by John Olson
Perez was in her face in an instant. “Dr. Jansen, look at me. Are you okay?” Perez held her head, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Is there something we should give you? Water? Medication? Do you have any respiratory problems?”
Valkerie tried to pull away. Her brother’s asthma. That’s why they had come. She should have known they would do a background check.
“No, you’ve got to believe me. After my brother died, my parents took me in for checkups every year.” Perez’s face twisted in on itself, throbbing to the beat of her pulse. She squeezed her eyes shut. “It’s just the gases. My lungs feel like they’re filled with battery acid.”
A warm coat spread itself around Valkerie’s shoulders. The smell of Stetson.
“Dr. Jansen, I think you should lie down. You may be going into shock.”
“I’m fine, really. I can do this.”
“Dr. Jansen, please. You’re going into shock. Do you know what that means?”
“Of course I do. I know I quit the surgery fellowship, but I finished the M.D. I had to quit. My father needed me.”
“Dr. Jansen, please.”
“And when I got accepted at Florida, there wasn’t much point in going back to finish the fellowship. It—”
“Dr. Jansen—”
“When does Astronaut Candidate school start? I could finish the fellowship as soon as it’s over.”
“It’s okay. Your medical record is fine, but ASCAN training has already started this year. That’s why we’re here. If you had gotten your application in four months earlier, we wouldn’t have a problem, but the next session isn’t for another two years, and we really needed someone now.”
A black haze closed in around Perez’s face. “Two years? But I’ve got student loans. Postdocs don’t count as ... education.” Valkerie felt herself falling. The beat of the helicopter blended into a smooth and creamy roar. She knew she should say something, but what? She had already blown the interview. Two years wasn’t soon enough—she needed a job now.
The helicopter lurched and the pitch of the engines fell to a low whine. Smooth fingers pried at her eyelids and a flashlight shined in her eyes. Voices surrounded her.
“How’s she doing?” It sounded like Dr. Wiseman, the head of the research center.
“I’m fine.” Valkerie tried to sit up, but half a dozen hands held her down. “What do Trident’s seismograms look like? Has she erupted?”
Dr. Wiseman shook his head. “A little activity, but no eruption yet.”
“But it was venting all night. Sulfur dioxide filled the whole valley.”
Two strange men lifted Valkerie onto a stretcher and started to carry her out of the bay. Valkerie fought to sit up. “Hold up a second, I’m fine. I’ve got an interview to finish!”
“No interview necessary,” Perez moved toward the stretcher and took Valkerie’s hand. “It was good meeting you, Dr. Jansen. We can talk some other time. Believe me, you’ve given us more than enough to think about.”
Chapter Three
Monday, August 20, Year One, 3:15 P.M.
Nate
NATE HARRINGTON STALKED OUT OF the elevator. That should have been a routine press conference. Except that some pea-brained journalist had somehow found out about Josh Bennett’s motorcycle accident. Whoever leaked that was going to be force-fed his own liver.
An African-American woman stood outside Nate’s office alongside a small boy in a too-large wheelchair. Behind them, a video crew. And Steven Perez, smiling broadly. Anytime the cameras rolled, you could count on Perez showing his pearly whites. Even today, with the Johnson Space Center turning into an insane asylum.
Who were these people, anyway? The red light on the videocam turned on. Great. Whatever happened next would be on the record.
Steven Perez stepped forward. “Nate, you had an appointment at three with this young man, Darnell Simmons. Remember? Make-A-Wish?”
Nate clapped his hand to his forehead. His secretary, Carol, had reminded him at noon. But that was before the press conference, which should have been a walk in the park. Instead, it would be six-o’clock news, with COVER-UP? splashed across a picture of his sweating face.
Okay, give the kid his photo-op and get rid of him. He was dying of something horrible. And he was a space junkie. Wouldn’t be alive two years from now when Ares 10 set down on Mars. Tough case. Smart kid too.
Nate hunched down in front of the boy. “Son, I’m sorry for being late. My fault. Got mauled by some pit-bull reporters who don’t know squat about space. Come on into my office and you can sit in the chair of the Mars Mission Director. How’s that sound?”
The kid’s eyes lit up.
Nate opened the door of his office and led the way past Carol into his inner sanctum.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later the game was over. The kid left happy, clutching a genuine hundred-percent-pure moon rock. Okay, a moon pebble—1.27 grams of lunar silicate from Fra Mauro, circa 1970. Technically, it was on loan to the kid, since the law didn’t allow an individual to own lunar material. A six-month loan, if the kid’s doctors were right.
Nate slumped back in his leather executive chair, massaging his temples.
Perez walked in and sat down. “I hear the press conference was some kind of fun.”
“Sure, if you’re the kind who likes crawling over broken glass with the Dallas Cowboys on your back. It was quicker in the good old days when they only burned you at the stake.”
“Why didn’t we release the accident report three weeks ago?”
“What’s next? Do we report every hangnail? Does the public really need to know every little thing?”
Perez stood up. “Free and open flow of information, remember? That has been the policy of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration since Apollo 1, and—”
Nate slammed his open palm on his desk. “I don’t need a history lesson, okay? I’ve got thirty years of service here, and I know the rule book.” And you’ve been here how many months?
Perez leaned over the desk and glowered at him. “Then follow the rules.” He spun around and strode out the door. A second later he poked his head in again. “You’ve read the transcript of the Kaganovski interview?”
“Yeah, I can read too. I’m multitalented.”
“I want to discuss it tomorrow at four.”
“A.M. or P.M.?”
Perez didn’t crack a smile. “A.M. will be fine. Thanks for asking.” He disappeared, closing the door softly behind him.
Nate shut his eyes and cursed his smart-alecky sense of humor. But come to think of it, 4:00 A.M. was as good a time as any for a lynching. Perez would come looking for blood, but he wasn’t going to get it. No way was some newbie Johnson Space Center director going to foul up a mission this soon before launch.
Carol’s line buzzed. Nate grabbed the phone. “I’m not in.”
“I have an Agent Yamaguchi here to see you.”
“Don’t know him. I’m not in.”
“That’s right, sir. From the FBI.”
“I don’t care if he’s from the pope, I’m not in.”
“Very good. I’ll show—”
Nate slammed the phone down. Some days it rained. Some days it poured. Some days you got the whole Niagara Falls.
Carol’s stiletto heels clack-clacked outside his door. It opened and she stepped in. “Mr. Harrington, Agent Yamaguchi.”
Agent Yamaguchi turned out to be a woman, about forty-five, made up to look quite a bit whiter than she probably was. Bright red lipstick. Matching nails. What were the Fibbies coming to?
Nate shook her hand and motioned her toward a chair. “Yeah?”
Ms. Yamaguchi pulled a blueprint out of her briefcase and spread it flat on Nate’s desk. “Mr. Harrington, do you recognize this?”
Nate stared at it. The Hab for Ares 10. It wasn’t labeled, but it was obviously version 3.4.1B, the one with the revised shower unit. Better privacy. Perez had pushed that idea through all of about t
hree weeks ago. Nate hadn’t even seen hardcopy on it yet. “Where’d you get this?”
“So you recognize it?”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. Where’d you get it?”
“Mr. Harrington, obstructing an investigation is a federal crime. When I ask a yes-or-no question, there are two possible answers, and maybe is not one of them.”
“So shoot me. Put me out of my misery.”
Yamaguchi leaned back and studied him through narrowed eyes. “Mr. Harrington, let me make it clear that I am on your side.”
“Before I answer any questions about this blueprint, I need to know if I’m going to have another PR atom bomb going off in my face.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Long story. Watch the six o’clock news.”
“All right, then. I’ll cut you some slack. For the moment, you never saw these prints, and I never talked to you. Off the record, just so I can do my job, how old are these plans?”
Nate shook his head. “Maybe three weeks.”
“And what are they, exactly?”
“The Hab.”
“Hab?”
“Habitation Module. For Ares 10. This is the tuna can our boys and girl are going to ride to Mars in. Where’d you get it?”
“Overnight delivery. It came in this morning from Tokyo.”
“Where’d they get it?”
“An autonomous radical cell. We’re trying to trace connections now, but it’s difficult. One reason I’m here is to ask your advice. Why would terrorists be interested in your program?”
Nate leaned back in his chair. “For publicity, I guess. Isn’t that the usual motivation?”
“They typically have a political agenda. But why would Japanese terrorists care about an American space program?”
“It’s probably a nationalism thing. The Ares Program is a hundred percent American. Right from the start, we cut out the Russians, the Europeans, and the Japanese.”
“Why? Aren’t we working with them on that other thing?”
“The International Space Station?” Nate scowled. “That boondoggle! Do you know how many years late and how much over budget that thing ran? International cooperation is great PR for the politicians, but if you actually want to get something done, forget it. No way you could get to Mars that way—not in my lifetime or on my budget. Even NASA by itself was too big and bureaucratic to go to Mars. We had to create a NASA-within-NASA to make it feasible.”
“But why would terrorists care about your program?”
Nate leaned forward. “Certain countries—and I won’t name any names, but their initials are France, Russia, and Japan—are mad as hornets that we’re doing this on our own. It’s called nationalism. They want one of their people putting footprints on Mars. And our answer is no. On top of that, they’re really hurling a hissy fit that we’re landing on July fourth.”
“Why are we doing that?”
“Because we can—if we go in the next launch opportunity. July fourth happens to work, and we’re not going to miss it.”
“What if somebody ... makes you miss it?”
“Then Congress zeroes our funding and we miss Mars. You’ve heard of Senator Axton?”
Ms. Yamaguchi nodded. “He’s the guy saving us money with all the big budget cuts.”
Nate clenched his fists. “He cut 40 percent of my program. If we hadn’t sold the coverage rights to NBS—and we’ll get the biggest payoff if we land on July fourth—we’d have missed this coming launch opportunity. We lose Mars and we’ll spend another forty years picking our nose in low-Earth orbit.”
“What are the antiterrorist arrangements for your Mars flight?”
Nate shrugged. “Not bad. Terrorism has always been NASA’s biggest security concern. We’ve got the normal precautions in place. But truth to tell, on this mission we’ve been more worried about wackos than terrorists.”
“Wackos?”
“Religious fundamentalists, mostly. They’re afraid we’re going to prove evolution. They stage a protest every week or so over at the Rocket Park entrance, jam up the traffic, yell their slogans. Nothing too exciting, except when one of ‘em gets heatstroke.”
“Mr. Harrington, I think you may need to increase your level of security against terrorist attacks. The cell we penetrated is very determined. If there are others ...”
That’s all we need. Nate picked up the phone and punched a button. “Consider it done.”
Carol answered on the first ring. “Yes, sir?”
“I need to talk to whichever sorry excuse for a brain-dead moron runs Security these days.”
“Right away.” Carol put him on hold. Nate got an earful of some oldies station. Stairway to Heaven. Led Zep.
Agent Yamaguchi stood to leave. “I’ll get back to you when we know more.”
Nate reached up and shook her hand. “Thanks for the tip. Can I keep the blueprint?”
“Do you have a safe?”
The music switched off. “Security. Daniel Collins here.”
Nate nodded to Yamaguchi and made an “Okay” signal with his hand. She headed for the door. He slumped back in his chair.
“Collins, we have a problem ...”
* * *
Tuesday, August 21, Year One, 3:00 P.M.
Valkerie
Valkerie stared out the oval window, watching the blur of browns and greens that rushed up to meet her plane. She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. If a plane was going to crash, it would crash on landing.
Valkerie lifted a hand to her bandaged forehead. The swelling had gone down days ago, but it still looked awful. The doctor said she’d been lucky—as if suffocation, concussion, and humiliation were things everybody aspired to. It was hard to be thankful. It had almost ruined her chance of getting into the ASCAN program.
Almost. But by some miracle the interview had been good enough to get her into the air. Dr. Abrams had called from Houston two days after meeting her. They wanted her to fly out for some tests. Abrams had warned her not to get her hopes up. He was letting her take off, but it was clear that he expected her to crash on the landing. Obviously, he had been checking up on her.
Valkerie sighed. It seemed that no matter how well she performed, she was never going to be able to escape the mistakes of her past. They already knew about her quitting the surgery fellowship. Did they know about her freshman year at Yale? She had signed the release form. Surely, they had already checked her transcripts, but maybe they didn’t care about her grades.
Right ... More likely they hadn’t gotten around to checking. When they finally did, those two D’s and an F would spell “Doomed, in Debt, and a postdoc Forever.”
She had been such a fool. Skipping classes. Partying every night. Going out with every guy who asked ... After enduring four years in high school as Valbot the Metal-Mouthed Brain, she had gone absolutely crazy. If her dad hadn’t flown to New Haven to talk to the vice-provost, they would have kicked her out of school. As it was, she had to endure the shame of academic probation—not to mention the look of disappointment on her dad’s face. How many years had he spent working his way through college? How many hours of overtime had he put in so she wouldn’t have to work at all?
After that she had knuckled down and worked her tail off. Med school. Grad school. A postdoc ... But that one year of foolishness would haunt her for the rest of her life. No matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to shake it. Even now, it still tugged at her heart. She had felt so free. Had so much fun. Made so many ... friends.
But where were those friends now? The fun hadn’t lasted. It couldn’t last. You either worked hard and got ahead, or you had fun and got left behind. In academia there was no in between. If only she could get into NASA, things would be different.
The plane taxied to a stop. Valkerie extracted her carryon from the overhead bin and shuffled forward through the crowded plane.
A wall of heat hit her the second she stepped into the jetway. She w
heeled the case quickly up the long ramp, racing the dampness that prickled at her arms and legs. Once she reached the baggage claim area, she moved self-consciously through a gauntlet of expectant faces, searching for somebody with a sign. A cold, impersonal somebody who would greet her respectfully and drive her in awkward silence to the Johnson Space Center.
“Dr. Jansen?” The voice came from behind and to her right.
Valkerie turned. “Dr. Perez?” She gaped at the director. “I ... I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“I wasn’t sure I could get away.” Perez’s face lit up with a warm smile. “Welcome to Houston. Did you have a nice flight?”
“Uh, yes. Thank you. Much better than the last one.”
Perez grinned and directed her down the concourse. “So has Trident erupted yet?”
Valkerie shot him a wary look, but he was still grinning. “Volcanoes are very unpredictable,” she said. “It really could have erupted.”
“I never doubted, but Roger checked up on you after we got back. Burst into my office raving about how you had followed protocol. He was impressed. Roger’s very big on protocol.”
“Well, I still feel bad about our so-called interview. I wasn’t myself at all. I appreciate your giving me another chance.”
“Dr. Jansen.” Perez stopped at an elevator.
“Please, call me Valkerie.”
Perez raised an eyebrow.
“I know it’s different, but they’ve been calling me Valkerie since the eighth grade. It’s kind of a nickname. It was the name of my first robot.”
Perez pressed the button marked “Parking Garage.” “Okay—Valkerie, I don’t think Roger made our position clear. We didn’t ask you here to give you ‘another chance.’ We’re very interested in your knowledge of microbial ecology, your medical training, your equipment designs… And the way you handled yourself out there in the Katmai Preserve ... Breathing from your jeep tires? Very impressive. That kind of resourcefulness is exactly what we need. If you pass the physicals and psych tests, I’ll push as hard as I can to get you into the current ASCAN class.”