Starfire
Page 28
Running, he tried to ignore the people around him, until it entered his hot consciousness that their fitful attention was turning with him as he ran. Their attention was not tuned to Jimmy, however—
The bloody sun oozed toward the dunes. Below and to the left of it, Venus hung like a bare bulb in the blue gray sky; farther to the left and higher, a needle of white light scratched the sky.
People were pointing at that peculiar streak of light, too straight and bright to be a cloud or a contrail or a comet. Jimmy stumbled to a halt in the sand, gaping. He knew the light for what it was.
Jimmy flashed his badge and pushed his way into mission control. A lot of other people had recently been squeezing past the guards; the skeleton crew in mission control left to monitor Starfire suddenly found itself with more help than it wanted.
Jimmy went straight to the flight director. “What’s their status?”
“It’s all guesswork. Colonel, but we think maybe they tried to brake around Mercury.”
“Christ and Mary, they did that, did they?” The flight director was too busy to answer rhetorical questions. “What about communication?” Jimmy demanded.
“Nothing so far,” said Flight. “We’re doing our best.”
“What about the VLA?
“Yeah, New Mexico’s pitching in. Nothing so far.”
Jimmy stared over Flight’s shoulder at the barren screens. “Maybe they just don’t want to talk.”
“What?” Flight was getting irritated.
“They got this far without us.”
The wings glowed and the engine poured blazing hydrogen and lithium into space. The trail of fire cut across the sun’s disk, gently curving backward toward distant Mercury. The ship was a firebird plumed in flame.
Then, with a silent puff of plasma, the fiery stream evaporated, and the wings, a fading rainbow, began to cool.
Travis went down to the wardroom to look at Spin. His life-support systems had functioned superbly through the crushing acceleration; his pupils were regular now, and as Travis watched, his eyelids gently closed. On the monitor his brain waves had assumed an encouragingly regular pattern. Travis climbed to the flight deck and settled himself into Spin’s couch.
“Looks like he’s doing okay,” Travis said.
They studied the screens, searching the stars for the cool point that was Earth.
“We’ve been receiving signals from Houston,” she said. “I haven’t…had time to answer.”
He smiled. “Maybe we should keep on good terms,” he said.
“You think so?”
“I’m already gettin’ the itch to ride this thing again. Don’t you think it would be amusin’ to walk on one more planet, before we call it quits?”
“Yes,” she said, turning to him, “I do think that would be amusing. How many asteroids did you say were out there?”
“Can’t hardly count ’em all,” he said, grinning. “Plus a few billion comets. Not to mention a few dozen interesting moons. And a star or two, just might be in reach.”
“Well, keep your ass in that right-hand seat long enough, cowboy, and I’ll teach you how to do more than ride this thing. I’ll teach you how to make it fly.”
Back on Earth the engineers were already calling up the plans, the drawings that a week ago had seemed destined for limbo—the plans that took a hot-rod rocket engine and mounted it on a longer frame, with bigger tanks and bigger bays and more room for more people to live longer; the plans for a ship that would lift an expedition to Titan, that would make a journey to the stars; the plans for a ship whose designation did not begin with X—because that X-ship, that hot rod, that engine with wings, had done its job. Starfire was falling up now, out of the deep well of the sun, sliding up and over the sheer slick wall of gravity’s maelstrom, slowing as she rose, curving as she rose, the arc of her ascent bowing gracefully past Venus, to meet the curve of distant Earth. She was a firebird, yes, a seared and battered firebird, blackened with the dust of a vanished worldlet that could never blow away—
—and she soared.
Afterword
Gary Gutierrez—shortly after he directed the special effects for The Right Stuff and shortly before he did the same for Top Gun—suggested to me that we ought to make a realistic, documentary-style film about a future space mission, a film in the spirit of Destination Moon using the tools available to filmmakers today. Producer Lynda Obst encouraged us as our story evolved over many months, a story I privately nicknamed Destination Sun. Alas, we realized that an uncomfortably hefty budget would be required to make the kind of movie we wanted—not to achieve spectacle (that’s easy) but to achieve its opposite, a convincing portrayal of everyday life in microgravity. So with Gary’s blessing I’ve turned our ideas into this novel, which owes much to Gary’s originality and hard work; indeed, some of my favorite images and bits of conversation are Gary’s. Gary also read the first draft of the book and made pointed and valuable suggestions. Many thanks, good friend.
Freeman Dyson crucially instructed me on the acceleration of extended structures. Brian O’Leary shared his work on the potential resources of the asteroids. Don Dixon gave me the benefit of his home-brew Earth-orbital program. Andrew Fraknoi let me play freely for hours with the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s computers and programs, including the versatile MacStronomy by Etion Software. Terry White and his fine staff at the Johnson Space Center extended every courtesy; we mined the transcript of shuttle mission 41-C for gems, ditto the design study of the Solar Probe mission sent to us by Dr. D.S. Spicer of NASA headquarters. Gilbert Shapiro gave me a microcourse in fissile materials. Sincere thanks to them all.
Special thanks to William K. Hartmann. Bill’s own ground-breaking research on the small bodies of the solar system, his books and stirring paintings, and our many talks have long inspired me.
All of these people were gracious and helpful, but none are responsible for what I have done with their suggestions. The goofs are all mine.
David Hartwell was again this writer’s essential editor, a creative partner in the enterprise. Tom Doherty and Beth Meacham and their colleagues at Tor make for a wonderfully supportive publisher. They know how much I appreciate them.
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Table of Contents
Starfire
Copyright
The Sun 1
2
The Ship 3
4
5
The Rock 6
7
8
9
The Mission 10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Afterword
More from Paul Preuss
Connect with Diversion Books