Aftermath

by Charles Sheffield

  She glanced at the display showing elapsed time. Only nine minutes since first thrust. It felt much longer.

  "Looking good." Zoe sounded a fraction fainter, but maybe that was Celine's imagination. "We are losing altitude as planned and are already experiencing atmospheric drag. We project loss of radio contact in five minutes and seventeen seconds, eight seconds ahead of schedule. Report back receipt of this signal."

  Celine did so, automatically. The Earth below was invisible. It was still night there, though in another nine minutes Celine would look down onto a sunlit United States. Lewis was heading for a single-step reentry. There would be no "bounce" aerobraking as they had used it on Mars, skimming into the upper atmosphere and out again several times, like a pebble skipped across the surface of a lake and shedding velocity on each transit. The Earth orbiters and landers all accomplished reentry in a single pass. Aerodynamic and thermal forces were much greater that way, but the ships were designed to take it.

  "The hull indicates an increase over predicted temperature," Zoe said. Her voice was overlaid with the faintest hiss and crackle. "Parameters are still within the predicted range. Ionization is beginning, somewhat ahead of schedule. We expect radio blackout in two minutes and eleven seconds, seventeen seconds ahead of schedule. Report back receipt of this signal."

  Celine glanced at the other three in the control room. Jenny was serious, following the flight parameters coming over the telemetry and nodding approval. Reza was smiling, moving his hands as though he were flying the Lewis himself. Wilmer alone seemed worried, his hand to his chin and his heavy brow furrowed.

  "Hull temperature is rising more rapidly." The distortion in Zoe's voice was greater. "It is a good deal more than predicted. I have to lessen the angle of attack and I project a change in downrange landing distance. I am taking manual control of orbiter attitude. We expect radio blackout in fifty seconds."

  More than a minute ahead of schedule. Much too soon.

  "Refer to visuals," Jenny said softly. Celine looked at the display from the big scope and saw on it a bright arrow trail. The Lewis was the silver tip at the head of the arrow.

  Celine gave one rapid glance at the unmagnified display. The tiny mote of the Lewis, a hundred and more miles beneath the Schiaparelli, was not visible. She said urgently, "Lewis, we are losing radio contact. Report if you are hearing us."

  The radio signal telemetry sounded in her ears as a loud hiss of static, within which every trace of Zoe's voice had been lost. The control board provided the real-time power spectrum of the telemetry, and it was pure white noise.

  "They are entering the period of maximum drag and maximum ionization," Celine said—an unnecessary comment for the others in the control room, who knew it as well as she did, but needed for a full record of events. "This has occurred sixty-six seconds ahead of prediction. Radio contact has been lost."

  The display from the big scope also showed the nominal flight trajectory for the Lewis as it had been calculated ahead of time. The two curves, computed orange and observed yellow, were diverging. Celine could see the separation increasing as she watched. The real ship was falling far behind its simulated twin.

  "The atmospheric drag force is way high," Wilmer said suddenly. "The reentry angle must be too steep. It's as though they made an attitude correction the wrong way."

  It was useless to ask how he knew—he had his own inexplicable way of making estimates. It was also pointless. The big scope was still providing its display. As Wilmer was speaking, the silver arrow tip brightened.

  "Black body equivalent temperature of Lewis's hull, forty-two hundred degrees," Jenny said. She was reading the output of the Schiaparelli's bolometer. "That exceeds predicted maximum by six hundred degrees."

  Still well within tolerances. The exotic materials of the orbiter's hull were rated up to fifty-four hundred degrees. But a normal reentry never came close to that. And Celine did not need the bolometric output to tell her that the temperature of Lewis's hull was still increasing. The silver arrowhead had become a blaze of blue. Telemetry was a roar of static in her ears.

  "Go up," Reza said urgently. He was working imaginary controls, pulling back on them. "Forget the one-shot reentry. Go higher, take another shot later."

  Radio silence was two-way. There was no chance that Zoe Nash could hear him. Frictional heating surrounded the racing orbiter with a blaze of ionized gases.

  "Black body equivalent temperature of Lewis's hull, six thousand degrees." Jenny's voice was a dead whisper. Then, with urgency, "Cool down. You can't take that for long."

  She was right. As she spoke, the blazing arrow tip vanished. It was replaced by a puff of white, round and delicate as a cotton ball.

  Celine did not cry out. She leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. That innocuous cottony cloud was an incandescent rage of flaming gas. In its heart were Zoe Nash, Ludwig Holter, and Alta McIntosh-Mohammad, reduced to their component atoms in Lewis's fiery explosion.

  They would be carried away by the pendent winds, blown and dispersed by the restless violence of the atmosphere. If the three crew reached a single final landing place, no one would ever know it.

  The control room was silent except for Reza's harsh breathing. Celine rocked backward and forward, unable to weep or to make any sound. All she could think was that Zoe, supercapable and superconfident Zoe, had been wrong.

  Zoe would not be down on Earth in two days. Zoe would not be there ever.

  15

  The snow had ended. The wind was dropping away to nothing, and with the loss of cloud cover the night had become bitterly and unnaturally cold.

  The ancient frigate chugged south at a leisurely eight knots, while at the bow Saul Steinmetz stood hatted, gloved, and swaddled in winter clothes. His brain was buzzing after a two-hour whirlwind of snap executive judgments that everyone else in government seemed too scared to make. One side effect of Supernova Alpha was Saul's own apparent apotheosis. No one questioned his authority to do anything.

  The buck stops here. Good old Harry Truman, he said it better than anybody. But it would be nice to think you were making right decisions.

  Saul was alone, but not, he was sure, unobserved. Even if the frigate crew could conquer their natural curiosity at having the President on board, his security staff were still on duty.

  One week ago, heavy rains had pushed the river far above flood stage. The level was lower now, but when the snow melted the waters would rise again, farther than ever. The only evidence for wild conditions upstream lay in the large amount of carried sediment. At night, the heavy suspension of reddish mud did not show. The water lay thick and black as oil, parting smoothly before the old warship's advance.

  Saul stared downstream. A light was blinking there, alien in its slow staccato. A warning? No, a message, that was much more reasonable. A message intended for this ship?

  Peering at the point of light and wondering about its meaning, Saul allowed his mind to wander away to more personal questions. Was he going to learn something, as he believed, or was he running away? A thousand things needed doing back in his White House second-floor office. Auden Travis was the most diplomatic of aides, but his face had made his views clear when Saul said where he was going. There had been some kind of fight between Auden and Yasmin Silvers. Maybe tonight Saul would learn the cause.

  And what was it between Saul and Tricia? Why had she called, out of the blue, after a two-year silence?

  It was certainly not for lunch and a casual how-are-you. Tricia's whole history showed that she did nothing casually.

  She had been born Patricia Stennis, poor in Toledo. At age eighteen she had gone to work for the country's biggest software company, where the next year at a Detroit trade show she had caught the eye of the aging majority shareholder. Six months later they married and she moved to California. She became Patricia Stennis Leighton, and soon after that, Patsy Leighton. She had been totally devoted and loyal to her husband for four years—until, suddenly
and surprisingly, they had divorced.

  One year after that Patsy was in Houston, the wife of an oil baron whose ranch sprawled across three hundred square miles and embodied an excess of all forms of bad taste. Trish Beacon, as she was now, enjoyed—or endured, though she would never admit it—two and a half years of Lone Star lifestyle, until finally she and Bobby Beacon divorced.

  The next fall Trish married into some of the oldest money in the country. She moved readily, maybe even eagerly, from west Texas to Delaware. Again, she was unswervingly loyal to and admiring of her husband. Saul first met her at a reception in Wilmington when she was two years into her third marriage. She was now Tricia Chartrain. He found her breathtakingly attractive. She seemed to take little notice of him, then or at other dinners and social functions where their paths crossed. Always, she talked admiringly of her husband, Willis Chartrain.

  A year later, she called Saul at his Atlanta office. She and dear Willis had divorced—she would prefer not to talk about it. She was in town for a few days, and without an escort for a dinner party. She remembered that Saul's headquarters were in Atlanta. Would he, as a great favor, consider being her dinner companion?

  Would he? He had ended a long go-nowhere affair two months earlier, soon after the primaries made it clear that he had a good shot at the party nomination. But Saul was Saul. He set the machinery to work, and had a detailed report on Tricia in less than a week. Patricia Stennis/Patsy Leighton/Trish Beacon/Tricia Chartrain had played around some in Toledo and elsewhere when she was very young, but in her marriages she had been either faithful to her husband or infinitely discreet. An association with Tricia was unlikely to ruin Saul on the campaign trail.

  In fact, the report came too late. Saul and Tricia had become lovers on the night of the dinner party. They remained that way, passionate and committed and inseparable, for the next six months. She had a way of devoting herself, totally and unreservedly, to Saul and his interests. It was intoxicating, something he had never known before. He knew that he would give her anything, or give up anything for her.

  Anything, until the day his political advisers came to meet him on the campaign trail in Oregon. Tricia was away, spending a day or two with old friends from the Patsy Leighton software days in San Francisco. The message delivered to Saul was quite clear. They had the poll results and the analysis. Married to Tricia, Saul would lose his bid to be President.

  He refused to believe it. He argued, he pleaded. She's beautiful, she's wealthy, she's kind and generous, she has an unblemished past.

  "Yes, yes. We're not arguing with any of that. She may be a saint for all we know. But it's not relevant. Gotta be hard-nosed about this, Saul. Look at the data, look at the numbers. You marry her, you're dead in the water. She's been around the block too often, that last marriage was one too many."

  Saul looked at the numbers. They were a disaster.

  "Has anybody else seen these?"

  "Only Crossley and Himmelfarb, the Palo Alto pollsters who did the analysis. They have instructions to keep everything confidential."

  "God, I should hope so. Look, suppose I don't get married. What are the chances of making it to the White House as a bachelor?"

  "We tested that, too." Out came more charts and displays. "It looks good. Seventy-nine percent, with a standard deviation of less than three points."

  "Did the same people run this poll and analysis?"

  "Negative. We used Quip Research out of Denver. We wanted an independent check on what Crossley and Himmelfarb came up with. So no one knows the whole story but us. Their results are consistent, though. Run without her, Saul, and you'll win."

  "What about reelection, if Tricia and I marry once I'm in office?"

  The looks they offered ranged from incredulous to uncomprehending. Reelection? Reelection was something you worried about in another four years. Four years in political forecasting was infinity, far over the horizon. Between now and then, the world could end.

  That day, however, Saul faced a simple choice. He could have the White House in November; or he could have Tricia. At a ninety-seven percent confidence level, he could not have both.

  "All right. Damnation." Saul looked at his watch. "I'll explain things to Tricia. Tonight."

  He had explained. Silver-tongued Saul Steinmetz, who could make any human being understand him and what he was doing, if only he had a chance to sit down and talk to the person one-on-one, had explained.

  And Tricia?

  Saul stared out across the quiet waters and wished that he had brought a cigar with him. They were on the controlled substance list, as well as on his doctor's personal list of forbiddens for Saul, but Forrest Singer was not here. Nor, unfortunately, were any cigars.

  The frigate had passed Alexandria twenty minutes ago, visible as a scattering of faint lights on the starboard bow. At their modest speed, Indian Head lay some minutes ahead. Maybe more than that. Saul had the feeling that their speed was less. He walked to the rail and peered over. Ripples were spreading in almost a circular pattern. The frigate was barely moving.

  "Sir?" The musical voice came as a surprise from behind him. He turned to face a uniformed woman whose features were half-hidden behind goggles and a warm face mask.

  "Yes, Lieutenant. What is it? Why are we stopping?"

  "We have received a Morse code report of earlier activity downriver, sir. A dozen civilian vessels—fishing boats, we believe—crossed from the eastern to the western bank about two hours ago. The river appears quiet now, but the captain ordered a reduction of speed until we can be sure."

  "Very good." Saul recognized the implied question. Was the action ahead related to the President's trip to the Indian Head naval facility? "Tell the captain that I have no idea what is going on downriver. If it involves the federal government in some way, I have not been briefed on the activity."

  "Yes, sir."

  "The captain should use his judgment, and resume speed as soon as he feels comfortable in doing so."

  "Yes, sir."

  The warmly clad figure saluted, turned, and marched away. Half a minute later Saul felt the throb of diesels through the plates of the deck. The pattern of ripples changed at the frigate's sides.

  Morse code. That was the blinking light he had noticed earlier. How long since he had even heard the word? There must have been a frantic study of ancient manuals in the past couple of weeks. In an age of instant electronics, Morse code and semaphore were archaisms.

  Were archaisms. Not anymore. Until the chips were back in production, Morse and semaphore were state-of-the-art technology.

  Saul, looking higher, saw in the dark sky to the south another point of light. This one was of a fixed intensity, but moving steadily in the sky. It was a spacecraft, high enough to catch a sun that the ground had lost half an hour since. From the size and direction of movement, he was witnessing a transit of one of the two international space stations, once the home of hundreds of crew and scientists; now, a great floating sarcophagus.

  The Sino Consortium had planned to launch a giant station, all their own, in mid April. It was their gesture of superiority, their finger raised to the United States: You had your day, we are the top dogs now!

  Saul, chilled through his multiple layers of clothes, turned and headed aft. Today the Sino Consortium, if the reports reaching Saul were accurate, would have trouble launching a marble into space. So, unfortunately, would the United States.

  * * *

  The Indian Head facility was in mothballs, and had been for a quarter of a century. Only strenuous local politics had allowed its continued existence. According to the report pulled out for Saul before he left, the pre-supernova staffing of Indian Head had been at a caretaker level of twenty.

  So why were a hundred people and more crowding the jetty as he came ashore?

  Saul knew the answer when he saw the crowded ships at neighboring berths and the insignia on some of the waiting group. He counted six full captains. Word of his trip had spread. Navy
forces along the whole stretch of the Potomac from here to Washington had been placed on full alert.

  He swore to himself. He had seen it again and again in the past two years. Nothing he had been able to say or do would stop it.

  You asked an off-the-cuff question during a briefing, maybe about government personnel grades today compared with twenty years ago. Sometimes you were just making conversation. Your casual inquiry was noted and passed on. As it went down the line, it developed momentum. Soon it was a "presidential directive."

  One week later, a massive report appeared on your desk. It was a comprehensive review of hiring and promotion policies throughout the whole of the federal government. It was stuffed with historical facts and tables and complicated charts, and it represented hundreds or thousands of hours of intense effort. Half a dozen staff members nervously awaited your request for a briefing.

  And you? You didn't remember asking the question.

  Yellow electric bulbs had been strung on wooden posts along the quay to provide an improvised lighting system. Saul walked the line of waiting personnel, acknowledging their salutes. He always felt a little bogus in the presence of the military. Because he had seen no service himself, he had been advised early in his political career to adopt a strongly pro-military attitude. He had done so, urging better appreciation for the peacetime role of the services. He really believed in that, but maybe he had overdone it. At any rate, he now seemed to be considered "one of them" by every serviceman and -woman.

  Yasmin Silvers was standing in the group at the end of the receiving line. The weak yellow glow of the lights showed a strange look on her face. Bewilderment?

  That would be reasonable. Saul felt sure that for the past few hours everyone had been asking her, directly or indirectly, the reason for the President's sudden decision to visit Indian Head.

  Next to Yasmin a grizzled veteran stood at rigid attention. In spite of the cold he was in full uniform and wearing no overcoat.