

  "The U.S. Ambassador to the UN says that the U.S. wishes only to 'pursue justice and protect the people of the United States.' But where is the 'justice' in these ridiculous charges? How does Frank Weatherly threaten the people of the United States?"

  The President of the United States declared that "Private citizens simply cannot be permitted to threaten the people of the United States and the world by possessing nuclear reactors!"

  It was Dolf who had responded to that charge. In his first broadcast following the President's speech, he responded that power companies privately owned nearly every nuclear power plant in the US. The President tried to clarify his remark, saying that he meant 'unsupervised' private reactors. But it was too little, too late.

  While Frank had been fleeing to safety, Dolf had been fighting.

  What the U.S. government seemed to have overlooked was the unparalleled communications afforded by the spacecraft. Their signal blanketed half the world, and Frank's prearranged repeaters covered the other half. China and several other nations had seized and destroyed the repeaters within their borders, but those in surrounding countries continued to transmit. And Dolf's schedule of daily broadcasts permitted him to respond to attacks almost as soon as they were made public. Every time the U.S. made an exaggerated charge, Dolf was there to counter it. Whenever they pursued an action, he was quick to respond.

  When the U.S. filed charges against the entire crew in the International Court of Justice, Dolf responded quickly and viciously. "We deny that this so-called 'Court of International Justice', created by a body that simply voted itself the power to do so, has any jurisdiction in this case. Man's Hope's reactor was not activated until after we had left Earth orbit, and inserted into a deep-space orbit. This so-called 'Court', may insist it has jurisdiction over actions taken in Earth orbit, but it cannot possibly have jurisdiction over actions taken in interplanetary space. At least, not until the United Nations can dream up a plausible-sounding legal pretext permitting them to do so.

  "As for the charge that we violated international treaties banning nuclear power in space, I submit that treaties bind only the governments that sign them. Man's Hope International, Frank Weatherly, and this crew are not a government, and are not sponsored by any government. We are a multinational organization, and we do not recognize that those treaties bind us.

  "Finally, to the charges of endangering the people of the Earth in the event of an accident on liftoff, I submit that the few kilos of slightly-enriched uranium we carried would not have been sufficient to be detectable by Geiger counter on Earth.

  "As with every other act of the United States government of late, this one leads one to ask why? What is the real reason for embarking on a vendetta to prevent the most successful space venture so far in human history? We are days from matching orbits with a comet, and actually boarding it. It is an exciting time. We should be as focused on that moment, as was the world in 1969, when man landed on the moon. Instead, we are forced to deal with nonsense dreamed up by overpaid, underworked bureaucrats. And to the Head Bureaucrat, I invite all Americans to join me in asking: Mr. President, what in the world are you doing?"

  Frank waited until he was securely ensconced in the closed resort to call the Man's Hope International transmitter.

  He asked them to wait until just after the ship came above the horizon, and then to pass along to Man's Hope a request that they temporarily suspend retransmission of signals from Earth.

  As soon as Dolf responded, "Done," Frank asked to be connected to the transmitter, and announced his presence.

  "Frank!" Dolf shouted. "Graças a Deus! Are you all right?

  Frank flushed with pleasure at Dolf's obvious excitement and caring. "I'm fine, Dolf. I just had to run for cover. That's why I asked you not to rebroadcast my voice. We have some serious talking to do, but don't forget that the whole world can hear your end, including the U.S."

  "Damned right we do!" came David's voice. "Frank, you old bastard, find yourself and hole and climb in, and pull the hole in after you. I think we've got them on the run!"

  Frank shrugged. "To hell with them. What about the mission? What's happened with Yoshi?"

  "Okay," said David, "Here's the brief. We're two days from intercept. Yoshi is still tied down in his acceleration couch, but Raoul decided to cut back on the sedatives, so he's conscious most of the time. Perfectly rational, too, as long as you don't mention you-know-what."

  Frank nodded, though; of course, David couldn't see it. "How's your orbit? Has anyone tried to interfere with Alcântara Control?"

  "No," came the reply in Dolf's voice. "No interference there. Our Brazilian friends are doing their very best, and we love them. As for the orbital data, everything seems to check. We think we can actually see the comet on the long-range radar, but we can't be sure until perhaps tomorrow."

  "Okay," Frank replied. "I'd suggest you forget about this court nonsense on Earth, and use your next two days to build up anticipation for the rendezvous. Remember, the whole reason for the exercise is to give space travel a boost. You've been doing a fantastic job. Just don't lose sight of NASA's big error in covering the moon landings: don't let them drag and get boring."

  "No problem, Frank," Dolf replied, "We're not trying to give them 24-hour coverage like NASA did. I do about fifteen minutes every day. Not enough time for boredom to set in. But once we get set up on the comet, it will get boring. That's when I'm going to want an exclusive interview with the infamous international fugitive, Frank Weatherly."

  Frank tried to grin, to make his voice cheerful. He wasn't successful. "You'll get it. Good luck, guys, and I'll be listening. I can't talk to you ve
ry often this way; they can eventually track me down. So, I guess the bad guys have finally sidelined me. I'm depending you guys. But I'll be listening, and I'll keep in touch. We won't let them beat us!"

  Dolf and David exchanged looks after Frank disconnected. Dolf shook his head. "He didn't sound good."

  David frowned. "No, he didn't. He sounded beaten. I've never heard that tone in his voice before."

  "Me either. I guess he has a right, though. His own government has finally hounded him out of the only country where he felt safe. The bastards."

  David looked thoughtful. "Well, maybe not the only country where he felt safe."

  "You know where he is," Dolf replied accusingly.

  David shook his head. "Not really. But I think I know where he might go when he's in this kind of trouble. If I'm right, he's probably as safe as he'd be anywhere, even Brazil." He straightened abruptly. "Well, you've got a briefing to prepare for, and I'm still trying to verify that we can detect the comet. They might catch him, but they're not going to stop him. We're not going to let Frank down!" He glared around at the rest of the crew, who had gathered around the comm station at the sound of Frank's voice.

  Everyone but Yoshi shook his head. Yuri replied, "Of course not. It will take more than a lot of Washington bureaucrats to stop us."

  But there was no time for fighting Earthly battles. Within hours, David shouted, "I've got it! It's on long-range radar, and it's only a dot, but it's in the right place at the right time!"

  Dolf's briefings were once again centered on the mission.

  "We have detected the comet Carter IV on our long-range radar," he reported that day. "We have been slowing for several weeks, so we would not pass the comet at high speed. In a few hours, we will come to a dead stop relative to the comet, and then begin accelerating toward it. Now, the comet will be passing us, and we will boost to catch up with it from behind. Please remember, we've carefully calculated all this, and in fact, our approach speed is still being measured and compared with our orbital plan. As of an hour ago, I verified that in about three hours we will begin maximum boost to catch up with the comet.

  "We must calculate carefully. The comet's head is very small, only about 4 kilometers in diameter, and difficult to distinguish in our instruments, and we wish to approach it very slowly. Then we will pick up our supply shipment, and attach it to our ship. Finally, we will orbit the comet's head several times to locate a place where there are few gas vents. These are like small geysers of gases released by the heating of the ice. They help form the comet's tail. Once we decide on a landing site, one of the crew, wearing a space suit, of course, will simply jump across to the comet with a tether, in this case a spare safety line.

  "Given the importance of that moment, we will suspend our usual broadcast schedule, and will instead broadcast the event live, We have several cameras aboard, and we hope to also include live TV coverage, although, with our electronics technician, uh, 'indisposed,' we're not certain how successful that attempt will be. We will certainly do our best. This will be a very historic moment, and we want to share it with all mankind. At the moment, we anticipate approaching the comet at about 3:42 PM Greenwich Mean Time, or you might call it '1542 Zulu' time, day after tomorrow. We sincerely hope you will join us for mankind's first actual visit to a comet."

  Dolf was clearly excited during the next day's briefing. The comet was now clearly visible on the cabin instruments. As an experiment, Dolf tried to broadcast the cabin camera view over the TV cameras, though with little success.

  "I am afraid there is very little light in space," he apologized. "We will work on improving our camera work and boosting our signal before the big show tomorrow."

  Ron worked through his sleep period building a signal amplifier out of the parts Yoshi had brought aboard. Yoshi himself, seeming totally rational, explained to Dolf how to adjust the camera to compensate for the low-light conditions and the extreme variance between sunlight and shadow in space.

  At 3:30PM GMT, or 1530 Zulu, Dolf began his broadcast. By this time, the comet was spectacular as they moved slowly past the tail toward the head. Dolf prayed that the footage David was transmitting was as good as what he was seeing on his monitor, broadcast from the cockpit upstairs, where David was filming through the windshield.

  "I know the footage you are seeing is very similar to that sent back by the unmanned probes. But stay tuned, ladies and gentlemen. Soon you will be seeing what no one in history has ever seen: a man setting foot on a comet for the first time! But first, we must secure our supply shipment. These are the things that will keep us alive during the next three months or so."

  The cargo canister appeared to be simply hanging in space near the comet's head. David gently coaxed Man's Hope closer and closer.

  The canister looked like a large, featureless tin can with a large loop on one end. As they slowly approached it, Yuri evacuated the cargo hold, and opened the cargo doors. Nearly the entire top of the cargo bay opened widely, exposing the arm that so resembled the ones in the U.S. space shuttles. Ron was operating the controls, and he used his tablet to control the arm. Slowly, it lifted, and stretched toward the canister. It was only when the arm clamped onto the loop on the end of the canister that the canister's size became apparent. Slowly, cautiously, Ron pulled the canister toward the ship's cargo bay.

  "Ron has to move slowly," Dolf narrated. "That canister is weightless out here, but if you got in front of it, it would slam into you with over six tons of force. More precisely, into the Hope!"

  Slowly, slowly the canister crept toward the ship. Dolf explained that the cargo bay was already full, so a suited Yuri would secure it to attachment points on the hull. Yuri clipped several tethers to the canister while Ron moved the arm back to its storage position. Finally, Ron sighed deeply and relaxed. The arm was once more secure inside the cargo bay.

  Dolf echoed his sigh as the big cargo doors began to close. "If the arm had failed to retract, or if the cargo doors failed to close, we would have been in serious trouble," Dolf continued. "We do not have an actual airlock between the crew compartment and the cargo hold. It would have been necessary for all of us to suit up, and then we would have needed to decompress the crew compartment so we could get into the cargo hold and make necessary repairs. Unfortunately, many of the things we need to live do not react well to vacuum.

  "Another factor is that we have a huge fuel tank attached to Man's Hope's belly, and wings on both sides. This means that the only way we have to anchor to the comet is with the top of the ship, the part containing the cargo doors. We would not have been able to dock with the comet until repairs were completed. Fortunately, as you have just seen, both the doors and the arm functioned flawlessly, so we can progress to actually docking with the comet.

  "We have agreed that our Deputy Commander, Yuri Kozunov, is to have the honor of being the first man to step onto a comet, if 'step' is the word. Please remember that this comet is only some four kilometers in diameter and only very roughly spherical. Its gravity is miniscule. In fact, what we will be doing will more resemble docking with it than landing on it. At first, we will be tethering the Hope down to prevent it simply drifting off. We are not quite certain what we will be doing for the long term; we have several possible plans, depending on the circumstances and the conditions we find.

  "Ah! There is the head. You can see the eruptions of gases from the vents in the ice. The Commander is beginning to orbit the head, looking for the most stable place to land – or dock."

  Dolf's minute-by-minute commentary continued as David orbited the ship around the comet's head, looking for the most stable area, with the fewest vents. Finally, he and Yuri agreed on an area and Yuri, still suited except for his helmet, headed for the cargo bay and the personnel airlock, picking up a reeled tether line as he went.

  David gently nudged the steering jets, and the Hope drifted gently toward the comet. To his earthly viewers, it appeared the comet was hovering overhead, threatening to fall o
n them. Yuri was standing in the airlock looking "upward" and he coached David until the ship was brought to a stop relative to the comet, its top less than two meters from the surface.

  Yuri fired a rocket-powered piton into the ice, and gently tugged on the attached line. This caused him to drift slowly across the five-foot distance to the surface of the comet. As he 'landed', he tightened his grip on the tether line, barely keeping his legs from rebounding from the ice. He pulled a small package from a storage pocket on his suit, and began unfolding a series of spindly rods that finally revealed a rocket piton on one end. He fired the piton, and stood back and saluted as a small flag unfolded, bearing Man's Hope International's trademarked symbol: a view of the Earth as seen from the moon.

  "It is Frank Weatherly who should be saying these words, but I must say them for him," Yuri said in his flawless English. "Ancient peoples looked at comets streaking through the sky and dreamed of visiting them. We have accomplished another of man's dreams. But for us, this is only an intermediate step. In a little over a year, we will accomplish another step on humanity's voyage to the stars. We will land on an asteroid, and we will bring back a true space station, a stepping-stone to the planets, and tons of nickel-iron with which to build the ships that will visit those planets. People of Earth, Frank Weatherly is giving you the stars!"

  After a moment, he relaxed, and reached for the line tethering him to the Hope.